It's been/will be a pretty big week for me here. Observe:

1) Today's my last day at the Superior Court of Justice. Best job of my life so far. The work was mind-blowingly fascinating, the judges were a pleasure to work for, and I can't possibly imagine a funnier, friendlier, smarter or more supportive group of co-workers. Best. Job. Ever.

2) This past Monday, I came into work to find a voice mail from respected criminal defence lawyer John Rosen, asking if I could come in for a meeting. When I got there, I chatted with him and one of his associates, and before long, I found myself taking a tour of the office and being introduced to everyone as "Paul Alexander, who will be joining us in September."

It's a small firm—I'll be lawyer number four (or five, depending on how you count)—and the work, I expect, will be great. Plus I'll get to live up to my last name, which literally translates to "The Defender of Men." Over the past month or two of serious job-hunting, there was a lot of praying and a lot of support from people around me. Both paid off in spades. Likely outcome: Better Than Best. Job. Ever.

3) On Sunday, I fly to Kenya. (Well, really, I fly to Amsterdam, and then on Monday, I fly to Kenya. It takes a long time to fly to Kenya.) I've fantasized about going to sub-Saharan Africa since I was around nine years old, so this is a very big deal for me. Brother Chris and cousin Michelle meet me in Nairobi on August 10, and on August 11 we're off for a safari in the Masai Mara.

Then it's off to Rwanda for a few days. From there, Michelle heads home and Chris and I head overland from Kigali to Lake Bunyonyi in Uganda.

From there, it's a 6-hour bus ride to Kampala, where we'll sample the local music scene and gorge on what we're told is the best Indian and Ethiopian food outside of, well, India and Ethiopia. It's not far from there to the base of the Nile River, whose rapids we'll be rafting. (Given our planned trip to Egypt next February, this means that we'll see both ends of the Nile within six months. I think that's just neat.)

One overnight bus ride later, and we'll be back in Nairobi in time for Chris to fly to South Africa. Me, I might work in a trip to the centuries-old Swahili Lamu Town, on an island in the Indian Ocean just off the Kenyan coast.

And then home, and then I start my new job, and somewhere in there I go see Genesis on their first Toronto date since June 6, 1992. Which was, not coincidentally, the last time I saw Genesis.

So basically, life is just amazing. Praise God!

Question for book-loving friends (themusesbitch and pipesdreams, I'm looking at you here): I'm leaving next week for a month in East Africa, and as Sarah Harmer once sang, "holidays are made for reading." I've got the new Michael Chabon novel, some C.S. Lewis (who may be the greatest Christian writer since, oh, the apostle Paul), a David Sedaris collection, and (just because I'm going to Uganda), a copy of The Last King of Scotland. What else should I be packing?

It's now legally summer. This means it's time for summer albums. Here, in no particular order, are the summer records you should really be playing while you're sipping mojitos in the park:*

• Acid - Ray Barretto
• Reveal - R.E.M.
• Out of Time - R.E.M. (yeah, I know. That's two R.E.M. records. But they're both awesome. You're lucky I don't put Monster on here too.)
• Weezer (The Blue Album) - Weezer
  
• Weezer (The Green Album) - Weezer
• Wild Honey - The Beach Boys
  
• Greatest Hits - Sly & The Family Stone (normally, I consider Greatest Hits albums to be cheating, but  "Hot Fun In The Summertime" was never on an official album. And really, you need that song.)
  
• Abraxas - Santana
• Honey From The Tombs - Amy Millan
  
• Cannibal Sea - The Essex Green
• The World Won't End  - Pernice Brothers
• Daisies of the Galaxy - Eels
• Central Reservation - Beth Orton
• Odessy & Oracle - The Zombies (and yes, they really spelled "Odyssey" that way on the album cover)
• Africafunk, Vol. II - Various artists
• Traffic and Weather - Fountains of Wayne

That should be enough to get you started. Enjoy!

*Sipping mojitos in the park is illegal. You shouldn't do it, unless you want to get a ticket with a nasty fine.

Aug 5:
YYZ - AMS
AMS - NBO

Sept 5:
NBO - AMS

Sept 6:
AMS - YYZ

Another great musical discovery from the weekend: We Can Work It Out: Covers & Cookies of Lennon, McCartney and The Beatles.

There's not much particularly interesting about your average Beatles covers album—hell, who hasn't covered The Beatles? Even if you're not a musician, you've still probably recorded and released a Beatles cover or two. But this is not your average Beatles covers album. It's a collection of mostly-obscure funk, soul and reggae takes on the fabs' music, released by the formidable Harmless Recordings. Harmless is based in England, where they really take their obscure funk seriously, and pretty much every Harmless compilation CD is guaranteed to be awesome. Their albums are imported and therefore expensive if purchased new, so I have a standing policy that I will buy any Harmless disc that I stumble across in a used record shop. They rarely disappoint.

