The Matrix Demystified at MIT

Matrices are why I decided I would not make a good engineer way back in the 1980s. I figured such a mind-bendingly difficult topic would only be the beginning of truly challenging mathematics for me ... and I wasn't sure I could fight the intellectual currents that hard without drowning. Had MIT brought higher math to us folks in low places then, well, I might never have become math-phobic.

Best of 2007: Great White North Version

This from my former colleague, the inimitable "No Depression" contributer Paul Cantin, who scrawls his best-of list on his facebook account:

"Not that you asked, not that I care; it's the Myface, I can do what I want."

MOVIES 2007

1. No Country for Old Men
2. There Will Be Blood
3. Zodiac
4. The Diving Bell and the Buttterfly
5. Superbad
6. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
7. The Darjeeling Limited
8. Ratatouille
9. Juno
10. Once
11. No End In Sight
12. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
13. Margot At The Wedding
14. I’m Not There
15. 2 Days In Paris
16. Eastern Promises
17. Hot Fuzz
18. Grindhouse: Death Proof
19. A Mighty Heart
20. Sunshine
(very honorable mention - Brand Upon The Brain, Rescue Dawn)

Best DVDs (in not much of an order)

1. Blade Runner (Collector's Edition)
2. Ace In The Hole (Criterion Edition)
3. Two Lane Blacktop (Criterion Edition)
4. Killer of Sheep
5. The Jazz Singer
6. Breathless (Criterion Edition)
7. Warner Bros. Film Noir Vol. 4
8. Overlord (Criterion Edition)
9. The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky
10. 49th Parallel (Criterion Edition)
11. The Milky Way (Criterion Edition)
12. La Haine (Criterion Edition)
13. The Early Films of Samuel Fuller (Criterion Eclipse set)
14. Monsters and Madmen (Criterion set)
15. Rio Bravo

Best albums

1.THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE QUEEN - The Good, The Bad and The Queen (Parlophone)
A collision of sensibilities – The Clash, African beats, Blur, vanishing London, music hall, ska, Danger Mouse’s avant-hip-hop. Their Live In Soho online-only EP was sublime, too.
2.NEIL YOUNG - Live At Massey Hall (Reprise)
Made for an unfortunate juxtaposition with the mostly-coasting Chrome Dreams II. If it’s never been officially issued, does that make a 36-year-old recording a new release?
3. NICOLE ATKINS - Neptune City
Saw her open for Jesse Malin at the Bowery Ballroom in March and was impressed, but it couldn't possibly have prepared me for this album. If the Shangri-Las got into a gunfight in the Brill Building with Phil Spector and Brian Wilson, and the latter-day Smiths rehearsing in the next room, it might sound something like this.
4.ALISON KRAUSS AND ROBERT PLANT - Raising Sand (Rounder)
Could have been a train wreck, but it’s not thanks to the generosity of the artists to each other.
5.ARETHA FRANKLIN – Oh Me Oh My: Live in Philly, 1972 (RhinoHandmade)
If it’s officially unreleased for 35 years, does that make it a new release?
6.JIM BRYSON - Where the Bungalows Roam (Outside Music)
Best-kept secret in Canadian music gets better. One day he’ll be recognized as one of the finest songwriters of his day.
7.LCD SOUNDSYSTEM - Sound of Silver (EMI)
They’ve gone from mordant hipsters to poignant generational spokesmen in remarkably short order.
8.RADIOHEAD – In Rainbows (independent)
A very decent record, but more important symbolically as a pay-what-you-want direct-to-fans download than it is artistically in this band’s development. You have to admire the cajones.
9.J.DILLA – Ruff Draft (Stones Throw)
For anyone who thinks there isn’t an avant-garde in hip-hop, listen to this collection of rare and unreleased tracks by the late Dilla Dawg. On “Wild” he flips a home recording of a kid singing Slade into a hip-displacing jam. On hearing “Nothing Like This,” it’s your brain that does the flipping.
10.MARAH - You Can’t Take It With You EP (YepRoc)
While awaiting 2008’s Angels of Destruction, this place-holder vinyl-only EP contains one of the best songs of their career – “If You Didn’t Laugh, You’d Cry.” A lullaby for adults.
11.IVY MAIRI – Well You (Latentrecordings.com)
A precociously talented 17-year-old (at the time of the recording) given sympathetic support and production by Cowboy Junkie Mike Timmins. Lightning in a bottle.
12.SHARON JONES AND THE DAP-KINGS – 100 days, 100 nights (Dap-Tone)
Finally getting some overdue love. Brand-new old school funk, soul and R&B. If you wonder where Amy Winehouse gets it from, wonder no more.
13.AMY WINEHOUSE - Back To Black (Republic)
See above. Her offstage antics eclipsed her artistic achievement, but that could not shade the isolated pleasure of this record’s brighter moments.
14.THE SADIES - New Seasons (Yep Roc)
Well The Sadies went to Spain … and I kinda like the music.
15.JUSTICE – † (Ed Banger)
Bombastic bass, chunky beats and a deft ear for a pop hook make these remixmasters hitmakers in their own right.
16.ST. VINCENT – Marry Me (Beggars Banquet)
The Polyphonic Spree guitarist emerges as an often startlingly original solo act. Watch this space.
17.COWBOY JUNKIES – At The End of Paths Taken
In a year when the bigger news was the celebration of the 20th anniversary of their epochal The Trinity Session, the band also tossed off one of their most adventurous records in years.
18.BESNARD LAKES – The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horses (Jagjaguwar)
19.THE MIX UP – Beastie Boys (Capitol)
30.BATTLES – Mirrored (Warp)

