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Archive for the ‘Food’ Category

David Bezmozgis–“Pickled Cabbage” (New Yorker, November 22, 2010)

Posted in Das Racist, David Bezmozgis, Essays, Food, New Yorker, Russia, Sasha Frere-Jones on November 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: DAS RACIST-“Combination PIzza Hut and Taco Bell” (2010).

This issue of the New Yorker featured an article from Sasha Frere-Jones about two underground rap sensations.  One of them is Das Racist.  I’d heard of them especially regarding this “hit,” but I hadn’t actually heard the song until now.

This song is pretty much exclusively a novelty song.  what else could it be?  The entire lyric is about being at the Pizza Hut/Taco Bell.  It’s kind of funny, and as Frere-Jones says, I can see this being huge at college parties.  But I have to say that–as a guy who typically loves novelty songs–that this song has literally no substance.  Even the backing beats are kind of dull.

I really wanted to like this song.  The guys seem funny (all their promo photos are amusing) and yet they also seem to have serious ideas.  But it just never really did anything for me.  And yet, for all of how much I don’t get this song and really don’t like it, it’s catchy as all hell, and I know that after listening to it just twice, I will have the inane lyrics in my head for months, cropping up no doubt every time I see a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

[READ: November 19, 2010] “Pickled Cabbage”

The Thanksgiving issue of the New Yorker features five one page articles from different writers all about families and food.  And so, for the holiday I’m going to write 5 brief posts about articles about food.

I’ve enjoyed Bezmozgis’ pieces in the past although I don’t typically enjoy pickled cabbage.  Nevertheless, this was a fascinating look at Soviet life and at cooking.  He observes that many people have multiple cookbooks on their shelves but that his family cooked entirely from memory (this is a common theme in these essays).  For his family, food was for sustenance, not for pleasure. (more…)

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Ethan Canin–”Vins Fins” (New Yorker August 2, 1999)

Posted in 20 Under 40, Ethan Canin, Food, Huh?, New Yorker, Sex, Short Story, The Extra Lens, The Mountain Goats on November 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE EXTRA LENS-“Only Existing Footage” (2010).

I listened to this song on NPR’s All Songs Considered without knowing who the band was. And while I listened to this song I kept thinking it sounded like someone, but who?  Who?

And it took me reading about them on allmusic to realize that this is a side project between The Mountain Goats and Nothing Painted Blue (who I don’t know).   My friend Andrew gave me a bunch of Mountain Goats albums which I have enjoyed but which I haven’t written about yet.  However, I can’t say how much this sounds like a Goat’s album (as I’m not an expert yet).

Nevertheless, like a Goats’ songs, it is simple (with one simple guitar accompanied by another simple guitar) and incredibly catchy.  At 3 minutes it makes for a perfect delicate pop song.  The chorus builds wonderfully (even if, really it’s not that much fuller than the verses).

Charming seems like a condescending word, and yet this song feels charming  (even if lyrically it’s rather dark:  “oblivion’s been calling since it found out where I live.”)

[READ: October 20, 2010] “Vins Fins”

Ethan Canin is the penultimate writer in the 1999 New Yorker 20 Under 40 collection, but his was the last story I read.  I was really intrigued by the excerpt that was in the main issue, but I feel like the full length story disappointed somewhat.

At eleven pages, this was one of the longest stories in the collection and it felt to me like it was simply too long.  There were a lot of things, not details, or even dead end plots, just aspects of the story that seemed extraneous.

I am fond of fiction set in the 1970s.  In some ways it seems an easy decade for mockery, and yet really any decade, if limited to a bunch of stereotypes, is ripe for easy mockery.  But there’s something about the 70s that lends itself to fun story concepts.  And this promised something similar.

