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The last of those April shows I posted about is tonight: The Nields at Club Passim. I got back two days late from my recent roadtrip so I haven't had a chance to do any more planning, other than having gotten tickets for me and estheruth for this show back when I first posted that, but I see that it's not sold out yet!

Some shows coming up in May that I may go to...

• Wed, May 4th: Copal! They moved to New York a couple of years ago so we don't see them here as much. On Wednesday they're doing a show with Delhi2Dublin at the Middle East upstairs. (Facebook event)


• Sun, May 8th, 8pm: Axe To Ice presents Sloppy Seconds. This is a Karin & Jill burlesque theatre performance, like Bent Wit Cabaret and All The King's Men.


• Wed, May 11th, 8pm: Jim's Big Ego at Johnny D's


• Thu, May 12th, 9pm: t r e e h a u s: SchoolTree CD release show at Precinct, featuring Mary Dolan, Molly Zenobia, Karin Webb, and others.


• Sat, May 14th, 8pm: Jason Webley and Humanwine at Cafe 939 @ Berklee - this show will sell out, I'm sure, so I'm getting tickets now.


• Fri, May 20th, 8pm: Banjo master Tony Trischka with one of his bands, Hot Mustard, at Club Passim

Some shows coming up at Club Passim I may go to:

• Tue, Apr 5, 8pm: James Keelaghan


• I'm gonna miss Girlyman on Apr 6 & 7, and both nights are sold out anyway


• Sun, Apr 10, 8pm: I'm gonna miss We're About 9 because the first Bent Wit Cabaret since November is that night.


• Mon, Apr 11, 8pm: BCMFest Celtic Music Monday "BIDAwhile: Contra and Celtic"


• Fri, Apr 15, 8pm: Jake Armerding


• Fri, Apr 29, 7pm: The Nields*

* I'm definitely going to the Nields and already got tickets.

James Keelaghan is a brilliant songwriter from western Canada with a really nice voice. If you've listened to the Cry, Cry, Cry album that Dar Williams, Lucy Kaplansky, and Richard Shindell recorded together, then you've heard James Keelaghan's Cold Missouri Waters about firefighters in Montana. He's one of my favorite songwriters, along with people like Aimee Mann and Richard Shindell, but sadly most of my friends don't know his music (except the one Cry Cry Cry covered), so here's a chance to fix that.

Jake Armerding is the fiddler son of Northern Lights founder Taylor Armerding, and when Jake was a teen he performed with Northern Lights. I remember the first time I saw him get on stage with them, at the Somerville Theatre when he was 14, and knowing from the first tune that I was going to follow his musical career for a long time. In his 20s he started touring and recording with a folk band of his own, playing guitar and some fiddle and singing, as well as doing some duo bluegrass gigs with his dad. Last year he started a new project, The Fretful Porcupine, "brewing finely crafted roots chamber music made of saxophones, wires, and wood." - here's a video.

I probably haven't seen The Nields live 100 times yet, but I aim to. They're very very good at the whole doing a live performance thing, kinda like musicians who started out as successful buskers like Jason Webley and moxy früvous, even though they didn't - but they did seem to improve their performance skills a lot when they were touring often with früvous in the late 90s, including the habit of substituting in bits of new lyrics at different shows, and occasionally making up songbits on the fly in between the banter. I'd go see them sometimes for two nights in a row, two shows a night, and see four completely different shows.

[Poll #1726014]

I've been neglecting cosmusic for the past year and a half, but also in that time I've been posting more and more videos of live performances I go to, on YouTube and Facebook. Where many of you probably miss most of them. So I'm going to at least start using cosmusic for occasionally posting some of those videos, even if I continue to neglect posting show recommendations and things about radio shows and bands and such. Anyway, I just posted a couple of videos there this weekend, so it's a good time to remind y'all that other LJ of mine exists and you might want to add it to your friends' page.

