With the release of the latest tome in his oeuvre, Together Through Life, Bob Dylan continues to carve out a legacy with what feels like to me the fourth part of a trilogy that began with 1997’s Time Out of Mind. Together Through Life is a record tacked on at the end of a career. Or at least, that’s what I thought, until I really began to listen.

When “Love and Theft” was released (auspiciously on September 11, 2001) most critics considered it a sequel to Time Out of Mind. Likewise, Modern Times was heralded as number three in that line upon its release in 2006. This morning, however, I listened to all four records in succession, and one thing became immediately apparent: Time Out of Mind is a true masterpiece that should be set apart from these other latter-day Dylan works.

Time Out of Mind was a Daniel Lanois production, and it shows. These songs sound wholly original and purely Dylan. Even when using standard forms, the production is so original, and the lyrical content so rich, that any measure of the derivative is utterly hidden. The listener can do nothing but hone in on Dylan’s aged voice as he sings 11 tracks of desolation for just shy of 73 minutes. There is no doubt in my mind that this album is worthy of the title “Best Since Blood” and maybe even “Best.”

Over nearly 50 years of recording, Dylan’s sidemen have changed, and so have his producers. His three most recent albums have been produced by “Jack Frost,” Dylan’s not-so-clever nom de plume.

“Love and Theft”, the first of the Jack Frost productions, was released to much acclaim in 2001 and deservedly so. It is a worthy successor, a fine follow-up to Time Out of Mind. Here, original sounding arrangements (I’m looking mostly at “Floater” and “Sugar Baby”) were mixed with more standard sounding blues (“Cry A While” which is a Mississippi Sheiks rip-off) and swing (“Summer Days”). Dylan’s lyrics are, on the whole, more playful, more reminiscent of his earlier days in some ways. In large part, his words are stolen images from other authors and works — a quilt of Dylan’s steel-trap brain that was brilliantly pieced together. While “Love and Theft” shows some of the musical originality of Time Out of Mind, it still has, on the whole, a derivative sound. We can chalk that up to its title, right?

Of the four records in question, 2006’s Modern Times is the least interesting. Outside of some positively brilliant moments (“Workingman’s Blues #2″, “Nettie Moore” and “Ain’t Talkin’”) there is little on this album that really captures my heart musically. The three tracks just mentioned have that originality in them that, like the majority of Time Out of Mind and much of “Love and Theft”, forces the listener to focus in on the pathos that drips from Dylan’s ravaged vocals. The register achieved in these songs allows his vocals to shine in spite of their diminishing skills. The rest of the album, for the most part, is a bit “throw-away” to me. Musically, the tracks are far less interesting than its predecessors. Even more of the standard blues and rock forms have overtly infiltrated the sound.

So, for the first three records of this dozen year swing, we see a Dylan who, as he has become more and more in control of the material, has moved from wholly original sounding productions to increasingly standard sounding forms. If you attempted to graph this, I think you would find this to be the trend.

Now we come to the newest sound, Together Through Life. To my ears this sounds like a tribute to Chicago blues with some accordion thrown on top (especially “Jolene”). All-in-all it’s a bizarre sound to my ear. That’s a good thing. Some of these arrangements are positively wonderful.

“Life Is Hard”, for example, stands out in my mind. This slow piece, laced with mandolin, lopes along, almost dragging the listener through 60+ years of confusion, experience, and wisdom. Dylan’s voice strains to hit the harder notes, but we hang right there with him, knowing that the rhythm will eventually pull him back into a more comfortable register. Dylan has taken elements of the blues and put them into this French border cafe sound — hitting these wailing, bluesy notes but bringing us back to resolution. Painfully dissonant and agonizingly beautiful. The most brilliant moment on the track, however, is Dylan’s hum prior to his last repetition of the refrain. It’s thoughtful; it serves a purpose. Like life, this listen is hard but rewarding.

The stripped down blues of “My Wife’s Hometown” with its little accordion hits accenting each line is also an enjoyable listen. Dylan’s wry wit, of course, shines through on the refrain: “I just want to say that Hell’s my wife’s hometown.” The rambling accordion solo is the joyful ghost of the lost organ swells from the New York version of “Idiot Wind” — now the singer is looking back not with a scowl, but with a smirk. Dylan even punctuates the final moments of the song with a few chuckles as if to say: “What can ya do?”

