Copious Notes

Appreciation: George Carlin

George Carlin performs in 2007 at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colo. Copyrighted Associated Press photo by E. Pablo Kosmicki.

George Carlin's legacy will be as a counter-culture figure who pushed boundaries along with folks like Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor, ushering in an era of topical humor that now finds a home in living rooms across the country with works like The Daily Show.

His essence though, was in tamer skits such as the comparison of football and baseball (the following from Baseball Almanac):

In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.

In baseball the object is to go home!

Or, my personal favorites was A Place for My Stuff, where he observed that your stuff is stuff and other people's stuff is crap (sometimes, he used a different word).

That was Carlin's gift. He was an observer. Jerry Seinfeld was as much a inheritor of of his mantle as Jon Stewart or Bill Maher. Observation is one of the most basic elements of comedy. Carlin observed his life. He observed the world. He observed a lot of crap. And he spun all of that observation into routines that were side-splittingly funny, and he didn't worry a whole lot about who he offended along the way.

Carlin crossed the line on purpose.

Maybe most to his credit, he never stopped doing that. Yes, he mellowed with age. His Thomas the Tank Engine character was his loveliest creation. I remember watching it with one of my children and thinking, as many parents probably did, "I'm watching the guy who did the seven words you can't say on television on a kids show."

But he never took his eye off our world, and boiled it down into routines that would crack you up, make you think, maybe even offend you.

Carlin not only made us laugh, he made us observers, and he changed his art form. That's a legacy few people who pick up a microphone to tell jokes can claim.

Read: The New York Times thorough obituary of George Carlin.

So, are you saying your critics are being bought?

Sometimes commercial campaigns puzzle me. Like, why would cell phone or computer companies think I'd want to buy their brand because their pitchman in a condescending jerk? Why would a soup company think I would be seduced by the idea that their product could turn me into a gurgling zombie?

The current Hotels.com campaign really bugs me.

Now, I like Hotels.com. I have used it to research and to book lodgings on trips and think it's a good service. I've even liked some of their previous commercial campaigns, but the current one . . .

It is probably the first commercial campaign I've seen that highlights the user-reviewer, the citizen critic that is now weighing in on the virtues and pitfalls of virtually every product out there, from hotels to movies to nose-hair removers. Once again, nothing against user reviews. They can be informative for people buying products or services, particularly sight unseen off the Internet. I'll often use them, though in the case of hotels, I usually also check in with professional critics at, say, Frommer's or Fodor's.

The problem with the Hotels.com commercials is the implication that their reviewers are being bought.

In one, a family is checking into a room, and the mom tells the bellman that they picked the hotel based on reviews at hotels.com, and maybe they'd be writing a review. The bellman opens a suitcase full of cash and jewels and says, "I bet you will."

Ha, ha, ha, ha. Hotels want a good review so bad, they'll try to buy you off if you use Hotels.com. Ha, ha.

That was cute, and to any of us who write reviews for a living, it probably reminded us of a time when someone sort of blatantly tried to curry our favor, knowing we were writing reviews -- not that I or anyone I know has been offered a briefcase full of cash and jewels.

But there are a few spots that bug me, because the traveler accepts and encourages the gifts. In one, a man finds a fur bathrobe in his room, and when the bellhop fesses up that it was a bribe and gets ready to take it back, the guest strokes the robe, says he'll let it slide, but don't do it again, especially when he comes back on a specific set of dates. In another one, a man finds two tubes of shampoo, and when his wife says maybe they were trying to butter him up for the review, he shouts, "It's working."

Yes, these are jokes. And maybe I am a little hypersensitive because I am a critic and I don't like to see things that impugn the integrity of that craft.

But the message of these commercials is that the reviewers take and are being influenced by the bribes. Is that really the message Hotels.com wants to send?

Amber Rhodes photo album

Amber Rhodes works with Tiffany Duquette, an intern at Music City News Media and Marketing in Nashville, to resolve issues with her myspace page. Photo by Rich Copley/LexGo. For more photos of Amber, click here.

A few weeks ago, I went on a slightly offbeat assignment, heading down to Nashville to hang out with Lexington's own Amber Rhodes, an aspiring country music artist, for a day. It was a fun and illuminating assignment where I learned about things such "song-plugging" agencies and other mechanics of the country music world I was previously unaware of. You can read the story by clicking here. I also threw together an Amber photo album of pics that ran in the paper and some that didn't, and invite you to check that out, too.

My mp3 player lives!

First up, I have to say thanks to everyone who expressed condolences over the "death" of my mp3 player, which I wrote about Thursday. I think a lot of people identified with that piece because so many of us have inadvertently destroyed a small electronic device somewhere in this gadgety age we live in -- I've heard about a number of cell phones in toilets and other mishaps the past few days.

But all that support and sympathy is what prompts me to write this follow up: IT'S ALIVE!

Thursday, it appeared to be gone daddy gone. For half a day, the computer wouldn't even read its contents when I docked it. It wouldn't even play Taps.

But midday Friday, it started working again, playing complete albums and playlists, letting me surf around and downloading music. For three days, it has worked flawlessly. I even reported the Leeland album review in the post above using it.

So, while I would in no way recommend washing your mp3, cell phone, etc., to see if it survives, if you have accidentally done that, don't give up. There could be hope.

Advice: Don't wash your mp3 player

"I don't know how to tell you this," is never a good way to start a conversation, particularly when it comes from my wife. She's not the type to grimly say, "I don't know how to tell you this," and then scream, "WE JUST WON A MILLION DOLLARS!"

