→ September 8, 2013
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Kipps and Dangerous Liaisons.

Last week’s ESPN content included a look at a few top prospects who were called up and a Klawchat. I also contributed to the new Future Power Rankings by naming a “new #GUY” prospect for each system, ignoring players who were just drafted in June or who were previously on my top 50/100.

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I’d only read one H.G. Wells novel, his sci-fi/social commentary classic The Time Machine, before encountering Kipps The Story of a Simple Soul on the Bloomsbury 100. Another novel of deep social criticism, Kipps represents Wells’ attack on the gulf between haves and have-nots in late 19th century England while simultaneously rejecting socialism as a solution, wrapped in the envelope of a rags-to-riches-to-rags romance that works effectively on its own and as a delivery mechanism for Wells’ polemics.

Kipps himself is Arthur “Artie” Kipps, who has been shipped off by his mother (with his father unknown) to be raised by his Puritanical and simple-minded aunt and uncle. While attending a useless primary school, he falls in love with Ann, the sister of his best friend Sid, only to lose track of her when he begins his apprenticeship as a draper at age 14. The drudgery and limited outlook for working-class children sent into this sort of indentured servitude comes under Wells’ fire, as does the factory system’s wide latitude for employers to cheat their helpless employees. Kipps ends up the recipient of a windfall inheritance, seeking then to raise himself up above his lower-class upbringing, yet also struggling with questions of moral responsibility associated with his newfound wealth, many raised by the minor character Masterman – an ardent socialist dying of tuberculosis. Kipps’ fortune disappears almost as quickly as he obtained it, and it is in his response to this turn of events that his inner character emerges from the facade of the semi-polished and utterly superficial Kipps of the book’s middle section.

Wells wrote Kipps with a satirist’s pen, mocking people with wealth and power at every turn yet never sparing those poor in all but ideas. Masterman’s polemics on capitalism are somewhat undercut by Wells’ decision to make the novel’s one socialist – or its only real philosopher of any sort – terminally ill with a disease known at the time as “consumption.” Kipps’ sudden acquisition of wealth changes the way nearly everyone in his life treats him, turning many supporting characters into comic relief, while also throwing him into many situations he finds embarrassing that are also send-ups of the circumstances that created them, such as a scene in the fine restaurant of the hotel he’s inhabiting, where walking in with the wrong shoes is just the first of his problems. The reader can only feel badly for Kipps, who is a stranger in the strange land of privilege, while scorning the various aristocrats who’d look down on him for his naivete.

The romance plot is the overarching storyline in the book, covering Kipps from childhood till the point when he loses his fortune (in predictable, but yet somewhat amusing fashion), even though it functions as a subplot under the more academic themes relating to Kipps’ career and time as one of the idle rich. Kipps’ childhood romance with Ann lasts until he turns 14 and leaves for a career in fabric, after which he ends up with a crush on the more sophisticated Helen Walsingham, who views him sympathetically but without much interest until his inheritance turns up. The way in which Kipps acquires that money doesn’t fit neatly into either plot line, but also provides one of the book’s most entertaining passages, particularly because the non-drinker Kipps goes on a lengthy bender that leads to an improbable connection to the lost money, while leading into a lengthy fish-out-of-water passage where Kipps flops and flounders his way through upper-class society.

Wells mimics lower-class speech in Kipps’ dialogue, with liaisons like “a nactor” for “an actor” and elisions like “mis’bel” for “miserable,” which can make reading the text a little slower, but he more than makes up for it with direct, modern prose that avoids the sluggishness that I’ve encountered in some of the other Bloomsbury 100 novels, even contemporaries of Kipps. It’s funny, cutting, sweet, and still quite relevant in a time of rising income inequality in capitalist societies yet in a world where socialist economies have failed.

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I also knocked out Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 epistolary novel Dangerous Liaisons*, which appears on both the Bloomsbury and Guardian lists, although it took a solid week to get through the tedious prose and absurdly long letters between the main characters. Focusing on a romantic rivalry between the rake the Viscomte de Valmont and his quondam paramour the Marquise de Merteuil, both gleefully free of morals and engaged in multiple intrigues simultaneously. Their rivalry leads Valmont to “seduce” (rape, in modern terms) the 15-year-old ingenue Cécile de Volanges, which in turns sets their mutual downfall in motion.

*Not to be confused with “Dangeresque Liaisons.”

For a work involving sex (most of it of the consensual variety) and betrayal, Dangerous Liaisons is a plodding read, as the entire book comprises letters between the various characters floridly describing what they just did, or what they might do next, or (in Cécile’s case) what they would just like to do. I assume Laclos was moralizing in two ways, over promiscuity/infidelity but also over those who treat others as mere pawns for their own gains or pleasures, as both Valmont and Merteuil treat multiple lovers (or victims) in this way over the course of the novel. Yet Laclos makes the novel so one-sided that it fast becomes boring, in the way that Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward wears out its welcome with sermonizing on how the world should be.

I haven’t seen the Academy Award-nominated adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons (a film adapted from a play adapted from a novel) starring John Malkovich (really?) as the roué Valmont, but I did watch the 1989 adaptation Valmont, with the far more believable Colin Firth in the role of the cad. That version altered the ending far too much to be considered a reasonable adaptation, crafting happy-ish endings for several characters and avoiding the more serious aspects of the novel’s depictions of Valmont and Merteuil (played by Annette Bening, also a solid casting choice).

Next up: Joseph Roth’s The Radetzky March, another selection from the Bloomsbury 100, and a novel that has appeared on at least two lists of the most important novels in the German canon.

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→ September 6, 2013
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Keste and more NYC eats.

I’m chatting today at 1 pm ET.

In the last three weeks, I’ve hit three more places from Food and Wine‘s list of the 48 best pizzerias in the country (I don’t know why they chose 48, and it’s 47 now anyway with one closed), and I’ve at least found one rival to Pizzeria Bianco for the best pizzeria in the country, as well as hitting the first of the four spots from the list located in Brooklyn.

Keste, located on Bleecker in Greenwich Village, is run by an Italian pizzaiolo who was born and raised outside of Naples and learned the craft of pizza-making in that city, the capital of pizza in Italy. The style is true Neapolitan, with a thin crust and a soft center so that the crust struggles to support the toppings, and Keste does it correctly, something few places that boast of serving “authentic” Neapolitan pizzas manage to do. The menu is quite large, with a huge selection of pizzas with tomato sauce, a small selection of “white” pizzas, and a number of gluten-free options. My friend Toby and I ordered two pizzas and split them – the margherita with buffalo mozzarella and the daily special with burrata, prosciutto, and truffle oil.