One of the best sources of information about the Middle East and Central Asia, with real context and understanding, is Professor Juan Cole's blog. I find extremely useful as a way to synthesize and think about the news from there even though I have a lot of background (and on at least one occasion, pointed out what I thought was an omission in his analysis that he agreed with me about, regarding Lebanon's history several years ago); if you're newly paying attention to countries whose backgrounds you're less familiar with, Juan Cole is the best way to catch up while following current events at the same time.

Today is the anniversary of the day in 2007 when Boston was under attack by cartoon terrorists.

On this day, we ought to reflect and remember the victims. I don't mean the mooninites' usual victims Master Shake, Frylock, and Meatwad; on January 31st, 2007, they struck further and wider. On this day, remember our fear based policies, our hostility to quirkiness, our collective political sickness of panic and xenophobia. Although the Mooninites (with the aid of lightfixer and his friend) temporarily turned it all into a farce, their job is not yet done.

So today, I'm reposting something I wrote for the Blue Mass Group blog shortly after the cartoon terrorist scare of 2007:
What Does Random Panic Protect Us From?. I've added some new material to this re-post. Please read it, and share it, and re-post it.

---

What Does Random Panic Protect Us From?

Boston and Massachusetts officials, and some people here at Blue Mass Group, have tried to justify Boston's overreaction to some hanging lights last week by saying, "what if they hadn't done what they did, and a real bomb went off?" This makes as much sense to me as trying to justify the Iraq war by asking, "what if we had not invaded Iraq, and there were another terrorist attack in the US?"

Or, they say, "people were just doing their job!" Why, they ask, are we second-guessing the actions of the bomb squad, who were responding to a call? Keeping with the Iraq analogy, this is the "support the troops" tack: It equates criticizing bad policy with attacking the police officers (soldiers) who carry it out.
Let's focus on the real issues:

• What threat are we trying to protect ourselves from?


• How serious is that threat?


• How would a city protect itself from it?


• What are the effects of the process we currently have in place?
  • Is it effective?
  • What are its drawbacks?


• Something clearly went wrong - what should we change?

My answers:

We're not facing a serious threat.
We have a process, which I call "Random Panic", that wouldn't protect us from it anyway.
Our protection method is actually a bigger problem than the supposed threat.

( Protecting Us From Nothing )


( How to Protect Against Bombs )


( What's the Risk? )


( Random Panic )


( What Should We Do? )

CYA Security [new]

When I wrote that four years ago, I left out an important part: Obviously this Random Panic process doesn't protect us from anything, but it's part of a system to protect politicians from us.

The threat: If something bad ever does happen, people will punish politicians for not having done enough to prevent it, by taking them out of office.

The countermeasure: Lots of ridiculous measures that do us no good, and plenty of harm, but that make it appear as if those in charge are doing the best they can - and more. If they're ever accused of not having done enough, those accusations will lack credibility with most people, who have seen this stuff being done over the years.

Viewed in this light, the threat is real, and the defense is probably effective to some extent, so it's a perfectly rational thing for those in charge to keep on doing. If we want it to stop, the responsibility is ours to tell them:

• We see the harm these processes do to us.


• We know that none of this makes us any safer.


• We don't want them to keep doing it, and we won't punish them at the ballot box for stopping it. We'll reward them.

So today, call your legislators, both state and federal. Ask them to stop bag searches on public transit, or ask them to dismantle the offensive excessive practices of airport "security" theater, or ask them to ease up on allowing foreign students into American universities. Pick some part of this insane system and call them about it today.

"The mooninite adventure was like MA telling me that they don't want my creativity."
-A brilliant and talented person of the sort our state should want to attract.

Oddly, I realize I've never posted much about my awesome housemates on my main LJ, though they're such a big part of my life, and I promote their music a lot in other places. Both of them are people I originally met through liking their music, before we lived together, and each of them has her own band and also performs with others, in a web of interconnected musicians and bands - several of whom live a few houses away - that forms a community. Several others are often here at the house, for rehearsals or to record things or just to hang out. Especially we seem to have lots of pianists and string players around. I love this community, and I love hearing so much music in the house.