That's my shtick, not hers.

So, when she called me at work Tuesday and said, "I don't know how to tell you this," I knew something had died, been broken, Milli Vanilli reunited, or something like that.

"Do you want me to tell you what I found in the pocket of your pants that were in the washing machine?" she asked.

What?! My mind raced. I hadn't done anything recently that would leave incriminating evidence. Did one of the kids give me something I was supposed to take care of, that now had the consistency of tissue paper? Did I leave a pen in my pocket, thereby creating a tie-dye effect on some clothes but, you know, not in a way that looked groovy?

I couldn't think of anything, so I asked, "What?"

"You know your mp3 player . . . " Kate asked.

"Oh nooooo," I thought.

It was Tuesday. Snow day. I was trying to do some work at home and get some laundry done,  including my thick black corduroy trousers that I had put my player in the night before. But, as I put them in the wash, I probably hadn't felt the mp3 in the pocket because, you know, they're big . . . thick . . . corduroy . . . "Oh nooooo!"

"I've tried everything," she said, "It's not doing anything."

I said, "Thanks for telling me," and hung up.

Last year, I finally joined the mp3 generation. When you're married with two late elementary school kids, your money takes other priorities. I don't go out and buy the latest gadget the way I did when I was the first of my friends to own a CD player and a VCR.

But, when I finally got an mp3, I was serious about it, and not just for fun. Recent playlists include "UKSO Harrell Concert" (Music that's being played on the University of Kentucky Symphony concert, Friday, with cellist Lynn Harrell). Pretty much any story on this blog or in the paper about music in the past several months I've reported using my mp3. I was seriously considering writing it off on my taxes.

So, how was I going to live without it.

Some of this reality TV is pretty good

With his touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress with 35 seconds left in Super Bowl XLII, Eli Manning created great drama sans writers. Copyrighted AP photo by David J. Phillip.

It had compelling characters: A man once the underdog, now the golden boy, versus a new underdog, carrying the weight of family pride. It had a grand goal: perfection, but also a compelling redemption tale. It had drama, a surprise twist at the end, and for once, we are talking about the Super Bowl.

The writers' strike looks like it may actually be coming to an end. But we have to say, the past few weeks, this real reality TV has been pretty darned good.

No, we are not talking Idol, Loser or
The Moment of Truth, which looks like it could be in the running for most morally reprehensible "reality" show of all time. Between some great sports and compelling presidential primaries, this has been a pretty good month for TV, even though many of the major series were on the shelf -- my lovely bride was thrilled to see a new House after the Super Bowl, though that continuous, "drill a hole in her skull," preview made me opt to pass.

But as a sports fan, if my favorite team isn't in the big game, I can still be lured by storylines, and there were a bunch here, like the New England Patriots pursuit of perfection -- culture vultures, did you love that Russell Crowe's pregame narration on perfection invoked great violinists as a comparison? -- the New York Giants return from the dead earlier in the season and Peyton Manning's little brother Eli stepping into the Championship spotlight. And then Eli delivered with his pass to Virginia Beach, Va.'s own Plaxico Burress to with the game in the last minute. Script that.

Earlier in the weekend, a CNN anchor identified herself as more of a commercials and half-time show person when it came to the Super Bowl, and that's often the most interesting thing about the game. But this year, the main event was the main event.

And the news has been pretty interesting too, with a tightening race for the Democratic nomination for
President and an increasingly colorful contest in the Republic party. The Super Bowl came just a few nights after some intriguing debates -- despite what the desperate-for-a-fight pundits tell you, the Democratic debate was quite interesting and substantive -- and two days before a cliffhanger of a Super Tuesday.

We kind of need today as a breather from all this unscripted drama.

Great or favorite?

George, John, Ringo and Paul were undeniably great. Does that mean they're everybody's favorite? Herald-Leader archive photo.

Monday, I was having lunch in Nashville with Amber Rhodes, a Lexington native and School for the Creative and Performing Arts graduate who is now taking a shot at a country music career. The subject was her music and her influences, which brought us to The Beatles.

Amber loves The Beatles. The Fab Four came up numerous times during our chat. And why shouldn't they?

The Beatles were a band that changed popular culture with their fame and subsequently changed the burgeoning genre of rock 'n' roll with their talent and innovation. In my book, there's no denying their greatness.

Does that make them one of my favorites?

Another “B,” Ludwig van Beethoven, redefined the symphony, imbuing it with a new level grandeur, and his uncanny ear for melody and structure made his compositions some of the most beloved and important works in the history of music. Would there have been a Gustav Mahler or Jean Sibelius without Beethoven?

But Sibelius is the one that speaks to my soul. Maybe its the Finnish heritage.

If I was asked to work up a list of favorite classical composers, Beethoven might be in my Top 5. I’m not sure.

The Beatles probably would not be in my personal Top of the Pops, a group led by Jars of Clay, Talking Heads and Paul Simon.

This used to bug me.

It particularly nagged at me when I was in my late college and early career years, and I started to understand what “great” was.

“Remarkable in magnitude, degree, or effectiveness,” Webster’s tells us. “Chief or preeminent over others.”

Jimi Hendrix was great. He redefined playing the guitar, and nary an axeman after him has not felt his influence.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote remarkable music, and particularly in opera, could blend voices in a way few others had or have since, try as they might.

