John Mayer : Battle Studies : album discussion

I picked up John Mayer's fourth album "Battle Studies" yesterday and, after digesting it for a couple of days, am about ready to comment on it.

His previous album, "Continuum", is one of my favourite if not my favourite album of all the albums that I own, so this was going to be quite a difficult act to follow. I don't think it will be able to live up to the stature of that one over time because it was just so unexpected -- that he could have followed up two great sophisticated pop albums with something that was so completely different from what he'd done before, but also just as good if not better than the precedent.

First of all, the cover art looks a lot like an 80s pop cover to me. It's the type of thing I'd more expect of someone like George Michael (or, dare I say, Morrissey?). It's a nice cover, but difficult to extract meaning from. On the other hand, it fits the tone of the album perfectly -- subdued even when energetic.

A lot has been said about the album in reviews and on Amazon already, so I won't repeat too much of that. It seems like some people who did not like "Continuum" seem to be OK with this one. Overall, it is a less simple sound than the previous album, and the sound design seems different -- there seems to be far less space and dynamic range in the tracks than on "Continuum". It's more like a softened version of the "Heavier Things" sound.

When I first popped the CD in after getting home with the album, my first impression was that I was not impressed. It sounded like an average adult contemporary pop album and I was disappointed. But I remember that I had felt the same way about "Continuum" when I first heard it. It wasn't long before I found myself listening to it multiple times a day for about 2 months straight. I am finding the same pattern emerging with this album, and it's interesting that if you read the Amazon reviews then many people say the same thing: you have to give it time and a chance to work its magic. It's almost as if the songs all sound the same at first but then develop their own personality as you get to know them. This doesn't happen with very many other artists, but it happens with almost all of my favourite artists and it will be true with "Battle Studies". Albums that I like instantly are usually albums that I quickly tire of: easy come, easy go.

There is no grand pop song like "Belief" on this one, although "Assassins" is in the same vein. Of the reviews I've read, "Assassins" is either overlooked or criticized. Someone on Amazon derisively said that it was like "Seal meets Paul Simon". The Seal influence is definitely there with the pervasive background vocal patterns, but I don't hear the Paul Simon influence. It is quite clearly a John Mayer song, with an aggressive guitar backing and enough variety in composition that it will not wear out its welcome quickly. And, actually, this is becoming one of my favourite songs on the album. I am surprised it has been met with indifference.

The album is cohesive, as if the songs belong together. It does not overstay its welcome, and there is no filler. This is becoming a special skill these days, with quite a few of the albums I've bought recently being filled to the brim with songs that don't belong getting in the way because of an apparent lack of editorial control. The sound characteristics are also consistent between tracks.

The first track -- "Heartbreak Warfare" -- has universally been assumed to be about some fling he had with the actress Jennifer Aniston. Unless he has declared this somewhere and I've missed it, I don't know how that conclusion comes about. He has written many songs like it before, and that is praise and not criticism. It's an interesting song with quite a bit of musical variety.

The only silly thing about the album is the promotion of some non-descript country singer named Taylor Swift with a "featuring" credit on the song "Half of my Heart". This credit is so funny because she essentially sings two lines in the whole song -- the same line twice in the chorus near the end -- and the song might have been better for it had he just put a guitar swoon in place of her voice. This oddly reminded me of the gimmick of Becel producing a variety of their margarine with Bertolli Olive Oil in it. The goal is to cross-promote the products, but not contaminate either one. First of all, you would not want the taste of olive oil in your margarine so it's best that you put in as little as possible. And, second, it doesn't really matter whether it's Bertolli or any other brand of olive oil if you can't taste it. He could have left out Taylor Swift and nobody would have noticed, except that he wouldn't have been able to add her name on the album cover, which I assume was the only motivation. It was as if they were trying to ensure she had as little negative impact on the song as possible while still being able to use her name, and it is really quite obvious when you listen to the song!

I don't really "get" the cover of "Crossroads". I have never heard the original, but I can understand why it isn't very well-received. It sounds like what could be a delta blues song, but he has applied massive effects to the guitar, making it sound somewhat like a clavinet. Having also added a tight pop-like backing, it sounds like it has turned what was meant to be a soulful song into a routine pop one.

But, overall, it's a very good album and one that I look forward to listening to a whole lot more!

Today, I bought a cup of coffee. And I can't just leave it at that.

I bought a cup of coffee today.