The only track on this record that is patently not good is “If You Ever Go To Houston.” When I originally saw the track list, I was excited about this song because I’m a Houstonian. However, like “Spirit On the Water” and “Beyond the Horizon” from Modern Times, I just get bored and even annoyed as I listen to it. I’d rather skip to the next track “Forgetful Heart” which has some nice moments.

So, how do these four albums come together? As I mentioned earlier, Time Out of Mind stands out and stands alone. The other three records feel like they are related insofar as they rely on various musical genres to bring them home. The bookend volumes are the better of three, while Modern Times feels comparatively weak. If not for Dylan’s ever deteriorating voice, you could probably package those three together and sell them as a triple album.

The question for me is this: Where does he go from here? Does Dylan continue to experiment with the musical forms that he knows and loves? I think so long as Jack Frost continues to get production credit, that’s probably the case. This Chicago blues plus border cafe sound will be supplanted by something else. Perhaps a return to country like Nashville Skyline or some sort of jazzy thing reminiscent of “If Dogs Run Free” (that’s my vote).

If Jack Frost is tossed aside in favor of Lanois or some other modern production demigod (Lillywhite?) then I think we would be in for an exciting ride. There is no doubt in my mind that Dylan is still producing original lyrics (always his strong suit, wouldn’t you say?) that rival any current songwriter. So, Bob, you concentrate on words and music and let someone else handle the production!

For those who are curious, here are my ratings for Dylan’s last four studio albums:

	Time Out of Mind (1997)	10/10
	“Love and Theft” (2001)	8/10
	Modern Times (2006)	6/10
	Together Through Life (2009)	7/10

All-in-all, I’d say that’s some pretty impressive work for a nearly 70 year old has-been. Wouldn’t you?

Give me your thoughts on these records. I’d love to read and comment on them.

My Tracks is an app that takes advantage of the G1′s GPS to automatically record statistics for and create maps of your movement — no matter whether you are traveling in the car or on a bike or on your favorite pair of running shoes! All you need is a reasonably clear view of the sky so that the GPS can talk to the satellite. In addition to that, My Tracks can automatically upload this data to Google Docs and Google My Maps for you. Here is a look at today’s map:

View 20090414-Cycling in a larger map

And here is a look at today’s stats:

Distance: 34 miles
Total Time: 02:50:33
Moving TIme: 02:12:02
Avg Speed: 11.96 mph
Avg Moving Speed: 15.45 mph
Maximum Speed: 30.2 mph

The GPS also records elevation data and charts that against time. However, I don’t trust that data. According to My Tracks, I reached -331 ft yesterday…that seems pretty far below sea level for southeast Houston.

My only other beef is that I’ve had trouble uploading my map to Google My Maps the last two days. The only issue this has created has been that a link has not been recorded in my Google Docs spreadsheet for My Maps the last two days. This will probably annoy me if it persists, but the benefit outweighs these minor issues. Hopefully the GPS stuff can get worked out so that elevation will work a little better…then I’ll be a super happy guy!

Update

The first leg of the MS 150 was canceled this year due to weather. However, the second leg (from La Grange to Austin) proved challenging for me. Unfortunately, My Tracks failed me! Here’s the map it produced:

View Crazy MS 150 Map in a larger map

And here are the stats it spat out at me:

Distance: 652.81 miles
Total Time: 06:55:05
Moving TIme: 05:59:50
Avg Speed: 94.36 mph
Avg Moving Speed: 108.85 mph
Maximum Speed: 398.24 mph
Minimum Elevation: -29,558 ft
Maximum Elevation: 59,964 ft

Ooops!

Here are my real stats from my bike’s computer:

Distance: 77.97 miles
Time: 06:10:06
Avg Speed: 12.6 mph
Maximum Speed: 37.7 mph

Not bad for my first trip through crazy hills!

Here is the real map:

View 2009 BP MS 150 Challenge Route (Day 2) in a larger map

Because Scripture study is a part of my daily life, I’m hoping to use this as the jumping point for the “new” Fig. Previously, I had used other bloggers to kickstart my ideas. However, I quickly became disenchanted with that as there was way too much to read.

