Push the Button

So, yesterday was the big day, surgically speaking, to remedy my torn meniscus. Since a picture tells a thousand words, here is the shot from the arthroscope of the offending cartilage:



Not quite sure of the scale here, but the arrow points to a piece of torn cartilage, the big white sphere at the top is the end of the femur, and the end of the tibia is below the cartilage. So the good news is that the MRI was correct - I really did have a torn meniscus - and that nothing else appeared to be out of order (in particular the articular cartilage, which is attached to the bone ends, was undamaged).

Now begins the rehab. Since my initial hiatus from running in January, I've been making extensive use of an indoor bicycle, which I've learned can be a lot more fun if you listen to suitably upbeat music. (The woman at the bike store who sold me the bicycle trainer, which enables a standard bike to be ridden indoors, swore by the merits of techno, and I can honestly say that she was onto something.) The Chemical Brothers have become a mainstay of my training regime - were there a Grammy for best indoor training soundtrack, they should get it. (They can settle for the two Grammies that they did win, I suppose).

The Chemical Brothers website is particularly good, including plenty of full-length videos.

And here is the track that won the Grammy for Best Dance Recording:
Chemical Brothers - Galvanize

Stars of Track & Field

A couple of weeks ago now I had the good fortune to go see Belle and Sebastian performing at Avalon. Not only was the concert excellent, but B&S managed to play more songs suited to a track meet than the organizers of the Reebok Boston Indoor Games managed to play in an entire night (see below for a rant on this topic.) Opening with "Stars of Track and Field", they went on to "The Loneliness of the Middle Distance Runner" a few songs later. I'm still looking for clues as to why they have so many running-related songs, although lead singer Stuart Murdoch does have something of the lean and hungry look of a distance runner.

The crowd at Avalon left something to be desired, especially since the sound engineer had done a brilliant job of making the music clear rather than deafening, thus enabling the rude and clueless to carry on conversations over the top of the band. Murdoch handled this reasonably well: early in the show, a fan who must have been either drunk or possessing an overdeveloped sense of irony yelled "Rock and Roll" to which Stuart replied "You would think so, yes" in his inimitable quiet Scottish voice. But why anyone would pay $35 to talk over a band is a mystery to me.

Opening for Belle and Sebastian were The New Pornographers who did an excellent job. While listening to their albums can sometimes get a bit repetitious, their live performance was more diverse and full of energy.

A couple of days later, Stuart Murdoch broke with tradition and gave an interview to Terry Gross on Fresh Air - the show is archived here.

Here is a copy of the title song of this post, with which the concert at Avalon opened. The full album from which it comes, shown below, is one of my all time favorites - not a dud track on it. I don't care what DJ Durutti says about my taste.




Stars of Track and Field - Belle and Sebastian

Finally, a tidbit from the New Yorker's listings:

"March 1: South Boston’s Dropkick Murphys, favorites of the thick-necked, tattooed set, play testosterone-rich punk rock with Irish roots. The following nights, March 2-3, expect a sweater-and-glasses-wearing crowd for the retro sounds of Scotland’s Belle and Sebastian. Let’s hope the two groups of fans don’t meet."

Fortunately that was in New York. I saw them in Boston and avoided any run-ins with the Dropkick Murphy's fans. And I don't wear glasses.