Friends Recommend

Chris' Top 20 Songs of 2011

2012-01-02T10:28:00.008-05:00

Hey all! I figured I'd resurrect this blog for the purpose of writing about my favorite songs of 2012. Not sure if it was because I tried harder to listen to new music this past year or because the music of 2011 was just too special to be ignored, but I had a whole lot of fun with these new songs. Here's my Top 20, based on Play Count and the star ratings I handed out in iTunes. The top 18 were 5-starrers (meaning I love them and I want to hear them often.) 19 and 20 were 4-starrers, meaning I could stand to hear them just a tad less often, but I still think they're good. Here we go:

20. Yuck - Suicide Policeman

When my buddies Mark O and Mike G both tell me to check out a band, that's when I know its got to be good. When its one or the other, I typically just pretend like I checked it out and say, "That was alright." Christ, I didn't know there was that alligator in this video.

19. Billy Bragg - Never Buy The Sun

Listening to a BB song tends to make me feel informed, whether or not I really know what he's going on about. Encouraged me to look up "Scouser."

18. Jonny - Candyfloss

This group Jonny had to be good, since it was a combo of two of my favorite songwriting dudes, Euros Childs of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Norman Blake of Teenage Fanclub. This was the first track I heard off of the record, so it holds a special spot, as it was an immediate clue-in that I wouldn't be disappointed with the record. Unfortunately for them, its still just the second best song called Candyfloss ever.

17. Fountains of Wayne - Road Song

In a slower year, they're be a couple FOW songs on this list. They dialed back the irony and ridiculousness a bit on this record and made a really nice one. This is the top track though.

16. Fiona Apple & Jon Brion - Everday

I still can't figure out if its Fiona doing the low harmony or JB. Either way, this was definitely the most wonderful Buddy Holly cover of 2011, and there were a lot of them.

15. Those Darlins - Boy

This band represents the sort of thing that I wouldn't have given a chance in my late 20s. Now, I'm trying to stay young.

14. Brian Wilson - Kiss The Girl

I wasn't too skeptical when Brian announced he was doing an all Disney covers album. But this one and "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" were the two that I was most ready to cringe at. But then he went and made a pretty perfect record.

13. Tambourine Club - Dry Your Eyes

dry your eyes by the tambourine club

This one's a lesser known one by my buddy Bryan in Kansas City. To be honest, I heard this one in 2010, but it wasn't officially released until 2011, so we're cool. As I'll mention when I talk about my other friend bands, what I like about this most is that it plays to a certain sensibility of my own songwriting desires. For this one, its a solitary recording. One that I can imagine working on at 3am, not asking anyone else for help. Not sure if its just Bryan on here, but I'm gonna keep living under that assumption. I love the dirty solos that mimic the lead vocal line. For whatever reason, Bryan's vocal reminds me of some of my favorite late 1980s hard rock, particularly the dudes from LA Guns or Faster Pussycat.

12. Mike Roy - Please Stay

Please Stay by Mike Roy

The second of the so-called friends bands. Wait, I didn't mean for that to sound so insulty. Continuing on that last thought, I admire that Roy went all-in on this album. He did a kickstarter thing and made a record that sounds great, one that I'd love to have in my arsenal. The violin on this thing is wicked. I really like the line about sticking his thumb in that lady's eye. That's not cool, Roy!

11. The Baseball Project - 1976

Baseball Project Volume 2 wasn't as good as the first one, but this one is still great. This one's in honor of Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, specifically referencing his Rookie of the Year season in 1976, when he was nearly invincible. Injuries pretty much immediately kicked his butt after that season, unfortunately.

10. Ron Sexsmith - Eye Candy

I watched a BBC documentary on the making of this album, where Sexsmith simultaneously came off as endearing and a little insufferable, due to too much "Being a cult icon doesn't do much for me, I need to pay the bills." So he enlisted Bob Rock to produce a pretty amazing record. My warped memories suggest Bob Rock appeared in every Metallica video that they released from the black album. The doc highlighted a lot of different songs, but I was surprised that my two faves didn't garner any screen time.

9. St. Even - Dreams/My Rope

Dreams/ My Rope by St. Even

Here's the Last Crusade of my friend trilogy. Whereas Bryan recorded my ultimate 3am track and Roy recorded my ultimate alt-country record...Steve recorded an album that I could have never thought up in a thousand years. The decisions that I hear on this record just blow my mind.

8. J Mascis - Where Are You

Mascis has never been known for breaking new ground lyrically, and I could have sworn that Dinosaur already had a half dozen songs and a couple albums called "Where Are You," but he still got it done.

7. Jonny - Circling The Sun

And now for JONNY's top track from the record. Norman's at his finest on this one. He's not necessarily breaking new ground for himself on this one, yet I can't picture this as a Fannies song. That snare hit before the chorus acts as a warning that its going to be a corker.

6. Ryan Adams - I Love You But I Don't Know What To Say

This was the first Ryan Adams album that I bought upon its release since Jacksonville City Nights. Otherwise, I slowly get around to listening to him, and sort of enjoying it. This album is awesome though, and I think its not just because Glyn Johns produced it. My buddy Wardog compared the record to Jackson Browne, and in tone, I can agree. However, this dude has never written a lyric that's come close to punching me in the gut like a JB does. This was a valiant effort though.

5. "Weird Al" Yankovic - Stop Forwarding That Crap To Me

At this stage, I shouldn't be expecting much out of a new Weird Al record, which made this album all the more enjoyable. This track is the showcase. In the hands of 99 other people, this song would come out sounding terrible and the bad kind of corny. The 1% (Weird Al) set out to do it right and he knocked it out of the park. You'll reach the climax of tears when you hear, "And your 2 million loser friends all have my address now 'cause you never figured out the way to Bcc."

4. Caitlin Rose - Own Side

Not even an underwhelming live experience could put a damper on this track. Something I'm reading now suggests this might have come out in 2010, but I'm not buying it. My kind of lady singer. Subtle, without a lot of vocal eccentricities.

3. Ron Sexsmith - Get In Line

In the previously mentioned documentary, it was either a mildly disgustingly dressed Elvis Costello or a thoroughly disgustingly dressed Daniel Lanois (or was that just David Cross doing a bit?) that said Sexsmith has catchy melodies coming out of his ear. Attire aside, they were dead right, and this one's the proof.

2. The Bangles - I Will Never Be Through With You

After his heavy-handed production on the two Sweet/Hoffs records, I almost didn't buy this new Bangles record when I heard that Matthew Sweet had produced it. Turns out he did a heck of a job. Susanna Hoffs has maybe
lost a tiny tiny touch in the vocal department (certainly not in the looks department), but this is still a fantastic vocal showcase. My research shows that this was the first single from the album. Duh, right??!

1. Brian Wilson - Colors of the Wind

Oh Brian. You took a pretty boring song from a pretty boring movie and made it my favorite song of 2011. You made me cry with simultaneous joy and anguish when I heard, "How high will the sycamore grow? If you cut it down, you'll never know."

And cut...

2009-09-04T02:22:00.003-04:00

Well friends, if you stuck around long enough to even read this I am impressed. It doesn't take a genius to see where this blog was headed and I think I've decided to finally stick a fork in it. My heart's not there. It's not here either. My heart is not in recommending things anymore, so with this I bid FriendsRecommend a fond farewell. I wish we could have ended on a high note, and that may be forthcoming. Ricky B has agreed to share the account of his first and only bar fight with us via video. I am hoping this works out. If I can get Ricky to tell the story of this fight I can recommend it already without ever having seen it. It doesn't even exist yet and I can recommend it to you.

My one regret is that I never even made one of these lists myself. I'm not doing it tonight, so that probably won't happen either. We had a good run. I thank all of the guest bloggers current and past, Wardo, Ricky B, Todd, thechristophermyers, and Timmy Huff for their dedication to recommending things. You guys really recommended some things. Some good things at that. Thanks to all the list folks as well. I've discovered a lot of great things via those lists and will continue to do so. You all rule. Really.

I leave you with something I love. Super-musician Self's version of the Doobie Brother's "What a Fool Believes" recorded completely on toy instruments. I can't recommend this enough:

Zurich

2009-08-28T03:31:00.005-04:00

Well, JesKA sort of called this. I am being nice to JESKa today, because she just sat through a really long show and didn't complain about it...at least not to me. Maybe to my brother, but not to me. Before I went away she said "you are going to go on vacation to Europe and just come back and recommend going to Europe on FR". This isn't completely true, but I do have something that I feel like a lot of you would really enjoy. The whole trip (Venice, Soglio, Zurich) was awesome and I liked them each for their own reasons. Venice for the classic-ness (word?) but was also too crowded and hot, Soglio for it's relaxing-ness (again?) and it's being 3/4 of the way up a Swiss Alp in a town of 200 people, and Zurich for a whole lot of reasons.

My recommendation today is if you are planning a trip to Europe, I highly suggest Zurich be a stop during that trip. My reasons are as follows. I love big cities. I think I will always (at least in the long future) live in a city or live really close to a city. I like the urgency, and being near the center of goings-ons. Something that you miss being in a city however is somewhere to get away...somewhere like vacation that gets you outside of the city. The solution in Zurich to this is there is a huge effing lake (Lake Zurich) right in the middle of it. And the water is clean. And you can swim in it. Imagine if you could walk down to the Harbor on a hot day and jump in and have that be refreshing and normal. I bet most of you can't even entertain that thought. This is what it is like in Zurich. It's a really cool big city with a vacation spot built smack in the center. I can't think of any other place anywhere that has this going for it. Anyone? Now, I don't just recommend Zurich as a place to go. Staying somewhere in a small town, with rolling hills, and mountain air is awesome and is part of the reason I loved Switzerland so much. But I'm just saying...if you are going all the way over there try to make Zurich part f it. Some pictures of the city, lakes and not lakes:

The Girl on the Bridge

2009-08-27T11:08:00.004-04:00

I wasn't going to recommend anything today because it's the end of the summer and I just didn't feel like it. Still, I have two great recommends that I felt compelled to share.

The first is The Girl on the Bridge, by French director Patrice Leconte. I first saw this movie at my at my parents house on the Bravo channel when that was still a movie channel. I never knew what it was called or who was in it, and finally after two years Netflix recommended it to me. The thing about this movie that first caught my attention is the wonderfully attractive actress Vanessa Paradis, though I soon was completely taken in by some of the most beautiful black and white film footage I've ever seen. So many B&W movies are muddy and gray, never exploring either black or white, but The Girl on the Bridge spends its most captivating scenes in a high contract of the brightest whites and the darkest blacks, making for very compelling cinema.

The movie isn't heavy on the plot. A knife thrower rescues a girl about to end her life and takes her on as his assistant. You're never quite sure where the movie is going, and that's largely due to the fact that it never goes far, but it still pulls you in to the world of these two characters whose lives have suddenly intersected and become inseparable If Chris hated my use of the vibrant to describe a book, he's going to really hate my use of the world sensuous to describe this movie, but I think this scene makes a good argument.

The other movie I need to recommend is Inglorious Bastards. I just saw it this weekend, and it's one of the best movies I've ever seen. It's certainly Tarantino's best movie thus far. From the plot, to the banter between characters, to the acting, to the visuals, to the everything. Go see this movie. Tarantino is really at the peak of his career here. I could watch this movie again and again. Here is a trailer you may not have seen yet. There's a little bit of a spoiler in here, but nothing too serious.

Man Show Boy

2009-08-26T11:47:00.002-04:00

So in the spirit of the last post, I thought I'd present the Man Show boy. Remember this kid? Inspired by Letterman, Adam Corolla and Jimmy Kimmel sent this kid around and made him say some hilarious stuff to unassuming folks.

This was one where he was selling Girl Scout Cookies.

Diggity Dank

2009-08-19T11:31:00.008-04:00

Hey guys!!

So, its been pretty awful around here since Adam left. I really miss that guy. I thought I'd lighten up the joint by embedding one of my favorite David Letterman videos. As a teenager, I always loved when Dave left the studio and did some man-on-the-street stuff and caught lightning in a bottle by accidentally finding amazing secondary characters. I had another great clip embedded featuring Manny The Hippie, but YouTube just removed it! Its possible that you can find it via this link but work is telling me I need to update some software before I watch it. If it plays for you, its well worth it.

Either way, here's Dave having some great fun with Rupert Jee from the Hello Deli.

UPDATE: Here's Dave working at a Taco Bell:

And more!

The Ground Beneath Her Feet

2009-08-13T10:11:00.002-04:00

It's almost not fair that I even post this recommend because I'm not even half-way through this book yet. However, it's one of the most enjoyable, entertaining, vibrant and clever books I've ever read.

This is basically a retelling of the Orpheus / Eurydice story, but set in the 1950's, 60's and 70's in Bombay, London and New York.

Everything about this book feels alive. From the very first few pages, you already have a clear picture Vina Apsara, the "her" in the title. Characters are revealed so vividly, that you instantly know each and every one of them. You can picture the fez on Darius Xerses Cama's head, and you imagine the dopey smile on his crippled son's face.

Rushdie so effectively conveys the passions, worries and fears of each character. Every character's entire personality is told in just a few sentences. And when Rushdie spends a hundred pages devoted to just a few main characters, you feel as if you've lived their lives a hundred times.

The other characters are the cities themselves. I've only been reading Bombay so far and am just getting to London, but I feel like I know Bombay and lived there for decades during a period of great change. Change is really what is at the heart of this story. Lives change, cities change and so does the world around them. Change occurs across generation, and affects politics, music, culture, families and individual lives.

I could describe this book forever and never quite explain it. Rushdie is a master of language in a way that Nabokov was.

I highly, highly, highly recommend this book. And if I finish it and that changes, I'll be sure to let you know. Just to help convince you that this could be awesome, here is a picture of Salman Rushdie.

Windy City Heat

2009-08-12T10:22:00.001-04:00

Hey everyone,
I'm back after a hiatus of buying cars, and taking out loans; which took up a good deal of last week.

Today I wanted to talk about a favorite movie of mine that I'm betting most of you have never heard of: Windy City Heat. This is a made for TV movie from Comedy Central that aired in 2003. It's all a documentary of a fake movie the one star thinks he's making, but it's all an elaborate prank that everyone is in on...The lengths they go to fool this guy are pretty amazing, and the movie he thinks he's making is completely ridiculous. Also, everyone involved in this fake movie introduces themselves to the main guy, Perry, as some funny fake name. Perry never once catches on that the whole thing is a sham. The producer says his name is John Quincy Adams, the casting director says his name is Roman Polanski, the personal assistant says his name is Burt Ward.

One of the funniest things about this movie is Bobcat Goldthwait. He directs this fake movie, and is constantly making Perry re-take awful scenes. One scene they make Perry drink this terrible concoction of milk, beer, chinese food, donuts, eggs, etc, all blended together....Then Bobcat says they didn't get it, and make Perry do it again. Anyway, what I'm getting at is this movie is a comedy gem. Constant laughs the entire way through. Borrow it from me.

Here's a my favorite scene from the movie:

Vacation

2009-08-10T09:15:00.006-04:00

Dear faithful readers. I will be on vacation for the next two weeks, so the Monday and Friday posts of FR might be a little bare. If I can get some good pictures or find something Swiss to recommend other than chocolate and cheese, and have an internet connection I will be sure to do so. In my absence I give Chris Myers permission to post on Monday/Friday if he pleases. This might only happen if he has a beer lunch at work though. Sorry for the absence. Hopefully I will be somewhere like picture #1 doing something like picture #2.

Shameless Plug and Jerseyband

2009-08-07T02:53:00.003-04:00

Let me begin by saying I need to hang out with Ricky B. This guy has been getting himself into all kinds of things lately, and I want to be a part of it. Ricky, let's make this happen and I'll film you telling the tale of your first and only bar fight.

Today I bring you something that isn't really a shameless plug. At least not on the surface. It is inspired by a shameless plug, though. Since I leave for Switzerland in the middle of next week I've been trying to wrap up a lot of things before I go. One of the biggest being all of the promotion for an upcoming show Quartet Offensive is doing at the Ottobar. Our first Ottobar show, and since that place is so huge I am hoping it is well attended, hence the promotion. Now, I am not posting this blog to promote the show. That would be truly shameful. However, if you are interested it is on Thursday August 27 at the Ottobar with Jerseyband, Soul Cannon, and Leisure Icons. Quartet Offensive will play a one-time-only all Pavement cover set.

Anyway, the reason for the recommends is Jerseyband. This band amazes me, and the more I recommend them to people the more great feedback I get from them. Jerseyband's lead singer/trumpet player Brent Madsen lives in Baltimore. I have the pleasure of performing with him regulary in a band called Turn Around Norman. Anyway, while at The Eastman School of Music Brent formed Jerseyband with some of his classmates (some of who are now at the forefront of the NY jazz scene). They've created a new genre of music called Lungcore, which is like heavy metal but with a full-blown 4-piece horn section. I promise you this makes for very interesting music.

Brent recently gave me a copy of Jerseyband's latest album "Beast Wedding" which is honestly one of my favorite records of the year (right next to The Dirty Projectors "Bitte Orca"). It is awesome. I don't say this because Brent is my friend. I say it because it is awesome. I never use this blog to recommend friends' projects, so this one must be special for me to do so. Anyway, I've included some videos as an introduction to Jerseyband. There is a chance it might not be your thing, but at least give it a chance? You might like it more than expected. I love it.

Nothing and Everything

2009-08-06T15:19:00.002-04:00

Sorry I didn't post anything today. I'm kind of a mess these days, what with my bar fights, drunkenness and devil-may-care attitude.

If Netflix was a little faster, I could have recommended the movie Girl On the Bridge, but I'll save that for next week when I can get a second viewing in.

I am really, really enjoying The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie. I'm less than a hundred pages into this 573 page book, but it's amazing so far. Anyone else read any Rushdie? I've only heard good things and I enjoyed East | West, but only as much as I can enjoy a book of short stories (sorry Todd).

For now all I can recommend is letting things go and stepping out of your comfort zone. It's been a blast for me.

Oh, and for anyone who was wondering, I apparently gave last week's bar fight guy a real shiner of a black eye.

Summer Vacation Recommends...

2009-08-04T09:45:00.002-04:00

I am going to take a break from my short story collections recommendations this week to try something different. I am a school teacher that teaches summer school and this is my first full week off for the summer. This makes me very happy. Last Wednesday was my last day of work until the end of the month. So I've been looking for little things to do to keep me occupied.
This past Thursday I decided to go to Bowie Baysox baseball game that started at 11 am. We got there early, about 10 am, and we were just about the only people in the stadium besides employees and ball players. During warm-ups we were able to observe the players up close and get plenty of autographs. These you minor leaguers are crazy and say ridiculous things. This guy Ambiorix Concepcion kept on stealing everyone Else's hat! Among the notables autographs were Brandon Erbe and Brian Matusz.
When the game started I sat back with a breakfast hot dog and beer and watched a pretty exciting game. Erbe started and pitched pretty well. He lost the game because of an inside the park home run. A lazy fly ball down the right field line turned into an inside of the park home run when the right fielder dove for the ball and after he missed it refused to get up and chase it! maybe he hurt himself, I don't know.
Anyway it was an incredibly enjoyable way to start off my summer break. Drinking an AM beer and watching a ball game. Up coming games of interest in Bowie include, Star Wars Night on the 22nd and Nick Markakis T-Shirt Night on the 11th.

Post script: Please enjoy this video of some pre game warm-up banter....

Funny People (bonus comeback blog)

2009-08-03T14:28:00.003-04:00

Hello everyone!

Its your old friend, Chris. I used to post on Tuesday. The last time that I posted, I recommended something about one of my favorite TV shows these days, Chuck, and everyone said it was bad! It really hurt my feelings. I felt like you weren't giving old Chris the benefit of the doubt. I really thought I had found something for everyone to like. Some light-hearted fare that would make this crazy, crazy world appear to be a little more manageable, if even for just an hour a week.

Anywho, I saw this Funny People movie this weekend. Anybody else see this? Recommending a Judd Apatow movie is hopefully on par with recommending a Wes Anderson movie. They're no-brainers and unnecessary recommends, right? People sometimes complain that his movies are too long and that he turns an amazing 90 minute movie into a so-so 140 minute movie. Well, people, I respectfully disagree! I could have watched another 40 minutes of this stuff, and I nearly did!! Adam Sandler is a pure delight. Would we have ever stopped loving him if he never made Little Nicky? This movie made me want to hang out with Adam Sandler.

Anywho Part II, I bought the soundtrack to this movie even before I saw it. This Judd Apatow seems to have a thing for Warren Zevon, whom I've written endlessly about at another blog of mine. Early in the film, and I'm not going to give anything away, but this song brings about a very emotional moment in the film:

Zevon wrote that one knowing full well that he was about to die. Does it get any more tragic than that? Cry with me.

Anywho: Whoville Spiez, another song that plays a real pleasant role in this movie is "Real Love," a John Lennon demo, which later was finished by his Beatles bandmates for the Anthology series. This reminded me of something that I think about far too often...and I nearly did! What if the Beatles would have chosen to release this BEFORE the less-amazing Free As A Bird? They both made the Top 40 charts, but I feel like if Real Love was labeled as the "first new Beatles song in 25 years," this would have been an absolutely phenomenon. It would have been like the British Invasion all over again. It would have made Oasis hang up their cleats and admit that there was no use even trying. I've embedded the Beatles version and the John Lennon demo. Either way you listen to it, its just so wonderfully pleasant!

So, my dear friends, I recommend to you..."Real Love."

Beirut--March of the Zapotec/Holland

2009-08-03T10:58:00.005-04:00

Happy Monday, Friends Recommend. In an unexpected turn of events I have decided to (at least occassionally) return to the original concept of FR and start dealing with these lists. Over the weekend I bought an album from emusic.com of this band Beirut that JESKa mentions in her list. She recommended the band and not an album in particular, so it figures that the album I bought was one that she hasn't heard. What can you do. She strongly recommends their first album though...she told me this.

I must admit that I was terribly confused at first listen. The album started with this great brass music, which had a really strong vibe of the streets of Mexico or Italy. Like some band of old men that just set up and started playing in the middle of the day. My reason for buying the album this past weekend is that I'm going to Italy and Switzerland in a week and a half and thought this music would 1) put me even more in the mood/get me more excited about the trip, and 2) give me something fun to listen to while over there, eating chocolate and drinking wine at a lake. The first half of the album is exactly what I expected. The first six songs follow this style, and do it in a great way. Then at song seven the album takes an unexpected turn into mostly electronic music, with a lot more vocals. I didn't dislike the electronic side of things, it just came out of nowhere after the first six tracks of really non-american sounds. This left me confused, and I don't think I liked it initially.

My confusion was cured when I came home, searched for the albums and found out that it is actually a double EP. The first half being music written by Beirut and recorded in Mexico with The Jimenez Band. The second EP highlights frontman Zach Condon's electronic side project Realpeople. This makes much more sense now. I must say that while I like the electronically stuff, I definitely prefer the first EP of Mexican brass band music. Like JeSkA said, it is a different and refreshing approach, while the electronic thing is like a lot of other things I'd heard before. If I bought another of their album's (which is likely) I would try the first album Gulag Orkestar, which can be sampled HERE.

Below are two videos from the double EP. The first clip from the first, March of the Zapotec, the second from Realpeople's Holland. You decide for yourself which you prefer:

Fantastic Mr. Fox--Wes Anderson

2009-07-31T02:17:00.003-04:00

I don't know how I can top a recommendation for a bar fight. There isn't much to say after that. Ricky has promised to share the story with us. I'm hoping to video tape his telling of the tale and sharing it with all of you via Friends Recommends. That should be something. Really.

My recommend today comes as a quick one. It also comes to you blind, because the movie isn't out yet. While I do have my favorite Wes Anderson movies, I've never not loved one so I don't see why Fantastic Mr. Fox--an adaptation of Roald Dahl's book--will be any different (even if it is animated). Still has a lot of that great character quirkiness W.A. is known for. A super-star cast of voices (Bill Murray, George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, etc.), not surprisingly. I'll be there when it comes out on November 13. Trailer:

BAR FIGHTS!!!

