Listen to Foam Fan's Playlist

I removed this post and placed the Playlist at the bottom of the blog. Enjoy!

How much do you know about religion?

And how do you compare with other Americans? Take a short, 15-question quiz, and see how you do in comparison with 3,412 randomly sampled adults who were asked questions in the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey. This national poll was conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life from May 19 through June 6, 2010.

>>>Take the Quiz

>>>Read the Results

I am interested in seeing not only how you did, but also which questions made you stop and think, and why.

Greg Engert's 5 Fall Beers To Drink Now

Metrocurean asked DC brew authority Greg Engert for his picks on the best fall beers to drink now. Warning! His reply may induce drooling!

Greg Engert Picks Five for Fall

When did "my" music become grist for the Oldies Station?

Apparently, the definition of Oldies is the music grandparents remember jamming to when they were young. Three of my first cousins and many of my classmates are proud Grandparents! I am not quite ready to join the AARP generation, at least not mentally. But seriously, Talking Heads, U2, Bruce Springsteen and the Police are featured on BIG 100, the local Oldies station.  Really?

Recently I responded to one of those Facebook "tag" games where you list your favorite albums or whatever, and then you tag your friends to see their responses. Here is my entry:

My Fifteen Albums reflect a certain nostalgia for my own coming of age in the late 70s and early 80s, from a time when words were harder to find and music was a form of expression. This is not desert island discs, nor my all-time favorites, nor even the albums I would grab for a road trip mix CD.  It’s just the first fifteen albums that popped into my head, along with a brief explanation.

1. Three Dog Night, Joy to the World: This will always be the first album I ever bought. Jeremiah was a bullfrog! I liked Credence Clearwater Revival and Pure Prairie League, too.
2. Elton John, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy: Someone saved my life tonight. My 7th grade music teacher asked each student to name his favorite artist, and this was my immediate response. I was too young to understand the lyrics and I never appreciated Elton’s flamboyantly over-the-top, Liberace-esque outfits, but the music and the melody moved me. I was also into Neil Diamond at that time, and I tried to sing like him. I liked Rod Stewart, too.
3. Styx, Grand Illusion: not my favorite of the big hair rock bands (That would be Journey, of course, but I also enjoyed Aerosmith, Boston, REO Speedwagon, Kansas, and even KISS), but this album stands out because it was the theme for prom my junior year. This 8-track may have gotten a bit of play in my gold Plymouth Satellite that evening.
4. Rush, 2112: All the world’s indeed a stage, and we are merely players.  References to Shakespeare and Ayn Rand make this concept album important, despite Geddy Lee’s often irritating voice. Tom Petty has an irritating voice, too, but his music never made me want to read Atlas Shrugged.
5. Pink Floyd, The Wall: this is as close to psychedelic rock as I ever came, unless you count The Doors or some Beatles tunes (I am the Walrus). Speaking of the Beatles, “Right here on our stage tonight, …”
6. The Beatles, Blue Album 1967-1970: Sort of a greatest hits compilation covering the Sgt Pepper / Abbey Road / Let It Be era. This is my way of getting more and better songs onto a list of 15 albums! I was too young to “discover” the Beatles. Their music inspired many fan clubs, hair styles, and Sunday night radio shows long before I tuned in. I bought both the Red and the Blue albums, and liked the Blue better.
7. Cars, Candy-O:  This music is beat-driven and aimed straight at the hormonal impulses of the adolescent American male. I loved the Vargas cover art, right out of Playboy magazine, and tried to copy it in my Art class drawings. The music doesn’t pretend to be important. Candy-O, I need you so!  
8. Elvis Costello, Get Happy!: After listening to Alison, Watching the Detectives, Red Shoes, and Pump It Up! on Jim Loisel’s mix tapes, I was hooked. This was the first EC album I bought—the first of many. Many, I tell you.
9. XTC, English Settlement: And I’ve got one, two, three, four, five senses working overtime. When they said, “And all the world is football shaped,” I thought they meant it was oblong. Other danceable mentions: Romeo Void, Ramones, Joan Jett, B-52s.
10. Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run: The man, the myth, the legend. The best concert experience ever was Bruce at Notre Dame sophomore year. No opening act, just pure joy and energy for 2-and-a-half incredible hours.
11. U2, Joshua Tree: Music can move your body, or it can move you mind. In the case of U2, it can do both! Consider also: REM, Joe Jackson, Squeeze.
12. Ravel’s Bolero: Soundtrack for the Bo Derek movie, 10. It’s just fascinating to me that a piece of classical music can transport me back to my High School era bedroom wall, adorned with Farah Fawcett and Bo Derek posters and the Cheryl Tiegs collage I made from old Spiegl catalogs and Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition magazines.
13. Van Morrison, Hymns to the Silence: I picked this 2-record album over The Philosopher’s Stone in a blatant attempt to jack up the quantity of art from this iconic artist. Van Morrison taught me that music is not about the record company and not even about the audience. In its purest form, it’s about the artist’s discovery of his own poetic soul. I want Be Thou My Vision played at my funeral.  
14. Billy Joel, 52nd Street: This is the album I listened to over and over again with headphones, as I dreamed of a life very different from the one I would likely know if I remained in my small Midwestern town. The teen-aged fantasy of bright lights, big city, skinny Beau Brummel ties, Italian restaurants, jazz clubs, and Christie Brinkley.
15. Police, Greatest Hits: Here’s another blatant move to jack up the signal to noise ratio. I don’t really have a favorite Police album, but I really like about a third of the songs on all of them!  Greatest Hits includes Roxanne, Wrapped Around Your Finger, Every Breath You Take, Walking on the Moon, and the song infinitely more interesting than its baby talk title would suggest, De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da.  

