The Favorite Albums: The 1980s

My sister Becky has been looking forward to it, and here it is:  my list of my favorite albums from the 1980s.

I actually don't have much affinity for the music that we stereotypically think of as '80s, such as synthesizer-heavy, over-produced music.  In nostalgic looks back at the '80s in music, there seems to be a lot of focus on the one-hit wonders of the decade; every decade had its share, I suppose, but the '80s seem to have even more than others.  While I enjoy a number of those individual hits, those artists intrinsically would not figure in an albums list such as this one.  So the artists in my best-of-'80s list tend to either look backward to the classic rock of the '60s and '70s or forward toward the alternative rock of the '90s:

1. R.E.M., Murmur
2. The Clash, London Calling
3. Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A.
4. Traveling Wilburys, Volume 1
5. R.E.M., Document
6. Richard and Linda Thompson, Shoot Out the Lights
7. The Pixies, Doolittle
8. R.E.M., Lifes Rich Pageant
9. Camper Van Beethoven, Key Lime Pie
10. (tie) Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Imperial Bedroom
10. (tie) The Costello Show, King of America

A couple of old standbys that I respect but just don't love enough to make the cut are Graceland and The Joshua Tree.

Can you guess what my favorite band of the '80s was?  As my list shows, as R.E.M. moved through the decade from jangly, atmospheric music to guitar-driven, political rock, they didn't necessarily improve, but they remained consistently good.  London Calling has as much of a '70s flavor as an '80s flavor, but it's less pure punk and a bit more worldly than, say, their debut.  Springsteen's consistency and songcraft is undeniable; he may have reached the height of his songwriting prowess here.  The criminally forgotten Traveling Wilburys album is perhaps the one album out of all these that brings the most joy---it's great to hear icons of four different decades join forces to make wonderful (and very funny) songs.  The Thompsons' farewell album mixes styles beautifully; the the Pixies and CVB anticipate different strands of the alternative revolution.  Lastly, I couldn't choose between the two Costello albums, but he's so consistently strong that you could probably substitute several other choices as well.

Next up:  the 1990s, a decade whose music I like even a bit more than the '80s.

Alcoa Presents: Fantastic Fiction

Recently my sister invited me on Facebook to list the 15 books which had most affected me. I didn't have time to do it then, but I thought it would be an interesting exercise. After giving it some thought, I'll try to pick fifteen.

I'm going to limit my list here to books of fiction. Although I read far more nonfiction than fiction, I would be more likely to identify fifteen *writers* of nonfiction that have impressed or affected me than fifteen individual nonfiction books. Maybe I'll do that in a future posting.

I'm also not counting books that affected me greatly as a kid, although there are plenty of those. Mostly they were series rather than individual books -- for example, Matt Christopher's children's sports novels; John D. Fitzgerald's "The Great Brain" series; Beverly Clearly's books; Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series; Thornton W. Burgess's series; Roald Dahl's "Charlie/Willy Wonka" books, the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series, etc. Maybe that deserves a list of its own, but I'm sure I'd forget something important. It's been a while.

Anyway, here is the list of the fifteen books of fiction that are most memorable to me. In a couple of cases I've broken the rules and listed collected series rather than individual works, because in those cases it certainly can be said that the oeuvre as a whole is greater than any particular example. I'll list them roughly in chronological order of publication.

Charles Dickens -- A Tale of Two Cities
Fyodor Dostoevsky -- Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoevsky -- The Brothers Karamazov
Mark Twain -- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
F. Scott Fitzgerald -- The Great Gatsby
Franz Kafka -- The Trial
Ernest Hemingway -- The Sun Also Rises
John Steinbeck -- Of Mice and Men
Albert Camus -- The Plague
William Golding -- Lord of the Flies
Arthur Miller -- Death of a Salesman
Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot mysteries
P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves novels and stories
John Kennedy Toole -- A Confederacy of Dunces
Nick Hornby -- How to be Good

OK, there is is. A lot of them are "classics", but that's why they're classics, right? They're great books and have a strong influence on anyone reading them. And there are plenty of classics that didn't touch me that much, and many others that I liked a lot but not quite as deeply as these. And of course, there are some that I haven't gotten to yet, or never will.

