• Birds of Fire - Mahavishnu Orchestra
• Heavy Weather - Weather Report

Birds of Fire was the second album by John McLaughlin's band, and the last with their original line-up, losing Billy Cobham, but gaining Jean-Luc Ponty for their next effort, Apocalypse. Birds of Fire came out in 1973, while I was still in high school ("Drink and drive, drink and drive, we're the class of '75!"), but to be honest, I probably didn't really find out about it until my freshman year in college. As I understand it, it was a watershed album, diminished in impact only by the fact that it followed their first album, The Inner Mounting Flame. However, my own experience is that the years of high school and college were filled with so many unique and rich bands that this just seemed appropriate. Listening to it now, I can say it is still a great favorite of mine.

Heavy Weather is probably the only Weather Report album I owned. My memory is vague. Looking over the album info now, I am amused to find that Wayne Shorter was in Weather Report. He was a great bebop jazz musician who both led bands of his own and appeared in many other important bands such as Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and Miles Davis' second quintet. This is kind of like the revelation I got when I first found out that Herbie Hancock, whom I'd previously known from another favorite 1973 album, Head Hunters (in my queue at eMusic), had a prior life full of jazz appearances, including a stint with Miles Davis in his second quintet!. Urp! I think I just swallowed my tail!

Anyway, just living off of fond memories, I can mine the Sony catalog for years, if I want to. They think they're soooo clever, only agreeing to put albums that are at least two years old onto eMusic! Is 1973 old enough for you, Sony! Thpppt!

Here's how eMusic works. You subscribe, and you get a certain number of 'credits' per month. Credits do not roll over. Every song you download is worth one credit. Originally, the more credits per month you bought, the lower the 'price' of each credit. They've mostly eliminated that with this revision. Here is what I've been paying since I joined eMusic:

• 50 credits / $14.99 ~= $0.30

At that price, experimentation is a no-brainer for me. iTunes wants $1.29 for a track of DRM-free music. Amazon MP3 wants $0.99 and up. So at around a third to a quarter of the going price, I often downloaded an album by a group I'd never heard of, just to listen at my leisure. I learned about groups I'd never listen to otherwise, and have even downloaded more albums by these no-names after the initial experiment.

Here's my new plan (non-standard, grandfathered):

• 37 credits / $14.99 ~= $0.40

My price per track increased by a third. A newcomer supposedly will only get 35 credits, and pay $15.98. We'll see if I get the grandfather rate or not.

Now you may say that $0.40 is still significantly less than the majors. You may say that I should still be, what, two-thirds as enthusiastic for experimentation as I was before the hike. Unfortunately, I find my response is somewhat more non-linear.

With the original announcement of these coming changes, eMusic tried to take some of the sting out of the hike by adding that they were going to cap 'some' albums' prices at twelve credits. So if you like albums with dozens of short tracks, and they tag those albums with the cap, you come out ahead.

However, they've also implemented another policy, which they didn't announce. If a track is longer than ten minutes, the only way to download it is by purchasing the entire album it is on. Right up front, let me say that I object to being pushed to download an album to acquire a single tune. If I'm experimenting, I may willingly download an entire album of unknown songs. But if I'm trying to pick up an old favorite, I will be damned if I will pick up the eight or ten filler songs on the same album. Screw you, eMusic.

But that's not really the key problem with this issue. Consider Miles Davis' album "Bitches Brew". It has 7 tracks, but is a 'two cd' set (two long tracks on the first 'cd', five more on the second). The 'album price', therefore, is 24 credits (no option is given to buy the first or second 'cd' only). Six of the songs are over ten minutes apiece (jazz, remember?). Only one short track can be downloaded separately. To get any of the others, you have to download them all, and pay 24 credits!

Result: Bitches Brew costs (me) $9.60. Given that I can buy separate tracks at Amazon and thereby get the entire album for $7, eMusic has very little to offer here.

I buy a lot of jazz albums. Jazz albums often feature long tracks, but also frequently have fewer than twelve tracks. Between the 12-credit 'cap' per 'cd', and the rule forbidding downloading longer tracks without downloading the entire album, I end up getting the short end of the stick. Just to be balanced, the Sony back catalog has a lot of great albums. For the first few iterations (however long I last) I'll probably be dipping into that.

However, eMusic justified it's existence for me by offering a low-friction avenue to experiment. If I feel compelled to perform the kind of math juggling I've used above before each purchase, then the friction has just increased dramatically. I'll continue to subscribe for now, but I'm definitely feeling reduced value for my given tastes.

This version, gotten from the same Perrenial Tea Room, is not a disappointment. I guess you could call genmai cha the vanilla of green teas. Actually, chocolate is probably closer to the mark. Genmai cha is made with green tea and roasted rice. One cup is like having a little snack. It's a bit like drinking one of those thick dark beers that substitute for a meal.

