Steve Nash's Fourth Quarter

Last Friday, I had the tremendous pleasure of seeing my all-time favorite basketball player, Steve Nash, from the fourth row of the Celtics-Suns game at the Garden. The Suns' roster is so depleted this year, with Ronnie Price and Markieff Morris in the starting lineup, that it's disappointing to know Nash his nearing his career's end on such a thin team, though they rather soundly defeated Boston that night. Even their center, Marcin Gortat, who dominated inside, had crucial misses on two Nashian moments: When Nash lobbed a no-look alley-oop off a pick and roll, Gortat didn't cut inside; and when Nash cut down the lane, reversed back up, executed a quick give-and-go with Gortat and then fed him a small bounce pass for an open jump shot, Gortat missed it. Amare Stoudemire would've made both.

The contrast between the Suns' play when Nash is and isn't on the court is starker than for perhaps any other player I've watched. With him there, there's a constant pulse in plays, a skipping energy that's excited to start each possession. He'd high-five his teammates constantly, sticking out his arms even if they weren't close. In contrast, his backup, Sebastian Telfair jogs the ball up the court at a pace that made me want to give him a little kick so perhaps he'd quicken his step. Nash has this innate sense for the game, always searching for the next move before anyone else does; he looks so controlled and thoughtful, but also playful and inventive; he's mastered his profession in a commanding yet welcoming way that's inspiring even in much more mundane, office-bound settings. I think he offers much to learn about leading and executing that translates well beyond a basketball court.

There's quite a debate across the Internet now about whether Nash should be traded this season. He's loyal to the Suns, but the franchise has made lots of poor personnel decisions for the past three, if not 10 years, and the sentimentalist in me says he deserves to spend his career's fourth quarter on a much better team.

Fifty Nifty United States

As South Carolinians vote today, in the Republican Party's third presidential primary, the press has been filed with its quadrennial series of stories about how the early-voting states that typically define the presidential contest are completely unrepresentative of the U.S. They're too small! Too white! Too kooky! Too conservative! Too wealthy! Too poor! Too few people cast votes before the country renders its judgment! The Times' Gail Collins, as much as I like her sweetly acerbic columns, is at the front of this chorus.

Maybe so. New Hampshire would essentially lose its raison d'etre if the first primary weren't there and become a much smaller version of Montana. Though maybe Iowa and New Hampshire are good choices, partly because of habit -- a culture of civic engagement is difficult to build and these two states already have it -- and partly because of their less mobile populations -- people who live in one place for longer are more likely to care about their communities, and states such as Arizona, Florida or Nevada are filled with newcomers. (Defending South Carolina's political culture is a step too far for me. See the Confederate flag, Strom Thurmond and Mark Sanford as a few examples for why.)

Then again, which state, if placed at the start of the primary, would be a good placeholder for the country's voters? The big ones on the coasts? Too liberal and their media markets are too expensive, which would shutout all but the wealthiest candidates. The Midwestern ones? Too postwar. The Northwest or Vermont? Too quirky. Arizona or Florida? Too hot and old, with too many transplants. In a way, the heterogenous landscape confirms that great American principle of the melting pot: Everyone is different yet comes together to form the union.

Nonetheless, I recommend North Carolina and Colorado, nouveau swing states that were once conservative, not terribly populous, and driven by natural resources, but over the past 20 years have redefined themselves in the knowledge economy, with growing cities that increasingly attract well-educated younger professionals, and titled toward the left center as a result. Their demographics appropriately combine where we were and where we're headed in a way that would compel candidates to do the same in their campaigns. The contest would look a lot more like the 21st century than it now does.

Michael Kimmelman Is On Fire!

Since he became the Times' newest architecture critic last fall, Michael Kimmelman has written a string of fantastic columns on affordable housing's design, housing policy, bike lanes and urban transportation, and parking lots. They're a poignant, articulate rebuke of the work of his predecessor, Nicolai Ouroussoff, who, as good a critic as he is, followed the traditional template of reviewing signature buildings by world-famous "starchitects" and traveled to the Middle East to observe postmodern oil urbanism. After the last decade's hollow excess, Kimmelman has returned design to the public realm, exploring the architecture of the everyday rather than that of luxury condos, Class A office buildings and art museums, and cajoling it to have a greater purpose than branding.

Kimmelman hit his peak last week with this one on the 200th anniversary of Manhattan's street grid, now the subject of an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. As much as I've tired of New York, one could never write so eloquently about Boston's streets. Boston holds plenty of poetry, but not of this sort. They simply don't hold the same magic. The column skips from one excellent point to the next, about the importance of government in tackling major questions of economic development and infrastructure; the public's role in creating private wealth; the power of simple design inventions; and the democratic and welcoming spirit of the grid's shape.

There's little I can add, but here are two observations: First, it's humorous to know that 19th-century New York's private landowners opposed the creation of the grid, only to see it make them fabulously wealthy, just as the property owners in late 20th-century Times Square opposed the regulation that would allows gigantic garish signs on their buildings, only to see it make them fabulously wealthy as the signs gave the Square its new identity. Second, the design of streets matter: A grid creates a very different mix of building envelopes, demographics and urbanism than those of cul-de-sacs specifically because it's a grid of connecting linear streets rather than a network of looped small streets, many of them dead ends. One of the two opens options and the other closes them.

Don't sleep on these columns.

