Discord/Harmony

Waffler

2010-03-15T15:49:00.000-07:00

Yeah, screw this. Sorry for those of you who were following this (Hey, mom. Hey, Carl...) but it ain't workin'.

Using Tumbler, I was posting near daily. I forced myself back here for continuity and forwarded my musings to Tumbler, but just logging in and writing and all the little clicks that go into this has brought blogging to a halt. With Tumbler, I can instant blog with a click of my browser and get stuff up in a hurry.

I'm gonna be over at discordharmony.tumbler.com from nows on. If I'm able to, I'll try to export my posts here over to there so it's all nice, neat and combined.

It's just remarkable how quickly I stopped blogging daily when it took a little more effort to do so. Fairwell, Blogger. You've been good to me.

Recently Watched: District 9

2010-03-05T09:59:00.001-08:00

I went for polar opposites this week. Following Treeless Mountain, I decided to go for something a little more fictional, a little more sci-fi.

Actually, the two films share a common documentary shooting style. In the case of Treeless Mountain, it comes in the form of viewing scenes straight out without a common narrative line. The narrative line in District 9 is very clear, but they highlight it with a Greek chorus of news reels, fictionalized documentary footage and interviews with experts on the alien refugee camp in Johannesburg.

The opening sequence, spliced together with interviews and docu-style footage, is nothing short of remarkable. It's a great introduction to the story and gets you emotionally involved in the same way you would as if this were being presented as a current world-wide concern.

The special effects are impressive given the relatively low budget. And I'm still not sure if the aliens we saw were purely CGI or a combination involving intricate puppets. Whatever the method, they're impressive looking and avoid the cartoonish feel of most sci-fi aliens.

The films weakness comes in the final act, when the documentary method is cast aside for sci-fi action drama. I'm not sure what Director Neill Blomkamp could have done differently here though. I don't begrudge the need for an action climax, but once chaos ensues, Blomkamp starts relying on sci-fi staples and even a few cliches.

Giant mecha-machine for our protagonist to ride a la Aliens? You bet. Weapons that vaporize the Blackwater-style troops into a slop of blood and gore? Sure. And your primary antagonists will of course die in some karmic fashion that punishes them ironically for their mistreatment of the alien refugees.

But that's forgivable compared to the campy depiction of Nigerian criminals who want to eat the aliens in order to gain their ability to use biological weapons. The scene in which a Nigerian witch doctor prepares the protagonist to be killed and eaten was nothing short of offensive.

These latter aspects will keep District 9 as merely an Oscar nominee this Sunday, I suspect. But don't let me detract anyone from watching this movie. The good so far outweighs the bad that I sad even mentioning it.

Recently Watched: Treeless Mountain

2010-03-03T12:37:00.000-08:00

So Yong Kim's 2008 film "Treeless Mountain" plays out as much like a non-narrated documentary as it does a fictional film. It's a pretty common tactic for art-house style films, allowing life to play out as life does, but it's not my favorite story-telling method.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I like my stories to tell pretty clear stories. It might be due to the excessive amount of fantasy and science fiction I read, which tends to favor a tale with clear peaks and valleys of drama, action and exposition.

However, when the topic is interesting enough to me, I can really love the telling. Kim's photography combined with some pretty brilliant performances from the film's young protagonists didn't make the 90 minutes go fast, per se, but each minute was still very compelling.

Even though it's not my favorite style, films like this work really well with stories about children. They have no idea what's going on and why, just like the viewer. So even though we never find out why Jin and Bin have been abandoned to their relatives, it works because Jin and Bin don't either.

It's almost like Kim made a rule when filming that states, "If the kids don't know, the camera doesn't know." Why is their aunt somewhat warm and caring one moment only to dive into alcoholism and neglect the next? Why are their grandparents initially angry at their arrival but finally become the first sign of hope and warmth for Jin and Bin?

These questions are never answered in the traditional narrative sense. The grandmother doesn't suddenly set aside her agricultural duties to explain some tear-jerker of a sob story to the kids. It leaves the viewer to understand the real story, which is this: How do two small children survive and cope given no information and no explanation for why they're suddenly orphaned with no idea where there mother is or when she'll return?

Initially, they're forced to obsess over their piggie bank. Once filled, their mother said, she'd be back. Watching the pair sit at their street corner with a full piggie bank watching angrily as bus after bus drives by without dropping off their mother is heart breaking. But at their grandmother's house, they're suddenly participating in a busy farmstead, working and contributing to their work. With their idle hands suddenly busy, and the pair now in control of at least some of their life and destiny, Jin and Bin suddenly come alive again, shown running through the fields singing a Korean children's song as they hike across the fields.

Don't think I'm spoiling anything with this movie. It's not that kind of story. There are no great revelations that should be hidden, and no scene plays out like a surprise. When the kids hike off to the bus stop to wait for their mother, the viewer already knows what's going to happen.

I think on the whole, the film is really about two small kids coping with the reality that surrounds them, and the director adeptly shows two sides of the story: one a failure, the other a success.

Only downside: I can't remember who the heck told me to watch this movie. Was it you?

The Compromise

2010-03-01T13:52:00.000-08:00

I've been bouncing inexplicably between Blogger and Tumbler for some time now, frustrated by the advantages and disadvantages of both.

I have history with blogger, and more than four years of back posts writing first as religious commentator, then as community radio volunteer DJ, then as Andrew Bird superfan and now as a random place to drop things that interest me and photos I've taken.

I switched to Tumbler because its microblogging fascinated me and it was easier to follow Chris' blog from there. Plus I follow Hipster Puppies, which is amazing.

But it still lacked some diversity, such as the ability to leave comments and the ability to interact with people who are not members of Blogger. The compromise? I just found a way to import all my blogger crap over to Tumblr. Best of both worlds.

That said, consider this my personal plea to Blogger to create a link allowing me to put up quick mini posts like Tumblr does. Getting to click "Share on Tumblr" to make a blog post is entirely fantastic and keeps me updating things more often.

But now, I don't have to ask anyone to change their pattern or adapt to my latest social networking whims. Stay tuned here for future posting.

Vacancy?

2010-02-08T14:42:00.000-08:00

I've been blogging over at Tumblr these days. To see what's been up lately in the world of discords and harmonies, visit:

discordharmony.tumblr.com

Dark Crystal Redux

2009-09-30T17:24:00.000-07:00

So, this is really dumb. But I'm a sucker for gelfling humor.

Your Mom

2009-09-25T17:15:00.000-07:00

Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) resorted to schoolyard tactics this week on the Senate floor when debating health care.

In reality Stabenow's "your mom" statement was accidental, but even Salon was unable to resist a few chortles over this one. I certainly stood up and read it to my coworkers, and then examined the text again to see how Stabenow could have thrown "your face" in there somewhere too.

I admit I can't resist a good mom joke, or a "that's what she said," "so's your face" or my current favorite, "in my pants." Especially when it's spoken accidentally like the politicians above, or merely imagined.

But with Salon.com blogging, albeit amusingly, about mom jokes, it seems that They Might Be Giants may have been right to include things like "that's what she said" among their list of phrases that need be retired, which also included "phone tag," "my bad" and "(fill in the blank) on crack/steroids/acid."

My wife isn't here, but I already hear her saying "Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it," when I declare that perhaps it's time for me to find a new outlet for absurd amusement. We've enjoyed the childish jokes for the last decade (or more), but we may have reached a level of excess.

Already I've worked "phone tag" and "on crack" out of my vocabulary, as evidenced by numerous phone messages I've left at to sources at work stumbling over myself as I say "Oh, hey, um, I guess we keep missing each other" just to avoid saying "phone tag" one more time. Why not drop the frequency of "your mom" and "that's what she said?"

The timing is ripe with the Onion's recent declaration that Western civilization would actually reach rock bottom at 3:30 p.m. today. Did you feel that strange urge to go rent the Jonas Brothers 3-D concert DVD just a bit ago? That was it.

As encouragement, I'm remembering the first time I threw a "your mom" joke to someone. Anyone that knows me can't really imagine me having any malice toward the recipient of a mom joke or the mom in reference. I've stated since my teenage years (have these jokes been going on that long?) that a good "your mom" line is purely in the abstract. But the good people of Oklahoma don't deal in abstract. These are folk who really are offended at the suggestion that the women who bore them for nine months would ever wear army boots.

My comment was not only innocent, it was stolen from Calvin and Hobbes. I said it only to get chuckles from the people around me whom I had hoped never heard the line before. I did this a lot at 12, and even threw out one-liners I didn't understand. Picture my skinny-ass self in Oklahoma stumbling over my words saying, "That shirt's very becoming on you, if I was... wait... that shirt's... hold on.... how does it go?"

To the boy sitting behind me at a Boy Scout meeting I suggested that his mother was so repulsed by his face that she sequestered the assistance of a grocery bag to kiss him goodnight. He yanked the chair out from under me. I learned several things soon after making the comment:

Clipping your head on the seat of a chair and than having it drop to a linoleum floor hurts. A lot.
This boy's mother was dead. I swear I did not know this. Even outside of a state where "your mom" jokes are considered the worst insult, this would garner a negative reaction. I can't remember the boy's name now, but if you're out there reading this harboring any resentment, understand that when I remember this moment today I still feel really guilty. I also have it on good authority that your mother was a saint.
The kid with the physical injury always gets the attention, even if he did just poke fun at someone else's dead mother. The sympathy did not make me feel better about the situation.

I'll take this story with me as I try to come up with cleverer, wittier and less childish come-backs and one-liners in the coming weeks. I can assume that each time I insult someone's mother, they may as well pull the chair from under me and leave a lump the size of an egg on the back of my head.

It may involve some failures, some duds, but it'll not only enhance my own character but I consider it my duty to help bring Western Civilization back up after the Onion's cruel assessment.

(eds. note: tee hee! I said "doody!")

My Opus

2009-08-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

Megan and friends Katie and Josh all celebrated birthdays in the last month (and a half). And we have pictures to prove it.

But most importantly, take a gander at my baking opus — the Pac-Man cake!

It features a Katie Pac-Man, a Josh Pac-Man, and two extra lives (which I named Toby and Finn).

And if you want to see it at an angle like you would playing it tabletop at Mazzio's Pizza when you were a youngin', check this angle out:

Pita Bread

2009-05-26T10:21:00.001-07:00

I made pita this weekend. It's one of the easiest and fun recipes I have, plus it's 100 % whole wheat! Seriously! Check our ingredient list: whole wheat, water, flour, yeast, salt.

Bread the way bread was meant to be. I modified the steps a little bit from our Laurel's Bread Book recipe. Rather than dive into mixing and kneading, I started a proof the night before and got the yeast started. I also mixed the dough and relaxed it a bit before I started kneading. Just a few tips I stole from Alton Brown and Rose Levy Beranbaum.

For baking, it's so fun. I just roll the dough flat (as thick as a whole blanket, so says Laurel) and bake them about three at a time for three minutes. And they just puff like balloons.

We filled the pita with tabouleh and made copious "om nom nom" sounds while we stuffed ourselves. Benjamin Franklin said these things are great riches: "a little house well filled, a little land well tilled and a little wife well willed." In my experience, you're better off filling the wife, like so:

The Quilt, Part 9 (DONE!)

2009-05-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

It started with these:

And now it's this:

It's actually been done for a solid month now, but I'm slow on updating these days.

Yes, the mighty quilt is done after nearly two years of conception, design and construction (and about a year and a half of posting about it here). It was almost a non-event when I did complete it/ The partially-complete quilt had been lying around the house so long that we were using it when watching TV already, even though there were frays of batting, denim and cotton sticking out on all sides.

But now I've sealed it all off and can enjoy it all the time.

Now, I worried for a while that the quilt took entirely too long to complete. BUT, it's worth noting that Megan and I as a pair have completed at least six quilts in that same period of time. There may have been more, but I participated or led the process on six of them, including the one hiding under this cutie-patootie:

And the one warming this other cutie-patootie:

My personal quilt benefited greatly from my efforts to make a quilt for Megan this Christmas. Doing the project surreptitiously by myself forced me to learn a number of steps that really helped on the final steps of this newest one. I'll add a full-frame, proper picture of the new quilt later when I get home again.

And we're moving on to other baby quilts (darn people having babies!) and a couple for ourselves too. We're getting attached to having nice, home-made quilts around the house. And we're making a pact to through out one old, ratty blanket for every quilt we make for ourselves. It'll be a slow process, but eventually we'll have nothing but hand-crafted goodness around for our warmth.

Tulips 2009

2009-04-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

We're not making any trips to Germany this year. First off, Hotel Burkjabbusch (or was it Jabbkhalter?) has since closed its doors. Second, we, like the rest of the country, aren't exactly feeling flush.

So we have to take in the local sites. And did we ever this weekend at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, where we saw tulips, tulips and, you guessed it, tulips.

We looked over the display gardens at Roozengaarde (which I am sad to say is not owned and operated by Tolkein-esque elves), where they feature the blossoms they hope to sell you in bulb form. We were particularly excited by a pink variety called "Ninja" which we can only assume emits a poisonous gas whenever your guard is down. Toby was unconvinced by my insistence that there are in fact carnivorous tulips large enough to eat small children.

Now everyone going to the tulip festival delights at finding that stray yellow blossom amongst the red field, but we're no holly-go-lightly tulip tip-toers (say that 10 times fast!) We are much bigger fans now of the mutant variety. Red and yellow within the same blossom. Toby was particularly excited by this and insisted on having his photo taken with each one he found.

This was the first outing to the tulips for the whole Porch family, including newest and smallest Porch, Phinneas (who, as Katie says, likes to dance with the Minnie-as, drinks milk not Guinn-eas, and, if you're foolish enough to laugh at him, he'll kick you in the shin-eas). Finn (for short) was not as into the tulips as the rest of us. Every time he was unstrapped from his comfy harness he fussed, kicked and whined. Leave him in peace with his pilot cap.

Lots of photos to be found over at Picasa. There will likely be more next week as it sounds like we're tippy-toeing through said tulips one more time next weekend.

Music in 2009

2009-01-05T11:15:00.000-08:00

Normally I like to make some sort of top 5 or 10 list of the previous year before I look to the next. But such a list would look alarmingly sparse. That's mainly because I've been out of the loop musically. Looking at Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums made me feel really out of touch. I hadn't heard of many of those listed, and the albums/bands I had heard of I hadn't actually heard. The bulk of my most recent eMusic downloads were me catching up on last year's music, and even some older than that.

I partly blame this on my favorite musicians. They didn't crank out any albums this year, which prevented me from going to the record store or Pitchfork etc., which in turn prevented me from being exposed to new music. So I end 2008 knowing that I really liked Duffy's "Rockferry" and was delighted by R.E.M. comeback of an album, "Accelerate," but I can offer little else.

But this year will be different, because in the coming 12 months we can expect new albums by Andrew Bird, Lily Allen, Regina Spektor, N.A.S.A., Madlib, Public Enemy, Animal Collective, Robyn Hitchcock, Antony and the Johnsons, Bell Orchestre, Neko Case, Mirah, The Decemberists, aaaaand (oh sweet cuppin' cakes I might actually pee my pants!) the recently reunited Anti Pop Consortium. Oh bliss!

Since I can't detail each and every detail of each and every performer listed here, I thought I could make myself a little top 5 list... as in the top five albums I'm excited about for this coming year.

5. Mirah - (a)spera
Mirah cranked out one okay album, then a better album with one amazing, stand out track. "Cold, Cold Water" took a well-written song and excelled it into greatness with a Spaghetti Western theme. I listened to this track over, and over, and over again on the biggest speakers I could find. On her last album, C'mon Miracle she took every sonic lesson she learned from that song and stretched it over an album. It was a career plateau that showed her song-writing and production deserved each other and benefited in the long run. All that leaves me super excited for where she goes next. Come March we'll know.

4. Regina Spektor - unknown
The singles that led Spektor's last album into popularity were deceiving. Entirely accessible and amazingly catchy, "Fidelity" and "On The Radio" convinced the listener that here was a songwriter not unlike Feist, but unable to produce a full album of similarly winsome tracks.
Both songs sound fantastic, but give you the worry that they are as good as the album gets. I was very wrong on this presumption. Every track on the album was my favorite at some point. The first tracks I heard don't get old, and each other track slowly grows on the listener as you become tuned in to each intricate change in timbre and dynamics. I'm looking for more of the same on whatever she gives us on 2009's rumored release.

3. N.A.S.A. - The Spirit of Apollo
This is the only band on my list that's entirely new to me, but they have teased the world of bloggers and music journalists for well over a year now. Hip-hop producers Squeak E. Clean (a.k.a. Spike Jonze's brother) and DJ Zegon make up N.A.S.A. (aka "North America/South America"). But the guest list on their forthcoming album is what first grabbed my attention: Kanye West, Chali 2na, George Clinton, M.I.A., various members of the Wu Tang Clan, Tom Waits, David Byrne, Gift of Gab... the list goes on, and on, and on. What samples we've heard sound fantastic. Sure to be one of my favorite hip-hop releases of the year.

2. Andrew Bird - Noble Beast/Useless Creatures
I pre-ordered the album 52 days before its Jan. 20th release. I got the deluxe edition which includes a second album of instrumental works called Useless Creatures. I am ready for some serious Andrew Bird this January.
What makes this album special (besides being by Andrew Bird, *swoon!*) is that he returns to producer Mark Nevers. Nevers' style is amazing, and he helped shape Andrew Bird's sound into what it is today with the seminal Weather Systems, an undisputed turning point in Bird's musical career. Nevers is also the producer for the entirely beautiful Is A Woman by Lambchop. There is absolutely nothing to not be excited about here.