The crusts on both were spectacular, exactly as promised, with a little char on the exterior, good tooth on the exterior crust, and just enough underneath to keep the toppings off the plate and give some texture contrast. The special was among the best pizzas I’ve ever had thanks to the creaminess and bright flavor of the burrata, and the salty-but-not-too-salty prosciutto, as well as the hint of truffle flavor that didn’t overwhelm any of the other ingredients. The margherita was notable more for the brightness of the tomatoes than anything else, with good balance between that and the mozzarella di bufala. The flavors on both pizzas were loud, in a good way, and everything was balanced and fresh and just incredible.

A few weeks ago, I managed to sneak into Co., the pizzeria founded by Jim Lahey of no-knead bread fame, for dinner with my family on a trip to Boston. The crust was outstanding, as you’d expect, but the rest of the experience fell very short for us. For one thing, the pizzas were small and sparsely topped, skimping especially on cheese, which is kind of the essential ingredient when pizza is the entree because it’s the only real protein source on any pizza without meat. For another, I am not sure when I have ever been in a colder restaurant than Co. was on that night – it could not have been over 65 degrees in there – and it was incredibly loud. I was more impressed with the bread and olive oil starter, which does a better job of showing off Lahey’s technique, than I was with either of the pizzas we ordered. I’ll tolerate atmosphere issues if the food is amazing, but the crust was just good, not enough to make me want to deal with the conditions there.

Franny’s in Brooklyn was an outright disappointment, however – so sparsely topped that it was more like having bread for lunch than pizza, with almost nothing beyond a thin layer of tomato sauce on top. The crust was gorgeous, with some blistering on the exterior, great tooth to the exterior, and a good contrast between the edge and the interior. But man, you need to put something on top of the pizza to get me to fight my way down Flatbush to come eat at your place.

Moving on from pizza … After Keste, Toby dragged me kicking and screaming to Grom, a gelateria (one of two Groms in the city, plus a summer location in Central Park) that imports the product from Italy. Their commitment to product quality is insane, with organic eggs, spring water for their sorbets, and fruit from their own farm in Costigliole d’Asti. And the gelato is amazing – the dark chocolate “sorbet,” made with egg yolks and Colombian chocolate but no dairy, is as intense as eating a bar of very dark chocolate but with the creamy texture of actual gelato; the caffè flavor uses Guatemalan coffee beans to create a dark coffee flavor that doesn’t hide the coffee behind sugar and cream. It’s a hell of an experience even when you’re already overstuffed with pizza. (I also love that their URL is grom.it; too bad walla.ce isn’t available.)

Culture Espresso on 38th Street doesn’t roast its own coffee, but buys from some of the best roasters in the country – currently using coffees from Heart roasters in Portland, Oregon, a micro-roaster that specializes in very light roasts of single-estate coffees. Culture is currently using a blend of two coffees, an Ethiopian and a Central American (I think the barista said Colombian), which produced a medium-bodied shot that still had the bright strawberry notes of the east African half of the blend.

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→ August 30, 2013
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Glossary of inside jokes.

When we start in with inside jokes on Twitter or in chats, I’m often asked by newer readers what some of the hashtags and terms mean, but it’s hard to stop everything else to explain myself – especially in 140 characters. So with that in mind, here’s a far-from-complete list of those various jokes

#andrelted: When Andrelton Simmons does something amazing in the field, which is pretty much every night. See also #belted.

#arbitraryendpoints: Also known as cherry-picking, this means choosing one or both endpoints on a series of games to try to analyze a player. I’ve argued that it’s not arbitrary if the endpoint is tied to something specific, like a change in mechanics, an injury, or a recall from the minors, but even so, it’s always dangerous to throw out any data when you want to draw a conclusion.

#belted: When Brandon Belt homers. Actually originated with #poseyed the year before, but Posey hit too many homers and it got old fast. Even the #belted thing is probably nearing the end of its useful life.

#bowlofjello: That would be Clint Hurdle, who is probably the worst thing going for the Pirates right now, and whom I referred to by this moniker in a July 2012 tweet.

#classy (with or without the #): Refers to Michael Young, and the seeming blindness of some local writers in Dallas to the erosion of his on-field value, after which they would defend him by referring to him as “classy.” Classy is great but it doesn’t turn all those outs into hits. I should point out that use of the term isn’t actually a shot at Young, but how members of the media treat him.

#GUY: From my April 2013 podcast with Chris Sprow, where he brought up the difference between calling a player a “guy” (as in, “he’s just a guy”) and calling him a “GUY” (e.g., Byron Buxton). It turns out that football and baseball people both use the word in the same way.

#heathbellexperience: Possibly invented by Steve Berthiaume, now used to describe Heath Bell doing Heath Bell things, mostly giving up massive home runs. Antecedent of the less-common #jimjohnsonexperience.

#holtzmansfolly: The save rule, which has done more damage to the game on the field and to roster construction than any other statistic in the history of the game. Of course, the BBWAA gave the nitwit who invented this stat the Spink Award, because if that organization is good at one thing, it’s self-congratulation.

#idito: From an angry and not very bright Cardinals fan in 2009 who was mad that I didn’t include Chris Carpenter on my NL Cy Young ballot that year. Related to the now obsolete term #obsurd, from another equally angry and equally not very bright Cardinals fan that same day.

#meow: Every time a reader accuses me of bias, God kills a kitten. From the defunct Baseball Today podcast. RIP Bias Cat.

Moran: If you’re going to insult someone, especially by calling them stupid, you probably should look in the mirror first. Not my joke.

More-singles defense: The no-doubles defense.

#preeminent: I appeared on ESPN’s Philadelphia affiliate right after Ryan Howard signed his five-year extension, only to be ambushed by the host of the show in question, who kept referring to Howard as the “preeminent” power hitter in the game. So, whenever it pays to point out that the contract is as awful today as it appeared to be when the Phillies gave it to him, we trot out this tag.

#robotumpsnow: Creation obscure – seemed like a bunch of us started using it around the same time so I won’t take any credit. Refers mostly to awful ball/strike calls by home plate umps, and the fact that replacing that with currently available technology would be an immediate improvement.

SHANF: I think Crashburn Alley started this one – at least, that’s how I first saw it – which originally referred to Shane Victorino doing something a little dim on the field. Given his 2013 season, and how much I ragged on that contract last offseason, if I drop a “SHANF” now, I’m making fun of myself and my very wrong analysis about him.