When I was younger, music was a driving force in my life—and a big chunk of my budget. These days it’s more of a Muzak soundtrack for myriad activities. I infrequently play music from my collection and rarely add to it. Instead, I spend a lot of time listening to classical, jazz, and talk programming on public radio stations. My Pandora radio stations (Elvis Costello and Roadhouse) play music I like even though I never have to change a CD. The only non-Elvis Costello CD I bought in the past two years is a recording of my oldest daughter’s High School Chorus concert.

Times change. Once I had a Columbia House membership and danced in front of MTV. Today, if not for the car radio pre-sets for my teen-aged daughters and their friends, various movie soundtracks, hints from Kyle (Scary Dave, Flight of the Concords) and Mary (Mason Jennings, Citizen Cope, Kings of Leon), and the occasional YouTube jag (I found 20 versions of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah), I would not spend much time thinking about modern pop music.

I enjoyed reconnecting with my musical past. Isn't it funny how some things just stick with you for years? I look forward to seeing your Fifteen Albums!

How Often Do You Go to the Movies?

I love movies and always have. I love the art form, and the way a good story well-told can provide a transformative experience. I particularly enjoy movies shown in smaller art-house theaters. I saw Cinema Paradiso in a small theater years ago--one of the best movies ever and one of my favorite movie-going experiences. I will never forget climbing over the seat to sit next to a pretty girl in Star Wars, 1977. I'd like to watch all of the Gold Palm and Oscar movies, not because I need someone to tell me what's good but because I like lists and goals. But no, I do not often go to the Big 24-Screen Omni-plex Theaters. I don't care for the cost or the scene (people scarfing $8 tubs of butter-drenched popcorn and slurping 24-oz cokes while talking at the screen). Exceptions: I saw Avatar in 3-D. I watched Beer Wars, the simulcast event. I took my youngest to Up!, just before she realized that she is now too cool to be seen with Dad in the theater anymore. These days I prefer Jason Bourne or The Big Lebowski or anything by Cohen Bros or Robert Altman, a bottle of Mikkeller It's Alive!, my couch, my ridiculously huge TV, and if I am very lucky, a friend or three.

Also, reading is good--the movie is in my mind.

If you could clone yourself, would you?

• RT: NO cloning allowed, it would only give me an excuse to do more.

  
  

  Me: Doing more is bad how?
• RT: I often bite off more than I can chew and attempt to look good doing it. I'm an over achiever in the "joiner" department.
• Me: I could employ an army of clones, if they would finish what I started and do it as well as I intended. In the morning, I would give each of my clones 10 things from my Do List, and then go sailing. Unfortunately, true clones would likely come back with 3 things done, and 30 new things added. Clones would help "me" get more done, but those curious bastards would also get "me" exponentially over-committed. Hmmm. I take your point.

Is calorie monitoring worth the effort?

Honestly, I want to believe that I can control my body composition by tracking calories in and out. I may not have a great track record at this game, but it makes sense to me. 


In her book Health at Every Size, Dr. Linda Bacon says that calorie monitoring is focusing on the wrong thing. Her position is based on the simple premise that the best way to improve health is to honor your body. It supports people in adopting good health habits for the sake of health and well-being (rather than weight control).


I find this theory interesting and potentially useful, but not everyone embraces it. Fb friend Jane brought the following exchange to my attention, in which an irate reader named Ms. Harmony challenges Dr. Bacon by calling her everything but a charlatan. 


Dr Linda Bacon on calorie monitoring.


Dr Bacon's measured response to Ms Harmony's hostile question is a lesson in balance and poise. Ms Harmony is resistant and skeptical. That's commendable. She challenges the opinions of others in the quest for truth. Bravo! But Ms Harmony's spite-filled tone and method are not helpful. Rather than respond emotionally to the ad hominem attacks, Dr Bacon replies with science; not with advocacy nor opinion, but fact-based reason. She ends with an open door, inviting Ms Harmony to come back with facts if she wishes to continue the dialog. 


Masterfully done. Reason wins.