2009-07-30T09:32:00.002-04:00

This recommend is a little off the deep end today, but my brain is too beat up to recall a good book or movie.

I recommend getting into bar fights. Whether it be to protect a woman's honor, to get some idiotic douchebag to stop rubbing your head, or to let some guy know that you just don't like his ugly mug.

I make this recommend because I got into a bar fight last night, and while I took some hard blows to the top of my head, I doubt I lost any more brain cells from the punches than I did from the beers I drank. It's all worth it just to be the one to throw the first punch. Plus, if you play your cards right and make nice with the bartenders before the fight, you can get away with throwing the first punch and still be the guy who doesn't get thrown out of the bar.

BAR FIGHTS!!!

The Time Traveler's Wife

2009-07-29T12:20:00.003-04:00

I'm not sure if anyone has read this yet/recommended here, but I've been reading the Time Traveler's Wife this past week.

As I may have mentioned previously, I love anything to do with time travel. I love when characters from the future meet people they know in the past and have to explain things. I also love when characters go back in time to "change the past", but actually realizing that everything has happened before, they are in fact just making things the same. All of this is here in this book.

Usually when I read something, it takes me over a hundred pages to get involved. This one, though, I was instantly hooked. The story involves a guy who will time travel at random to various places at any time, and just show up places completely naked, then have to steal clothes and food until he warps back to his own time. He has a condition which causes this to happen. He is also married, and sometimes when he warps, he goes to various times in his wife's life, which creates the future from where he came. He also will warp to points in his own life, and help himself out. The dialogue is all really well done, and the story itself is completely inventive. Anyway, even though I haven't finished it, this has been the best thing I've read in a long while.

In our time.

2009-07-27T23:17:00.003-04:00

So keeping with my short stories for a short summer theme (It's almost August!) here is another one of my favorite short story collections. Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time. I've always really enjoyed this book, which is surprising to me because I really dislike Hemingway. I can't stand his novels. I find that his style of short to the point sentences wears on me the longer I have to read it. But if I only have to deal with it for a couple of pages I eat it up. Hate his novels, think the novella The Old Man and the Sea is just okay, but love the short stories. Highlights of the collection for me are The Battler and Big Two Hearted River. This is the perfect book for a camping trip. Thats that.

Recent Baltimore Restauranting

2009-07-27T01:09:00.005-04:00

I feel like I do a lot of apologizing in this blog. The apologizing mostly comes when I miss a post that was supposed to happen either on Monday or Friday, which are my assigned times. I don't have much of an excuse most times I miss. I assigned myself these days, and even enlisted the help of three great friends to cover the middle of the week to give me more of a fighting chance to get the Monday and Friday posts in on time. This past Friday my Mac Book blew up. I didn't have any way to post. So while I am sorry, I also feel like this is an adequate excuse. I type now on a laptop I borrowed from my parents and hope that tomorrows appointment at the Mac genius bar will solve my computer problems. I am not optimistic that it will be so quick. Mac laptop problems, anyone?

Like I said in a previous post, I haven't seen many movies lately. I love movies, I just haven't seen any lately to recommend. I hope to change this soon. I am excited for THIS even thought it is a ways away. More CGI than I expected/had hoped for, but what can you do. I still have high hopes and still think I will enjoy it more than the Willy Wonka remake. That's all.

Also recently I've been thinking of giving It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia a second chance, because the first chance didn't leave a great impression. I'll be back with an update on that. In the meantime just watch Arrested Development in it's entirety again. I can't imagine that getting old.

Something I have been doing is eating. July is a birthday packed month, including my own and eating out seems to be a thing that happens around birthdays. I'll keep these short, but a couple of recent highlights for me for Baltimore eating (these aren't ranked, just numbered for organization):

1. Lumbini Restaurant--322 N Charles Street--Heather and I went here for lunch on my birthday. I'd been to this Indian buffet before, but as far as the downtown Indian buffets go this is my favorite. I used to love Akbar, but then there was a weird sewage rumor and although I'm not sure if it was true or not I haven't been back. Not saying I won't go back, I just haven't been. Sewage rumor or not I prefer the Lumbini Buffet. There is more of a selection (especially for vegetarians), their Chicken Tikka Marsala is great (which is the dish I judge all Indian buffets by), AND they have chai tea with the buffet. Most places don't do this, but the chai really ties the meal together. Really. Chtry it. Also, this is cheap. I think it was $8.99. I'm not sure, but it was well worth it.

2. The Yabba Pot--2433 St. Paul Street--One of Baltimore's well-known vegan restaurants. I am not a vegan and I probably would have never picked this restaurant. Heather is a vegetarian so it was her choice for her birthday. I was pleasantly surprised. While it was all vegan, I left full and happy. They call it soul food. I guess that generally implies spicy, which a lot of it was. You basically go into the place, tell them how many sides you want (sides are basically what they call any kind of food there), and point to them. Then you go eat. Heather and I each got six sides and rice which is like the Rolls Royce of Yabba Pot dining. I couldn't finish, and for a vegan meal I was pretty full. If you are feeling adventurous or in the mood for some sort of healthiness check it out. Maybe skip the ginger beer. It was OK but the plant outside seemed to enjoy it more than we did. No sign of alcohol in this place if that is your thing.

3. One World Cafe--100 W University Parkway--Another very vegetarian friendly place (you can tell that Heather had a birthday in July too!) This was also great. Maybe the greatest part, aside from the coffee, was the wide range of vegetarian options. You could get almost anything. Heather got a meatball sub. Seriously a vegetarian meatball sub. You can even get that. I got some kind of noodles in some kind of sauce. It was good. Also cheap. I've never been impressed by vegan desert and this place didn't change my opinion of that, but the meal was good. If you are up by Hopkins, and you are feeling more like a hippy than normal you should definitely check it out.

4. Lebanese Taverna--719 S President Street--If you are down in Harbor East during lunch time you should only go here. I'd been for dinner and I loved it. I went for lunch and I still loved it. I got a shwarma (sp?) which is a lot like a chicken souvlaki with rice and salad and it was $7.99 I think. And it was awesome. I felt full, but still ready to run a race after it. Not at all heavy, but filling. If you park in Whole Foods lot and buy anything from Whole Foods you get your parking validated. So we ate at Lebanese Taverna which I already mentioned was awesome, and then I got a Naked Juice from Whole Foods and got my parking validated for free. Maybe my favorite place on the list, but that shouldn't knock down the other places. I just really like this one. Really. For real.

Grayson by Lynne Cox

2009-07-23T10:18:00.002-04:00

Boy, Thursdays do really sneak up on me. I had a lot of things that I wanted to recommend in this space, and I also wanted to dedicate a post to things I've checked out because of this blog, but I don't thing I'm going to do either of those.

Recently, I've begun taking full advantage of my mornings -and boss' willingness to look the other way- by coming into work anywhere from a half an hour to two hours late. During these extra hours I read, exercise, cook and eat breakfast for as long as I can. Yesterday, during my morning procrastination session, I picked up a newly-purchased book called Grayson by world-record breaking swimmer, and author, Lynne Cox.

I had never heard of Lynne Cox, or any of her books or world records, but something about this cover made me buy it. I initially wasn't going to read this book yesterday, but it was short (153 pages) and looked like it would be easy to read. Grayson ended up being the first book I've ever read from beginning to end completely uninterrupted.

Grayson is autobiographical, but it reveals only about 3 or 4 hours of Lynne Cox's life. When she was 17 and an already accomplished swimmer, she was out for her usual morning three-mile swim off the coast of California and encountered a baby whale. It quickly became evident to Cox that the whale was motherless. What follows is the search and struggle to find the whale's mother.

To be honest, reading Grayson was like watching a PG movie. The big smiling, cartoon whale on the book cover makes it clear from the beginning that Grayson is no tragedy. However, as both Cox and Grayson struggle to stay afloat in choppy waters a mile and a half off shore, you can't help but get caught up in the drama. Grayson is not about a whale finding it's mother, it's about the energy and attitudes that connect all living things, even different species, despite language barriers, cultural differences or physical challenges.

The other really captivating aspect of this book is Cox's descriptions of the animal life beneath the surface of the ocean. As Cox gets washed further and further from shore, she acts as a tour guide to the oceanic metropolis that is just too far off shore for casual swimmers to be familiar with. She encounters sea turtles, jellyfish, dolphins, tuna and plenty of other fish I had never hear of. Each encounter adds an element of wonder and drama to whole story.

Part (I think) of why I really enjoyed Grayson was because I read it in almost real time. The story begins at some point between 5 and 6am, (I started reading at 6:30am) and ends approximately at 10am (I finished the book by 8:30). As the sun was coming up in the book, so it also was from where I was reading it. I highly recommend trying to do the same. I felt it added a sense of reality, like it was all actually happening while I was reading, ala Never Ending Story.

I thought I'd end with these lines from the book which occur right before Cox decides to journey farther out into the ocean to help look for the baby whale's mother:

"Many people are happy with things as they are. They are comfortable with what they already know. But if I didn't move outside my comfort level, how would I ever experience anything new, how would I ever learn, or see or explore? I believe that each of us has a purpose for being here, that we have certain gifts and certain challenges we need to learn from and fulfill for our lives to have meaning and richness."

"I'm going to swim with him"

It's not at all eloquent, but right on!

A New Movie

2009-07-22T10:22:00.003-04:00

So Adam was asking about good movies, and I haven't seen a whole lot lately, besides Bruno, (which I don't think I can discuss without ruining some of the best gags in the movie) but this one looks amazing:

It's playing at the Charles right now. Right in time for the anniversary of the moon landing.

I love Sci-Fi movies. People trapped in space, robots turning against humans, ships controls failing...love it all.

There was a Netflix movie I got based on someone's recommend here...Sunshine, and it was pretty great. Directed by Danny Boyle who directed Slumdog Millionaire, about a crew who basically have to dump a hydrogen bomb into the sun, because the sun is dying. Some stuff goes wrong on the way, and they encounter things they don't expect...anyway, I won't ruin it. Here's the trailer for that one:

Just Do It

2009-07-20T00:51:00.003-04:00

This is sort of a stange one, but bear with me. I have made a decision to get back to some of these lists that I have been neglecting for the past couple of months. But that takes a little bit of time and won't happen today. Today I have a special treat for you. You might not find it a treat, but I really love it.

Great friend, artist, film maker, musician, etc Nick Prevas (magnificentlore.com for more info) taught high school art and film making at Carver this past semester. Carver is a magnet school for the arts in Baltimore so it attracts a lot of really talented students. Prevas has a lot to say about his experience teaching there, but today's recommends is something great that came out of it.

The following video, entitled "Just Do It" was made by two of Nick's students in his film making class at Carver. I don't know anything about them...I don't even know their names. I know them as Chas and Steven. This might not be for everyone, but these guys crack me up. I think they are the next generations' Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter, just give it time.

Before I even saw the video Nick had pretty much reenacted the entire thing so I knew what I was looking for. While you are watching also keep in mind that they showed this at the years-end video festival for parents, faculty, and students alike. That is funny to me. Without any further babbling here is "Just Do It":

Upside Down Recommends

2009-07-17T10:12:00.002-04:00

What a week here at FR! Everybody got a post up on time, except for me today. Maybe we're back on track.

For a while there was a stream of reverse recommends going on around here, where everyone would trash something that another person seemed to like. Rachel Getting Married seemed to be a big one to be reverse recommended. This post is not a reverse recommend.

I have been really out of the loop with movies lately. I didn't even know what Bruno was until late last week. The only movie I have seen recently is Gran Torino which was good, but not 8.4 stars good like IMDB would suggest. The acting was a little bit weak/awkward at points but I still enjoyed it.

What I am looking for from you is some modern movie recommends. These can still be in the theater if you like, or they can just be a movie that came out fairly recently. I'd like to get back in the movie loop, as I really love movies. What do you have for me? If you recommend a movie I will definitely see it, and then it will definitely get a Friends Recommend post all to itself. Not that it's any kind of motivation for you, but a little help please? A little help from my friends, please:

Magic Bullet

2009-07-16T09:51:00.002-04:00

Since food posts are so popular here, I thought I would keep with that theme. I highly recommend the Magic Bullet Blender.

I don't even have one, I have a knock-off brand, and the quality is certainly poor, even the knock-off is an amazing kitchen tool. I use mine almost every day to make smoothies. This thing makes smoothies in less than a minute. Don't believe this everything-in-ten-seconds crap they sell you on TV. It takes nearly a minute to get a well-blended smoothie, but that's still pretty damn fast.

You can quickly mix fruits that you wouldn't -or at least I wouldn't- normally mix together. Cherries + Mangos= Great smoothies. Banana + Blueberries = Great Smoothies. Peaches + Strawberries = Great Smoothies.

I stock up on fruit and make a bunch of smoothies and then freeze them. That way I can have a smoothie anytime I want one -well, about a half an hour after I want one-and it keeps the fruit from rotting in the fridge before I can eat it all.

Not only does this thing make great smoothies, but it also grinds coffee beans, a big plus if you drink a lot of coffee at home like I do. I've used it to chop onions and other vegetables. It doesn't make consistently-sized chunks, but it' a lot faster than a food processor and with way less cleanup.

Did I mention how easy this thing is to clean up? All of the mess is on the blade, and in the cup. That's all the cleanup needed. It is so great. My one suggestion is to not leave a dirty cup in the back of your car for a week, because once the fruit dries on the cup, it takes another week of soaking before it can be properly cleaned.

I'm certain that this thing makes plenty of other great stuff, but it's worth it for the smoothies alone. It is such an easy, affordable, quick and tasty way to eat healthy. A smoothie for breakfast is so much better than cereal, yogurt or an english muffin.

Go get a Magic Bullet, or better yet, do what I did and have your mom buy you a knock-off brand for your birthday.

Napping

2009-07-15T06:17:00.003-04:00

In today's recommend, I'm going to talk about the importance of a fave activity of mine: napping. I've been reading a few things about naps and one thing I came across says this:

Snoozing for a half-hour can be an enjoyable way to promote physical well-being, and naps have been known to improve your mood and memory. A 20-minute nap can sharpen your senses and revitalize you, while a ten minute nap can leave you feeling more cheerful. Falling into a light sleep during the daytime can feel meditative. The thoughts you have as you are taking a nap and the dreams you experience may offer you insights about your life that you may not have at night when you are in a deep sleep.

- DailyOm.com

I personally recommend a 50 minute nap for even more sharpened senses. More from DailyOM.com:

In order to fully enjoy the benefits of napping, you may need to give yourself permission to nap. Feeling guilty about snoozing or worrying about your to-do list won't do you much good when you are trying to take a nap because your thoughts or feelings will keep you awake.

No problem here. Let's continue:

If you go to an office, try to crawl under your desk for a nap.

This sounds great, but I probably would be fired.

One crucial element to a good nap is a comfortable couch. I have this old couch from the 1970s that I like a lot. You are going to want to get something that has soft cushions that you just sink into. You also are going to need to make sure that before buying your napping couch, making sure that it's as long as you are. Let's get serious–trying to stretch out on a love seat just isn't going to work. Also, I don't recommend using a futon (not comfortable enough) or a bed (too comfortable). You don't want to create the atmosphere of night time, otherwise you'll wake up at 8 pm, and will be up all night. So, make sure you leave a light on, OK? I also read that if you do decide to get into napping, it's good to have a set routine. I try to nap the same time everyday. Afterwards, I feel like a new man, ready to take on the rest of the day. When I skip a day napping, and I have to be out late, and up early, there's a major difference in how I feel the next day, than if I hadn't skipped...so get your nap in!

***Also, fave snowball flavors: Cherry, Lime, Skylight.

A Good Man Is Hard To Find

2009-07-13T21:55:00.002-04:00

To me nothing screams 'BEACH BOOK!' like a good short story collection. You can read a story, jump in the ocean. Read a story, fly a kite. Read a story, talk to Aunt Beth about your adopted cousin Nathan. Read a story, play whiffle ball Home run derby with your nephew. You get the idea. So over the next couple weeks I am going to recommend my favorite short story collections.

Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find is a great read. I know, you hear the title and you think it's some sort of Sandra Bullock film. But it's not. It's a collection of Southern Gothic tales filled with distorted Catholic imagery. The collection is named after the first story in the book. Its about a family with a pushy grandmother that gets murdered by a serial killer named the misfit. There's a good chance that you've read it, as it has been anthologized in plenty of high school literature text books.

That's it. Short stories= short recommends.

Ziggy's Snoballs

2009-07-13T00:06:00.005-04:00

Near the conclusion of a family gathering yesterday Heather and I decided to have a good, old-fashioned foot race. She decided actually and I reluctantly agreed. After giving her a good five foot head start I proceeded to race her into the ground in front of my whole family. In front of my uncle, two cousins, and father anyway...far from my whole family. The word was that I ran like lighting, Forrest Gump, or a nerd. I'm not sure what the final decision was. We'll go with lightning for the sake of this blog. This post isn't about footraces, although I do recommend a good foot race anytime you have a worthy competitor close-by. I'll take anybody anytime of day and I urge you to challenge me to that.

Foot races are summery. After this footrace I realized that I hadn't really done much of anything summery this whole (summer). July is half-over and I haven't even had a snowball from my favorite Russian snowball stand which is only blocks away from my house. There are plenty of things that I like to do in the summertime, but I think this summer has felt a lot less like summer (even though it has been pretty hot out) because I haven't made it a point to do most of them. Some of my favorite summer things that have been missing this year:

1. Ziggy's No-Balls
2. Sunday Baseball/Softball
3. Ocean City, no matter how dirty
4. Pretty Boy Reservoir
5. Andy Nelson's for lunch
6. Rita's Italian Ice
7. Wild Wood NJ

Now that I think about it I haven't even been in a pool yet this summer, and summer is more on the way out than on the way in. Some of these things I need to take care of fast. Ocean City might not happen, and I'm OK with this. I suspect that I would gladly substitute
Switzerland for OC any summer of my life. Swimming in Pretty Boy Reservoir, no matter how illegal it becomes, is something anyone living in the Baltimore area should do at least once a summer. If you don't know where to go, I'll give you the spot. The other things on the list (minus Wild Wood) I can take care of pretty easily.

Possibly the biggest hole in my summer fun has been no visits to my good friends Ziggy and Ziggy's wife at No-Balls snowball stand in Parkville. It is called no balls because a sign that should read Sno-balls has been without lights in the first "s" for as long as I've been going there. Without going into a series description of what I get there (because everyone has different no-ball tastes) I will just tell you that they are hands down, without any competition the best snowballs that I get in Baltimore. You want a delux delight reeces peanut butter cup snowball? You got it. Ziggy's got you covered. Even if it makes the thirty people behind you really mad because Ziggy puts everything he's got into that four dollar snowball, and it always takes at least two minutes to make. You like the standards? They've got the standards, and they shave their ice so it always tastes better. Can't decide on one standard? Get three flavors rainbowed! Man, this place is awesome. Just talking about it makes me want one. How do you get there? You can't really google it because I don't know the technical name of the place (it might be Ziggy's, but it might not). It is pretty much on the corner of Old Harford Road and Putty Hill, just up the hill from the Charcoal Grille. More detailed directions are available upon request.

So here's my question for the readers. What are your absolute favorite summery things to do? Things that if you didn't do them, it just wouldn't feel like summer. Sound off.

*Disclaimer: The snowball pictured is not a Ziggy's No-Ball. It isn't even a snowball that I would ever purchase myself. But it is the best I could find. No marshmellow here.

Here's Your Chance + Dog In Hat

2009-07-10T01:52:00.004-04:00

Ricky, you can take today if you'd like. I'm really looking forward to these recommends you are waiting to get out. If I posted today I would probably just tell people to come to The Windup Space tonight at 9pm, and no one wants to hear about that.

Just in case Ricky doesn't post, to make it worth your trip to FR today here is a picture of a little dog in a littler hat:

My apologies

2009-07-09T06:48:00.002-04:00

I apologize to everyone for not having a post last week. I was out of town and was denied the internet access that I was expecting. Regretfully, I am neglecting my duties this week as well. I have been in a three-day training that continues today. The fact that I am posting this (from work) at 6:49am should indicate my dedication and desire to not just leave you hanging. I feel like I have some good recommends to make.

I'll make up the post, I promise, even if I have to steal one of Adam's days. I hope I didn't ruin the blog for two weeks and possibly forever.

Food from my vacation

2009-07-07T23:42:00.003-04:00

So I've been on vacation a lot lately. Part of the fun of being on vacation is going to places you wouldn't normally find around here for eats. So I've outlined a few good ones that I did while away.

Sonic
These places aren't in Maryland at all, but boy do they have some nice food on their menu! I've been here a few times, and it's really hard to decide what to get. They may have the best drink selection of any fast food place I've ever been to. What they do well:

1. Shakes. My favorite is the Orange slush treat. It's really amazing. Tastes like an orange creamsicle. The flavors available for the shakes alone are something you'd probably only find here.
2. Breakfast all day long.
3. Lime Aid. Comes in several flavors. Also, slush versions.
4. Tater Tots. Instead of fries!
5. The drive-in style ordering.

In 'N Out Burger
This is my favorite fast food place of all time. I love this place more than any other. I don't expect everyone to agree, but if you ever are in California, for God's sake, find one. The burgers are great because everything about is fresh. I strongly urge you to try the regular burger first. It has lettuce, tomato, thousand island, etc. The fries are shoe string style. Crunchy and delicious. Looking at their menu is the complete opposite of Sonic. They only have 3 combos you can get. A single burger/cheeseburger/double cheeeseburger. Sometimes it's nice not having to pick from so many things. The bad thing is they are adamant about not expanding anywhere east of Nevada. Something to do with their strict meat storage policy.

Cracker Barrel
So for our beach trip that Myers and I took, we kept talking about how we were going to stop at Cracker Barrel on our way back. The more we talked about it, the more excited about it I got. I had one of the best turkey dinners there back when I was younger. As it turns out, the turkey dinners are only served on Thursdays. What I got instead was a boneless chicken breast dinner, and it was pretty delicious. I'll go here again when I want chicken or turkey with mash potatoes, and corn muffins. Also, have you played this peg game they have there? It's pretty fun.

5 Things on Both Sides

2009-07-06T01:51:00.004-04:00

Ricky was out of town this week, or on vacation, or something. And I don't post on holidays. And everyone had off on Friday, right? If you didn't have off on Friday and you were looking for a Friends Recommends post I am very sorry. I don't know who you could be, but I am sorry. Also, I was in Buffalo/Ithaca for wedding things all weekend and hadn't thought much about F.R. So while we are being honest, this is a pretty off-the-cuff kind of post.

Here are Five things I've been enjoying a lot lately (in no particular order). And here are Five things I have been checking out, but not enjoying so much lately:

5 Things I Like:

1) Dirty Projectors--Bitte Orca--I already wrote a blog post about this one. But I checked it out another time coming back from Ithaca to Baltimore today and it only gets better. I really recommend this one.

2) Blond Redhead--Misery is a Butterfly--I've had friends try to get me into Blond Redhead a couple of times in the past. Initially I thought they were terrible, and then with some Huff recommends I started liking them. Then another friend very recently recommended this album and I've gone from tolerance to being a legit fan. Certainly worth the time.

3) Arrested Development--OK this should have been a number one. Good thing this list wasn't in any kind of order. I had really liked Arrested Development before (having seen random episodes here and there) but only when I watched the entire series all the way through did I really appreciate it to the fullest. This is comedic genius and could very well be the funniest thing I have ever experienced. I was sad to see the last episode but can't wait for the movie.

4) Igor Stravinsky--Currently rediscovering my favorite classical composer, and finding new things to love about it in the process. For newcomers to Stravinsky's music The Rite of Spring and The Firebird are often recommended classics (rightly so) but try something like Symphonies of Wind Instruments for a very short but great introduction (I think the whole piece is under 10 minutes). Youtube clip:

5) Pavement--Quartet Offensive is doing a Pavement cover show at the end of August at The Ottobar, so we've been listening to a lot figuring out what we want to play. I don't get tired of them, especially Brighten the Corners.