And, no, that isn't a tweet or Facebook status update shoved down the wrong hole.

But, for the past couple of years, I rarely do this. And here is why:

1. I find it strange that it is now considered normal to be unable to complete a work day without a cup of coffee. What is going on with our workdays that we can't complete them without an artificial stimulus?
2. Ever since I got my Technivorm coffee machine, and use it with the right filters, I have been making better coffee at home than I can buy from Starbucks or Second Cup.
3. It is quite expensive. Roughly $40/month if you buy a decent cup a day. That is more than my newspaper subscription, and maybe a quarter or a fifth of my monthly grocery bill!
4. My homemade cup costs maybe $0.70, and not only tastes better, but also uses Fair Trade and Organic beans from a local roaster, and sold by a local small business that both reside in the town I live in.

To be honest, #4 is just a bonus. The main reasons are #1 through #3.

But, I did buy one today. And that means I will feel less hungry this afternoon, probably because I won't mistake encroaching tiredness for hunger..I will not struggle to keep my eyes open on the train home and will be able to read my book; and I will likely be alert well into the evening when I'd otherwise be on the relaxed but functional end of the comatose spectrum.

I'm not overly paranoid about caffeine or coffee, but can it be healthy to be dependent on a drug like this that prevents your natural impulses, day in, day out? It seems to me that the business day could not do without this drug anymore. We talk about "everything in moderation", but does moderation mean one-a-day or a-few-a-week? We can justify anything.

Here is something I wonder about from time to time: did Britain's decadence accelerate when they began to switch from tea to coffee as the national drink? Probably not. But, in my mind, it is not so strange for a skinhead to go out for a cup of coffee, while the image of a skinhead needing his cup of tea to feel that all was OK in the world (as was typical in the 1980s) always seemed a bit funny to me.

Heater: the only Canadian movie I couldn't instantly forget

A few years ago, I accidentally saw a Canadian movie on TV called "Heater", about a couple of homeless guys -- one of them aboriginal -- who find a space heater still in its packaging and conspire to make their way over to Sears to "return" it for a cash refund.

For some reason, I can't seem to forget about it. And there is no explanation.

The Ontario school system proposes to teach financial literacy to children

The Government of Ontario proposes to teach "financial literacy" skills to public school students, starting in grade 4 and going through to grade 12.

First of all, I wonder which education they will deem disposable in order to replace it with this new course.

But there is also a deeper question. Financial literacy is, at its very core, extremely simple: you earn X amount of money and may save some amount of money Y. If you spend more than X, you will erode Y. And if you spend more than X+Y then you become indebted and, the longer you take to settle your debts, the more difficult it is to bring yourself out of a state of indebtedness. Finance is more complicated than that and can get very complex, but if you don't have the faculties for that then you can always fall back on these very simple principles and they will serve you well in managing day-to-day and month-to-month financial obligations.

So, I struggle to understand how they will fill 9 years worth of financial literacy courses with this information.

It seems to me that financial literacy is the job of parents. It is learned by having real money to spend -- maybe earned, borrowed, or given, and likely a combination of all three -- choosing how you will spend that money against an array of competing wants and needs, and experiencing real consequences if you find yourself without things that you need, or oweing money without the ability to pay it back. A hand guiding you along the way provides a feedback mechanism by which you can test and evaluate your own behaviour. I don't think I am cynical to expect that the public school approach will not deliver the "curriculum" in this spirit.

How else could they fill the 9 years? They will undoubtedly include lessons on the "responsible use of credit", and will probably explore the different types of investments available to you, in order to help you understand how you can increase the value of your savings. The Disney film "Mary Poppins" did this for a lot of kids in the space of about 10 minutes, but I am sure the public school system can find a way to stretch it out to a year.

To truly understand finance at a level of detail that is not cartoonish -- things like compound interest, amortization, the effects of taxation, the cost of a real estate transaction, etc. -- you need a good grasp of mathematics, and the school system has of late been unable to instill this in children on a broad scale. The kids destined for University programs requiring numerical literacy get it, while the others get it until the exam is taken, and it slowly atrophies thereafter. And a lot of the kids in University still end up with financial troubles, anyway. Not because they don't understand finances, but because they buy a lot of pizza and drink a lot of beer and find it strangely impressive to rack up large debts that they can complain about in the company of sympathizers -- just as people jokingly complain about the seven-patty hamburger they're about to finish off, or the housing bidding war they had to "endure". Debt is a conversation piece and a subject of sardonic humour in this weird community. When I was in University, I heard many of them talk about their debts as if they were a runaway train that they had no control over. New computers and nice clothing trickled in at the window and that pesky debt just wouldn't go away!