Anyway, there are at least three good reasons to track down a copy of this record and give it a listen. They are:

1) Al Green's cover of "I Want To Hold Your Hand."
It's not cool to slam The Beatles, but let's be honest: this song kind of sucks. Or at least it did until The Reverend Green got a hold of it and turned it from a naive bit of Merseyside pop fluff into a searing, smoking explosion of repressed libido.

2) Stevie Wonder's cover of "We Can Work It Out."
I put this tune on the hi-fi a few years ago while my brother was napping. When the chorus hit, he sprung up, stared at me in disbelief, and then declared, "This is how you cover a song. They should teach this shit in school." No exaggeration: best cover version ever. Of any song.

3) An obscure reggae version of "Norwegian Wood."
Admit it: you're dying to hear what that would sound like.

So I was eating at Ethiopian House a couple of years ago (and by the way, if you haven't been to Ethiopian House, go go go! Even if you think you don't like Ethiopian food. I thought I hated it; it turns out I just hadn't been to the right place. Sooo tasty). During the meal, there was some seriously bewitching music playing. It had obviously been recorded in the '70s by people who'd been listening to a lot of funk and acid jazz: it was chock full of burbling Wurlitzer electric piano, wah-wah guitar, and deeply funky beats on what sounded like a battered old drum kit. But it clearly wasn't your average, run-of-the-mill funk—there was a spooky, sinister tone that I'd never heard before. It was really, really good music.

I asked the server what it was. Her response? "Ethiopian music." This was interesting, but not particularly helpful. I spent the next couple of years occasionally wondering what the hell we'd been listening to and how I could find it.

Today, I found it. I was surfing around emusic.com when I stumbled across Ethiopiques, Vol. 4, and there it was. It's a compilation of songs by an Ethiopian jazz artist named Mulatu Astatqe, and man! This is one tasty record.

Like I said, it's clearly funk-influenced, but it's got a dark, smoky, mysterious tone that's utterly entrancing. But it's not obscure.

Well, it is obscure—hell, it's 35-year-old music by an unknown Ethiopian jazz artist—but it doesn't sound obscure in that I-don't-really-get-jazz way. A few of the tracks are actually fairly standard latin jazz things, which is weird, but the rest is an intriguing blend of jazz, funk and Ethiopian music. It's familiar, but just strange enough to be thoroughly hypnotic. (Incidentally, if you've seen the Bill Murray/Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers, this is the music they used.)

Go listen to a few song samples and see what you think.

Does anybody have a Windows Vista Home Premium disc they can lend me? My new laptop came with Vista pre-installed, but they thoughtfully did not include a Windows installation disc with the computer. I'd like to reinstall Vista from scratch, but as I don't have the disc, that's going to prove challenging.

I've got a legitimate Product Key, so I'm not looking to pirate the software or anything -- I'm just hoping to get my hands on a disc so that I can do a clean reinstallation. Help!

Will someone explain to me why I didn't join Toronto Kickball years ago? So, so much fun.

Strangely, I managed to design their web site without ever attending a game—until tonight, when I showed up with the lovely pipesdreams and themusesbitch on my arm. (And yes, we were wearing matching tracksuits.) I'm hooked.

I also got to see my old friend Andrew and my law school friend Kate there—two people who make any day more fun.

Also: the song of the summer will be Feist's "I Feel It All." You heard it here first, people.

...go do these things:

1) Download/buy/shoplift the new Feist album, "The Reminder." (Or at least get track 4, "The Park.")

2) Check out this clip of Neil Patrick Harris (yes, that Neil Patrick Harris) and Jason Segel of the awesome sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" duelling on Les Miserables.

3) Pick up Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventurs of Kavalier and Clay and read it immediately. Go now; I'll wait.

Everyone!

Go to christinefellows.com and listen.

I tend to hear a lot lot LOT of music, but it occurred to me recently that while much of it sounds good, only a little bit actually moves me. I just heard Winnipeg's own Christine Fellows on the Ceeb this afternoon, and am happy to report that they're still making the latter kind of music. Her songs are not unlike literate, sculpted versions of those "la la la" interludes that the wonderful Sam Phillips contributes to each episode of Gilmore Girls. Tiny, odd, wordy, perfect bits of chamber pop.

Go listen now.

(Oh, and yes, it's available on emusic, which I will not stop pitching until everyone I know is a subscriber. Tell 'em I sent you.)

You know how Google comes up with a neat little graphic to integrate into its logo on holidays? I love that.