5 Things I Haven't Liked So Far:

1) Of Montreal--Skeletal Lamping--Ugh, I should have listened to brotherHop about this one. What a disappointment after Hissing Fauna. I'm not sure what it is (maybe I sort of am) but I don't like it.

2) Eels--Hombre Loco--In it's defense I have only listened once. But this thing got pretty rave reviews, and I've been an Eels fan in the past. This one just isn't doing it for me right now. Hopefully it could grow on me.

3) Xiu Xiu--The Air Force--That's all I have to say about this one. Didn't get it. Tried hard, but still didn't get it.

4) Running With Scissors--Augusten Burroughs--Well, it's been over a year since Heather and I listened to this book on tape on a trip to and from Ithaca. I was trying to think of the last book I hated, and this was it. Sorry, not so recent.

5) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia--I definitely won't say that I hate this. I'm not even in a position to say that I don't like it yet. But it is a show that was talked up to me so much by so many people that when I saw a couple of episodes I was really disappointed. I have the first two seasons on DVD sitting in the shrink wrap, so maybe once I watch a full season it will turn around. Right now it is a pretty big fail, though.

Vacation Mysteries

2009-07-01T15:38:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone,
Just got back from California. What a fun place!
Anyways, near where we were staying, there are two places that seem really interesting. One is called the Winchester Mystery House, the other is called the Mystery Spot. We went to neither of these places, as it turns out, because of time issues...but we talked about them quite a bit because their stories are strange...

The Mystery House

This place was occupied by the widow of the Winchester rifle inventor. She moved in in 1884, and for the next 38 years, carpenters and builders worked 24 hours a day adding additions to her house. They were building up until her death. This widow visited a psychic who told her that she had to build a room in her house for every person that was killed by the Winchester rifle. As long as the workers were building, she was told, the spirits would leave her alone. Up in the attic, there are still doors and windows that were never installed because she died while all of this was ongoing. As you can see from that picture, though, this place is massive. Besides building lots of rooms, she also had things like stairways that led to nowhere, and optical windows so she could look through without her glasses on. This place is right outside of San Jose.

The Mystery Spot
This place had maybe the worst vacation brochure I've ever seen. That's probably why I grabbed it in the hotel we were staying in. Anyway, this place is 10 minutes north of Santa Cruz. This place is supposedly where gravity works differently. Some people theorize aliens buried something under it to make gravity go nuts. I don't really understand that part of the story, but I found this video that you should watch, which explains a little better.

Bands with a gimmick

2009-06-29T21:14:00.003-04:00

Nothing can take a mediocre band and make them freaking awesome faster than a good gimmick. Take a C+ band and give them a good shtick and you've got an A- minus band. It's that easy. I don't know why more bands don't do it. Bands don't seem to be following this formula very much anymore, but here are a couple of my favorites from a couple of years ago....

Man or Astroman? They claimed they were from outer space. They wore weird spaceman costumes. They played kinda futuristic surf rock interlaced with sound bites from forgotten Sci-Fi movies. I know pretty stupid. But they never broke character. And their shows were a lot of fun. I can remember seeing them with Les Savy Fav at Fletchers in 1997 or 1998. (Was it Fletchers?) I don't remember, but I do remember it being one of the most entertaining shows I've ever seen.

Here's a clip...

Servotron. These guys pretended to be robots bent on enslaving humanity. They dressed in really cheesy robot costumes, painted themselves silver and put on an amazing show. They sang songs about mildly famous mistreated robots(Vicki from Small Wonder! R5D4!), and also about how stupid human civilization is.

The Causey Way. I discovered this group a little later on and unfortunately never got a chance to see them live. Their gimmick was that they were a cult posing as a band. Except they claimed they were not a cult. In fact that was their motto "The Causey Way is not a cult" I guess they tried to indoctrinate you at their shows or something. Sounds like fun! Oh, and get this, the band had two of River and Joaquin Pheonix' sisters in it. Crazy!

Doubt

2009-06-29T01:28:00.003-04:00

Heather got me to watch this Doubt movie on Saturday night. I realized I hadn't seen a movie in a while (I haven't watched any of these married movies yet), but was neither excited nor dreading watching this particular one. It was nominated for all kinds of awards among them being Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), Best Actress (Meryl Streep), Best Supporting Actress (Amy Adams AND Viola Davis), and Best Writing (whoever wrote the screenplay for this movie).

As you may be able to tell from the Academy Award nominations the acting was top-notch. Four of it's five nominations were for acting performances. I am a huge Phillip Seymour Hoffman fan, and I can't think of any movie he's been involved in that I disliked (Punch Drunk Love being one of my favorite of his roles). I think he's one of the best around and he gives another great performance in this. All of the ladies were good as well. As far as recommending this I'm not so sure. I think it was really well done, like I said the acting was great great, and the plot interesting. My hesitation to recommend is similar to my hesitation for recommending Hard Candy some time ago. There was definitely a discomfort level while watching it. I personally like to be uncomfortable when watching movies or TV shows (my love of Curb Your Enthusiasm is one example, also while I didn't love the movie, the discomfort that Meet the Parents gave me was also something that I embraced). So while I may be OK with some weird feelings when viewing a movie, I might hesitate to recommend it to everyone. Perhaps a plot synopsis will help you understand this. Take from IMDB:

It's 1964, St. Nicholas in the Bronx. A charismatic priest, Father Flynn, is trying to upend the schools' strict customs, which have long been fiercely guarded by Sister Aloysius Beauvier, the iron-gloved Principal who believes in the power of fear and discipline. The winds of political change are sweeping through the community, and indeed, the school has just accepted its first black student, Donald Miller. But when Sister James, a hopeful innocent, shares with Sister Aloysius her guilt-inducing suspicion that Father Flynn is paying too much personal attention to Donald, Sister Aloysius sets off on a personal crusade to unearth the truth and to expunge Flynn from the school. Now, without a shard of proof besides her moral certainty, Sister Aloysius locks into a battle of wills with Father Flynn which threatens to tear apart the community with irrevocable consequence.

The whole Catholic school thing definitely brought back some Calvert Hall memories, but I am realizing that Calvert Hall wasn't so strict as the stereotypical Catholic school as portrayed in movies. Regardless, there were some similarities. Nothing relating to the main plot though, I swear. Anyway, Doubt was a really good movie. If the plot is something that interests you I say go for it full-force. I enjoyed it, and while I won't watch it again I am glad I watched it the first time.

One thing that I can recommend to lovers of weird music is an AMAZING interview with one of my all-time favorite musicians, alto saxophonist Tim Berne (interviewed by Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus). This definitely isn't for everyone but if you are a Tim Berne fan it is a must read. If you like weird music but don't know of Tim's music check out Part TWO where you can listen to some clips and read about them. The Bloodcount clip is particularly incredible (as could be expected). Anyway that article is on Do the Math RIGHT HERE.

Rant--Chuck Palaniuk

2009-06-26T02:09:00.005-04:00

Ricky had a really nice post on time travel yesterday, and Heather mentioned this book as a recommendation if he wanted to continue to explore different takes on the subject. I will begin by saying that I loved this book. I love quite a few books, but this one is near the top of the books I have read in the past couple of years. I even bought the book for Brother Eric for some holiday, and he doesn't like to read books anymore. He didn't read this book I don't think, but that is beside the point.

Of anything Chuck Palaniuk I have ever encountered this is my favorite by far. I've read Survivor, and I've seen Fight Club and that stuff is fine, but Rant is where it's at. I swear. Very early in the book the reader is presented with the knowledge that Buster Casey (Rant) is dead, and the entire book explores the very strange events of his life, beginning with his obsession to get bit by poisonous spiders and snakes. If you want a complete rundown of the plot check it out here. It's been about two years since I read the book, so you'll get a better idea from reading that.

The time traveling element doesn't get introduced until the middle of the book, and it involves a nighttime activity called Party Crashing. If you read Rant and don't want to party crash you are not like me. I read Rant, and I wanted to party crash. You will have to read the book to find out what party crashing is. There are two more installments of the Rant series scheduled to be released in 2011 and 2013 and I will definitely read both. My explanation of this book isn't great, but it is coming to you as a very very high recommendation from me. Whatever that means for you...this book is worth a damn. Ricky, it isn't an option for you to not read this book. Eric has it, so does Heather...one of them will be nice enough to let you read it.

BACK TO THE TIME MACHINE

2009-06-25T07:55:00.002-04:00

Let me start this by saying that I love time travel movies. This stems from a much larger love of science fiction movies altogether, but time travel really brings out the “what if” questions. Most of them are preposterous like, "what if a women travels back in time, get impregnated and gives birth to herself?", and some are based on the chaos theory like "what if you make one tiny change in the past but it alters the entire course of human history?".
I guess what I really love about time travel movies is that they highlight the question of whether we (humans) are truly autonomous or are we following some predestined chain of events.

There are two time travel movies that I’d like to recommend, although one is just a half recommend and I’ve only seen it once and it was recently.

Timecrimes is about a man who experiences a bizarre series of events and eventually stumbles upon a time machine where he must hide to escape an unknown attacker. After traveling backwards in time he becomes so afraid of altering his past self’s experience that he does some awful things so that nothing is different from how he experienced it before. It’s an interesting concept and runs opposite of most time travel movies where characters are going back in time so that they can change what their past self experienced.

The second recommend was a recommend to me from Chris Dahl, and is called Primer. I was shocked by how much I enjoyed and continue to love this movie. Primer is different from other time travel movies in so many ways. First of all, the whole movie was made with less than a thousand dollar budget, but it feels like any high budget indie film. The filmmakers really knew how to work with what they had. Secondly, Primer leaves the hockus-pokery out of the equation and looks at time travel as any other innovation, a scientific experiment with unexpected yet explainable results, and accidentally discovered by two normal Joes in their garage. Lastly, Primer throws wrenches in the audience's perception of events because it's difficult (at least at first) to decipher which time line the audience is observing at any given time.

The characters in Primer are so real. Basically they are just like any IT guys you know. They are on the geeky side of normal, they talk shop even when they are not working and they have no real adventures in their lives. They are two pedestrian engineers who accidentally discover time travel and they struggle with how to utilize their new power without abusing it. Their awareness of paradoxes initially keeps them away from their past selves, but they eventually exploit their abilities to play the stock market and beyond. Ultimately, Primer examines what extremes the protagonists will go to in order to prosper, to learn, to experiment and to protect the biggest secret they’ll ever have.

Expect a lot of twists and turns in this one, but don’t expect to understand them all or even spot them all the first two, three or seven times through the movie. While Primer does have a David Lynchesque “what the fuck just happened” quality about it, each viewing rewards you a little more instead of leaving you even more confused. I highly recommend this one and will happily lend it to anyone or will come watch it with you. I never tire of this movie.

Obama's Blackberry

2009-06-24T07:41:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone,
Have you seen this?

I got this book a few weeks ago, and LOL'd the whole way through. OMG WTF! Anyway, it's this book of made up stuff that Obama gets on his Blackberry. Text messages from Bush, emails from Bill Cosby...that sort of thing. What caught my attention was the front cover of the book. A text from Biden asking Obama if he can leave early. Funny! What's also great are the reoccurring themes through out the book. Dennis Kucinich keeps trying to find a buyer for his 1970s Volkswagen van, Arnold Schwarzenegger keeps writing Obama to let him go to find Bin Laden, Bill Clinton keeps asking Obama to send Hillary to Africa or China, Clarence Thomas keeps asking to hang out, etc. Here's how the book starts...an email from Bush:

From: George W. Bush
To: Barack Obama
SUBJECT: Did my dog show up at your house?

Hey Pardner,

My dog Barney has been missing for the last couple of hours, and I'm wondering if he did one of those "go back to the old house" situations. I know it's far, but he's a quick l'il sum'bitch. Wait, there he is. He's here. He's outside running up right now so... Hey there, good boy. Who's my little chunky monkey?

Lauura? He's back! He just ran up. I wrote to Barack. They hadn't seen him.

K,
W

Go get this book!

Ben Kweller....

2009-06-23T15:48:00.003-04:00

Oh man is it Tuesday already? You really lose track of the days when you're off of work. But hey I am not suffering because I am off work, only my blogging is suffering.

Did you know Ben Kweller put out a new album in February? I didn't. I just got it the other day and I am really digging it. If you don't know Ben Kweller you should. He was in a band called Radish as a teenager and has had released some pretty rocking solo albums. This new album, "Changing Horses" has a real big country tinge to it. I Love It! Here is a video from it.

The Dirty Projectors--Bitte Orca

2009-06-22T09:59:00.003-04:00

I know I've recommended this one to a few of our FR readers already, but I have to give a strong recommend to the new Dirty Projectors album "Bitte Orca." I have liked the Dirty Projectors stuff before (I listened to Rise Above a bunch when I got it off emusic) but Bitte Orca is a whole new level for them (for me, anyway). I guess the title a lot of people give the band is avant-rock, whatever you want to take that for. Whatever you call it, it is really good. The new album particularly.

You can check out a wide range of their stuff at their myspace page, but the recommendation from me is that you just buy Bitte Orca. Maybe listen to a couple sound clips first and see if it is up your alley. The only person who didn't like it so far is Huff, but I don't know what is wrong with that guy. The album itself is really difficult to desribe, but their are a lot of great arrangements, really weird high vocals, strings, angular rhythms, etc. Just listen. If you don't like it I'll buy you a Natty Bo next time I see you. I am only making that offer because I don't think anyone reads this anymore, and if people do read this I bet they won't make it this far in the post.

One side note about the band...a fun fact that drew me to them in the first place. The 2007 album Rise Above is an attempt to recreate a bunch of Black Flag songs. This wouldn't be very interesting if they were just covers. Instead the band tried to recreate the songs from memory, not going back and listening to the songs (which they hadn't heard for years) before recording them. The result is something that sounds completely independent of the originals, with more references than covers occuring. Anyway, check out Bitte Orca...I think you'll enjoy. Here is a video from the album...the song is called Stillness Is The Move:

Best of FR (Timothy Huff Edition)

2009-06-19T02:27:00.002-04:00

It might be obvious to some of my faithful readers that I am losing steam with this blog. I just don't quite have the motivation that I used to for posting here. Mike Ward and Ricky B both found new motivation this week, and provided two great posts after a failed recipe week. Bravo guys...a job well done. I'll get you a Natty Bo next time I see you. Consider it a business expense on Friends Recommends' tab.

Before I completely fail at this blog I wanted to revisit some of the things that have really stood out for me. When I first get these lists I try to check out everything possible. Albums, YouTube clips, some television shows, and some movies were all easy to check out in a relatively short amount of time, while books, etc. took a little bit longer to digest. There are things on each of these lists that stood out to me as being particularly great, and have stood the test of time. Since I've picked up a few readers along the way who may not have backtracked and read about these things I'm going to revisit a few from each list that I think are particularly note-worthy. My only rule for this is that these are things that I checked out as a result of this blog, and not things mentioned on the list that I was previously aware of. Sort of my thank-you to the list-makers, the movers and the shakers who provided me with some great picks that I have in turn re-recommended.

From the Huff list there are two (kind of three) recommends that are stand-out, knock-down great picks that I think everyone can enjoy. You have to be a little bit weird to enjoy the second one, but anyone who made it through recipe week and is still reading this blog is probably a little weird. So here they are:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close--Jonathon Safron Foer

This was the first thing I checked out as a result of Friends Recommends and it remains in my top-3 favorite things I discovered as a result of doing this blog. It is probably in my current top-3 favorite books as well. I know that Eric, Ricky, Heather, (Jessica?), and others all read it as a result and all had positive reviews. This book will break your heart, I don't care who you are. Break your heart in a good way. Well, not really a good way, but in a way that isn't bad, OK? I know it made Eric wear heavy boots on his cruise last year which he gave me crap for. Whatever, just don't read it if you are looking for something light. I have some Danielle Steele novels to recommend if you are looking for a beach read. Anyway, I would tell anyone I know to check out this book, and I would stand behind it strongly. So if you missed it the first time around you have a second chance. Here is the link to my original post about the book in case you missed that as well.

Cheap at Half the Price--Fred Frith

This one has also stuck with me for the past 8 months, and everytime I listen to it it gets better. I have since moved on to checking out some other Fred Frith work, but this one is still my favorite. Wacky music, but with a pop-ish, sing-along-ish element in a real weird way. I also think there is something for everyone in this pick...it just takes a little work and some repeated listenings. The reward will be that you end up loving Fred Frith. Link to my original post with some sound clips as well. Man, I just went back and listened to those clips and it made me smile. Great stuff.

Anything by Murakami

So far I don't feel strongly enough about Murakami to recommend anything by the guy, but some of his books have been stand-out great for me. I will discuss these further when we visit the lists of people who recommended specific books, and not just this little man.

Anyway, I highly recommend you go back and check these two things out if you didn't the first time around. I wouldn't have posted about them originally if I didn't feel strongly but the fact that I am willing to post again about them should make you run to the store and buy the things. Also, I am about to re-read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close which says something, right?

Cory should be up next. We'll see how long I can keep this going...maybe I can get through everyone. If I don't get through everyone it is nothing against you, OK?

Just because I can

2009-06-18T14:43:00.002-04:00

I thought I would also recommend this, because it's great. The Ghostbusters video game just came out, and I want to play it despite the fact that I don't have a console that I could play it on. That doesn't stop me from loving this song more than anything in the world.

"You have done some freaky ghosts"

"Bustin' makes me feel good"

Architecture In Helsinki

2009-06-18T11:27:00.002-04:00

Yeah, so thank you, Mike Ward for ending recipe week. I thought I would really enjoy that, but just wasn't in the mood for it all, this week or last. So I'm doing a music review instead and I'm really excited about it.

The Recommend: Architecture in Helsinki - Places Like This

This album is sooooo good. I've had this album for well over a year now and it is still one of the few albums I listen to at least once a week, and certainly the only one that I listen to over and over again without interruption.

I have no idea if any of AIH's other albums are any good because this is the only one I've ever heard, but it makes me think that their other albums are probably amazing as well. This band sounds like a bunch a muppets, and that's all I can think about when I listen to them. Just and try and listen to this music and not picture Red, Boober and Gobo from Fraggle Rock.

On the first few listens to this album, I thought they sounded harsh and too artsy/weird for my taste, but it totally grew on me. Lyrics that I initally thought were childish like, "My mom thinks she's in love with you", "Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah", and "Ey yi yi wooh wooh" I eventually grew to love. These songs come off with such energy and vibrance that you can tell the band is puting their all into it, and having a great time doing it. There are no depressing or somber songs on this album at all.

The most interesting feature of this album is that while there are a few tracks that are slower or less intense, it still feels like the album's energy is building the whole time and that the slower songs are just generous breaks for the listeners to catch their breath, and not duds or throwaway songs.

Overall, the album is a jumbled mix of so many different styles and influences that it comes out feeling new and different from anything else. You could certainly identify some of their influences if really try, but even the ones that I'm hearing aren't half as fun as AIH. Here are videos examples of their sound and goofiness. If you do like these songs, there are at least three other songs on their 10-song album that are better than these.

A Joint Movie Review

2009-06-17T07:33:00.002-04:00

So, Netflix sent me a movie recently called Margot at the Wedding, because apparently I only put movies about weddings in my queue now...but, I wanted to talk about that today with the help of fellow recommender Jessica...(It's not recipe week still is it?)

Mike: I got this movie in the mail and started watching it, wondering why in the world I added it. I hated that Rachel Getting Married movie and this is another movie about a screwed up family, getting into arguments, preparing for some wedding. This one, though, I really enjoyed. Then I realized why. It was made by Noah Baumbach, who wrote and directed the Squid and the Whale. The writing is actually really good. It's with Nicole Kidman, Jack Black and Jennifer Jason Leigh. I liked Jack Black in this one a whole lot more than in previous outings because he's not doing his whole Jack Black schtick. Nicole Kidman, is really good here, because you slowly see how crazy she is, but at the same time, I didn't hate her character. She was just really interesting to watch. The movie isn't really about anything, other than these people slowly revealing how crazy they all are. Jessica, what did you think of this? Are we finally agreeing on this one?

Jessica: Margot @ the Wedding -- where do I start? The Squid & The Whale being Baumbach's most acclaimed production thus far was not the enticing factor for me when queuing this movie. I thought TS&TW was just okay, probably because as a 30.y.o. lady there wasn't much I could relate to in the formative years of adolescent boys. I queued it b/c of an appreciation for Jennifer Jason Leigh and an increasing appreciation for Nicole Kidman, as well as being pleasantly surprised with Kicking and Screaming (Baumbach's first effort). And having seen a third film of his, it is clear that he has a voice and an intent and a purpose. It's also another movie that would've lingered at the bottom of my queue forevermore until Ward came along and asked me to bump it up.

I would say (perhaps surprisingly) that the main difference between these two movies is that RGM is more formulaic than M@TW. It was the surprise performance from Anne Hathaway that I think really pushed RGM to be more "acclaimed" tha M@TW because most people are well aware of the acting abilities of JJL and NK. So, it's the difference between going to Dangerously Delicious Pies and expecting fantastic-ness and being wowed by the local diner's unexpected bakery selection.

Not to say that RGM is formulaic in general, it just is in comparison to M@TW. M@TW has a more natural flow, it's not out to tell a specific story the way RGM was, it was more interested in sharing an experience of people I thought. Or rather, it shows you who the characters are by their actions rather than telling you how they are -- you don't get any backstory of who these people are the way you do with Kym (Anne Hathaway) getting picked up from the health facility as the opening scene.

I'm sorry I'm not being more specific but I think part of the draw of the story is how the characters unfold and how you think you know someone and then you realize that maybe you don't at all. That might be a totally subjective lesson I'm taking from the movie, but I also felt that the characters felt the same way about themselves. They think they're this one thing or one way, but then they realize they're not either and it's like you're in it together, sort of...if that makes sense at all. And as crazy as these characters are, it was the first time in my whole life that it made me a little sad that I don't have a sister (same sex sibling rather), and that I can't understand that dynamic at all.

Mike: Well, I'm glad that we agree on this one. Your thoughts are right on par with how I felt, as well. Touching on how the characters develop throughout; that for me was the most exciting thing to watch. I also really liked the humor in the movie. There were several instances of "blink and you'll miss it" kind of things. Like when they are in the restaurant, and someone is doing awful karaoke. A lot of the humor is really subtle.

Jessica: Well, it was really dense and I'm still undecided about whether I liked that or not. Like the whole weird neighbor thing and the pig and the tree. I liked that that made it sort of true to itself/reality in the sense that totally odd random things can happen in the midst of a story/plot and they weren't weeded out as unnecessary but at the same time, it made for a pretty fast paced story where at times I was just trying to keep up. All in all, I liked it and I wish more movies where made like it. I wasn't as impressed with the Jack Black aspect....I wish another actor had played that role. He wasn't horrible, he just felt a bit awkward. There were moments of greatness, but it still felt like he was using his schtick in a movie that wasn't schtick-y.

Mike: Well, maybe a bit, but it was definitely downplayed a lot, I think. Maybe it isn't possible for him to entirely do away with it. Anyway, that's our review! If you liked Noah Baumbach's previous work, give this a try. Thanks Jessica for helping me out on this one. It was good to have your insight.

Colmus Recipes and Blog Disasters

2009-06-15T02:05:00.003-04:00

Hello friends. I am sorry for my absence this past week. I was away for a nerd convention, and one would expect such a convention (which took place at Penn State) to have some sort of internet for visitors. This wasn't true, so I couldn't check my email OR update this blog. I came back to Friends Recommend to see what kind of good stuff our Tuesday-Thursday bloggers had for us and saw that it was Recipe Week! My original intention was for the week starting today to be Recipe Week, but something was lost in translation. Since everyone who posted thought last week was the week, I must have done something wrong. I apologize. This might work out well though, since the only recipe I have is from Colmus. I'll post that here today, and if Todd wants to do something tomorrow not related to recipes that would probably be great. A big thanks to Colmus for this. This guys blog posts are some of my personal favorites:

Since I'm pretty sure this Recipe Week mess is partially my fault, I feel honor-bound to submit an entry. I'm sure the history books will show that this week peaked on Monday and careened off the clif like Toonces was at the wheel. But we managed to trick Ricky into giving out his mashed potato recipe, so mission accomplished. (Sorry Ricky.)