1. Anti-Pop Consortium - Fluorescent Black
APC's breakup was disappointing even with the massive number of side projects and solo releases that followed. Airborn Audio, featuring APC emcees M. Sayyid and High Priest, was certainly welcome, but without Earl Blaze's fractured beats, the whole release just seemed disappointing. I would have preferred hearing the album as an entirely new group I've never heard of. On the tails of APC's pre-breakup release Arrhythmia it just paled. Pitchfork's review of the album summed it up best when it said, "Can I get a 'Silver Heat', please? How about a 'MEGA/MEGA/MEGAAAAAA!!!!'? No?" Sadly, no.
But with APC back together, and an album in the works, I hope we're able to pickup right where we left off.

Not listed directly on my top 5, but worth noting, Lily Allen, Animal Collective, Antony and the Johnsons and Bell Orchetre will be releasing music this year as well. And as happens every year, Chali 2na will promise us an album and some publisher will promise to release a new book by J. D. Salinger. Neither of these things will occur.

For some good summation of 2008, visit MetaCritic's compilation of top 10s. Our peeps in Germany also summed up their favorite soul music of yesteryear that they heard this year. And Pitchfork has a pretty complete list of new music coming out this year.

The Anatomy of the Modern Christmas Song

2008-12-21T12:59:00.000-08:00

Every year Megan and I make a Christmas mix, and over the years I've started to pick up some patterns. I've come to the conclusion that while I like Christmas songs on the whole (especially those booty-shakers by Sufjan Stevens), that the genre has really not developed at all since 1963 when Phil Spector released "A Christmas Gift For You" featuring Darlene Love, The Ronettes, bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans and The Crystals.

They might be playing old classics, or they might be writing new songs, but they all follow a pretty limited range of topics and styles.

For easy dissection of your Christmas music listening this year, I've broken them down into categories. There might be an mp3 example of these tracks listed below, I can't confirm that though...

Kiddie Songs
Let's just get this one out of the way. These take up the bulk of Christmas music out there, and I'm not actually talking about songs FOR kids, but songs about the childhood experience of Christmas performed by otherwise mature adults (Phil Spector being the exception, maturity-wise).
These are required on each and every Christmas album, and make up the bulk of the most irritating Christmas songs in the world. "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," or "Santa Clause Is Coming to Town," or "Frosty The Snowman."
Though irritating, there are some great exceptions. Any of the above can be sung by The Ronettes without complaint from me. The Beach Boys have a nice song called "Santa's Beard" about the singer's little brother yanking the beard off a mall santa.
But this year I'd like to highlight Jack Johnson for turning a twist on "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer."
I love what Johnson does with this track, because the original assumes that all outcasts really want is to be accepted, even if they're accepted by the jerks that rejected them in the first place. Not Johnson's Rudolph.

Jack Johnson - Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

I'm Coming Home Songs
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll be home for Christmas. We get it. We've done it.
I don't even want to spend to much time on this category, because it's become so trite and cliched that I want to snap Bing Crosby's neck.
It's an overdone standard, whether it's by Crosby, Elvis, or whoever... The Squirrel Nut Zippers have an okay song called "I'm Coming Home for Christmas," but by and large this category of Christmas song is merely the scourge of mall music.
But this year I found a FAN-FRICKIN'-TASTIC track off a Christmas compilation called "This Warm December," a Brushfire Records mix.
Money Mark makes a great Christmas-themed song without any mention of Christmas. the only connection to the holiday is its inclusion on the album, but it fits the season thematically without making you want to pull your hair out. (Please don't. Bald isn't your look)

Money Mark - Stuck at the Airport

Dear Santa, I've got a gun to my head and I'll do it if you don't bring her back
I love this category. I'm not mean, or disturbed. I just like that it recognizes that for some people, or most people at some point, Christmas really isn't that fun.
If you're single, or living away from family, there's really nothing more depressing than being alone.
One classic is "Good Morning Blues," which gets props first for not having a Christmas theme in the title. It also gets props for really being a straight up blues song. There's no resolution, and when Ella Fitzgerald sings it (my favorite version) you know she's going to be unhappy this Christmas.
The Beach Boys turn their own category of song (the oh-I've-been-unfaithful-but-please-take-me-back) and garnishes it in red and green with their own "Merry Christmas, Baby."
This year The Raveonettes turned out a great track called "Come On Santa" that was less about bringing a loved one back, but just asking Santa to make the singer happy again.
But for this category, look no further than the Phil Spector-penned, Darlene Love-performed "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)."
Someday I'll sit down and make a top 10 Christmas tracks, and this will be high on the list for sure.

Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

Songs about, y'know, Jesus
This category is intentionally a few categories down on the list. Not because I've got any problem with babies or mangers. It's just representative of where this category really ranks in the world of Christmas music.
Take Phil Spector's album (not sure if you knew this, but I like that album): Track three we get a single mention of St. Mary, and the first acknowledgment that there's actually any religious significance to the holiday. That's the last mention of anything biblical until the last track, "Silent Night."
This is a good rule of thumb for Christmas albums: Stick with Santa and snow. Leave Jesus to the churches.
You can usually get away with one or two traditional carols on a Christmas album (that's what "Silent Night" is there for, but only at the end of the album), but four is pushing it.
This is because, really, no one wants to hear Ella Fitzgerald sing "The First Noel." Skip to "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve" please.
The exception to this is musicians able to straddle their own artistry with religious sincerity. I am of course talking about Sufjan Stevens.
In his five (yes, FIVE) Christmas EPs, Stevens successfully sings about The Big J without making me wanting to hurl.
My favorite might be "I Saw Three Ships" which starts with a nice, steady folk rhythm, and breaks into a fantastic stomp at verse two as he sings "The Virgin Mary and Christ were there, on Christmas Day on Christmas Day."

Sufjan Stevens - I Saw Three Ships

I also want to give props to Feist this year (LOVE that girl) for a beautiful version of "Lo How A Rose Ere Blooming."

Feist - Lo How A Rose Ere Blooming

Hey it's Christmas, wanna hook up?
Unfortunately this category is ruled these days by Mariah Carey, with her now-ubiquitous "All I Want For Christmas Is You."
I've got to give the star of "Glitter" a little credit here. I assumed this song came along before her time, but it's really her own track, and garnered enough attention to make her album the top-selling Christmas album of all time. Seriously. Look on your mom's CD shelf. She's got this CD.
That doesn't mean I don't snap every time I hear it (yeah, yeah, it's in "Love Actually" but by the time the song comes along you've had enough cheese that it doesn't really bug.)
But there's still some great tracks in this category. We've got Ella Fitzgerald's "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve" or Julie London's sultry "I'd Like You For Christmas."
But I've gotta hand it to Carla Thomas for mastering this kind of Christmas song with "Gee Whiz, It's Christmas."
The song instantly captures holiday charm and teenage innocence as Thomas asks some guy to a Christmas party. The holiday theme is secondary here. The track is great because Thomas is absolutely precious as she sings "(And by the way), it's snowing."

Carla Thomas - Gee Whiz, It's Christmas

It's Christmas! Can't we get along?
See "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" and a smattering of other original tracks for this one. There's not too many classics here, mostly musicians decide to pen one single song for their album and make it about the so-called true meaning of Christmas. I believe 90 percent of these songs are flops.
The genre rarely works, in my opinion. Even "So This Is Christmas" comes off a little pointless considering it was recorded in 1971, and 37 years later we're in conflict in two different locations overseas.
The exception: The Ramones. There's really nothing to hate about "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight With You)."
It's the song that rings in my head whenever our Burkhalter clan slips midday into a minor tiff over some fairly pointless slight.

The Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight With You)

It's a swingin' Christmas
This is the one category that doesn't require lyrics, but often they're related.
This is basically songs that either evoke through sound or lyrics some yuletide booty shaking.
We can thank Brenda Lee's "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree" or Bobby Helms' "Jingle Bell Rock" for the category's popularity, but this genre reaches back into jazz and blues.
Song's like Louis Armstrong's "Cool Yule" or Louis Prima's "What Will Santa Claus Say (When He Finds Everybody Swinging)" really make this category great.
Props go out this year to The Puppini Sisters for making a fantastic version of "Jingle Bells" with this theme. The track opens with the creak of a front door and off-key chorus of carolers singing "Jingle Bells." Door slams, sound of a record scratching into play and they jump in with some Gene Krupa-style drumming before the Andrews Sisters-influenced trio jump into a great version of an otherwise overdone classic.
But I'm giving this category to Leadbelly, for "Christmas Is A-Comin'."

Leadbelly - Christmas Is A-Comin'

I hate, I repeat, HATE Christmas!
This is a category that cannot be ignored, because it's got some of the best Christmas songs out there.
For me, the category begins in the 1960s with single by punk-precursors The Sonics called "I Don't Believe In Santa Claus."
Every Christmas album should (they don't, but SHOULD) include a "Christmas Sucks" song.
I hate to rave on too much about Sufjan Stevens, but he's got this category cornered. How can you top titles like "Get Behind Me, Santa" and "Did I Make You Cry On Christmas Day (Well, You Deserved It!)."
My favorite though, and warning this is a damned depressing song, is "That Was The Worst Christmas Ever."

Sufjan Stevens - That Was The Worst Christmas Ever

I'm sure there's a few songs that don't fit into these categories, but they're few and far between (and probably by Run D.M.C.)

Enjoy these tracks and if you're in the northwest have a safe Christmas!

Worst. News. EVER!

2008-12-18T16:09:00.001-08:00

I'm not talking about the poor state of our economy. Or the two feet of snow that dropped on Mount Vernon last night. I am of course speaking of the recently exposed news about Jodie Sweetin (a.k.a. Stephanie Tanner of Full House) who has recently fallen back into her past addictions.

Whether it's the alcohol she claims or the methamphetamine her husband (soon to be ex?) claims, I'm hurt. Just six months ago I was happily curled up at home reading my copy of people with the headline "Jodie Sweetin: From Meth Addict To Mom."

What's the headline now Jodie? "Jodie Sweetin: From Meth Addict To Mom To Meth Addict Again"???

What would Danny Tanner say? What would Uncle Jesse say? And what, I ask you, WHAT would Mr. Bear say to this?

This really tops that time you drove Joey's red convertible into the kitchen.

There's really only one thing I can say to the grief I'm feeling with this sad state of affairs:

How rude!

"Listening to" update

2008-12-13T08:55:00.000-08:00

Oh SNAP! Is he actually updating his "Listening To" section less than six months after the last update? Well, I've been consuming a lot of music lately, plus Photobucket yanked an image I had posted over there from my last update. Turns out the cover of this album by Lambchop violates the site's policies. I was fully aware the figures on the album were in fact nude, but for some reason it being a painting it never struck me as something inappropriate. But that's just me.

Let's get to it. As usual, header links lead to a sampling of some sort (usually a music video on YouTube) where you can legally enjoy the music.

Fiona Apple - Tidal
Okay, yeah this album is like, 12 years old now. But earlier this week I was once again enjoying all the glory that is Pandora. For those not familiar, you can select an artist (like, say, Regina Spektor in this case) and the site starts streaming full tracks of that artist and similar artists. You give each the thumbs-up or -down and it makes changes based on your preferences.

Ol' Fiona popped up on my now-saved Regina station. Nostalgia central kicked in, and I suddenly needed Tidal again, just cuz I lost it when I got rid of my cassette tapes. To me, the album stands the test of time. I'll admit the "The First Taste" sounds a little canned still, but tracks like "Sleep To Dream" (linked video above), "Shadowboxer" and "Criminal" are still really great.

I'll spare you the long-told "Your Mom" joke us young-uns used to make based on "Criminal." You're better off without it.

Final Fantasy - Plays to Please
I couldn't find a proper sample of the new album, so you're just going to have to take my word for it. The sample I did find is far and away the reason I adore Owen Pallett's ridiculously named musical project. (seriously, if you haven't heard me say this before, I hate the name "Final Fantasy")

But teasing aside (I've teased poor Pallett enough already), I am honestly a little mixed about this album. It's not as instantly appealing as the minimal but still poppy debut Has A Good Home and the entirely winsome, lush (yet also ridiculously titled) He Poos Clouds.

As this one opens up, I wonder if Pallett is trying to record for a musical about an all-women's prison.

It's lush, much like Poos, but the full orchestra, occasional ragtime rhythms and discordant upbeatness all just leave me feeling a little gummy. But that's just one single listen in. I intend to give it a few more spins before casting too harsh a judgment.

Adele - 19
What is it about soul singers hailing from the British Isles? But I've once again added Adele to the growing list (see Amy Winhouse, Duffy and, well, just look at Alice Russel below) of those British singers who have more in common with Aretha Franklin than they do Queen Elizabeth.

Adele is probably the most subdued in the "soul"-ness of it all. The singing style is their, but her compositions are often a little folkier, take the opening track "Daydreamer."

Alice Russell - Pot of Gold
What is it about soul singers hailing from the British Isles? Whoa. Weird sense of de ja vu.

Actually this might be one of my favorite albums of the year so far. Take the beautiful, steady and sultry track listed above. Can't help but love it.

But what sucked me in - a fantastic cover of Gnarls Barkley's now-legendary "Crazy." Maybe I overstate that song a bit, but I've been amazed by the number of times I've heard this track covered, and it's only three or four years old. Russell's version is great - slow, smooth and restrained.

Stars - Set Yourself on Fire
So yeah, they've had a new album come out since this one was released, but I'm a little slow on the uptake these days.

I nabbed a few tracks off eMusic a long long while ago, and never got around to listening to them. Then an odd appearance of "Your Ex-Love Is Dead" on Degrassi: The Next Generation reminded me I really wanted to go check them out. It probably helped that they played the track when Darcy broke up with that jerk-head Spinner (again) for sleeping with some girl thus breaking his vow of abstinence (again).

I think I like Stars because they remind me a little bit of The Rentals, a short-lived but once again reunited spin-off of Weezer and that dog (happy, Chris?) that brought us the flash-pan hit Friends of P.

Really, I was destined to like the Stars. Let's review: Played in Degrassi, reminds me of bands featuring Petra Haden, orchestral backing. What, I ask you, is not to love.

The Gospel According To "What Not To Wear"

2008-12-06T03:55:00.000-08:00

I left a comment related to this post on Brett's blog and realized I wanted to write more about it. So here goes:

Megan and I are living in different places during the week while she finishes one more year at her high school and I have my first year (and hopefully more *fingers crossed*) at the Skagit Valley Herald.

On the weekends I drive down to be with Megan in Renton, I already know what we'll be doing for the evening: Back-to-back episodes of "What Not To Wear."

It might well be the only TLC show we both enjoy. TLC typically incites a rage within me that often takes people off guard. I'm not against home decoration. I am against painting someone's living room black with black trimming just because you want to do something funky. (I'm lookin' at you, "Trading Spaces.")

But "What Not To Wear" strikes a much different chord with me, because it's helping people present themselves to the world in a better way, and connects the participants with a spiritual or psychological part of themselves they've been neglecting.

Allow me to explain: Last night they grabbed a woman who works in criminal justice who pretty much wears running pants, a t-shirt and a hat all of the time. To work, at home, to a museum. Always. But when they showed up she immediately broke into tears and started talking about how she wears the clothes to hide herself.

Maybe it sounds a little trite, but her story is similar to everyone else that appears on the show. Ultimately what they end up wearing magnifies on part of their personality (in this woman's case her mousiness) and hides another authentic part of their selves.

While going through some basic fashion tips, learning how to dress and so forth, it really does take the participant on an almost spiritual journey into how they present themselves and what their clothes communicates.

I'm no fashionista (though I am often jealous of Trent's stylin' duds) but I love seeing people take that important spiritual step of caring for their selves and treating their selves as worth caring for them.

Because to me spiritual health begins with the self. It's great to head out in the world and do great work, help the helpless yadda yadda yadda... but it doesn't really work if you haven't taken care of yourself first.

I hope I don't sound preachy. It's only because I went down that road, majoring in psychology to go out in the world and make everyone happy, only to realize I was miserable and couldn't do it. I think it's why I get such an emotional reaction to the most emotional people on the show.

I don't have a snappy wrap-up to this post. I just like that show.

"Listening To" update

2008-11-18T22:28:00.000-08:00

Take a look to the right and I think you'll notice a fully updated "Listening To" section to properly reflect what's been spinning (hard drives, much like records do spin) on my iPod lately. No wasting time on introductions, let's get in to it. Link headers lead to a legal sampling of the music. Enjoy!

Beach House - Beach House
This album has been sitting on my list since Pitchfork praised it a couple years ago. finally having few other ideas as to what to download from eMusic this month I gave it a whirl. The music is synth-focused, droning and ethereal.
I'm not sure if I like it for attentive listening as much as I do for sitting down to read a book or a newspaper while I've got it going in the background.
Note on the video: 2 minutes and 40 seconds in the dude in the band is seen playing a guitar with a long mop of hair and wide-rimmed glasses and looks uncannily similar to my dad when I was much, much younger. Like 1-year-old young.
I wish I had something more significant to say here, but I'm still digesting this one.

Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 - Olé! Tarantula
I've got a theory going about Robyn Hitchcock albums. Much like the best Star Trek films are odd-numbered (or was it even?), the best Robyn Hitchcock albums have green covers. I'm sure there'll be some disagreement among die-hards, but lemme list my favorites: Moss Elixer, I Often Dream of Trains, Queen Elvis and the ever-brilliant psych-folk gem that is Eye. All with a green hue (note that some of the albums are far more green when seen in person compared to these shoddy jpegs.)
Olé I'm happy to say doesn't disappoint, and might well be one of Hitchcock's greatest albums released with a formal band. No disrespect to The Egyptians, but this psych-rock album jangles in ways that few of his other band-backed albums have. Kudos to the Venus 3!

