Whither the Bees?

This seems serious. More than a quarter of the bees in the US are missing.

MISSING.

They've vanished. They leave the hives to work, and they don't come back.

Much like the foretold doomsday scenario of the vanishing of the frogs, it seems this startling problem needs some immediate and serious attention.

Check out this NY Times article for more.

Scary stuff.

(And by the way, it seems the Einstein quote floating around is bunk. No one's yet been able to trace it to Mr. Relativity. Still, I suppose if tacking Einstein's name to it gets a brighter light shone on this problem, then fine.)

More Surprises in Houffalize

In the first World Cup MTB race of the year, there were some big surprises on the podium.



In the women's race, the top spot was not occupied by the sport's giant, Gunn-Rita Dahle-Flesja, as it usually is. Rather Chengyuan Ren, from China, has completed her initial arc of ascendancy, well-known to any who have been watching international mountain biking for the past couple years, to finish in the top spot here in the most prestigious of World Cups.



She's been coming on strong for a while now, and it appears she has arrived this year. The rest of the women's field has to be pretty worried about the trio of Chinese riders making their way toward the top rungs of the sport's ladder.



Americans take heart: Our own Georgia Gould, who has been getting great results so far this year at home, started 40th here and finished 8th. On a tight course with tough passing lanes, this is no mean feat, and suggests that Gould will be a force to be reckoned with.

In the men's race, another surprise. Juan Antonio Hermida took the win, even after fixing a jammed chain and crashing into a wiped-out lead moto.

Absalon finished second, unable to capitalize on the Spaniard's double bad luck.

North Americans fared not as well here, with Geoff Kabush coming in 12th, and Todd Wells getting 36th.

Mountain Bike season is on!

(photos from VeloNews)

Brajkovic Wins in Georgia

The Tour de Georgia has come to an end, and the craziness of mid-week stages resulted in an exciting and unexpected overall win for the 23-year-old Slovenian, Janez Brajkovic.

Along the way, Levi took the Brasstown Bald summit stage along with the ITT, and Fast Freddie broke a dry spell with a fine sprint over JJ Haedo and George Hincapie.

An exciting and memorable race.

Check out VeloNews for all the action.

(photo from VeloNews)

TdG Turned on Its Head

In the third stage of the Tour de Georgia, a group of 16 riders, none of them thought to be GC threats, blew the race apart.

The winner on the day was Gianni Meersman, a young guy in his first year riding for Discovery. It was his first pro win.

The 16 got away early in the race, and though chased and held to within a minute at first, the peloton soon lost interest and let them go. By the end of the day, the gap would grow to almost a half hour.

Now, the standings are a who's who of who's that? The top ten have been entirely displaced by those in the break, and the names Danielson, Hamilton, Leipheimer, and the rest are pretty much squashed from contention.

A strange result, but I think it'll make this race even more fun to watch.

(photo from VeloNews)

This Great Society Is Going Smash

We've lost it.

I don't know what else to say.

So It Goes

Kurt Vonnegut, one of the most influential and socially significant novelists of this century, died last night in Manhattan.

Here's the NY Times piece.

As I'm sure is the case with many an aspiring writer, I was deeply affected by Vonnegut's work. Slaughterhouse Five changed my life and my thoughts on what writing is. Breakfast of Champions taught me that humor can be the quickest route to sadness and tragedy, and the quickest way back as well.

As an undergrad and then grad student in literature, I had the opportunity to study Vonnegut's work with one of the best professors of my career. Those long evening sessions during the Illinois winter are burned into my memory as some of the most heady times of my education. The avenues opened up by close examination of Vonnegut's writing defined, or so I thought at the time, the path my life would take.

Of course, I'm no novelist, but every time I re-read something of Vonnegut's, or come across something I've yet to read, the inspiration and pull to write something brilliant inevitably takes hold of my mind.

If you've not read anything of Vonnegut's, read Slaughterhouse Five. Start today. As it was for Vietnam, it is remarkably appropriate for our time. In examining the insanity of violence during World War II, the human beings involved in the body counts, it should speak to us today about what we feel is a good use of human life. Who doesn't wish to become "unstuck in time," as Billy Pilgrim was?

Though he swore off writing novels with the publication of Timequake a few years ago, he continued to contribute to the national conversation through essays and shorter pieces and compilations of previous work.

We can all learn something from the exhortation of the title character of his novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. From the Times:

To Mr. Vonnegut, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness. The title character in his 1965 novel, “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater,” summed up his philosophy:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”

His is a voice that will be missed. God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut.

Sound of Silver

I admit it took me a little while to come around to what James Murphy was doing with his first release as LCD Soundsystem. That self-titled record, as it turns out, is still perhaps the most full-realized and well done blend of dance music and indie rock, or disco-punk, or whatever you want to call it.