Anyway, I don't really have any Knock-Out dishes. Not one. I'm not a dreadful cook, but I'm usually too lazy or theoretically busy to bother with much in-depth cooking. I likes 'em fast and no-fuss. Like my coffee.

But I have picked up a few things in the kitchen that I don't mind passing along. They taste pretty good to me. I'm comfortable with their taste-effort ratio - the "torque" of the meal, if you will. Enjoy.

Quesadillas

Mike Ward might consider me a purist with my spatula and frying pan, but I'll never let a damn machine make my quesadilla.

In fact, the only Recommendation I can make for this simple ethnic treat is in the way that it's cooked. (In a pan, for chrissakes.) You've all probably got your favorite ingredients, and I'm not going to recommend any here because I usually keep mine simple - usually sauteed mushrooms and red onions, with diced jalapenos sprinkled inside. Add an egg if it's before 2pm.

But my endgame goes like this:

Heat an ungreased skillet over medium heat for about two minutes. When it's properly warmed, place a tortilla in the skillet for about 20-30 seconds on each side, nicely toasting them. After you've removed the tortilla from the pan and started heaping your filling in, fold the tortilla over the filling. (Don't do this two-tortilla Mexican Pizza shit.) Drizzle the outside of the tortilla with about a 1/4 teaspoon of olive oil, spreading it all the way to the edges. Then sprinkle with salt, about 2-3 shakes of the shaker.

Carefully slide the quesadillas onto the heated skillet (still at medium heat), oiled sides down. Now repeat the oiling and salting on the newly-exposed other side of the tortilla, and prepare that to be flipped in about a minute-and-a-half to two minutes, just until it's nicely browned. I was pretty surprised by how much something as simply as the oil and salt add to the taste, even for dessert quesadillas (like "King Killers" - peanut butter and banana).

And no goddamn robot is gonna top that.

Roasted Green Beans

Everything tasted better roasted - nuts, vegetables, legumes, Andlers. But the dish I turn to the most often is roasted green beans, mainly because a ton of fresh green beans anyway. They might be my favorite vegetable (narrowly edging out Betty Crocker Mashed Sweet Potato Mix).

Here's my take on it:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees, and begin snapping off the stems and whatnot from your green beans. (Run them under some water while you're at it.) Put your cleaned green beans in a mixing bowl and pour a tablespoon of olive oil over them, tossing to coat. Then add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and toss again.

Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and spread the green beans evenly across it. If you're making a lot, like I do, it might get cramped. Deal with it quickly and move on.

Place the sheet on the lower middle rack of the oven for about ten minutes, flipping them afterwards (or at least pushing them around). These things take to sizzling pretty quickly, and you might notice you can hear them from outside the oven.

Put the beans back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes, removing them when they're lightly browned and pretty well shriveled. (If you burn them, you've got about five minutes to eat the entire batch before they harden. It's totally doable.)

The roasting brings out an almost nutty flavor to the beans, and the salt contributes to that. (You can use a pinch less salt and it'll still taste great, but not quite as great.) Pair this up with some Stovetop Cornbread Stuffing and some leftover birthday cake and you're good to go.

Bon Voyage!

Recipe for the Lazy

2009-06-10T12:56:00.002-04:00

This is an easy one. If no one is going to post today, I'm going to.

Ingredients:

3 Avocados
1 Can of Black Beans
Half a red onion
3 Tomatoes
Fresh Cilantro
Salt and pepper
1 Tablespoon of olive oil

This requires no cooking at all. You basically just cut up all of these ingredients into chunks for the Tomatoes and Avocados and dice the onions and cilantro, stir it all together and eat.
Enjoy

Recipe For Disaster

2009-06-09T14:56:00.001-04:00

Ingredients:

1 kitchen
1 me

mix ingredients together.

that's all I got.

Mashed Potatoes

2009-06-08T16:11:00.002-04:00

Contrary to Adam's belief, I do not have a Mashed Beer Potatoes recipe. I do however have a mashed potatoes recipe and I once suggested substituting the water for beer. Yes, it might work, but I've never tried it because cream and beer sounds awful together.

I don't have measurements for these ingredients because that isn't my style, but you can use a lot more or less of any of these without screwing up the final product. Here is an approximation of what you need to start:

3-5 Pounds of Red Potatoes
2 sticks of butter
1 qt of heavy cream
1 large (16 0z) container of sour cream
(I usually use far too much of all three of these and end up with a lot leftover. I advise you to use too much the first time and determine how much you actually need to get the flavor you want the next time around.)
1 Wedge of Parmesan or Asiago cheese
1 Bunch of Chives
Salt & Pepper

Preparation:

1. Cut the potatoes into fourths if they are small to average sized. If they are larger, cut them into chunks about the size of the face of a watch.
2. Chop the chives into little flakes
3. Use a fine grater and grate the cheese. Again, I usually grate way more than I need, but then I use it all anyway to make the MP's extra cheesy.
4. Cut the butter into chunks. About 8 chunks per stick.

In a large pot:
1. Boil enough water to cover all of the potatoes
2. Once the water is boiling, carefully drop in the potatoes. I usually place them on a plate, and with a large spoon, slide them off the plate into the water to avoid splashing.
3. It's better to over boil the potatoes then to under boil them. You'll know they are done when the skins fall off the potatoes. If the skin stays attached at all, let them boil longer.

While the potatoes are boiling...

In a medium sized pot:
1. Combine about 3/4 of the quart of heavy cream, half the sour cream and one an a half stick of butter.
2. Heat the three ingredients at a low-medium heat
3. Wisk the mixture about once a minute to keep the ingredients from separating. As they melt, keep wisking so that they will blend together.

Once the potatoes are done:
1. Drop the potatoes into a strainer, but DO NOT run any water on them. You want the starch from the potatoes to stay on them. This helps everything stick together better. If you rinse the starch off, you end up with mushy and kind of runny mashed potatoes.
2. Put the strained potatoes back into the pot, or a large mixing bowl.
3. Add in the chives, salt and pepper to taste and a handful of cheese.
4. Slowly add some of the cream mixture. You just want to add a little at a time.
5. With a hand masher (or in a mixing bowl) mash the potatoes, cream mixture, chives and salt& pepper together.
6. Keep adding more of the cream mixture and more cheese a little at a time. Mash it until the cream mixture and cheese are all mixed in, and then add more of each and mix again. Keep doing this until you have very creamy, cheesy mashed potatoes. My rule of thumb is: If I think they are too creamy or too cheesy, I add more cream and more cheese.

You'll end up with a lot of mashed potatoes. If you refrigerate them, they will get hard over night. Just add more of the leftover cream mixture and microwave them and it will be like new.

A Call For Recipes (Recipe Week Part 1)

2009-06-05T11:04:00.004-04:00

After many requests (is two people considered many?) I have decided to open it up to the readers again to help with our very first Friends Recommend Recipe Week. This will function exactly like The Top-5 Week, but it should be much easier for people to come up with a recipe to share than to pick their top-5 favorite songs of all time.

These don't have to be fancy recipes. The only stipulations:

1. Ricky must share his mashed potato recipe.
2. Don't just submit a recipe please, give us a some sort of overview, or a funny story about how one time Ricky dropped this dish in his lap when you made it for him.
3. I guess that is pretty much it.

Next week is a normal week of Friends Recommend. I'm giving you a heads-up right now that I'm taking a vacation day on Monday so there won't be a post. So you have a whole week to get these to me. Email them to hopkinak at gmail.com. Just like with the Top-5 week this will probably last longer than a week. We'll let the recipes go until they run out. Guest bloggers are strongly encouraged to post a recipe. I have never cooked anything in my life, so this will be interesting. It would be really special if we had a Friends Recommend recipe gathering and everyone cooked these things for each other, but who am I kidding. Let's just sing some Karaoke instead. There are no limitations to the type of recipe. It can be a curry (Mike Gittings can't submit curry again though, he already did that), a cake, some eggs, or even your favorite after-hours cocktail. Yeah, more cocktail recipes. OK. 1-2-3, go!

Adult Books by kids

2009-06-04T10:09:00.003-04:00

I thought I would try and keep with the book theme of the week by making two recommends. I recently finished two (back to back) stunning books, both written from the perspective of a child. The first one, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a short and easy-to-read novel is a story told by main character Christopher, an autistic fifteen year old. I say it's easy to read because although it deals with some heavy emotions, there is also a lot of humor and mystery to propel the story.

The heavy emotions are mainly those of Christopher's parents. He lives with his father and occasionally digresses from the main storyline to reveal a memory of his mother. The book adequately conveys the stresses that any parent goes through compounded by the additional stress of being a parent to an autistic child, though it does so through Christopher's own voice. Although Christopher understands that his father is angry because it's a "black day" (if Christopher sees four yellow cars in a row the day becomes a black day and Christopher does not speak for the rest of the day), the reader is able to read into the father's frustration far more than Christopher does and it adds a sad tone to the entire text because the reader sees that the parents are losing hope whereas Christopher only understands that his dad is angry.

Overall this is a story of loss, hope, responsibility and acceptance. It's humorous and short enough to be a great beach read, but it's also emotionally driven enough to be a good book club contender.

The other book that I wanted to recommend was I Live in a Chickenhouse by Max Amichai Heppner. This book came to because the author is a mediator where I work and I heard about the book and requested a copy from him. Amichai, as he is known to me, is a Hollocaust survivor and his book is the story of how his family hid from the Nazis by living in a chickenhouse in Holland between 1943 and 45. Although the premise is very similar to The Diaries of Anne Frank, this book was written specifically for children. Also instead of just being diary entries, each chapter revolves around a picture drawn either by the Author or someone else living in the chickenhouse with Amichai's recollections filling in the story of the picture as well as historical events.

The tale is a dramatic one though the child's perspective brings an additional sense of excitement and energy to the events and also a greater sense of melancholy because this is a child dealing with the usual pains of being a child stuck in a world of adults, but caught in more abnormal circumstances.

I don't have a copy of the first book, but I will be happy to lend I Live in a Chickenhouse to anyone who wants to read it.

Art Project

2009-06-03T07:19:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone,
So in typical Ward fashion, I'm going to stray a bit this week...

I really love hearing about people's off the wall dreams. I have plenty of them myself, and think they make for interesting discussion. Last week I dreamt I was shooting people dressed in Donald Duck costumes with tranquilizer darts. In talking about this, it gave me an idea. Next week I will be in Rochester, NY for 6 days with absolutely nothing to do, so I thought I would create some kind of art based on dreams. What would be great is if some of you could tell a weird dream story, and I'll pick a couple, and create my art, and then post them here down the road. ***[I'm not a good artist, so what I make could really suck]. I have a rough idea of how I'd want to make things...and I don't know how long this will take. But anyway, I thought this would be a fun idea, so let's give it a try!

That's all I had.

Jpod

2009-06-01T22:43:00.003-04:00

Oh man, is it book week already. I feel like I just showed up to school and realized that I have a book report due. The only problem is that I really haven't read any good books in a good long while. I just don't seem to have the time anymore. Don't get me wrong I love to read; I majored in books in college. Just don't have the time right now.

So instead of a book recommend, I'll give you a TV show recommend that is based on a book. That's the best you're going to get out of me today. Sorry. Anyway, unless you live in Canada you've probably never seen the show Jpod. Jpod was a CBC show based on the Douglas Coupland novel of the same name. I've never read the book, but I've read most of Couplands earlier works. At one point I considered him one of my favorite authors. But at this point, looking back at his literary career I kinda consider him a one trick pony. But at least it's a pretty pony! All of his books blend together to me. I know I am doing a bad job on selling you on the merits of Douglas Coupland, but if you stick to just one or two books of his you'll love him. (Those two books being Shampoo Planet and Microserfs).

But this isn't a book recommendation. This is a TV show recommendation. The show lasted for one 13 episode season before it was cancelled in 2008. Its about a bunch of generation Y video game programmers in Vancouver and all there wacky exploits. The main character is called Ethan Jarlewski. He's young and smart and confused unsure about life, etc. He's your standard likable young lead character. The real stars of the show are his father Jim Jarlewski, portrayed by Alan Thicke! in by far the most amazing role I've ever seen him in, as well as the Chinese mob boss Kam Fong.

I don't think there has been a DVD release of Jpod, however you can watch the entire series on the WB website for somehow.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao--Junot Diaz

2009-06-01T01:05:00.005-04:00

This is a bit of a recap for Friends Recommends. I wrote a post about this book HERE back in February, based on the strong recommends it received. I hadn't read it but still made a post...what a book! Anyway, I bought it in preparation for my trip to San Francisco some weeks ago along with Michael Chabon's Mysteries of Pittsburgh (a good book, but maybe not worthy of a full-on recommend at this time) and Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower (which I often site as my favorite book, although like a top-5 song list I'm not sure how completely accurate that is). Regardless I have read Perks at least 7 times in my life, and love it enough to buy it for the second time since I lent it to someone who never gave it back. Perhaps a future recommend for that is forthcoming.

For those who need to know, is the Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao worth the hype it has received in these parts? Recommended by HSV, Mike Gittings, and indirectly by Jenny Kinniff I would say that yes, with 100% certainty it should be read by everyone who checks this blog. It was an outstanding book...although for me it started a bit slow, but that might have been the mood I was in where starting to read it. Regardless, I put this on par with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Windup Bird Chronicle, and Skinny Legs and All as the best books that have ever been recommended for me to read. Top-notch, A+, prime-cut, top-shelf kind of reading.

I don't really want to go too much into the book itself. If you haven't read it yet my recommend to you is to do so. Be warned that it is heartbreaking. There isn't a whole lot of good that happens to poor Oscar Wao, or anyone in his family for that matter but this is a great book. One small thing that took away from my reading is that my Spanish is horrible, even though I studied it for 5 years in middle/high school. Some of the character dialogue in the books goes untranslated (usually just a one or two-word phrase) but taken in context you can usually figure out what it means. It really didn't present much of a problem, but if I were to read it again I would probably look up all these little phrases to make sure I knew what was going on.

To be specific Heather's recommendation was to listen to the author read this book on tape. She has some strong feelings for this guys voice, and she certainly thinks it is worth a damn. In a recent conversation she actually told me to post THIS CLIP which isn't from Oscar Wao, but it gives you an idea of the kind of voice we are dealing with. She says the speaking starts at minute 1:50 and assures our readers that it is worth the listen. What do you have to lose? Upon listening to it, I could see her argument. It has some nice flair. Better than the voice in my head when I read, that's for sure.

All I can say at this point is read The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It is worth it. I'll let you borrow it if you want. Mike Ward, I have an Eric and Jessica copy of Skinny Legs and All on my floor. You should read this too...I just need to get it to you. That's all. Todd tomorrow.

*This post was not proof read or edited. Deal with it!

The Laun Mix-Tape

2009-05-29T03:15:00.003-04:00

Chris Laun came at me with this idea a long-long time ago. And I promised him a spot when there was some down time. Little did he know that he was getting a prime-time Friday morning spotlight. This is good stuff, and a good idea. I haven't even listened to these songs yet but I know that this is a good idea. I've recently finished reading The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, which came highly recommended by a couple of our listers. This book was as good as promised. Tune in Monday for a full report. This one is worth a damn, that's for sure. Anyway, from here on out is Laun. Listen to these songs at work. What else do you have to do?

This is another music-based recommend but it's got a bit of a twist to it. It'll hopefully be sort of a collaborative recommend if it works the way I'm intending.

Last year when the best-of lists started popping up on Google Reader I came across a couple blogs that had their top songs of the year. In checking out a lot of the music on there I found that there were a lot of great songs that were by people I had never heard of and had never heard friend's mention. Since then I've had a policy of making a point to listen to every mp3 that is shared on any of these blogs especially if it's by someone I've never heard of before and haven't formed an opinion about. If it was something I liked, I would save it to my computer. I wound up with a playlist of great songs by artists I know very little about.

So I've made a playlist of some of my favorites from the past few months. I don't know exactly when these songs were released. I believe they're all fairly recent but they could be from albums that are a few years old or ones that haven't come out yet. I tried to pick a mix of different kinds of songs so hopefully there is something here that will appeal to you.

Obviously the main goal here is to share music that I am really digging with you guys. The second goal is that if any of this is familiar to you that you can make recommendations or anti-recommendations back to me. Or if you don't know any of it but are inspired to explore further that you can report back with what you find. In that sense it could sort of be like we're discovering new music as a group.

You can listen to the whole thing at drop.io/launmix01. You can comment on each song there if you want but make sure you sign your name as it doesn't have any other way to keep track of who says what.

And here's the track listing:

Forest Fire - Slow Motion
Meursault - The Furnace
St. Vincent - The Strangers
Phoenix - 1901
Malajube - Porte Disparu
Nneka - Heartbeat
Jumbling Towers - The Kanestown City Rips
Bodies of Water - Under the Pines
Mystery Jets - Flakes
Laura Gibson - Spirited
Zu - Ostia
We/Or/Me - Tell Sarah
The Bird and the Bee - My Love
Parlovr - Pen to the Paper
Emperor X - Go-Captain and Pinlighter

2009-05-28T08:47:00.003-04:00

Oh brother. I hate it when I come in to work early and check Friends Recommend to discover what new recommends are waiting for me only to realize that it's Thursday (my posting day) and not only is there nothing being recommended to me, but I've got nothing to recommend.

We seem to be on a TV Show kick this week so I'll keep the flow going. One show that I've recently come to appreciate is the British series Spaced. The overall plot is that Tim and new friend Daisy pretend to be a couple in order to rent an apartment together. The show features Simon Pegg and Nick Frost of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz fame.

As Tim and Daisy seek to develop their careers and find love, they receive counsel from and get caught up in the lives of their landlord Marsha and neighbor Brian. All in all, the show is pretty bizarre and surreal at times, and frequently references and parodies movies and other TV shows. Sometimes it's a little too bizarre for its own good, but the cast keeps it together and make you really feel for the characters. Youtube has a lot of really of boring clips from the show, but there were plenty of laugh out loud moments. Again, sorry for not knowing how to embed these. Someone should explain that to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X-_UL08uuI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFEJstPBwvw&feature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3KfnPHiTqY&feature=channel

The IT Crowd

2009-05-27T07:10:00.001-04:00

Today I wanted to talk about a show I've really been getting into lately: The IT Crowd. This is a British comedy show that is filled with absurdist humor. Basically it's about two nerdy guys and their lady manager working in an IT department. These nerdy guys are classic sitcom characters. One is extremely naive and childlike, the other is the brains behind their schemes. This is my favorite episode of any comedy show that I've seen this year, and had me laughing the hardest. This clip happens midway through the show. The two guys (Roy and Moss) are at a play with their lady boss, and they don't want to use the bathroom bc of a bathroom attendant. So Roy uses a handicap bathroom, even tho he could get in trouble for using it.

What's great about this is he has to spend the rest of the episode in a wheel chair. I love when shows have characters get in situations like these...

So, maybe if some of you are inclined, you'll torrent this episode (if that's your thing). I looked everywhere for a stream of the entire episode, but came up with nothing. So here's a torrent link.

Lookwell!

2009-05-26T07:06:00.000-04:00

"Lookwell!" might be the funniest television series that was never made. It was created and written by Conan O'brien (I am looking forward to his return to late night next week) and Robert Smigel (The guy behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and those SNL Cartoons) way back in 1991. Sounds pretty good so far right? Wait it gets better. The show was about a washed up actor (played by Adam West) who used to be a famous TV cop. In between auditions and teaching an acting class he attempts to solve crimes. He feels he is entitled to do so because he was awarded an honorary police badge back at the height of his fame. Hillarious! The pilot episode of the show was the only one ever made. If you have 22:40 to kill, please enjoy...

What is the second funniest TV series that was never made? I am glad you asked. I can't be sure, because I can't find the pilot episode anywhere, but judging by the shows Title sequence, it might have to be "Heat Vision and Jack". Jack Black played an astronaught who comes back from space with super inteligence. Owen Wilson played his talking motor cycle/best friend. Wow. If any one has a copy of this show, I need to see it.

Radiolab

2009-05-22T11:06:00.002-04:00

After about 50 recommends to check out NPR's Radiolab, I finally decided to take Huff up on it this morning. I am not yet finished my first episode, but it is concluding as I type this. Radiolab is hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich and I must admit it is a pretty fantastic program. If you have a job where you can sit and pay attention to an hour-long podcast I highly recommend it as a way to pass your time at the office. It is hard to listen to if you can't really pay attention, because you miss a lot of what's going on. But if you can really tune-in it might become a new favorite for you.

I checked out the episode entitled Musical Language. This is the plot description:

What is music? How does it work? Why does it move us? Why are some people better at it than others? In this hour, we examine the line between language and music, how the brain processes sound, and we meet a composer who uses computers to capture the musical DNA of dead composers in order to create new work. We also re-imagine the disastrous 1913 debut of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring...through the lense of modern neurology.

All of the segments in this episode were really interesting. One highlight for me was an investigation of the Speech-to-Song Illusion. Basically the concept of this is if you hear a spoken phrase repeated a couple times, it begins to take on the character of song. The example here is pretty amazing. This is actually the exact example used in the show. Their is a recorded excerpt of a couple of sentences of a woman speaking, and after the excerpt concludes they loop the phrase "sometimes behave so strangely" (Play "Listen: Sound Demo 1). You don't really get what is happening at first, but on the play back this phrase takes on a songlike character that the rest of the paragraph doesn't simple because you've heard it repeated a number of times. I highly recommend you listen to at least Sound Demo's 1 & 2 to get the full effect. I heard the beginning portion of the podcast in my car this morning, and as soon as I heard the phrase it popped out as being "music" instead of "speech." Neat!

Other highlights for me were an investigation of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (a favorite composer of mine). In 1913 Igor Stravinsky premiered "The Rite of Spring" which was a revolutionary composition, full of harsh harmonies (not reallly for today, but in 1913 they were harsh), and asymmetrical rhythm, and is a portrayal of the Pagan sacrifice of a girl in Spring. Anyway, during it's 1913 premier the Rite of Spring induced a riot within the first 3 minutes and the piece wasn't even performed in it's entirety. Supposedly a lot of people in the building actually liked it, but a LOT of them hated it starting fights and shouting. The very same piece was performed a second time one year later to rave reviews and pushed Stravinsky into superstardom. Radiolab looks into why the first time it was performed it caused a riot and the second time it made Stravinsky so famous that the piece was used in Disney's Fantasia:

There's a lot more great stuff in just this one episode, so I can't wait to check out more. They are all available for FREE on iTunes. So you can put a bunch in an iPod and have them saved for a boring day. Really good stuff. Thanks, Huff...what are other favorite episodes?

Along the same lines as this podcast, check out this video of Sarah Palin Sings. (I guess this goes along with Ricky's post from yesterday as well):

Recommended Distractions

2009-05-21T14:30:00.003-04:00

So I never listen to music anymore, the books I read are only OK, and the movies I watch are horrible. Assuming you've all heard of The Office, that doesn't leave much to recommend from the little T.V. that I watch. I do however spend an inordinate amount of time browsing web page after web page. The internets are an amazing things. You can view great, pointless videos like this one:

I don't know how to embed youtube videos or anything else for that matter. So suck it up. The other great thing about the internets (***extremely- inside joke warning***) is that you can go online to buy shoes offline. Amazings!!

Here are some of my favorite places to visit on the internets.

This is Boing Boing. This is a great recommend site. Also great is Neatorama. It's a way less techy internets than this BoingBoing. If you like independant games, steampunk, DRM debates and guest bloggers than BB is for you. Otherwise it's Neatorama.

