Done and done and time to Roll(ing Stone).

No political rants today, although I tend to save those for comments on other people's blogs (for my opinions on Neo-Conservatism and Iraq, see this; for my response to the accusation that Canadian media is "trash," which IMHO it is unequivocally not, go here).

In other news:

I've finally submitted all six copies of my thesis (that is, 193 pages x 6) to the Faculty of Graduate Studies. On that note, I'd like to apologize to trees everywhere, and congratulate paper companies on making a mint off of my troubles (in total, I've printed about 20 copies, a few dozen copies on my introduction, plus hundreds of replacement pages for typos I noticed after-the-fact... Thanks to The Gazette for helping out... I would also like to thank Louise Carbert and the rest of the Department for putting up with my defence being moved to a rather awkward time, the morning of the 6th, when we had to substitute a chair, among other things, and for dealing with FGS when I couldn't get a third signature on my signatures sheet -- thanks!).

Despite the delays, FGS is sneaking me in for this October's graduation. I know this first-hand because FGS has kindly added $120 to my university account bill, thus disabling me from requesting the transcripts I need. Fan^&*%ingtastick!

Given this, I'm going to celebrate (a bit) on Friday. Party starts at the Gradhouse. Give me a shout. I may continue the festivities the next day by picking up a ticket to the Stones, (hopefully shamelessly from day-of ticket dumping) and getting my ear drums hammered in by a group of lost-past-their-due waifish ghouls with a bunch of guitars and a drummer.

On that:
Let's be honest. The Stones have almost never been a good live band, which generally requires either a tight, competent, but nervous ensemble, or a bunch of virtuosos who can take chaos and turn it into art without thinking about. The Stones, who capitalize on looseness, sit in an uncomfortable middle. They are anything but nervous. And they are not virtuosos. At their height, Mick Taylor handled the post-Brian Jones virtuoso factor well. But he quit. Charlie Watts is certainly competent, Mick Jagger is certainly unique, and Keith Richards is certainly a genius. But virtuosos or nervous players they are not.

(I know almost nothing about Ronnie Wood, Taylor's virtual "replacement," other than he appears to be semi-competent, skinny enough to fit in with the other waifish ghouls, and was probably better off with Rod Stewart in Jeff Beck's proto-heavy metal group of the late 1960s than on a stage with Keify.)

The Stones' various elements make for a great studio band, but, over the years, have left the Stones' live shows fairly spotty — especially in comparison to their main hard rock competitors, The Beatles, who always played clear and clean, safe but fun; Cream, who specialized in jazzy wanking bookmarked by crunchy blues riffs; The Who, who are probably the best live band in history, being simultaneous masters of chaos, noise, power chords, storytelling, humour, and art; and later, Led Zeppelin, who reached beyond anything that had been done in rock and roll before 1968, performing massive 3-hour shows with only one set, twenty-minute drum solos, and a prodiguous use of lighting effects, theatrics, and violin bows.

Still, the Stones could light up a stage on occasion, combining just the right amount of choas with lots of feel and improvisation (see the 1970 live album "Get Yer Ya-Yas Out!"). In Mick and Keith's old age, however, the once teetering-on-chaos Stones show has now become a bit of a bizarre affair in which the band seems to play a lot of inspired (but unorganized) nonsense over top of an extremely professional band. The effect is kind of like putting a new hybrid engine into an old 1950s hot rod. It's an interesting idea, and it "works," if only because the hotrod would not move without and engine, and an engine on its own is basically just a machine of function that sits on the ground needing to either be put into a car or sold to someone who will.

"Works," of course, is a word that can be read in many different ways, especially in music. For example, INXS picking a new lead singer they like "works." Is it art? Maybe. Is it great art? Probably not. In fact, great art usually comes out of something that doesn't "work," or at least not by the standards previously set for things that do "work." The Stones is just that: a band that doesn't work according to any previously arranged rules or classification of what makes or does not make good music. Like most of the great innovators in the rock genre, the Stones' music is cacophonous, but beautiful. The band is disorganized, but "in the pocket," never missing a beat, never ruining a groove. The Stones' backing band may be a pacemaker of sorts, a new plastic wrap put over the band to keep its contents from spilling all over the place -- but the contents are still there, the heart is still good, and, of course, the songs are still timeless, as they should be, being "timeless" and all. Mick and Keith may be the musical equivalent of a wine from 1795 that was really only drinkable until a few decades ago, but hey, when was the last time your tried a wine from 1795? And when was the last time you saw a rusty hotrod with a hybrid engine singing "I Can't Get No Satisfaction"?

Well, I'm going to check it out, anyway!

Zaht is Ahl,
再见。