Isn’t there something a little weird about building a list of favorites, which is something I tend to do, as a list sort of person, and not put these artists at the top?

The step after understanding great is understanding favorites.

Open House

One of the frustrations of being an arts and entertainment writer here in Lexington is we are getting more things to cover, but we aren't getting more space to cover them. No, this isn't going to be a whiny post about being part of a dying industry, because I don't believe that's the case.

Gary Pruitt, the president and CEO of the McClatchy Company, the Lexington Herald- Leader's parent company, is dead on when he says that daily newspapers are in a better position than any other media outlet to take advantage of the Internet, and I'm not quoting him just because I have a performance review coming up. He is exactly right, if the papers do it right.

LexGo, is an example of doing it right.

LexGo is our new arts and entertainment website which launches today. It is the result of months, probably a year, of work by the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com's entertainment news and online departments. I can crow about it because very little of what makes it great has to do with me, though I am certainly committed to being part of making LexGo Central Kentucky's most comprehensive and useful outlet for information about arts and entertainment.

Essentially, that's the idea behind LexGo.

Before today's launch I had a chance to surf around Lexgo a bit, and there is a lot to find. Like a great movie or play, it works on several levels.

Late night TV sans writers: Interesting . . .

Conan O'Brien returned to the air sporting his "strike beard" Jan. 2. Copyrighted photo by Dana Edelson, courtesy of NBC. Below: David Letterman returned to his Late Show with writers. Copyrighted photo by John Paul Filo, courtesy of CBS.

After Conan O'Brien finished a bit on his Jan. 3 show in which he spun his wedding ring on his desk, with a producer timing the spin, a woman in the audience shouted, "Again!"

Conan paused and said, "Trust me, there's time to do it again." Sitting back in his chair, he added, "Let's not be in a rush to do it again."

It was one of many moments Conan wung it on his first show back since the start of the strike by the Writer's Guild of America. The strike is not over, so the 12:35 a.m. gabber was on the air without writers, and, as a Guild member unable to do any writing for himself -- his lead in, Jay Leno, apparently interpreted the union rules differently, but more on that in a few graphs. 

So, Conan was out there without a script, finding out how long an hour can be on national television.
Since Conan is a naturally funny guy, he was reasonably (though notably darkly) amusing trying to navigate through a show without the usual trappings.

That was interesting, but for how long?

The return of the late night talk shows yielded varied results:

~ CBS' Late Show with David Letterman bowed with working writers, thanks to a deal Letterman's company worked out with the Writers Guild to come back to work for his show and the follow-up Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

One of Letterman's highlights was a Top 10 list of striking writer's demands, delivered by writers. No. 3 was Law & Order scribe Gina Gionfriddo, who has a new play, Becky Shaw, premiering at this year's Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville. Her demand:  "I'm no accountant, but instead of us getting 4 cents for a $20 dollar DVD, how about we get $20 for a 4-cent DVD?"

There was a lot of self-deprecating humor, like Biff Henderson coming in, well into Letterman's monologue , to ask when the writers would be back. And Letterman even leaned on some things he said he would have done if the writers had not returned. The "Know Your Staff" segment turned out to be a sweet moment where Letterman interviewed an associate producer and showed something a lot of us who cover arts and entertainment already know: most of the people who work in the field are moms and dads, husbands and wives, just like us. Their work just happens to be seen by millions of people.

But overall, Letterman's mood was crabby, and probably moving even closer to the loose spirit of his old NBC show.

Meanwhile, back at the Peacock: On The Tonight Show, Jay Leno followed in the spirit of his predecessor, Johnny Carson, who returned from a 1988 writer's strike penning his own jokes to relatively good reviews. That's got Leno in hot water with the union, which contends members can't even write for themselves on struck productions. It was occasionally painfully obvious Conan was following that rule.

Outside of the controversy, Leno writing for Leno worked to an extent, as he touched on topics including the presidential primaries. Before he was the Tonight Show host, Leno was one of the funniest comedians out there, and there were reminders of that Wednesday and Thursday. But he was also clearly stretching and filling time.

Where Leno and O'Brien may find themselves at the biggest disadvantage is after the monologue, when they go to the couch. The conventional wisdom seems to be stars will be loathe to cross picket lines to appear on struck shows, while Letterman's couch will be safe with the Union label. Jan. 2 was a prime example: Letterman had Robin Williams, Leno had Mike Huckabee.  Leno did win the ratings battle that night, but if this drags on, you have to think Letterman will gain ground with a better written show and more star power.

Funny thing is, while the writers are picketing the NBC shows and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live!, those programs may just be proving how important the writers are.

Merry Christmas

The Courthouse Christmas Tree, photographed by Mark Cornelison for the Lexington Herald-Leader/Kentucky.com.

Copious Notes is going to take a week off, and I hope you and your families get some time to spend together over Christmas week. Thanks so much for reading over the past year. I have a lot of fun writing this blog, and I hope you enjoy reading it.

If you want the latest on what's happening in Lexington, go to Kentucky.com. They've got you covered. And we'll be back Dec. 28 with the first of some year-end lists.

All the best,
Rich

Hannah/Miley: Rupp does not offer babysitting

The Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus show in Charlotte, N.C. Copyrighted photo by Dana Romanoff, The Charlotte Observer.