There are also some (brilliantly executed) "entertainments" in the forms of Christie's and Wodehouse's series. The two most modern books on the list are both superb comedic novels. The one thing that unites the books in that they all tell a good story, and none is particularly difficult stylistically. Some may be long, like the Dostoevsky novels, but none of them is work to trudge through. To leave a lasting impression, it's true, a book should have interesting, "alive" characters and a deeply meaningful theme. But to be loved, a book has to be a pleasure to devour. And I think all of these are just so.

My Favorite Albums: The 1970s

Because of the dominant presence of the Beatles and Bob Dylan in the 1960s, I was forced to make two separate top-ten album lists for that decade. The 1970s had no such dominant figure; it was more a combination of maturing veterans and promising new faces. While the '60s still contain a disproportionate number of the truly classic albums in history, all the greatness of the '60s was really concentrated over the second half of that decade. Meanwhile, the '70s featured very strong albums being made over the entire span of the decade. Here is a close approximation to my 10 favorites from 1970 through 1979:

The Who -- Who’s Next
Bob Dylan -- Blood on the Tracks
Bruce Springsteen -- Born to Run
Led Zeppelin -- Led Zeppelin IV
The Who -- Quadrophenia
Elvis Costello & the Attractions -- This Year’s Model
Neil Young -- After the Gold Rush
Bruce Springsteen -- Darkness On the Edge of Town
Big Star -- #1 Record
Rod Stewart -- Every Picture Tells a Story

EDIT:  One album that I initially missed but that deserves a spot on this list is Grievous Angel by Gram Parsons, a lovely display of country/rock, helped immeasurably by the gorgeous backing vocals of Emmylou Harris.

Who's Next remains a virtually perfect blend of rock musicianship from the whole band, Pete Townshend's deeply personal songwriting, and Roger Daltrey's emotion-filled singing. It's the apex of album-oriented rock. The other choices include Bob Dylan's most personal and most romantic great album; Springsteen shooting for the stars and nearly reaching them; Page, Plant and crew with the quintessential hard-rock album that also remembered to go acoustic at times; and rock's most fully realized concept album.

We also have Costello at his most brash; Young at his most dreamily laconic; Springsteen as the hard world encroaches on his romanticism; Chilton and Bell's gorgeous, lilting nostalgia; and Stewart at the height of his vocal powers.

Some albums that just missed the cut: Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, an album that is magical at its best ("Time", "Brain Damage / Eclipse") but has a few too many dull stretches; and Randy Newman's Good Old Boys and Carole King's Tapestry, two very different examples of the classic early-'70s singer-songwriter era.

Stay tuned for the top ten from the '80s, coming (possibly) soon to a blog posting near you (I'm assuming you tend to sit near the computer screen while reading it).

From Rosewall to Federer

The first professional tennis match to which I ever recall paying any amount of attention was the 1981 Wimbledon men's final. I didn't watch any of it (I was not yet seven years old at the time) but I remember hearing the result from my dad as we drove from our summer cottage in Old Saybrook, CT, to my grandparents' in nearby Madison. John McEnroe beat Bjorn Borg that day in four sets, but something about Borg -- maybe it was his exotic name -- made me a fan of his. He soon retired, though, and my allegiances then gravitated to Ivan Lendl, who also had a cool name, but who was also the natural alternative to the current popular favorites, McEnroe and Jimmy Connors.