But they've really outdone themselves today. Behold:



I had to think for a couple of minutes to figure out what it was supposed to represent. Some sort of "children's health day"? The annual Jump Rope For Heart Jumpboree?

Nope. It's Martin Luther King Jr. Day for our American friends. Can I just say how much I love that Google chose not to post a cool drawing of, say, MLK delivering his "I Have A Dream" speech, and instead chose to draw the dream itself?

And what's more, I didn't even notice at first that the kids playing together in that drawing are of different races. It didn't register at all. I suspect that a lot of people had the same experience. Now that, folks, is MLK's dream made real. How brilliant is that?

Well, I've had some time to think it over, and here are my picks (in no particular order) for the music from 2006 that you really should run out and buy now:

Sloan, Never Hear The End Of It

Hawksley Workman, Treeful Of Starling

Camera Obscura, Let's Get Out Of This Country

The Essex Green, Cannibal Sea

The Decemberists, The Crane Wife

Eels With Strings, Live At Town Hall

Sarah Slean, Orphan Music

Muse, Black Holes And Revelations

Amy Winehouse, Back To Black

Pernice Brothers, Live A Little

No time to post on the merits of each record right now—busybusybusy—but expect a full report soon. In the meantime, just go buy the above albums. (Or sign up for emusic.com, tell 'em I sent you, and download two or three of them.) You'll thank me.

Happy new(ish) year!

Exciting! This weekend, Amy & I took in this sweet new kitty. A woman near Amy's hometown found the little girl yelping in the woods with a badly injured eye, nursed her back to health, and then put her up for adoption. Not long thereafter, Amy & I found ourselves in possession of a fine black kitten with a sweet nature and a squinty little pirate eye. Her rescuer named her Isis—fittingly, it's an Egyptian name—but we've taken to calling her Annie. Depending on the day, she's named after Anne Shirley (of Green Gables—she is, after all, everyone's favourite charming orphan girl), Annie (everyone's other favourite charming orphan girl), or my personal favourite, Anne Bonny, legendary girl pirate. (Thanks to cranly_pants for that bit of info.)



She and the boys are slowly getting to know each other, and I'm quickly falling madly in love.

Hooray for kittens!

The National Playlist (may it rest in peace) may be dead, but I've decided that it's time for The Unilateral Playlist to make like Lazarus. It's been a long, loooong time since I've Unilaterally Playlisted (read: forced my musical opinions on my unwitting friendslist). But it occurs to me that I've been getting excited about lots of music that is either new or new to me, and it's worth sharing for the benefit of those who are looking for some new treats for their ears. Here's what's on my playlist these days:

Treeful of Starling, Hawksley Workman
It took me a while to understand this album. I picked it up one night when I was under a mountain of stress, and I just wasn't in the mood to absorb a delicate, so-pretty-it's-quaint song cycle about love and the end of the modern world. So I listened to it a couple of times and then backburnered it. (Yes, "backburner" is a verb. Because I say so.)

And then, a few months later, I went to Bali. It is very, very difficult to be stressed out while on vacation in Bali. The word "Bali" may actually be Balinese for "The Most Relaxing Place On Earth." So one night while Amy slept, I scrolled through my iPod to see if there was anything I hadn't given enough of a listen to, and I finally gave this record the time and attention it deserves. I got addicted immediately. It's far quieter and more delicate than any of Workman's other albums, and now that I've heard it about a billion times, I'm pretty sure it's my favourite of his albums and my favourite record of the year. The album is a collection of soft, sweet odes to the idea that love and hope predated our world and will probably outlast it too. Of the nine songs, one is about the beginning of the world, three (three!) are about the end, and the rest are hymns to the fact that love and hope can survive the stifling mundanities of modern life. And yet none (well, almost none) of it is overblown or cloying. This is not a power-belter singing about fighting for the power of love—rather, it's a thoughtful tunesmith writing traditional, almost old-fashioned songs toasting the little details that give life its richness. In one song, he contemplates armageddon, and rather than going for the triple-lutz "I Will Always Love You" Moment of Grandiose Emotion, he simply reassures his lover that "there's gonna be nice days / in the ice age." So, sooo good.

Plea From A Cat Named Virtue, The Weakerthans
Ok, this song isn't new at all. It's three years old. And I just discovered it last week. But how cool do you have to be in order to write a brilliant, moving song from the perspective of a house cat? This sounds like a cute stunt, and it starts off that way ("Why don't you ever want to play? / I'm tired of this piece of string"), but it quickly turns into real poetry that cuts deep. Brilliant.

Oh, and the music rocks, too.