Midday yesterday, I got a note from Rupp Arena publicist Sheila Kenny that made my hair stand on end:

"We are getting calls from people asking where they can 'drop off' their 7 year olds to see the show.  Carl Hall (arena director) would like to reemphasize that while we strive to provide a safe and welcoming place to attend an event, we are not a daycare and people need to take full responsibility for the safety and well being of their children."

Let's talk parent to parent: I have been to lots of events at Rupp Arena and events the size of the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus concert, which is expected to attract 19,000 people Wednesday night. I would never ever, ever, ever consider sending my 10 year old into an event that size without me, my wife or an adult we trusted. Ever. And she's probably several years away from an age at which I would consider it.

No one at Rupp Arena is paid to be a babysitter or look after your child on a personal basis. They really can't. They have 19,000 people to get in the building, get to their seats and direct to bathrooms, concessions, monitor for security and whatnot. While the demographic is a lot younger than usual, this is still a rock concert, just like Kiss or Backstreet Boys.

So if you "drop off" your kid at Rupp alone, they are truly on their own. Think about it.

Dumb cat and Christmas tree

Chocolate Kitty, enemy of all Christmas trees parked near cuckoo clocks.

No, this will not become a cat blog. But I have to share this slice of life with feline:

For years, I had believed Barbie was the dumber of our two cats. After Tuesday night, I'm not so sure.

Last Christmas, my in-laws gave us a cuckoo clock. It's hanging in the living room about two feet diagonally from a cherry filing cabinet. A constant source of amusement in the household has been how Chocolate, adopted three-and-a-half years ago from the Woodford Humane Society, will leap to the top of the filing cabinet and sit in striking pose uttering a cackling meow at the bird, as it chirps the hour.

Over the weekend, we put up the Christmas tree in the corner between the filing cabinet and the cuckoo clock. It's artificial tree, as a concession to the cats. I love the smell of pine in the house at Christmas. But Barbie, aka Dorky Kitty, will drink from any open source of water, and since we are told the sap in Christmas tree water will kill an animal if they drink it, we decided we needed to go artificial. She might also attempt to eat the branches, as she tries to eat everything else. Despite this, Chocolate is the big girl of the pair. Maybe it's their names.

Anyway, Christmas tree between cabinet and cuckoo clock. At 11 p.m. Tuesday, the bird begins her chirp. Chocolate shoots to the couch and leaps for the filing cabinet.

At this point, my daughter's version and mine diverge:

~ As I saw it, Chocolate hit the filing cabinet too fast and slid off into the tree.

~ Caroline says she saw her stop and, thinking she had a safe perch in the tree, leaped at the birdie with her paws outstretched.

Either way, the tree did not hold.

Down it went in a clatter of ornaments, whoosh of branches, and one loud snap. For a moment, there was no movement under the tree. Then, I lifted it, and Chocolate zipped out from under it and up the stairs. I sent Caroline to ascertain the kitty's condition -- she's fine, thank goodness -- while I tried to sort the tree out. The only casualty, it turned out, was the base of the tree, which was that loud, snapping sound. All the ornaments, even the glass ones, survived.

So the only thing we have to worry about is how to stand the tree up again, and where to put it, because I guarantee we won't put it near the cuckoo clock again.

I work with an extremely brave woman

Read this post from Jamie G.

Rounding third and heading for home . . .

The greatest pleasure of following the Cincinnati Reds since I moved here was listening to Joe Nuxhall on the Reds' radio broadcasts. Sad to report the Old Left-hander made his final trip home last night.

Neat and nourishing

Check out FreeRice.com, and thanks to Soho the Dog for telling us about it.

Hannah Montana sets Rupp Arena record . . . sorta

All the moms and dads in line, online and dialing up for tickets to the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus concert at Rupp Arena Saturday set a record, sort of.

The concert does indeed now hold the record as the quickest sell-out in the arena's history, with all seats gone in 12 minutes. That would snap the previous record, 27 minutes for the Nov. 27, 1999 Backstreet Boys show. But Rupp officials caution this is an apples and oranges comparison.

~ Backstreet Boys sold 20,000 seats, while Hannah/Miley only had 6,800 seats on the block Saturday morning.

~ Another 5,200 went to fans at Mileyworld.com, who paid a club membership price and got their seats in an Internet  presale. In total, with 2,000 seats claimed by other parties, the Hannah Montana concert is currently set for 14,000 seats. There is a possibility more tickets will be added for this concert.

So, this show wasn't exactly playing on the same field with BSB, though a 12-minute sellout is impressive, and seeing record setting sell outs in this day and age is not surprising.

"Obviously, the advent of the internet has caused concerts that are going to sell out, to sell out much more quickly," Lexington Center spokesperson Sheila Kenny said.

For those of you who are not effected by this demographic, Hannah Montana is a Disney Channel series about a girl, Cyrus, who is an average middle school girl by day. But at night, she dons a blonde wig and becomes teen pop icon Hannah Montana. A lot of the comedy takes place at home where Miley's real-life father, Flatwoods-native Billy Ray Cyrus, plays her one-time rock-star dad. At the concert, she will apparently perform as Hannah and as Miley.

Meadowbrook Golf Course is a Lexington jewel

Tommy Withers, 13, tees off at  Meadowbrook on Aug. 31. Copyrighted photo by Mark Cornelison.

I'm going to go off topic for a moment because this morning's paper had a story that touched a nerve with me.