And let's not forget that the government is behind the Canadian Housing and Mortgage Corporation, a Crown corporation that actively encourages people to overindulge in their house-buying impulses by securing loans that banks consider to be too risky for their taste.

In the article, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is quoted as saying that the "[recent] financial turmoil was fuelled by a lack of financial literacy". Really? So, some people did not understand that they could not afford to adequately pay back a $400,000 mortgage on a $30,000 salary and that such an aspiration was a very risky endeavour? Or, is he saying that the banks -- the most financially-literate organizations in our society -- did not understand this? Neither are true. The assumption was that it was acceptable to lend money to people that could not afford to pay it back because, done indefinitely, housing would never go down in value and any foreclosed properties would be accidental and could be sold for a profit regardless, thereby eliminating the risk. It is essentially a belief in magic, and we might do a far better job of tacking this pathology by discouraging the consumption of books like "Harry Potter", where the impossible is not justified but simply explained away with the trump card of living within a magical world.

Given that financial literacy is very simple at its core, I think that the problem with the population's poor financial condition may be more essential than one that can be addressed with a rote 9-year exercise in explaining how the pieces fit together. I don't think the underlying problem is that people don't understand the basic arithmetic that comprises financial literacy: they know that, when their bank balance goes to zero, it predicts trouble. Rather, the problem is that too many people are unwilling to be honest in their evaluation of their means. They are all too willing to concoct false justifications for behaviour that might not be sensible but is simply wanted. They have desires that exceed their ability to digest, and they have not cultivated the willpower that allows them to resist their urges.

This will not be solved by an education scheme developed by a government that requires these urges to be unleashed for the good of the economy.

On Christmas charitable donations

I usually make at least one charitable donation at Christmas. I say this not to give myself a pat on the back, but because I don't want anyone to think that I am about to criticize the notion of charitable giving as a whole as a justification for not giving -- that I am making an argument against the idea simply because I don't want the crisp cloth to escape my cold grip of rigor mortis.

But, I do have a minor struggle deciding where to send it. The reason is that I think there are very few genuinely helpless people in society in relation to the number of people we're told are in need of help. And I think that, because of this, the genuinely needy go unserved or under-served while those that could easily do for themselves are given an undeserved leg-up.

Habitat for Humanity, for example, is a very admirable charity. They screen their clients and require the people who will receive a home to have a hand in building it. They do not simply dole out cash but rather build an affordable house using volunteer labour and donated materials and provide assistance in carrying a mortgage to people who, through having fallen on hard times not of their own doing, would otherwise not be able to afford one. The new homeowners must pay back the mortgage over time, though the loans are interest-free. This is my idea of a near-perfect charity.

Last year, I sent money to the Salvation Army. I am unclear about the benefit of doing this. But the gesture of giving out a warm meal at Christmas to anyone at all who wants one seems to me to be a good one, though it is a bit too generic for my taste. "The poor people" that they serve are a broad and diverse clientele and may include the widows of World War II veterans just as much as it may include alcoholics who abandoned their families and made life miserable for everyone around them. But I have faith in this organization's ability to put money to better use than most other charities. And I mustn't fall into that trap that befalls many in my generation, where they will not do anything unless it has an optimized, highly-targeted benefit that allows them to change the world in one fell swoop.

One charity I will never donate to is Sick Kids Foundation. For them to come to the door and ask for donations and then refuse to take my money at all unless I sign up to a monthly subscription plan exceeds my tolerance for greedy organizations. With the amount that they spend on paying people for the act of fundraising itself, it is no wonder that they are so hostile to small donations. A friend of mine once refused a young man at the door, only to have them regroup at the driveway and try again with a pretty blonde to see if they could get a better result. Though I could never do it myself in my highly-socialized state, I admire him for telling them -- without ambiguity and with an unfiltered vocabulary -- where to go, and that he would be sending his money to kids in other countries that actually need it.

Also, I can't help but be aware of the difference in feeling of handing over a credit card donation online against putting cold, hard cash in a collection box. The former feels, to me, like an obligation while the latter is a donation, even though the end result is the same. Even so, the thought that someone actually has to handle that cash and spend time in its presence rather than just see it as a fraction of a number on their computer screen has an aesthetic difference in my mind. Somehow, I imagine that it will be treated more seriously in these times of electronic money movement; but I know the truth of it underneath.

