No More Bike

Man, my bike got stolen. That sucks!

More On Listening To Music: The Tragically Hip Edition

Or, “Moron Listening To Music”, if you prefer. A friend of mine paid me what I thought was a pretty nice compliment the other day. He wrote “Your opinion of an album a few days after you buy it is almost always the opinion I'll have of the album years later”. He was referring to the Hip’s album “Music @ Work”, which I thought was pretty good at the time, while he was quite disappointed with it.

So I was trying to think of why I actually liked the album. Most of the time, when I first form my opinion of an album, it’s strictly an intuitive thing. Does it have a good beat, and can I dance to it? (Aside: I tried to Google the origin of that phrase and was totally unsuccessful - anyone know?). Or more specifically, for me, does it make me invent some new stupid dance, or give me chills, or get caught in my head for days? Only after living with the album for awhile do I try to go back and articulate what it is about a song or an album that makes it work for me. This is something that’s always fun, and often surprising, in that I’ll usually realize I was completely misinterpreting a song. Or, more rewardingly, that the song had perfectly captured a moment in my life and I’d only picked up on it subconsciously at the time.

Listening to “Music @ Work” again today, there are really only four songs on it that make the album for me, and the rest is kind of forgettable. The lead track, “Music @ Work”, is just a great Hip rocker. But I think that “Lake Fever”, “Stay”, and “As I Wind Down The Pines” are some of the best things the Hip have ever done. I think what I like most about these songs is their intimacy. “Lake Fever” is basically “Bobcaygeon Part II”, which can’t be a bad thing. “Stay” is a fantastic, vulnerable love song that really captures loneliness and the need for companionship. Similarly, “As I Wind Down The Pines” is one of the few Hip songs where they manage to do more with less. Simple guitar lines and simple lyrics, but slightly out-of-sync with each other, forcing you to pay attention.

Gord Downie is always interesting as a lyricist, but I think that on the earlier albums he’s struggling a little to find his voice - trying to write big blustery “rock lyrics” without the Jagger swagger to really pull it off. And on the more recent albums, he’s descended into a bit of an obsession with words - to the detriment of the interplay between the words and the music. But on Phantom Power (unquestionably the best Hip album) and Music@Work he seems to hit a sweet spot.

And since I probably won’t write about the Hip here for a long time, if ever, my only two other strongly-held opinions about them are: (1) Gord Downie should not be allowed to play guitar live on “Wheat Kings” and “Nautical Disaster” because it absolutely murders his vocal delivery and (2) The Fully Completely / Day For Night album duo is over-rated.

Back in the City

The yeast course is done, and I’m back in Montreal. I learned a lot, met some great people, and didn’t sleep much for three weeks. So here I am, trying to get back to full speed at work, find a new apartment, get rid of my old one, and catch up on sleep. Here’s a picture of the group (click for a bigger version), I’ll try to write more (ha!) and put up some more pictures later.



One of the events held at the banquet was a song competition, where each group would attempt to insult the others through song. Here’s one I wrote, set to the melody of “California Girls” by the Beach Boys, that I creatively called “Cerevisiae Girls”. I’m not sure whether I should capitalize the ‘C’ in cerevisiae in this case, and I’m also not sure whether worrying about that or just the song in general disqualifies me from coolness. Here it is...

Verse 1


Well yeast are really hip
I really dig those genes we share
And with double-fusion PCR
I can knock any gene in there

Verse 2


With the green fluorescent protein
I can make any gene alight
And I know I’ll always have enough
A billion cells in just one night

Chorus


They wish they all could work on Saccharomy-
(Wish they all could work on Saccharomy-)
They wish they all could work on Saccharomyces

Verse 3


Expression people just watch lights shine
And nematodes are just so bland
The microscopists are only looking in
Without tetrads how can you understand?

Verse 4


I’ve been all around Cold Spring Harbor
And I’ve seen all kinds of work
So I couldn’t wait to get back to my yeast
Back to the greatest system in the world

Repeat Chorus 2x

CSHL Day 12

Day Twelve, our first day off after eleven very long, very intense, very satisfying days. I had hoped to write and read a lot today, but ended up mostly sleeping.

I’ve learned a lot about yeast genetics, pulled some tetrads, met some great people, and heard some great science. The external support for the course is great also - I’ve had some surreal moments thinking “I’d better not spill my beer on this $100,000 microscope”. And since I need to leave now for more drinks, here are some budding yeast cells stained with calcufluor. The bright spots are the bud scars, I took the picture using a Zeiss Axio Imager system.