Under the shadow of Watergate, on the Western edge of Cape Cod, a young man grows up.  The narrator’s father feels that Nixon will get through Watergate unharmed.  His father is a chef and restaurateur who, despite his skills, seems to make most of his money by flipping restaurants (to use a recent term…it’s not used in the story).  His specialty is French food, which is convenient since his wife is French, as in actually from France.  We learn a bit about how they met and a lot about her (and I think perhaps this is where there is too much story as she turns out to be a fairly minor character in what I think of as the main plot).
(more…)

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The Brothers Moon & Grounds for Sculpture

Posted in 19th Century, Art, Chakaia Booker, Edouard Manet, Grounds for Sculpture, Keith Haring, Set in New Jersey!, Seward Johnson, Sonic Youth, The Brothers Moon on June 20, 2010| 4 Comments »

I very rarely deviate from my usual topics of books, music and TV.  But today, Father’s Day, the family and I went to a local(ish) restaurant that was so good (and so local(ish)) that I wanted to shout about it.

It’s called The Brothers Moon.  It’s in Hopewell, NJ.  It seems pretty clear that they don’t need the business, as they were pretty hopping today, but it’s pretty far off the beaten path, so I think they can use the publicity.

I had first heard of them when I was looking up local sustainable food places.  While I was searching for a local CSA, I discovered The Brothers Moon because, as their site states, “Support Local, Go Local! The Brothers Moon proudly supports sustainable farming and local businesses.”  Which gets my vote on principle alone. (more…)

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Herman Melville–Moby-Dick [Week 1] (1851)

Posted in 19th Century, Adventure, Big Books, Chowder, Damion Searls, Dazed and Confused, Funny (ha ha), Herman Melville, Infinite Zombies, Led Zeppelin, Mastodon, Religion, Whales on May 24, 2010| 2 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: LED ZEPPELIN-The Song Remains the Same (1978).

I don’t normally try to have my soundtracks correspond to the book. But since Andrew suggested that Mastodon’s Leviathan was a good match, I decided I’d try to have all six Soundtracks relate to the book some how.

The obvious starting point was Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick” and where better to look than at the over-the-top live version contained here.

As a classic rock guy, I grew up worshiping Led Zeppelin.  And I have no way of objectively talking about their music, really.  However, when I was in college, some guys in my dorm played this particular release all the time and claimed it to be the best CD in the history of music.

And thus, I have a delightfully convoluted relationship to this live album.  I used to really dislike it: extended jams of silliness rather than rocking live tracks.  However, as I’ve gotten older, and I’ve begun enjoying jam bands more, I see the enjoyment of this kind of show.  And yet I read a review of this very disc the other day that described it as being a few shows past Led Zep’s prime, and I think that’s pretty valid.

I haven’t heard any of the other recently released live discs (which are supposed to be amazing).  But this one feels overblown and pretentious.  And there’s nothing wrong with that if that’s the kind of band you are, but Led Zep was not that (until later);  they were meaty and heavy.

This version of “Moby Dick” is 12-minutes long.  Over 10 minutes of it is a drum solo.  This always reminds me of the line from Dazed & Confused: “Man, I ain’t belivin’ that shit about Bonham’s 1-hour drum solo…I mean, 1 hour on drums…you couldn’t handle that shit on strong acid, man.”  The rest of the disc is the same way: long solos that don’t really showcase virtuosity, they just sort of go on and on.  I do like the kevboard solo in one of the songs, but the “ah ah” part in “Dazed and Confused” is pretty silly.

In some ways, the song “Moby-Dick” (and the album itself) is like the book: a product of its time.  In 2010 , if you played a ten-minute drum solo (even Rush have added electronic horns and a swing number  to Neil’s drum solo) you’d be mocked.  But back in the 70s, it was a badge or honor.  Similarly, Moby-Dick seems quaint and weird to most contemporary readers.  And yet, put in context, it’s funny and surprisingly forward thinking.  And I suppose the music does make a good background for reading it, too.

[READ: Week of May 24, 2010] Moby-Dick [Chapters 1-18]

So, the instigators at Infinite Zombies are hosting a read along for Moby-Dick (and yes, the hyphen is supposed to be there).  I’m going to be a contributing writer to this shindig, so I’m going to curtail what I say here somewhat [see my post about religion, here]. Also, unlike Infinite Jest and 2666 which had difficult, multi-charactered, multi-layered, confusing plots, Moby-Dick is fairly straightforward.  And so, there’s not a great need for in-depth story summary (not to mention each of the 100+ chapters is titled, so you know what’s going to happen in each one!).