So this time, I'm going to talk about the two teas I bought during our trip for Renee's 14th birthday. I'll keep it short, as I'm at work, but I can always come back and add new notes later (yeah, right).

The first tea was recommended by a lean, grey-haired woman who obviously loved her product. I suspect that she was fully infused when I asked her about the Chinese green teas, as she charged in and opened about six different jars. I ended up purchasing her favorite, the Taiping Hou Kui. The envelope contains the additional caption: Great Green Monkey King - Anhui China Green. At $6.25/oz., it seems rather dear (try this one at $11/oz.!), but you can make a cup with a single teaspoon, so it should go a long way. The website says you can resteep leaves up to three times, but I only have the one steeper, and I like to alternate flavors, so I'll take the wasteful route and steep once.

The leaves themselves are long and thin, and have the expected green tea aroma, but with a flowery accent. The taste is very mild. Could I distinguish it from any other green tea? I think so. Would I buy it again? At the rate that I drink tea, and with all the varieties that are out there, I think I might get to it again when I hit 80. But it is definitely as good a green tea as any I've had.

Update

We sent back the bad disc, and got a replacement yesterday. Jean and I watched it last night, and had a much better viewing experience. The Patrick Stewart episode is hilarious (at least the part with Patrick Stewart). I'll be sending back this disc, and waiting to see how they handle the 'duplicate'.

The banner image was taken after she had finished. It's one of only two that I snapped, so I will apologize for the foreshortening caused by the wide angle. Jean feels it makes her legs look short. But since she had just finished a half-marathon, they couldn't be that short!

• Soundtrack for Amadeus
• Abwoon - Lisa Gerrard
• Blame It On My Youth - Art Farmer
• Assassin Reverie - Terry Riley (The ARTE Quartett)
• In C - Terry Riley (Bang On A Can)
• Music in Fifths - Philip Glass (Bang On A Can)
• The Greatest - Cat Power

More recently, we watched the Pedro Amodovar movie Live Flesh. We've really enjoyed a lot of his films over the years, and expect to catch up on a number of his works through Netflix. But this one was kinda dark and pessimistic, somewhat off the path from what we've come to expect from him. As a result, we rated it a little lower than others of his.

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge - This Bollywood film was one of a batch I queued in response to Jean's curiosity regarding the field. I got it by scanning best-of lists and picking a few. Unfortunately, while the plot was familiar (arranged marriage, love on the way), it seemed dated and trite, so Jean was unable to overcome her resistance to musicals to plod through the movie. I didn't really want to see it without her, so fail.

Chop Shop - This was a streaming offering, another film by Ramin Bahrani, who did 'Man Push Cart', which was bleak, bleak. This one seemed to have a slightly more upbeat mode, but there were clouds on the horizon, and we couldn't bring ourselves to watch to the finish, given how MPS ended, abruptly and ugly.

The Science of Sleep - This is a movie written/directed by Michel Gondry. He co-wrote 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' with Charlie Kaufman, and directed that film too. We loved ESotSM, but it seems that without a collaborator, Gondry is prone to wander all over the map. TSoS is a jumble, meant to capture the dream life of the main character, and how his fantasies bleed over into his reality. In fact, while I had little trouble determining when his mind was overwriting reality, it still seemed like a buncha 'just because'. And the ending was entirely too WTF for my tastes. We watched the whole thing on the strength of the previous movie, even while asking ourselves if it was worth continuing. I'd have to recommend against it.

On the bright side, I've been streaming Red Dwarf, which I watched on PBS in Ohio a couple decades ago. Very fun, silly British Sci Fi comedy.

The food was very good! Let me get that out of the way first thing. Renee ordered the Sega Tibs, I got the Alitcha Dorho and a yam and peanut soup (sooo good!) and Jean ordered a three vegetable combination. They were all served together family-style on a large, lovely ceramic platter. Or rather on a large sheet of injera, resting in turn on the platter. There were other nibbles, but all was very tasty.

This is a family owned business, and the husband came over and talked with us for several minutes. He's lived in America for (I think) 32 years now, and was very happy to talk to us about his business and his efforts to get wider recognition. So here you go, fella!

Seriously, from Tualatin, it's around 20-30 minutes to get there, but finding it was easy, and parking was not difficult to find. Still, I wish there was an Ethiopean/Eritrean restaurant closer to home.

Anyway, sad that it's slated to be Japan only. It sounds tasty!

The other movie I should mention was not viewed with Jean. I was over at Tom's last night for the monthly gathering (more like quarterly for me), and he was gracious enough to screen his copy of Chandni Chowk to China, a Bollywood version of a Hong Kong martial arts movie. It was laugh out loud hilarious, replete with most every cliche from martial arts movies past. Thanks, Tom!

In any case, this was a fun movie, no question. I'm not sure it is really Star Trek, but if you just think of it as a fun, busy, explodey scifi movie, then you'll be fine. I'll probably see it in a theater again (without the IMAX premium), but I'm already looking forward to where they take the franchise after this reboot.