One of the first jewels of Lexington I discovered after moving here nine years ago was Meadowbrook Golf Course. It may not look like much to folks used to playing perfectly coiffed links that cost well into three-figures to get on. But for a middle class weekend duffer, particularly one with kids who are interested in the game, it is heavenly: a little Par 3 track with fairly forgiving greens where families can go to play and have fun. And there've been numerous times my son and I have gotten out of there for just $10 and the price of a Snickers Bar after the round. Like I said, it ain't Valhalla, but it's great family recreation.

So, it's kind of a shame to read that Meadowbrook is in danger of closing. According to Michelle Ku's story in this morning's paper, the course is caught in a sort of economic limbo between the city and the school board. It's understandable that neither entity wants to take on the expense of a course that apparently loses five-figures each year. But it would be hard to understand letting a place like Meadowbrook, that encourages recreation and family togetherness, go. I think many of us wouldn't mind paying a somewhat higher greens fee, if needed.

One comment in the story that struck me was from councilwoman Linda Gorton who said she didn't realize how much Meadowbrook meant to people until they started sending her e-mails and calling her to oppose closing the course. It doesn't sound so much like any malevolent force wants to shut down the course as much as maybe city and school leaders are not aware of what Meadowbrook means to a lot of us and our quality of life in Lexington. So, if Meadowbrook has been special to you, maybe it's time to let your council person or the school board know.

Also, it seems like a good time to get out and play a few more rounds at Meadowbrook.

Making a Top 10 list isn't as easy as 1-2-3

Last Sunday, Cheryl Truman ran a series of Top 10 books lists from Herald-Leader staffers, including moi. When asked for a Top 10 list, my initial thought was, "Have I read 10 books?" But then, as I started to work on my list, I found I had indeed read many, many books and I liked a lot of them . . . a lot more than 10. My desk is on a row with Jamie Gumbrecht, Amy Wilson, Cheryl and Jerry Tipton, and for several weeks, the running jokes were how many books we were juggling and how many times we revised our lists. I know Amy was redoing her's daily.

Anyway, if you are in this arts and entertainment writing gig, you are no stranger to Top 10 lists. We tend to write them a lot. Annually, I do a list of Top 10 movies of the year and Top 10 contemporary Christian music albums. This summer, Herald-Leader A&E editor Scott Shive has been batting us different themes for the Summer Playlists in our Weekender section. That's not exactly your typical Top 10 experience, but it's a similar idea.

Building a list always starts the same. There are a few obvious ones that leap to mind, and No. 1 has usually been there a while. In fact, the Top 3 to 5 are often pretty obvious. They're the ones that most deeply impacted you. You go back to them frequently and treasure them. That was even more true when it came to a list of all time favorite books. Before going on, here's my list:

1. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

2. Crime and Punishment by Fydor Dostoyevsky

3. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

4. The Good War by Studs Terkel

5. The Kingdom and the Power by Gay Talese

6. Darkness Visible by William Styron

7. Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

8. The Good Times by Russell Baker

9. Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand

10. Like Judgment Day: The Ruin and Redemption of a Town Called Rosewood by Michael D'Orso

Catcher, Crime and Narnia have been 1, 2 and 3 forever for me. Catcher was the first book I remember truly connecting with the protagonist, Crime was exceptionally powerful and the Narnia books helped  me understand my faith beyond Jesus Loves Me and do's and dont's.  Solid Top 3. Nothing was changing them. And The Good War and Kingdom and the Power were also obvious choices, as I've always admired Terkel's interviewing and Talese's writing, and those were my favorites of theirs -- really, the books that turned me on to them. But the bottom five was more a process of weeding through a stack of books, reading passages, writing lists, scratching off entries and psychoanalyzing myself. I'd look at some books and say, "Was this for a time, or for all time?" which may be why baseball books and rock 'n' roll biographies didn't make the list for me, though I love both genres -- my favorite baseball book would have probably been Roger Kahn's Boys of Summer, which topped both Jerry Tipton and Mark Story's lists. It also complicated things that I went home while compiling my list. There, I found forgotten favorites on mom's bookshelves.

I do have to give some credit here: One of the things that struck me looking at my final list was my mother's influence. Five out of the Top 10 were given to me or at least suggested to me by her, including No. 1. Being an English major from (shhhhh) Duke, she has an incredible love of literature, and the list was a testament that she conveyed that love to at least one of her children. Hmm. Now I'm interested in what my sister's Top 10 books are.

Anyway, finishing off that bottom five inevitably, like with any Top 10 list,  meant letting a few beloved authors or titles slip away -- au revoir F. Scott Fitzgerald, A.A. Milne, David Halberstam, Lewis Grizzard, Garrison Keillor, Randy Shilts, Margaret Wise Brown, Eric Carle, etc. Love your work.

And it is work to put the list together, but also a lot of fun. What's it all for? I don't know. For me, a lot of lists I do usually contain a few things I hope people will seek out. For instance, a few weeks ago, our summer playlist was songs about work, and I included two songs by Stan Ridgway, an artist who has never been a top seller but I have always loved for his sardonic, cinematic style. I would love it if someone sampled him because they saw his name on that list. And I take cues from lists. The fact that Jamie and Scott both put Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex on their lists tells me I need to read it.

The book list was also a bigger task because it was an all-time list, not just 12 months or a specific subject. I can't imagine what putting together a Top 10 movies or albums list would be like. But I also would probably revel in working them up.

Ali turns the tables on me

One of my favorite Lexington bloggers, Alison Kerr who writes  AliThinks, recently made an offer I couldn't refuse: To be interviewed by her.

