Trio of Troubadours
Math Mysteries, Goodland Grub, Bob Seger, Tyrese Haliburton, Bent Bench
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This issue includes songs from five recent concert performers, two books about enduring mathematical challenges, the final five Santa Barbara restaurants I will highlight this year, a Detroit musical icon who just turned 80, an Indiana Pacer who is not overrated, and a tilted table. I hope you like the picks and pics.
Last Thursday The Detroit Pistons narrowly lost a hard-fought, six-game playoff series to the New York Knicks. Then the Knicks came back from down 20 in the third quarter to shock the Boston Celtics in the first game of their second-round series on Monday. Now that the Pistons are out, I am rooting for the Golden State Warriors, who knocked off the Minnesota Timberwolves last night despite losing Steph Curry to a first-half hamstring injury. Buddy Hield had 33 points in the Warriors’ Game 7 win over the Houston Rockets and 24 points last night. Steph will be out for at least a week, so it will be up to the killer Bs (Buddy and Butler) to help the Dubs win without him.
Kylee Phillips just returned from winning third place in the Songwriter Serenade at Schulenburg, Texas. Ajaye took fifth. I featured both singers last June. Kylee will perform in our living room on June 7, 2025 with her partner Chris DuPont. Reserve your seats now!
I saw three of my favorite singer/songwriters at my three favorite local venues. My friend John Bommarito captured some good videos of Liz Longley’s fine performance.
Monday was the 20th anniversary for the creation of a community of knowledge management practitioners that I founded in St. Louis in 2005. The SIKM Leaders Community has 1,277 members, held 236 monthly calls, and had 12,787 messages posted by members in its online discussion forum.
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Fave Five 135: Trio of Troubadours
Math Mysteries (Fermat’s Enigma, Prime Obsession), Goodland Grub (Brophy Bros, Eller’s Donut House, Goodland BBQ, Taqueria La Unica, Mesa Burger), Ann Arbor Artist (Bob Seger), Hero Hali (Tyrese Haliburton), and a Bent Bench.
Fave Five List: Five Songs from Recent Concert Performers
I have attended five concerts since returning from California. Here are favorite songs from each of the performers.
Book Best Bets
Math Mysteries
I admit to being a bit of a math nerd. I did very well in math in school and majored in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science in college. I found these two books to be fascinating, although they may not appeal to many of my readers.
I am in awe of Sir Andrew Wiles for proving Fermat’s Last Theorem. He was born 16 days after me, and achieved a bit more distinction in mathematics. Perhaps I will tackle proving the Riemann Hypothesis.
Fermat’s Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem by Simon Singh
From Amazon: xn + yn = zn, where n represents 3, 4, 5, ...no solution
"I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain."
With these words, the seventeenth-century French mathematician Pierre de Fermat threw down the gauntlet to future generations. What came to be known as Fermat's Last Theorem looked simple; proving it, however, became the Holy Grail of mathematics, baffling its finest minds for more than 350 years. In Fermat's Enigma—based on the author's award-winning documentary film, which aired on PBS's "Nova"—Simon Singh tells the astonishingly entertaining story of the pursuit of that grail, and the lives that were devoted to, sacrificed for, and saved by it. Here is a mesmerizing tale of heartbreak and mastery that will forever change your feelings about mathematics.
Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics by John Derbyshire
From Amazon: The definitive story of the Riemann Hypothesis, a fascinating and epic mathematical mystery that continues to challenge the world.
In August 1859 Bernhard Riemann, a little-known 32-year old mathematician, presented a paper to the Berlin Academy titled: "On the Number of Prime Numbers Less Than a Given Quantity." In the middle of that paper, Riemann made an incidental remark — a guess, a hypothesis. What he tossed out to the assembled mathematicians that day has proven to be almost cruelly compelling to countless scholars in the ensuing years. Today, after 150 years of careful research and exhaustive study, the question remains. Is the hypothesis true or false?
Riemann's basic inquiry, the primary topic of his paper, concerned a straightforward but nevertheless important matter of arithmetic — defining a precise formula to track and identify the occurrence of prime numbers. But it is that incidental remark — the Riemann Hypothesis — that is the truly astonishing legacy of his 1859 paper. Because Riemann was able to see beyond the pattern of the primes to discern traces of something mysterious and mathematically elegant shrouded in the shadows — subtle variations in the distribution of those prime numbers. Brilliant for its clarity, astounding for its potential consequences, the Hypothesis took on enormous importance in mathematics. Indeed, the successful solution to this puzzle would herald a revolution in prime number theory. Proving or disproving it became the greatest challenge of the age.
It has become clear that the Riemann Hypothesis, whose resolution seems to hang tantalizingly just beyond our grasp, holds the key to a variety of scientific and mathematical investigations. The making and breaking of modern codes, which depend on the properties of the prime numbers, have roots in the Hypothesis. In a series of extraordinary developments during the 1970s, it emerged that even the physics of the atomic nucleus is connected in ways not yet fully understood to this strange conundrum. Hunting down the solution to the Riemann Hypothesis has become an obsession for many — the veritable "great white whale" of mathematical research. Yet despite determined efforts by generations of mathematicians, the Riemann Hypothesis defies resolution.