Sera Cahoone - Sera Cahoone
It's autumn, and to me the season is best appreciated with the soft strum of an acoustic guitar and the ethereal cry of a slide guitar. That's where Sera Cahoone comes in, with her music being equal parts Cat Power, Neko Case ("Furnace Room Lullaby" era) and Patsy Cline.
This might be my favorite album from this batch here, and I'm glad I finally nabbed it after Chris recommended it sometime before he moved to Germany. It's been a while, but it stayed on my "Download" list the entire time.

Andrew Bird - Live in Montreal
Little need be said. My man Bird, backed by percussionist/looper extraordinaire Martin Dosh and bassist Jeremy Ylvisaker. Two non-album tracks to whet my appetite for the forthcoming "Noble Beast" in January!!!!

Lambchop - OH (Ohio)
Autumn also deserves the mellow piano-guitar combination brought via Kurt Wagner's expansive troupe of Tennessians. I'm amazed that a band this size (Wikipedia lists 13) can produce such quiet and controlled sounds. But it's due to the band being first and foremost Kurt Wagner and his guitar. I've loved this alleged alt-country band ever since they went lounge on their album Is A Woman in 2002. That was by far their sparsest (and best) album to date. But since then they've fleshed out the background sound but without sacrificing the mellow tone and steady rhythm. Video linked above is gorgeous too.

Emiliana Torrini - Me and Armini
I'm trying to write a review of this album for Nadamuch.com, but my words are failing me. Whatever comes out will probably explain that this album explains why mp3s and iPods are so successful - it's half an album of out-freakin-standing stracks with a number of others that are pretty quickly forgettable.
The best track, and reason I grabbed the album, is linked above. "Jungle Drum" sounds almost like Nancy Sinatra meets Feist's backing band. But where Feist is able to put together an album that sounds instantly classic from beginning to end, Torrini so far cranks out a handful of great songs.
Not that I'm complaining. The songs are great.

Flobots - Fight With Tools
I can write my blog with no internet, no internet, no internet.
Ahem. Yeah I love that song. And the whole album ain't too bad either. Very socially conscious hip-ish and hop-ish group of kids that want you to know that there's a war going on for your mind, and to explain why Anne Braden is a badass. Fun violin plucking weaves in and out of lyrics that can only be described as angry and empowering.

Petra Haden and Woody Jackson
Another oddball release from the world's favorite backup vocalist. I keep wondering if Haden will ever put out a mildly conventional album, and I'm glad to see that she hasn't yet. From the entirely vocal (all the way down to the drums) "Petra Haden Sings The Who's Sell Out" to the also entirely vocal "Imaginary Land," Haden's bread and butter is music that tries to straddle pop-sensibilities and experimentalism at the same time.
In this one, Haden provides her layered vocals with no lyrics and a little violin over Jacksons guitar.

That's it folks!

Andrew Bird Plays With Yo Yo Ma, Mt. Vernon Blogger Pees His Pants

2008-10-24T23:38:00.000-07:00

null |MTV Music

Holy crap for freakin'-crap people! Andrew Bird and Yo-Yo Ma TO-FREAKIN'-GETHER??? No seriously, I'm pausing this post for just a moment to go change my pants.

*pause*

Okay. Back. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, YO-YO MA AND ANDREW BIRD PLAYING TOGETHER! If you didn't recognize the tune, it's a little hymn in the round that, when I've heard it, is sung with the words "Dona Nobis Pacem Pacem, Dona Nobis Pacem," which effectively translates to "Give us peace."

So apparently there's an interview to come with this down the road, but for the moment I'm delighted to have my favorite songwriter perform with one of the world's greatest classical musicians. Yo-Yo Ma is to be respected for his enormous skill. I listen to his recordings of Bach's cello suites and am taken into an entirely different world. One where only good things exist and meals consist of fresh picked berries and chocolate.

As if that wasn't enough good news for one evening, this video came to my attention via an Andrew Bird fan letter which announced his new album titled "Noble Beast." Am I excited? Yes, yes I am.

And along with that announcement, Pitchfork has posted a song from the album.

Why, oh why, does the world love me so much today? What have I done to deserve such sweet treatment? Nothing good enough, I assure you.

Watched: "Spirit of the Beehive"

2008-10-22T09:09:00.001-07:00

I'm a sucker for a good film about little kids trying to understand the world around them, especially when faced with conflicting information.

Be it Ponette where a small French girl tries to figure out what happened to her mother after she died or Pan's Labyrinth where a Spanish girl loses herself in an imaginative fantasy world as a way of dealing with the violence surrounding her during the Spanish Civil War.

I decided to watch Spirit of the Beehive because of Pan's Laby rinth, and really, to call it an influence is understating the connection. It's clear to me after watching it how important this film is to Pan director Guillermo del Toro and his compatriot Alfonso Caurón.

Clearly this film resonated with both directors strongly, and one theme has continued through all of their films that has its roots here — telling a story that is directly influenced by, but not directly about surrounding war-time violence or political distress.

Caurón has mastered this with films like Y Tu Mamá También which takes the characters on a road trip past the economic and political discorse in Mexico, and in Children of Men a pregnant woman and the protagonist find themselves passing through a war in the future spurred by the infertility of humanity.

This film is more significant to Del Toro however, who has placed two films against the same political backdrop as Spirit of the Beehive. On top of Pan's Labyrinth, The Devil's Backbone tells a ghost story at an orphanage during the Spanish Civil War, which Guillermo has called a "spiritual prequel" to the former.

In Beehive, Ana goes to see Frankenstein at a mobile theater. She becomes obsessed with the character and wonders why he killed the little girl and then why the people killed Frankenstein. Either to comfort her (unlikely) or another scheme in that warped little head, her older sister, Isabel, tells her that Frankenstein never died. He's really a spirit, and lives in an abandoned farm building near by.

Ana visits the building after school, and eventually finds a fugitive soldier she believes is the spirit of Frankenstein, and befriends him.

But don't let the skeletal plot points bog down what this film really accomplishes. It takes almost the full 97 minutes of filmtime to get to this point. While Ana becomes locked in this spiritual fascination with Frankenstein, her mother obsesses over a lost lover who appears to be involved somehow in the war (perhaps as a soldier?) and her father obsesses over his beehives, staying up late and writing and re-writing a poem about a glass-enclosed hive he keeps in his office.

It's a visually stunning movie, and for those who have watched a lot of movies with me, they know that's all it takes really. And without spoiling the ending much, the whole thing left on an ambiguous note for me, even moreso than Pan's Labyrinth which (some would argue) begs the question of whether the fantasy elements were truly real or a way of the girl trying to cope with a violent reality. I think examining Pan's against the Beehive, it seems to me that both became obsessed with these spirits and fantasies almost as a way of grappling with what surrounded them.

If all these elements aren't enough to outline just how much Beehive influences Pan, just take a look at these two images from each film. In the top, Ana is going out to her balcony in yet another attempt to call out to the spirit of Frankenstein, and on the bottom, Ofelia is heading into the tunnels under a tree as yet another task ordered by a really scary looking faun.

With this film out of the way, it's on to the next on my queue. You'd think with 200 films on my list, I'd be able to pick one easily. Not the case.

It's time to admit it — I like Broken Social Scene.

2008-10-17T11:21:00.001-07:00

We've all been there. You get the recommendation, and you ignore it.

But although we've all been there, I must admit I am the king of ignoring recommendations. It's one of my greatest faults. Let's look at the list of recommendations I initially ignored (even derided on occasion) but eventually realized I loved to death:

Each of these I mark as some of my favorite music. Hell, I count "Money Jungle" on my top 20 albums of all time. Because that track "Fleurette Africaine" is the musical equivalent of falling raindrops. For serious.

So it is with great humility that I must confess, after years of my youngest of brothers pushing it on me, I think Broken Social Scene's "You Forgot It In People" is really damn good. Really, really damn good.

It came out in 2003, so it's only taken me five years to figure out what Pitchfork Media figured out immediately. (they gave it a 9.3 out of 10)

In the last week, this has become my Come-Home-After-Work-And-Relax album. It's my I'm-On-Deadline-Please-Don't-Distract-Me album. It's my Driving-To-Renton-To-See-My-Wife album. It's on pretty consistent rotation. (At this very moment, it's my Awwww-My-iPod-Is-Dead-Now-What-Am-I-Supposed-To-Do? album)

Why? Because it's this beautiful sonic hybrid of everything I love about Yo La Tengo's Electr-o-pura and Modest Mouse's (now out of print, and running about $50 on Amazon for used copies, suckas!) Interstate 8 all rolled into one. Sonically experimental, harmonically good to the ear, each instrument sharing as strong and forward a role as the lead vocals (definitely see the Yo La Tengo for more of that brilliance).

It certainly helps that the electronics-meets-banjo breakaway hit (which KEXP played the hell out of) "Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl" hits right in the middle, right at the moment you're in the mood to start singing "Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me."

So there ya go Ben, you win this time... You may now, and for one week only, rub it in my face that I used to mock you incessantly for your music taste. (In my defense, I think even you realize now that Fuel and Blink 182 really suck.)

The Quilt, Part 8

2008-10-07T23:11:00.000-07:00

So a major part of creating a quilt is, ahem, well, quilting. So now that the whole thing is pieced together I'm embarking on the arduous task of sewing some kind of pattern through the whole thing.

The backing I chose is a thick denim. There was a much thinner denim I preferred, but it was too small of a piece to fit my quilt, so thick it is. Already it's a warm quilt that sits nice and heavy on me. Even unfinished Megan and I have thrown it over our laps watching TV.

I opted to just stitch a quarter inch in on all of the squares. I've selected a color of thread to go with each color of fabric.

This process is of the most frustrating steps. It's not as difficult as cutting the segments and praying that you don't run out of one bit of t-shirt fabric that's pretty much irreplaceable. In this case a wrong stitch can be torn out and re-sewn. But that takes time.

To preserve my sanity, I've decided to simply quilt the whole thing, and tear out anything that needs a redo later.

There's really only one major step left, which is selecting the binding and sewing it down. Really, this is my favorite step. It's when I get to sit down, watch a movie and just sew one side of it down by hand. Takes little time, and it's immensely satisfying seeing the completed work.

Music Quiz

2008-10-04T05:58:00.000-07:00

Courtney pointed out how ridiculous it is that I did not do this for Andrew Bird, so I'm adding my second quiz just below this one, Andrew BIRD style! YO!

Friend Jon posted this, and I decided to follow suit.

Rules of the game:
- Choose a singer/band/group
- Answer using ONLY titles of songs by that singer/band/group

I choose R.E.M., because I've been listening to them since I was 13. Though I was sorely tempted to choose Journey, and put "Don't Stop Believin'" for every single answer.

1. Are you male or female?
"I Am Superman"

2. Describe yourself.
"Man on the Moon"

3. What do people feel when they're around you?
"Strange"

4. How would you describe your previous relationships?
"Everybody Hurts"

5. Describe your current relationship.
"At My Most Beautiful"

6. Where would you want to be now?
"Half A World Away"

7. How do you feel about love?
"I Believe"

8. What's your life like?
"Losing My Religion" (though I also wanted to answer "So Fast, So Numb")

9. What would you ask for if you had only one wish?
"Life and How To Live It"

10. Say something wise.
"It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)."

LEONARD BERNSTEIN!

And now done with Andrew Bird titles:

1. Are you male or female?
"I"

2. Describe yourself.
"Heretics"

3. What do people feel when they're around you?
"Self Torture"

4. How would you describe your previous relationships?
"MX Missiles"

5. Describe your current relationship.
"Satisfied"

6. Where would you want to be now?
"Way Out West"

7. How do you feel about love?
"Don't Be Scared"

8. What's your life like?
"A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left"

9. What would you ask for if you had only one wish?
"Wishing For Contentment"

10. Say something wise.
"Why?"

Pumpkin Pie #1: Cook's Illustrated Best Pumpkin Pie

2008-09-30T22:37:00.001-07:00

In an attempt to shake up my dusty old pumpkin pie recipes, I'm out seeking the best of the best and come up with some new recipes to impress my family on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Here's our first contestant, Cook's Illustrated Best Pumpkin Pie:

I selected the Cook's Illustrated recipe for my first pie, mainly because it's pretty basic in presentation (Cook's Illustrated wants you to pony up to see the recipe online, so the link is to another blogger kind enough to share). Other recipes I'll look later at include unusual ingredients or interesting garnishes, which I'm excited to try eventually, but this is a good jumping off point for the season.

The pie was a partial success, but the portions that failed rest on my shoulders and not the recipe. The recipe recommended pre-baking the crust, with foil holding the crust down to the pan. Without foil, I used parchment paper, which did absolutely nothing to stop the crust from sliding down the sides, as seen here:

But other than that, the recipe is a winner, mainly because of how it heats and evenly bakes the pie. They recommend you heat the pumpkin and spices in a pot, then add the cream and milk, and finally blend with the eggs before quickly pouring it into a hot, pre-baked crust and throwing the whole thing in the oven for only 25 minutes.

The result is a beautifully flaky crust (especially on the sides) and a consistent and firm filling.

Added to that, the spicing in this is much, much better.

As a comparison, here's the spice proportions found in the Libby's Pumpkin Pie recipe I've used for many years (as have many others):

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground cloves

And here's Cook's Illustrated's spices:

2 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp grated nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

I'm a big fan of upping the cinnamon and ginger, and I can't think of an autumn pastry that couldn't benefit from a little nutmeg.

In addition, the recipe calls for brown sugar, which makes much more sense that Libby's call for granulated sugar. And it tastes even better if you're using the MOST AMAZING BROWN SUGAR EVER that I found at Haggen's in Mount Vernon. It's Billington's Natural Dark Brown Molasses Sugar and it's beautifully dark and much, MUCH richer in flavor than any brown sugar I've had before.

All around this pie is a winner. I'll be working to perfect my pre-baked crust in future recipes. Even though they don't call for a pre-baked crust, I'll do doing it anyway and judging the lot mainly on their filling.

And undoubtedly I'll try this one again real soon to give it a proper judgment with a beautifully pre-baked crust.

It'll be like a truck rally, only tastier...

2008-09-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

I realized that I've been using the same two pumpkin pie recipes for the last ten years, and it's time to explore the vast world that is pumpkin pie. And since Alton Brown has yet to tackle my favorite autumnal treat, it's up to me to collect the recipes and try them out in what I've decided to call:

AARON'S FIRST EVER 2008 PUMPKIN PIE EXTRAVAGANZA DEATH MATCH SHOWDOWN!!!!!!

It'll be a thrill ride of TASTINESS!

The rules are simple! I'll use my basic crust recipe, and try out a handful of recipes I find online and in cookbooks. I'll only use delicious home-grown pumpkins acquired (read: stolen in the still of the night while the guard dogs are sleeping) from my father-in-law. I make it, I eat it and feed it to unsuspecting culinary guinea pigs (I LOVES you Megan!) and determine which recipe (or recipes) are the best. The best one or two will be featured at whatever Thanksgiving event I attend.

Just a quick look online, I've collected a handful of recipes, many of which from Food Network, but one from America's Test Kitchen "Best Pumpkin Pie." I also nabbed the recipe for a 1st place pumpkin pie from a Food Network competition. I'll be looking at the library for more.

I'll post pictures and results here. It'll be like a truck rally, only tastier.

If you go to San Francisco...

2008-08-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

Things I learned on our trip to and from San Francisco:

The northern most milepost on Interstate 5 in California is 796. SEVEN HUNDRED NINETY SIX! That's more than twice the length of the highway in Oregon, and just short of three times the length of the highway in Washington. That is a seriously long highway.

While driving along the desert-like landscape of California (even outside of San Francisco I was surprised to see) is best driven with Josh Ritter as the soundtrack, even though he's actually from Idaho.

At 4:30 a.m. driving in the dark, as much as it seems like listening to Music For 18 Musicians by Steve Reich would be a good idea, it's really, really not a good idea. I was listening to Sufjan Steven's Illinois album and noting to myself how much he took from Reich, and thought "I bet Reich would make some GREAT early a.m. driving music!" Really it just reminds you that it's 5 a.m. and you've been driving for four hours already.

When we crossed into California at about 5:30 a.m. I scanned my iPod through the song title listings and listened to everything beginning "California." Surprisingly I only had four tracks that met this criteria (and was emberassed that I didn't think to make a more complete play list with tracks INCLUDING but not beginning with "California"). Of the four, three of them technically take place OUT of California and discuss either heading to, or longing for California. Joni Mitchell really just needed to leave Europe. It didn't make her happy.

Dispite my stereotypical beliefs, the Golden Gate Bridge is not visible from every entryway into the city. Also, I was unable to convince my Frisco companions that we needed to drive into the city and across the bridge in a red convertible.

I suck at haggling, and didn't realize I would be forced to do so while in town. We just wanted to grab a map, so we stopped into the first photo/tourist shop we saw. I thought as I walked in "If they have a credit card minimum cost, we'll just by that UV lense I need for my camera, and that only costs like $14." The guy pulled it out, said $50. I said "Um, no." He said he'd give it to me for cost, $24, and then (foolishly) pointed out that it was identical to the UV lens I had on my other camera lense, which I remember clearly buying for $14. I said no again, and Megan started digging for cash. Trying really to just not buy the lens at all he goes "Okay, okay, you're tough, but I'll give it to you for $20, but I'm making a loss." Uh-huh, whatever... but I'm sheepish and bad at saying no, so I buy it because I needed it anway. Mumblegrumble.

You don't find Jack Kerouac Alley in San Francisco. Jack Kerouac Alley finds you. We split off from our bechildrened tourist mates in the evening so they could go home. We wandered about, and I decided that I really wished I'd looked up where the alley was before we left. We rip out the map, look on the index. It says it's in C14 on the map. WE are in C14 on the map, and about two blocks away from the site.