It was part of an Interview meme. As Ali (photo, right, by Ali) explains it, "A meme in the blogosphere is a 'thing' (for lack of a better word) that spreads from one blog to another. It can be an interview, or a series of questions. The person who does the meme 'tags' other people to participate." Ali recently participated in an interview meme, and at the bottom of the post offered to interview others, according to some rules, which you'll see at the bottom of this post. I replied, "I'll bite,"  partially in celebration of Copious Notes' first anniversary -- yay, I made it this far -- but mostly  because I was really curious what Ali would ask. So, here are her questions and my answers:

1) You're a columnist at the Lexington Herald-Leader. What's your favorite part of the job? 

The places I go and the people I meet. Before Lexington, I was an editor at the Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald, and I liked that job -- LOVED being in R.E.M.'s hometown. But I really missed getting to go out and have the experiences, do the interviews and write the stories. So now, I've been back on the beat for nine years and have no desire to go back to desk work.

Ali, you'd appreciate this: My favorite day on the job was in 1999 when I got to take Marvin Smith to the Speed Museum in Louisville to see the retrospective of photos he and his brother Morgan took documenting the Harlem Renaissance. (John Sommers II's photo, above, is of Smith on that day, looking at a portrait of himself and his brother.) Contemplating this blows me away: They grew up in Nicholasville and Lexington, experiencing the same racism all black people in the early 20th Century endured. They moved away, did important work, and half a century later, they were being celebrated at the premier museum in their home state. The great thing about this job is being privy to moments like that. If you do not have the University Press of Kentucky's book of their photos, Harlem: The Vision of Morgan and Marvin Smith, I highly recommend it.

2) What do you love most about Lexington? 

There are a lot of towns and areas this size. Few have the international calling cards of the Bluegrass: the horses, the natural beauty, UK, the spirits. Anywhere I go in the country, people have some point of identity with the Bluegrass, which reaffirms we are  living somewhere special. That, and anytime I start heading out of town, say toward Paris, I am restruck with just how gorgeous this place is. (David Stephenson's copyrighted photo, left, is of tourists stopping to take photos along Paris Pike.)

Also, I grew up in the Norfolk-Virginia Beach, Va. area, a metro area roughly the size of Atlanta, and married a small town girl. Lexington is sort of a perfect middle ground for us, not too little for me or too big for her. I came her nearly 10 years ago thinking this would be a three-to-five year gig. Coming up on a decade, I have no desire to leave.

3) Part of your beat is faith-based pop culture, such as new music releases and the Ichthus Festival. How does your own faith affect said columns?

I think it effects those stories and columns the same way, say, a political writer's interest in politics impacts his or her work, the way a sports writer applies love of the game to his or her writing. It's indicative of a healthy interest, but the stories and columns are about the subjects we are covering, not us and not our opinions.

The intersection of faith and popular culture fascinates me to no end, and that drives a lot of what I write, as well as a love for the music. I grew listening to contemporary Christian music and have been fascinated to watch it grow. Some aspects of the growth have been good, some bad. It's interesting to learn and write about new trends and issues like, why numerous well-know Christian market musicians are opting for distribution-only deals rather than submit to creative control of a label.

Most contemporary Christian music operates on pretty basic tenets of Christian faith, so it's not like my own faith comes into conflict with much of what I hear. There are occasions I don't agree with what I hear, but I really wouldn't call out lyrical content unless someone was promoting a heinous act in the name of Christ. I am a social justice Christian who believes that one of the most basic aspects of Jesus Christ's ministry was reaching out to the poor and the outcast. So in my own listening, I may gravitate to acts like Jars of Clay (photo, above, from Ichthus this year) or Derek Webb, who have particularly strong social justice messages. But basically, I am writing about music that really interests me, probably because of my faith, but that's not what the stories are about.

4) Reese Witherspoon or Laura Bell Bundy? 

Ali, are you trying to get me in trouble? I'm going to declare apples and oranges here. Reese is a fine film actor and Laura Bell (copyrighted photo by Aaron Lee Fineman, right) is a superb musical theater and comedic actor, with potential for a tremendous stage and screen career. And did we mention her recording career? I did not fully appreciate Laura's talent until I saw Legally Blonde on Broadway. Anyone who doubts her chops needs to see that show, and hopefully she'll soon be cast in a film or TV show where folks everywhere will see her full range.

I like Reese (Knight-Ridder photo, right), but have to confess I am not as sold as seemingly the rest of the free world. When the Blonde musical opened, some New York theater scribes were speaking of Reese like she was Kate  Hepburn or something. I don't see it.

5) You were "[r]aised by opera-loving parents in a rock 'n' roll world." If you could be any rock star, who would you be? 

As a child of the 1980s, I certainly admire guys who could command a crowd like R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe and U2's Bono. Bono, in particular, has used his fame in amazing ways to help people far, far less fortunate than him. But I cannot see myself as either of those guys -- far more expressive and charismatic than I.

The guys I tend to look at and say, "I could see me up there," are lower-key gents, like Neil Finn of Crowded House (In the photo to the left, that's, L-R, Neil, Nick Seymour and the late Paul Hester) or Glenn Tilbrook  of Squeeze. Not only would I love to have their onstage personas, but I'd love to have their songwriting talent. I write for a living, but couldn't write a song to save my life. I've tried. It must be amazing to have penned Black Coffee in Bed, Better Be Home Soon, or one of those gems. Anyone got the guitar chords for those? I would also mention Bryan Ferry, but none of us will ever be as smooth and stylish as Bryan Ferry.