Of Course I Like A Band Named "Real Estate"

The tones that Real Estate produces from its guitars are too wonderful -- wobbly, sun-dappled, wistful, languid, distant and comforting. They expand and swirl and dive and intertwine, all while the band remains calm and controlled, creating something magnificent with what seems like such little effort. They're easily what carry the band's second record, "Days," across 2011's finish line as my favorite of the year.

My friend made one of his typically expert observations that "Days," Real Estate's second album, is very much like Belle and Sebastian's third, "The Boy with the Arab Strap": Each is very similar to its predecessor, a refinement of what made the previous one so good, but made more professionally and carefully. Both even have pretty subpar tracks contributed by their second guitarist and bassist (though I like "Seymour Stein"). For my friend, this is a disappointment because it's clear that Real Estate has outgrown their sound quickly and are almost too good for their own sake; the next record could be as bad as "Fold Your Hands, Child, You Walk Like a Peasant." But I think Real Estate still deserves mountains of credit. Even if this one has no song as infectious as "Beachcomber," they've realized what their sound, aesthetic and artistic statement are, and perfected them. It extends all the way to the album's art, with the knowing choices of Dan Graham photos of suburban New Jersey subdivisions. Real Estate understood that they were facing a big moment with this record and they delivered.

Nearly all of my other favorite records from 2011 were made by women:

* Lia Ices - "Grown Unknown": She reminds me of Feist -- her music is very soulful and feminine but also mysterious, slowly revealing itself. This record was painfully overlooked.

* Widowspeak - "s/t": All but one of their songs essentially only has one idea, but they understand each idea so well . The one song with two ideas, "Gunshy," is the album's best.

* Eleanor Friedberger - "Last Summer": I've already written at length about this one, but it's worth noting again how fun it is.

* La Sera - "s/t": A much better version of that Best Coast record, with slightly darker sounds and more interesting structures, without the lazy lyrics about pot and 1950s-style relationships.

And a few other things that deserve recognition:

* The final song on the Washed Out record: It serves a very similar purpose as the final song on Panda Bear's first record. After an album's worth of songs of keyboards and beats, there's a very poetic ballad, which opens lots of possibilities for where he could head next.

* St. Vincent's show at Royale, Nov. 4: It rocked much harder than I was expecting. She dove from the stage twice, while continuing to play solos!

* The album art for Mogwai's "Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will": Those photos of city skylines are luscious.

Above is a full live performance by Real Estate at KEXP in Seattle.

Is Carrie Brownstein The Coolest Woman There Is In 2012?

Arguing against Carrie Brownstein these days is very hard, with her combination of lead guitarist for Sleater-Kinney, music blog on NPR, co-founder and lead guitarist for Wild Flag, and co-creator and lead actress on "Portlandia." Does anyone else have the same successful string of creative endeavors? She's had quite the publicity bubble this week, with profiles in the New Yorker and the Times' Sunday magazine, which sure makes this blog post seem like quite the bandwagon jumper. But I don't mind because Brownstein deserves it. Also, once in my senior year of high school, when I wanted to practice drawing in my International Baccalaureate-required notebook, I clipped a photo of Sleater-Kinney from the "Arts and Leisure" section because I already owned one of their albums and Brownstein is so expressive when performing. That's right. Wait, this is exactly the sort of thing that "Portlandia" would lampoon.

Well Past Midnight

None of the Times' film critics say in today's paper that they'd nominate "Midnight in Paris," Woody Allen's newest movie, for any of the Academy Awards' major categories. That makes some sense because the movie isn't a very serious or weighty one like the type critics prefer when bestowing awards. Nonetheless, I think it's one of the most charming ones that I've seen in years, light on its feet, sparkling and as delightful to indulge in as the chocolates that must line Paris' streets. (I've never been, but have had marvelous chocolates brought from there as a gift.)

"Midnight in Paris" succeeds so well almost in spite of itself: The plot, where Owen Wilson's character, a Francophile screenwriter who can't make it as a novelist, is transported back to 1920s Paris by way of the clock striking midnight and a vintage taxicab, reads like one of Allen's old comedic pieces in the New Yorker; yet it endearingly holds together for an entire movie. Good chunks of dialogue are thinly disguised expositions about the film's central themes -- nostalgia, art's highbrows and lowbrows, love, and the trials of quotidian daily life; yet the actors deliver them quickly and sincerely enough that they don't slow everything to a crawl. When Wilson tells his paramour from the 1920s, played by Marion Cotillard (as they've been whisked back to La Belle Epoque), that "the present is a little unsatisfying because life is a little unsatisfying," I nodded my head in agreement. Wilson also plays that familiar type -- Woody's stand-in when Woody isn't in the movie; yet Wilson is more restrained and all of the actors seem to be having a great time, particularly the ones who get to impersonate the 1920s' landmark artists. That Kathy Bates is a convincing Gertrude Stein isn't a high compliment, though, at least in terms of looks.

It's been popular for a long time to say that you haven't liked Woody Allen's movies for the past 15 years, if not the past 30, but at this point, he's actually made some good ones recently. "Bullets Over Broadway" is no longer the exception that proves the rule about this criticism. Also good are "Midnight in Paris," "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," "Mighty Aphrodite," "Scoop," and even parts of "Deconstructing Harry." I've always been an apologist for the artists I like best, even during their late periods' decline, and this movie catches me quite tightly, as someone who sometimes believes he were made for an earlier era. But the criticism of Allen is too easy. Go see "Midnight in Paris." It's wonderful.

Above is the movie's trailer.