I stayed a Lendl fan through his domination and eventual decline, but as he faded from the top, I gained appreciation for two veterans who by the early '90s represented the bulwark against the overhyped upstarts Agassi, Chang, and Courier: Boris Becker and (especially) Stefan Edberg. The fact that they played an attractive serve-and-volley style was another point in their favor. By that point, too, I was mature enough to appreciate Edberg for his demeanor and sportsmanship. As Becker and Edberg neared retirement, I became a fan of two diametrically opposite players: Yevgeny Kafelnikov, a baseliner with a flattish two-handed backhand who had about as much charisma as Lendl (which is to say, very little) but whose game resembled my own; and Patrick Rafter, a respected sportsman who was the last great serve-and-volleyer but whose game was nothing like mine. It was quite frustrating watching Kafelnikov waste his talent for most of his career. Rafter, on the other hand, had occasional highlights including two U.S. Open wins and two Wimbledon finals, and occasionally surpassed the twin titans of his era, Sampras and Agassi, but he ultimately gave in to injuries and burnout.

My next pair of tennis heroes resembled the previous two: one of them had a game like mine coupled with a rather unlikable personality, and the other was a classicist's delight whose demeanor I admired but whose game sharply contrasted with mine. The former was Lleyton Hewitt, whose counterpunching, retrieving style provided me with a model to emulate. On the other hand, Roger Federer took up Rafter's mantle as a gentleman of the game. While Federer has gone on to greatness, I got on his bandwagon (as with Lendl's) before he became dominant. In fact, one of the hallmarks of my pro tennis heroes is that they have always been slightly below the top players, as least in terms of hype, when I began liking them. I've never been naturally drawn to the upstart who's currently the most popular.

I'm still hoping Hewitt will bounce back from his injury troubles, but if he fades from the scene, the guy next in line to replace him in my affections is probably Andy Murray. While he's matured a great deal and seems like a fairly intelligent guy, what really appeals to me about Murray is his game, the way he can win without having huge weapons, but by playing good defense and making his opponent uncomfortable during points, taking away his foe's rhythm. That's something I can apply to my own game, and I'll look forward to seeing Murray's career develop.

Before closing, I should mention a couple of players who really reflect my idea of the ideal tennis pro, but who retired soon after I was born. The great Australian tennis stars of the 1950s and '60s, in my mind, are like the British middle-distance runners of the 1970s and '80s -- they are like Olympic gods, whose reign represents the epogee of a sport in a way that can never really be recaptured. The two greatest of the Aussie champions, of course, were Rod Laver and Ken Rosewall, whose rivalry set the standard for Borg v. McEnroe, Sampras v. Agassi, and Federer v. Nadal. As with track's Coe and Ovett, I don't know whom I'd have favored had I been around in their day. Laver -- the Federer of his era -- had more natural tennis genius, and he has my keenest admiration as a winner and a sportsman. But I suspect I'd have been partial to the durable Rosewall, whose endurance, court coverage, and generally defensive game match my on-court style. In addition, Rosewall represents the quintessential tennis sportsman. From his classically sharp outfit of tennis whites to his perfectly clipped and combed hair to his needle-precise strokes, Rosewall formed the image of everything a tennis pro should be. His will to win was unequaled, too. For a stretch of years in the 1960s he was the best player in the world, and he was a contender at major championships for over two decades, a span no player can match. Ken Rosewall: the progenitor of the long line of my professional tennis idols.

Bedtime Reading: Tennis Anthologies

It was once said by someone (I don't know by whom -- maybe Frank Deford? I ought to check on that) that sportswriting follows a basic rule: the smaller the ball, the better the writing. Hence the quality of baseball writing exceeded that of football or basketball writing; golf writing was better still; and the best of all was writing on boxing, which had no ball whatsoever. By this metric, tennis writing should rank quite highly. In fact, tennis does inspire excellent prose, not because of the size of the ball but perhaps because of its gladiatorial nature. The one-on-one battles render the sport a sort of non-violent (or non-contact) boxing. The fact that the sweaty visages of professional tennis players are displayed for all to see in close-up television images allows viewers (and writers) to imagine quite naturally the inner demons they are facing throughout a grueling match.

