don't talk of dust and roses, or should we powder our noses.

--No kooky links today, just opinions.

--As a Redskins sympathizer (considering how much the team has changed since that brief run of likability after Sean Taylor's murder, when I first got hooked, it's tough to call me a fan) I guess I have to comment on the McNabb trade.  Jason Campbell got drafted into a terrible situation, with poor receivers and an aging (and soon to be obsolete) o-line.  He got approximately one half of a good season out of Clinton Portis, during which time Campbell was a fringe Pro Bowler.  While "regressing" this last season and a half, his receivers led the league in drops, the running game was nonexistent, and after Chris Samuels went down Campbell got sacked while taking three-step drops, to say nothing of the crippling schematic issues that came with Jim Zorn.

In short, Campbell was boned from the beginning.  Throughout it all, he handled himself with class (a nebulous concept at best, but he never called out his teammates or coaches), and got repaid with a characteristically short-sighted move from Skins management.  He deserved better than to find out from a reporter, and not his own team, that a trade had been made for his replacement.  He deserves better than to end up in Oakland, which, along with Carolina and Arizona, is looking like a likely suitor.

i will surprise you sometime, i'll come around.

I've got some excellent (predominantly sports-related) links today:

--John Morgan of Field Gulls (collaborator with one of the very best in the business, Football Outsiders' Doug Farrar) is doing an excellent, play-by-play breakdown of some of the top prospects in the 2009 Draft.  Included: my man Eric Berry ("a place where nothing ever happens," as Morgan says); CJ Spiller; Taylor Mays; Gerald McCoy.

--SB Nation's Clemson blog, Shakin' the Southland, put up some comprehensive overviews of defensive coaching points, strategy, and terminology.  Defensive backs are given special attention, which is obviously my jam.

first draft of the first chapter in (hopefully) my first novel.

Gene Lazenby has one primary goal in life: make it look easy.

listen, listen. most of us believe that this is wrong.

--First, I'll use my immense star power to plug Patrick's new blog and Sam's new (excellently-titled) blog.  Godspeed, fellow Blogfricans.

--Since you're dying to know, here's what's in circulation on my iTunes right now:

• "Gideon," by My Morning Jacket.  Powerful, with some excellent lyrics.
• "Obstacle 1," by Interpol.  Interpol was/is more consistently excellent than Joy Division ever was.
• "We Can Get Down," by A Tribe Called Quest.  So fresh.
• "Church," by Outkast.  I'm loving Speakerboxxx.
• "What It's All About," by Girl Talk.  Solely for the "C.R.E.A.M." section.
• "Grounds For Divorce," by Elbow.  Dig the lyrics, the Peter Gabriel vibe, and the lead singer's uncanny resemblance to Stephen Fry.
• "Can't Say No," by The Helio Sequence.  One of three excellent songs on a pretty bland album.
• "Famous Blue Raincoat," by Leonard Cohen.  Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.
• "The Rake's Song," by The Decemberists.  I love how much fun Colin Meloy has with evil.

books which have influenced me most.

Stolen from Chris Brown, who stole it in turn from Marginal Revolution, here are the 10 books (in order, at least through the top 4) which have most influenced me:

1. The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler.  

--A model for living decently in a patently indecent world.  In practical terms, it's a beautiful and endlessly readable book, and Chandler is probably the greatest influence on my writing.

2.  The Works of T.S. Eliot.  

--Eliot speaks to me as a writer because he shows me how to communicate in absolute terms.  He speaks to me as a thinker because he's as preoccupied with the Western tradition as I am.  He speaks to me as a reader because his poetry is as breathtaking today as it was when I first read him.

3.  The Roman Revolution, by Ronald Syme.

4.  Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War, translated by Thomas Hobbes.  

--Historians like to talk about revelatory moments, times when something suddenly clicks or a particular historical question reveals itself.  Learning from these books in Oxford provided me the former, showing me that there's no such thing as nonfiction, and that there's no value in history if it's abstracted from the people who need it.

5.  Hamlet, by William Shakespeare.  

--There were a lot of things I thought I understood about the Western tradition after reading Plato, but none of them (especially the conflict between reason and passion) were really clear until I read Hamlet. 

6.  The Conservative Mind, by Russell Kirk.  

--Kirk introduced me to Edmund Burke, the political philosopher whose insights and values are most closely calibrated to mine.  When I try to define my political beliefs now, Kirk's discussions of Burke, Tocqueville, and others serve as invaluable guideposts.

7.  The Greek Way, by Edith Hamilton.

8.  Homer's Iliad, translated by Samuel Butler.

9.  Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars, translated by Robert Graves. 

