The Strokes

I remember seeing an article in Slate - or maybe Salon - asking whether The Strokes were as good as people said. I had never heard of them at the time, so I just skimmed the article, but it made me curious about them. (I'm always curious about things if I find some commentary on them.)

A few months later, three Strokes songs showed up on one of Sally's KSAL collections. I totally loved them.

The Strokes are like crack cocaine to me. There is some cockamamie idea about how music makes some primitive part of your brain respond in a similar rhythm (I'm not going to provide a link because I doubt this is true), and I feel like their songs do that to me.

The pattern seems super simple - every song seems to alternate some heavier guitar-rhythm parts with some more melodic parts, with vaguely jerk-ass lyrics that are interesting enough not to annoy you, but not so interesting as to actually engage you. It drives me up the wall - in a good way, of course.

Here is a video:

1994 Political Quiz

I took this 1994 Political Quiz linked by Andrew Sullivan. I thought it was pretty fun, though some of the questions seemed slightly dated (but only slightly). I scored an 18 out of 40, which means I fall just on the liberal side. On the chart of public figures, I fell right between Bill Clinton and Colin Powell. (Keep in mind the quiz is from 1994.)