Alternating passages of extraordinarily lucid mathematical exposition with chapters of elegantly composed biography and history, Prime Obsession is a fascinating and fluent account of an epic mathematical mystery that continues to challenge and excite the world. Posited a century and a half ago, the Riemann Hypothesis is an intellectual feast for the cognoscenti and the curious alike. Not just a story of numbers and calculations, Prime Obsession is the engrossing tale of a relentless hunt for an elusive proof — and those who have been consumed by it.
Restaurant Recommendations
Goodland Grub
Here are five more places from our winter in Santa Barbara, three of which I had featured previously.
We dined at this waterfront favorite when Roger and his family were visiting.
Grilled Mahi Mahi sandwich
Eller’s Donut House 22 N Milpas Street Santa Barbara, CA 93103
We love both locations of Eller’s. We visited this one with Roger and his family.
Cronut and Chocolate Bar
Tracy, Roger, and I went here after visiting the Goleta library with the grandkids.
Tri-Tip Sandwich
Tri-Tip and Pulled Pork Plate
We enjoyed a farewell lunch here with Tracy and Kathy.
Quesa Birria: beef birria with cheese tacos, onion, cilantro and beef broth
Mesa Burger 7010 Market Place Drive, Goleta, CA 93117
I used the gift card I won during the Santa Barbara Burger Week here the day before we left.
Smash Burger: double beef patties / grilled onions / American cheese / mustard aioli
Marvelous Musician
Yesterday was Bob's 80th birthday. He is a favorite here in Michigan and has repeatedly sold out shows in a few minutes for many nights in a row at local venues. My friends remember hearing Bob practice in Ann Arbor and seeing him perform in Ann Arbor and Detroit. My only story is that once I was on the same flight with Bob from Los Angeles to Detroit.
From Wikipedia: Robert Clark Seger (born May 6, 1945 in Detroit) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s, breaking through with his first album, Ramblin' Gamblin' Man (which contained his first national hit of the same name) in 1968. By the early 1970s, he had dropped the 'System' from his recordings and continued to strive for broader success with various other bands. In 1973, he put together the Silver Bullet Band, with a group of Detroit-area musicians, with whom he became most successful on the national level with the album Live Bullet (1976), recorded live with the Silver Bullet Band in 1975 at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan. In 1976, he achieved a national breakout with the studio album Night Moves. On his studio albums, he also worked extensively with the Alabama-based Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, which appeared on several of Seger's best-selling singles and albums.
A roots rocker with a classic raspy, powerful voice, Seger wrote and recorded songs that dealt with love, women, and blue-collar themes, and is an example of a heartland rock artist. He has recorded many hits, including "Night Moves", "Turn the Page", "Still the Same", "We've Got Tonite", "Against the Wind", "You'll Accomp'ny Me", "Hollywood Nights", "Shame on the Moon", "Like a Rock", and "Shakedown", the last of which was written for the 1987 film Beverly Hills Cop II and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart. He also co-wrote the Eagles' number-one hit "Heartache Tonight", and his recording of "Old Time Rock and Roll" was named one of the Songs of the Century in 2001. With a career spanning six decades, Seger has sold more than 75 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. Seger was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2012.
Seger was born at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. At age five, he moved with his family to Ann Arbor. He attended Tappan Junior High School (now Tappan Middle School) in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and graduated in 1963 from Pioneer High School, known at the time as Ann Arbor High School. He ran track and field in high school. Seger also went to Lincoln Park High School for a time.
Beautiful Loser
Still The Same
Roll Me Away
Against The Wind
My Playlist
Sports Star
I have been impressed with his performance in the playoffs so far. His game-winning missed free throw/rebound/dribble out/3-pointer last night was incredible.
What Tyrese Haliburton said about overrated chant following him to Cleveland
Haliburton realizes everyone knows he was voted the NBA's most overrated player in an anonymous poll published by The Athletic at the end of the regular season. He's doing everything in these playoffs to make sure he won't be, especially in clutch situations. He took out the Bucks with a driving layup in Game 5 and then beat the Cavaliers with a 3-pointer off his own missed free throw with 1.1 seconds in Game 2 on Tuesday. "For me I just control what I can, man," Haliburton said. "And yeah. Overrate that."
From Wikipedia: Tyrese John Haliburton (born February 29, 2000) is an American professional basketball point guard for the Indiana Pacers of the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Haliburton was a consensus three-star recruit from Oshkosh North High School, whom he led to a state championship in his senior season. As a freshman with the Iowa State Cyclones, he set the program's single-game assists record. He had breakout success as a sophomore and was named to the All-Big 12 Conference second team despite suffering a season-ending wrist injury.
Haliburton was selected by the Sacramento Kings 12th overall in the 2020 NBA draft. In 2022, he was acquired by the Indiana Pacers as part of a trade package for Domantas Sabonis. He then earned back-to-back East All-Star selections, being named to the All-Star team as a reserve in 2023 and as a starter in 2024.
In 2019, Haliburton led the United States to a gold medal and earned all-tournament team honors at the FIBA Under-19 World Cup in Heraklion, Greece. He was also on the national team roster that won gold at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, becoming the first former Iowa State player to win Olympic gold in men's basketball.
Overtime Game-Winner: Wild final minutes of Game 5 of Bucks-Pacers
Tyrese Haliburton’s Game-Winner to Give Pacers 2-0 Lead vs. Cavs
Picture Pun
Shouldn’t have taken that last bite.