#smrtbaseball: A little bit of The Simpsons applied to baseball, this refers to tactical moves that are anything but smart, especially ill-advised bunts or intentional walks, as well as batting a low-OBP guy in the two hole. It appears to have started here:

#shrimp/#shrimpalert: Refers to a walk-off walk (walking in the winning run because the bases were loaded). Not mine – originated on the walkoffwalk blog here.

should of: That’s all Fan Since 09, a brilliant parody of a Phillies fan who hopped on the bandwagon right after they won the World Series.

#SSS: Small Sample Size. In other words, I’m saying the performance in question is more a function of the randomness inherent in small samples of plate appearances or innings pitched than a change in skill or outlook. Fangraphs has a few pieces on when samples aren’t small any more. It’s worth bearing in mind, however, that if we look at 100 players who’ve reached that threshold, we’re still likely to see one or two players whose stats haven’t stabilized or regressed – it would be more surprising if we didn’t see any outliers at all.

#tehfear: As in, The Fear, the thing that Boston Globe writer Dan Shaughnessy said Jim Rice provoked in opposing pitchers, and that thus made Rice worthy of Hall of Fame induction. It’s just the kind of unverifiable, unfalsifiable nonsense that people use when defeated by rational arguments.

TOOTBLAN: Thrown Out On the Bases Like a Nincompoop. Invented by Cubs blogger Tony Jewell for Ryan Theriot. I’m blocked from the original site due to Google saying it’s infected with malware, but you can see the relevant part of the initial post here.

#umpshow: Any time an umpire decides that he wants to make himself the center of attention, especially by attempting to provoke a conflict with a player or coach, it’s an umpshow. Fans don’t watch games to see the umpires ump. We watch to see the players. It would be great if the minority of umpires who think all eyes should be on them could understand that. Not to be confused with basic incompetence, where #robotumpsnow or #thehumanelement might be more accurate.

#veteranpresents: Started in this chat, regarding Garret Anderson, when the Dodgers signed him to provide veteran presence in their lineup. I decided it was more likely he was a veteran who handed out presents to other players and coaches in the locker room, since that seemed like the only way he’d provide any value. It is a mortal lock that any time I drop this hashtag, at least three people will claim I misspelled “presence,” because they were both without a sense of humor.

#weirdbaseball: Refers to any game that goes past midnight local time (that is, where the game is being played), at which point, everyone is supposed to eat ice cream. Invented by my former colleague Kevin Goldstein (RIP).

#YCPB: You Can’t Predict Baseball, so you should follow this Twitter account.

#your: I don’t play grammar police very often, but it is amazing how often people who send me insults on Twitter can’t get “your” and “you’re” straight. I believe it was @ceeangi who first pointed out this phenomenon.

Omissions? Corrections? Fire ’em in the comments. This list really isn’t mine, but ours as a community, so I’ll update accordingly.

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→ August 29, 2013
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The Brothers Karamazov.

Ah, children, ah, dear friends, don’t be afraid of life! How good life is when one does something good and just!

I thought I’d like Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov a lot more than I actually did. I loved Crime and Punishment and at least enjoyed the prose of Notes from Underground, while several of you said you thought I’d like Karamazov given what other novels I’ve said I like.

The plot is quite straightforward for a novel of about 900 pages. The three brothers of the title all vary widely in temperament and philosophy: Dmitri (also called Mitya), the hedonistic, hotheaded eldest brother; the Ivan, the dour, academic, atheist middle brother; and Alyosha, the gentle, highly religious youngest brother. The three are tied together by their father, the cold, profligate Fyodor Karamazov, who had two wives and may have fathered a fourth son, Smerdyakov, out of wedlock. Fyodor has little to with raising his sons, and no emotional connection to them, but is tied to them by questions of inheritance and social standing.

Dmitri’s womanizing eventually brings him into conflict with his father when the two pursue the same woman, while Dmitri also finds himself forced to turn to his family for money, leading to a dispute between Dmitry and his father over the former’s inheritance. When Fyodor is found murdered, Dmitry, who has vowed to kill his father before, is arrested and charged with the crime; Ivan ends up descending into madness while trying to esablish his brother’s guilt or innocence; and Alyosha, after leaving the monastery where he was a novice, ends up a sort of friend and mentor to Kolya, the brash leader of a group of local kids.

The novel’s length allows Dostoevsky to include a few subplots, such as Alyosha and Kolya, but the bulk of the novel is taken up by long passages such as the multi-chapter arc of Dmitri’s trial (in which Dostoevsky took aim at several highly publicized trials of the era, including one where the attorney defending a man accused of nearly beating his daughter to death humiliated the six-year-old victim on the stand). Another chapter has Ivan relating a parable he wrote, “The Grand Inquisitor,” to his brother Alyosha, expounding on Ivan’s questioning of the possibility of a benevolent, personal God, and the associated questions of free will and individual liberty. The story itself, which depicts a Spanish Inquisitor interrogating Jesus Christ after the latter returns to earth, leaves its ultimate meaning open to interpretation, fitting with the philosophical ambuigities of the novel as a whole.

Dostoevsky’s prose is actually quite easy to read, even though, like many Russian novelists, his sentences are long and he often veers from the main point. But I think my main problem with the book was that I could not get into the central philosophical conflict at the heart of the novel. Dmitri’s trial has some drama, as it’s not clear whether he’s guilty, but it is so long and drawn-out that his guilt is beside the point, as Dostoevsky seems to be offering his views on the jury trial itself, which was relatively new to Russia at the time the novel was published. Dostoevsky waxed extensively on similar questions of faith and freedom in Crime and Punishment while also delving into the nature of evil, and doing so in a novel that’s just over half of the length of this one, making it a more fluid read and also attacking the philosophical questions more effectively.

One bit I did enjoy was the substantial amount of dry, often dark humor in the novel, such as the comment about a European nose specialist who “can only cure your right nostril” and sends the patient to Vienna for a specialist who deals with left noses, or the devil, visiting Ivan in a hallucination, pointing out that, in hell, “we’ve adopted the metric system, you know.” More of that would have made the book more compelling for me, although I imagine Dostoevsky was using humor primarily for satire purposes, not for laughs.