But with that out of the way, let’s see what I can say about this book.  Oh, one more thing, I’ve been trying to include page numbers in my citations, but there are just too many versions of this book (and I am using one for my reading and another for my copy-and-paste-quotes–the whole book is available at that link), so I’m just going with Chapters.

I was joking with some friends recently that their sister thinks Moby-Dick is very funny.  And I have to say I was surprised about how funny it was, too.  Not gut-busting funny, mind you, but funny enough. (more…)

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Roberto Bolaño–2666 [Week 15] The Part About Archimboldi (4 of 4) (2004)

Posted in Big Books, bolanobolano.com, Books about writers, Death, Fürst Pücker, Foreign Books, Fugazi, Infinite Zombies, Language, Natasha Wimmer, Nazis, Punks, Roberto Bolaño, Smarty Pants, Translation, Travel on May 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FUGAZI-Steady Diet of Nothing (1991).

Jangly noisy guitars open the track (and then a lengthy silence after a minute or so).  And this loud/soft dynamic is pretty dramatic on this disc.

There’s a slot of really cool sounds (within the framework of loud noisy alterna-punk).  “Reclamation” opens with some harsh guitar harmonics over a kind of spoken verse, but it bursts into a great chorus.  “Nice New Outfit” is quite catchy (even if lyrically it’s very dark).  But by the middle of the disc, it feels like some of the songs aren’t quite as interesting.

Of course, the instrumental “Steady Diet” is noisy and wonderful.  And “Runaway Return” has a catchy noisiness to it.  But the band comes back to a high point with “Polish” and the thoughtful “Justice Letter” (written about favored  Supreme Court Justice William Brennan who retired in 1990).

This record is a cool departure from the first disc.  To me it’s not quite as immeiate as Repeater, and yet it still has some really powerful songs.  I find that no matter how many times I listen to it there’s a few tracks that never grab me, but overall, this is another great release from Fugazi.

[READ: Week of April 26, 2010]  2666 [pg 831-893]

Wow.

The book is over and I am blown away.  I don’t know if it was the set up, or my utterly lowered expectations or the complete lack of connections previous to this, but I had assumed that this story would end (well, actually exactly as it did, with him going to Mexico) but the 30 pages before the end blew me away.  I can’t get over how nicely he tied so much together and in such an unexpected way.  I could not tear myself away from the end.  Wow.

I’m still not sure how I feel about the whole book.  I’ll do a final thoughts post after I digest, but the ending of the book was immensely satisfying. (more…)

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Stephen Fry in America: Fifty States and the Man Who Set Out to See Them All (2009)

Posted in Cars, Culture Shock, Essays, Fishing, Food, Fugazi, Funny (ha ha), Gangsters, Ghosts, Gods, Greed, History, Humiliation, Late Late Show, LGBTQ, Magic, Minnesota, Nature, Nostalgia, Oddities, Political Humor, Prison, Religion, Set in New Jersey!, South, Stephen Fry, Stephen Fry in America, Summer, Travel, Word usage, Yuck! on April 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: FUGAZI-13 Songs (1990).

I was so blown away by that first Fugazi disc that I immediately ran out and got this collection of their first two EPs.

The strange thing to me is that even though I enjoy the disc, nothing on it really stands out as all that memorable.  I feel like Repeater was such a strong release that these earlier tracks pale somewhat.

I’ve listened to this disc a number of times over the last few days and nothing really stands up and grabs me like Repeater still does.

I wound up buying two more Fugazi discs after this, but I’m pretty sure the reason I stopped buying their music was from this same feeling: the songs were all good, rocking, indie music, but there was nothing terribly memorable about them.

[READ: April 15, 2010] Stephen Fry in America

I first heard about this book when Stephen Fry appeared on The Late Late Show.  This book was very casually plugged as Fry’s attempt to visit every State in the U.S.  It turns out that this book is the companion piece to a six part BBC TV series of the same title (which I have not seen).  Although the TV series makes the existence of this document much more understandable.  Because although everyone wants to travel to every state in the union, the only way it would ever be accomplished in the fashion is for a TV show (even a book wouldn’t get quite this treatment if there were no TV show).

