In Praise of Small Things

Sometimes it helps to appreciate the less obvious details of the things that make up the fabric of existence around us. Here are some of my favorite of those details:

Jeffrey Leonard's "One Flap Down" Home Run Trot
As a kid, Jeffrey Leonard was one of my favorite players. He was a two-time all-star and he won the 1987 NLCS MVP Award despite the fact that the Giants lost the series to the Cardinals. But the two things I've always remembered best about him were his awesome nicknames ("HacMan", like PacMan, and "Penitentiary Face" because he never smiled) and his ridiculous "One Flap Down" home run trot. The "One Flap Down" was born sometime during the 1986 season when the HacMan decided to leave his left arm motionless while he rounded the bases after hitting a home run. The signature trot gained further notoriety during the afformentioned 1987 NLCS when Leonard employed it while running the bases after each of his four home runs in the series.
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More Favorite Albums From the 2000-2009

Let's discuss a few of these in one post, alright?

Animal Collective- Feels (2005)

Animal Collective is a band that frustrates me. They have quite a few songs that I love, and a lot of songs that I absolutely hate. Their inconsistency is especially obnoxious because I feel like it could easily be avoided. The Animal Collective songs that I tend to like are the ones that are actual pop songs, as opposed to the ones that are unfocused, meandering, 'experimental', etc. They could be a great band if they put the same amount of focus and effort into all of their songs that they put into the best of their songs. Feels has more of these focused pop songs than any of their other albums. Or at least, it has more of the pop songs that I like (I usually don't like electronic music, so a lot of Strawberry Jam and Merriweather Post Pavillion is boring to me, regardless of how focused the songs are).
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