Five brief reviews:

Books:

The End of Faith, Sam Harris. Preaching to the converted. A jeremiad. Even language is suffused with this shit, and Sam Harris is madder than I am about it. Great for people who think Richard Dawkins is too moderate.

The Dramatist, Ken Bruen. Irish noir. Somewhere between James Crumley and Michael Connelly. My new crime fiction obsession.

Albums:

Security, Antibalas. Produced by some guy from Tortoise, which doesn't mean a lot to me. Much broader, musically, than some of their past stuff. Kinda like Nu Tones versus the older Nomo albums. Amayo only sings on two songs. Very good, and highly recommended.

Freedom Serenade, Malone & Barnes And Spontaneous Simplicity. Kinda slick and smooth, I wasn't real crazy about this at first. With each listen, though, it's growing on me. M&B&SS were part of the same scene that the Blackbyrds and Oneness of Juju came from. That's Oneness of Juju, the second-generation, funk-lite, r&b kinda group, not Juju, the Afrocentric, somewhat soul-/free-jazz incarnation, and that distinction is an important one.

Videogame:

Trauma Center: Under the Knife (Nintendo DS). Harder than I was expecting. And the cutscenes move slo-o-owly. I wouldn't think that someone who reads that slowly could ever make it through medical school. That said, the DS is still the platform with the most interesting and ambitious games, and I don't expect that to change until fall, if ever.  ¶ 12:16 PM