I always tell my kids not to peak too early, but Paisley does it better in “The Letter”:
Music
Diminishing Marginal Utility and Joe Satriani
When I was in graduate school I taught accounting to undergraduates. Accounting is arcane and so I struggled to find analogies that my students could understand.
For instance, the classic accounting equation is assets = liabilities plus equity. This being the 80’s, I could assume that consumers had some equity in their houses or cars… so I would use a newly purchased car as an example. If you buy a car for $12,000 and put $1000 down and owed $11,000 you could then use the $12,000 = $11,000 + $1,000 model. Now I realize that the more savvy purchasers out there will realize that a car driven off the lot loses a substantial portion of its value almost instantly, so maybe the value is really $10,000 and then the model has a negative equity of ($1,000), but I wouldn’t start the classes out here.
Christmas 2: Kim Shattuck’s Holiday Podcast
I have said it before, the greatest rock group of our era is The Muffs. Their lead singer, guitarist and songwriter is the wonderful Kim Shattuck. She has had a series of ultra-groovy holiday podcasts.
Dig this totally groovy 2007 Christmas podcast. Good music to wrap presents by.
Her 2006 podcast, part 1 is here, and part 2 is here. The 2005 podcast is here.
Dubious W&W from C&W
One of my friends finds country depressing. Kevin Fowler portrays life on the edge; so does Gretchen Wilson. They remind us of the rawness of the old Sun recordings; they portray (and perhaps are themselves), as Waylon Jennings put it, working without a net. But the danger & the fear in such highwire acts produces an energy we also feel. Lyrics after the jump.
Subterranean Palindrome Blues
If Weird Al Yankovic did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
My kids turned me on this one, though they did not get the reference.
UPDATE: [Jonathan here.] Sorry about the bad link. Lex is busy and can’t fix it at the moment. One of us will fix it ASAP.
UPDATE 2: Fixed!