Stephen Fry was almost born in America (in New Jersey, in fact, where he believes he would have been Steve, rather than Stephen).  And he has always felt a connection to the States.  So, Stephen Fry, (in my head the quintessential Brit) brings a film crew and his classic British Big Black Taxi to see all of the States.  He begins in Maine and travels in an interesting manner, zig-zagging across the country.   He tends to visit the places/events/sites that each state is known for.  And, like any good TV show, he participates in the activities (he lobsters, he rides horses, his deals blackjack) and makes a tit of himself. (more…)

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Diane Williams–“Ten Stories” (Harper’s, May 2010)

Posted in Diane Williams, Flash Fiction, Harper's, Holidays, Short Story, Sonic, South, Sweet Tea, The Dead Milkmen, Waffle House on April 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE WAFFLE HOUSE Jukebox, Williamsburg, Va (2010).

My family doesn’t normal eat in chain restaurants.  We’d much rather buy local.  So, even if TGIF is good, we don’t know that.  And we pretty much never eat anywhere that has a drive through.  It’s a silly principle, but we have so few principles, that we can usually stick to it.

The big exception comes when we travel!  Especially to the south.  Because there is nothing as exciting as the Waffle House or the Sonic logo.  (I want to do Hardee’s but the Dead Milkmen have spoilt it for me).  And, mmm, sweet tea!

Anyhow, we were enjoying the awesome Pecan Waffles at a Waffle House in Virginia and the quiet jukebox suddenly shouted Turn It Up!  And proceeded to play some kind of honky tonk song.  We were startled.  But it did add some ambience to the place.

I’ve no idea who the singer was or what song it was, and I’m not about to track it down.  But what started off as a pretty obvious twangy honky tonking song ended up being quiet enjoyable.  The guitars were pretty rocking, there was a wild solo at the end, and then the song was over.

It wasn’t quite as enjoyable as the biscuits and gravy, but it was fine nonetheless.  Although the sweet tea was a little too sweet.

[READ: April 17, 2010] “Ten Stories”

Since I’ve been on vacation, I thought I’d come back with a simple, easy story.  This turned out to be ten stories, all of about 3 pages.  And, even though Williams recently won the Pushcart Prize (for a different story), I really got nothing from this collection at all. (more…)

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Dear Stephen Fry, Re: New Jersey

Posted in Essays, Gambling, History, LGBTQ, Paul Debraski, Salt Water Taffy, Set in New Jersey!, Stephen Fry on April 16, 2010| 4 Comments »

Dear Mr Fry,

I’ve been a fan of your comedy for years. When I saw on The Late Late Show that you had a (relatively) new book called Stephen Fry in America, I was thrilled that you were presumably getting some attention Stateside. I immediately rushed out to get your book.

I have now read all of the first section (New England and the East Coast) and some of the second section (South East and Florida).  And while I intend to write a full post about your book (which is very amusing), I think you owe my great state of New Jersey a big whopping apology.

I admit that in the introduction, you say that we may not enjoy everything you say about a state, or that you probably didn’t visit our town or some other way of saying that we shouldn’t be cross about what you write.  And I was prepared for that.  But, of all the states I’ve read so far, New Jersey is the only one that you had NOTHING good to say about it.  You called it a hell and couldn’t wait to leave.  But worse than that, the only place you talk about in New Jersey is Atlantic City as if that gambling meccas was somehow indicative of the entire state.