The droll humor and self-mocking of Losing My Edge plays nicely against the hushed late-night skulkery of Too Much Love and the outrageous fun of Daft Punk is Playing at My House. But the more you listen, the more you realize there isn't a weak moment on the whole thing. It's actually a great record.

I think the same will be true of Sound of Silver, the new one by LCD Soundsystem. I just got it this week, and so far I'm having a hard time listening to anything else. The persistent beat of opener Get Innocuous! builds steam over time but never explodes, serving as foyer to the rest of the album. Us v. Them is a fantastic tune, and North American Scum works well with or without the humor. But the humor's always there, just below the surface or popping its head through, informing the music without turning it into a joke.

The closer, a tuneful ballad about NYC, changes the mood a bit but seems as if it will stand on its own, separate from the rest, as a capturing of a moment in time, where we see that what's touted as good isn't always for the best.

If you haven't let LCD in yet, give it a shot. There are many rewards under the killer beats.

Change on the Range

Attention music fans: This is the last week of double-duty for the Range Life show on RadioBoise. There's some new stuff happening on the schedule, and we've finally hit a point where I can step back and do my thing once a week like everyone else.

I'm hanging on to the Friday 1 to 3pm slot, which is a good thing. And my hope is that I can shift and juggle my work schedule around so that I can get down to the studio on Friday afternoons and do the show live. I can't make that a regular thing just yet, but I'm working on it.

This week, there's loads of new stuff on the shows. New music by The Ponys, Palaxy Tracks, Cloud Cult, Hail Social, Young Galaxy, Page France, Palomar, The Black Dog, and Cloud Cult debuts this week.

I'll also be laying down more relatively new stuff from The Arcade Fire, The Shins, American Analog Set, Panda Bear, Lusine, and 31 Knots, as well as a cool Calexico cover.

And I've dug up some great old tunes by Yo La Tengo, Townes VanZandt, Pavement, and Lali Puna, among others.

To come: LCD soundsystem, !!!, and a new track from the upcoming Fridge release.

Tune in.

Holy Crap: Eric's 40!!!

That's right. Brother Eric, the perennial player and Peter Pan, turns 40 today.

Sumbuck's still in better shape than 99% of people half his age.

He may not be able to pilot a set of skis worth a damn, but he sure can ride a bike.

Happy Birthday, dude. May you stay 21 forever.

Them Gourds

Hallelujah.

One of my favorite bands in the world hits the Neurolux tonight. Seeing the Gourds always makes me a bit homesick in the best possible way. And with some road time under their latest record, Heavy Ornamentals, this show should be a wowser.

See you there.

Turn the Lights Out

The new record from The Ponys is available through emusic.

I downloaded it this morning and so far so good. When I saw these guys play live a year or so ago, I enjoyed it and thought that they had a good chance at a fresh direction in indie rock. This record proves I wasn't just talking crap.

Check it out.

Back to the Yard

The temps rise, the sun comes out, the blooms begin, and it's time for more yardwork.

It's a strange overlap this time of year. I'm still a bit ski-obsessed, but I'm riding trail on the IF and doing 4-hour road rides through the farmland of Eagle and Emmet. And as I peel away the layers of oak leaves from the pin oak in our front yard that I swear drops all year long, I find flowers already blooming and green signs of life popping up everywhere.

Cathy's still in Ashville for a work conference. She seems pretty impressed by the city, so I expect the itchy feet and restlessness to return for a while. We'll see. Spring in Boise can be pretty great.

It's a chill weekend at the homestead. Hard exercise and long naps to balance out the yard work. This springtime ain't so bad.

Done with raking. Off to the lopping!

Metal for St. Patrick

Austin metal gods The Sword hit the Neurolux tonight. That along with Pat and Sarah's annual St. Patrick's Day party could be a dangerous combination.

God Grew Tired of Us

I saw this film last night as part of a fund raiser for the IRC Boise. It was wonderful and sad and inspirational.

The film follows a handful of the lost boys of Sudan, male children displaced by the war and violence in Sudan over the last decade and a half or so.

They most of them were routed from their homes in the middle of the night by militia who killed their friends and family. Many escaped and headed to Ethiopia, and then Kenya, where they stayed in refugee camps for ten years or more.

Some of them made it to the US with the help of the IRC and other agencies, and this film follows their progress here.

See it if you can. It should be an inspiration to us all.

Notes on The Road

Late last night I reached the end of Cormac McCarthy's new novel, The Road. It was a terrible ending, filled with dread and death and a foreboding sense of facing the unknown in a harsh and violent world. But, somehow, it was hopeful, pointing toward a thin thread of humanity and compassion in the face of the end of the world.