What prods me to post about it now is tomorrow's show at Club Passim, where you can see both my housemates' bands, and one of our friends' who's often here, and I want you to come!

Molly Zenobia's first CD arrived at WBRS, where I was music director, in the spring of 2000, and I filled out the reply card inviting her to come perform there. We've been friends ever since she did so, at the end of that summer. Molly's music is emotional tending between folky, rock-y (but somehow, never folk-rock-y), jazzy, and ambient; some of it reminds me of Veda Hille's "bigger"-sounding pieces. Other people often mention Tori Amos, but I think that's may be because they have limited experience with music like Molly's and Tori is the first intense female vocals + piano thing that comes to mind. Tori has great lyrics, but I think that musically Molly overshadows her beyond comparison. And Molly's far more varied.

Playing cello in Molly's band is our other housemate, Valerie Thompson. She's got her own band, Goli, with her friend Vessela on electronic marimba (and occasional melodica). Their music is unlike anything I've heard from anyone else; they call it "chamber music for the modern age". Valerie writes (and sings) quirky, charming, somewhat folky songs. They play some cello/marimba instrumentals, tangos and Balkan tunes and other things... just watch some videos!

Here's Molly Zenobia from a 2009 show at the Lily Pad,
And here's Goli entertaining children at Quincy Market, and a celtic tune from that same afternoon.

One of our friends who is often at the house to collaborate with them is Mary Bichner, a synasthetic musical genius-girl with multi-octave vocal range, who calls any band or project she puts together to play her own songs "Box Five". She put together tomorrow's concert, where the Boston core of Box Five will do a set partly designed to celebrate Mozart's birthday. Mary has rearranged a few Mozart songs for them to perform, and one of her guests will be soprano Evangelia Sophia Lorentis to join them on some arias.

Box Five's core Boston band has Mary on vocals, piano, and guitar, along with Valerie on cello, Ariel Bernstein on drums, Kristen Ford on bass, and violinist Eliza Kopczynska - who has performed with a orchestras and chamber ensembles and, among others, Wynton Marsalis and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Oh, and she's also in Molly Zenobia's band.

Box Five, Goli, Molly Zenobia
Sunday, January 23rd, 8pm
All Ages, table seating and dinner food available
Club Passim, Harvard Square, Cambridge
Buy tickets!

You might've noticed that Valerie is in all three bands, which makes it a Valerie cello triple feature.

Coming?

Edit: You can watch the show live online, at this link.

"Blizzard" is a perfectly fine word that could serve us well for centuries. I wish we weren't calling every run-of-the-mill blizzard a "snowpocalypse".

True, it is a fun word. If we'd had it in '78 it would've come in handy. We made do with "blizzard" then.

Since I last posted this summer, we hired a few people, including a couple in my department. But we're looking to hire some more, and I'm told ITA is going to run those ads on the T again starting in about a month. We'll probably get a bunch of applications then, but if you apply now you can come in ahead of them (though you likely won't get a response 'til after new years because lots of people are taking vacation in the last two weeks of December).

The job posting link from before is still good if you want to join Reservation Operations (my department), where we have at least one more opening. There are also various other openings around ITA. When you apply, for "How were you referred to ITA?" select "Employee Referral" and then put my name in the "other details" field ("cos" is fine, HR knows who that is) and either email me or comment here to let me know.

P.S. Google and ITA signed an agreement this summer for Google to buy ITA. It's all agreed on as far as the two companies are concerned, but can't happen until the government approves it. We don't know when that will happen. For the time being, ITA is not part of Google. When/if the government approves the deal, ITA will become part of Google.

Thanks, Massachusetts, for defeating that jerk in the primary! Several people asked me if I'd post again with my preferences for the November election, so here it is, just barely in time.

In brief:

• Re-elect Deval Patrick, Barney Frank, James McGovern, John Tierney.


• Defeat all three questions. No on 1, 2, 3.