Everyone knows that Atlantic City is disgusting and horrifying.  But the reason for it has nothing to with New Jersey itself.  The reason is twofold: gambling and Donald Trump.  And the rest of our fine state has no gambling (aside from the lottery, but who doesn’t) and we aren’t owned by Donald Trump. (more…)

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State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America (2008)

Posted in Alexander Payne, Alison Bechdel, Anthony Bourdain, Anthony Doerr, Big Books, Blue Öyster Cult, Books about writers, Carrie Brownstein, Consumerism, Corporate skewering, Culture Shock, Dagoberto Gilb, Dave Eggers, Death, Demons, Dip-in Books, Dreams, Drinking, Election, Essays, Fishing, Food, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Ghosts, Greed, Heidi Julavits, History, Holidays, Jacki Lyden, Jhumpa Lahiri, John Hodgman, Jonathan Franzen, Joshua Ferris, LGBTQ, Louise Erdrich, Lydia Millet, Marriage (Happy), Marriage Trouble, Minnesota, Myla Goldberg, Natural Disasters, Nature, Newspapers, Nostalgia, NPR/PRI/PBS, Oddities, Racism, Religion, Rick Moody, Rush, S.E. Hinton, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, Sarah Vowell, Set in New Jersey!, Sex, Sleater-Kinney, South, Supernatural, The X Files, Travel, Violence, War, Wayne's World, William T. Vollmann, WPA on March 18, 2010| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BLUE ÖYSTER CULT-compilations and live releases (1978-2010).

For a band that had basically two hits (“Don’t Fear the Reaper” and “Burnin’ for You”) and maybe a half a dozen other songs that people might have heard of, BOC has an astonishing number of “greatest hits” collections.

Starting in 1987 we got Career of Evil: The Metal Years (1987), Don’t Fear the Reaper (1989), On Flame with Rock n’ Roll (1990), Cult Classic (which is actually the band re-recording their old tracks (!)) (1994), and the two cd collection Workshop of the Telescopes (1995).  There’s even Singles Collection, (2005) which is a collection of their European singles & Bsides.

This doesn’t include any of the “budget price” collections: E.T.I. Revisited, Tattoo Vampire, Super Hits, Then and Now, The Essential, Are You Ready To Rock?, Shooting Shark, Best of, and the 2010 release: Playlist: The Very Best of).

The lesson is that you evidently won’t lose money making a BOC collection.

I don’t know that any of these collections are any better than the others.

The 2 CD one is for completists, but for the most part you’re going to get the same basic tracks on all of them.

And, although none of them have “Monsters” for the average person looking for some BOC, any disc is a good one.

Regardless of the number of hits they had, BOC was tremendous live.  And, as a result, there have also been a ton of live records released.  Initially the band (like Rush) released a live album after every three studio albums. On Your Feet or On Your Knees (1975) Some Enchanted Evening (1978) and Extraterrestrial Live (1982) were the “real releases.”

Then, in 1994 we got Live 1976 as both CD and DVD (which spares us nothing, including Eric Bloom’s lengthy harangue about the unfairness of…the speed limit).  It’s the most raw and unpolished on live sets.  2002 saw the release of A Long Day’s Night, a recording of a 2002 concert (also on DVD) which had Eric Bloom, Buck Dharma an Allan Lanier reunited.

They also have a number of might-be real live releases (fans debate the legitimacy of many of these).  Picking a concert disc is tough if only because it depends on the era you like.  ETLive is regarded as the best “real” live disc, although the reissued double disc set of Some Enchanted Evening is hard to pass up.  Likewise, the 2002 recording is a good overview of their career, and includes some of their more recent work.

If you consider live albums best of’s (which many people do) I think it’s far to say that BOC has more best of’s than original discs.  Fascinating.  Many BOC fans believe that if they buy all the best of discs, it will convince Columbia to finally reissue the rest of the original discs (and there are a number of worthy contenders!) in deluxe packages.  I don’t know if it will work, but I applaud the effort.

[READ: October 2009-February 2010] State By State

This is a big book. And, since it’s a collection essays, it’s not really the kind of big book that you read straight through.  It’s a perfect dip in book.  And that’s why it took me so long to get through.

I would love to spend a huge amount of time devoting a post to each essay in the book.  But, well, there’s 51 (including D.C.) and quite a few of them I read so long ago I couldn’t say anything meaningful about.  But I will summarize or at least give a sentence about each essay, because they’re all so different.

I’ll also say that I read the Introduction and Preface last (which may have been a mistake, but whatever).  The Preface reveals that what I took to be a flaw in the book was actually intentional.  But let me back up and set up the book better.