Despite Megan's extensive background knowledge of all things musicals it took some negotiating to convince her that San Francisco's Chinatown was of note and worth visiting. About a block in she goes "Oh, this is a pretty famous Chinatown isn't it?" One with an approximate daily miracle count of 100 million if I recall correctly.

Did you guys know that there was some 1980s and 1990s family television sitcom based in San Francisco? I sure didn't! But in my idiotic excitement to see all the landmarks of my favorite San Franciscan family, I actually misidentified at least one location. It be a crab sign at Fisherman's Warf. I found another crab sign I thought was it. It was not, and I am now sad. Also sad to know how close we came to THE Full House house and didn't seek it out. Blame it all on lack of preparation.

Photos of our trip can be seen here:

If you go to San Francisco...

The Quilt, Part 7

2008-08-10T23:38:00.000-07:00

It's PIECED TOGETHER! Check that hot quilt action!

Best part, sitting in a rocking chair with the quilt over my lap and thinking about the old days, back when people had scruples and you could only get berries in the summertime. Those were the days!

Next step, acquire a big old sheet of denim and some batting, then I do the QUILTING! WOOT! Still got to figure out how to do the quilting, but I've got a few ideas.

I'm pretty excited that I actually saw the project through like this!

The Quilt, Part 6

2008-08-03T23:03:00.000-07:00

There it is in all its pieced-together glory. Each square is sewed, and now I just have to put the whole thing together, which has me the most nervous of all. There's a few pieces that are going to cut it close on their seam allowances due to this, that or the other complication.

I'm paranoid that things won't line up quite right. But I'm mapping out how to piece everything together without having to do long stretches of seams. For some reason breaking the task down into shorter seams makes it all seam less daunting.

Once I've done that (probably won't get to it until Wednesday at the earliest) I'll start getting demin together and designing the back portion of the quilt, which will be amazingly easy by comparison, since it'll be a collection of identically sized squares.

Next I need to select the batting to lay between the top t-shirt part and the bottom quilt part. I'm going to select something fairly thin, because I really want it to feel like t-shirts and jeans, so I can't have too much fluff.

Off to bed!

Summer Cinema 2008!

2008-08-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

It's been a great year for movies so far. At the end of the year I might have actually seen enough to produce a legitimate "Top 5" list, whereas most of the time I'm catching up with the oscar winners from last year.

But within the course of one week I hit the theater three times (and unlike some people I know, it wasn't to see Batman three different times), and I was surprisingly pleased on all occasions. Although after a week of move watching, I decided to forgo seeing Guellermo del Toro's Hellboy II until a later date.

Wall-E

I've gotten to the point where I turn my brain off when I see a computer animated film by any other studio. Nothing stands up to the extensively meticulous animation and the stories that are funny and engaging without any fart jokes.

And this one goes a step further, because for the first thirty minutes of film, there's no dialogue. I've heard praise and complaints about this portion of the film. I personally loved it, and actually liked the opening portion of the story better than when the humans entered the picture.

Only complaint, in a film about a robot cleaning up all of earth's garbage and an centuries-old effort to re-grow plan life on earth, I wish there had been some sort of moral, or takehome message.

The Dark Knight

Duna duna duna duna duna duna duna duna BATMAN!

It's one of those movies I knew I would love going into it, merely because I'm easily blinded by my favorite comic book characters put on the screen.

We'll put it this way, after the TERRIBLE X-Men: The Last Stand I kept going back and forth. It was terrible, but it had COLOSSUS! But it was TERRIBLE! But... but... it had Colossus!!!!

But what makes this one good is how it goes leaps and bounds above ideas merely touched on in other superhero cinema tragedies. I don't care how much they say Spider-man suffers in the film, or how much public danger is presented on the screen in that franchise - it was all done with a wink and a nod, and a smile on Toby Maguire's face.

This story was done with a stomp on your foot and a fist in your gut. I wanted an intermission, just to shake off the story a little bit, take a deep breath and head back in.

Prince Caspian

Last time I read Prince Caspian, I threw the book across the room. It just pissed me off. I couldn't get past the blatant sexism and the beat-you-over-the-head metaphor.

The film, which far and away exceeds its predecessor, takes several key characters and points in the film and twists them just enough to make them awesome.

The focus of the books, in my opinion, has always been far to focused on the ever-faithful Lucy and the brave-hearted Peter, ignoring doubtful-Edmund and a somewhat air-headed Susan.

Lucy remains ever faithful, but they present the risks of being nothing but good-hearted. Because no matter how nice you are, a bear might eat you. Peter's braveheartedness is transformed into stubborn bullheadedness. He's really seen as an antagonist to thoughtful consideration and reason.

Susan by contrast is seen as far more practical, and much more emotionally driven. Her thoughts and concerns come across more like the one person saying what was on everybody's mind.

But Edmond, my boy Edmond. He gets to take the role of the brains behind this whole thing. Peter's taken the same "High King" stance, but Edmond is always in charge of seeing the plans out, organizing the people and ensuring the safety of everyone concerned. Every time he walked on the screen, I wanted to cheer.

Added bonus: Eddie Izzard voiced Reepicheep, and the film ended with a song by Regina Spektor.

On to Hellboy II next!

The Quilt, Part 5

2008-07-21T23:23:00.001-07:00

After massive amounts of swearing, kicking things and generally causing catastrophe among my very limited pool of fabric, I've finally completed the cutting. There were quite a number of design modifications that took place throughout the process, but I'm pretty happy with how it looks now. I had to make a couple decisions that were tough. My Riyadh square changed a bit tonight, and I opted for a light green on the top instead of the blue, mainly because it balanced the colors on the whole, even though I liked the way the square looked on its own before.

And because I just couldn't wait to get this thing pieced together, I got two seams sewed tonight. Two because, well, the sewing machine started acting up and it was late. So I took pictures and went to bed. But I did get a couple things put together, including this snazzy little section of quilt featuring a musician we all know and love (and by we, I pretty much mean me and Megan, and by love, I do mean idolize in an unhealthy way that will inevitably lead to a restraining order handed to us at one of his concerts.)

Speak of the devil, we'll be seeing the lad himself Wednesday night playing alongside Josh Ritter at the Zoo Tunes series at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.

A completely unrelated aside, if you haven't peeped out Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog you should. He has a PhD in horribleness.

Here be shutterbugs...

2008-07-14T09:15:00.000-07:00

Megan and I went camping with her family over the weekend, and it was a great opportunity to break in our BRAND NEW DIGITAL CAMERA!

I'm sure everyone else there other than Megan and me LOVED stopping every couple of yards to go "Ooo! Let's try to take a photo of THAT!"

But our experimentation paid off. We figured out a lot about working with our camera, including how to get the time-lapse shot above. Unfortunately without a tripod, most of my attempts at those cheesy water-flow time-lapse shots didn't work, because I was trying to put the camera against a rock or something near by to stabilize it. I had to throw out a lot of shots that just didn't come out okay.

I'm especially happy to have a camera with such a nice visual range. The wide angles are fun, and I've never really played with wider angles on a decent camera, so I tried some stuff like that tree.

I feel like I've got some work/practice to do before I get some of those snazzy shots Cat always seems to find, but if the zillion photos I took this weekend are any indication, I'll have some time to practice.

One of my favorite features is the image stabilizer, which I'm told is supposed to help a shaky camera in low light or zoomed in really far. We were playing cards the first night I was out there (Megan and kin headed out Thursday, so us working blokes had to catch up later), and trying out the camera between turns. I really like how this one of Megan turned out, even though her hands are flaying about a bit. I just like the motion in the background with her still face. Not a shot I'd be able to do with my old manual SLR methinks.

I narrowed down the collection of photos from the trip to a digestible 16 photos, which can be found at my Picasa page.

Listening to update

2008-07-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

It's been so long that I updated my "Listening To" section that I've had to wipe out everything that was there before. And what's this? No Andrew Bird? Well, he's between albums so well let it slide this time.

I am sad to see Basia Bulat leave the list, because I still listen to her quite a bit. But out with the old, in with the new!

Here's what I've been listening to in more detail, and each of them has a YouTube video of one of the songs from the album, although not all the videos are "official" or sanctioned by the artists:

R.E.M. - Accelerate
I was going to blog about this album, but instead submitted my thoughts to Nada Mucho who kindly posted them here. As you'll see in the review, I love the album to death and it's got me pretty damned nostalgic.
This here is a video of "Supernatural Superserious."

Sibylle Baier - Colour Green
A german actress who recorded her songs on a reel-to-reel when in the 1970s but had no interest in a musical career. I'm not even sure if you could have found her at a local open mic if you tried.
Her son however digitized the recordings and passed them on to friends and relations, and they eventually found their way to a record label, and these are the results.
She writes beautifully heartfelt songs that seem much more grounded in dealing with the crap in front of her than becoming drowned in maudlin emotions. The love songs seem unusually healthy, singing odes to her husband (?) for listening to her talk about a hard day at work.
These nice folks posted a video on youtube with my favorite Baier song as the soundtrack.

Terry Callier - The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier
Callier is a perfect fit alongside Baier. His "New Folk" sound is about as mellow as her home-recorded sound, and his voice is smooth and deep. He's had a bit of a resurgence in popularity thanks to Beth Orton, who's recorded with him a number if times. I really like listening to this one while driving through the ag side of Skagit Valley.
This is a posting of the opening track on Youtube. The site isn't acting up. It's just the music set to a still photo. If you like that song, check out this dudes spastic version. I don't know who he is, he was just recommended on the sidebar of the Callier video.

Duffy - Rockferry
A coworker at the The Port Orchard Independent thought I might like Duffy, and she couldn't have been more right, which only proves that I really am Starbucks' target demographic. Those jerks, trying to sell me music I like. How I hate 'em!
But Duffy is one of the so-called "New Amy's" but I actually find myself more comfortable with these songs than Amy Winehouse's petulant and alcohol-infused croonings.
Here's a video of the opening track. It reminds me of The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony."

Bo Diddley - The Definitive Collection
I didn't have anything by Bo Diddley, which was inexcusable. But like I said before I don't really have anything to say about Mr. Diddley that hasn't been said already.

Nina Simone - Little Girl Blue
I love Nina Simone, and have a couple CDs, but couldn't resist buying this one after hearing it with some people I kinda know in Köln, Deutschland.
The title track is a simple piano rendition of "Good King Wenceslas" with non-yuletide melody and lyrics laid on top. It's not a Christmas song, but if it was it would be the saddest Christmas song ever.
Here be a video montage of Nina Simone pictures with the song in question in the background. If this song doesn't bring tears to your eyes, see a doctor about that shriveled heart.

Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
The new album is at least as good as the last one. I love these guys because they cram more pop brilliance into just a few minutes. The songs are only as long as they ever need to be.
This video from the album is brilliant if only for the hilarious appearance by Justin Timberlake, which looks like it came straight out of that episode of The Cosby Show when Theo wanted to get onto a music dance show.

In The Heights - Broadway Cast Recording
It's pretty rare for me to get into the soundtrack of a musical without seeing the show, but the opening track of this now Tony-winning show had me pretty transfixed. Megan and I have already made a pact to shell out for whatever tickets cost if this show tours to Seattle. It's really an amazing montage of different latin and hip-hop styles, and the protagonist is incredibly endearing, not just because his name is Usnavy. (you've probably never heard is name, reports of his fame are highly exaggerated... ahem...)
Seriously though, I can't recommend this enough. Here's a video of the recording sessions for the song "96,000."

"Help" The Police

2008-07-05T08:35:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure this is how Ice Cube meant the song to be. Also, this is possibly the best thing ever.

http://view.break.com/510247 - Watch more free videos

Almost forgot. This video came from a tip from Discord/Harmony's Cologne, Germany correspondent.

Reading: Miscellania

2008-06-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

It was noted that I haven't posted anything in a while, which I refuted, until I realized it has been since the 20th. But I've been starting a new job and moving, so hopefully that will excuse the absence.

Since I'm in a new place, I'm getting to experience something rare for me. It's almost enjoyable, especially since I know the experience will be fleeting. It's that rare time in a new library district when I don't have my card number memorized! I received an e-mail notice that I needed to return or renew a couple books, and I realized without a memorized card number I'd have to walk ALL THE WAY downstairs to find my wallet to retrieve the card. Oh the inconvenience!

But the slowdown in card memorization has not slowed my desire to have a precarious stack of books on my bedside table. This doesn't mean I'm READING them that fast. About 50 to 75 percent of books I check out have to be renewed, returned and checked out again before I actually get to them, but these are a few that I'm starting or partway through already:

Is Belief In God Good, Bad, or Irrelevant: A Professor And a Punk Rocker Discuss Science, Religion, Naturalism & Christianity
The book is a collection of e-mails between Preston Jones, a Lutheran theology professor, and Greg Graffin, a biology lecturer but better known as the lead singer of Bad Rel igion.
It's oddly engaging for a collection of e-mails, and gets much better as the book progresses. Jones is initially star-struck by e-mailing Graffin, and as such the debate is rather one-sided with Jones eating up every word from the veteran punk. Later on the book becomes much more substantive with some hearty debate on what belief in god does for people, with Graffin arguing thte negative against Jones' positive.
I tend to agree with Graffin, and even moreso as he starts to explain his belief in biology and Naturalism as the root of his faith. Many Christians would like to dismiss non-religious beliefs as without faith, but Graffin seems to have a much more spiritual understanding of his biological beliefs and what they mean for him.
But Jones makes some great points as well, with an amazing argument about the destructive nature of the old cliché "God works in mysterious ways."

This Is Your Brain On Music and Musicophilia
I've always got some book about the psychology of music sitting on my "To Read" list, but never get around to it. I've got both of these out from the library, and the former sitting next to me for tonight's reading. I got interested in actually picking up a book after hearing an episode of Radio Lab called "Pop Music." There's a great story in that episode (which can be found on the front page of the show's website) about people who hallucinate music in their head all the time.

Uglies, Pretties, Specials and Extras
(no spoilers I promise, Patrik!) It's a future dystopia about Tally Youngblood, a teenager who lives in a world where every person gets plastic surgery to be super-model gorgeous on their 16th birthday. Human-rights violations are abound like nerds at a comic convention.
I'm through the originally intended trilogy (Uglies, Pretties and Specials) and I'm about to dive into the new book, Extras. I'm told it'll be a movie, and I'm glad to be on top of this one before that happens. I was shamefully reading the Harry Potter series frantically as the first movie came out.

A People's History Of The United States
Eh, if it's good enough for Matt Damon.
When I nabbed this at Powell's a few weeks back, I passed a book called A Patriot's History Of The United States. Howard Zinn subtitled People's "1492 - Present" and the authors of Patriot's subtitled theirs "From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror."
I'd add commentary here, but I think the comparison speaks for itself.

That's what I'm reading. Now if only that pesky job would stop getting in the way.

Watched: "The Fall"

2008-06-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

From the outside, our marriage looks happy and content, but there is one major rift that divides the house of Walkhalter: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as interpreted by Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón.

I claim that the film was amazing, and Megan claims the film sucked, mainly because Megan focuses on silly things like plots (in a film) or lyrics (in a song), and I'm focus on visuals (in a film) or the instrumentation (in a song).

Megan will argue that I'm wooed easily by pretty visuals, which allows me to overlook holes in the plots of films and often offensive lyrics in songs.

And, as usual, she's right. As such, The Fall is right up my alley. It's all visuals, and going in I was warned that the story itself was lacking a little bit. Story schmory I say!

The visuals were, as expected, stunning. It was like watching a really beautiful, somewhat surreal painting on screen, but I'd like to argue that although the focus was visuals, the plot was not lacking, but intentionally subtle and subdued.

I saw an interview with Baz Luhrman, of Moulin Rouge fame, in which he explained what makes a movie like Singin' In The Rain so good: Minimal plot, maximum execution.

The Fall is exactly that. I could explain the whole film without missing a any details in about ten minutes. But the simplicity merely leaves room for the director to pull out all the proverbial stops and hit a grand slam for every other aspect of the film.

I'm not saying the plot didn't matter, in fact that's part of what attracted me to the film. A young girl with a broken arm at a LA hospital in the 1920s befriends a man who fell off a horse. Suicidal, the man is trying to get at some drugs, and manipulates the girl by weaving beautiful tales of adventure, and stopping at key points until she does some sort of task for her.

The stories result in a more dramatic version of A Princess Bride with the listener interjecting often, but in this case actually changing the story as it goes. Unlike Kevin Arnold who groans at kissing scenes, the girl in The Fall is gunning for them.

If it's still in theaters, I recommend giving it a shot. The film is beautiful, which I should expect from an old music video director, and the story isn't at all disappointing (but I could be as wrong as I allegedly am about the third Harry Potter film, so fair warning). On a mean note, the director calls himself "Tarsem." Just "Tarsem." Which is kind of pretentious, but if he makes films this pretty, I'll forgive him.

My Lambchop Dream

2008-06-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

I think it's a good sign when I dream about the mundane tasks of my coming day. I figure if I have some level of stress or darkness in my life, I'll have nightmares. Or if there's some unresolved issue in my heart, I'll have rather obscure dreams with some odd symbolism I need to decode.

I say this because that's happened before. I hate the nightmares, which I get especially when I'm sick. And the obscure dreams have led to some really interesting and transformative thoughts, so I don't argue with it.

But if my sleep is filled with unusual, dreamlike tales of things I've got to do the next day, things must be going pretty well.

That's what happened Saturday to Sunday as I slept in Portland. In my dream, I did some mapquest searching for a CD store I wanted to go to on Burnside. In reality, I was looking for Music Millennium, and did find it the next day where I grabbed my dad a father's day album and some Duffy, Bo Diddley and Arvo Pärt for myself.

But in my dream I couldn't find the name or address, so I just got on a bicycle and started riding through town. I grabbed some braided bread with carmel drizzles on it, and I perused some shops.