That was weird, Ali, but fun. Thanks for the great questions. I'm so used to being the questioner, and that brings us back to Ali's ground rules. Here they are:

If you'd like to play, ask me to interview you in the comments. 

Interview rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions. 
3. You will update your blog (so, you've gotta have a blog) with a post containing your the answers to the  questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Addendum:

~ Kevin took the bait. See what he had to say.

If we expect better, maybe we'll actually get better

My Sunday column appears in the Arts+Life section of the Lexington Herald-Leader. Usually, it is about the arts, but occasionally it leans on the life side of things, like this one that appeared last Sunday, Aug. 5:

Monday afternoon I set out on foot from the Herald-Leader offices for the Starbucks at Main and Broadway, hoping to hop on a yellow bike along the way to shorten the trip.

The bikes are part of the downtown program in which users buy a key for $10 that allows them to unlock any of a fleet of about 80 yellow bikes in the downtown area to ride from point A to point B -- sort of self-piloted public transportation. (Copyrighted photo of a yellow bike, right, by Charles Bertram.)

Because I circulate in downtown a lot, I loved the idea.

Since the first few days of the program, the bikes have never seemed plentiful on the streets. But on this day, in a walk along Main from Midland Avenue to Broadway, then back on Short Street, I did not see a single yellow bike. Out of 80-something, not one was on these main drags in downtown.

So I had to walk, which left me time to think. My thoughts quickly traveled to the naysayers when the program started who said the bikes would all be stolen eventually. Had that happened?

But then I wondered: When did we become a society of such low expectations?

Many of the yellow bike detractors seemed to treat it as a fait accompli that these bikes would be stolen. Now, they say they're being realistic. That's how people are. We lock our doors for a reason.

I understand that. But I also think that when we assume people will act on their baser instincts, we're letting them off the hook. If someone is inclined to steal a bike, and they've heard the chatter, it makes it easier to say, "Why not? Everybody knew these were going to be stolen anyway."

Maybe, as our former freelance movie critic Matthew Towner once said, I just forgot to take my cynical pills. But we let a lot of people off the hook, from our neighbors to lofty elected officials, by not expecting much of them.

What if we thought like this:

~ I expect that if someone signs up for a program in which users share a piece of property, they will use it according to the rules and not steal or co-opt the item for extended periods.

~ I expect that employees who deal with customers, such as cashiers and salespeople, will treat me and others with courtesy, respect and undivided attention when it is our turn to deal with them.

~ I expect people who drive motor vehicles to obey the rules of the road, be aware of their surroundings and cooperate for the smoothest flow of traffic possible.

~ I expect people who have children to love them, pay attention to them and raise them to be good people.

~ I expect that if my number is on a no-call list, you will not have your phone solicitors call me anyway.

~ I expect highly paid athletes, movie stars, musicians, etc. to realize they are role models and therefore to play by the rules and obey the law.

~ I expect that if I vote for you, you will listen to me and my fellow voters more than the corporate toadies who are trying to buy your ear, and I expect you to work for the greater good. Oh, yeah, obey the law, too.

~ I expect corporations to serve the almighty customer as well as the almighty dollar.

~ I expect that if you profess a faith based on love, compassion and mercy, you will live a life that demonstrates love, compassion and mercy.

Call me naive, but bad behavior should not be par for the course, though these days, it seems to be.

Lowering our expectations opens a trap door to the lowest common denominator, and I want more from my world.

Yellow Bike update: Since the Monday walk described above, I have been on two other walks where I looked for Yellow Bikes but could not find them. That said, the Yellow Bike folks sent an e-mail out to users, revising the policies for use of the Yellow Bikes. They included setting a boundary between Maxwell and Third streets and Newtown Pike to Midland Avenue (personally, I wish they'd dial it back to Ashland Avenue so I can ride them to Starbucks). They also asked users to be alert for people making off with bikes and report them, and to bring bikes outside the boundaries back in. We'll see how it goes. I have high expectations.

The checkout line will never be the same

I'm so bummed to learn the Weekly World News is folding. How will I pick a candidate in the 2008 election, learn the latest whereabouts of Bat Boy or get the truth about the undead attacking our troops in Iraq? Though I work in the mainstream media, I trusted the WWN to keep me up to date on Sasquatch. I even bought a few issues over the years, starting in 1992 with the classic, "ALIEN BACKS CLINTON!" headline. The New York Times won't be going after these stories.

Alas, not all is lost. The WWN online edition will continue -- and I am highly amused that there's an Ann Coulter ad on the front page. But in the checkout lane, it looks like we're stuck with Paris and Britney.

Advance 'Potter' reviews are fine, spoilers aren't

Book Cellar employee and Harry Potter fanatic Kimberly Price, 21, hugs a shipment of boxes containing the final Harry Potter book in the back room of the store at the Crossings Mall in Tannersville, PA. Photo for the Pocono Record by Mark A. Genito.

Well, The New York Times and Baltimore Sun whacked hornets nests yesterday when they ran reviews of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows two days before the book's release. The way some readers and even Huffington Post blogger Rachel Sklar reacted, you would have thought the papers gave away the exact  coordinates of a team of elite military troops closing in on Osama bin Laden.

