When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

12.28.2007
To Hell With 2007

Here’s my nutshell free-verse Giants year in review. I’m working on the interpretive dance with help from these guys.

126 million Scott Boras fans can’t be wrong lavish me with veteran Robeskolina savvy

Enchantment!

Home Run Derby Vs. Party Like an All-Star, Adios, Shooter, the new new promise of Youth and Speed but still Cain’t Buy a Win

Seven fifty six! Seven fifty six! Seven fif… Indictment.

Oh, winter meetings, Nashville, Ville of Gnashing Teeth, as Prince Sabeslet, sicklied o’er with pale cast of thought, considers, ponders, deliberates…but with wise counsel pulls back from The Trade. More Fu, please.

Deal of the year? Well, well, well…

***

SMALL PRINT UPDATE:

Now reading Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I’m only a few pages into it, but I’m experiencing deja Fu, er, vu — didn’t I recently read a novel narrated by a precocious/autistic child who sets out to solve the mysteries of the dark adult heart? Why yes, I did.

Now listening to Mongo Santamaria’s Our Man in Havana. You want Afro-Cuban? This has both. It’s actually two records in one: one more Cuban, with a big band that knocks out one pre-revolution dance-hall groove after another; one more Afro, with call-and-response numbers stripped down to hypnotic vocals and frenetic percussion. Fabulous stuff.

Let’s not talk baseball for now. What was your favorite reading or listening moment of the year?



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[December 28, 2007 3:45 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Elbo said

Favorite musical moments of 2007:

-Ted Leo hitting the ground running with "Little Dawn" (GAMH)

-Matt Ward's curly right thumb leading the way through a solo performance of "Chinese Translation" (Bimbo's)

-Glenn Kotche and Nels Cline's Midwestern thunderstorms blowing through Wilco's "Via Chicago" (Greek Theater, Berkeley)

-Carl Newman's new wife standing next to me, hugging her girlfriends and weeping as The New Pornographers played "Go Places," a song with her name in it (Warfield)

Favorite album of the year is Joe Henry's 'Civilians,' although I probably played 'Challengers' more.

[December 28, 2007 4:29 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Ben said

I read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close a few months back, great book.

You should also check out Foer's Everything is Illuminated. The movie with Elijah Wood is also really well done.