The fact that I play the sport, of course, biases my judgment a bit in favor of tennis writing. In this series of postings, I'll review some of the best tennis books I've read. In the first installment, I'll examine two great anthologies of tennis writing and reporting.
Lawn tennis (which is essentially the modern tennis game we know, as opposed to the ancient game of court tennis) was invented by Major Wingfield in 1874. Soon after that, apparently, folks commenced writing about it, as The Fireside Book of Tennis proves. This collection was edited by the great tennis journalist Allison Danzig, and it covers the period from the birth of the game into the beginnings of the open era, right up to the 1971 U.S. Open, when Chris Evert introduced herself to the world. Many of the pieces are spot reporting of events, accounts which ran in fine newspapers such as the New York Times. These are typically stellar pieces of work from the top tennis journalists of their times.

The anthology also includes long profiles of players that originally ran in magazines. Many of these go into detail about the playing styles of great players. I learned about the strategies of Jack Kramer -- how he would approach down the line virtually every time, even if his opponent knew it was coming -- a legend whom I have never seen play and only knew from his days as an ex-promoter and commentator. Tilden, Budge, Connolly, Rosewall, Emerson, Laver and many more are profiled, from the perspective of observers contemporary to the players themselves and often unafraid to discuss chinks in a given player's armor.

It's an extremely long book, and though the contents are laid out in chronological order, the book is best taken in short bursts. Many of the pieces are only three or four pages long, and several of these can easily be read in half an hour.

As comprehensive as The Fireside Book is, my favorite tennis collection is the 1981 anthology The Tennis Book. Edited by Michael Bartlett and Bob Gillen, this tome is divided into five parts. The first focuses on long descriptions of the famed tournaments and venues of the world, from Wimbledon and the other major events to the minor-league pro circuit. Most of these are magazine articles or excerpts from books. Legendary scribes such as McPhee, Bodo, Bellamy, Herbert Warren Wind, and Gordon Forbes make appearences here, poetically describing various stops (and personalities) along the tennis circuit.

The second part is composed of profiles (again, usually magazine pieces or excerpts from biographies) of the great players, from McLauglin and Tilden to stars of the late '70s like Vilas, Borg, and Evert. This part includes pieces by luminaries like Deford, Danzig, Dick Schaap, Bud Collins, Richard Evans and Mike Lupica. It concludes with a fine pair of news articles by Neil Amdur about the Borg vs. McEnroe battles that captivated the tennis world during the summer of 1980.

The next section includes essays (often written or ghost-written by famous players) about various technical aspects of the game. Laver and Budge offer their thoughts on the backhand, Gonzales discusses the serve, and modern gurus Tim Gallwey and Vic Braden chime in with advice that appeals more to the average club player. The fourth part offers three short stories related to tennis, showing that not all great tennis writing must be nonfiction. Finally, the last section contains some more statistically based works, such as discussions of the greatest matches, top players, and record-setting feats in tennis. The book concludes with a roll call of major titlists through 1980.

For the tennis historian, the first-person accounts in The Fireside Book offer meatier material. But from a literary perspective, the writing in The Tennis Book is nonpareil, deeply rewarding the reader who returns to these pages again and again.

Favorite Albums: The 1960s

This has gotta be a first on the Internet: I'm going to post a list of my favorite rock albums! Well, maybe it's not totally original, but I'll at least break up the list in an interesting way. The first post will be my 10 favorite albums from the 1960s, the next my 10 favorites from the 1970s, then my 10 favorites from the '80s, then the '90s, and finally the 2000s. It goes without saying that all these lists are subject to changes, rearrangements, editing, etc.

I'm going to cheat a little for the '60s list, though. Were I to list my favorites straight-up, nearly all of the list would be taken by those colossal titans, the Beatles and Bob Dylan. To be fair to the other musicians from probably the greatest decade of rock music, I'll post two separate lists for the '60s, one with only Beatles and Dylan albums, and one list for everyone else.

In the spirit of Elvis Costello's quote ("Writing about music is like dancing about architecture"), I won't really write anything about these albums. Nothing I could write would really do this great music justice, anyway. Rather, I hope that anyone who reads this might be encouraged to check out (or revisit) some of this music. If your tastes are anything like mine, it will enrich your life.