I feel like I should emphasize here this is a matter of personal preference – I’m not questioning the book’s legacy or place in the historical canon. It’s 5th on the Novel 100, 29th on the Guardian 100, and part of the Bloomsbury 100 I mentioned in Thursday’s chat, and has been cited as a heavy influence by numerous later authors from across the world. It’s a very ambitious novel, and I imagine a difficult one to conceive and write because of how much Dostoevsky was trying to express through dialogue without the benefit of action. Unfortunately, it left me wanting something more substantial; as easy as it was to move through the novel, I was never fully engaged by any of the stories or by the characters. Perhaps it’s my own tastes, and perhaps the novel just read as dated to me, but it wouldn’t make my personal top 100.

Of course, it’s just possible that the Bluths are the Karamazovs and everything suddenly makes sense.

Next up: I read Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, which is 7th on the Guardian 100, 32nd on the Novel 100, and on the Bloomsbury 100, after Karamazov. It’s bawdy and funny, full of explicit sexual humor and double entendres, but the language is so different from modern English that I found it hard to read and occasionally hard to follow. I’m now about a quarter of the way through H.G. Wells’ Kipps, which is also on the Bloomsbury 100.

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→ August 27, 2013
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Chicago eats, 2013.

My trip to Chicago was very brief, by design – I flew in on Saturday morning, had lunch, went to the Under Armour All-American Game, had dinner with Old Hoss, and flew home that night – so time was short and I had to leave a few Chicago places I’d love to try for a future trip. In the meantime, I at least accomplished two small goals: I got to one of Top Chef wniner Stephanie Izzard’s restaurants, and can cross yet another pizzeria off that Food and Wine list.

Izzard is most famous for her flagship restaurant The Girl & the Goat, which I still have yet to try, but I’d heard good things about her diner, The Little Goat, in the same neighborhood but offering more comfort-food fare while serving breakfast and lunch as well as dinner. I popped a photo on Instagram of my meal, the Fat Elvis Waffles – two waffles with sliced bananas, peanut butter butter (a compound butter with peanut butter blended into soft unsalted butter), small bits of bacon, and maple syrup. It sounded amazing, looked great, and was thoroughly disappointing – only the peanut butter butter lived up to expectations. The waffles were dense and soft, difficult to cut with a butter knife, and lacking flavor. Waffles should be airy inside and crispy outside, period. If you don’t use enough fat, you won’t get that. If you skimp on leavening, whether it’s an acid/base reaction or yeast or an egg white foam, you won’t get that. The Little Goat didn’t. Even the bacon fell short, as I thought I was going to lose a filling when I bit down on one piece. I’d take a pound of the peanut butter butter to go, though.

Dinner with our favorite syphilitic pitcher was more successful, at Bar Toma, one of three Chicago places on Food and Wine‘s best U.S. pizzerias list. (The others are Burt’s Place, which does that vile thing called “deep dish” pizza, and Great Lake, which has since closed but may reopen this fall.) The odd thing is that Bar Toma doesn’t get high marks from locals – I’ve not gotten great feedback from readers or friends in Chicago, and its ratings online (not that any of those are terribly reliable) aren’t strong. I thought it was solid, and that’s without adding points for Lucy, our rather gorgeous Irish server who probably received a few more questions from our table than was appropriate.

We ordered two pizzas, the August special, with duck sausage, goat cheese, and red chili flakes; and the off-menu burrata pizza, recommended by our darling Lucy. The burrata pizza was by far our favorite; it’s topped with burrata (large balls of fresh mozzarella with cream inside), truffle oil, and arugula, and the crust on this pizza was better than the one on the duck sausage pizza, crispier at the edges and underneath as well. The duck sausage pizza was a little unbalanced, with too much red pepper, too much tang from the goat cheese (which was soft like chevre but tangier than goat’s milk feta), and nothing on the other side. The duck sausage even got lost a little beside those other ingredients.

We started with a kale salad, which was topped with a medium-boiled egg and contained bread crumbs and an anchovy vinaigrette; it was outstanding as well as moderately healthful and actually quite pretty with the mix of purple and green leaves. Bar Toma also makes about a dozen flavors of gelato in-house; I went with the chocolate and amaretto, both with excellent texture, served just warm enough to begin melting at the table (that’s a good thing – gelato shouldn’t be too cold). The chocolate was a little underflavored for me, with texture and flavor like Belgian milk chocolate, but the amaretto was like tipping the Di Saronno to the head like a forty. I’m not sure why its local reputation is mixed – it’s good, probably a 55 if we’re rating the burrata pizza, a 60 if we give points for Lucy, and infinitely preference to that tomato-cake nonsense Chicagoans like to eat instead.

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→ August 20, 2013
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Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego eats.

I had a column up from earlier today looking at which organizations are deepest at each position; there’s a lot of Pittsburgh on there. This week’s Behind the Dish podcast features my conversation with Padres VP and former Mets scouting director Chad McDonald.

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I went to Salt’s Cure with a friend during the Area Code Games, just on the recommendation of a reader who thought it was my kind of place – a spot-on suggestion, since restaurants with small menus that change daily are very much up my alley. We started with their cheese plate, featuring a trio of California cheeses, one each from cow’s, goat’s, and sheep’s milks, as well as a little apricot jam and some grilled bread. As expected, I liked the goat and sheep options but didn’t love the cow’s – a function of my palate, not the cheeses themselves. I intended to eat something light that night but couldn’t pass up the braised pork shoulder over creamy grits with caramelized onions, a meal that photographed poorly but that was perfectly cooked, with the (cheese-less) grits a good balance to the fatty/salty meat and the sweet/tart flavors from the onions. We also ordered the very simple raw kale salad on the side, which was only the second-best kale salad I had that week. My friend got the lamb sirloin with romanos beans and romesco, all of which he raved about – I didn’t try it as I’m just not a huge fan of lamb. For dessert, we had these multi-layered chocolate custards that were rich and dark and not too sweet … I can’t even remember what the other layers were. This was a huge find, just a fantastic locally-focused place with amazing food.

My second swing to Umami burger, first since February of 2010, was just as good as the last time out – their original burger is an umami-bomb, and now they offer ice cream sandwiches that are also pretty spectacular.