The catalyst for the book is the WPA American Guide Series and sort of Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley.  The WPA Guides were written in the 1930s as part of the Works Progress Administration.  48 guide books were written, one for each state.  Some famous writers wrote the books, but they were ultimately edited (and many say watered down) by a committee.  I haven’t read any of them, but am quite interested in them (and am looking to get the New Jersey one).  Each guide was multiple hundreds of pages (the New Jersey one is over 800).

State By State is written in the spirit of that series, except the whole book is 500 pages (which is about 10 pages per state, give or take).  And, once again, famous writers were asked to contribute (no committee edited this book, though).  I’ve included the entire list of authors at the end of the post, for quick access.

So I started the book with New Jersey, of course.  I didn’t realize who Anthony Bourdain was until I looked him up in the contributor’s list (I’m sure he is thrilled to hear that).  And his contribution was simultaneously exciting and disappointing,.  Exciting because he and I had quite similar upbringings: he grew up in North Jersey (although in the wealitheir county next to mine) and had similar (although, again, more wealthy) experiences. The disappointing thing for me was that Bourdain fled the state  for New York City (and, as I now know, untold wealth and fame (except by me))  I felt that his fleeing the state, while something many people aspire to, is not really representative of the residents of the state as a whole.

And that dissatisfaction is what I thought of as the flaw of the book (until I read the Preface).  In the Preface, Matt Weiland explains that they asked all different authors to write about states.  They asked some natives, they asked some moved-ins, they asked some temporary residents and they asked a couple of people to go to a state for the first time.  In reality, this decision makes for a very diverse and highly entertaining reading.  In my idealized world, I feel like it’s disingenuous to have people who just stop in to give their impression of an area.  But hey, that’s not the kind of book they wanted to compile, and I did enjoy what they gave us, so idealism be damned.

For most of the book, whenever I read an essay by someone who wasn’t a native or a resident of a state, I assumed that there weren’t any famous writers from that state.  I’ve no idea if that played into anything or not.  From what I gather, they had a list of authors, and a list of states (I was delighted to read that three people wanted to write about New Jersey-if the other two writers ever decided to put 1,000 words  to paper, I’d love to read them (hey editors, how about State by State Bonus Features online, including any extra essays that people may have wanted to write).

From New Jersey, I proceeded alphabetically.  And, I have to say that I’m a little glad I did.  I say this because the first few states in the book come across as rather negative and kind of unpleasant.  Alabama (written by George Packer) comes across as downtrodden, like a place you’d really have to love to live there.  Even Alaska, which ended up being a very cool story, felt like a veil of oppression resided over the state (or at  least the part of the state that Paul Greenberg wrote bout.)  But what I liked about this essay and the book in general was that the authors often focused on unexpected or little known aspects of each state.  So the Alaska essay focused on Native fisherman and the salmon industry.  Obviously it doesn’t do justice to the rest of that enormous state,  but that’s not what the book is about.

The book is meant to be a personal account of the author’s experiences in the state. (more…)

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McSweeney’s #33: The San Francisco Panorama (2009)

Posted in Adrian Tomine, Airlines, Alia Malek, Andrew Sean Greer, Art, Art Spiegelman, Big Star, Book Reviews, Books about music, Books about writers, Brent Hoff, Caddyshack, Canadian Music, Cars, Carson Ellis, Children's Books, China Miéville, Chip Kidd, Chris Adrian, Chris Ware, Comic Strips, Constellation Records, Daniel Handler, Dave Eggers, Deb Olin Unferth, Dicky Murphy, Dip-in Books, Do Make Say Think, Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow, Edna O'Brien, Entertainment Weekly, Essays, Flash Fiction, Food, Free Speech, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Geoff Nicholson, George Saunders, Gideon Lewis-Kraus, Greed, Harper's, J. Malcolm Garcia, J.G. Ballard, James Franco, Jessica Abel, Jon Scieszka, Jonathan Safran Foer, Kara Walker, KPOO 89.5--San Francisco, CA, LGBTQ, Mary Williams, Matthew Klam, McSweeney's, Meatballs, Michael Chabon, Miranda July, Mogwai, New Yorker, Newspapers, Nicholson Baker, Prospect, Rachel Maddow, Roddy Doyle, Salman Rushdie, Seth, Seth Fried, Short Story, Sports, Stephen King, The Blues Brothers, The New York Times, The Onion, The Walrus, Tom Bissell, Travel, Universities, Violence, Wajahat Ali, War, Wholphin, William T. Vollmann on January 16, 2010| 8 Comments »

