In the wake of Thursday's blog meetup, I must clarify.
circadian adj 1: of or relating to biological processes occurring at 24-hour intervals; "circadian rhythms" 2: (biology) exhibiting 24-hour periodicity-- courtesy of Dictionary.com
And the word is pronounced "sir-cay-dee-un"; I've been mistakenly saying "kir-kay-dee-un" because that's the way my doctor says it. He introduced me to the term "circadian shift" when my sleep cycles were seriously out of whack and I wound up in a sleep lab to be tested for a sleep disorder. (Nothing definite turned up in the tests, BTW.) My doc's a smart guy, but English is his second language, so perhaps I shouldn't be taking my cues in pronunciation from him.
Paramecium Parachute has a post which tangentially discusses a visit to Detroit and the complete and utter decline the city has fallen into. Reminds me of a neat site I've been to called The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit.
It is stunning, the number of really nice buildings that have been abandonned and are in decay or have been demolished. There's really nothing in Canada that compares to this phenomenon, I don't think.
(And Greg, I tried to post a comment on your site, but the commenting function seems to be screwy.)
Via this blog, I've run across a list of One Hundred Albums You Should Remove from Your Collection Immediately. Quote:
The entries on this list fall roughly into three categories:
- Critically bullet-proof artifacts whose weighty presence on the shelf is complimented perfectly by their perpetual absence from the CD player. Critic-mandated vanity archives should be bundled up and spirited off to the used record store under the cover of night.
- Albums by new artists that have only their newness and the marketing efforts of music conglomerates to recommend them. Almost invariably, these recordings pale in comparison to those of the artists they imitate. Alternately, new albums by established artists that are slavishly hailed as the big comeback get high points with us. Like nature hates a vacuum, Jaguaro despises the Next Big Thing.
- Nostalgic favorites that maintain their place by tradition and neglect more than actual merit. These are the CDs people never get rid of because they may want to play them some time in the indefinite future (certainly not now).
Alas, most of my offending disks fall into category 3. Of the list of albums to junk, I own the following:
- Nirvana - Nevermind
- Miles Davis - Bitches Brew -- OK, I'll admit it, this is not an easy album to listen to; I bought it for just one track, "Spanish Key", and that's pretty much the only one I ever play
- Oasis - What's the Story, Morning Glory? -- isn't this one too easy a target for the list?; we all know that it was the fastest selling album in Britain when it came out, and then became the most common album in secondhand stores a few months later
- Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole -- you'll have to pry this one out of my cold dead fingers
- Dave Brubeck - Take Five -- ditto
- Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas -- this was the last vinyl record that I ever bought new; if anything, I'd replace it with the CD
- Green Day - Dookie
- Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon; but what else will I listen to when I'm depressed? -- at least there's still....
- Sarah McLachlan - Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and Surfacing -- yep, I got 'em both; Fumbling... is an excellent record to wallow in if I'm feeling sorry for myself, so I guess Surfacing would be the one to go
- U2 - War -- have it on vinyl; was the last U2 album I liked before Achtung Baby came out; I haven't liked any U2 album after Achtung Baby, either
- The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band -- another one that I've got on vinyl; it's OK, but I agree that it's over-rated; I liked Revolver so much better
The list has some good candidates for the discard pile (Stereolab, Violent Femmes), but what I want to know is why nothing by Esquivel is on the list. I'm guilty in this regard -- I bought Space Age Bachelor Pad Music for its cool factor, but I only ended up liking two songs. At least I was never suckered into buying Combat Rock. So there.