"How on earth could you run a review of the last Harry Potter?" Sklar wrote of the Times review. "To do so, you had to break an industry-wide embargo — and not just any embargo, an embargo that is almost tantamount to a public trust at this point, given the worldwide hype about Harry Potter and the excitement and intense emotion generated by — finally — the end to this epic series."

Readers at the Baltimore paper's website weighed in with comments like, " I don't see how a respectable newspaper would print a review of a book that has not been legally released," and "Printing the review early is just a cheap way to sell papers."

Personally, I am as impressed with The Times and the Sun as Miranda Priestly was when Andy Sachs delivered two copies of an unpublished Potter book in The Devil Wears Prada. To the best of anyone's knowledge, Scholastic and British counterpart Bloomsbury didn't send out any advance copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for review, as the publishers do with most books. Even Entertainment Weekly columnist and best-selling author Stephen King lamented that he had not received an advance copy of the final edition of the Potter saga.

The Sun says it received its copy through a staffer's friend's housekeeper's second cousin's child's girlfriend's dog, or something like that, who received one of the accidental-early mail-order shipments that sent Scholastic into orbit. The Times claims it bought its copy at a bookstore in New York -- H.G. Wells' Booksellers? -- that mysteriously already had a copy. However they got it, bravo, you obtained one of the most fiercely guarded tomes in history and got a review out before anyone else. That's called a scoop.

Now, I do take issue with one aspect of Mary Carole McCauley's Sun review, in that her last two graphs divulge an important outcome of the story, and seem to confirm that the online photos of the epilogue that are running around the internet are real. Critics that spoil the ending of a book, film or other artwork drive me as crazy as they drive you. Granted, sometimes it can be hard to express an opinion about a work without relaying the end. Divulging what she does essentially makes McCauley's point in an insightful and enlightening review. But we, as critics, are paid to practice a craft and should strive to find ways to write around those problems, without ruining things for our readers.

For some people, the Times review, which is published in the Weekender section of today's Herald-Leader, may give away an unnecessarily large number of details, though it divulges no outcomes.

But neither review ruins it for me, or makes me any less excited to go out tonight to get my copy. If anything, they pique my interest. They are part of the ramp up -- along with learning the name of the book, seeing the cover art and catching the latest movie -- of excitement for the book (both reviews recommend it). If you don't want to know anything before you crack the cover, you simply don't read the review. That's one reason we writers appreciate people who read our stuff: you don't have to.

Now, as for the "embargo" Sklar speaks of -- and I am going to assume she was overwhelmed by Potter passion and that she really doesn't know as little about journalism as her post suggests: As critics, we deal with embargoes regularly. Most movies that we see in advance screenings are shown to us with the understanding that we will not publish a review until opening day. Other material like books and CDs often come with similar embargoes.

But in those cases, we are receiving an advance look or listen so that we can provide a timely review, and part of the deal is, don't drop the review until such-and-such date. But no such thing happened with Harry Potter. Sure, Scholastic asked, but they provided nothing. The Times and Sun obtained their copies of Potter independent of Scholastic, therefore, no agreement was breached. The journalists were simply enterprising in obtaining information -- I'd really like to know how the Sun got the early recipient to give up his or her copy. No laws were broken. These journalists did not don black masks and break into bookstores to get their copies.

It was a bit disturbing to see the "You should have followed Scholastic's orders," tone of some of these responses. Geeze, if journalists followed every hollow command of "don't print that," we would not have most of the important news stories in history.

I'm not equating getting the scoop on the final Potter with Watergate, but I am saying folks need to lay off The Times and the Sun, who just did their jobs really well, and except for those two graphs in the Sun review, didn't ruin anything. No one in the legit media, as I could gather, was doing anything malicious, like the guys who printed up the "Dumbledore dies on page . . . " T-shirts when Half-Blood Prince came out.

And for the record, I do hope there are elite military troops closing in on Osama, but I don't want to know about that until the deal is done.

Potter reading:

~ OK, I didn't put hotlinks to the reviews above, but if you want to read them, knowing there may be some spoilers, here's The Times' and here's the Sun's. The Sun's review includes video of McCauley discussing the book and the review.

~ Jamie Gumbrecht wrote a great piece on death in children's literature for Thursday's paper.

~ Heather Chapman's Muggle Tongue blog is rolling along, and will shift into overdrive this weekend.

It's good to be home . . .

I just returned from a little over a week of R&R at my in-laws' farm in Harlem. Ga., and found a number of pleasant surprises in the Herald-Leader and at Kentucky.com when I returned:

~ The Muggle Tongue, penned by my favorite self-proclaimed Harry Potter geek, Heather Chapman, is in business. And the blog is getting a lot of  action. Reading the comments, I was starting to wonder whether all of the theorizing about The Deathly Hallows was going to actually take longer to read than The Deathly Hallows.

~ Sharon Thompson's Flavors of Kentucky blog is also open. Sharon, as those of you in CKY know, is the Herald-Leader's food writer, and she just dropped a great new cookbook, Flavors of Kentucky, last fall. It's full of things I want to try to make or heavily encourage my wife to make. Sharon's site might just add to my bride's personal torment.

~ Our entertainment editor, Scott Shive, put to together a great, youth-geared front page of Arts + Life today in the Gutenberg edition of the H-L. In addition to an AP feature on the Potter film trio -- Daniel, Emma and Rupert -- there was Jamie Gumbrecht's piece on Lexington native Farah Fath and her latest