Withering Fig

For those who are curious, but don’t want to click through, here is the text from the About page:

The purpose of Withering Fig is to invite conversation on all kinds of topics pertaining to Christianity — both academic and faith-based. Bridging the gap between critical studies of the Bible and acting out a faith on a day-to-day basis is the heartbeat of Withering Fig. It’s what we do!

Withering Fig was founded in 2007 by Stephen Hebert. Stephen is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and holds the degree of Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School. His specialties are early Christian history, biblical texts, and noncanonical literature.

Currently, Stephen lives in Friendswood, Texas with his wife. He works in the tech field and volunteers with local ministries.

Outlining — It’s in the Name!

Right there in the name: outliner. Obvious usage, right? OmniOutliner has plenty of horsepower for this task. During my college and grad school days, I used OmniOutliner for that very task almost exclusively.

When it comes to note-taking, there is only one (hyphenated) word to describe me:

anal-retentive.

Before I was fortunate enough to have a laptop, I scrawled notes in a notebook, like most other people, and was always disappointed with how disjointed and disorganized they were. Though professors may not always speak in a perfect outline format, I felt that my notes should more or less be an outline of that day’s lecture. Structure was totally foreign to these notebooks. Drove me nuts. It doesn’t help that I am also very meticulous about notebook care. Example: the pages of an sbh* notebook should be either written in pen or pencil, but never both. I couldn’t stand flipping through a notebook and seeing pen on some pages and pencil on others. Argh! OCD? Perhaps.

Summary of the above: Notebooks don’t work for me.

In January of 2004, heading into my final semester at the University of Texas before heading off to Boston for Harvard, I purchased a 12″ iBook G4 (which the wife still uses!), and my world changed. I now took the laptop to every class, and OmniOutliner became my constant companion.

In-Class Notes

OmniOutliner excels for in-class notes. I can type a lot faster than I can write, so I could take down more and more information than I ever could before. In addition to this, OmniOutliner provided a structure to my notes that wasn’t before possible. Here’s how it broke down:

• Top Level: Lecture Date/Topic
  • Second Level: Major Divisions
    • Third Level and Beyond: All the nitty gritty, hierarchically, painstakingly arranged.

In addition, I could add columns. So, I always had a column on the right-hand side for references. For example, if a professor made reference to a particular work, I’d jot that work and a section or page number if provided. This way, my notes were also cross-referenced to other works.

Further, each line had its own “notes” field associated with. I used this area to make my own comments about what I was hearing. Perhaps I didn’t quite buy what the professor was saying, I’d take note of that here. Or, maybe I had a question about this particular item that I wanted to ask the professor. I could take it down right here so that I wouldn’t forget it when the opportunity came for questions.

Looking back, my notes for various classes during my time at Harvard are often 70 pages or more. This is a lot of information, but really it’s only 4-6 pages of outline per lecture. When finals rolled around, these were invaluable resources. You never know, meticulous, well-structured notes might make you popular amongst the crowd when group studying for finals!

One final item to mention: the ability to embed files. Extremely handy. If you were to look at the beginning of all of my class notes, you would find the course syllabus in PDF or .doc embedded. This makes these files easy to reference anytime. In addition to this, you can also record sounds and have those embedded into the outline. I used to record whole lectures, but found I wasn’t using the audio, so I stopped.

All-in-all, OmniOutliner revolutionized how I organized information from class lectures and sessions, and, consequently, made me a much better student.

Paper Outlines

In addition to class notes, outlines are also handy for the writing processor. Before I write anything of more than a paragraph or two, I start with the most basic of outlines. This blog post, for example, began with me laying out each section. It’s how I work.

OmniOutliner is fantastic for creating outlines for papers. Outlining keeps me organized, and OmniOutliner allows me to keep all kinds of information handy with my notes. I can link web pages or documents to it, take notes on my outline, etc., all from the same window.

When it came time to translate my outline into a word processor, this was easily done. I prefer to use Mellel for my paper writing needs. I could simply create my big headings in Mellel and work from there. OmniOutliner was always open and readily available.

Information Repository

Beyond the nuts-and-bolts writing and note-taking processes, OmniOutliner can serve as an information repository.