Oddly enough, my bicycle had a radio. I was listening to a broadcast of a Lambchop concert held in some Portland-based establishment. They opened their set with a cover of Feist's "I'm Sorry" from The Reminder.

It was beautiful, and I woke up disappointed that it was only a dream song, because it really was incredibly beautiful. In my mind's ear, Kurt Waggoner's voice stopped and started abruptly the way he does, and the Lambchop-style guitar played the same notes, but with a thick-fingered stutter similar to that found on the Lambchop album Is A Woman.

Now the question is, how crazy does it sound if I write to Lambchop and say "I had a dream that your band covered Feist's "I'm Sorry," and it sounded REALLY good in my dream, so would you mind recording it for an album or a B-side to a single???"

I'm still sick? HOW RUDE!

2008-06-10T12:34:00.001-07:00

Let it never be said that Aaron Burkhalter don't know how to spend a sick day.
I headed into work Monday, and my aspirin-treated headache didn't seem to be getting better.

I headed home via a grocery store to stock for my flu-like pity party to be held in our moving box-laden new place in Mount Vernon.

Canned chicken soup? $2.50 Sprite? $5/3 bottles. Aleve and Nyquil? About $10 for the smallest bottles, cuz I'm cheap like that. Eight seasons of Full House and nothing on my afternoon agenda but sleeping and enjoying my favorite San Francisco family? Priceless.

The cherry on top of my restful sick day? The brand new People Magazine featuring Jodi Sweetin in the front page story "From Meth Addict to Mom."

There's really nothing more enjoyable than sitting back with some Season 5 Full House goodness (that's the season Uncle Jesse's twins, Nicky and Alex, are born, DURING MICHELLE'S BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!!!!!) and reading the confessional article about her meth addiction, the introduction to her new tattoo-laden husband and the birth of her new baby girl, Zoie.

Best information gleaned from this article:

Zoie is now in possession of one of several Mr. Bear dolls from the show. Sweetin gave her child "the stunt bear" for her pink and brown bedroom.

The original bear is in Sweetin's room.

Sweetin has little contact with the ever-infamous Olsen Twins, and in a barely diplomatic statement said "I wish them nothing but the best."

But of course there's got to be a dark side. Be warned to the faint of heart hoping to see their precious Stephanie Tanner in only the best light, doing an Google image search just to find the cover of the magazine for this post resulted in photos of Sweeting wearing purple hot pants and straddling her new hubby at a bar and several articles commenting on the size of Sweetin's maternally-enhanced chest with the words "Full Boobs." I'm still recovering.

Several doses of Nyquil and some lovely naps soundtracked by episodes of the greatest family television show ABC ever produced and I'm back at work and feeling pretty good.

R.I.P. Bo Diddley

2008-06-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

Bo Diddley passed away Monday from heart failure.

I don't have anything of major significance to say about him that's not already noted many other places, including this article from the L.A. Times.

I will say though, I find it unconscionable that the article lists U2 and, ugh, George Michael among those who stole the "Bo Diddley beat" but not once mentions Bow Wow Wow or the song I Want Candy.

Pffff...

In the mean time, enjoy this track by Bo Diddley while I run to the store and fix a major hole in my CD collection:

Who Do You Love

The Quilt, Part 4

2008-05-28T22:50:00.000-07:00

Oh so much has happened on this quilt since I last posted in ... good gravy has it been 3 months? Well, truth be told, it's been three months since I actually worked on it too.

But this week, BREAKTHROUGH! Peep the results:

To begin, I took the images and cut them into their own squares, like the one below:

Now alls I need to do is cut up the rest of the pieces before I wreak massive sewing machine carnage over the unsuspecting fabrics.

But this is the stage where quilt fantasy meets quilt reality, and dies in a fiery crash. Creating a quilt entirely out of old t-shirts requires conserving your material as much as possible to maximize its use.

This means I needed to do (or not do) a couple things:

Measure out ahead of time so you don't leave odd-shaped pieces of fabric that are no good,

Use t-shirts with enough material for your project,

And DON'T make ANY cutting mistakes such as forgetting your seam allowances.

I failed at all three points. My Taiwanese t-shirt suffered from odd-shaped fabric, and poor planning. My Red Hook t-shirt suffered from poor cutting. My Flaming Lips t-shirt suffered from having large images on the front and back, leaving little blank material to use.

All of this would have been manageable on its own, but I did it all in one night. So there were a few major changes to be made. I used a lot more material from my Andrew Bird shirt than intended for one, but I'm hoping it doesn't overwhelm the entire design.

I've got about 12 more pieces to cut. After that I'll look over the whole design, do some market testing (read: get Megan to look at it and tell me if it sucks) and determine any last minute changes.

This could involve:

Shifting a couple colors around and redesigning a couple shapes,

Replacing some of the squares with denim fabric from old jeans,

Or crying, taking six months of work and tearing it to pieces before burning it in a fiery pyre in the flats of Skagit Valley while playing "Taps" on a bugle

Obviously the last option is a last resort. But the other two are possibilities.

I'm convinced it was intentional...

2008-05-20T10:18:00.000-07:00

So say you're a photographer covering a discus event, where do you stand? On the sidelines? In the bleachers? Or how about right in the way of an oncoming javelin.

That’s what happened in Utah, and since I can assure you that the man came away with no serious injuries (13 stitches, but no major injuries I swear) I can tell you that this story is hilarious.

I'm pretty sure the local newspaper ticked off the school district at some point, and the student-thrower was urged on by the school board, but there’s nothing to indicate that in the article.

Kudos to the photographer for actually taking a photo of his leg while he was being treated on the field, and warnings to the faint of heart (and the faint of butt) — the story includes that photo.

As an aside, I learned about this story yesterday working at my NEW JOB at the Skagit Valley Herald where I'm covering health, social services and environment.

I’ve got some posts I’ve been working on, but I left my laptop down in Milton, and I be up in Mount Vernon.

Oh, another aside, we have a few fun pictures of us tip-toeing through the tulips several weeks ago during the tulip festival. There be an 8-month-old in those photos, so cuteness is about. Peep ’em at my Picasa page.

A Visit to Cologne Part 6: In which the author confesses he's not a huge Beethoven fan.

2008-05-12T17:05:00.000-07:00

Let's just clear the air right now: I'm not a big fan of Beethoven.

I've got nothing against the guy, really I don't (I like him WAY more than Mozart, who I couldn't care less about). And I've enjoyed playing his piano pieces when I was taking lessons more frequently. But outside of one CD of string quartets I've got at home, I don't listen to him much. Being honest with myself, the name Beethoven brings up memories of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure more than music.

And while in Bonn, I insisted on pronouncing his name like Bill and Ted: "Beeth-oven" not "Bayt-hoven."

So there was a humorous touch of irony when Chris, Kelly, Megan and I headed off to the maestro's home town of Bonn and we were almost single-minded in our effort to search for the grave site of Clara and Robert Schumann, who Chris and I like quite a bit.

But let's give ol' Ludy a break here. We did go on the walking tour, and it was quite a bit of fun swinging by the home where he was born, peeping out the pipe organs that he played (there's really not a pipe organ in Bonn that he hasn't played) and the public square where he macked on some local girl.

One sad note about the walking tour we picked up at the tourism office, one of his homes was rebuilt in the 1970s into an apartment building. They really need to just take that one off the tour. There's not even a plaque.

But then we hit the cemetery, which includes the mystery gravestone of Beethoven's mother. Someone came along, saw a neglected plot, put two-and-two together and figured it out. Now there's an updated, well-kept but modest site with a quote from a letter little Ludy wrote during her life.

But all of that paled in comparison to the giant marble behemoth of a memorial left for Clara and Robert Schumann. When I die, I want someone to erect something like this for me. There be angels, little girls with butterfly wings, it's got the works.

The main part of the site appears to be a statue of Clara, looking adoringly up at the relief profile of her husband. It's a little sad that one of the few women composers recognized in our history is depicted in her site looking up at her husband, who in relief profile seems somewhat outside of reality. But I also can't criticize because when I talk about it Megan elbows me in the ribs to remind me that there's another body under there other than Robert's.

Walking through the entire graveyard it's easy to get lost in the grandness of it and the history. The plots range from beautifully maintained homages to Bonn's lost saints to illegible rocks overgrown with green ivy. There's nothing new to be found here.

Those passed are long past at this site, and each plot, whether unkept or meticulously cared for, seems almost otherworldly to my American eyes.

Chris has lots of photos of the graveyard in Bonn found at his Picasa page.

The rest of our trip to Bonn involved a city-wide search for a chocolate shop Megan saw earlier in the day. We finally found it, and it was well worth the trip.

Megan snagged a whole bunch of chocolate that we enjoyed for several weeks after the end of our trip.

The shop doubled as a little cafe. The menu consisted of a tray of truffles, fondu or (what we ordered) dark chocolate hot chocolate! They brought out our glasses which had powdered chocolate hearts sprinkled on top. I almost couldn't drink it, until I remembered I had a camera. *click!*

A Visit to Cologne Part 5: In which the author goes past the Prancing Pony, into The Hog's Head and through the wardrobe to a place called Bacharach.

2008-05-01T13:32:00.000-07:00

Visiting Bacharach is like entering some Disney princess movie. Let me be clear about how cool this place is: There was not a single chain store to be found.

There were shops in and around this place that had nary a corporate logo anywhere. And I'm pretty sure I saw a princess and a bunch of small birds and mammals go running by in song. That was all before I stumbled into a wardrobe, met Elijah Wood as a hobbit and had a bottle of butterbeer at the Hog's Head. I'm sayin' this place is an idyllic faerie-tale land.

It's a small town along the Rhine, and best enjoyed going from the top down. The top in this case being a castle converted into a comfortable hostel.

That's where we started, and after taking the hike up the hill to get to our accommodations, I recommend checking out one of the taxis. It's not a bad hike by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not so fun with your gear. Once we got to the top we did not have a lot of interest in going back down in search of food. Luckily the hostel has a little cafe.

So we hung out and explored the building (and by explore, I do mean defend bravely with imaginary bows and arrows) I made an unending and unwelcome series of Harry Potter jokes and references. We wanted to get up to the tower (I had a letter to send by owl) but that's when we learned that everything has been converted to rooms, so there's not a whole lot to see from the inside.

After dinner we went to the "bar" (read "the place that was the cafeteria at dinner but is now a bar"). They served a pretty good variety of beverages, but it being Bacharach we stuck with items of the TWO MENUS PAGES of Riesling.

It's a white wine, and unlike my endless descriptions of Kolsch, I know so little about wine that I won't assume I'm passing on any knowledge here. I can say it came in three styles: Dry, medium and sweet. I take mine medium to sweet, Chris and Kelly leaned toward dry. Megan leaned toward grape juice made from grapes grown in the vineyard, which was really just as good as the wine.

This would be the first to glasses of MANY to come for the weekend because that's about all they serve in and around Bacharach. Wine, wine and more wine. There may be Kölsch or red wine around somewhere, but I didn't search hard enough, and I enjoyed trying out Bacharach's finest.

Plus, how often do you get to drink some tasty concoction and look out the window to see where the ingredients grew on the vine. That's the town in a nutshell: buildings on the inside, vineyards on the outside. Add cute old people riding on bicycles and you've got my stereotypical dream-view of Europe right there.

There was plenty else to see, but most of that came in the form of staring at interesting and distinctly European architecture and me forcing Chris, Kelly and Megan to pose for cute photos.

The one oddity of Bacharach (well, all of Germany really) was how fast and loose people played with the term "business hours." I wish I could work on a schedule like that. Sometime between 11:30 a.m. and 12 p.m. all the businesses closed up. Sometime around 2 p.m. they opened again. This trend was most pronounced in Bacharach.

We learned this the hard way around 12:15 when we searched for a bite to eat. There would be not bites or eating for us for another 2 hours.

After two nights and one full day in Bacharach (where we made many a joke referencing titles like "What's New Pussycat" and "My Little Red Book") we headed up to St. Goar. Our business hours lesson continued when we learned that the tourist information center closed on Saturdays. This wouldn't be so bad except we were relying on the center's free baggage check. So we carried our bags up to a hostel and threw ourselves at the mercy of a very kind local who let us dump our stuff in the facility's garage.

The castle was everything you could really hope for. Spires, walkways, dark corners. We did a walking tour from our travel book, which pointed out where they would pour hot pitch down on attacking soldiers. They seemed to indicate otherwise, but I'm pretty sure this place saw its fair share of orc attacks.

The fun part: there's really no where they won't let you go. There's no barriers saying "Stop, you might die here" at any point. We found one spiral staircase at the end of a long, dark, unlit hall. No one was there to say "don't go down there." We would have gone down, but for the fear in my heart. (bonus nerd points if you get the reference)

Now would be a good time to mention the numerous photos found at my Picasa site and also at Chris' Picasa site but be warned we overlap quite a bit.

Now, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and if that were the case I should be able to get 70 entries in out about Germany, but I think people frequenting this blog (all two of you... hi mom) might get a little bored, so the next entry on Bonn will be the last.

Cologne Part 4: In which the author casts aside the previous chronological account of the trip to talk about beer, beer and, um, beer.

2008-04-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

Any time people ask about Chris and Kelly's time in Deutchland, they immediately jump to beer.

"Oh and they must love all that beer," someone would say, as I imagine Chris and Kelly face-down on their apartment floor surrounded by empty brown bottles covered in text with dotted and accented vowels.

But when people say these things, I feel obliged disenchant the fantasy. One trip to London and I was disenchanted, seeing on the taps of the first bar we entered: a bitter, another bitter, one more bitter, Stella Artois and Guinness. It was this way at most of the bars I visited.

For those people who think landing on European soil means surrounding themselves in every kind of ale you could imagine, think again.

I'm not saying the beer is bad — it's excellent — but if anyone's searching for some kind of malty-hopped mecca, they need look no further than right here in the Northwest. We're living in it people.

Just last week at Hale's I had an a Cream HSB and a seasonal Imperial Stout. I could have also indulged in a Blonde, a Pale, a Porter, an amber, a Kölsch-style (emphasis explained later) and a double-hopped IPA, and most of those are off the year-round list.

In Europe selection is limited by region and season – mostly by region in Cologne. But what they lack in all-you-can-drink selection, they more than make up with their direct cask offerings (I'm talking straight out of oak barrels people).

So take a stroll down the main street a block away from our fine hosts and you'll find a bar that serves Kölsch, but only one kind of Kölsch. A few doors down, it's the same. All over town, it's restaurants and bars serving one single kind of Kölsch.

But if you're in one bar drinking a so-so Kölsch, rest assured there's a better one just a few doors down.

Our first one, and probably my second favorite of the trip is the Sion Kölsch, selected by our hosts after I suggested trying a Dom Kölsch, just because the logo was snazzy.

Kölsch is pale, lightly hopped, crisp and refreshing, like an American lager, with less alcohol. I've heard people describe the Kölsch style as having a slight minty flavor to it, which makes sense to me, though that's now what I'd call it. But as far as beers go, it's not unlike biting into a crisp, juicy fruit or vegetable as far as flavor is concerned. This stuff is fresh.

It's served in a thin glass, and handed off from a "wreath" as pictured here. The roaming bartender will take your empty glass, give you a full one from the wreath and mark a dash on your coaster to keep a tab. If you don't want any more, plop the coaster on top of your empty glass.

And the Kölners guard their beer fiercely. I'm told Chris was met with spite and malice when he indicated his fondness for the alt-style ales found in abundance in Dusseldorf. This could be the case because Kölsch is also the adjective meaning "of Cologne."

And it truly is "of Cologne," vehemently so. There's rules, folks. Hales' Kölsch-style ale (brewed in Seattle) is called thus because the only way to be a real Kölsch is to brew it within sight of the Dom. Larger brew sites can (and do) sit outside of the city, but at least one brew site of each brand must be able to see the Cathedral, the only exception being those who were brewing before the rule went into place (in 1986 according to the wiki article).

There's a tale that years back men stole the Kölsch recipe from the women who brewed it, and though it's a "tale" of sorts, it's probably more or less true. At one time women did most of the brewing, and eventually men took over the industry, I imagine because they saw that they could make some money at it.

I had three other Kölschs around town, including a Reisdorf and a Ganaser, both kegged.

But the best drinks I had came from Helios. Their Kölsch was the freshest I tasted, but they also had a good variety of other ales, including one infused with rosemary. ROSEMARY

We took a few sips to figure that out. It was the seasonal, and the words "ginger" were thrown out before we were able to accurately ID the spice. But "ginger" was still descriptive because of the ales amber-color and spicy bite. But once you realize it's rosemary, there's really nothing else to say. While I have trouble distinguishing certain ingredients in a brew, this one stood out.

I don't really have a spiffy way of wrapping this up, but suffice to say I enjoyed each sip of ale I had. I'm writing about Bacharach next, where we found NO BEER, but I took a liking to the local wines.

A Visit to Cologne Part 3: In which the author learns that cardinals have little to no power regarding their own Cathedral in Cologne.

2008-04-18T15:52:00.000-07:00

Day two in Cologne, we head off to the city’s pride and joy: The Dom (pronounced "dome"). A large cathedral within the Catholic Church and one of the city’s most important structures that survived World War II.

Visiting this place, I immediately think of They Might Be Giants' “The Bells Are Ringing,” a song that shows doctrine and liturgy giving its constituents strict marching orders. What surprises me is that within a sect of tumultuous theology and politics, rooted deeply in tradition, this building is a wildly dynamic and changing structure, constantly morphing to reflect the times.

We took the English tour through the Dom with a doctor of art history. Let me tell you, THAT is the way to take a tour. This guy knew what he was talking about, and answered most of my questions before I got to them.

