Putting a nice little bow on the procession of no-comments, Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. was not available to talk about the change in hitting coaches or to update his comments about the rotation.

After the Phillies optioned Kendrick on Tuesday, the general manager said, “I think we know exactly what we’re going to do [Saturday]. I just choose not to tell you.”

We now know why. Who would have believed him if he said Kendrick was being replaced by Kendrick in the rotation?

Ouch, Ruben. That’s gotta hurt.

You know what will hurt more? The Phillies acquiring Roy Oswalt, going on a tear, yet falling just short of the wild card. As always, the Phils will probably have to win the division to make the playoffs. The NL West is doing the other two divisions no favors.

Thanks for nothing, Padres! Why didn’t you just suck like everyone expected you to so we could grab Heath Bell for our run to the World Series?

N.B. he doesn’t highlight any spots that deliver or even are known for take-out. For what it’s worth I’m thrilled that he didn’t profile the execrable, overpriced Rustica in NoLibs either. Do I even have to mention that I’m absolutely in love with Zavino’s Kennett pie?

Want more Lazor in your life? Follow him on Twitter. He’s a hoot. He also contributes to City Paper’s Meal Ticket, which has swept me off my feet since Kirsten Henri left for Philly Mag. Now with Adam Erace! They’re a powerhouse!

For the record, that review stands as one of the most puerile pieces of criticism I’ve ever written. Bear in mind that it was written at a time when people actually wrote negative reviews about music, and those reviews were often long than 140 characters. Want to know a secret? The original was longer AND meaner. Hard to believe, right?

For what it’s worth, I loved Pavement. I’m not a hopeless nostalgic for the band, however, and I’ve felt that both Kannberg and Malkmus overestimated their talents in their solo efforts. I listened to Monsoon hoping to hear something different from Kannberg. How do you root against the underdog? The unfortunate thing was that I didn’t find anything to like and he’s been shockingly consistent in underwhelming critics and consumers. This may be why he was so frustrated in Pavement. Malkmus was too shrewd an editor to allow him to contribute material like this.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t note the praise I lavished on Kannberg for really working to preserve Pavement’s legacy as one of the great acts of the ’90s. I meant what I said about him undertaking the thankless task of unlocking gems from old tapes that he had to literally cook before they could be prepared for remastering. I think I can speak on behalf of Pavement fans everywhere when I say that effort was appreciated.

It’s a shame he can’t get past these bad reviews and just move on. He shouldn’t be discouraged by a handful of bad Pitchfork reviews. At least someone’s listening to these albums and promoting them at all. Will he ever play sold out tours across mid-sized venues as a solo artist? No. But he’d do himself a favor by lowering his expectations and maybe enjoy the fans who do come out to see him perform. Is that so much to ask?

If you’re not hip to what he’s up to, do yourself a favor and catch up. It’s worth noting that Geekadelphia is one of my favorite local reads.

You can read his entries here.

(N.B. Must be said that this strikes awfully close to home, having spent the better part of ’02 in a hot Brooklyn apartment wondering what it was I was going to do with my life.)

Update: Bill Baer has even further insight over at Crashburn Alley.

I know I’m not alone. One of the methods I think I’ll employ to revive Kensington Blues is to reach out to the local blogosphere more frequently. You know, the power of positive reinforcement. Not only is it good to encourage the folks you like most online, it’s mutually rewarding. Just the sort of thing to make you get back into the game.

In light of this, I thought I’d mention two folks whose work hasn’t gone unnoticed by this reader. Marisa has brought her old standby, Apartment 2024, back to life with a lovely assortment of photos and brief descriptions. It’s the sort of thing that I often dream of doing, a thought that usually culminates in me wondering if it would look better on WordPress or if I should just ditch and move to Tumblr. It’s the perfect way to document a life. No hifalutin manifestos here, just great pictures and notes on a simple, elegant life. Hats off!

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my co-worker Karl Martino’s work over at Philly Future. Karl’s been the caretaker there since my earliest days of discovering the Philly blogosphere. You want someone up to their ears in hyperlocal? Karl’s been doing it before that became a buzzword. Hell, I’ve often thought that if philly.com were serious about reinventing itself, they’d ask Karl what he was able to figure out so long ago.

