[Review] [Music] Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine

I'm a big fan of Fiona Apple. I have copies of both Tidal and When The Pawn..., and I have to say that as albums go they're much better than the video of "Sleep to Dream" suggested when it first appeared on MTV back in 1996. Although When the Pawn wasn't nearly as good as her first album (which had absolutely brilliant cuts like "Carrion," "Never is a Promise," and my favorite, "Slow Like Honey"), it was still an excellent album and I still think "A Mistake" is one of the best songs she's ever written.

Tonight, I'm listening to low-quality pirated music. I admit it. Extraordinary Machine is not available in stores. It lies on a shelf somewhere in a vault owned by Sony, unreleased by Sony's corporate drones because it "doesn't have a single," and as Boingboing puts it, "it doesn't sound like Norah Jones and because, well, they're corporate drones."

It's a brilliant album. It sounds like Fiona, growing up, enjoying her maturity and still as angry and as female and as relentless as ever. The song "A Better Version of Me," which is about getting off Ritalin, the relentless "Not About Love," and the mischevious, sexy, wonderful, almost Disneyesque unplugged title song "Extraordinary Machine" are just perfect. Fiona doesn't show a great range of vocals here; that's never been her forte'. Instead, she shows the power of her imagination, her lyrical writing, and her ability to assemble a musical line and a band that can play it. It blazes with an honesty and authenticity that's hard to find in modern music.

But you can't buy it. And that's a big damn shame. Because I want to hear it in all of its glory, not at 128kbs poorly encoded MP3 "liberated" by someone along the chain from production to cold storage.

If you love Fiona, listen to Extraordinary Machine. Yes, have some.

That could have been me.

I saw a murdered man in my neighboorhood this morning.

As I drove out to get on the highway this morning, I was stopped at the exit from my neighboorhood by a sherrif's car blocking the road with a sign reading "Road Closed: Accident Investigation". The sign is generic, for this was no accident. The sherrif's relations officer is now reporting that around 5:45 this morning a man flagged down a car coming up the same street I had just tried to enter, shot the driver in the head, pulled the body from the car and drove away.

The dead man was 62 years old. As I pulled into the bus alcove the deputy had thoughtfully parked before to get the room needed for a U-turn, I saw the body. It was lying on the street, wrapped in a construction-site orange tarpaulin, and just as I finished the turn the wind whipped it and exposed the dead man's feet.

I found my way out of the neighborhood by another street, but I'm a little bit freaked by this incident. Omaha and I chose this neighborhood precisely because it's never been a region with any crime. The local newpaper's police blotter is a joke; Omaha and I read it weekly to see what's going on, and other than petty theft, the ocassional pot bust, and prostitution reports from the region by the airport hotels the next "city" over, there's rarely anything of interest. Our own subdivision and surroundings is as quiet and law-abiding as they come. Someone tried to open an adult video store-- the only one in city limits-- and it closed down due to lack of patronage.

I don't know what to make of this right now. I live in a neighboorhood of strawberry festivals, creek restoration projects, pumpkin patches, and Girl Scouts. I'm hoping this is just some bizarre incident, some never-to-be-repeated-anytime-soon thing. Omaha and I moved away from White Center precisely because it was a scary neighboorhood, with gang activity, four adult bookstores of the "You're a creep so the store is creepy" variety, and at least twice in the years we lived there drive-by shootings.

I'll keep an eye on it, but... bleah.

[Edit] The Seattle Times has more. Some of it seems a little off. How do they know it was a carjacking if nobody saw the man get into the car? The photo's a bit off-putting to me because that's the angle at which I saw it. In bright sunlight I guess the body tarp is yellow, not orange. And "shot more than once" doesn't sound like a random carjacking, but a deliberate targetting.

Silly grin!

I finally scored a high-resolution MP3 of the song from Troubled Windows! and have been playing it to death all afternoon. I have also had the silliest grin on my face all this time. Nothing better than having three of my favorite hobbies-- chirpy JPop, anime chicks, and a deep and abiding loathing for Microsoft-- all in one place!