Cannibal Sea, The Essex Green
I know nothing about this band. I was rifling through eMusic a few weeks ago when I came across one of those computer-generated messages saying something like, "enjoy band ___? Then you'll probably like the following bands: ___, ___ and ___." Now, I don't normally click on these things. But I was feeling bored, so I clicked. I'm glad I did. This album is an instant classic, full of non-stop melodic goodness. The first three songs are brilliant boy-girl indie pop, and from there the album veers into lovely folk-pop, sea chanteys, more lovely folk-pop, and more brilliant boy-girl indie pop. Not a mediocre track on the whole record. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

And by the way, eMusic is a thoroughly great web site. For $10 U.S. each month, you get 40 mp3 downloads drawn from a great catalog of indie and (some) major label bands. That's $0.25 per song. And there are volume discounts if you buy more. I've discovered obscene amounts of great new music and have found a way to buy 5 or 6 albums a month for less than what I'd pay for one album on CD. Go sign up now and tell them I sent you.

Black Holes and Revelations, Muse
Suddenly prog rock is cool again! Multi-layered songs with time shifts, weird old synths, lyrics about space travel, and shockingly—shockingly!—good harmonies combine to make for an adventurous and thoroughly fun listen. Good stuff.

Now: anyone got any recommendations for me?

Here's good news: by the grace of God, I've passed my bar exams. Now all I have to do is attend some classes in May (and avoid being fired or arrested for the next 10 months) and I'll be an honest-to-goodness lawyer. Hear hear!

Well! My extended four-month period as a man of leisure comes to an end when I start my new job tomorrow. I'd be inconsolable about the demise of my vacation and the end of summer were it not for the fact that my job is going to ABSOLUTELY ROCK. Which is probably the first time anyone has ever described the life of a legal researcher at a court of law in such terms, but hey. If we've learned anything from Rivers Cuomo and Elvis Costello, it's that a person can be a huge nerd and rock at the same time. Anyway, wish me luck on that.

In other news, the end of August always gets me in a contemplative mood. It's a very emotional time of year: there's the return to school (which, for only the third time in 23 years, will not apply to me); there's the end of the greatest of the seasons; there's the excitement of beginning new things. I've been on Student Time for so long that I still feel like New Year's should be celebrated on Labour Day, so whereas January 1st seems like a completely arbitrary day for a party, the end of summer and the beginning of another school year seems to me like an appropriate time to mark the new year. Maybe that'll change after I finally rack up more than 18 consecutive months as a full-time worker, but I suspect I'll feel this way for a long time yet.

At any rate, I'm beginning to work up a mental list of songs that go well with the end of summer—I feel another mix disc coming on. Here's my list of songs thus far:
- Last Day of Summer, Magnet
- Summer Skin, Death Cab For Cutie (Oh, and if you don't have this album yet: don't walk, RUN to your nearest record store)
- Nightswimming, R.E.M. (I know, this one's way too easy, but that's because it is the definitive, ultimate, quintessential end-of-summer song)

These are three good songs, but three songs do not a mix disc make. The trouble is that there are a lot of great summer songs, and a lot of great autumn songs, but not a lot of end-of-summer songs. Any suggestions?

Well! Finally saw X3 tonight. I'm actually quite glad that just about everyone I knew told me it was going to be a terrible movie, as this lowered my expectations to the point where I really enjoyed it when I finally saw it.

Granted, X3 had nothing on the first two, and the criticisms I'd heard were valid (why does a central character spend the whole movie just standing around? why were the motivational speeches so leaden? why were so many beloved characters from the comics wasted in what were more-or-less cameos?), but on the whole I thought it was an extremely cool idea, done reasonably (but not exceptionally) well. Overall, I dug it; it just didn't rise to the same level as its predecessors. Of course, I didn't grow up knowing the comic in great detail (I've always been a Spider-Man guy), so I had less to compare it to. But on the whole, I liked the movie.

Also, any film starring Kelsey Grammer as a blue, furry, acrobatic, ass-kicking cabinet secretary cannot possibly be all bad.

This superb Globe & Mail article perfectly expresses the way I (and a lot of other people, I suspect) feel about America, a great country that's losing its way.

( Read the article )

U.S. Supreme Court blocks Guantanamo war crimes trials

Seriously: this is a marvelous, and long-awaited, step back from the Bush administration's War On Freedom. I know that sounds ridiculously overblown, but the right to a fair trial has been a fundamental, bedrock principle of all free societies since... well, since the concept of a free society was devised. In its attempt to strip detainees of basic legal rights—without which a society is simply not free—the Bush administration quite literally set itself up as an enemy of freedom. This ruling undoes an important chunk of the damage done, and it demonstrates that at least someone in the U.S. governmental apparatus refuses to dismantle the principles behind America's greatness in the name of preventing terrorism.

In other news, I'm pretty sure my house got hit by lightning today, and now my router is fried.