I also love Men who look like old lesbians. Although, I think the are wrong about many of these men.

Cake Wrecks is gross an hilarious and makes me sad for the world. Post Secret is kind of all of those things too. Actually Post Secret is every emotion of every person all at one place without any judgement of any of it.

Bent Objects is amusing and worth a look every few months. As is Faces in Places.

I sort of enjoy this Photoshop Disasters, but there is also something about it that I hate, but I do not know what.

I love The Big Picture although their subject matter has gotten boring lately.

Finally, It's Nice That is a great art recommender.

Sorry if this is kind of a half-assed blog post, but I got into an accident on the way to work today and I lost half of my ass in the wreck.

Late at night

2009-05-20T00:39:00.002-04:00

There are some things that are perfect for late at night. Taco Bell may be the first thing that I think of, and I'm sure many of you agree. Taco Bell really is at its best between the hours of 12am and 2 am. But when I'm driving home during the late night, I like listening to quieter music. A few albums that have been my late night main stays for a long time: Neko Case's Blacklisted, Ryan Adams' Cold Roses, Elvis Perkins' Ash Wednesday and Iron and Wine's Our Endless Numbered Days, among other things. These albums have exactly what I want for the wee hours; beautiful/haunting songs filled with introspection and heartache. I do some of my best thinking while listening to this kind of music. And when I'm driving home from God knows where at Jesus knows what hour, I often look forward to the car ride to reflect on things, and put on the latest late night playlist. I'll also buy some albums specifically for the purpose of playing it only during late night car rides. This week I added to the late night rotation with the purchase of Camera Obscura's new album "My Maudlin Career". I actually haven't been that big a fan of them, but I bought this on a whim and was immediately knocked out.

Camera Obscura are a Scottish chamber pop group along the lines of Belle and Sebastian. Listening to them, one gets the feeling that the singer has had a lot of bad relationships. Every song seems like she's trying to woo someone, or is heartbroken. The production and arrangements are what really stand out at first glance. They're very much along the lines of the big sound of the 1960s girl groups. There are tons of strings and brass on everything, even woodwinds (which I can't recall the last time I heard an oboe on anything). Also, for this kind of music, the singer is singing about things I want to hear: "silvery lakes" and "dusty libraries". And woeful phrases like "In your eyes, there's sadness enough to kill the both of us".

Here's a clip of the single. If you like this, then I highly recommend getting the album. It's one of those rare ones where I enjoy every song. Some of the songs are actually really upbeat and happy, I swear.

The New Face of Tuesday Recommends

2009-05-19T17:40:00.002-04:00

Welcome Todd Hargest as our new Tuesday recommender. I really hope he draws some pictures for this.

Summer Tuesdays

2009-05-19T11:33:00.003-04:00

The original post for today was me announcing the closing of our dear Friends Recommends in a few weeks. Dedicated blogger thechristophermyers sent me his letter of resignation last night. I thank him for all of his great posts, and wish him well in future life-recommending. My initial reaction to this, after loosing TJ last week as well was to close shop. I was convinced that this was the thing to do. Mike Ward and new blogger Ricky B didn't agree. They shouted obsenities at me via email and called me a coward, and a cheat and accused me of hating this blog more than anyone in the world hates anything. So I'm willing to keep this thing alive if they are. Sincere thank-yous to Chris and TJ for their contributions. Does anyone want to take over Tuesdays for the summertime? There was mention of Colmus possibly being interested, but would anyone else consider taking this on?

Info on recipe week coming soon.

I want you...to make a recommendation.

2009-05-18T02:35:00.004-04:00

OK, folks. Is this a cheap one? I don't think it is. I had this idea last week to use when I didn't have a blog post for the day. I didn't realize that day would come so quickly, but I am going to use it anyway.

A lot of potential recommendeerers have shy-ed away from making me a list because making a list is pretty vast, and requires a great deal of thought, and everyone thinks that they are going to be judged based on their recommendations. Contrary to that a lot of people have made me lists, which we have posted on the website here, and maybe these people have new recommends but not quite enough new recommends to warrant an entire list. To my knowledge Huff is the only person who has begun work on a second list, but I know others have ideas. You have to!

So here is the deal. For one day and one day only I want the readers of Friends Recommend to give an on-the-fly pick via our comments section. You don't have to think long and hard about this...all I want is something you've been checking out recently that you think others might enjoy. That is it. Consider this an informal recommends day, but one that we can all benefit from. If you are reading this I expect a recommendation via the comments section. You can't get out of this. I know you are reading. I'm going to start us off with a personal pick from the editor and y'all take it from there. Please?

More Changes, The New Wilco, Recipes?

2009-05-15T01:09:00.005-04:00

Well, some more changes around the Friends Recommends parts. Our good friend and beloved blogger TJ Huff has resigned his duty as our Thursday blogger. I hold this against him in no way because I have often thought of resigning my blogging duties as well. I guess I pretty much resigned my blogging duties (at least a good portion of them) when I enlisted the help of TJ, thechristophermyers, and Mike Ward (help which I am very grateful for). Anyway, I am certain that TJ will still be around in the comments section, happy to be relieved of his blogging responsibilities. Although, I am very interested in a blog about Radiolab, so maybe he can give us a guest blog on that when the time is right. For now watch out for our good friend Ricky B to take over Thursday blogging. He has admitted to having no idea what he is going to do with it but I'm sure it will be entertaining to most people (especially Erichop).

I had hoped to have another Jenny recommends for today, but when I went to Netflix to watch one of her movies (I've never seen Clue!) none of them were view instantly. More of those are coming soon...I promise. She has invited all of us to go Letterboxing with her sometime. I'm sure she would regret this as soon as it happened.

I'm positive nearly everyone who reads this has at least heard that a new Wilco album titled "Wilco (The Album)" is coming out at the end of June. I'm sure most of you know that it is streaming in it's entirety HERE and I'm sure at least some of you have listened to it. I heard the first half two days ago, and this afternoon when I sat down to do computer things I found that I heard the whole album all the way through. I'm listening to it again right now and I really love it. I want to have it in CD form so I can listen to it while I drive. I am already anticipating this being a wonderful thing. I don't have too many thoughts about the album yet, this being only the second time I've really heard it all. I can tell you that I think the songwriting is solid, Jeff Tweedy sounds GREAT, and as always the guitar work of Nels Cline doesn't disappoint. I still haven't checked out Sky Blue Sky and although it has received very mixed reviews from friends I still intend to buy it. I really love A Ghost Is Born and Summerteeth, but for totally different reasons. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is one of my favorite albums ever, so I guess I compare all Wilco albums to it. Wilco (The Album), at least so far seems to lean back towards Summerteeth in it's feel-good rockiness, and away from the experimentation/drony/soundiness of A Ghost Is Born (which I also love). And although I can't give a total impression just yet, I can say that as soon as this album is released on June 30 I am going to buy it. It is certain to at least be an album that I really like, and will listen to obsessively for a week or two. It will at least be that for me, with a strong chance for more. Good job, guys. I recommend you listen to the first song (Wilco (The Song)) and see how it hits you...it gives a pretty good impression of what else is coming, but by no means tells the full story. Those of you who have listened, what do you think so far?

Lastly, there have been rumblings around here of people interested in posting some of their favorite recipes. This will have to be more than just posting a recipe, but I am willing to give another week in the blogsphere to this idea somewhere down the line if people actually want to do this. I don't know how to turn on an oven, so I am out for this one. But if everyone is dying for the recipe to Ricky's mashed beer potatoes coupled with some hilarious anecdote then I will not try to stand in the way.

who knows how to throw a torch?

2009-05-14T08:33:00.003-04:00

aye yay yay.... i am just realizing that another thursday morning has snuck up on me and i've failed twice in a row. inasmuch, i think its past due to pass the torch to anyone who wants to fill my thursdaying slot.

i wanted to go off yesterdays list and talk about another british comic i find "the tops". his name is EDDIE IZZARD, and a good recommender would've posted a whole slew of entertaining youtube clips. i also wanted to bounce off yesterday's list and talk about another NPR show called RADIOLAB and i should've put clips up and lured you with interesting anecdotes. however i just am unable to maintain my responsibilities at such a high caliber.... so who wants thursday????

Russell Brand

2009-05-12T19:29:00.005-04:00

Hey everyone,
So today I have a short recommend: Russell Brand. Do you know this guy?

He's an English comic who was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I would call a decent comedy, but Russell Brand was hilarious in this. He really made this movie. He plays a version of himself, but instead of a comedian, he plays a self obsessed rock star who steals away the main guy's (Jason Seagal) girlfriend. You should watch this if you haven't yet.

Anyway, his real persona isn't much different from this character. He's really famous in England, where he does comedy and his own radio show. So, last week I listened to him on NPR's Fresh Air. It's a really great interview that I wanted to share. I was impressed by how smart he is. And the pranks he talks about are hilarious. One good one they talk about is about him giving his dirty undies to Dame Helen Mirren (the actress who played the Queen of England in "The Queen").

Here's the interview. Listen if you have 30 minutes.

So Russell Brand has a book that just came out. A tell all about his life.

After listening to this interview, I bought his book, which should be on its way, and I will talk about after I've read it. From everything I've read up on it, and if it's anything like this interview, it seems like it will be a great read.

Gavin Bryars--Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

2009-05-12T10:47:00.004-04:00

Due to unforseen circumstances Mayor Dixon has prevented Chris from posting today, so as an apology for missing last Friday (and the many Fridays before it) I will do a special post for the day. I just got back from a great trip to San Francisco (a recommend all in itself!) and visited my favorite record store in the world, Ameoba Records. If you are ever on the West Coast, a visit to Ameobo is the strongest recommendation I can give. If I walk out of that store spending less than $100 I am suprised, proud, and ashamed of myself all at the same time. It doesn't rival the iternet for amount of music (obviously) but I often miss walking into a record store and being able to actually find something that I want.

I had been looking for this recording of Gavin Bryars' "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet" for a while now. It actually came via recommendation from TJ a couple of years ago. He played it for me, and I really liked it, and then I forgot about it. Recently one of my bosses at Loyola mentioned it, and since we've had this love/hate debate of Tom Waits going on at Friends Recommend this seemed like a good chance to bring it up.

Gavin Bryars is a well-known English classical composer. If you really want to know of his background that is what this Wikipedia entry is for...although he is also a double bassist which earns him points in my book. Basically the whole piece is built around a homeless man singing a folk song. The original recording was for a documentary about homelessness in England. When Bryars heard this particular clip he noticed that it was in tune. He made a loop out of it and played it over and over again, improvising harmonies on the piano to match the vocal part. Apparently while he was doing this he would loop the sample again and again at his place of employment and after time everyone around would be crying. I don't know how valid this is but just hearing the original vocal part (the original singer is labeled Tramp on the recording) caused people around to start crying. It is pretty powerful, so I could believe it.

The essential CD of the recording is 74 minutes long. It begins with just the tramp singing Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet, and you have no idea what is going on. Is this a joke? It goes on for a couple of minutes with him just singing alone. Eventually a quiet string quartet enters in the background, and it sneaks it so perfectly that you barely know it's happening. Throughout the course of the recording it gets the full-blown orchestral treatment, but the finale is where it's at. At the very end Bryars enlisted none other than Tom Waits to sing with the orchestra and loop of the tramp, and it is fantastic. This is one of the lesser known Waits pieces among a lot of his fans, so I wanted to put it on the table.

The Youtube clip I've included is of the ending with Waits singing. The way the whole piece unfolds is pretty special, but this gives it to you in a much smaller and still special package. OK, see you Friday:

Today's Post

2009-05-12T10:26:00.001-04:00

Mayor Sheila Dixon canceled my blog post for today. Sorry.

Letterboxing

2009-05-11T01:38:00.006-04:00

Before Jenny submitted her list two weeks ago I had never heard of letterboxing, and a guess at what it was would have been far off the mark. I must admit that after investigating the website I'm still not 100% sure that I know how it works. Here is Jenny's summary taken directly from her list:

Letterboxing: I am on a never-ending treasure hunt of finding hidden packages from strangers in trees, under rocks, and in streetlights all over the country. In letterboxing, you carve your own stamp and you find other people’s stamps. You leave your stamp in their hidden notebook and put theirs in your notebook.

This sounds awesome to me. As a little guy (although after Jessica pulled out some family pictures on Mother's Day, and it appears I wasn't so little but more a shrunken Lou Grant from the Mary Tyler Moore Show) the idea of hidden treasure, fossils, maps, etc. was always very exciting to me. The problem was, with the exception of Easter egg hunts, I would have to bury these treasures on my own, or create my own maps, or secret language (via a club called RAD in the second grade) for any of this to be possible. Letterboxing really appeals to this inner-child, never-extinguished desire to find such things. You can read all about it on your own at letterboxing.org. I will try to sum it up as best as I can, but a recommend from the editor is to check out the website because I might not know what I'm talking about.

Basically, from what I understand, there are about 20,000 letterboxes buried throughout North America, with more in other areas of the world. Every letterbox contains a logbook, a stamp, and an inkpad. Every letterboxer has their own stamp (sort of their identity), trail name, and logbook to keep track of the letterboxes they find. When you find a letterbox you put it's stamp into your logbook and leave behind your stamp, your name, and maybe a little write-up about how you found the box in their logbook. This is a seemingly neverending treasure hunt, where while the reward isn't gold or eternal life or three wishes, it seems like it would be pretty exciting to find one.

While I am really interested in this activity, it would probably take some time to get started up. You can purchase a stamp from somewhere like the Teacher's Resource, or you can choose to make your own. Really, the website covers all of this and tons more. Once you get your letterboxing identity together you can start looking at clues in your area to find some of them. I like this. I hope that one day I choose to actually participate, but maybe for now I will just bombard Jenny with questions every time I see her. For now can you answer just a few if you are reading this? How many letterboxes have you found? Is this something that Mike also participates in, or would he just break down and cry? What does your stamp look like? (If I am getting too personal, please stop me). Have you done this outside of Maryland?

Also, this seems like a good activity to do with kids. Maybe I will promise myself now that if somehow I have a kid I will force them to participate in letterboxing, something they may love in their youth, but may end up talking to a psychiatrist about if I force them to continue doing it into their 20's. Here are some letterboxing pictures whether you are interested or not:

ball dropped... and i'm not even on vacation.

2009-05-08T13:17:00.003-04:00

oh man oh man. my apologies for missing my thursday duties. i am in no way on vacation... but was moreso busy and slightly grumpy yesterday to do it justice... and not that putting up youtube clips is doing it justice... i like how adam at least gave us something.

so - because i was late, here's two youtube clips i quite enjoy. they are short and both real funny i think. pardon my not knowing how to embed these things... its not as easy as just grabbing the youtube embed code as i thought.

youtube clip 1

youtube clip 2

Apologies, Vacationing, and Auto-Tune the News

2009-05-08T13:02:00.003-04:00

Hey Friends, sorry for this. I'm on vacation with very limited internet access and haven't been able to pull one together. I do have a strong recommend for anyone who's never been to San Francisco to get out here. Especially if you have a little hippy in you...then I would say it was a required life-journey. Sorry, Jenny...you list updates are coming soon!

To hold you over here is my current favorite youtube video. Some genius decided to auto-tune a couple of news broadcasts. It works incredibly well because of the animated voices of the anchors. If nothing else do yourself a favor and fast forward to minute 1:15...I would listen to a whole album of Katie Couric in auto-tune. No joke:

More things about food

2009-05-06T07:10:00.002-04:00

Today I wanted to talk about something I feel very strongly about: food. More specifically: fast food. I was reading the comments about a recipe week, and I already know that I'm not going to have anything to contribute. I'm pretty terrible in the kitchen, but I'm pretty great at picking places that are considered fast food, but not completely gross.

Baja Fresh
I had a hard time thinking of a topic, but then in the spirit of Cinco de Mayo, I remembered that I love burritos. I lived in Timonium for two years, and while there, cultivated a pretty strong love of burritos. I don't know of any other place in Maryland that has so many burrito places so close by. There's Baja Fresh, Qdoba, Chipotle, some place called Moe's, and another place close by (in Towson) called Frisco Burritos. I've been to all of these many times. Some I've probably had dreams about. But, to me, the best is Baja Fresh. Their burritos aren't as heavy as any of the other places. Chipotle and Qdoba's burritos are loaded with too much stuff, and I don't like their cheese as much. Also, Baja Fresh gives you free chips with your burrito, which is something that will not happen at Qdoba or Chipotle. When I go to Baja, I love the Bean and Cheese burrito, loaded with Cholula sauce. They also don't steam the burrito shell; they grill it, which is nice and different. Having all of these places near me, though, was great. Even when I say favorite, I still would go to all of the other places quite regularly. Now, I have no burrito places in a convenient proximity to my house. So, I miss those days.

Chick-Fil-A
A few months ago, Chick-Fil-A opened up near my house. I live in Arbutus, and it's seriously a barren waste land of quality fast food. This opening has been like a God send. When I go, I get their chicken nuggets. They don't taste like any other chicken nuggets of any other place. They are completely unique. Also, if you've never tried their lemonade, it's probably the best you'll find anywhere. Another thing that's nice about going here is that they are incredibly friendly. The feeling of being wanted is really nice.

Five Guys
I actually talk about this next place quite a bit. Five Guys is the best goddamn burger place in town. If you are like George French, every time you go in there, it's the best meal of your life. It just gets exponentially better with each visit, like a song that keeps modulating up a whole step. I already have built up many happy times eating at Five Guys. The one thing about eating here is that whatever time you go, that's your dinner. They pile the food on. I always get the little cheeseburger, and small fries, and they just fill the bag up to the brim with fries. For me, one of the things that makes this place so great is how different the burger seems from other places. The patty is really good, and the fixings are all really good, with tons of options. Maybe someone more eloquent than myself can put it into words better.

Ann's Dairy Cream
Growing up, I would go to this place at least twice a month. Ann's Dairy Cream is on Richie Highway, in front of the Marley Station Mall. They specialize in footlong hotdogs, and milk shakes and they've been there in that one spot since the 1940s. The footlong is a wonder. Getting "everything" will get you chili, onions and mustard. It's better than any hotdog you've ever had. The milkshakes are also probably better than what you've ever had. If you go there, you go for hotdogs and milkshakes...if you are going to get a soda, you might as well not go at all. I usually get the Vanilla, which may not seem like a big deal to rave about, but it really is that good. They also have banana, cherry, strawberry and chocolate.

OK, those are some of my faves. I look forward to seeing what everyone else's raves are.

Chuck

2009-05-04T12:39:00.006-04:00

Hey everyone.

Welcome back to my weekly column. I'm sick today and I don't feel like being as talky as I typically am. So let's just hop right into it and I'll explain who I am next week.

When I first saw this and countless other advertisements featuring this Jim Halpert wannabe, I didn't want anything to do with this "Chuck" TV show. Add in the fact that it was created by Josh Schwartz, creator of The O.C., another show that I was determined to hate although I had never seen an episode. And man, what's the deal with that haircut!!?! How do bangs do that?

So, it was inexplicable that I added a TiVo Season Pass for this show anyhow. Somehow, two seasons later, its secretly become the most thoroughly consistent enjoyable hours of television that I watch each week.

What is this Chuck all about? It doesn't matter. If I explained it, it would sound stupid and like something you wouldn't want to watch. What you might like best is that its not too deep in mythology. Sure there's one or two twists, but mostly, you can jump in wherever you want and kinda get the idea.

Anyhow, this show's gonna get canceled, maybe, so whatever.

Okay, let's watch some clips. Clip by clip, you'll have no clue what's going on, but I bet you'll be strangely turned on.

This is an exciting wedding!!!

And then, there's Buster!

And then this is what I imagine how Ricky B's workday is like:

Save Chuck!

Chris Myers

The Steve Colmus (and last!) Top 5

2009-05-04T00:04:00.005-04:00

This is it, friends. Thanks for sticking with us, but it's time to put the Top 5 to rest for a little while. Maybe we'll be back with something new for you all to sound off on. Thanks to everyone who participated. I have some really great Top-5 playlists on my iPod now. And for better or worse, I feel like I know everyone here a little bit better.

Jenny-list greatness will be coming your way in my next post. Like I said, not sure what these other jokers are going to write about this week. We'll see! I just bought Junot Diaz's The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao today on the strong recommendations of Heather and Mike Gittings. Also picked up The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon, who's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and Yiddish Policeman's Union have been recommending in this very blog. Should finish at least one on my trip to San Francisco this week, and I'm looking forward to whichever one I pick. And here goes Colmus...(editors note: Colmus has a potty mouth, if you are under 18 please send your permission slip to me via email to read this post):

I apologize to Adam for having taken so long pulling this together, but I was torn between contributing my Top Five Songs and mounting a defense of Jack Kerouac, because you all are some hatin’ ass fools. In the end, I decided against the Kerouac piece (for now) after being reminded of the old saying about how you can lead a horse to water, but he’s got to figure it the fuck out from there for his own damn self. Plus, after Ward and Myers’s Top Fives, I figured it might be nice to offer a man’s perspective.

These aren’t necessarily my Five Favorite Songs of All-Time, but they’re in the shooting match.

The Replacements “Bastards of Young”

This is what rock n’ roll should sound like - loud, sloppy and drunkenly heartfelt with a healthy dose of alienation. This is from their major label debut and it’s an amazing Statement of Purpose from a band who really couldn’t give a fuck about anything - record sales, being famous, even learning how to play their own songs. I love this recording because it’s warts-and-all - Westerberg can only barely sing the song, the solo two wheels it around the corners, and the whole thing feels like it could fly off the rails at every minute. In the end, it’s all held together by sheer excitement and force of childlike abandon - it sounds like the drunkest high school band in the world. It’s real, it’s honest, and it fucking rocks.

Supergrass “Alright”

One of my friends thinks that the indie rock of the 1990s will become the next Classic Rock when our generation is old and rich enough to afford our own radio stations. If so, this deserves to be in heavy rotation because this is about as perfect a pop song as anyone wrote in those years. This just feels like being 17 years old and careening through the streets in your friend’s car, trying to find something - or someone - to get into.

Bob Dylan “Mr. Tambourine Man”

I probably don’t need to explain this one. There are two dozen Dylan songs that could make this list, but I always come back to this - especially this version, from a concert on Halloween of 1964, before either he or the Byrds had released their takes of the song. The studio version is great enough, but this just seems to pour out of him effortlessly, in a gorgeously drowsy fashion. At the risk of sounding like some asshole Phish Phan, he really seems to climb inside the song on this. These are maybe my favorite lyrics of all-time, even if I really have no idea what he’s going on about. I think it’s an idealized peace the narrator is desperately in search of, where he can “forget about today until tomorrow.” Or it’s about smoking pot.

ABBA “Waterloo”

Someone who knows far more about the architecture of The Modern Pop Song than I, once told me that this is a mathematically perfect song - the first turnaround comes exactly one minute in, as prescribed; the second follows one minute and one second later; and then it’s all driven home with one last chorus, burying that hook in your brain. I hit things with sticks precisely so I don’t have to worry things like that, but I love this song simply because it always puts a smile on my face. Its so tight and perfectly arranged, and those crafty Swedes thought to compare an episode of romantic capitulation to Napoleon’s great defeat. SOLD! I really, really love the shit out of this.

Foreigner “Feels Like The First Time”

Bands don’t write shit like this anymore - tell me that chorus doesn’t have balls so big, they drag. It’s fucking enormous. For a long time, Foreigner was nothing more to me than the ironic soundtrack to my friends and mine’s illicit high school games of Risk in my parent’s basement, when we’d hide the beers under the bean bag chair and root through my Dad’s record collection. But I gradually realized that this song kicked so much ass that it almost made up for “I Wanna Know What Love Is.” When they launch out of the bridge and into the chorus around the 2:15 mark and Lou Grant is just riffing in and out of the backing vocals, it makes the hair on my ass stand up every time. You can scoff if you want to, but that probably just means you’re an asshole with no taste.

That’s enough out of me. I’ll re-introduce myself whenever I make the cut here again.

