The Verve: Review

The Verve broke up in 1999 but reunited recently. The product of the repaired relationship is a new album, Fourth.
The band's known for long instrumental passages and their tracks seem unusually long. They are, indeed, very long in this album. Most of the tracks approach the 7-minute mark. Songs to give a change to are: Love is Noise and Valium Skies.
Valium Skies is incredibly well-paced and strong melodically. It's also the shortest song in the album.
All in all, an album worth having.

graph per myspace

Good Idea to Pay Library Fines

Via MR.
Pay those library fines folks. Otherwise....

"A US woman has been arrested and handcuffed for failing to pay fines for two overdue library books.

Heidi Dalibor, of Grafton, Wisconsin, is the first to admit that she ignored calls and letters from her local library.

She also admits that she ignored a notice to appear in municipal court or pay the fine, reports the News Graphic.

But the last thing she expected was a knock on her door by Grafton police."

Read it all here.

Best Phrase of the Day

Tip of the hat to the #1 on the speed dial for coining 'Economics of Virtue.'

Bicycle Thief

No, this is not a post on the Italian film Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves, 1948)
directed by Vittorio De Sica.
This comes from Toronto.
One of the main reasons why I like Toronto is how well the city caters to bikers. Alas, the story the Times reports on today is not about Toronto's nice bike paths. It's about Toronto's biggest bicycle thief and his bicycle operation. What a story!

"The jumbled collection of bicycles suggests that Mr. Kenk is the unofficial world champion of bicycle thieves. But as he awaits trial next month on 58 charges related to theft and drug possession, the biggest mysteries of all are Mr. Kenk’s motives and his ultimate plan for the armada of steel, rubber and aluminum he amassed.

“He’s easily the most hated man in Toronto,” said Alex Jansen, a filmmaker who has been working on a documentary about Mr. Kenk for more than a year as part of a study of his rundown neighborhood’s transition to hipsterdom. “But I just found that it’s not as black and white as I originally thought.”

graph per ny times

Heir to Kafka Papers

Just before his death, Kafka expressed his desire to have his writing burned. His friend, Max Brod, refused to acquiesce to his request. The rest is history.
Here's an interesting feature from the Times.
"Asked if the Kafka papers remained in the apartment, she scoffed, “Do you think we are so stupid?”
Implying that the valuable documents had been stored somewhere safe, Ms. Hoffe then described a sense of being pressured from all directions, especially the state of Israel, to yield the papers or come to a decision on their future. She felt under siege, caught in a web, she added.
Her blue eyes yielding no hint of irony, she said, “It is truly Kafkaesque.”

graph per ny times