--These three books, more than any others, fostered my love of the classics and really got me enthusiastic about the sweeping heroism, complex characters, and occasional hilarity of the ancient world.

10.  As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner.

--Faulkner's ability to write transcendentally about the mundane aspirations of a white trash family, to elevate their quest from a spiteful demand to a grand tragedy, left an indelible impression on me; the notion that you can make something beautiful or meaningful out of ugliness is profound and profoundly interesting.

is it chemically derived?

--On my first day of spring break, I got about a gig of new music, specifically albums by Elbow, MGMT, Sigur Ros, Caribou, Interpol, Liars, Midlake, Jane's Addiction, The Strokes, The Black Keys, A Tribe Called Quest, Eric B. and Rakim, and Public Enemy.  More details will be forthcoming; Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights is an early winner.

mock draft 1.0

1. St. Louis Rams:  Sam Bradford, QB, Oklahoma

The consensus choice here is Suh, and it’s certainly true that St. Louis needs help on its d-line, especially if it wants to see some return on its previous d-line investments.  It’s also true that in a number of respects, not the least of which is experience in a pro-style offense, Jimmy Clausen is the better pick.  Bradford, however, has extraordinary accuracy and much better arm strength than his rival Colt McCoy; he’s also a huge improvement over Clausen in terms of not being an enormous prick.  The NFL’s bust rate is directly related to work ethic and leadership ability, and Bradford has both in spades.  Neither Bradford nor Clausen is going to have the immediate impact of a Matt Ryan, and the very height of their potential is Aaron Rodgers, not Peyton Manning.  Like Rodgers, Bradford would benefit immensely from sitting and learning a system (not to mention getting some offensive weapons and protection), a luxury he won’t have.

He’s the best option regardless, and while he’ll suffer through some rough early years, he has the potential to be the face of the franchise in a few years.

Other Possibilities:  Jimmy Clausen, QB, Notre Dame; Ndamukong Suh, DT, Nebraska

2. Detroit Lions:  Ndamukong Suh, DT, Nebraska

Suh and Gerald McCoy, like Glenn Dorsey and Sedrick Ellis two years before them, increasingly seem like a “1 vs. 1a” in terms of potential.  Unlike those two, Suh and McCoy don’t have a devastating injury (Dorsey’s chop block) and documented troubles handling the run (Ellis) between them.  Suh would provide much-needed help on the interior of Detroit’s line, which has to be one of the league’s worst.  They could also use Berry or Okung here, but safeties never get taken in the top three and Coach Schwartz has been vocal in his support of veteran left tackle Jeff Backus.

Other Possibilities:  Gerald McCoy, DT, Oklahoma; Eric Berry, S, Tennessee

and all my instincts, they return.

--I just finished my first mock draft, along with a list of the 20 best prospects in the draft.  I'll put it up in a little while, and update it after next week's Combine/big free agent moves.  Whether the workout warriors whose stocks rise become Mike Mamulas or Vernon Davises remains to be seen.

--For any fan of Roger Ebert (and as a used-to-be aspiring film critic, I'd certainly put myself in that category), this is a must-read.

--Stop while you can, Justin Vernon.  There's no reason for you to turn into the next Travis Morrison (gone from one of the best lyricists in indie music to complete outcast).

i guess we'll just have to adjust.

Going into the 4th quarter, the Super Bowl had given me absolutely everything I could have wanted.  Manning and Brees were both flawless, and the Saints were pulling ahead.  Fortunately, the tide continued to trend in the Saints' favor.  Unfortunately for the Colts, it meant an embarrassing meltdown in coaching and execution, including a pick that some blithering idiots (as far as football goes, anyway) have already decided defines Manning's career.

Nothing could be further from the truth.  As Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders pointed out, we don't remember Favre by his Super Bowl loss to the Broncos.  Manning is still the greatest quarterback to play the game, and there's no doubt in my mind that he'll get another ring--if not several--by the time he retires.  Schatz's comment also served as a cagey reference to the historic similarities between the two games, which were one Reggie Wayne drop in the waning minutes from sharing the same final score (31-24).

will you feel better, will you feel anything at all?

In the days before Facebook, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, I made a livejournal account.  I can't remember exactly when and have long since deleted the thing, so I'm assuming sometime during freshman year of high school.  I don't remember what its name was, either (probably something along the lines of "Walter Explains it All" after my preteen idol, Melissa Joan Hart), but I definitely remember the picture I used for it, the cover to King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King.  I haven't changed much in that respect, and I think we're lucky that I never got into Mars Volta, because that could have just as easily been a Goldfinger'd Telly Savalas.