The Heather Van De Mark Top 5

2009-05-01T01:06:00.002-04:00

What happened to Colmus? You're guess is as good as mine. HSV really saved the day with this one...and three days before she thought she was going to have to go. Thanks, HSV:

no preface, i'm too tired to type much. just know, nothing's ever really all-time for me, everything changes.plus, i don't think i've even been exposed to my top five all time favorite songs yet. i know two for sure, the other three i'm just into.

Sierra by Cursive

i heart this entire album, it's epic. but sierra stands out because it's such a melancholy scenario. i particularly like when everything builds up and breaks around 2:16. i can just feel it. listen to the whole album, it's amazing. this song won't ever come off of my top-5 songs.

Waste of Paint by Bright Eyes

this is the other song that won't come ever fall from my top-5. i like his story telling style (particularly for the first half), some parts are happy and some are sad, and his lyrics just work for me. i can't be in a crowded place and not think, "the way they spin and turn and jockey for positions."

Some Kind of Wonderful by Joss Stone (editors note: sorry for the shotty youtube video. Heather's version was from iTunes so I couldn't play it or post it here. Let me know if this is the wrong song or something.)

i like female artists, and rather than include some lifelong favorites like shirley manson, brodie dalle, gwen stefani, karen o, etc., i went with joss stone. i'm not sure, i'm not familiar with her work (nor do i even know who originally wrote this song). but i like songs from this era/genre, whatever it is.

Dramamine by Modest Mouse

maybe not the most exciting song, but something about it puts me into a special place. the sort of song i put on repeat and fall/cry asleep to. i like it, but i could see it falling from grace at some point.

Labeling Keys by Taylor Mali

okay, not a song, but spoken word definitely has rhythmic elements. taylor mali is fantastic and his whole cd is really good. basically, after i listened to each one i wanted to add it to the list. some are sad, some are funny. i also like that he doesn't incorporate music into his poetry, which a lot of spoken artists will do, and i'm not crazy about that.

bonus track: my summer jam: Laugh Love Fuck by The Coup. You'll have to click on that song, the first song isn't it.
link to : http://www.myspace.com/thecoupmusic
yeeaaaaah. this just gets me into a mood. a real good mood.

that's all folks.

Jenny Kinniff

2009-04-30T01:15:00.006-04:00

So the Top 5 songs run is nearly over and we are moving on. I say nearly over because Colmus sort of placemarked his Top 5 this evening with an email saying it was coming tomorrow, complete with mp3's. I suppose this will pass, and there is a chance of an HSV Top 5 coming as well. Is this true? Anyway, I have this great list from Jenny, and I have been wanting to get it up here, so now is the perfect time and it should offer a break from these Top 5 songs (although they too have been great). I don't know about the other chumps around these parts, but I will be commenting on this list next week.

I didn't have a personalized picture of Jenny because I don't take pictures of anything, but I stole both of these off her facebook page (technology!). I've included a picture of what Jenny looks like, but also of her diorama entitiled "Twin Peeps" submitted for this, which I think is awesome. I hope you won a major award, Jenny. Anyway, I know Jenny through Mike because I have known Mike a long time. She is amazing and has to be the coolest librarian anyone knows. Even if you don't know her, she would be the coolest librarian you knew if you did. Also, I doubt I have told her this, but she has one of my favorite laughs of anyone that I know. This list re-motivates me to check out new things. Strangely, for a librarian there are very few books included. Very few meaning none. Whoa! Here. We. Go.

Jenny says:

Just to keep things fresh, I won’t repeat any other recommendations that have already been made, even though I love Murakami and Junot Diaz and Lost (among lots of other stuff mentioned). So here are my never-before-seen-on-this-fine-blog recommendations:

Music:

Janet Weiss: I thought about making this one “Sleater-Kinney” since she drummed for my favorite band, but Janet’s awesomeness can’t be contained by one band. I think S-K are sometimes seen as being riot grrl leftovers from the 90s, but they made really catchy, loud, smart rock and roll. Recommended albums: One Beat, The Woods, Dig Me Out. Janet’s in another great band, Quasi, with her ex-husband Sam Coomes. Recommended Quasi album: Field Studies. Also drums with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks.

Palomar: I first heard Palomar at a live show at the Talking Head and I thought “Damn, the sound in here sucks.” Three women singing delicate harmonies over sometimes loud guitars was too much for the crappy sound and acoustics. Thankfully, the Ottobar has done them better since. Recommended albums: Palomar III and All Things, Forests.

Movies:

Clue (1985): This is a childhood favorite that I’ve probably seen 20 times b/c I made my parents rent it constantly. I LOVE it—it is so gloriously cheesy and the ending(s) are ridiculous, but how could you not love a movie that features Jane from the Go-Gos, Martin Mull, Tim Curry, and is based on a board game? Answer: You can’t. You can’t not love it.

Dead Man: A Jim Jarmusch film (1995) featuring Johnny Depp going on a bizarre spiritual quest with a mysterious Indian named Nobody in a 19th century gold rush town. They run into Iggy Pop in the woods. Weird stuff happens.

Bande a part (Band of Outsiders): For a while Mike was on a kick of renting obscure old French and Italian movies, resulting in me taking many unplanned naps on the couch. This one (Godard, 1964) rules, though—French teens/20somethings try to rob someone and flirt with each other. Most of the time they hang out talking, smoking, and dancing in cafes.

TV:

Mad Men: A Manhattan advertising agency in 1960. It’s hard to believe it’s the same country: unbelievably chauvinist men, women whose only power is their sexuality, and everyone smokes and drinks all day long. Jello molds and life’s disappointments abound. It’s an amazing show.

Comedy:

Mike Birbiglia: The comedian of choice for adorable nerds—he doesn’t really swear or talk about anything remotely vulgar, but manages to be hilarious nonetheless. He was a year ahead of me at my college, where he won “Funniest Act on Campus” with a passionate ode to Carlos, his bouncy ball from when he was a kid. Recommended album: Two Drink Mike.

Activities and Websites:

Letterboxing: I am on a never-ending treasure hunt of finding hidden packages from strangers in trees, under rocks, and in streetlights all over the country. In letterboxing, you carve your own stamp and you find other people’s stamps. You leave your stamp in their hidden notebook and put theirs in your notebook. Go to www.letterboxing.org to find out more!

Camping/Hiking: Toasted marshmallows, crackling fire, pretty hikes…what’s not to like? Maryland has lots of good places, too. Recommended: Susquehanna State Park, Catoctin National Park, Gambrills, Billy Goat Trail outside DC, Harper’s Ferry area (www.thetreehousecamp.com).

GoodReads (www.goodreads.com): Track what you’re reading and what you want to read, and see what your friends are reading. Get on it! I want to see what you’re reading!

The jESKA Top 5

2009-04-29T01:31:00.002-04:00

I'm actually starting to go a little mad over these top 5 lists (no offense, to anyone) and I think a week is all that should've occurred with these top 5s. I'm tired of thinking about what my top 5 songs "of all time" would be and why, and can't even imagine attempting a top 60 minutes, despite what I said about in a previous comment. Also, I'm pretty sure this is still a fairly inaccurate compilation on that front, but Adam badgers like no other so without further ado (& in no particular order) :

Blue Valentine (written and performed by Tom Waits, 1978)

Another Tom Waits. I feel a little like I'm punishing some of you b/c of the frequency of Tom Waits songs in these Top 5s, but I just couldn't help it. I love this song. I think one of the things I like so much about Tom Waits in general is that he creates songs and stories and sounds that aren't necessarily reflective of his own story but of a story that he wants to convey. I think it's a natural inclination for singer/songwriters to write what they know (or close to it), and that's what most of them do and I really appreciate that he creates really distinct characters with his songs.

California (written and performed by Joni Mitchell, 1971)

I don't even know how to put into words why I love this songs so much. It's the sort of song that I could listen to at anytime, and it's especially pleasing to unexpectedly hear it because it always puts me in good mood. This is from her acclaimed album Blue which ranks on several top album lists. And for you jazz buffs out there, it might interest you to know, "the album was influenced by jazz, particularly the music of Miles Davis. Mitchell used alternative tunings on her guitar to allow easier access to augmented chords and notes in unexpected combinations."

Crazy (written by Willie Nelson; as performed by Patsy Cline, 1961)

Maybe this one's too cliche and cheesy for some but seriously, it's iconic, beautiful, and moving and I think deserves to be in some top 5 list or another. It does fall into the performance vs. singer-songwriter category and it determined that I stand differently on that debate than I thought I would. I really wanted to opt for Willie but her performance of this song is what propelled it to stardom, even though I'm a huge Willie Nelson fan (which I guess is one of the few musical contributions from my family, since I haven't shared this bond with anyone else to date). He has much more to offer the world than On the Road, Again and To All The Girls I've Loved Before.

Kodachrome (written and performed by Paul Simon, 1973)

Does everything look worse or better in black and white? I can't decide anything else after this stupid list, so why don't you duke it out amongst yourselves and tell me.

Tonight You Belong to Me (written by Billy Rose & Lee David, 1926; as performed by Bernadette Peters & Steve Martin from The Jerk, 1979)

Ukulele and cornet, esp. the cornet -- need I say more? Maybe. Bernadette & Steve are just adorable in this scene. You know how there's always that stupid question in stupid quizzes of "what is your ideal date?" -- this would certainly be mine. Sigh, if only I knew how to play the cornet.

The Chris Laun Top 5

2009-04-28T00:01:00.000-04:00

First I'd like to start this by saying talking about something related to these top 5 lists. Mike Ward issued a challenge to some of his friends a few months ago to create their favorite 60 minutes of music. The best definition that someone came up with was "songs you wouldn't skip when they came up on your Ipod." So far I think only Ward, Myers, and Colmus have participated in this project and they've each exchanged their CD's. I've been laboring over mine off and on for a few months now but this blog spurred me to finish it up this weekend. I also found a website that can help take this to the next level. Drop.io is free and you can create your own private playlist without having to signup for anything. So if you're interested in hearing mine the link is drop.io/laun60min. Only catch is you need the password and the only way to get it is by sending me your own 60 minute playlist. If you decide to do your own, make sure you rename the songs so that we don't see the song titles cause part of the experience is not knowing what's coming next. Here's a sneak preview of mine:

(Note: Not sure if these are exactly my top 5 but it's close and I thought these would be more interesting to read about than me explaining why I like a Beach Boys song)

Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen

Last week I thought it might be neat to do a spinoff series on these lists and discuss our favorite moments in music that didn't make the cut for our top 5 or even the top 60 minutes. Looking back on Eric's first list, the end of "Only In Dreams" is one of these cases where the ending might be my favorite Weezer moment but it's not my favorite Weezer song. "Born to Run" has the luxury of meeting both requirements. This whole song gets me amped up but especially so on that last verse, after the bridge is finished building up and falling down and Bruce counts it back in and the strings come up playing along with the main riff. "The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive..." I could listen to that part over and over and I've done it before. I'm a fan of epic and triumphant songs and "Born to Run" is that in spades. There are some classic songs that you know so well that they've lost their power to excite you when you hear to them but, for me, this is not one. My favorite rock song ever.

Ana Ng - They Might Be Giants

TMBG can be a pretty polarizing band. Their fans tend to be among the nerdier types and some could say they're too goofy/quirky/weird. Some might even say that they hate the way the two John's sing. I love it all. I came pretty late to the popular music game. In middle school I listened to a lot of Weird Al and Dr. Demento and through them I stumbled across TMBG so that makes them the band that I've been actively and consistently listening to the longest. Myers and Ward had their memories of listening to their mom's music that took them back to their childhood. TMBG remind me of staying over my friend Matt's house and listening to them all night or debating with my brother which of us got to buy "Apollo 18" so we didn't have duplicate copies. So definitely there's some "comfort food"iness to them but there is one thing that I think is too often overlooked: John Linnell just might be the most infectious songwriter ever. And he does it without ever sounding like anyone other than John Linnell which is perhaps even more impressive. I think most people would name "Birdhouse In Your Soul" as their clear #1 song but "Ana Ng" is my favorite. Here's some things that I love about it: 1) How the verses start on a minor chord and then two lines in switches to major which instantly changes the feeling, 2) The two-chord accordion bit that comes in halfway through the second verse which you expect to keep repeating but disappears as ominously as it came, 3) How the lyrics seem nonsensical on the surface but it's about the person on the exact opposite side of the world from you who you'll never meet 4) "And it sticks like a broken record/Everything sticks like a broken record/Everything sticks until it goes away." I still think that's as clever as I did in middle school.

Let Down - Radiohead

It was difficult for me to single out a Radiohead song but eventually I realized that this one has always been my favorite. I can remember the moment in college when I was listening to this in my car and I noticed for the first time that the vocal track that starts the last verse doesn't continue singing the lyrics on the second half of the verse. Another track comes in to do that. But the first vocal keeps going in the background and winds up with this beautiful falsetto counter-melody repeating "You'll know where you are" and it carries on even into the chorus. This is another one of those favorite musical moments. When I heard it I rewound the CD over and over and I felt like I had unlocked some sort of secret. This is one of those songs that I could listen to repeatedly and never hear it the same way twice. So many twinkling guitars and keyboards that aren't even playing in the same time signatures but somehow it all works together to create this big sonic blanket that surrounds what is otherwise an acoustic pop song.

Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush

I don't think this one will be for everyone. What happened was one day I surfing the internet and found someone's list of some of the best music videos ever so I was watching the ones I had never seen and I came across this. When it first came on I was like "WTF???" It's just Kate Bush doing some ridiculous dancing with lots of smoke and video/lighting effects. But as the video progressed I became mesmerized and then I had to watch it again. And then I had to watch it every day. And then I got the mp3 and listened to it at work and in the car. And then I found 3 different versions of the song so I could listen to them in a row and pretend I wasn't quite as obsessed. It's hard to predict what will cause me to go nuts over a song and before now I've never thought deeply about why this one strikes such a chord with me. I love how the great the chorus melody is and yet how the chords don't change exactly when you expect they will. It made me want to learn the song so I could figure out what was going on. Another thing this is I have a soft spot for female singers that sing with quirky vocalizations (Regina Spektor's "Us" is another example of a song that was met with a similarly strong obsession). I think this probably stems from my siblings and I listening to the soundtrack to Les Miserables all the time when we were younger. Eponine was one of the most tragic characters as she suffered from loving a man who didn't think of her that way and then later she dies. I related to that (first part anyways) and always had a soft spot for her. She had a high squeaky voice that might have irritated some but I thought was adorable. The same can be said about Kate Bush.

Tired of Sex - Weezer

One thing I realized in creating my top 60 minutes CD is that I'm a big fan of first tracks on CDs. 6 of the 15 songs are album openers and there were more that were on my short list that didn't make the final cut. Not sure if it's purely coincidence or if there's something about the opening of my favorite CDs that I gravitate towards. Part of this is because a lot of artists put one of their stronger songs first to pull you in. I think I read that Weezer sequenced Pinkerton in more or less chronological order of when the songs were written and "Tired of Sex" was written after the success of the blue album led Rivers Cuomo to have a lot of anonymous sex. I can't say that I relate to the lyrics personally but what has always appealed to me about this song is the production and arrangement. The drums sound HUGE. There's a lot of unpleasant feedback and reedy keyboards. The whole thing is rowdy as shit. The song starts out brimming with tension and you can tell it just wants to kick into high gear at any moment. Then the first chorus ends and it does. Then the second chorus hits takes it up to rowdy mach III. Then somewhere between the noisy solo and when the vocals come back for the third chorus it's reached mach V. And then it climaxes and everything drops out. When the band comes back in, the drums are playing half-time. The band is still rocking but they're bringing it back down to earth. It's like the arrangement itself is a metaphor for sex. Those first two Weezer albums are two of my all time favorites but of all those songs "Tired of Sex" sounds like it was the most fun to play.

There's more songs that I would love to write about so maybe I'll but some descriptions in the comments of my 60 minute mix. I know Myers has his online now too. So if you get yours together you'll have at least two at your at your fingertips immediately.

The Ricky B. Top 5

2009-04-27T00:58:00.002-04:00

Like I told Adam the other day, I didn’t grow up suckling on my mother’s musical teat like some of you guys so these are all songs that I’ve loved since high school or later. Ironically all of these songs are about a man’s love for his mother.

It’s Your Thing – The Isley Brothers

This song is about the many Isley Brothers and how much they all love their shared mother. They love mum so much that they declare that they have no right to tell her whom she can or cannot “sock it to” (whatever that means). Presumably the boys mean that only she, their highly revered mother, has the right to chose whose feet she dresses with socks.

Let's Spend the Night Together – The Rolling Stones

What nice little boys, those Rolling Stones. It’s admiring how much they just want to spend some more time with their mums. In this lovely little number, they urge their mothers to come over to their homes and have a sleepover party. Any good boys will be sure to have plenty of tea and biscuits ready for their hungry mums.

This Time Tomorrow – The Kinks

This one’s a bit depressing, but The Kinks are realists. They imagine a world (a very real one at that) in which their mothers may some day pass on. Two brothers ponder what life will be like without their dear mother, and they realize that life will be sad. Very sad, indeed.

I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend – The Ramones

Now here are nice young men who know the true value of a good mother. They admire and respect their mothers so much that they profess to wish that all young women were just like their own mothers. They plead “do you love me, babe?” because they know that the perfect women will love them just as much as their mothers do.

Don’t Worry Baby – The Beach Boys

These young fellows prove that in order to make a great song, you need to be in a band with you brothers and your band name needs to start with “The”. Don’t worry baby is a very touching yet sad song because The Beach Boys had no mother. She was poisoned by some rancid meat and died when the boys were just three (all of The Beach Boys are twins, or quintuples or what have you). This song imagines what would life had been like if she hadn’t been tragically killed, a sweat counterpoint to This Time Tomorrow.

I truly do love these songs, but I left one out that I love more than all of them because I didn’t want to (further) insult a good friend. However, one of my all time favorite songs is Chris Myers’ My Drug Addiction. I thought about including a full review of the song, but I think I’ll save that for a full album review later on.

The Adam Hopkins Top 5 (and 1/2)

2009-04-24T03:04:00.003-04:00

This EricHop Top 5 idea has been such a raging success that we are going to continue it into next week. If you want to submit one, I suggest you think about it pretty soon. We'll post them until we don't have them anymore. The first day without a Top 5 and this thing is over. I've already heard that Ricky B, Chris Laun, and George French are going to do it, and Heather V. and JESKa are on the fence, but seem like they could be convinced. I have a superb list from Jenny (I just read the whole thing today) and it is great! We'll be posting that as soon as the Top 5 fizzles out. Also, Colmus has decided to modify his, but we'll have that when he gets it together as well. Wonderful things happening in the recommend blogsphere. I shouldn't have used the word blogsphere.

My Top 5 could not possibly be a Top 5 favorite songs of all-time. That would have stressed me out to no end. There are periods of my life when I obsessed over particular songs, but would be embarrassed to include them as part of my Top 5 list here. Songs like Guns N' Roses "Estranged," Arrested Development's "Mr. Wendel," and Death Cab For Cutie's "Styrofome Plates" will not be talked about for this reason. My Top 5 list is basically five songs that I could justify being favorites right now. "Right Now" by Van Halen will not be on this list. Like TJ, I had something that more looked like a Top 25 list and whittled it down from there. I also discovered that a few albums that I would easily put in my Top 10 or so (like Erykah Badu's "Mama's Gun") don't have single songs that make the cut. They work too well as a whole album, and to pick one song wouldn't make sense. Also, a second disclaimer: I have limited myself to pop songs. I am considering doing a Top 5 for jazz and classical as well that will put my readers right to sleep. Wordiness. These are not in any order of favorites, but they are in a playlist-type order, which is the succession of songs that I think sounds the best. Wordiness. Here we go:

God Only Knows (The Beach Boys, from Pet Sounds, 1966):

Contrary to the albums I referred to above (where the album would be a Top 10, but no one song would make the cut for this list) Pet Sounds would be a Top 10 album and I can pick one clear-cut better-than-the-rest song from it. God Only Knows is obviously this song. Bono once said "the string arrangement on God Only Knows is fact and proof of angels." Bono did not get a song on this Top 5, and this statement isn't a contributing factor to my love of it. I might even think it is a stupid thing to say. Regardless, the string arrangement is really nice, so he might have been on to something there. However, how could he mention the string arrangement and not the awesome horn and harpsichord parts? Go back to the Joshua Tree, dude. I think this song is as close to perfect as they come, especially as spring-time is approaching full force. If this doesn't make you feel great and crack a smile you probably don't have the ability to smile. The wikipedia article here is pretty informative. This has placed well in all kinds of Top 500-y song list from places like Rolling Stone and Pitchfork. Add a Friends Recommend placement to that list. That is valid, right?

True Love Waits (Thom Yorke, from Radiohead's I Might Be Wrong (live), 2001):

Oh boy, this was a tough one. But at the same time it was an obvious one for me. I love all Radiohead from all time periods. My favorite album being KID A, with OK Computer a close second, and Amnesiac a close third. They are all masterpieces to me. This comes as no suprise. What may come as a suprise is that this song isn't on any of them. It is only found in live acoustic versions sung and played by Thom Yorke alone. So it really isn't even a Radiohead song, it just happens to get played at Radiohead shows. All of my Top 5 picks draw some sort of stong emotion when I listen to them. God Only Knows makes me feel happy to a degree that few other songs could. True Love Waits, while fitting nicely in that TJ definition of happy-sad doesn't really make me feel sad at all. It's more of a nostalgic/reflective feeling. There are so many Radiohead songs that could have easily been in here. The song KID A got strong consideration, as did Like Spinning Plates, Fake Plastic Trees, Airbag, Wolf At The Door, and a couple others. What True Love Waits has that these others don't is that bare-bones stripped down nothing-to-hide-behind feeling. It is just a guy and his guitar in all of it's imperfection. You can even hear him straining to hit some of these notes. What I love about Radiohead studio albums is that someone obviously brought in a song or an idea and the whole band continued to build on that idea, adding effects, instrument parts, textures, cut-up drum beats, and all kinds of weird sounds. This lets us see Thom Yorke for the great songwriter that he is without any of that extra stuff. Don't get me wrong (I might be wrong...get it?), I love all that other stuff. But this is great for the song, and for the feeling it gives me and that's what gets it into this list. Wordiness.

Stephanie Says (The Velvet Underground, from VU, 1985):

I've got to say this...I don't know a whole lot about this song. I'm not even going to research it, really. All I know is that it was recorded somewhere around 1968, and not released until 1985. Can you believe this? These guys sat on this amazing song for almost 20 years before doing anything with it. Crazy. My love of this song developed from The Royal Tenenbaums. Wes Anderson has been discussed at length in this blog, and we don't need to talk about him more here. I will just note his perfect use of pop songs in his movies, and this is one such example. The Baumer and Royal are on the roof of the Tenenbaum house and Baumer just told his Dad that he's in love with his (adopted) sister Margo (which is sick, and gross). Royal calls her a "hell of a broad" or something like that, and Mordecai (Baumer's hawk who had gone missing for some time) flys back to his arm with Stephanie Says playing in the background. It is a perfect movie moment for me, and I have loved the song since I saw it in theaters with Prevas the first time.