I discovered Caulfield’s in January when Bobby Flay tweeted that it was the “best new restaurant in LA,” which seemed like sufficient reason to check the place out. It’s located in the Thompson Hotel in Beverly Hills, but isn’t your ordinary hotel restaurant, with an inventive, seasonally-informed menu that has lots of lighter dishes that don’t sacrifice flavor. I ordered a starter, the albacore tuna and sockeye salmon poke, and a salad, a kale salad with almonds, hard-boiled eggs, bacon, and anchovy dressing. The poke was solid, although the wasabi-ginger-soy dressing overwhelmed the fish a little bit, especially the albacore tuna which doesn’t have a pronounced enough flavor to survive that much salt and heat. The salad, however, was among the best I’ve ever had: thin ribbons of kale perfectly dressed with an umami-heavy dressing (think Caesar dressing, but without the parmiggiano-reggiano), with added texture from the almonds and the smoky boost from the bacon. It was absolutely perfect, and that’s before I consider its high content of antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids.

Over in Long Beach, there isn’t a whole lot to recommend. I went to Koi in Seal Beach for sushi, as I do every year, although I admit it’s a little weird to park across from the hair salon where eight people were killed in 2011. The fish at Koi is outstanding, with a specials board always up showing what’s fresh, and many of the nigiri options come with the sauce of the sushi-ya’s choice.

As for new spots, Lord Windsor Roasters is a new-ish third-wave (meaning lighter roasts) coffee roastery and cafe on 3rd, about ten minutes’ drive from Blair Field. They roast their coffees in the back of the store, with three options available for pourovers each day I was there, as well as their own blend for espresso drinks. The pourover was a little weak by my standards, without much body, as if the grind was a little too coarse, but I loved their espresso for flavor and texture.

I can also recommend Thiptara, a Thai restaurant on PCH right by Blair Field, which has the standard Thai dishes but also has some more regional items, like the yellow pumpkin curry with chicken that I had as an entree. The sauce includes a roasted chili paste as well as the spices you’d expect to find in Thai yellow curry, with a coconut milk base, but it’s the chunks of al dente pumpkin that set the dish apart, bringing sweetness to balance the salty and spicy notes of the sauce. I also had the green papaya salad, with carrot, cherry tomatoes, and string beans in a garlic-chili-lime dressing, which was just mildly spicy. The salad had great color and crunch and everything was obviously very fresh.

The trip to San Diego was a little less successful. Breakfast at the Mission was amazing, as always. Cafe 222 was a mess, the second time I’ve been disappointed there – and thus the last. I drove up the coast a little to visit Bird Rock coffee roasters, where I got a decent espresso (although too small to be the double I’d ordered) and was shocked to see an option for Chemex coffee using geisha beans (which are the world’s most expensive) that cost $9 for a cup.

Dinner at Craft and Commerce was a mixed bag. I had a good salad to start, with citrus supremes, avocado, and sliced jicama, although the fried goat cheese came in ping pong ball-sized chunks that were at room temperature when that should be served warm. They were also out of their signature dessert item, warm beignets with chocolate-bourbon sauce, even though it’s not a yeast dough and could be made to order if need be.

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→ August 19, 2013
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Music update, August 2013.

It’s been four months since my last omnibus music post, and a year that had started strongly for alternative rock has just gotten stronger since then, with even more to come this fall. Maybe some of this is just me feeling better this year and more willing to spend time looking for and listening to great new music, but I think we’re just trending upwards for new bands and sounds getting at least enough exposure to reach my ears even if they’re not breaking all the way through to the mainstream.

As always, song titles are linked to their amazon mp3 pages. I’ve included Soundcloud links for the first time, as an experiment; for most of these songs you can play the track directly, with a few that require going to Soundcloud instead. Suggestions for other songs or artists you think I might like are always welcome.

New Politics – “Harlem.” I mentioned this in a chat a month or so ago, but this might be the song of the year for me, mixing clever imagery, a tremendous hook, and enough musical twists to make it fit better on the alternative charts than on the pop charts, although a crossover feels inevitable. It’s just too catchy to remain on the fringes, and yet combines enough elements from different subgenres to feel fresh yet familiar at heart.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/73495214″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Arctic Monkeys – “Do I Wanna Know?.” I can’t wait for this album to drop in September, especially with how promising this song is, as well as last year’s one-off single “R U Mine?” This one has to be the best slow-tempo songs the Monkeys have ever released, but without giving up Alex Turner’s trademark sneer or wordplay like “Been wondering if your heart’s still open/and if so I wanna know what time it shuts.”

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/100381545″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Boxer Rebellion – “Diamonds.” I absolutely love this song, which reminds me of The National but with a vocalist who actually wants you to hear what he’s saying. The rest of the album doesn’t quite measure up, unfortunately, making for better background listening as atmospheric rock (not emo, but atmo?) that lacks the bright definition of “Diamonds.”

Boxer Rebellion’s ”Diamonds” on Soundcloud

Cayucas – “High School Lover.” Also on the short list of the best pop songs of the year, or at least the summer, although its potential for airplay was rather hampered by a superfluous f-bomb in the middle of the second verse. I don’t care if you want to curse on your records, but if you choose to do so, don’t throw them away – make them count. Anyway, the subject matter is silly and fun, just what the title implies, with a twinge of bitterness given the past tense of the lyrics, while the music bounces you along like you’re riding on the back of some guy’s (or girl’s) bicycle.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/88611033″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Atlas Genius – “If So.” Final candidate for song of the year from this batch (on top of a few tracks from the April post). Is smart-pop a genre? If so – see what I did there? – this Aussie duo may define it.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/77185677″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

The National – “Don’t Swallow the Cap.” I just want to mention that I think this is a gorgeous pop song, ruined by the fact that the lead singer mumbles his way through the vocals. Dude, if you can’t get up for this song, why the hell should I? It’s begging for a cover version with a singer who lets it out. (The track is available free through that link.)

Savages – Silence Yourself. Album of the year so far. I reviewed this earlier in the week.

Fitz & the Tantrums – More Than Just A Dream (album). Overall, I was disappointing in Fitz’s sophomore effort. It’s not as punchy as their debut, and I don’t think it has the breakout potential of that disc’s lead single, “Moneygrabber,” and has one very radio-friendly song in “Out of My League” that’s a little too poppy for me. Their lyrical subject matter really needs to extend beyond thinly-told tales of romance and heartbreak. The sleeper track on the album is the more uptempo “Spark,” which is one of the few songs where co-singer Noelle Scaggs gets at least equal time with Fitz himself; I’d also check out “Break the Walls” and “MerryGoRound” if you liked their first disc and want something more along those lines.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/89650241″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Kid Astray – “The Mess.” (video) She will never/answer your calls, babe/just let it go now. I’m not even sure what to call this song, where the chorus, the verse, and the … um, other verse don’t quite seem to fit together, even though each stands on its own merits. The band is Norwegian and describes themselves as “indie-pop,” but there’s far more of an electronic underpinning here than in what generally gets the indie-pop label here in the U.S.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/84995851″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Bastille – “Pompeii.” Kind of an updated Erasure with vocals more along the lines of Violator-era Depeche Mode. The song has been all over Sirius XM’s Alt Nation, and has been a hit all over Europe and in Australia, making it seem inevitable it’ll cross over here at least to some extent. It’s just a very good electronic/pop song, with an effervescent synth backing behind rising and falling vocals that include the line you won’t get out of your head, “How am I gonna be an optimist about this?”

