5 Songs That Just Came Up on iPod Shuffle

(not to get all "My cat is being mean today," but I needed
something to get back into the posting habit.)

1. "Lily and Parrots," Sun Kil Moon - If I got nothing else out of watching "Shopgirl," it served as a great introduction to Mark Kozolek/Red House Painters/Sun Kil Moon. This is apparently one of the rarer "Get Your Distortion On" tracks, but, damn, it's good. His voice is someting else; plaintive, sometimes weak but very real-sounding.


2. "Inner Space," Chick Corea - A really good album, from (I think) the period just before (or after?) Davis used Chick on "Bitches Brew." It's a lot more traditional, but out there at the same time. I love the recording sound from this era -- clean, but not too polished.


3. "So Hard Done By," Tragically Hip - Another distortion-heavy chug-along, but I love using idle time to try and figure out what Gord's trying to say with his endlessly-quotable lyrics. "It was true cinema a clef / You should see it before there's nothing left / In an epic too small to be tragic / You'll have to wait a minute, 'cause it's an Insta-Matic."


4. "Daysleeper," R.E.M. - This is one of my favorites from them. I like to think of it as a cynical version of "Nightswimming," but with a ridiculously great vocal hook.


5. "Little Brother," Black Star - From an unofficial J Dilla tribute compilation that I found on Soulse ... err, borrowed from a friend. He was patently obsessed with great drum patterns, was behind the scenes on some huge hits (the entire Q-Tip album, Common, The Roots) and knew enough about what sounds good to mix the "Now listen" spoken word clip into this extremely smooth track.

5 Great Things About Robert Wegman

All from his Washington Post obituary:

1. I don't have to pray every Sunday that Timmy Trainee knows the PLU code for scallions or napa cabbage:

   He was a leader in adapting technology to the sale of groceries and helped introduce the Universal Product Code, the identifying computer markings now standard on most packaged goods.

2. His store treats customers like valued guests, not temporarily useful interlopers. That means you don't get the Portal of Unhappiness feeling common at a lot of other "super" stores:

   Each year, Wegmans receives thousands of requests from the public asking the company to open supermarkets in their communities.

3. His first moves after inheriting the business in 1950 were surprisingly atypical:

   He immediately raised the wages of the staff and inaugurated a comprehensive health insurance plan. He broke down the corporate hierarchy so completely that, in one of his first acts, he fired his mother from her position as vice president. She didn't speak to him for three years.

4. His corporate vision was expansive but sensible, and his philanthropy was generous but precise:

   "I always said we didn't want to be the largest," Mr. Wegman once said, "but we did want to be the best."

5. The results speak for themselves:

   In 1994, supermarket analyst Neil Stern told the Wall Street Journal that he considered Rochester-based Wegmans "the best chain in the country, maybe in the world."