Hurt (Nine Inch Nails, from The Downward Spiral, 1994):

Hurt (Johnny Cash, from American IV: The Man Comes Around, 2002):

Hurt is a song that I have loved since my middle school years, dating back to when I owned NIN's The Downward Spiral the first time. I sold it to a pawn shop in 10th grade, because NIN wasn't Screaching Weasel or on Lookout Records. I came to my senses in grad school and bought the album again, only to love it more than I did originally. The whole album is awesome. This song is another real emotion-surfacer. There is a reason for including both versions of this song (is this cheating?). I would have never thought that any artist could record this song more appropriately than Trent Reznor's original recording, or evoke the kind of emotion that he does in the original. Johnny Cash proved that wrong on his 2002 version, from which Hurt was one of his last hits before his death in 2003. When Trent Reznor first heard of Cash covering his song, he was "flattered" but worried that "the idea sounded a bit gimmicky." He became a fan of Cash's version, however, once he saw the music video with his response being "Wow. [I felt like] I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn't mine anymore." Cash completely does the song justice. Brother Eric likes the Cash verison way better, but I just can't decide so I've included both. A nerdy note. One of my favorite parts of the NIN version is the use of a minor #11 chord (the first chord in the song). Johnny Cash takes out the #11 making it a much more normal sounding chord. It works for his version, but I really miss that note. Also, Cash changes the lyric "crown of sh*t" to "crown of thorns." This is interesting, but I'm not sure why. If you don't hear the emotion in these two versions you probably can't hear. Johnny Cash sounds like he is dying (sadly, he sort of was) and Trent Reznor sounds like he is already dead (yet somehow still singing). Perfect. And wordiness.

Anywhere I Lay My Head (Tom Waits, from Rain Dogs, 1985):

This is the most recent favorite for me. I partially included it because of the debate started by TheChristopherMyers in Eric's Top 5. I am in the camp of a Tom Waits song is really only a Tom Waits song if he is singing it. Nobody in the world could do it like he does. If you need an example of this check out Scarlett Johansson singing this very song on youtube here. It really sucks in comparison...I didn't even get through the whole thing. The greatness in Waits' voice can't even really be explained, so I won't try. I will say that I didn't get it at first, but now I can't get enough of the guy. Back when LaLa.com was still used (do people remember this?) TJ suggested I get Rain Dogs. I listened to it a couple of times, thought it was OK and put it on the shelf. When Laun recommended it for this blog I took it back out and completely fell in love with it. I especially love this song, and think it might be the best album ending I have ever heard. It is perfect happy-sad, with the great New Orleans horn ending that rivals Eric's pick of In An Aeroplane Over the Sea. And when I say it rivals it, I mean that these Waits horns are better. Awesome.

Well this was hard. Very close runners up for anyone who made it this far were Marvin Gaye' "What's Goin' On?", Sufjan Stevens "John Wayne Gacy Jr.", Tom Waits "Martha" (but it is just too sad), Flaming Lips "Do You Realize?", Al Green "Let's Stay Together", Andre 3000 "Hey Ya" (yeah, I know), Regina Spektor "Fidelity" (again, yes I know), Beck "Debra", Dismemberment Plan's "The City" or "The Ice of Boston" or "Gyroscope" or any number of others, Bjorks "Hyperballad", Modest Mouse's "Gravity Rides Everything", Postal Service "Sleeping In", Paul Simon "Hearts and Bones", and OMG Michael Jackson "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough".

The TJ Top 5

2009-04-23T01:01:00.002-04:00

i thought this task was going to be easy. it was even more difficult than me trying to type this posting with perfect posture. very difficult things for me. one thing i found very interesting was that my top 5 songs weren't necessarily by bands who i would call my top 5 bands... i mean... maybe.... but maybe not... weird that those two don't go hand in hand. while i was compiling the list of 5, it accidentally stretched to about 18 songs or so. so i had to really edit there and i attempted to break down those 18 into categories and not put in more than one from each cateegory - so some great tunes were left out. i must say though, with all this tom waits trashing going on, i was tempted to fill my list with his songs... which could almost be feasible, but i refrained. i would like to retort, however, that the beegees might go on my bottom 5 bands list... so perhaps me and chris/mike make a nice yin and yang here? but still, if i ever ran into a Bee or a Gee, they'd better be carrying cupcakes or be saying something real nice about my mom or something... otherwise i might do something mean like trip them - and i don't want to be a mean person

without further time awaisted: the top 5 (in alphabetical order by the artist name)

martha my dear - the beatles :

here we have 2 and a half minutes of musical perfection. the beatles were really faultless on this whole album... but this particular song just can't be more in the pocket. its a bit wonky, and real happy and i think gives some pretty good advice. at the 1 minute mark when the drums come in i really challenge anyone not to bob their head along. i actually didnt really learn to appreciate this particular song until later on in my beatles enjoyment. it perhaps was an acquired taste. i hope you enjoy... i suggest listening two times in a row. if you put your iTunes on repeat 1 it really does a nice job at swinging it back around.

one down, one up - john coltrane :

this one was too easy for me actually. john coltrane is my hero, and while people often say that live coltrane really outweighs any studio sessions... i sometimes disagree; in particularly with regards to this song. a note before you listen: this is a song that requires your attention. it needs to be loud and you need to actually LISTEN as opposed to just have it on and HEAR it. if you attempt the latter, i think you wont make it through the 15 or so necessary minutes to hear the whole crescendo, decrescendo and then reee-crescendo. the whole band is on point in this song and i used to listen to it over and over focussing on each instrument one time through... now thats a bit much... but if youre really bored and have 75 minutes on your hands its a great idea.

underground - kimya dawson :

kimya dawson recently got quite a bit more popular with the movie JUNO. but her recordings i find great across'd the board. this song, however, is my favorite of hers. she jumps between happy and sad songs, and sometimes straddles that fence with a great happy-sad song; which is the case here. the last verse in particular always gets me, when she talks about sinusitis and waking up in the middle of the night... it's really turns a tj mushy. there is not many musical artists who are more honest than kimya dawson and you really get it here i think

bed for the scraping - fugazi :

this one had to fight pretty hard for seat no. 5 on the list. i really like it a lot, but then again i really like fugazi a lot. this particular song i think nails this genre of music perfectly. these guys just exude the right sort of energy and do so flawlessly in this song. structurally there isn't a whole lot going on here... i think it is just a good reminder that its not necessarily what you say, but how you say it (when it comes to music... not really a love poem or a eulogy or anything)

don't know why i love you - stevie wonder :

speaking of creating the right kind of energy... stevie wonder could really bring it as good as anyone. this particular song starts so gently and just builds and builds until its brimming. there were a few stevie songs i was juggling for this spot, but this short, simple one came out on top. if you like this, i suggest you go watch some stevie wonder youtube clips after this - i just start feeling better when i watch this guy perform or banter with diana ross or something.

so that's my list... i don't know if "OF ALL TIME" is an appropriate ending to the "TOP 5" statement in my case... but these songs are certainly my current TOP 5.

for those songs that were left out - they are also real great and just barely missed the 5 seat, i will just list them here if anybody is interested (this doesn't count for my 5 right? riiiight guys?)

paloma negra - lila downs
persian march - johann strauss
prelude and fugue no. 7 in A Maj - Dmitri Shostakovich
i got a woman - elvis presley (live comeback version)
hummingbird - langhorne slim
come on up to the house - tom waits
shenandoah - keith jarrett from the melody at night with you album
carry stress in the jaw - mr. bungle

The Ward Top Five

2009-04-22T00:37:00.004-04:00

Hey Everyone, It's Mike.
Today I will be talking about my Top Five. OK, let's jump right in:

Your Song - Elton John (1970) from the album Elton John

If this song were a movie, it'd be Adaptation. (The movie about the movie you are watching being written.) The song is about the song being written. More specifically, the song is about his struggle with writing a song for someone else. It's all very self aware when you think about it. It's also one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. As for my own experience and appreciation for this song, I grew up playing piano and I loved many of his songs. Your Song, though, wasn't really among my faves until I actually started learning a bunch of Elton John songs years later. It was through studying this song, learning the changes, that I really began to appreciate how amazing Your Song is. "I hope you don't mind that I put down in the words: 'How wonderful life is while you're in the world'." That chorus is absolutely killer. I almost wonder if he's talking about a separate song here. I'd like to hear it, because this one is about as good as it gets.

Gypsy - Fleetwood Mac (1982) from the album Mirage

As all of these songs will reveal, this one also had roots in my childhood. Gypsy reminds me of being a kid, riding in the backseat of the my mom's car. I loved this song at a very young age. Some of these songs evoke a feeling that's hard to put into words, but I like whatever it is. The riff for this one is really great. I could listen to the riff alone, all day, and probably not get tired of it. Also, Stevie Nicks has a line I really love: "Lightning strikes maybe once, maybe twice. And it lights up the night, and you see your gypsy." I think of her singing this line to some fictional guy. I interpret it as: "Love only happens once or twice in life. (You most likely won't find anyone like me again.) I'm your gypsy." Another great thing about this song is the performance itself. Lindsey Buckingham's guitar work on this is pretty fantastic. Overall, the arrangement is just great. Also, Stevie Nicks has one of the best Wikipedia entries I've ever read. Check it out.

Telephone Line - Electric Light Orchestra (1976) from the album A New World Record

So many of my favorite songs are written out of despair and loneliness. Loneliness has been an impetus for great music for hundreds of years. Here, Jeff Lynne sings about someone who doesn't have an answering machine and won't pick up the phone. I love the lyrics to this song. Really beautiful and heartbreaking words. "I'll tell you everything/If you'd just pick up that telephone." and "I'll just sit tight in shadows of the night/And let it ring for evermore." I always picture Lynne sitting in this library to an English mansion, all the lights are off, and the moon is casting its light through these enormous windows. In Batman Returns, there's a shot of Bruce Wayne sitting in his library, with the moon shining through the windows. So, kind of like that. Whoever this is about, Jeff Lynne definitely gave it his all to win that person back. All of the melodies in the song are just perfect.

Linda Ronstadt - Blue Bayou (1977) from the album Simple Dreams

This is a cover of a Roy Orbison song. So far all of these songs I've listed were songs I knew of at a very early age. However, I've loved this song longer than any other. I don't know of a time when I didn't know this song. It was the first song I ever loved. I remember thinking, even at that young age, that this is my song. My mom had it on cassette and would play it all the time, and I would hear it on tv, in commercials. Anyway, growing up this song would appear now and then, and I would never tire of it. My dad used to constantly play the Roy Orbison Black and White concert (which used to air on PBS all the time). I love that version as well. But really, this Ronstadt vocal performance is top notch. I can't think of too many that would equal it. I don't think I can think of any that surpass it. It's like she really means every word. When she comes in with "I'm going back some day..." it sends chills up my spine. Such an amazing delivery. I also came to appreciate the song on a different level years later. I never got that it really is a country song, with country pedal steel. Also, the longing theme never really caught on with me. The hopefulness of a better life exists somewhere.

The Bee Gees - How Deep Is Your Love (1977) from the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack

So at first glance, some may write this song off. It's from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Guess what, though? The Bee Gees songs on there are brilliant. This may be my favorite song of all time. Again, like with the rest of these songs, I was really young when I knew this song. My parents owned the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. I bought it years later when I was in college. Still it wasn't until maybe a few years after that that I had an enormous appreciation for this one. It's just got everything there. The lyrics are great, the harmonies are great. The vocal performance is beautiful. I never tire of this song, which I think is one of the biggest criteria for one's fave song.

So there you have it. All pretty songs. No rockers. I peaked at age 6.

The Chris Myers Top 5

2009-04-21T05:00:00.006-04:00

Okay, I'm not going to fool around today. My song descriptions will be long enough as it is. Here's my Top 5 of all time.

Bowling Green (written by Terry Slater & Jackie Ertel, as performed by Glen Campbell, 1967)

If you're a song and you want to find the quickest way to my heart, make sure its named after a girl or a town, and you'll already be halfway there. I'm not too sure who had the biggest hit with this song, but I've gotta believe it was Glen Campbell. The Everlys do a fine version of the song, but Campbell owns this. I don't know that I like too many songs that have a bendy acoustic guitar riffing throughout the whole thing, but the bendy stuff in this song is pure intoxication. Whoa nelly! The harmony vocal is so understated and perfectly executed that its the sorta thing that takes a dozen listens before you even realize its there. Its what you associate with Simon & Garfunkel or Steven Tyler...not Glen Campbell, necessarily. Biggest shocker about this song? Neko Case does a cover of it and it sorta sucks.

If Not For You (written by Bob Dylan, as performed by George Harrison, 1970)

This recording is proof positive that the performance is so much more important than the songwriting. Give me the name of any Bob Dylan or Tom Waits song and I'll name you someone who performed it better. Have you heard Dylan's "Nothing Was Delivered"? Try the Byrds' version. Waits' "Old '55"? The Eagles. Dylan's original version of INFY is fine, but the Phil Spector co-produced Harrison version launches this song into Top 5 material for me. Its not even that Harrison gives the ultimate vocal take. Its still fairly wonky. Its not as crooked as Dylan's, but it arguably has a lot more soul. And then there's the production. The rhythm acoustic, the slide guitars, the harmonica, the organ, the piano...everything fits perfectly without ever feeling cluttered. And the way the song builds on top of itself with each verse is something that I use when modeling most of my recordings. Its the perfect cure for solving the case of a song that might seem too repetitive. It was 2000 when I first listened to this album and halfway through this song, I knew for sure that George had the best post-Beatles career. Perhaps my love of cover songs could be traced back to this one? That is if I could find a way to discount "Smokin' In The Boys Room." If you ever date me, I'll probably want this to be "our song."

Your Bright Baby Blues (written and performed by Jackson Browne, 1976)

Jackson Browne was a slow-burner throughout my early years. I got to hear a lot of him in my mom's car as a kid. You might be pick up on a pattern here. "Running On Empty", "Somebody's Baby", "Doctor My Eyes"...these were the ones I liked as a kid. Otherwise, my mom would play a lot of his more recent work, which I thought sorta sucked and prevented me from exploring deeper. Then I heard "The Pretender," which floored me with how many appropriate "-ender" words a guy could use in a single chorus. Then I realized that he co-wrote the Eagles' "Take It Easy," another one of my favorites. Everything culminated with "These Days" (made more popular by Nico) and this one, "Your Bright Baby Blues." This is the moment when JB became one of my favorite wordsmiths. He's got plenty of clunkers, but when he's on, he's WILD! Just like "These Days," this song is one zinger after another. These are the sorts of lines that kick me in the gut everytime I hear them. And not to beat a dead horse...its not just about the songwriting. His performance just totally sells the song. He means everything he's putting out there. You might think its corny, but I think its perfect. I'd list out some of my favorite lines, but I swear to God, its the whole fucking song.

Mr. Natural (written by Barry and Robin Gibb, as performed by the Bee Gees, 1974)

Wikipedia calls this one a "rock-and-roll infectious tune" and I can't say it much better than that. Mom's car, hated this artist as a child, etc. To become a Bee Gees fan, you must first decide that they're disco bullshit. Second, discover that their early stuff is pretty great British pop rock. And then you slowly tiptoe album by album up to Saturday Night Fever, at which point you decide that its actually all pretty awesome. This song was released on the cusp of the disco changeover, and its truly a rock-and-roll infectious tune, all about crying in the rain and looking happy on the dance floor. It was only upon watching the video for this song that I realized that Robin sings the first verse and Barry sings the second. The Brothers do this quite a bit and I never pick up on it until I actually see them performing. Non-duet multiple singer songs are some of my favorites. The song is fun. I don't need to dissect it any further.

I Don't Know How To Love Him (from Jesus Christ Superstar: Original London Concept Recording, written by Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd Webber, as sung by Yvonne Elliman, 1970)

Mom, car-rides, etc. When I grew into my rebellious teenage years, we re-imagined a modern adapation with Chris Cornell as Jesus Christ and Corey Glover from Living Colour as Judas Incidentally, Glover later did take on this role, but I never got to see it. I've seen the musical countless times, and although its solid through and through, its really the first half of the soundtrack that's truly a masterpiece. My mother never liked the Mary Magdalene love songs for whatever reason, so as a kid, I was more into the Judas stuff...."Strange Thing Mystifying," "Damned For All Time/Blood Money," etc. But with time, I couldn't follow suit anymore. Whether its my propensity for lady singers or simply for love ballads, I couldn't deny that "Everything's Alright," "Could We Start Again?" and this song were the true greats. Beyond this soundtrack and her work on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, I couldn't tell you anything about Yvonne Elliman. Its odd that I haven't explored her more, because what I've heard is some of the most beautiful lady-singing that I have ever heard. Perhaps the fact that she's singing this song to Jesus will enhance or dehance the experience for some, but I tend to listen to it as just a love song and it breaks my heart everytime. This performance is ten times better than the movie soundtrack version. The arrangement, the drum part, the weird flute thing. After the instrumental break at 2:25, listen to her sing "I never thought I'd come to this" and tell me it doesn't send shivers down your spine. The way she meanders on "this" is pure emotion. Total awesomeness. Favorite song of all time.

The Eric Hopkins Top 5

2009-04-20T10:47:00.005-04:00

Brother EricHop presented me with an idea for a week-long blog series for me and my fellow Friends Recommends bloggers. The assignment to name our top-5 songs of all time and discuss them. Simple, right? Not so simple for me, but I don't have to post until Friday (thanks BrotherHop) so I have a little bit more time to think about it. Apparently TheChristopherMyers and Wardo think about this every morning when they wake up, so they should have no problem. Today we hear from idea originator Eric Hopkins, with his top-5 songs of all time. These are some great songs, and better late than never (my fault!), right?

Exciting note: I've received a Colmus list. It should go up next week after these top-5's conclude. From here on out you're hearing from Eric:

This is a little long. And if I was coming to this blog and saw a post this long, there is a chance I wouldn’t read it. Maybe you should come back each hour and read a paragraph. Here are what I think are my five favorite songs, in no particular order:

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel from In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, 1998)

The first time I heard this song was in Matt Davis’s car. He had a tape of the album playing when he picked me up on what, in my memory, was one of the first perfect days of spring. I immediately asked him what the song was. At the time I heard it, it was the song I always wanted to hear, and the title song introduced me to one of my favorite albums. All the instruments belong and contribute to the song. Even though one person wrote the song on guitar, the band parts don’t seem like a second thought created to accompany the song. NMH made me want every song to have a saw in it. To answer Adam’s question, best horn solo ever, man. The lyrics are straight from the soul and it just seems like a song that took as long to write as it takes to play, like it just unfolded out of Jeff Mangum’s mind as he strummed and sung it for the first time.

Sympathy for the Devil (The Rolling Stones from Beggars Banquet, 1968)

To me, this song has the same feel as the NMH song, but in a more “jammy” way. I still think of it as a song that was crafted as it was written, but instead of it coming from one person, I think of it more like these guys were sitting around in a room on the drug of their choice and then some dude just starts picking up the bongos. I did see the Goddard movie “Sympathy for the Devil” which I think was half about the Stones recording this song and half about rebels spray painting propaganda on brick walls, but I saw this 9 years ago and only remember Keith Richards lying next to a speaker in the studio listening to a mix of the song and a rebel guy in a military uniform spray painting propaganda (in French?) on a brick wall. I love the guitar solo, Keith Richards played both this solo, and the awesome bass part on the recording, and Mick’s first person lyrics as the devil are great. Apparently Mick was reading The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (Megan recommend!!!) when he wrote the lyrics to this song. I think I might check out this book. Lots of girlfriends helped in the creating of this song. Mick’s girlfriend gave him the book he was reading and apparently Keith Richards’s girlfriend came up with the great Whoo hoo background vocal part.

Only In Dreams (Weezer from Weezer “The Blue Album”, 1994)

This is the perfect rock song. It has everything in it. The best bass line ever, distorted parts and clean parts, loud parts and soft parts, and high background vocals. The best part of the song is that it ends with and amazing build up that starts with bass and minimal guitar, that builds to some great two guitar parts and then the best two guitar solo ever. The lyrics are pretty special as well “You can’t resist her. She’s in your bones. She is your marrow”. It is sad to think that a song this good was on a bands debut album, and instead of continuing to make more songs this good, they end up with “Beverly Hills”. Weezer could have written my favorite and least favorite song.

A Sight for Sore Eyes (Tom Waits from Foreign Affairs, 1977)

Any bloke on this blog, with an opinion of Tom Waits, will tell you that the Island records years and after are his best. I prefer the albums he released on Asylum in the 70’s, which have the best piano bar ballads you will ever hear, A Sight for Sore Eyes is one of these. The song is a tale of s man sitting at a bar talking to an old friend from the neighborhood about what happened to the people from the old gang. If that content doesn’t make for the best piano bar ballad ever, the lyrics also include a toast to baseball greats DiMaggio, Drysdale, Mantle & Whitey Ford. As for the piano, the intro is Auld Lang Syne, and the piano in the rest of song has a lullaby feel. Talk about a great song, a lullaby about the old gang!

Desolation Row (Bob Dylan from Highway 61 Revisited, 1965)

This song is everything I love about Bob Dylan. It is early Dylan at his best, an eleven-minute stream of classic, abstract and poetic Dylan lyrics. And, there is a kick ass harmonica solo. According to the wikipedia entry for the album, the song was recorded with a second guitar player who was flown in to accompany Dylan on the track. Takes 6 and 7 were spliced together and used for the album track. I would assume that it was recorded without any overdubs, because I think Dylan recorded most of his earlier albums live in the studio with the whole band. Man, the song is over 11 minutes and I could listen to it back to back. These long lyrically driven Dylan songs are very relaxing to listen to and I always loved to put them on and forget about everything.

Wizard People, Dear Reader

2009-04-17T09:23:00.003-04:00

Hello, friends. You may remember me from such softball fiascos as "Running Facefirst Into Eric Hopkins," or "Right Field Massacre '08." Or for those of you lucky enough to not be on our softball team last year, I had a list up a few months ago. I woke up this morning and checked ye olde Friends Recommend, and after seeing Jessica's very well-written tome on Rachel Getting Married, I thought maybe I should just leave well enough alone this week. I also considered anti-recommending mine and Adam's entire fantasy baseball team, but I figured that he could handle that on his own. So what the hell do I talk about now? Well, you're in luck today folks.

I heard about this "movie" from Chris Laun when we were both living together in the cesspool that we affectionately referred to as the "Pirate Ship." Does everyone remember watching the Wizard of Oz whilst listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon? This is kind of like that, only better. This is the OK Computer to WoO/DSotM's Palbo Honey (like that Radiohead reference everyone?). So what are we talking about here?

This is Harry Potter for anyone who wants Harry Potter to be the funniest movie you've ever seen. Some dude decided to do a narration of the whole movie (i.e. a book on tape) that syncs up with the movie as its running. The general storyline is pretty similar to the original, but the narrator gives everything a comical twist. I'm not really sure how to explain it. Harry is often prone to fits of rage. I've seen the movie this way at least ten times, and I would consider it one of the top 5 funniest movies that I have ever seen.

I'm not nearly as eloquent as Mike Ward writing about peanut butter, so luckily I found a few of my favorite clips on youtube:

If you are looking to give this a try, you can download the audio tracks here: You'll need 2 cd's, and when you start the movie start the cd player immediately.

Enjoy!

Debate Club

2009-04-17T00:50:00.003-04:00

Posted by Jessica c/o Adam:

Perhaps some of you thought I was joking when I said I was going to not only add Rachel Getting Married to my queue, but bump it all the way to the top. I was not. I debated announcing this again when I received the hot topic in my little mailbox so that I might hold a public viewing, but I didn't want my goal of actually watching the movie and attempting to form my own opinion on it be derailed by a peanut gallery. According to Netflix, I will rate this movie 3.5 stars, this has me wondering how Netflix thought Ward or Rick would rate the movie prior to them actually viewing it. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

There is an aspect of Ward's original post on this topic that I originally glossed over (and perhaps you did too) that is really pivotal to his review: watching a movie after hearing rave ( and/or even "reverse") reviews on it. I get both sides of the coin with this little gem. "Part of the reason [Mike] hated this so much is because this movie received all kinds of accolades, with reviews calling the movie "brave" and "raw", etc." and yet I'll be viewing it knowing that Mike hated it and most certainly does not recommend it for viewing. I'm sure I'm not alone in having more than one movie ruined for me after missing the bus -- something about great expectations, blah blah blah. However, having gotten this far without yet viewing the movie I suspect that Netflix is pretty dead on with it's guess.