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/74223398″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Beware of Darkness – “Howl.” The PA folks at Petco played the first few bars of this track during the PG All-American Classic, which just about knocked me out of my seat given how under-the-radar and out-of-date this band’s blues-heavy hard-rock sound is. They’re edgier and rougher than their hair metal predecessors, but it wouldn’t be insane to call the song the result of a lab experiment to cross Whitesnake and the Black Crowes. Also, it rocks.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/105639841″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Franz Ferdinand – “Love Illumination.” They just turn out 2-3 pop gems like this on every album, don’t they? The album comes out on the 27th of this month. I’d rate this track ahead of “No You Girls,” but behind “The Fallen,” “The Dark of the Matinee,” or “Ulysses.” It’s more of Franz Ferdinand’s version of a great highway driving song.

Haim – I can’t stand Haim. Go away already.

Rogue Wave – Nightingale Floors (album). First two tracks, “No Magnatone” (in 3/4 time, a Rogue Wave staple that once ended up with the Dancing With the Stars band massacring “Lake Michigan” during a waltz) and “College” are standouts. I could make a case for the closer, “Everyone Wants to Be You,” but it goes on far too long for me to stick with it till the end. Everything in between is filler, some bland, some outright soporific. The deluxe version, linked here, also has a half-hearted cover of one of my favorite tracks from the 1990s, Screaming Trees’ “Nearly Lost You.”

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/85173035″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

CHVRCHES – “Gun.” Album drops September 23rd. I can’t wait.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/94123129″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Children of Bodom – “Transference.” Death metal song of the year so far, although the upcoming Carcass release may change that. The screaming-and-growling thing feels very silly to me – you sound like Cookie Monster and are as threatening as Prairie Dawn – but the music underneath the vocals here is tight and intense, a rare bit of evolution in the post-thrash/grindcore environment.

Transference video on Youtube

Smallpools – “Dreaming.” More synth-pop, with a heavier feel than Bastille but just as strong of a hook and better overall energy. It’s amazing to me to hear so much of the synth-heavy sound of early ’80s New Wave come back around, but with tighter production and less obvious pop-radio pandering. I also like Smallpools’ use of a story, or at least the shell of a story, of being trapped somewhere and under attack, while refusing to surrender, to back up the energy of the guitar and keyboard lines.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/92381431″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

These New Puritans – “Fragment Two.” I want to call this jazz, but it’s more jazz in philosophy than in practice. There’s an experimental feel to this, with offbeat piano lines, aposiopetic stops, and internal references to earlier parts of the track. It’s way out there for me.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/91094104″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Queens of the Stone Age – “My God is the Sun.” Three listens to their new album, …Like Clockwork, still didn’t sell me on it, but at least we have this lead track, a throwback to Kyussian slow-jam headbanger days, to keep QotSA alive in our hearts. Or something. I concede this album probably demands more time from me. The track is free through that amazon link.

Beach Fossils – “Clash the Truth.” Less lo-fi than early post-punk/new wave to my ears, a little disinterested vocally (not quite as much as The National), and not as exciting as DIIV, formed by former Beach Fossils member Zachary Cole Smith, just subtle and concise and pulsing with a sort of compulsive negative energy.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/3623478″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Phoenix – “Entertainment.” I know I’m not supposed to say this, but I thought Bankrupt! was a huge disappointment, barely building at all on their last disc, the Grammy-winning Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. “Entertainment,” the lead single, at least boosts the sound from their previous album with a stomping energy, like a song from the soundtrack to a Cirque du Soleil show.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/79784563″
params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Blondfire – “Waves.” The music frames a perfect pop song, undone by lyrics that turn the band into a bad blonde joke: “Waves/picking you up/pushing you down/they’re always around.” Like, deep, man.

Blondfire’s “Waves” on Soundcloud

Bleached – “Dead in Your Head.” Inevitable comps to the Go-Gos and the Runaways abound, although I think they’re probably going to end up staring up at the Savages more than anyone else. “Dead in Your Head” stays low in the zone, with a sludgy feeling and lethargic pace under a superficial story of the emotional costs of regret.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/91133757″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Mona – “Goons (Baby, I Need It All).” I get a little “Chelsea Dagger” out of this track, a sort of grimy yet lambent confection that clocks in at 3:13 and would feel too long at 3:30. Sometimes you can just hear a band gunning for more airplay within the confines of their existing sound; this song pretends to machismo, but when Mona drops the “hey hey hey-ey-ey-eh,” they’re quietly hoping you sing along.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/101637882″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Jagwar Ma – “Come Save Me.” I’ve been of the general opinion that the Brits do intelligent, accessible rock music better than we do for years, but Australia is starting to gain on us as well, with Jagwar Ma following the Cut Copy path. There’s a distinctive Aussie-rock sound here, with lo-fi production, stomping percussion, and choruses that feel like they’re holding something back to maintain the tension into the next verse. The track is currently free through that link.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/28678096″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Lord Huron – “Time To Run.” We draw some funny lines around songs and artists, pigeonholing them into specific genres so we know what stations are and aren’t allowed to play them. “Time to Run” finds itself boxed in as alternative music, or folk-rock, when it’s more country than anything else – think David Gray doing country, without the whole my-tractor’s-sexy nonsense that has reduced contemporary country music to antiseptic idiocy.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/53903681″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

The Head and the Heart – “Shake.” Similar to Lord Huron with a country-folk-crossover vibe, less overtly country than “Time to Run,” a definite step up from H&H’s last album. Their new disc drops on October 15th.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/103616868″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Youngblood Hawke – “We Come Running.” A straight-up pop song that never crossed over from alternative radio. Solid, better than what you’ll hear on pop radio these days, but not as good as the other songs I cover here.

YBH’s “We Come Running” on Soundcloud

Walk Off the Earth – “Red Hands.” Worth a listen, mostly for the chorus, although the harmonies have been overproduced to the point that the individual voices are flattened beyond recognition, like someone in marketing figured they’d get more airplay on soft-rock stations that way.