Top reissues, 2007

ARTHUR ALEXANDER – Lonely Just Like Me: The Final Chapter (Hacktone)
ARETHA FRANKLIN - Rare and Unreleased Recordings From The Golden Reign Of The Queen Of Soul (Rhino)
PINK FLOYD - Piper At The Gates of Dawn (Capitol)
LEONARD COHEN – Songs of Leonard Cohen, Songs From A Room, Songs of Love And Hate (Sony Legacy)
VASHTI BUNYAN - Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind: Singles And Demos 1964 To 1967 (DiCristina)
JOY DIVISION – Unknown Pleasures and Closer (Factory)
JUDEE SILL – Live In London (BBC Recordings 72-73) (Water)
ESG – South Bronx Story 2 (Soul Jazz)
AMNESTY – Free Your Mind: The 700 West Sessions (Now Again)
EUGENE BLACKNELL – We Can’t Take Life For Granted (Ubiquity)

Paul's treatment of Canada's pop/thrash darling, "Alanis Morisette: A Biography" is available on Amazon.com

Reward for Capture

Here's a list of my possessions which are currently lost. If you're feeling charitable, please cross your fingers and say a prayer that I find them *shortly*. I hear St. Anthony's a pretty good advocate for those who have misplaced things: Some of these are rapidly moving into St. Jude territory, though!

in order of disappearance:
last year's Christmas present from Pete
my phone charger
my primary set of keys
my phone

also (for the record):
my intellectual uberconfidence
my undyingly sweet and kind nature

Please be on the lookout for any or all of these!

Coleman Doesn't Disappoint

Yes, it's Barbra writing about food again. I think I'm inspired by my "bff" bottlebee's gastronomic forays. And when I told him about this meal he said, oh yeah blog *that*. Think I'll handle this one in chronological order. Since I was under the weather (and since I generally do much of the commuting to maintain the long-distance thang), my sweetie did yeoman's service to make sure I had a great birthday. He drove a two-hour-plus one-way trip, spent eight and a half hours in the fine commonwealth of Pennsylvania with me, then drove the two-plus hours back to Atlantic Highlands. And we had fun in between. We visited at the house, smushed up close during "I Am Legend" at Oaks, Pa. (3.5/5 stars -- worth seeing) and then headed to Coleman for an early birthday dinner. I've wanted to hit that establishment since it opened. It stands as part of a conference center created on the site of the old Strassburger Mansion. The developers of the Normandy Farm Conference Center, which sits at the junction of Route 202 and Morris Road in Whitpain Township, Pa., did a beautiful job finding a new purpose for the old house by incorporating it into the posh little resort property. Until recently, I didn't know a thing about Jim Coleman, the chef who oversees the restaurant (and for whom it was, not surprisingly, named). For those others who are as ignorant as I, he hosts "The Chef's Table" on Philadelphia public radio, and is committed to using organic, artisanal and farm ingredients. I just knew his restaurant looked promising from the get-go. describe room, describe meal, close it out

Preparing for the Perfect Game

Before a recent Giants home victory, we served Manila clams as the first course of our tailgate picnic in the Giants Stadium parking lot. Clams are the perfect tailgate food — just fire up the grill, throw on the clams, and they’ll be ready before the first beer is gone.