I was a little worried because as soon as I hit play all that running through my head was the critical acclaim vs Mike's reverse recommend and it took about 10 or 15 minutes for the story to pull me in. However it did, and I was able to watch the movie like it was any other on my long Netflix queue instead of like the project it's become. And, I ended up genuinely liking it and probably would've liked it even more had I watched it under different circumstances. In fact, I would even go as far as giving it a 3.7 or 3.8 if I were allowed [insert rant here about the Netflix rating system and how there's so much in between a 3 and 4 and 4 and 5], yet it is also a movie that I would never actually recommend to anyone either (along with You Can Count On Me, Happy Endings, Winter Passing, We Don't Live Here Anymore, Junebug, and countless others).

Here's the tricky thing about movies like Rachel Getting Married, at least for people who aren't professional movie reviewers, they're poignant only in as much as you can relate to them. That, and in as well as they're told. While watching this movie I couldn't help but think of one of the main guidelines my creative writing teacher refrained over and over again in college: you get to the universal through the specific -- that was a big selling point for me. It's very specific, if that makes any sense at all. I also thought the acting was fantastic. These characters, unlikeable though they may be, were complex, unique, and human (my guess is this translates into "raw" in movie review lingo). It wasn't the Hollywood pitfall of bad guy vs. good guy which doesn't give you anyone to root for. And for me, that was another big selling point. Not to say that there's anything bad about a Hollywood bad guy vs. good guy movie, there are lots of great ones I'm sure will be pointed out in the comment section here. But, in a movie where you can't relate to the characters or the story, it would help to have at least one guy that redeems it for you. And while the shaky camera work was over the top and annoying at times, I understand why it was chosen over the steadiness provided by dollies. It not only lends to the whole unsteadiness of the characters and plot, it also makes it feel like it less of a Hollywood movie and more like someone we could know. So, I can understand why someone (perhaps even several people) might not like the movie so I wouldn't recommend it even though I think it's a worthwhile viewing.

All in all, what I've learned from this is that reverse recommending is the way to go. It certainly induces debate in a way that everyone agreeing how awesome Radiohead is does not. (I kid, sort of.) Also, were it not for Ward's strong opinion on the movie I probably never would've viewed it all and I'm glad that I did, so thanks Mike! With that in mind, Crash (not the 2004 Crash, the 1996 Crash featuring James Spader and Holly Hunter) is one of these flicks that a couple of my friends saw during high school in the theater and actually walked out of because they hated it so much. It's been over a decade and I have yet to view this one because I'm sort of scared that I might actually hate it, and then what would there be left to debate?

sometimes i wish we were an eagle

2009-04-16T07:53:00.004-04:00

i wanted to recommend in a more current event type of way. this will have to be quick because heaven knows people like their friends recommendings to come in the morning with their cereal and showering, and i need to certainly shower. i am also going to make a cereal quesadilla this morning due to some recent recommendings, so that takes a couple extra minutes to heat up the ole quesadilla maker.

my recommend comes relative to a new album that came out just this past tuesday. the artists name is Bill Callahan. here is a picture of him:

and here's a picture of the new cover of the album that came out just 2 days prior:

here is a link for a track on the new album. this ones called EID MA CLACK SHAW. click HERE to hear.

bill callahan used to write music under the name SMOG. he's from not too far from you fine folk as he grew up in silver spring maryland. apparently when he was a teenager his parents thought he lost his direction and sent him off to work on a freighter of some sort. it is legend that his boat came riding back in on the same smog he left on... hence his early pseudonym/band name. either way, the guy is a pretty weird guy and i like him. for being so small he's got a rich, deep voice and plays some pretty simple, pretty great stuff. this album is not my particular favorite yet, as i've only had 2 days to listen to it, but i do enjoy it enough to suggest you people delve in to something new and good. unfortunately, this one is not on emusic for all you emusicians out there. if you do like this disc, i stronly suggest A RIVER AINT ENOUGH TO LOVE or SUPPER or DONGS OF SEVOTION (though i hate that title almost enough to not have bought it myself, the content is far superior than that title).

anyways, i saw bill callahan play last year and it was really strange because he's odd, it started at like 2am on a weeknight, i went with a friend whose ex-boyfriend showed up and she left half way through the show upset, the guys next to me got into a fistfight and callahan just watched the whole thing and slowly stopped playing and looked sad.... all in all, a very weird night and i'll go back to see him again when he comes to the record store just a few blocks from my work on saturday.

ok, i must get to showering and to work. if you finished reading all of this and didnt listen to the link, i suggest you go back and do that now... thats my second recommend, that you go do that now.

A Heads-Up

2009-04-15T11:52:00.006-04:00

Keeping this short, so it doesn't interfere with Wardo's excellent grocery store post today. We will have two special guest bloggers on Friday, so make sure when you read one you scroll down and read the other. I can tell you why this happened, but it isn't very exciting. JesKA will weigh in on this heated Rachel Getting Married debate (she actually watched the thing because of an anti-recommend) and George French is going to be recommending who-knows-what. This will be great. Also, Jenny has decided to step up and save this blog with a new list coming soon!

Shopping Enhancement

2009-04-15T00:35:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone,
I'm here with a fresh Wednesday.
Today I wanted to talk about something that hasn't been touched upon here yet: the grocery store. Hopefully this post will enhance your shopping experience while making you a more informed buyer.

Firstly, I hate grocery shopping. The Giant that I go to is constantly out of the things I like to buy. I also don't like the lines at the check out. But, one way I've discovered to make things less miserable is to bring along an ipod. If you've never listened to an ipod while grocery shopping, I strongly urge you to give it a try. Through research, I've found that listening to Hall and Oates, and Huey Lewis and the News will actually make things a lot more enjoyable while food shopping. I have done this [created a H and O/HLATN playlist] a few times, and the first time I did it, it was hard not to smile at everyone. It also felt a bit surreal at first, but that's also part of the fun. Here are recommended choices:

Hall and Oates:
Kiss On My List
Private Eyes
I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)
You Make My Dreams Come True

Huey Lewis and the News:
The Heart of Rock and Roll
If This Is It
Heart and Soul
The Power of Love

For Good Measure:
Kenny Loggins - The Heat Is On

Doobie Brothers - What A Fool Believes

Once you have that squared away, here are some tested, surefire Mike Ward recommends that you can't go wrong with...

Peanut Butter:
I use Skippy's Extra Crunchy. They seem to have the crunchiest of any of the other peanut butters on the market, so for that reason I buy their product. Word of warning, though: Do Not Buy Reduced Fat! The packaging looks almost identical, but they are so so different. The reduced fat version of extra crunchy actually barely tastes like peanut butter. It's really really awful. I've accidentally bought it a couple times and was miserable for a week while eating it.

Drinks:
This past week I bought something that I have not seen in my grocery store before: Minute Maid's Pomegranate Lemonade. I drink a lot of iced tea (Turkey Hill's Green Tea), and Limeade (Paul Newman) and Lemonade, so finding this was right up my alley. I'm happy to report that this new drink is actually quite good, and I would recommend you check it out.

Bread:
I eat a lot of peanut butter sandwiches and I've run the gamut of bread. It took me a long while to find the bread I like, but for my peanut butter sandwiches, Dutch Country's Whole Wheat is the absolute best. Whenever this is on sale, my store is always out of it, and I get a little irritated because I then have to go a lesser brand.

Quesadillas:
Here's something a few of you know: I eat a ton of quesadillas. This is another thing that took me a while to figure out all the best components, but now I can make an awesome quesadilla. If you make quesdaillas, then I'm assuming you have one of these:

It's essential to making a really good one. Here's a quick rundown of what I use:

Beans - Goya brand Black Beans
Tortillas - Mission brand
Cheese - Sargento Classic Mild Cheddar shredded cheese
Sour Cream - Daisy brand
Hot Sauce (this is critical!!) - Chalula brand (regular)

The Chalula sauce is actually one of my favorite condiments. It goes great on plenty of things, but especially here for quesdillas.

Snacks:
I am not that big of a snack person, but wanted to share this recent fave of mine: cheese and crackers. More specifically: Cracker Barrel pre-sliced cheese squares, and Carr's Table Crackers. I urge you to try this! It's so good! I don't have to tell you how nice it is not having to slice your own cheese. It's basically open and go without the fuss of a cutting board or knife.

Frozen Food:
I don't buy frozen food very often at all. But, one thing that I discovered, which I am a huge fan of is this frozen pizza called Palermo's. I buy the "Cheese and Tomato" and it's the absolute best frozen pizza I've ever had. Next time you're in the market for a frozen pizza, check it out and tell me what you think.

So hopefully this has been helpful, and maybe you'll check out one of these things. If you do try the ipod or buy one of these, I'm curious about feedback. Maybe I'll expand on shopping a bit more down the road.

Til next week...

I'm a fool to do your dirty work

2009-04-14T03:11:00.000-04:00

Hey all. Let's blog it!

I'm not going to mince words today. I'm a hired gun. Adam brought Wardo, t.j. and me in so that he could sit back on his laurels, while we do his dirty work. Well, I'm done. All of Adam's friends took time out of their day to recommend some truly great stuff to him. He skimmed over the stuff, cracked a few boner jokes and moved on to the next schlub. It would be an injustice to Adam's friends if anyone other than Adam took care of their requests. They [read: WE] didn't recommend shit to Mike Ward. What do we care what he has to say on the matter?

So: fresh start for me. I'm cutting off ties with the old lists. I am a rogue blogger now. I might talk about my own Recommends or I might call on you to tell me personally about some stuff that you think I might enjoy.

Anyhow, I guess I should tell you how Adam and I first met. It must have been, what, 5 years ago? Adam had taken to hanging out down by the train yards. He had just quit his teaching position at Goucher and really needed something to which he could relate. He went to the yards looking for trains, but he found me instead. Its funny how things work out.

Alright, today's recommend came via email. These are the easiest kinds of recommends. Sometimes someone will just email me an mp3 thinking that I would like it. I take the next 2 to 6 minutes (anything longer and I'll definitely not like it) and form my opinion on the song. They're not always corkers, but I do enjoy figuring out what it is about the song that would make someone assume that I would like it.

Recently, I was emailed this Sibylle Baier song called "Tonight." Have a listen:

Ms. Baier recorded this song along with an album's worth of material in early 1970s Germany. Similar to the tale of my travels, she decided to give up her aspirations of being a songwriter/actress and moved to America to raise a family. Listening to "Tonight," you can certainly already hear her desire to have nothing more than just a real nice home life.

Some 30 years later, her son [the weird Tarzan baby looking kid above] compiled the recordings and gave them out to friends and families. Eventually, the recordings ended up in J Mascis' hands and the Orange Twin label soonthereafter released them.

Don't be fooled by the somber mood of the recording. I hear it as being a significantly happy/content song. The singer arrives home totally broken apart after [among seemingly some other stuff] possibly wrecking her car. She finds "him" sitting at the kitchen table ready, willing and able to listen to let her cry out all the sorrows that she bears. Its also possible that he wants her to sing her troubles to him, which is extra great. Who wouldn't want to come home to that?

This is my most favorite lyric of the last [insert undefinable length of time]:

There he unforeseen sat in the kitchen buttering himself a bread

At the risk of sounding like I don't appreciate "unforeseen sat" enough, I must say that "a bread" is just so super fantastic. I can't vouch for how well Ms. Baier knows or knew English, but its tiny things like "a bread" that make me regret having English as my primary language. Songwriters take plenty of liberties when trying to make words fit correctly, but I can almost guarantee that if I were writing this song, I would have said "some bread" instead. And that's why I admire this song. Pure delight.

I would consider that line to be Exhibit A in determining why this song might be appropriate to send to me. Exhibits B through D would be that its a lady singer, its about a domestic situation and the song came fairly close to never being available for mass consumption.

For all those, this song gets an A-.

Namaste!

Radiohead Delayed. Post Way Delayed

2009-04-13T12:42:00.003-04:00

OK friends and faithful readers. This post might get buried come morningtime under the fresh new post by TheChristopherMyers, but that might be OK. There might not be a whole lot of recommending in this post. But come to think of it, there might be eventally. My original idea comes from the Brotherhop list, where he recommended both OK Computer and KID A by Radiohead. I love both of these albums, and would say that both would make it into an all time top 20 albums list. Only one of them would make it into my top 3 albums of all time, and it isn't the one that most people like better. Anyway, the idea was to do a side-by-side of these two albums similar to my Bjork--Vespertine vs. Medulla post sometime ago. If you haven't read that one, it is back from the glory days and might be worth a read. It seems to be the only post in this blog's history that inspired Ricky B to check out something that I wrote about. Whaddayknow. Anyway, that side-by-side is in the works but I wanted to spend some time revisiting both of those albums, even though they may each have been played more than any other album I own. Maybe with the exception of Primus' Pork Soda, which is single-handedly the reason that I play the bass. Whowouldathunkit? Don't weigh in on the OK Computer vs. KID A argument just yet. A time will come for that one.

This paragraph is another CALL FOR HELP for new lists in these parts. Matthayes and Steve Colmus, I'm talking to you guys directly. You both made promises and I expect a follow through. Matthayes, you have been working on this thing since last August, so pull your head out of your a** and get it in. Colmus, I'm coming after you next. After that I'm going after Prevas, but he is currently Mr. Prevas...once high school lets out for the year I'll hold him to that one. But really, we need this guys! There are going to be a lot of commas around here today, I can feel it. Also, word has it that Huff has started list #2 and all of your are encouraged to do the same.

An anti-recommend of my own. The fantasy baseball team co-run by myself and George French. So far, worst fantasy season of all time. I know none of you care. But I'm just sayin.

In other exciting news Brotherhop has made a suggestion for a week-long theme for this blog which will take place all of next week. I don't want to reveal exactly what it is, or what it is at all but I think it's going to be a good time. He has suggested a recommend topic for next week and all of the house recommenders get to weigh in on it for each of their given day. Everyone else seems to know exactly how to approach this except for me. Unfortunately I have to post first and set the bar real low. I am also trying to convince Brotherhop to complete this theme by writing the Friday post of next week and weigh in on his own suggestion. Maybe we can motivate him to do this via the comments section of this blog?

In other news: A month or so ago I completed a recommend from Mike Ward and realized I never mentioned it here. I posted about Chuck Klosterman's Killing Yourself To Live before I actually read it but have since finished it under the advice of Mike Ward. It did prove to be LOL funny at some parts, as Mike promised. There is a very specific type of person that I would recommend this book to and a lot of you who read this blog are that type of person, that type of person being fans of rock and roll. Not just fans of Rock and Roll, but people who really know a lot about he history of Rock and Roll. I am not necessarily one of those people. I am not a name remembering person and while I knew of all the bands this guy was talking about, they aren't really groups that I ever spent much time listening to for the most part. To the guys who seem to know some rock history like Chris Myers, and George, and Chris Laun, and maybe Brotherhop, and more of you I recommend this book. I think you'd get a lot out of it. Mike Ward is definitely one of these people who is in the know about all eras of the Rock and Roll. As I said I am not one of these people and I still enjoyed the book. It was a quick read, and the guy gets into some pretty funny situations but I definitely would have gotten more out of it if I weren't so stupid when it comes to some things. Heather is in the middle of it now and I don't consider her to be one of these people so I'd be real interested for her to share how this experience is going. HSV? Take this as a hesitant recommend. For some people it would be amont the funniest books they ever read. For some merely a good book. And for some a great bit WTF. OK? OK. Onto Chris. Stay tuned for our very first theme week starting next Monday. Also, George French is going to try his hand at this recommendeering thing. Give him an ear this coming Friday. Certainly worth a listen. You all know it won't be any worse than me. Jessicahop also has one in the wings, but that one might take a little bit longer. No release date just yet.

Sit Tight...

2009-04-13T11:11:00.001-04:00

A post is coming. Just a little later than usual. So just hold on, OK?

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle--Murakami (More-akami)

2009-04-10T01:54:00.006-04:00

OK folks. We are back in business. Back to the basics of this blog, and back to some real honest to goodness recommending. It feels really good. Unfortunately it is something that has already been recommended to you, but I really wanted to drive this one home.

The Windup Bird Chronicle (not Chronicles, like Huff would have you believe (i before e except after c)) comes from the Mike Gittings list, but Murakami in general also comes to us from TJ's list. You will remember this exact book and this exact author being mentioned in TJ's first post as a full-time Thursday recommendeerer in this post. I really enjoyed that post the first time, and enjoyed it just as much this second time just now.

I may be confused about the order of events here, but I'm pretty sure I first heard about little Murakami from TJ's mouth. He had talked this guy up long before I read a book by him. Then HSV bought me The Elephant Vanishes for a Christmas or birthday, which is a collection of Murakami short stories. While I really enjoyed the short stories, I was not in love with them like I expected to be after constantly hearing about the guy via TJ's man-crush. Some time went by and Huff was visiting and we found ourselves in Atomic Books in Hamden. I think this was around Christmastime as well (perhaps the following Christmas) and I decided to give this Murakami guy another chance. On Huff's recommendation I bought South of the Border, West of the Sun. I read this one really quickly, and liked it more than the short stories. You'll see how much I liked it when I rank my Murakami reads at the bottom of this blog. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed those short stories. But I think one thing that I really like about Murakami's writing in novels is how he unfolds a story slowly (almost with nothing really happening) over the course of a longer period of time. There is just no time for that in a short story.

This past Christmas I got Norwegian Wood as a present (I think I asked for it) and finished that quickly as well and liked it. Liked it not completetly loved it. Definitely worth reading, and I definitely recommend it, but I didn't love love it. About a month after finishing Norwegian Wood I got this Gittings recommends list and saw The Windup Bird Chronicle on it. I had been curious about this for a while because it is supposedly Murakimi's most recognized book, but Huff always shyed me away from it, recommended both South of the Border and Norwegian Wood ahead of it. Now, I don't hold this against him, and I actually see why he recommended those to me (the little man's reference to jazz artists like Eric Dolphy are all over those books). But when this showed up on Mike's list I decided to give it a try and order it. It took about three weeks to read (pretty casually...not obsessively because it is long). I must say, The Windup Bird Chronicle is my favorite Murakami to date. I love loved this book, and I think a lot of the readers of this blog would as well. As TJ mentioned it is more of the fantastic side of Murakami's writing. None of his books I had read to this point had that element to them, and I really enjoyed it in Windup Bird. It makes me want to read Kafka on the Shore next. TJ gives you a pretty good description in the blog referenced above. I disagree that it gets slow...at least that never happened for me. Even the historical parts, which I enjoyed less than the rest of the book, kept my attention and remained interesting.

If you have never read Murakami before I recommend maybe not starting with this one. If you end up not liking his style, this is a big commitment. I would maybe start with South of the Border, West of the Sun and if you enjoy it in any way, even if you don't love love it, I recommend you read The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. I thought it was stand-out fantastic. Good call Mike Gittings. TJ I can't believe you tried to keep me away from this. For shame.

I definitely put this one high up there on my recommends list. I will consider lending it to you if you want to hold me to this. Now, I have only read four Murakami books, so I am no source for the guys writing. I have definitely enjoyed all of them, with Windup Bird being the one that I really really loved. If forced to rank them it would go as follows:

1. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
2. South of the Border, West of the Sun
3. Norwegian Wood
4. The Elephant Vanishes (only because I favor the novels to the short stories)

re(verse)commend

2009-04-09T11:21:00.006-04:00

hello friends.

this recommend will be a bit breif. it seems like this whole week is a bit breif.
i want to recommend one thing , and then i want to request a recommend from you the reader.

first to my recommend: there is a band that goes by the name of hoots and hellmouth. you can sample some of their music here http://www.myspace.com/hootshellmouth . their myspace music is ok, but their live show is amazing. real gosh darn great. now i am a bit biased because the one guy is a good friend of mine from growing up. but it really is great. and i know a lot of you like music - so this is a show you will most probably quite enjoy. one word of warning though - one guy in the band is a complete phoney. i dont like him none. i won't tell you which in case you go to the show... in which case i'd like to hear what you think. but the show and music is pretty inspiring and i stand behind it.

as you might've guessed, their show is heading nearby to where you fine folks live on a southeast tour. not in baltimore persay, but close enough for you to go if you are bored.... here's where:

Apr 9 2009

8:00P

Coffee East

Easton, Maryland

Apr 28 2009

7:00P

Ram’s Head Tavern w/ The Greencards

Annapolis, Maryland

Apr 29 2009

9:00P

Rock N Roll Hotel

DC, Washington DC

anyways, thats my suggestion. go see the group. i think you'll enjoy their foot stomping qualities. if anyone does go, i'd love to get your thoughts.

and now for the recommend i need from you. today is the last day i have for a big decision. i won't go into all the details as it would be a bit boring. but basically, i got into an MFA program up in brooklyn for woodcutting. i definetely want to go at some point, but right now i think it might be a good time to stay in a good-paying job that i currently am hating-less.... seeing as my girlfriend is accidentally unemployed and this city will squeeze the quarter out of me during these economic woes... some people bounce quarters on butts and i dont really know why. but i am getting my quarter squeezed. so the question is... do i play the safe route? stay in a job that i kind of am ok with currently and allow it to fund me to live... and hopefully go to school in the future without hanging my head to low that i've grown old and velvettedly-hancuffed to the work-a-day world? or do i go to get my MFA now and deal with the life of a poor man. since i haven't heard from eri-chop in a while, and he's gone through this MFAing i believe, perhaps he could share some advice? its a lot to ask i know, but i didnt have much to recommend this week as my brain is stuck on this query.

are we getting a new recommends list to talk about soon adam? i'd love to stop talking about myself so much.

Local News and Reverse Recommending

2009-04-07T22:38:00.001-04:00

It's Mike again with another Wednesday.

Before I get started, I thought I'd go on a brief tangent. I'm sure most of you know that a good portion of the Friends Recommend gang were featured on a few different news programs over the past weekend for our Orioles song. Channel 13, Channel 45 and Channel 2. This was a huge thrill for me. Channel 13 (WJZ)'s morning show is something that I grew up watching. Everyday before school, since I was about 10, I would watch Don Scott and Marty Bass in the morning. But it wasn't until years later that I began to appreciate WJZ Channel 13 on a different level. It's seriously like a B-movie that you can't stop watching. One example I sometimes site is a story they did on energy conservation. To illustrate rising energy costs, they actually just filmed an outlet on a wall. Channel 13 also seems to have its own camera style. They'll do lots of quick stationary shots that are really unnecessary to just fill up time. Also, Ron Matz, who interviewed us and is a terrific guy, does these "People Are Talking" segments where he visits Royal Farms and asks people (who are getting coffee) what they are doing. It usually just involves Ron asking where they are off to, and they respond that they are going to work. That's it. So, what I'm getting at is that it was surreal to be in the middle of this, have a story created around our song, with all the unusual camera shots and Ron's voiceover. For me, it was like being in our own B-movie.

So, I'm borrowing one of T.J.'s ideas and thought I would do a reverse recommend. The other day I watched a movie that I absolutely hated. I haven't hated a movie this much in a long time. I'm talking about Rachel Getting Married. Have any of you seen this? If so, why haven't I heard how absolutely terrible this was? The movie is filled with unlikeable people getting into uncomfortable and awkward arguments the whole time. Like watching an unfunny BBC Office episode. But not just that...These people don't act like any people you've ever seen before. There are no group of people like this on Earth. Also, the documentary camera style that is used here is really poorly done. Very shaky, over emphasized, not subtle in anyway.

I actually watched the whole thing just so I could write about it here. I'll quickly boil the story down. Daughter gets out of rehab and goes home for her sister's wedding. Uncomfortable talks. Rehearsal dinner scene that lasts an eternity for no reason at all. Uncomfortable speech from daughter. Afterwards fight between daughter and sister. Dad is a weepy, unlikeable asshole. More scenes that last an eternity filled with people that you hate. Mom and daughter fight. Reception scene that lasts an eternity. Nothing resolved at the end of the movie. Roll credits.

Anyway, part of the reason I hated this so much is because this movie received all kinds of accolades, with reviews calling the movie "brave" and "raw", etc. All this does is encourage more horrible movies made of this ilk that I will be suckered into Netflixing. Those with Netflix, I will do you a favor and tell you to remove this from your queue immediately.

I'll bring the positive back next week.