Not only can you create outlines and notes, not only can you supplement those notes with hyperlinks and documents, but you can also add audio to them.

If you wanted to, you could turn OmniOutliner into your own little information repository. Sure, there are better programs for this. DevonThink for the academic, and Yojimbo for the creative-types. But, OmniOutliner can serve these functions if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution.

How I Am Using It Now

Now that I am out in the real world, and no longer bound to the classroom, I am using OmniOutliner in a much different way. My need for in-depth notes and outlines for class is long gone, but it has been replaced by other, similar needs.

For the most part, I use OmniOutliner for my writing projects. I use Scrivener (see my thoughts on Scrivener) for most of my writing. While Scrivener helps me organize all of my projects into smaller units, OmniOutliner helps me organize all of my big ideas into categories.

I always have a OmniOutliner document open. This document is called “brainstorm.oo3.” This is where the magic happens. Within this OmniOutliner document I’ve got ideas for plots, characters, etc. When I finish a piece and want to start something new, the first thing I do is look at this document. When I’m reading or writing and get an idea about something else, into brainstorm.oo3 it goes!

OmniOutliner is a powerful, yet simple piece of software. If you’re a Mac, I suggest you give it a go.

Notes

¹ I believe OmniOutliner is bundled with all new macs (not the “Pro” version, though). So, if you’ve got a Mac — get your OmniOutliner on!

As I’m writing, I typically listen to something. Often this is old blues (Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson, etc.), or older jazz (Davis, Coltrane, Monk, Brubeck, etc.), or my favorite rock outfits (Bob Dylan, The Band, Elvis Costello, etc.). The beauty of iTunes is that I have all of that at my fingertips, and I can arrange it however I like. With Dr. Dog’s new album, there is absolutely no need to mix and match. Just put it on repeat and let it roll! From blazing (yet, strangely cute) indie rock (e.g., “The Old Days”) to a Band inspired romp completely with 1970s horn section, ELO-esque harmonies, and a Joe Cocker meets David Bowie lead vocal yelling “Oh Yeah!” (”Army of Ancients”), Fate delivers all kind of goods.

If you’re not familiar with Dr. Dog, maybe you should be. This little band from Philadelphia has made me sit up and listen. As we were jamming (and I do mean “jamming”) to the album in the car the other day, I said to Natalie: “This is how I imagine The Band would sound if they had formed now instead of back in the 1960s.” High praise from the lights of me, as I think The Band, as a band, is probably tops in my book. But all the elements are here. Shades of Manuel on the piano, Hudson’s ghostly organ in the background, both serving as layers beneath Danko’s excellent bass work, the screaming guitar of Robertson and the pounding drums of Helm. Yet, none of these guys are present. Instead, we’ve got Stens, Miller, Leaman, McMicken, and McElroy.

The cohesiveness of the sound makes Fate a great listen. It’s already a staple of our music collection. Give it a spin!

I spend time surfing the web everyday. I admit it. I am not ashamed. Here are the pages I marked recently on Ma.gnolia:

Issues when working with AJAX | Mercurytide

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Tags: ajax, web design, web, web applications

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

However, all good things come to an end. The holidays began, and I was derailed.

The creative process here really starts and stops with a little writing group that was created back in August. Every Thursday Night (hence the title of this post), I get together with my wife, and our friend, James, to discuss various projects. Originally, we said: “Hey, let’s just get together and work on some creative projects.” I really thought that this would mean short stories for me. I was wrong. James and Natalie have a real passion for visual storytelling, and indeed it has infected me. We started writing short films. The fun at the Austin Film Festival reinforced this desire in us, and I don’t think we’ll look in any other direction anytime soon.

Where are we?

At any given time, we’ve got three or four projects up in the air. Our most promising one right now is a project tentatively titled “The Alcoholic” (great title, right?). The idea and most of the script are the handiwork of Natalie. We feel like the script is kind of done, but I’m sure it needs some tweaking. Beyond this, I’ve got a coming of age “story in pictures” that I’m working on, and James has two very interesting ideas that he is working on that both stem from a notion of finding oneself.

Now what?