• Steve Grossman for Treasurer, Suzanne Bump for Auditor, and though it pains me to say it, Coakley for Attorney General.


• In the 10th district, if Jeff Perry gets even 20% it'll be too much. Don't let him win.

Deval Patrick, our Governor, has done a good job in tough times. I've been frustrated with him sometimes, but more often, I've been impressed with how much he's accomplished. Maybe it's because of the contrast with his three predecessors (Celucci, Swift, Romney). I recently got asked, "What good things has Deval Patrick done?" and I wrote this long response. Take a look. Several commenters have added some great points to what I wrote.

For the other statewide offices, I recommend watching these short videos in which Jim Braude of NECN interviews the opposing candidates together.

My biggest worry is that Question 3 may pass. That question is to slash the sales tax from 6.25% down to 3%. Taxes bring in about $20 billion / year in revenue to the state currently, and question 3 would reduce that by about $2.5 billion. Proponents have been pressed to explain where they think that money should come out of, but they have no specific answers. And unless our economy recovers more quickly than anticipated, chances are a lot of that money would come out of cuts in local aid to cities and towns, would would cut schools and libraries and police departments and road and streetlight maintenance and so on, and also cause property taxes (and hence rents) to go up. No on 3.

Question 1 seeks to exempt alcohol from the sales tax. Although that's not as big a deal in the larger scheme of things, it offends me. WTF? Why should alcohol get this special exemption? Some proponents of Q1 say that there's also an excise tax on alcohol, so some of the sales tax you pay is actually tax on a tax, which is double taxation. They fail to point out that the excise tax is much much smaller, and the "double tax" amounts to less than a cent a bottle, usually. But even if that weren't so, if they really think there should be no excise tax on alcohol, they could've put a question on the ballot to eliminate the excise tax on alcohol. So again, WTF? This question is a ridiculous attempt to give beer & wine sellers special favors. Why not exempt books from the sales tax? Or how about sex toys? No on 1.

Bill Galvin, our incumbent Secretary of State, continues his long streak of avoiding all debates and candidate forums. And just like he did to us in 2006 (when I worked for his primary opponent), he once again pretended to agree to a debate and then backed out at the last moment. He's also managed to prevent Massachusetts from having election day registration for another few years. Unfortunately, his Republican opponent openly opposes election day registration, and seeks to add hard ID requirements for voters at the polls. He's the typical Republican anti-voting activist sort, obsessed with the non-problem of excess voters, and willing to go to whatever lengths he can to prevent legitimate voters from voting. Jim Henderson, the independent candidate, is better than both of them by far, but unfortunately due to no debates and no polling, it's really hard to say how much support each of Galvin's opponents have. Might our incumbent sleaze be replacecd by the Republican regressive? I really wish we had instant runoff (or any preference voting system). Of course, we'll never get that while Galvin is secretary, and I'm sure he likes the fact that it makes it hard to decide to vote for good candidates like Henderson. But I also really wish Henderson had run against Galvin int he Democratic primary, where there'd be no such "spoiler" worry. :/

[ Edit: ghudson points out that a new poll was published a few days ago, while I was out of town, that shows that Galvin, unsurprisingly, will probably be re-elected easily. So chances are there's little danger; vote Henderson for Secretary ]

I really don't like Martha Coakley, but unfortunately her opponent really doesn't seem ready for the job :( Watch the mini-debate and you'll see. And at least Martha will fight in federal court for lgbt rights, so there's a redeeming factor to re-electing her.

And then there's the 10th Congressional district, an open seat since the incumbent, Bill Delahunt, is retiring. This district covers much of the South Shore starting in Quincy, plus all of the Cape & Island. Bill Keating, the Democrat, seems like a decent candidate. Jeff Perry, the Republican... a former police officer who claimed a college degree from a diploma mill, and used a remote control to trip traffic lights from green to red so that he could "gotcha!" drivers with tickets, but all of that has been overshadowed by this:

Jeff Perry covered up for his subordinate abusing teen girls by illegally strip searching them. He left the police, and his chief doubted his honesty. He still insists he didn't know - even though he once visited a girl's parents to try to get them not to report his subordinate's strip search. Here's a public statement from one victim.