”Red Hands” on Soundcloud

Wild Nothing – “A Dancing Shell.” I loved their last album, Nocturne, which I discovered thanks to recommendations from several of you. This song doesn’t quite hit the mark for me, mostly because of the walking keyboard line that turns a dreamy alternative track into a slightly twee space-pop song. If they just took that one part out, it would be tremendous.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/89089573″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

TV on the Radio – “Mercy.” Their best track since “Wolf Like Me” from their 2006 Return to Cookie Mountain album, “Mercy” is a fierce, fast-paced rocker with clever, alliterative lyrics. It seems to be a one-off single for now, with no announcement about a forthcoming album, unfortunately.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/103156502″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Disclosure – “When A Fire Starts To Burn.” This one song is better than the entire Daft Punk album put together. Yeah, the repetitive vocal sample thing isn’t my thing – it’s been fifteen years or so since that appeared on mainstream tracks, so maybe we could try something new? – but that bass line is tremendous, and if you’re only going to have four lines of lyrics, these are good choices.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/93555520″ params=”auto_play=false&player_type=tiny&font=Arial&color=000000″ width=” 100%” height=”18″ iframe=”false” /]

Still listening to: new albums from Royal Teeth and Braids. Looking forward to: Arcade Fire, Janelle Monae, Islands, The Naked and Famous. It’s been some kind of year for music.

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→ August 16, 2013
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Animal.

Recent ESPN content includes my Perfect Game All-American Classic recap, a piece on the Giants’ AZL team, and this week’s Klawchat, plus Behind the Dish with Cubs senior VP/future GM candidate Jason McLeod.

—

I’m a little behind on recent eats, so before that gets any worse, I’m going to write up the marquee meal from my recent trip to California, dinner at Animal with my former colleague Kiley McDaniel, now of Fox Sports.

Animal is among the most famous and trendiest places going now, appearing on Bon Appetit‘s list of the twenty most important restaurants in the U.S.*, while its two founder-chefs served as judges of the fried chicken challenge on the most recent season of Top Chef. Friends and readers have been recommending it for what seems like ages. I had to go there. And that’s before I heard they had crispy pig ears.

*I’ve been to five: Animal, Cochon, Momofuku (just the Ssäm bar, though), Husk, and Shake Shack.

Every dish but one was spectacular, even if it did produce a bit of a meat hangover. Kiley and I ended up with a lot of pork, although I find pig offal far more interesting than offal from cow or … well, I’ve never had deer offal or kangaroo offal or anything, so I’ll stop there. The three pork dishes were all superb. The pig ears were served the only way I’ve ever had them: braised, julienned, and fried like french-fried onions, served with a chili-lime dressing. Animal’s version has a sunnyside-up egg on top that the server recommended we break and toss with the ears, sharp counsel that paid off by giving some richness to balance the bright tartness of the lime. Once you’ve had fried pig ears, no other fried product can ever quite measure up.

The crispy pig head was a tremendous, rustic twist on what is better known as “head cheese” (or testina if you want to use an Italian euphemism), served in a big, loose pile with a consistency like that of a jumbo lump crab cake, where the whole thing falls apart at the touch of a fork. The meat, which is mostly jowl meat and is as flavorful as bacon but as tender as shoulder, is lightly fried to get a crispy breading on top, but that’s just Animal’s nod to the Japanese dish pork tonkatsu, something they continue with the use of Bulldog sauce, a Japanese sweet-tangy sauce with MSG, prune puree, sugar, vinegar, apple, and spices. It’s all served on a bed of short-grain rice, with another egg on top. It’s incredibly rich, and Kiley’s assessment, that it pushed the limits of how many competing flavors you want in one dish, was spot on.

The star of the night was the least unusual of the three pork offerings, the barbequed pork belly sandwiches: A small brick of pork with a big dollop of fresh slaw on top (cabbage with mayo and I believe a little mustard), served on a brioche roll. They’re slider-sized, maybe two bites if you’re greedy, and I would gladly swing by there for a dozen of those to go, White Castle-style. The slaw/pork ratio was perfect, given how rich (read: fatty) the pork was, so the acidity from the slaw was critical. This is on the short list of the best things I’ve ever eaten, which is mostly a list of things made from pig.

For starters, we tried the salad of lettuce, beets, avocado, feta, and creamy sumac dressing, which was both gorgeous (thanks to two colors of beets) and clean despite all of the different textures and flavors. I love fresh beets – not the crap from a can – and avocadoes and often pair them together with a citrus dressing at home, but the lightly creamy sumac dressing surprised me by not overwhelming the dish. That salad was better than the charred shishito peppers with shaved dried white anchovies (which weren’t listed as dried on the menu, so I thought we were getting fresh ones), a dish that had a lot of bitter and salty notes but no contrast or complexity.

The one item I just did not like was the fried sweetbreads, which had two very peculiar textures, both unpleasant – one like gummy melted cheese, the other like overcooked pork loin. It’s possible that I don’t like sweetbreads, as I think this was just the second time I’d had it, but it was also the only item we didn’t finish.

For dessert, even though we were too full, we still had to get the bacon chocolate crunch bar with salt and pepper ice cream. I liked it more than Kiley did, I think, admiring both the playfulness of black pepper in the ice cream (which looked like specks of vanilla) and the fact that the chocolate to bacon ratio was very high (so the bacon was a secondary flavor). It was still sweet enough to be dessert, but not cloying, with enough other elements that it transcended the normal dessert menu that tries to browbeat you with fat and sugar.

We were both somewhat surprised by how small the bill was for the quality and quantity of food we got, as well as the name value of the place, which seats just 45 people – about $120 total including a couple of beers, tax, and tip. I understand that’s not a cheap dinner by general standards, but a restaurant with this level of fame, located in one of the two most expensive cities in the country, could charge more, and I’m impressed that they don’t. It’s absolutely worth the trip, and now I need to try its sister restaurant, Son of a Gun, to see if it measures up.

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→ August 13, 2013
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Savages – Silence Yourself.

Savages’ debut album Silence Yourself is the album of 2013 for me so far, a dense record that is three parts post-punk to one part feminist rage to one part everything else, with a broader range of influences than you’d think a 39-minute album of tight songs could possibly include. They are in many ways the anti-Elastica.