So, we’ve got this script in hand. Now what? This is actually the part that I get most excited about. When I write a story, I’m usually too critical of it to allow a bunch of other people to read it. The idea of sending any of these into a publisher is just silly. Why would someone want to read this drivel?

With a script, however, my urges are totally different. I want to get together gear and actors and go to a location and get it done. That sounds fun to me. I’ve spent hours researching what sort of gear we’ll need to shoot Natalie’s script. I’m excited to do it.

I’ll hit this blog with another post in February letting you know where we are on that…

The course (6.092: Introduction to Software Engineering in Java from January 2008) was designed as a four-week intro to the basics of Java. Unfortunately, this course came only with lecture notes and assignments — no lecture audio or video.

Why is this a problem?

Well, the instructors have written good powerpoint slides: terse. I hate it when you sit in a lecture and the professor is just reading powerpoint slides. A good powerpoint slide should only have bullet points. They shouldn’t have EVERYTHING.

So, part of my job is to decipher these powerpoint slides. That’s OK, it helps me to concentrate. The best thing about learning this way is that the course forces me to work through problems. Concurrently I am reading a book on Java. This book doesn’t present me with problems, only information. Working the assignments for the class means that I have to think about how to use the stuff I’ve learned.

The assignments have been simple so far.

Assignment 1, for example, asked me to create a program that converted a given temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius and Kelvin. The given value was “90.” Here’s my silly little code:

class NewConverter {
  public static void main(String[] arguments) {
    int input = 90;
    System.out.println("The value is " + input + "F");
    double c = (5/9.0)*(input-32);
    System.out.println("The value is " + c + "C");
    double k = c + 273.15;
    System.out.println("The value is " + k + "K");
  }
}

As silly as it is, there are a couple of important things going on. Allow me to point them out.

First of all, my recent programming experience has been with object-oriented scripting languages: Ruby and Python. Java, of course, is object-oriented, but it is not really a scripting language. This course is forcing me to really thing about Objects and Classes. The entire program is a class “NewConverter”. For me, that is a weird way to think.

A later assignment had us simulate a card game called Belote. It was difficult for me to think of the game as an object. Of course, once you start to train your brain in this way, it all comes together. By the time I was done with the Belote project, I understood this concept.

The other thing going on in the temperature converter program above is attentiveness to math. I’m afraid my math skills have waned since high school (I got out of taking any math in college!). It took me a while to figure out how the order of operations worked. It took even longer to figure out how Java’s types (in this case Integer and Double) were working together.

In the end, week one has taught me that I’m looking at a whole new paradigm. Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) is a powerful model for visualizing how a program should work. But, like anything else, it takes a little brain-training to orient your mind appropriately.

For Week Two I am headd to Colorado for a vacation. So, Week Two of Java won’t resume for a little while.

One week later, on December 23, I had my first interview. Here is the blow-by-blow:

Title: Software Developer

For two years I’ve been working in IT for a small-ish company that has given me some latitude. While on the job I was able to learn some about network administration (yea for Cisco!), server administration (mostly Linux stuff), as well as software development (Perl, Ruby, Python, Ruby on Rails, and Django). In addition, I had some time to home my golf game.

As it happens, a company got a hold of my resume through my extended church network, and they brought me in to interview for a Java developer position.

Let me just say that I had never in my life touched anything that wreaks of Java before. However, the software development group was interested in my language skills. On my resume, I always mention that I can read Ancient Greek, Latin, and Classical Hebrew. Why? Well, because it makes me look cool. In this case, however, it was probably the difference between getting an interview and not getting an interview.

In two of the three meetings that comprised this interview, I was told that language learning skills were analogous to computer science training. One interviewer even went as far as to say that Computer Science degree plans should have more foreign language requirements.

I told him that I hoped we could meet in the middle. I’d teach them some Greek/Latin/Hebrew, and they could teach me some Java.

Because I have no Java experience, I’m not expecting to get this job. However, I must say that it is an intriguing position. I’ve decided to do a little self-study Java in my new spare time. Here are the resources I’m using:

• Learning Java, 3rd Edition
• WikiBooks: Java
• MIT: Introduction to Software Engineering in Java
• MIT: Laboratory in Software Engineering

I’m sure I’ll find more resources as I move forward. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get this job! Wish me luck!