Now, I know the soot covered building shown above looks like something straight out of Gotham City, and not a hub for progressive architecture, art and symbolism. But take this into account: The organization overseeing the art, windows and icons of the building is autonomous and not controlled by the cardinal or the church, leading to snazzy new Gerhard Richter-designed windows like this:

My crude representation of the window's history follows thus: During World War II, the U.S. was getting ready to bomb the living crap out of Germany. European art buffs came along and said to the U.S. "Hey, would you mind not bombing certain aspects of our history and heritage?" And oddly enough, despite what our last big city bombing would indicate, we obliged — the Dom would not be bombed, and the church would take its best windows out and put them away for safe keeping.

Most of those saved windows made it okay. One didn't, and all they had of its design was a few sketchy black and white photos. I'm not sure what happened in the 60 years from the end of the war to the new installation of Richter's window, but at some point they made the wise design decision to not make a copy of something they can't perfectly copy. They wanted something new and interesting — and it's worth noting that the cardinal installed in Cologne is not a fan of new and interesting in this case.

If you look closely at the window, it's essentially pixels. Of the long, verticals columns, the first and third, the fourth and sixth and the second and fifth are mirrors of each other. The pattern follows in some of the smaller rosettes.

As my hand is jumping up in the air, Dr. Art History jumped on the answer. To me, the guy who spray-painted “Power, Corruption and Lies” on a museum with an installation he hated didn't sound like the person who'd even want to design such a window, though he is a local Kölner and even gave up the design at no charge. But given that they did let him do it, and he wanted to do it, what was the religious or spiritual significance to the artist?

The answers to these questions are almost one in the same. Those in charge wanted a window to reflect the world as it is today. Digital, abstract and ambiguous. Richter will tell you (or so I'm told) that if you see religious significance in the abstract design and the color-filtered light, then there is religious meaning there. If you do not see religious significance, and you merely see and interesting abstract design, then there is no religious meaning there. It's up to you.

And really, isn't that where we're at in the world right now? Digitally connected, constantly being fed pixelated information and using these tools to desperately understand people who believe entirely different things from what we believe. As I think about the window, and what it implies, I find myself in a very cyclical set of thinking. My gut reaction is: “It is digital and represents the abstract and pluralistic nature of our world today, and is for the most part void of any specific spiritual meaning.” But even as I think of it, I'm awestruck by that very thought of our widening understanding of the world and our struggle to find peace with the ambiguous and abstract, and suddenly the window becomes spiritually significant in that sense.

I'd like to think that Richter was hoping people would get into that cycle, blurring the lines between what we see as strictly secular and things seen as strictly spiritual.

All of this is incredible, but not new to the church, and that's what amazes me. At every moment, those in charge of the building's structure and art (whether it's the current secular agency that is in charge or the church), they periodically threw tradition aside and took the building in a new direction. Looking at the walls you see examples and changes from every century reflecting the preferences of the time.

Our guide explained, because I pestered him a lot, that often times a generation would arise that said "Bah! I hate this style" and disregard one window or piece of architecture. A few generations later, the same style would be revered and mimicked. He expects the same will happen with the Richter window. Many people already hate it, but there may come a time when people look back and say "Yes, I see what they were doing and why, and I think this is beautiful."

And the end results? You get the window above (I am of the camp that thinks it's beautiful) crammed into the same building holding these:

The alleged skeletal remains of the three Magi. I was especially thankful of our guides balanced but critical take on these, where he explains that archeological study has indicated that the remains were clearly significant, revered people, there are three of them and they come from the time and place that the three Magi would have come from.

He argues, almost like shining the light of Richter's window directly onto these ancient relics, that it's possible these are not the three Magi in ernest (if you believe such a thing could even be found) but asks "Does it matter that they are?" And he admits that he does not think it matters. The items themselves, whoever they are, represent a historical and artistic significance and an important symbolism for the cathedral regardless.

And anyone refuting their significance to the area: Every sign, logo or ANYTHING in the city either bears a silhouette of the Dom's two towering spires, or an image of three crowns. You can't get a beer without being reminded of this place and what it contains. With that in mind, I'll be writing about the beer next.

Andrew Bird's new album

2008-04-16T14:14:00.001-07:00

More on Germany later, peeps!

Andrew Bird added another post to the New York Times’ blog Measure For Measure in which he wrote this:

The record I want to make here and now — the one I wish I could find in my local record store — is a gentle, lulling, polyrhythmic, minimalist yet warm tapestry of acoustic instruments. No solos, just interlocking parts. A little Steve Reich, but groovier. A little Ghanaian street music, but more arranged. Thick and creamy vocals like the Zombies’s Colin Blunstone. The bass warm and tubby like Studio One dub.

Words like those right there are why I always keep a spare pare of pants around, for the just in case moments where I get excited and crap myself. Heck, I have to avoid reading that paragraph up there just out of fear of aftershock self-craps.

He went on to explain that he's working with the same producer that hashed out Weather Systems back in 2003. That album was a superb accomplishment, even for Bird's standards. In that short 35 minutes he creates a slow-moving, pastoral, musical landscape that, being honest with myself, he has yet to surpass. Each subsequent album really took on very different atmospheres, but even at his very best he hasn't had as consistent a sound as he did on this one.

And just because Andrew Bird loves me (because what other explanation could there be?) he included a one-minute sample of the song "Oh No" that he's been working on in the studio.

I'm undecided on one matter though. Does this blog sate my appetite for a new album, or does it make the waiting for the new album (I'm guessing it will be out at the beginning of next year) all the more painful?

A Visit to Cologne Part 2: In which the author becomes addicted to pumpkin seed bread and takes way too many close-up photos at a Turkish market.

2008-04-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

Whenever people come and visit us in Seattle, we end up taking them to the Pike Place Market. When we lived in Eugene, it was the Saturday Market. That be the pattern we visit people or receive visitors. When in doubt, take them to the market!

All that hit me as we walked through a Turkish market in Köln, tasting eggplant and cheese purees as we went along. Really, what better way to get a look at the local flavor than going to an open lot covered in folding tables and collapsible tents filled with locals selling to locals.

I suppose it's nice economically. I could throw all my money into larger tourist haunts, or (as is most likely) into the H & M's (cuz when I leave Germany, I leave as a fashionista on an idiot's budget!). But it's cheaper for me and better for them if I'm dropping my cold hard cash into the hands of locals.

It was during the day on Wednesday, so we were easily the youngest adults (there were a few children) and the only American-type tourists I could see anywhere. We nabbed a couple containers of the purees and some flatbread. Then some veggies. I got in peoples way as I took close up shots of colorful merchandise.

Then it was around the corner, and I could no longer contain myself. In Seattle we've got a coffee joint every ten feet. In jolly old Deutchland it's bakeries. Bakeries with bread. Tasty, yeasty, chewy, crusty delicious bread.

Chris commented that ingredients for making bread are a bit hard to come by. This is probably because given the choice I'd rather drop half a Euro down for the tasty bakery goodness available than anything I'd make myself (and I do consider myself a reasonably adept baker.)

But while most flour- and yeast-based foodstuffs over there are what you'd expect — variations of whole wheat and white, sourdough and the like in every shape and size imaginable — there was one that stood out. These people love — or at least produce in mass quantities — rolls, rings and loaves of bread covered top to bottom, inch by inch in bitterly delicious pumpkin seeds.

Holy crap for crap, have I ever tasted such seedy, grainy goodness as this before? Suffice to say I have not, and Megan and I were running into every bakery we passed snagging a couple more of those rolls for the rest of the trip. I even had one left over the day after we arrived and ate it while driving to Seattle with a smug smile, knowing that know one within several thousand miles was enjoying bread quite like mine.

After the market run, we stopped by a little, little, LITTLE coffee shop (there's like, one long table in the place for any and all customers to share) for some French-pressed coffee. No espresso to be had here. But you do get to select from something like eight or more different blends of coffee. I'm not sure what they called the kind Megan and I ordered, but it was what they gave us when we asked for a less bitter variety.

Chris and Kelly come here often enough that the woman running the shop held a conversation strictly in German that I can only assume involved inquiring after each other’s health, wishing well to each other’s spouses and explaining who these two stupid non-German-speaking Americans were doing here.

I was fully impressed by Chris' conversational skill in this case. I don't speak the language, so I probably can't judge, but the conversation was long enough to get past the typical "Hello, my name is Karl. I like beer, pretzels and American football"-type conversations you'd find in your year-one language book.

Kelly came a few minutes later. Add another conversation with the woman running the joint between those two, add me saying "danke" every ten seconds so as to seem appreciative as possible and you've basically got that first morning.

Kudos to that establishment for broadening my coffee-drinking palate to non-espresso type fair. I'm typically used to drinking things with tons of steamed milk and shots of flavoring. I took mine with cream (real cream) and some sugar.

Tomorrow I'll write about the Cathedral a bit, which was WAY rad.

A Visit to Cologne Part 1: In which the author idiotically bounces through his brother's bathroom leaving a trail of destruction behind him.

2008-04-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

Arriving in any new city I enter a state of delirious fascination coupled with unending stupidity.

It's a state of mind I actually inherited from my mother, who once right after crossing the Canadian border, said in a drunken and dreamy voice "I don't feel like I'm in a different country," and then later shouted out "Oh look! They have Subway here too!"

My reign of idiotic American terror hit at Chris' apartment when, upon the invitation, I said I would very much enjoy taking a shower after what amounted to 24 hours of transit.

In the bathroom I looked up rotated myself a few times, taking in the odd wall-mounted water heater in the shower (about the size of a large dictionary or coffee table book), the various aquatic decorations (they came with the apartment) and then began to search for a way to turn on the light.

"Oh how fascinating!" I would say to myself in my head. "It's a cord pull to turn on the light."

This was followed by tugging the cord several times to turn the light on and off, as if this was some great revelation of technology the German's discovered. Who knew that one could turn lights on and off with things other than switches?

I close the door, rotate again, this time looking for the toilet, remembering that perhaps there was a reason Chris showed us a second bathroom.

In the next room (or WC if we want to do as the Germans do) I search for the light, this time prepared for the pull cord. I see no immediate switch or cord, but then notice a plastic fish dangling before me, suspended in the air by a silver ribbon. Aha!

I pull it, hear a ripping sound, and gasp. This cord, it appears, is merely for decoration, and I should probably not tug on it.

But it was also in this bathroom that I would face my week-long nemesis. The toilet. It is, to describe it in the single word Chris used, "confrontational."

I would include a picture here to back my findings, but the thought of snapping a photo of it made my spine shudder, so I'll have to rely on the extent of my mastery over the written word.

The bowl itself is like any found in any home here in the U.S. Instead of a little knob or lever to flush, there's a large square button. But within the bowl lies my bane.

Instead of a smooth cone leading down to the exit point for your, *ahem*, deposits, there's a clear out-box on the opposite end you'd expect, nearest you. But the water does not fill up halfway like we do here stateside.

In the center, there's a small tray-shape molded into the bowl, allowing your, *ahem*, deposits to sit in a small, extremely shallow puddle of water, mostly exposed to the elements before being washed into the aforementioned outbox upon flushing.

My words may not fully describe what this is like, but the result is being faced eye-to-eye with your No. 2s before they're washed away. I mean eye-to-eye. They're straight up there, standing and staring at you, not under water, but just sitting there, as the smell slowly fills the room.

The flushing process is not a casual affair, but done in desperate fear of the unsightly terror you've cast upon this earth. It's as though the designers wanted to say to you "Look, foul beast, upon your excrement, and fear it!"

But fortunately, bowel movements being what they are, we were only forced to endure this unpleasantness a few times throughout the week. But, as exhibited here, future toilets were equally confrontational, such as this one found at a castle in St. Goar. That's a guillotine by the way.

Other domestic rituals were much more pleasant, and actually quite tasty. It's a rare site to see your typical bowl of sugary cereal drenched in milk. Chris and Kelly have taken to a local breakfast of chopped fruit, yogurt and granola all in a bowl. This cuisine was so appealing to my palate that we went straight to Costco the day after we got back to get some flax granola, yogurt and plums.

I found this, I should say, much tastier than the array of sliced cold meats we found at a buffet breakfast at our hostel, each one looking like another strange variation on bologna.

More stories of adventure and intrigue to come in the following days. I promise this is the only one involving bowel movements.

Watched: Children of Men

2008-03-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

So I wrote about the book MONTHS ago, but to recap, P. D. James’ dystopian thriller about a world in which men become sterile, centers around Theo, who becomes wrapped up with revolutionaries opposed to the British establishment, which is really focused on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain at the cost of human rights and justice. One of the revolutionaries is found to be pregnant, craziness ensues.

The film takes the books title, character names and a few skeletal plot points, but is otherwise an almost entirely different story. Theo is not a professor of English, but a cynical, depressed public servant. The world he lives in does not have a Utopian surface covering major violations of basic human rights, in fact the loss of human rights is right on the surface, as Clive Owen travels through dark, gray sketches of an almost destroyed Europe.

With such stark differences, it's easy to leave the book behind and take Alfonso Cauron's film at face values. As expected, the colors are carefully controlled, the cinematography is beautiful, the transitional scenes of people simply interacting without the pretext of plot exposition, and the focus of the story thrown onto a backdrop meant to reflect human injustice we see in our own world today.

It's no wonder than, that Cauron opted to change the revolutionaries moving through a world of secret governmental oppression into composite characters moving head-first into a war zone.

What's missing? The theologically deep conversation found in the book, but that's hard to translate to film.

But where the film lacks in James' intelligent dialog, Cauron EXCELS in visual symbolism. Great film all around.

Watch out Deutschland! We're on our way!

2008-03-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

So it came a little sooner than we planned, but we're heading off to Cologne in less than three weeks. And just to make you INSANELY jealous, here's a picture of our accommodations for a two-night trek down to Bacharach.

That's a castle that's been converted into a hostel, and we'll be sleeping inside it.

But for the most of our stay we'll be staying at a joint run by some lovely ex-pats in the tourist haven that is Cologn (Köln to the locals). We're looking forward to touring the town via our personal guides, including a trip to a chocolate museum and The Dom, which boasts a new window designed by Gerhard Richter. It's been somewhat controversial given its minimalism and non-traditional approach, but I really like it, and it seems to represent the era in which it was designed and constructed better than a more traditional look. Peep it:

So basically it's randomized square pieces of colored glass, making the whole thing look like a mass of pixels. Eat that modern look, National Cathedral!

To our family preparing to introduce us to their new European home, our perspective has been shaped entirely by stereotypes from Kraftwerk and Sprockets and we'll expect no less... you'd better have black turtlenecks when we get there.

God smite Rachel Ray

2008-02-28T11:03:00.000-08:00

Previously I titled a post calling for the divine blessing of one Alton Brown.
The flipside of this is my now calling for the divine SMITING of Rachel Ray and her freaking EVOO.
That she is the incarnate of all things evil on the otherwise beloved Food Network is given, but now she's getting hooked up with the SXSW festival for a birthday party concert of indie music persuasions?
Look lady, it's bad enough that you've sullied the Food Network with your ridiculous acronyms of standard kitchen products (EVOO indeed), and that you're annoyingly perky, but now you've gotta go and start fronting on my musical territory? That's right, not even Pitchfork is safe from this incarnate of culinary evil. I can't even peruse the latest record reviews without seeing her.
Added to my loathing... I searched for a picture of Ray through google, and ran into WAY to many photos from some magazine shoot she did that I deem inappropriate for these pages. That's right, she appeared on FHM as well, cooking in little more than a mini skirt and a bra.
I'm going to go watch a few episodes of Alton Brown just to cleanse my brain pallet of this news bit.

Don't talk back to Darth Vader! He'll getcha!

2008-02-25T17:10:00.000-08:00

Listen to this little kid. She knows what she's talking about

Why I do vote

2008-02-25T16:28:00.000-08:00

Politico recently ran three side-by-side columns on why three journalists do or do not vote in elections, and I was a little troubled by the extremity of the first to opinions (from non-voters).

Mike Allen argues that journalists should remain politically agnostic, but I think he goes a little too far, in what I'd consider political atheism. I understand trying to remain detached, but as a country, voting is the minimal civic responsibility.

I understand limiting one self to the standard elections. I didn't vote in the primaries or participate in caucuses because those are party events. The primary in Washington state requires voters to designate a party affiliation, and myself I'd rather remain an independent. But to not even participate in a carefully anonymous event seems ridiculous to me.

The way I see it, if you're going to detach yourself even from an anonymous vote, what else will you avoid? Can you allow your children to join cub scouts? Because after all, the BSA has taken strong positions on homosexuality. If your beat covers unions, will you avoid certain grocery stores?

Journalists can easily become wrapped up in their own little media worlds, and it's pretty difficult to cover the planet when you pompously live high above it. To me, the November election is one of the few places where a reporter can actually become involved in their community.

So you don't care to declare a party? I'm there with you. You even avoid the PTA because you're a school reporter? I can see an argument there. But taking away your own right to vote, just for the sake of proving that you're unbiased, that to me seems like overkill.

Reporters already have their opinions. Voting doesn't change that. I have sources I like, I have sources I dislike. I can't change my personally feelings, but when I sit down with my copy, my dedication to readers demands that I keep my personal feelings from swaying the information I need to convey. But come that first Tuesday in November, I can guarantee I'll cast my vote. You don't have to say who you voted for, but your inaction does not change your personal and political beliefs, or the potential for bias.

Read: Till We Have Faces

2008-02-19T15:09:00.000-08:00

So I finally gave into endless recommendations to read C. S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces.

I resist because, with rare exception, I'm not a particularly huge fan of C. S. Lewis. I find him ultimately the product of a time that led to a lot of sexist and shallow theology. I understand taking things in context, but taking C. S. Lewis in context left me having to sift through quite a bit of crap to get to a few decent nuggets.