For those who don’t know: The clams are alive; keep them on ice. Don’t use any that are cracked or already open. Put them on the grill, and when the shells open up, they’re ready to eat. It helps to have forks or picks available for your guests to remove the meat. The broth may be sipped right from the shell. I like to melt butter to dip the clams in just before eating. I don’t bother to clarify the butter; I just put a teaspoonful or so into small stainless cups, one for each guest, and put them on the grill to melt the butter. My cups have plastic lids, so any leftover butter won’t spill on the way home to the dishwasher.

Small clams are the best. I like littlenecks, but they’re getting expensive. Wild Edibles had manila clams—small and sweet—for $10.99/lb. There were about 30 manila clams to the pound. A half dozen per person is good for an appetizer course.

Away in a Manger: The Martha Stewart Story

Don't know if this little kernel of information makes me like the domestic diva more. A ceramacist, you say? I've long fancied myself a chip carver and whittler, but I've never gotten so much as the basic JMJ done for the nativity scene I'd like to carve.

I'm wondering if she'll market a mass-produced version of her creche.

Next Year In Washington Crossing?

Bottlebee was on the banks of the Delaware for the annual NJ/PA Christmas tradition. I'm glad I was safe and warm inside -- although this child of Valley Forge may try to make it another year.

the ghost of Christmas greetings past

Basil Pesto

It’s been a warm autumn so far, but the days of the basil plant are numbered.

Basil is always the first plant in the garden to die of cold—it doesn’t have to be an actual frost, just a cool night in the 30s, and every basil plant will turn black, withered and useless. So when I run out of home-grown tomatoes to enjoy with the basil, I pull my remaining basil plants. I dry some of the leaves, crumble them and keep them in a tin in my spice cabinet. Sometimes I put a teaspoonful of chopped fresh leaves in each chamber of an ice cube tray, fill it with water and store the ice cubes in zipper bags in the freezer. The basil turns black (just as it would out in the cold in the garden), but it still tastes good, and the ice cubes can be added as needed to season soups and stews. I make the rest of the harvest into pesto base.

I’m not sure where I got this pesto recipe. It’s probably from a newer edition of The Joy of Cooking. I found it on a slip of paper in my own handwriting stuck into my older edition of Joy. To the work bowl of a food processor, add two cups of fresh basil leaves, 2 peeled cloves of garlic, 1/3 cup pine nuts, and ½ cup of grated Parmesan cheese. Pulse until it forms a paste. Then, with the motor running, slowly pour ½ cup of good olive oil through the feed tube.

When I’m making basil pesto in bulk at the end of the growing season, I leave out the nuts and cheese and freeze the paste in a zipper bag. I thaw the pesto base on the day of use, add the nuts and cheese, and buzz it all up together one more time in the food processor.

My food processor will make one triple batch of pesto base at a time. I’ve also made this recipe using a blender. The owner of a gourmet kitchen store (the same man who gave me the tip about freezing basil in ice cube trays) told me that pesto isn’t right unless it’s pounded in a mortar by hand (he said this as I was buying a mortar and pestle from him). If your taste is refined enough that you insist on manually ground pesto, feel free to adapt the recipe for mortar and pestle. But with the food processor, I can make a year’s supply of pesto base within an hour of pulling the plants, and I can’t tell the difference.

Apparently, even the sanctity of the bond between mother and newborn child isn't sacred to those who would spy: Check out this surveillance photo.

Our West Norriton Little League has won Pennsylvania's East Regional title for 10- to 11-year-olds, and is going for the state championship!!

More parkland news from my hometown ... also, it's worth noting that digging has already begun for improvements to the less polished of West Norriton's two Burnside Avenue baseball diamonds ... and, finally, an interesting firsthand piece on Philadelphia's cheesesteak wars.

(Note: As a suburbanite, I am slightly agnostic when it comes to cheesesteak allegiances. I would have wanted to like Jim's on South Street because that was my old 'hood downtown, but I just can't get behind wiz. I plead mercy on the Pat's vs. Gino's controversy -- they're both delicious. As for Tony Luke's, well, I will admit they make the best pork sandwich I've ever tasted; however, I do not buy their rights to represent cheesesteaks to the world. I like my hoagies from Lou's, my cheesesteaks from Pudge's II or Del's and my pizza from Charlie's. And I gotta go to Rick's before they're drummed out of town, I suppose.)