I'd been anticipating this book greatly, looking forward to again entering a dark and awful world as created by one of my favorite living novelists. I hoped for a return to the nightmare worlds of Blood Meridian, and The Road did not disappoint.

This was different, of course, pitting a father and son against the apocalypse and its effects on their fellow men. Frightening, depressing, and often seemingly void of hope or good, this world no longer seems fit for habitation.

By the end it hadn't changed much--except maybe to get worse--but McCarthy finds in close human interaction that which he cannot in society. That there is hope anywhere in this novel, let alone at the end of it, is testament to both his abilities as a writer and his faith as a human.

I expect to return to this subject in the future, as this is a book that refuses to leave my mind. But for now, get hold of this and read it if you've got the patience and the stomach. It's not a terribly long read, but it's one that demands your attention and your willingness to go places most of us would rather not.


Update, 3.12.07 9pm
Perhaps the theme that held me so rapt with fear and interest and revulsion was the presence of a total innocent in this wild hell. The boy in the book, the son, had been born into the post-apocalypse. He had no memory of the world as it was. To him, all had always been destruction and fire.

There were no trees that did not burn and fall to the ground. There was no water free of the threat of poison. There were no other good guys. All other humans were to be feared, mistrusted, even killed.

That a horrible fate could befall this character was a constant possibility. The evils in this book are no trifles, and they loom around every turn along the road through the wasteland.

It is through the innocence of and threat to this character that the place of McCarthy's novel gains its huge ability to affect. It's not just a description of a charred landscape, it's the end of all future, the destruction of all the past. It's a lack of a hope that never existed.

But still, that's not the whole story. Somehow we find beauty and hope in this place, through these people. That's an amazing feat in itself.

SXSW Again

Yep, it's that time again.

Wanna be really pissed that you're not headed to Austin this week? (Or wanna gloat some more about the fact that you are?)

Check out the band list at the SXSW site. That'll get the ol' mouth agape. Really, it's just too much to even think about.

And if that ain't enough for you, here's the encyclopedic listing of all the daytime parties. Sheezus.

Neon Bible

The new Arcade Fire album has hit the shelves of your local record store, and in my opinion, it's worth the trip. I've been excited for this record, so while one may think I'd be biased in favor of it, one would be wrong. I was just as excited for the new CYHSY release, but have held off on the raves. That one's good. This one's more than that.

The Arcade Fire have built themselves into more than just a band, and this album will further that mythic status. Big, powerful songs, full of hope and crushing emotional turmoil at the same time. Win's voice is strong as ever, here more buoyed by that off Regine Chassagne. They work well together.

Front to back, this is a powerful piece of work. Even the clunker lines of the overblown arrangements (there are some of each) do not detract from the whole.

I'm only 3 listens in, so I'll defer further examination until later. For now, though, this looks to be a record that will stay in the heavy rotation for some time to come.

AF Tomorrow

The new record by The Arcade Fire comes out tomorrow, and I'd be lying if I denied being giddy as a schoolgirl about it.

Early leaks have been promising, if not overwhelming, but I believe the AF works best in the long format. So I'll wait for the whole shebang before forming opinions.

Here's a couple bones:

There was a wonderful article in the NY Times Magazine about the band and the road to recording and playing the new record. A great piece.

And here' s the Pitchfork review, as well as a link to download the album's first track.

See you at the Rx tomorrow.

AP Update

So far, it's gone as well as can be expected. Or better.

Tony was out of the hospital and at home by 8pm Friday night. And he was out walking around the hood the next morning.

Apparently the possible negative effects of the surgery can take up to a few weeks to emerge and make themselves known, but the docs are confident and Tony feels good. So for now, that's good enough.

AP: Last Time's the Charm

Today, Tony goes in for what we all hope is to be his last surgery. It's a big one, a 12-hour procedure wherein the doc will bombard a tumor wrapped around his brain stem with intense radiation in hopes of wiping it out or at least keeping it from being able to grow.

And it's big not only in duration or in how nasty it sounds. The repercussions here outweigh anything he's yet come up against. There's a very good chance the vision in his good (left) eye will be damaged, and he'll suffer loss of some peripheral or outer vision. There's a lesser but still good chance that he'll lose vision in that eye altogether, ostensibly rendering him blind. And there is a far lesser but still present chance that he will not wake up from this surgery.

Of course, we hope for the best. We hope he comes out of this at the end of a very long day looking and feeling as he did yesterday, vision intact, brain freed from the ravages of foreign bodies. But no matter what happens, we hope that he survives it, and that from here on out he can build his life into something he hasn't had for over a year now: A life free of surgery and MRIs and putting everything on hold so he can battle health issues. As he'd be the first to agree, it's high time to put this behind him and move on to building a new life.

Even if that life is drastically changed, even if he's not in Boise, moving on and forward is the thing.

Think good thoughts and send them toward Idaho.