Not so with A Grief Observed or Till We Have Faces. I like these, and especially my latest read, because they're based in doubt, with the protagonists (in one C. S. Lewis himself) questioning divine authority.

Because for me, I'm an Edmund or a Susan. I prefer inherently flawed people, especially if they are doubters and questioners. I'm less interested in Peter or Lucy, who I find endlessly faithful and unquestioning, and thus, endlessly dull.

If discussion of the divine is without questions or doubt, than, to me, it's a worthless conversation. That's why I adore this book, and its protagonist, Orual, who pens the story as a charge against the gods for what they did to her and her sister, a human-turned-goddess, Psyche.

This is a retelling of greek myths in much the same way Gregory Maguire retells the stories of the Wicked Witch of the West or Cinderella.

The story of Psyche involves a girl sacrificed to a beast of some kind. Cupid is sent to kill her, because peasants worship her like a god. Cupid instead falls in love with her and takes her away to a palace and marries her, but keeps himself hidden from her. Psyche's sisters see the palace, become jealous, and convince the naive and gullible Psyche to shine a lantern on her husband and kill him. When she shines the lantern, she is banished.

Lewis brilliantly turns the story around, creating Orual, one of the sisters, Psyche's elder, who is overly fond of her young, beautiful sister. Orual is seen as ugly. Orual's actions are not out of jealousy, but out of logical doubt. As far as she can see, someone has conned her sister, is keeping her locked in a mountain and manipulating her into thinking he is a good. Orual is unable to see this palace, and insists that Psyche prove that her alleged husband is more than just some manipulative thief. She's convinced that, in fact, Psyche might be drugged by the hidden husband.

I love this protagonist, because I think most level-headed people would have the same reaction to Psyche's situation. But more than that, Orual confronts the god's and charges, in a great set of dialog, that the god's real crime is being absent and ambiguous. If they were violent beasts, humans could deal with that, but instead they're distant and withhold the intent of their actions.

I don't want to give any more away than that. But it just astounded me, and I applaud Lewis for not driving a "have faith no matter what the cost" message, but rather leaves the story unclear in the end. It seems that Orual begins to have faith in the end, but it's not a moral that is forced, and Orual's doubts and anger ring much stronger than Psyche's blind faith, whether Psyche is correct in the end or not.

Onto some lighter fair. Next I'm reading Cold Comfort Farm for the second time.

The Quilt, Part 3

2008-02-13T12:10:00.000-08:00

I hit a bit of a slump this week in quilt-making, mainly because I hit a slump in life. Megan and I like to call it "I don't feel like being an adult today" kind of thing. Which generally results in us watching entire seasons of "Scrubs" in short sittings. But it's time to get back on the ball!

So I'm in the process of cutting all the extra junk off the t-shirts (like the sleeves, collar and bottom seam) and ironing backing onto it. Check out this Andrew Bird shirt getting sliced, diced and heated to its quilty DOOM!

Here we have the t-shirt, unharmed and unaware of its future demise. But fret not gentle reader. This fabric may die as a t-shirt, but it will be reborn as a BADASS quilt. (I like to try to make the whole quilting process sound sexy and dangerous as much as possible. Helps preserve my frail manhood.)
I'm looking to take this badboy and have nothing but two pieces of fabric, with no seams, tags, collars or anything. Bye bye birdie!

Because I'm a sadist, here's a glimpse of the shirt midway through the hacking. I took off the sleeves and back. I took a bit of the backing fabric, and cut it at the same time to get the same shape.
The quilting ruler (is that what it's called) is really necessary, because t-shirt fabric is pretty soft and moved around a lot. I also had to watch the collar, so I didn't cut too close to the image.
Next its off to the ironing board. The backing fabric looks like a regular woven fabric, but has little gluey dots all over it. I bonded them together at medium heat, and put another layer of fabric over the top so it didn't get too hot.

And behold! The final results. I worried that with the glue it would be stiff, but it's actually very soft. The outer side feels like the comfy shirt it used to be, and the backing gives it a support making the whole thing feel more like a nice flannel. Only downside so far: if I iron for too long, it leaves a grid impression from the ironing board on it. But in the days following that's worn down quite a bit.

One other tip. The backing can get expensive for an otherwise dirt-cheap project. We get a Jo-Ann's Fabric coupon flier in the mail each week, and there's almost always one for 50 percent off a single item. I recommend going that route, because the backing is needed for any piece of fabric on the quilt.

Also, I'm taking Jon's advice on using as little backing as possible. I'm starting off by putting backing on the front halves of all the t-shirts (the sides with the images) and if I end up needing more material for the blank squares, I'll back the backends of the shirts.

Iron on!

Year of the Rat!

2008-02-07T11:16:00.000-08:00

Happy year of the rat everyone!

Discovering that the Chinese New Year cycles in February was very important to me. I once believed I was born in the year of the rooster. BUT NO! Thanks to the technicalities of the Chinese Calendar, I'm proud to be born under the year of the MONKEY!

Be thankful you're here in the U.S., because across the Pacific it's going to be an entire year of rat-based advertising and merchandise. I bet Ratatouille is going crazy over there right now.

R.E.M. - "Supernatural Superserious"

2008-02-06T11:41:00.001-08:00

Pitchfork posted a surprisingly catchy R.E.M. track today. Given that their last two albums were entirely forgettable, it's nice to hear something like this pop up. More Monster-like, which is good, but I would much rather hear something a la New Adventures In Hi-Fi or Up, but this is still pretty solid.

Check it out!

Best comic ever

2008-02-06T08:57:00.000-08:00

I tend to say a lot of things are "best ever" you'll notice. Though I realize these claims are unfounded and often outlandish (except for Tiffany, she really is the best thing ever). But XKCD is actually up there in the charts, and the above comic is why.

Listening to update

2008-02-05T11:31:00.000-08:00

I try to save my 40 monthly emusic tracks for as long as I can, but inevitably I have downloaded all of them the day they refresh, as was the case this month, and it's all thanks to these three new albums sitting in my "Listening To" section.

Basia Bulat - Oh, My Darling I'm working on a review for this one for Nada Mucho right now. I love the record. On some of her more upbeat tracks she reminds me of Richard and Linda Thompson back when they were on speaking terms. "In The Night" is without a doubt my favorite song on the album, but I warn you the linked video there involves drummers dressed up as bears and dancers dressed up as skelingtons... It is not for the faint of heart.

Nellie McKay - Obligatory Villagers So her first album Get Away From Me was about 50 percent pretty great. The 50 percent I preferred leaned on the conventional vaudeville side of things, rather than the intentionally weird, They Might Be Giants side of things. This new one, unfortunately, leans on the weird side. There's some great moments, but it's not a casual listen, because it's music that really grabs your attention through odd voices and blurting interjections. I still enjoy it, especially "Zombie" but there's not a track that stands out as strongly as "Ding Dong".

Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová - The Swell Season I've written about these two. Their album is essentially half songs from the film Once. The difference here is that the songs are all piano, guitar, violin and cello, rather than piano, guitars, bass and drums. "Falling Slowly" is still the best track, and Hansard's explanation about the song on that video is pretty hilarious.

"I Feel It All" by Feist

2008-01-25T09:17:00.000-08:00

Feist is more than a great songwriter and performer. She makes the best music videos I've seen in years. Seriously. Youtube em up! And the best part, many of her videos are single shot takes with elaborate scenes of dancers and, in this case, fireworks. Watching the above video made me think about the massive amount of time and energy it must have taken to organize.

And if that video wasn't enough, check out this and this. And if you're not sick of that Apple commercial yet, her video for 1234 is amazing.

update: I'm a totally bad blogger in not giving credit where credit is due. Somebody in Germany alerted me to this hot hot video, and it wasn't Chris... it was his mathematical counterpart, Kelly... Happy Year of the Mathematician!

The Quilt, Part 2

2008-01-23T13:19:00.000-08:00

The design is complete. I had to determine how to distribute the colors, and last night after pulling my hair out for quite a while, I finally settled on which squares will feature which colors.

But as I finish it, I realize that there's nothing standing between me and construction, or to put it more bluntly (or sharply) nothing between some of my favorite old t-shirts and a rotary cutter.

Being the good anglican-raised boy I am, I know how to bid fair-well to useless objects. (quick: How many episcopalians does it take to replace a light-bulb? 25! 4 on a committee to find a new light-bulb, 3 to procure the replacement bulb, one to hold up the ladder while another one replaces the bulb, 5 to hold a service bidding farewell to the old bulb and welcoming the new one, 1 pastor and 1 deacon to lead that service and 9 to complain about how they always preferred the old bulb anyway)

So! Let's take a quick trip down memory lane!

KWVA Shirts 1 and 2: These were acquired in Eugene, Ore. where I volunteered at the student/community station, spinning records from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. every Friday morning. I actually had a few regular listeners who called in requests. I sported these shirts proudly on campus whenever able.

Red Hook Shirt: Ah yes! That day at the Red Hook Brewery. I have a picture of a certain someone pouncing the trunk of a blue Toyota the day I got my t-shirt and he got an identical one of a different color. The picture is on my fridge if you want to see it.

Tom Waits: So I got this one from a friend who didn't want it. I was astounded that anyone would ever get rid of a good Tom Waits shirt! It's got tons of little visual references to Waits' songs in there, including the name of a pizza place (Napoleon's) he used to work at.

Robin Hitchcock: So the front of the shirt was too big for the quilt, but the back is what always got people's attention. It says the names of the musicians (Robin Hitchcock and the Young Fresh Fellows) and the venue (The Crocodile Cafe) and tour name and what not in a small square, but all the letters are crammed together so you can't read what it actually says. That's what really got the most attention. I found it at a thrift shop near the university.

Flaming Lips: Got this at a tour show. The front and back is in japanese, and I'm told at least one side is a phonetic translation of "The Flaming Lips." Both sides are different panels of a comic strip in which a pink robot destroys itself because it has fallen in love with Yoshimi, who it was ordered to destroy. Ah robot tragedy!

The Floor Is made of Lava: So I saw this on a friend, then went and bought my own. I LOVE that game, though I used to pretend that the floor was hot molten peanut butter and the furniture and other items were giant graham crackers I was trying to traverse.

Andrew Bird: I got this while working one of his shows in Seattle. They were selling out fast, so I grabbed it and stuffed it out of sight while I sold merch to the fans. "What's that? you want a sky-blue Andrew Bird shirt? Sorry! We're all out (mwah ha ha)." then it got bleached in the wash and I got mad and ordered a new one.

Mandarin text: This one I bought in Taiwan, and a friend over there translated it for me and it says something along the lines of "Sex is emptiness, and emptiness is sex." Because of this, when I used to travel around town chinese people would come up to me with a grin on their face and ask me if I knew what it said.

Yo La Tengo: Procured this one from the same person who discarded that great Tom Waits shirt. It's from what might be my favorite Yo La Tengo album "Electr-o-pura." I'm anticipating disagreement on this stated opinion, but that has little to do with the shirt, which I've loved for many years.

And finally, Riyadh:

The story is already told, but it's worth noting that in the time I've had it, the world has seen three presidents (and the beginning campaign of whoever the next will be) and two wars in the mid-east. I've gone from thinking girls are "icky" to being married, and I've lived in three states. The shirt has been with my through every career decision and schooling I've been through since junior high (and seen the campuses of Washington Middle School and Nathan Hale High School in Seattle, North Seattle Community College, University of Washington, Shoreline Community College and University of Oregon) and as a result has endured pottery clay, photography chemicals and an incessant waft of cigarette smoke from concerts.

Goodbye good t-shirts! We knew ye well!

"Listening to" update

2008-01-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

So I was looking at my "Listening To" section realizing that I really wasn't listening to what was on there. So I decided to make an update, and seemed worth posting something about the albums. So without further ado! (I put links to videos and tracks from the albums where able)

The Blow - Paper Television This is one of those bands my brother recommended to me, or at least asked "Why aren't you listening to this yet?" His doctor informed me that I'm supposed to keep his frightfully low blood pressure up, and I find there's no better way to do that than ignore his recommendations ("no I will NOT watch The Wire") and make derisive comments about Sonic Youth and Masonna. But the constant crying isn't good for him, so I decided to give this one a ago. The song linked above is why I love this album. It makes me do a little happy dance.

Nellie McKay - Get Away From Me This sample is from a alive show. I heard Ms. McKay on Fresh Air during a best-of week. I was really into her songs about zombies and such, and her satirical allegations that feminists have no sense of humor. So I went and snagged her first album of iTunes. She jumps between conventionally quirky to, well, just plain quirky. I prefer convention when given the choice, which is where the above link lies.

Andrew Bird - Soldier On So I couldn't snag an actual track from this one either. But it's still quite beautiful, and the song does appear on the EP. But the REAL sad thing here is the fact that with three exceptions, I already had every track on this newly released EP. It includes Bird's contributions to a ballet called "My Name Is A Blackbird." I already special ordered the CD that includes THREE OTHER tracks. The Bob Dylan cover has been floating across the net for quite some time, and the two non-album tracks appeared in bonus form on iTunes and eMusic. So... it's got a remix, an early demo (of "Heretics," which is great because I love the demo, but didn't like the album track) and a short instrumental. In short, for fans only. Although I recommend downloading "Oh Sister" if you can find it.

Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglov - Once It's been scientifically proven that if you dislike this music, you have no heart. I swear I saw this dude try to disrespect the album, and the Grinch was all "damn, that's cold man, real cold." It's just so pretty. Check out the film, but understand it's about 60 to 75 percent straight music. This song is my favorite one.

Kimya Dawson and others - Juno My only problem with the film Juno is the alleged claim that the title character's favorite bands are The Stooges, Patti Smith and the Runaways. All great bands/musicians to be sure. But have a look at that soundtrack. There's more Mo Tucker (of The Velvet Underground) than any ACTUAL punk in there. Add to that Juno's claims that Sonic Youth was "nothing but noise." Anyone who listens to the Stooges should a) know Sonic Youth and b) at least respect something of theirs, at least Goo or something like that. But clearly Juno spent more time listening to K Records bands who listened to VU's "After Hours" on repeat throughout their adolescence. Not that I'm unhappy with the results. Because I myself listened to "After Hours" on repeat throughout my adolescence. This album is much less punk, and much more twee. That said, I love the soundtrack and the film. To put it bluntly, Juno is twee as fuck.

So that's all the new entries on the listening to post. I know you've aall been anxiously awaiting an update there. RAW!

2008-01-22T12:34:00.000-08:00

I wrote this last October, and just found it and realized never posted it. I'm tired of seeing Captain Jack Sparrow there, so you get this! Quilting update to come!

We had one of our finest moments at the Port Orchard Independent today. Yes, when Taco Bell announced that they would offer free tacos if someone stole a base during the World Series, we knew we'd be taking advantage.

And today we did, my friends, today we did. Just take in this great shot of me with a full mouth of crispity crunchity Taco Bell brand taco!

And that's not all. We reporters ain't no Holly Golightly taco eaters. We take this s@#t SERIOUS. Because at the Port Orchard Taco Bell, we were the FIRST FOUR to demand our free tacos, followed right behind by a group of Jr. High aged kids and some senior citizens.

Let no one again question the dedication reporters have to the acquisition of free grade-b meat products. And to the little old lady we knocked over whilst racing our way to free taco bliss, we're very sorry, and we hope next time you'll reconsider standing between a bunch of reporters and free handouts.

I am Captain Jack Sparrow! And I dislocated my knee...

2008-01-10T10:38:00.000-08:00

So this is pretty much the best thing ever. This dude tried to break into a coffee shop in Lakewood, Wash., and failed miserably. So the owner takes the security camera footage and makes a hilarious video.

I'm told the pirate burglar has turned himself in, and ended up with a dislocated knee, which doesn't sting quite as badly as being broadcast on YouTube for all to see... oh the embarrassment.

Will they make a sequel called "Twice"?

2008-01-09T16:20:00.002-08:00

Frames bassist John Carney teams up with bandmate (and bandleader) Glen Hansard to create "Once," a movie about a Dublin vagabond who spends his days and nights running back and forth between his fathers vacuum repair shop and the street corner where he plays sorrow-drenched songs about his ex-girlfriend, who moved to London.

Enter Marketa Irglov (called "The Girl" in the closing credits) who is tenaciously persistent in procuring information from Hansard (called "The Boy") about the source of his poetic inspiration and persuades him to fix her vacuum cleaner.

Insert adorable scenes of the two walking around Dublin with her dragging her broken vacuum cleaner around with her.

What ensues is an odd love story told partly through small bits of dialog and the Hansard's forlorn lyrics. The two never really form any type of romantic relationship, but stick closely together as they both work out their career and love troubles.

In reality, the story could be told in about 30 minutes, were it not for the meandering montages played under Hansard's songs, which are always played in full, beginning to end.

It's not a musical by any stretch, but the music dominates the scene. But the story is as unconventional as the music's presence in the film. Don't be fooled by the Americanized DVD cover, featuring Hansard and Irglov holding hands. Look on the soundtrack album cover and you'll see the original photograph has them standing side by side, not touching, but almost.

That's really the name of this whole story. The romance is confined entirely to fairly unreveiling dialog and overly reveiling (but ultimately symbolic and obscure) lyricism. The viewer starts to wonder if Hansard's songs are more about his ex-lover or this new girl who he barely even touches throughout the film.

What's amazing is the film is heartwrenchingly romantic, and the two share almost no physical contact, proving to American filmmakers that it can in fact be done without a sexual catharsis.

But for me, the real reason to watch the movie is to see the music develop from its form sung on street corners all the way up to a full-band studio recording. My wife's accused me more than once for liking a movie only because it had good music, but at least in this case there's not much I'm overlooking. The music is the main focus of the movie.