Silence Yourself opens with one of the two tracks getting some airplay on XM, “Shut Up,” which not coincidentally is one of the most accessible songs on the album. Starting with a heavy, driving bass line, “Shut Up” picks up a staccato guitar riff that brings in the first of many notes that harken back to Gang of Four, but also bringing to mind Romeo Void’s New Wave hit “Never Say Never.” Lead singer Jehnny Beth (previously half of John and Jehn) has a tighter, angrier delivery, bringing desperation to every track, not in the sense of despair but in the sense of someone who must be heard at any cost, which comes through even more strongly on the next track, “I Am Here.”

The other song you’re likely to hear a little on alternative radio is “She Will,” maybe the most traditional rock song of the album, with a reverb-laden guitar riff over a quick, intense drum beat, letting up on the throttle for the verses. The lyrics that seem to describe a woman taking charge of her sexuality, but shifting to something darker which I interpreted as the reaction of a woman who’d been raped or assaulted and is now stuck in a downward spiral as she tries to recover, with that desperation reentering Beth’s voice as she shouts “she will” repeatedly during the chorus. That contrast, a melodic yet heavy lick set underneath dark, angry lyrics, is the most consistent theme on the album and lies beneath most of the disc’s highlights.

The brief “Hit Me,” clocking in at 1:41, opens with a riff that sounds an awful lot like the opening lick in Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher,” but with lyrics that point very much in the opposite direction, apparently an homage to the adult film actress Belladonna. Other tracks bring back some of the earliest grunge artists, before the term was co-opted, bands like Mudhoney and Green River that claimed lo-fi as an ethic (but probably also did it because they didn’t have the cash to be hi-fi), with heavy distortion and loud walking bass lines. Savages slow it down on three tracks, succeeding most with the sludgy “Strife,” and least with the album closer “Marshal Dear.”

I admit to being a skeptic of the whole “riot grrrls” marketing angle from the 1990s and early 2000s, which tended to trivialize any of those artists’ attempts to make serious feminist arguments, but Savages aren’t yet facing that kind of pigeonholing, perhaps because the music itself is good enough to stand on its own. It’s potent, hard-hitting stuff, righteous and clean like Gang of Four, but bearing some of the musical twists and production qualities associated with later post-punk acts like Joy Division or Killing Joke – to say nothing of the too-obvious comparisons to the Slits. It’s intense start to finish and deserves far more attention than just a little airplay for the two singles.

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→ August 2, 2013
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Hacienda app.

Some recent Insider content: my post-deadline column on the teams that did nothing this week, plus breakdowns of the Ian Kennedy trade, the Bud Norris trade, and the Jake Peavy trade. Also, my Klawchat transcript from earlier today. And finally, this week’s Behind the Dish podcast features former big leaguer Gabe Kapler, who talked to me about using advanced statistics in player development and about why I’m wrong to dislike the Notorious B.I.G.

—

I picked up the iPad app version of Hacienda last summer, played it once or twice, then never went back to it after a handful of other titles hit the market and I got caught up doing … well, not doing what I was supposed to do, which was at least play the game enough to write a review of it. I just returned to it this week and it’s better than I remembered, a simple tile-placement game reminiscent of Through the Desert with different scoring mechanics and a tile-placement scheme that makes it easier to block opponents.

In Hacienda, two to five players players compete to rack up points through placement on a board filled with hexes that represent different terrains. Players may purchase cards that allow them to place land tiles or animal tokens, or purchase haciendas or lakes that allow them to accumulate more points. The majority of the board’s hexes contain pampas (open fields), but there are only a handful of pampas cards, so nearly all player tiles will go on the strips of non-pampas tiles around the board. (The app comes with a basic board and a more difficult “challenge” map.)

Placing at least three land tiles together forms a chain that earns the player two points per tile in the chain; placing a hacienda on the chain adds another point per tile. Animal chains, called “herds,” aren’t worth points on their own, but add points and money when they connect to the various market tiles on the board: 1 point for the first market a player reaches, 2 for the second, 3 for the third, and so on, plus $1 for each animal tile in the herd and another $1 for each land tile in the land chain adjacent to the herd. A player also earns a point for each of his tiles adjacent to any water hole on the board, whether he placed it or another player did. Finally, a player may purchase and place a harvest token to earn $3 per land tile in that chain, although in practice the AI players rarely use this and I haven’t at all. Each turn comprises three moves, which can include purchasing a card, placing a tile or token, or buying and placing a building or lake.

The game contains two phases, but the scoring contains a hitch – the score at the end of phase one is doubled and added to the score from phase two to give the final totals. The first phase ends when the supply of animal cards is exhausted; it’s reshuffled for the second phase, while the supply of land tile cards doesn’t appear to be exhaustible. (I may have that bit wrong.) That means an early deficit can be hard to overcome, even with near-perfect play in phase two, especially if you are split by your opponents or are running short of cash. It also puts huge importance on early moves and at least a little bit of strategy, because you have to think about what the board might look like several turns down the road and try to minimize the chances of your opponents screwing you over.

And screwing your opponents over is quite possible in Hacienda. The hard AI players will block you, although sometimes they’ll do so in slightly odd ways. Because the best way to rack up points is to create a long, contiguous chain of land tiles, placing a single tile directly in your opponent’s path forces him to either leave the trail of non-pampas hexes or to pick up a few pampas cards so he can go around you. In the first phase of the game, it may be easier to just pick up and start a new chain elsewhere on the board, but in the second phase, you’re probably stuck with what you’ve got, which means that long-range planning is complicated by the possibility that your opponents will sabotage you.

The main drawback of Hacienda is that the scoring is not entirely obvious from looking at the board because of all of the multipliers that apply to various types of chains. The interactive component is a plus, but the inclusion of money adds a layer of complexity that doesn’t significantly improve the game; Through the Desert covers similar ground (pun intended) more elegantly.

The implementation here boasts outstanding graphics and quick AI players, although the lack of online multiplayer is a major drawback. The app also doesn’t allow for a random start player, which seems like an essential element for solo or pass-and-play games. Finally, tile/token placement isn’t that precise, although the developers say they improved that in the most recent update. The tutorial was clear and concise, and it’s easy to see what other players have done when it’s your turn.

I’d still recommend Through the Desert first if you like the sound of hex-based tile-placement games; in that game, you’re also trying to create long chains and connect them to specific landmarks on the board, but that’s just about it, with blocking opponents the only wrinkle in a game that stands out for its simplicity. Hacienda makes the core mechanic 50% more complicated but the resulting game is maybe 5% more interesting.

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