How bad are the Orioles, really?

29Sep09

A comment on the last post apologized for going off-topic by mentioning the Orioles’ recent slide; but that’s what I was going to write about tonight, anyway. A couple of weeks ago I was going to write a post complaining about how people kept describing the Orioles as “trying to avoid a 100-loss season”; at [...]

Filed under: baseball, orioles   |  12 Comments
Tags: optimism

Things I don’t know how to do, IV: signal apology from inside a car

28Sep09

The other day, in the middle of making a left turn from a four-way stop, I realized I’d jumped out ahead of the woman who had the right of way.  Aiming to signal an apology, I touched my index finger to my head (“I’m aware I did that”) and then to my heart (“and I [...]

Filed under: cars, language   |  9 Comments
Tags: driving, gestures, things I don't know how to do, traffic

Strategic Vision done in by the digits?

26Sep09

Nate Silver at 538 looks at the trailing digits of about 5000 poll results from secretive polling outfit Strategic Vision, finds a badly non-uniform distribution, and says this strongly suggests that SV is making up numbers.  I’m a fan of Nate’s stuff, both sabermetric and electoral, but I’m not so sure he’s right on this. [...]

Filed under: math, news, politics, psychology   |  11 Comments
Tags: 538, digits, elections, iran election, nate silver, polling, polls, strategic vision

Show report: Micachu, Chairlift

25Sep09

Looking at Pitchfork’s 500 best songs of 2000-2009 made me realize that, while I listen to a lot of new records, I don’t listen to very many new records by new bands.  So I’m trying to stop in on some of the many free Union Terrace shows by presumable up-and-comers.  Last night I saw Micachu, [...]

Filed under: madison, music, shows   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: chairlift, micachu, union terrace, wud

Thursday is your last chance to see Anvil! The Story of Anvil in Madison

23Sep09

While we’re talking about watching rock music and getting choked up, I ought to mention that Anvil!  The Story of Anvil is finishing its limited engagement at Sundance 608 on Thursday, September 24.  It’s a movie about perseverance; more precisely, how to tell the difference between perseverance and stupid, life-ruining stubbornness, and how to stay [...]

Filed under: madison, movies, music   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: anvil, sundance, sundance 608

I’ll Be Your Mirror, by sixty 10-year-olds

23Sep09

The chorus of Staten Island’s PS22 performs a kind of astonishing version of “I’ll Be Your Mirror.” Some songs you just want to hear performed by people so young that the lyrics make sense to them.  Not just make sense but are experienced as startling truths encountered for the first time, and embraced.  In this [...]

Filed under: children, music   |  1 Comment
Tags: chorus, heartfelt, i'll be your mirror, ps22, velvet underground

“Every curve is a Teichmuller curve,” or “Why SL_2(Z) has the congruence subgroup property.”

23Sep09

A Teichmüller curve in M_g, the moduli space of genus-g curves, is an algebraic curve V in M_g such that the inclusion V -> M_g induces an isometry between the constant-curvature metric on V and the restriction of the Teichmüller metric on M_g. Alternatively:  the cotangent bundle of M_g, considered as a real manifold, admits a [...]

Filed under: math   |  3 Comments
Tags: algebraic geometry, arxiv, bainbridge, congruence subgroups, geometry, group theory, hurwitz space, mapping class groups, McMullen, mcreynolds, moduli spaces, m_g, papers, teichmuller curves, topology

Sandkings

16Sep09

Someone mentioned the George R.R. Martin short story “Sandkings” on MetaFilter.  I read this as a kid and it scared the hell out of me.  To my surprise, I still think it’s kind of great.  And my thirty-year-old memory of the last sentence was word-for-word correct. I read this in the August 1979 issue of [...]

Filed under: books, magazines, nostalgia   |  5 Comments
Tags: fat farm, george r.r. martin, omni, orson scott card, sandkings, science ficiton, sf, short stories

Jim Carroll is dead

13Sep09

I don’t have many firm ideological beliefs about novels, but here’s one:  you can’t write a good novel by good luck.  No matter what your life story is, no matter what a raconteur you are, it takes years of practice, intense attention to boring detail work, and thorough rewriting if you want to produce anything [...]

Filed under: books, college, friends, music, nostalgia, poetry   |  1 Comment
Tags: ideological beliefs, indignity, jim carroll, the basketball diaries

Show report: Gomers/Dandys/Breeders

11Sep09

I’ve gotten a bit backed up on rock show reports:  here are a few capsules. The Gomers. Rock Star Gomeroke:  simple idea, brilliantly executed.  Local band knows more or less every song ever.  You go up on stage at the High Noon, tell them your song (specifying, if you want to, the key, tempo, that [...]

Filed under: madison, music, shows   |  2 Comments
Tags: breeders, cover bands, dandy warhols, gomeroke, gomers