SOUNDTRACK: DO MAKE SAY THINK-Other Truths [CST062] (2009).

I’ve always enjoyed Do Make Say Think’s CDs.  They play instrumentals that are always intriguing and which never get dull.

But this CD far exceeds anything they have done so far (and  they’ve done some great work).   There are only four tracks, and they range from 8 to 12 minutes long.  Each track is named for a word in the band’s name: Do, Make, Say, Think.  And each one is a fully realized mini epic.

“Do” sounds like a gorgeous Mogwai track.  While “Make” has wonderfully diverse elements: a cool percussion midsection and a horn-fueled end section that works perfectly with the maniacal drumming.  “Say” is another Mogwai-like exploration, although it is nicely complemented by horns.  It also ends with a slow jazzy section that works in context but is somewhat unexpected. Finally, “Think” closes the disc with a delightful denouement.  It’s the slowest (and shortest) track, and it shows that even slowing down their instrumentals doesn’t make them dull.

It’s a fantastic record from start to finish.  This is hands down my favorite Constellation release in quite some time.

[READ: December 2009 – January 13, 2010] McSweeney’s #33.

The ever-evolving McSweeney’s has set out to do the unlikely: they printed Issue #33 as a Sunday Newspaper.  It is called The San Francisco Panorama and, indeed, it is just like a huge Sunday newspaper. It has real news in (it is meant to be current as of December 7, 2009).  As well as a Sports section, a magazine section and even comics!

[DIGRESSION] I stopped reading newspapers quite some time ago.  I worked for one in college and have long been aware that the news is just something to fill the space between ads.  I do like newspapers in theory, and certainly hope they don’t all go away but print issues are a dying breed.  When I think about the waste that accompanies a newspaper, I’m horrified.  Sarah and I even did a Sunday New York Times subscription for a while, but there were half a dozen sections that we would simply discard unopened.  And, realistically that’s understandable.  Given how long it took me  to read all of the Panorama, if you actually tried to read the whole Sunday paper, you’d be finished the following Sunday (or even two Sundays later).

Their lofty goal here was to show what print journalism can still do. And with that I concur heartily.  Even if I don’t read the newspaper, the newspapers as entities are worth saving.  Because it is pretty much only print journalism that finds real, honest to God, worthy news stories.  TV news is a joke.  There is virtually nothing of value on network TV.  Fox News is beyond a joke.  CNBC is sad (although Rachel Maddow is awesome!) and even CNN, the originator of all of this 24 hour news nonsense still can’t fill their airtime with non-sensationalized news.

Obviously, there are some decent internet sites, but for the most part they don’t have the budget to support real news investigation.  You either get sensationalized crap like Drudge or rebroadcasts of real news.

So, print is the last bastion of news.  And you can see that in journalistic pieces in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The Walrus, Prospect and, yes, in newspapers.

But enough.  What about THIS newspaper?  Oh and unlike other McSweeney’s reviews I’ve done, there is NO WAY that I am writing a thorough comment on everything in here.  There’s just way too much.  Plus, there are many sections that are just news blurbs.  Larger articles and familiar authors will be addressed, however.  [UPDATE: January 18]: If, however, like Alia Malek below, you bring it to my attention that I’ve left you out (or gotten something wrong!) drop me a line, and I’ll correct things.

There is in fact a Panorama Information Pamphlet which answers a lot of basic questions, like why, how and how often (just this once, they promise!). There’s also a Numbers section which details the size, scope and cost of making this (it shows that with an initial start up, anyone could make a newspaper if they talked enough about what the readers were interested in). (more…)

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