Lately, Karl’s been playing curator once again, bringing a bit of that Daring Fireball mojo to the site. If you’re a cynic like me who thinks blogging is, like, totally dead, think again. Karl’s still finding great folks doing cool stuff in the Philly area. Stop over there and spend some time catching up.

Geeta avoids the landmines that surround a work like this. She brought her A game when it came to researching this book, digging up cool quotes and getting great input from the people who helped Eno make this record. She doesn’t fetishize Eno’s genius; rather, she investigates his methods to demystify the way in which Eno made the album. For anyone who’s been intimidated by Brian Eno as a monolith, this is a great way to get into his work, and the book offers a glimpse into his approach to his later ambient works that makes them much more accessible.

For a book series that can be pretty hit or miss, Geeta’s take on Another Green World sets the bar high for other authors who want to dissect an album they love. Congratulations, Geeta! It was well worth the wait.

Buy it from Amazon for just $7.88!

Latest iPhone Homescreen, originally uploaded by J T. Ramsay.

What a mess!

I started following First & 20 during our trip to Outer Banks this year. Their iPhone home screen series has been very interesting. As I’ve mentioned before, my iPhone became something of a lifeline while I was in the hospital with Helen when Charlie was born. I scoured the app store in a sleep-deprived haze for anything to keep me alert and occupied during those 3 a.m. feedings. Let me put it to you straight: there are a ton of apps and most of them are garbage. First & 20′s series then seemed like the answer to my prayers. I will finally completely optimize my iPhone home screen! How positively geeky!

Since Charlie was born I’ve downloaded and deleted more apps than I can remember. I scrutinize my choices and often wonder why I bothered downloading an app I’ve used maybe twice. (I’m looking at you, Open Table. Thanks for those timely Butcher & Singer reservations, though!) Turns out I’m not so different from even the most sophisticated iPhone users. Just reading Marco Arment’s post (and subsequent follow-up) shows that I’m not the only one binging and purging apps.

If I’m completely honest, I use the iPhone the way most people have used their cellphones for years: to take quick, often grainy pictures of whatever they’re doing that second. In fact, the things I use most frequently are the clock and weather apps. My iPhone doubles as my alarm clock and then I check the weather before I go running. Fancy, right? I use two main social networking apps: Tweetie and Facebook. I check scores on ESPN Scorecenter. I upload photos to Flickr, either via their app or Pixelpipe if I want to put it on Facebook simultaneously.

The other stuff? Barely used vanity apps that I downloaded thinking they’d be more useful than they are. Yelp only infrequently introduces me to a restaurant I haven’t tried, and I shouldn’t trust it as much as I do. Yahoo’s Fantasy Football app is useless, but it gives me real-time scoring so I can weep while games are in progress. Foursquare? I forget it’s there more often than not. I.TV and WordPress are two apps that I’d use more if they tweaked a thing or two. As you can see, it’s a jungle out there.

What apps do you have on your home screen? Are there any you can’t live without?

The book’s structure is strange. It first tells the story of how the album is made and the various stumbling blocks that the Kinks — or rather Ray Davies — ran into along the way. That’s the sort of story I’m interested in reading and it was an engaging one. However, once that story ends, it begins again, this time as a painstaking account of each song that was written and recorded during this period, along with some speculation about why it had or hadn’t appeared on the final version of The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. It doesn’t sound as bad when I write it here, but trust me, reading the same story told two different ways smacked of a witness perjuring himself on the stand.

Such is the reputation of the 33 1/3 books series. Every author approaches his or her book differently, and even the most adventuresome  music fans approach the series with trepidation. These are beloved albums after all.

Now comes word that the series itself has hit a snag due to the current state of the economy. I’m not sure anyone would be surprised considering how both the music and publishing industries have fared lately. I just hope that Geeta Dayal’s Another Green World book sees the light of day. (Of course I’m rooting for Christopher Weingarten‘s It Takes a Nation of Millions book, too, but that’s in the more distant future.) As author Douglas Wolk once (infamously) wrote of 33 1/3, “the series that more people want to write than to read!” I guess that makes the 33 1/3 series the Velvet Underground and Nico of microniche music books!