Apparently no newspapers endorsed him. But this creep is still going to get some votes. Try to make sure none of those votes come from anyone you know in the 10th?

One day this summer, I was walking somewhere near Central Square, when a woman with a foreign-sounding accent and two teenage sons approached me to ask which way it was to "the university". She seemed surprised when I asked her which university she meant. She asked me, wasn't there a university nearby? She thought there was, didn't I know where it was? She had some trouble coming up with its name.

It reminded me of the time I was driving with a friend from California, and in the middle of Connecticut she thought she recognized the name of a town on an exit sign, as a town she had read about somewhere. To confirm if she were remembering the right name, she asked if I knew whether there was a lake in that town.

The English drink tea.
The French drink wine.
The Finns drink vodka. (Oh yeah, so do the Russians, though not as much :)

Sure, they drink other things, but some places have their endemic drink of choice. In Italy, it's espresso everywhere. When I ordered tea at some restaurants, they gave me strange looks. In Kenya, passion fruit juice is their parallel to our orange juice - the standard juice you can assume will be available.

I'm not sure what Spain's drink is, but on Majorca at least, the ice tea niche is rather odd: Wherever I ordered ice tea, it was always the same. At a fancy hotel's restaurant, or an even fancier one, at a sidewalk cafe or a streetside bar, an expensive restaurant, anywhere - they always gave me a glass bottle of Nestea, and a glass with ice. Always the same Nestea logo, and exactly the same tea. Well, except for one place: they gave me a can of Nestea (same logo, same stuff) and a glass with ice. Apparently, there is no other ice tea on that island.

I'd always associated Germany with beer. But now that I've been to Germany, or at least one part of it, I think it's actually sparkling water. At restaurants and at people's homes, sparkling water is what they pour by default. If you want just water, you have to ask for "still water". Beer is something they might offer, or ask if you want, but plain sparkling water is what they assume you want without asking.

Got any others to add to the list?

Last week I posted about the statewide races in the Democratic primary. Summary:

• Guy Glodis, running for Auditor, is a bigot and a sleaze.


• Of the other two, I like Suzanne Bump more than Mike Lake, though I think both are good. Bump also seems to have a much better chance of winning, so vote for her to beat Glodis.


• For Treasurer, Steve Grossman - who I've met in person, who got good endorsements, and who's going to focus on transparency and getting state financial information online.

I also care about, or have opinions on, some other Democratic primary races around the state:

• Please volunteer for Mac D'Alessandro tomorrow! That's where I'll be. He's challening incumbent Stephen Lynch, who's anti-choice, supported the Iraq war & the Patriot Act, voted to intervene with Terry Schiavo, and was the only US Rep from New England to vote against health care reform. Mac disagrees with him on all of these things.


• State Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz of Boston, a friend and one of the best legislators in the state, has a primary challenger. We need more of her in the Senate, not fewer.


• In the funny-shaped district that covers parts of Allston/Brighton, Cambridge, Somerville, Charlestown, and the north shore, in the rematch between DiDomenico & Flaherty, I prefer Tim Flaherty. DiDomenico campaigned on how well connected he is, evaded stating his positions, and gave me a bad impression.


• I hadn't much followed the Malden/Melrose/Stoneham/Wakefield/etc. state senate race, but it turns out several friends I've been on other campaigns with, are working or volunteering for Mike Day's campaign. So consider this an indirect recommendation (me trusting their collective judgement because they've got good records of picking good candidates).


• I've tried, and failed, to find out much about the candidates for Governor's Council in the 6th district. But I have gotten several reports from people who saw or met Terrence Kennedy campaigning, and liked him, and he's got a web site telling us a bit about him. His opponent doesn't seem to have one, and I haven't heard of anyone seeing her campaigning.