This is what happened to my first grade school. (Scroll down to the other environmental news section.) Burnside Elementary School had a fabulous playground, delicious tomato soup, memorably good teachers (a special shout out to Mrs. Kulp) and, apparently, an asbestos problem. Did I mention that it was walking distance from my home -- if I kept up with the bigger kids. It still looks a bit empty without the old brick building and the old tennis courts are a wee bit unkempt. But, all in all, I'd file this report under "good news."

I have yet to weigh them or dig into them, but I can say that my textbooks for two community college courses this Fall are heavy lifting at least physically. I'm hoping they're solid, but not overwhelming intellectually.

Please take a second to check out these vacationing Cape Bretoners from L'Arche who are grabbing Manhattan by the horns during their four-night stay. They bring a new face to the old image of a road trip. God help them! (And may He get them back home safely.)

We lost Ingmar Bergman and Tom Snyder. And it's a cloudy day. Blech!!!

I remember staying up as a fourth grader (after having saved up for a small black-and-white TV) watching Python on public TV, then Carson and Snyder on Philadelphia's Channel Three. And then watching Channel Three on Saturday nights when Dan Akroyd would occasionally tweak Snyder brilliantly with his parodies.

I'm tempted to roll over and pretend I didn't just hear the news.

P.S. Where, oh where, has Bottlebee gone? Well, actually, he's gone on a very short trip to Chicago with his better half. I've heard he's done research on an NYC-area taqueria and on natural peanut butter making. I look forward to his return, and may post some food stuff of my own in the meantime.

Please. Far be it from me (or anyone!) to defend every word that comes out of the mouth of Bill O'Reilly. But I, through no fault of my own, have been on the fang-bite end of a harassment campaign by MoveOn.org, and I must say I find it amazing that each of the Democrats who purport to be strong enough to be the leader of the world's flagship democracy would be controlled by such rabid bullies.

FWIW

Also, the challenging world in which Fatah is one of the good guys and Hamas denies a quid pro quo for Johnston's release. The distinctions between terrorism and conventional warfare get foggy sometimes. While that's a challenge to nations that would espouse policies like those justified by the Bush Doctrine (the U.S. included), one cannot discount the existence of nexus of terror in the face of groups like the Army of Islam.

The BBC's Alan Johnston has been freed.

Last night this time I was lying awake after hearing a lengthy public debate about fish guts. When I say lengthy, I mean it was clocked by hours not minutes. Approximately two of them.

Atlantic Highlands is trying to make its vibrant marina -- home to Seastreak ferry service to Manhattan, commercial and recreational fisherman, sailors and motor-boaters and a couple of eateries -- a "clean marina." The Clean Marina Program is a federal/state partnership that established best management practices and guidelines for all aspects of marina management, which you'd already know if you read that somewhat hefty link. In many marinas, fish may be a small part of the operation. But here in Atlantic Highlands it's a big one, and two camps have emerged: Old-school fisherman say appropriate dumping of fish heads and guts in the water is part of the "circle of life," while beach-goers and marina mavens find floating and landed fish bits unacceptable. Two proposals were raised and, so far, rejected as part of the local enabling legislation -- piercing the eyes and bladders so fish sink, and bagging fish detritus and giving it a burial in a nearby dumpster. As part of the marathon public hearing Wednesday night members of the public suggested manual grinders feeding into the water, machine grinders and composting. Apparently research has been done into contracting fish-grinding out, and it's been found to be rather costly.

Two bottom lines here. (One) I don't know which of the alternatives mentioned would be best for the environment and best for the marina. The beaches and docks here are beautiful -- they are all the more beautiful when nothing but the rare fishkill and some driftwood and shells wash ashore. At the same time, it is entirely possible that some of fishermen's ways may be beneficial to ocean life: It is in their best interests to preserve the fish stocks out there, too. Perhaps a nearby research facility or university can shed some light on the matter without holding clean marina measures up for too long. (Two) All concerned have to consider the fact that the Clean Marina Program is about more than fish, and that its passage is expected to be both an environmental and fiscal boon, as the "incentive-driven" program's home page describes. If it's desirable, then Atlantic Highlands should do it properly -- and do it soon.