why dave bergman is neat

Well, I've made my first little steps into the land of downloading--I have yet to join the iPod nation, but the computer is working pretty well so far. I've been using the 'Musicmatch Jukebox' program, the basic version of which is free (but you have to pay to actually download songs and/or albums).

So here's the list of the first few things I've sampled:
*'Let it Ride' by Ryan Adams, from the album Cold Roses; this is one of my favorite Adams songs I've heard in a while.
*'Hallelujah', also by Ryan Adams, from the album Demolition, also very good.

I sort of think that Ryan Adams is a second-rate Bob Dylan (ignoring any generic boundaries (Dylan has made them rather fluid anyway, in my opinion), which I typically try to ignore when talking about pop music), whom Adams himself thinks of as a mythical figure--like Zeus, I believe he said (don't worry: nobody here is advocating thinking of him as a god). But perhaps history will prove me wrong; Adams certainly has the prolific aspect about him that was in evidence especially in Dylan's early career.

And speaking of Dylan, I downloaded his album Saved. It is fantastic. I say this, I think, not only because I am a Christian (though that inevitably will have something to do with it), but because as gospel music and as a piece of writing it is first-rate and full of throbbing energy. It has a freshness and passion about it that is not present in all Dylan albums. This is the first of the albums from his so-called 'Christian phase' that I have, but perhaps Slow Train Coming will be next on my list. I was disappointed that Dylan skipped this part of his life in the first part of his autobiography, but perhaps he will return to it in one of the coming volumes.

Finally, I downloaded an Emmylou Harris/Willie Nelson duet (from her album called Duets, shockingly enough) called 'Gulf Coast Highway' (originally a Nanci Griffith tune), beautiful and yearning.

What are believed to be the remains of an ancient church have been found on the grounds of Megiddo prison in northern Israel, near the site of the Biblical Armageddon. You can see photos and read a little bit about it here. Most of the photos are of mosaic work (pictorial and textual). The remains date to the 3rd or 4th century AD; if their identification as a church is correct, it may be the oldest church yet discovered in the Holy Land, according to what I read at the above link.

(LvRC.)

All right, all you cyber-savvy types: does anyone know where I can get album downloads on the up-and-up, whether free or for a fee? Looking for venues that are legit and legal.

Via Max Goss at Right Reason, I bring to you a link in which Roger Kimball expands on some of his thoughts, posted here by Matthew, regarding the recent Nobel Prize for Literature. Here is the lead paragraph:

Quoth Harold Pinter: “I have no idea why they gave me the award.” The award, of course, was the Nobel Prize for … well, supposedly for literature. In the case of Harold Pinter, however, literature had nothing do with the prize. How could it? By our reckoning, Pinter has done nothing notable in that direction since The Caretaker (1959). Even at his early best (The Birthday Party, say, or The Dumb Waiter, both 1957), Pinter’s was always a small and highly derivative literary gift—more of a handout, really. Indeed, we would suggest that his talent was not so much literary as histrionic, one of literature’s degeneracies. What Pinter dispensed was a certain tone—an atmospherics of menace, borrowed largely from Samuel Beckett. It’s chief effect, when you first encountered it, was to make semi-articulate dissatisfaction seem like existential profundity.

And from the last paragraph:

Many people reacted to the Swedish Academy’s latest flirtation with absurdity by quoting the English wit who, writing about Harold Pinter’s plays, observed that Pinter was “a man of few words, most of them silly.”

In interest of full disclosure, I have not read Pinter yet, but I intend to. I'd like to see what all the hype is about. It doesn't give me oodles of hope for the experience, though, when a man whose taste I greatly admire finds him middling at best, and long ago at that. But I shall hereby pledge to try to suspend my own judgment till I've had a chance to check 'im out.

So apparently race-baiting is ok as long as the target is a conservative. This has to be one of the silliest things I've read in a while:

Delegate Salima Siler Marriott, a black Baltimore Democrat, said Mr. Steele invites comparisons to a slave who loves his cruel master or a cookie that is black on the outside and white inside because his conservative political philosophy is, in her view, anti-black.

If only I had known that ideas had skin-colors attached to them....Thanks, Salima!

(LvM.)

The Pistons got off to a good start in their season-opener last night, with a 108-88 victory over the Sixers. I think the Sixers were at a little bit of a disadvantage due to their being on the road, to their having played the previous night in a game that went into OT, and to the absence of their starting center.

Still, from what I've read, the Pistons looked good with their new run-and-gun style of offense. Rip had 37 points; I don't remember too many games in the recent past where one Piston scored that much. Tayshaun also had 16, and McDyess had a strong performance off the bench. I hope that their intense play continues.

By the way--does anyone know of a way to download NBA games so I can watch them on my computer?

Yesterday was the anniversary of the day on which Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Schlosskirche (Castle Church) in Wittenberg (inside which both he and Melanchthon are now buried). Luther's impact on the church and on Western culture in general has been enormous. Here is the introductory paragraph from Luther's Wikipedia entry:

Martin Luther (November 10, 1483–February 18, 1546) was a German theologian, an Augustinian monk, and an ecclesiastical reformer whose teachings inspired the Reformation and deeply influenced the doctrines and culture of the Lutheran and Protestant traditions. Luther's call to the Church to return to the teachings of the Bible led to the formation of new traditions within Christianity and to the Counter-Reformation, the Roman Catholic reaction to these movements. Luther's contributions to Western civilization went beyond the life of the Christian Church. Luther's translations of the Bible helped to develop a standard version of the German language and added several principles to the art of translation. Luther's hymns inspired the development of congregational singing in Christianity. His marriage on June 13, 1525, to Katharina von Bora began a movement of clerical marriage within many Christian traditions.