And what about food banks? The appeal here is that the donation of food can go to no other purpose than to feed people that need it. So, I will always donate food to them but will not give them cash. As an aside, it is very impressive to watch the operations of a modestly-funded volunteer operation like a small-town food bank, such as the Georgetown Bread Basket. Witnessing the lengths that they will often go to to make good use of limited resources -- when volunteer time is more plentiful than money --  is an impressive mind-bending experience. It exists in stark contrast to the typical corporation, where labour is the expensive resource and material resources are freely wasted and discarded rather than re-used in an effort to reduce the amount of human labour tied up in hassle.

So, I am still undecided. But it's not good enough to simply throw money out the door to ease a caffeinated conscience. Part of the donation itself is in deciding where it will go, and how it will most benefit the society you live in.

Ontario autumn porridge: what to do with the apples coming out of our ears

In this part of Ontario at this time of year, we have apples coming out of our ears. Pick--your-own apple farms are in abundance for the month of October, and apples appear everywhere in supermarkets in the month that follows -- 50 cents per pound at my local supermarket for the local varieties.

Apple pie is one of the obvious uses for this extravagance, but there is only so much you can take.

Over the past few days, I've been trying to use apples and their byproducts to come up with a good porridge. Today's was just about right. You could reasonably make this with all-local ingredients, except for the cinnamon.

Here is what you need for 1 serving:

• half of an Empire apple: Empire apples are good because they fall apart when cooked. You could also use a Mac apple, but it would be more tart.
• 1/4 cup sweet apple cider: I am talking about the pressed apple cider and not the alcoholic cider
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup uncooked grain cereal: over the past few days, I have used a ground 10-grain cereal made by Bob's Red Mill. Today, I was at the bottom of the bag and mixed 10-grain cereal with Quaker rolled oats (not the quick variety). Essentially, anything that has about a 10-minute cooking time will be OK with this recipe. Something I have not yet tried in this recipe but would probably be great are Oak Manor Farms's Toasted Porridge Oats. They are a farm in SW Ontario but available in the GTA.
• 1 cinnamon stick: only if you like cinnamon with your apple
• maple syrup: readily-available local maple syrup is available all over Ontario

First of all, dice half of an Empire apple. You don't need to peel the apple unless peels really bother you. They will soften during cooking and add a nice texture and flavour, I think.

Put the apple cider into a saucepan, bring it to a boil and then add the apple pieces. Simmer (covered) the apple pieces in the cider for 2-3 minutes.

Then, add the water and bring it to a boil. Add the cereal grains and stir briefly to prevent clumping and then reduce to a simmer. Reduce heat and simmer covered for 10 minutes. Stir periodically (every few minutes).

[ Optional (cinnamon): Depending on how cinnamon-y you like your apple to taste (if at all), add the cinnamon stick to the saucepan earlier or later in the cooking process. If you like a strong cinnamon flavour, add the cinnamon stick when you add the oats. If you like a mild flavour, add it about 8 minutes into the 10 minutes simmer time. ]

Once the grains have simmered for 10 minutes, remove from the heat and uncover. Add the maple syrup to taste (for me, this is about 1 tbsp.).

Put it into a bowl, let it cool down a bit and then serve.

I was pretty impressed with this. I think cider is to apples what tomato paste is to tomatoes -- it amplifies the essential flavour.

Nice one, Toronto Star: video game usurps possible trouble with the Palestinian Authority

The Toronto Star outdid itself today.

On the front page was a story about a video game release.

On page 18? A story about the possible resignation of Mahmoud Abbas as head of the Palestinian Authority and the unlikelihood of finding anyone good to replace him, seeing as others would likely go with him. This has the potential to lead to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, according to the story. Apparently, Abbas sees the peace process as going nowhere and the effort has been particularly discouraged now that Obama has backpedaled on his promise to stop the encroachment of Israel settlements into Palestinian territory. Essentially, the view is that progress has stalled. Abbas is one of the main negotiating partners in diplomacy with Israel.

Maybe the insinuation about the collapse of the PA is hyperbole. But, the Star has never shied away from running hyperbole on its front page in the past.

I don't know about you, but I think the latter story is perhaps more important than the former. We know for sure it'll be on the front page if the rockets start flying again. Until they stop. And then it'll go away.