My Favorite Beatles and Bob Dylan Albums from the 1960s
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The Beatles -- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles -- Abbey Road
Bob Dylan -- Highway 61 Revisited
The Beatles -- The Beatles ("The White Album")
Bob Dylan -- Blonde on Blonde
The Beatles -- Revolver
Bob Dylan -- Bringing It All Back Home
The Beatles -- Magical Mystery Tour
The Beatles -- Rubber Soul
Bob Dylan -- Another Side of Bob Dylan

My Favorite Albums from the 1960s (non-Beatles-and-Bob-Dylan category)
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Love -- Forever Changes
The Kinks -- Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)
The Velvet Underground -- The Velvet Underground and Nico
The Band -- The Band
The Who -- Tommy
The Kinks -- The Village Green Preservation Society
The Rolling Stones -- Beggars Banquet
The Byrds -- Sweetheart of the Rodeo
The Kinks -- Something Else
The Doors -- The Doors

EDIT: I need to include an album that I hadn't heard before making this list, but which is now one of my favorite of all time:
The Zombies -- Odessey and Oracle
Amazingly perfect pop.  I'd put it around 3rd or 4th on the second list above.

Actually, taking away the Beatles and Dylan left enough room for about all of my most deeply beloved '60s albums to make the top ten. The albums that were considered but left out were some that I admire a great deal but only love a little, e.g.: Pet Sounds, Astral Weeks, Music From Big Pink, John Wesley Harding, Surrealistic Pillow, Led Zeppelin II, The Who Sell Out, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. Fine albums, but none that I really regret not including. I imagine the 1970s and '80s lists, based on sheer numbers, might force some harder calls.

Crunching Numbers

We begin by examining the daily life of a statistician. One of the most common tasks a statistician must undertake is the calculation of a sample mean. Let's work through an example to illustrate this.

We begin with a set of numbers, which statisticians often call "the data". (A common question ordinary laymen have is how to pronounce the word "data". It's an apt question, as I have personally heard the word pronounced in no fewer than two ways! Fortunately, there's a simple rule to help you remember the correct pronunciation of the word: Data rhymes with "strata".)

Suppose these are the numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 41, 17, 26.923, 1. (An immediate question is, where have these numbers come from? Lengthy tomes could be written on this subject, but it suffices to say that they are usually on a piece of paper handed to you by the boss.) In initially perusing the numbers you may believe you see a familar pattern; ignore it! -- it can only lead to disappointment when the pattern goes askew. Professional statisticians are best equipped to handle this, having been trained from an early age to scan numbers dispassionately.

Let's return to the task of the calculation. The first step is to sum the numbers. This is most easily done with electronic calculators, which are commonly found, e.g., on the faces of today's fashionable wristwatches. (In this manner, we can achieve the sum without any carrying of ones, twos, or threes: Statisticians avoid manual labor whenever possible.) In this example, the sum of all of the numbers is easily seen to be 151.923. We're nearly halfway done.

The next step is to count the number of data values. Go ahead, count them. (To minimize the chance of error, you should actually place your finger on top of each number on the computer screen as you count. Don't worry about smudging the screen; modern computer monitors are easily cleaned with a scouring pad or something.) Done? I hope you agree that there are nine values in the data set. A neophyte would finish the calculation by dividing the previously attained sum of 151.923 by 9. While this technically works, it's kind of like riding a tricycle. Any thrill-seeking statistician would scorn that approach, instead being much more likely to MULTIPLY the sum by 1/9. Either way, the result is identical: approximately 16.8803. At long last, we have our sample mean! Some folks colloquially call this "the average", but such people are Philistines who, as the avian biologists like to say, "couldn't tell a Sphyrapicus thyroideus thyroideus from a Sphyrapicus thyroideus nataliae".

With the sample mean safely calculated, the statistician can head home, content in the afterglow of a hard day's work done. In our next posting in this series, we'll examine another common statistician's task: the development of asymptotically unbiased (order root-n) confidence bands for the hazard function of a doubly-censored random vector. Until then, good night!