Peep the preview here

Also, just read an interview with the director in which the critic compared the film to Noel Coward's Brief Encounter and this is a great comparison. A love story without the stereotypical kiss scene or obligatory sex scene.

The Quilt, Part 1

2008-01-07T13:30:00.000-08:00

The story started with a shirt. It's not a particularly stellar shirt, but for many years it's been my very favorite shirt.

This shirt:

No I did not attend the International School in Riyadh, and before you ask (as many have before) I did not find it at Value Village. It was given to me, and one exactly like it to each of my brothers when our friends Sarah and Elizabeth moved to Saudi Arabia just before the Gulf War.

At the time it was our significantly cool mark that we had friends living overseas. Later it was a reminder that we had friends in a war zone. But I have to confess that it slipped out of my life, and when it returned I was a teenager, and it caught my eye because old, beat up t-shirts with unusual designs were in.

But about a year ago, my wife pointed out that one day I was going to open our drier and all our clothes would be covered in an red lint, and my t-shirt would be no more. I realized it was time to let it go. Sort of.

The story continues with a quilt, because even though this shirt has the most historical significance of any article of clothing I own, there are many MANY t-shirts that I love, either outgrown, or overused. Bands I love and loved, and the idea hit me as I was wrapped in one of my wife's quilts, a large throw pieced together with squares from jeans, pockets and inseams included.

Aha! I thought. Now I can have my cake and eat it too! And thus it began. And after a lot of sifting through clothing and determining which was most worthy and most aesthetically pleasing, I came up with the following collection:

Shirts offering what my mother would call "free advertising" for Tom Waits, Andrew Bird, Robin Hitchcock, Yo La Tengo, The Flaming Lips, KWVA Radio in Eugene, Redhook Beer and um... well that black one is just a stick figure standing on a chair saying "The floor is made of lava!"

So this is part one, and to show you I'm not just fooling around, here's my game plan:

It's all measured out. Next steps: Determining what color t-shirt material I'll use for the blank squares (each of the 12 15X15-inch squares will hold one t-shirt design) and attaching a supportive backing to the material so the shirts stay together.

I'll keep you gentle and anxious readers posted on the adventures of quilt-making.

2007 in a nutshell

2008-01-03T12:04:00.001-08:00

So I never made a top five, ten or whatever number list for 2006. I'll just sum it up by saying that I received "Begin To Hope" by Regina Spektor for my birthday last January, and I've listened to it consistently since then, with no sign of slowing down in the future. You can hear samples of her tunes at her website or her MySpace.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's dive into THIS year! Starting with my top songs, and if I'm able, a link to where you can hear them, be it YouTube, MySpace or whatever.

1) Feist - 1234 I'm sure most of you are pretty darn sick of this song already, and I pity the fool who works at Starbucks and gets no break of this, but being without much television access and not an employee at Starbucks, I LOVE this song. And the video. The beginning, WHERE DO ALL THOSE PEOPLE COME FROM? And at the end? WHERE'D THEY GO? And best of all, it's all ONE SINGLE CUT! No edits my friends.

2) M.I.A. - Paper Planes M.I.A. gets credit first for making it onto NPR's All Songs Considered just because I think it's funny to hear Bob Boilen play a song that samples gunshots. But it's a booty-shakin' track with a GREAT sample.

3) Lily Allen - Mr. Blue Sky See my full comments a few entries back, but this song is fabulous and the perfect song to pair with her own "LDN" as a sun-shiny song.

4) Blonde Redhead - Mr. Blue Sky Some songs you know you'll love before you hear them, and when our blogging friends in Germany compared this track to the theme from The Neverending Story, I knew all I needed.

5) Petra Haden - Don't Stop Believin' So to hear this track you'll actually have to click on the song title on her my space page linked above. But, from the "Guilt By Association" collection, a compilation that pairs respectable musicians with entirely disreputable songs. I prefer Pitchfork's argument that anymore one person's piece of crap is another person's masterpiece. I prefer the Petra Haden version.

6) Andrew Bird - Scythian Empire Again, requires a click once you open the page, and this track is technically the version from his live collection "Fingerlings 3" But it's still solid. I love the rhythm of this track, and the fact that it moves by quickly even though it's the same riff over and over again throughout the duration of the song.

7) Panda Bear - Comfy In Nautica So take equal parts Brian Wilson-style harmonies and rhythms, mix it with some looping of acoustic instrumentation and ancient-style rhythms, and you've got Panda Bear's newest album.

8) The Pipettes - Guess Who Ran Off With The Milkman I can't promote The Pipettes enough. They're too good for words, and this song is exactly why. Also the only song of theirs that technically came out this year. Yes, the new album came out in its U.S. form this year (the same album that came out in the U.K. the year prior), but this one is honest to goodness new!

9) Beirut - Nantes I'm a big fan of this blog and NPR-darling Beirut. Take your standard run-of-the-mill indie band, have it mate with the film Amelie, and you get Beirut, their forbidden lovechild. Great stuff.

10) Rosie Thomas - Friends of Mine I couldn't find the actual track online for your legal listening pleasure, but you can hear other music from her album on her MySpace page. This is far and away my favorite track on her last not-well-reviewed album. I'm not sure why exactly it wasn't well reviewed, but I really liked it. Thomas' fairly straight forward, albeit somewhat maudlin, songwriting paired with Sufjan Stevens' backup harmonies made it all for me. This song wrapped everything up nicely, with some nice distorted back-up vocals and Rosie's gorgeous voice.

Okay, that under my belt, time for the FIVE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR as determined by ME, Unauthorized and Uncredible Music Blogger EXTRAORDINAIRE!

5) Beirut - Flying Club Cup I think I said it all up there in that track review. Beautiful stuff. We haven't heard uke playing like this since the Magnetic Fields.

4) Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha So, um, I like Andrew Bird. I don't know if I ever shared that before. It feels good to get it off my chest.

3) Blonde Redhead - 23 The worlds greatest band made up of twins and one of the twin’s wife... or the ONLY band... anyway, I've always had a love-hate relationship with Blonde Redhead. We've gone back and forth, very make-up-break-up, mainly because on the Sonic Youth spectrum of music, I fall more on the Yo La Tengo side, and less on the other side, which is where I previously placed Blonde Redhead, albeit unfairly. This album rules, and changes my entire perspective on the crew.

2) Panda Bear - Person Pitch I was a HUGE fan of his first album "Young Prayer," a stark wordless commemoration to Panda Bear's deceased father. This one goes in a completely different direction, and I have to confess it took me a while to really get into it. What I realized is that the Beach Boys (circa 1966 - 1974) are really an autumn affair for me. No really. Look at the cover of "Pet Sounds." Those are jackets, not swimsuits. Well, for me, I couldn't really appreciate this one until the weather got a little cooler and I started busting out the sweaters. These are the breaks.

1) Feist - The Reminder So we'll add this to the list of evidence proving that I'm Starbucks' target demographic, because despite the unfortunate albums from Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchel via your favorite coffee provider, they still push music on me that I like. Feist is no exception, in fact, she might be prime example number one. The whole album is great.

Adorable!

2008-01-03T11:26:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's the Buffy fan in me, but whip-smart, sarcastic high schoolers crack me up, especially when they yell "THUNDERCATS ARE GO!" when they realize they're going into labor.

I really can't recommend this movie enough. Ellen Page is a crack up, but for me it's the stellar side performances from J. K. Simmons and Michael Cera (aka George Michael from Arrested Development).

(Side note. Michael Cera, you rule, but you're doomed to playing the same role for the rest of your life.)

My affection for the lad is all about the heart he put into his performance, the fact that he mumbled and stuttered every line, including the best moment in the film when he's had enough of Juno's sarcastic dismissal of their one night stand.

Juno glibly mocks him for assuming they would get married after having sex, to which he replies "I wouldn't want to marry you anyway. You'd be the meanest wife ever."

Classic!

Point is, I've not seen a lot of movies lately, and I'm glad I actually went out to see this one, rather than wait for video like I do with most romantic comedy type movies.

Peep out the trailer here!

edit: I would be remiss if I didn't mention the moment in the film that was clearly lifted from any number of arguments I had with my older brother during our teenage years, in which Juno (playing the role of ME) yells at Jason Bateman (in the roll of Chris) "Oh, and I listened to Sonic Youth and it sucked! It was nothing but noise!"

It's like Stephen Pastis is in my head!

2007-12-31T10:49:00.000-08:00

This is the exact scenario of the night I met my wife. Once a year we like to re-enact the event... I keep hoping she'll actually find me attractive one year, or at least buy me another beer.

Public Service Announcement

2007-12-23T09:27:00.000-08:00

Make sure you talk to YOUR kids about this epidemic.

Lily Allen meets ELO!

2007-12-11T11:28:00.000-08:00

What could be better than some odd combination of UK pop songstress Lily Allen and the 70s beatles-esque supergroup Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)? Okay, don't answer that! Because I know you THINK you have an answer, but you DON'T! Because there is NOTHING better than this combination. NOTHING!

Enjoy this pop gem, and shake your booty excessively!

The Unusual: Colleen

2007-11-12T11:59:00.000-08:00

Take a gander through my electronic and classical music shelves sometime, and there is a pattern. Keep it slow, keep it quiet, keep it harmonic. Those are the rules for me when it comes to the instrumental electronic and classical genres. Not strictly so, but there's definitely a pattern.

And now my new favorite gal Colleen is kinda/sorta stradling both genres with some beautiful Arvo Part like compositions performed on mainly guitars and cellos, and pieced together with a looping divice a la Andrew Bird, Final Fantasy.

Piece that all together and you've got the recipe for a happy, happy me! The compositions are minimalist, slow moving, deep and beautiful. I really am at a loss for words here. It's akin to me walking up to a musician and saying "Excuse me, could you record my dream music for me?" and that musician saying "For you, Aaron, anything!" and that's just what Colleen did.

Being at a loss for words, I'll go like Reading Rainbow and recommend that you don't take MY word for it:

Colleen - Sun Against My Eyes
Colleen - Blue Sands

What's that? You've soiled your pants just listening to this music? You want more? Well, I can help you with the latter. Check out her website, myspace or emusic for more of that. Enjoy!

Happy Great Pumpkin Day!

2007-10-31T12:09:00.000-07:00

I don't know where y'alls will be tonight, but me, I'm going to be sitting in a pumpkin patch waiting for Who Know Who to show up. (Not to be confused with You Know Who)

So while all you suckers will be running about collecting tootsie pops and marshmallow filled pumpkins, I'll be awaiting the great gifts in store for all good boys and girls. Hope it doesn't rain. In the meany time, enjoy some pumpkiny goodness:

But make sure you toss your pumpkins out soon, our else:

Happy All Hallow's Eve my peeps!

New Andrew Bird Tracks!

2007-10-29T10:33:00.000-07:00

So Mr. Bird's albums often display the lovely artwork of Jay Ryan. But who know that Jay Ryan also had a band called Dianogah??? I sure didn't.

I also didn't know that Dianogah and Andrew Bird would be running over to Daytrotter.com for a lovely live session. Wowzers people!

Andrew and quite a different backing crew play five studio sessions — "Fiery Crash" and "Plasticities" from Armchair Apocrypha, "Lull" from Weather Systems, "A Breaks B" from a forthcoming Dianogah album and "The Giant of Illinois" a Handsome Family cover AB's been playing at live shows as of late.

The sound quality on these tracks is just beautiful, and "Lull" glimmers along BEAUTIFULLY in much the same way it did on the album. In the notes on the sessions, Bird talks about revisiting old material and trying to bring it back to how it sounded originally. For a guy who's typically very forward thinking, this is unusual, but I'm certainly not complaining about the results. "Lull" is just stunning, and the bass is priceless.

Get over there and listen to it yo!

Listening to....

2007-10-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

I couldn't stare at it any longer. The "Listening To..." portion of this page, sitting just to the write of these here words, sat there mocking me, pointing outthat it hasn't been adjusted since January, proclaiming my affection for albums I frankly hadn't listened to in MONTHS. The previous Andrew Bird selection, Fingerlings 3, was particularly brutal in its derision, because a FULL LP has come out since then. How shameful.

I thought given the happily updated state of my "Listening To..." section, I'd post a little something about each album therein, so here we go!

Cadence Weapon - Breaking Kayfabe
This here is some quality hip-hop that reminds me quite a bit of one of my favorites, Anti-Pop Consortium. It's very electronic with fractured beats and the typical ATP lyricism jumping from incomprehensible to straight forward "back off my grill" stuffs.

Feist - The Reminder
I've got a crush on this album like I've not had in quite some time. There's nothing unsatisfying about this album, and the more I listen to it, the closer I get to declaring this my favorite album of the year. It's remained high on my owner personal playlist since it came out this spring, and shows no signs of waning now. I heard tell of a certain in-law in Germany who initially derided our fair Leslie, only to change her mind later. That's the way with Feist. Also, peep out each and every one of her insanely adorable music videos. They are beyond precious.

Pretenders - Pretenders
Speaking of precious, that is the name of the opening track to this amazing debut LP. Upon listening to the Pretenders, I had to askwhy was I not told that this band totally rules??? well they do, as outlined in detail in the previousl link. The tracks are pure gold.

Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
I do have to admit that I've not let this album digest to its fullest. In my defense, my chosen music player of American-capitalistic persuasions was down and out for a solid month there. And I've yet to load the album up on it, so I'm limited in my listening capabilities. (Editors note: Those who listened to music before 2001 have taken the author outside and sacked him severely. When he begged for mercy and asked why, all they did was throw a vinyl copy of the Pretenders' debut album, which they claimed to have bought when it came out.) Ouch man... that hurts. Anyway, I'm listening now, and it's taking longer for this album to digest. Where When The Creek Drank The Cradle glimmered with sheer immediacy, and the subsequent albums settled in after a mere second listen, it's taking this album a little longer. But certain tracks are starting to stand out, and I appreciate how this album is best taken as a whole, rather than having a collection of suitably equal, but still quite seperate gems, a la Our Endless Numbered Days which for many just serve as a wrapping around the track "Naked As We Came."

Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
I have surprisingly little to say about this album, mainly because so much has already been said in every magazine, website and public radio station that I've got nothing to add. The albums has settled nicely into my library, right along side the rest of his albums, and I now eagerly await Fingerlings 4 to come out, whenever that may be. I desperately, DESPERATELY need a live soundboard recording of "Fiery Crash." I wouldn't mind the same for "Self Torture."

Beruit - Gulag Orkestar
My pal Graham used to write a poem about jumping on trends late in the game. So yeah, I'm quite aware that Beruit already has another album out, as I am aware of anyone carrying a Nina Totin' Bag is already all over this guy. But I love it. I described the album for a friend of mine thus: It's like what happens if a stereotypical indie band gets together and has a baby with the movie Amelie. Yes, it's that cute.

Amy Winehouse
Yeah yeah, add this to the same list as the above. We're all over Amy Winhouse like Rush Limbaugh on perscription drugs, and far be it for me to argue. She's awesome, and that "Tears Dry On Their Own" sounds like "Ain't No Mountain High Enought" and that makes me happy.

Caribou - Andorra
I'll tell it to you like this. Pitchfork compared this album to the Beach Boys and the Zombies in the first paragraph of their review. I'd had it downloaded from eMusic before I finished the review. HOT!

That's it folks. Hopefully it won't be another nine months before I update that section.

Why was I not told that the Pretenders completely rule???

2007-10-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

My coworker and I bore the rest of the office to tears on a daily basis when we start talking about music. We talk about it constantly because our tastes follow a nice Venn Diagram, with lots of similar likes. And occasionally we force something upon the other much to both's delight. I got him Feist, because really, how can you not love ya some Feist?

Then he came to work with the Pretenders’ boxed set Pirate Radio and I became a little dubious. See, within Charlie’s side of our Venn Diagram, there are some great bands and songwriters who recorded in the early 80s, and nomatter how great the songwriting, I'm often unable to get past the recording styles of the time. Even the most basic of recordings can scream 80s too loud for me.

But he insisted that the Pretenders were "really, really, REALLY good." He told me this every day for a week. So I bit, and now I ask... WHY WAS I NOT TOLD THAT THE PRETENDERS WERE REALLY REALLY REALLY GOOD???

Oh wait, I was. But I tell you, from track 1 on this album, I was sold...

Precious (Demo)

I sent this track on to mi hermano in Germany, and he agreed that the song is just as it promises — "precious." Very mid-70s punk, and just so darn catchy.

But then I hear this Kinks cover:

Stop Your Sobbing

And I'm completely COMPLETELY sold. The Kinks/Beach Boys jangle of it, the beautiful production. I say again WHY WAS I NOT TOLD THAT THE PRETENDERS WERE REALLY REALLY REALLY GOOD???

Oh wait... my Co-worker seems to be indicating that he himself told me that the pretenders were REALLY REALLY REALLY GOOD. Why didn't I listen sooner?

Reading: The Children of Men

2007-10-11T11:01:00.000-07:00

The first time the name P. D. James crossed my line of sight, it was on a book called Death and Holy Orders. It was yet another crime novel in which someone of some ordained position comes to be mixed up in a crime scene, and reluctantly assists the detective who lost his or her faith... blah blah blah.

I'm honestly bored just writing it. But if you think I exaggerate, sometime look through the mystery section of a bookstore and pick out all of the books written in religious settings, and that was before that one thorn in my literary side became the book of the month for everybody and their theologically left-leaning mom.

So I initially dismissed P. D. James outright, and conveniently no one ever suggested I read her novels, so I was in the clear. Then Alfonso Cauron came along.

The Mexican-born director of Y Tú Mama Tambien and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (best film in the series to date, I don't care what you book purists say!) took on James' The Children of Men I decided ol' P. D. needed another look.

The book centers around a fairly self-absorbed academic and recluse Theo, over the backdrop of England 20 years into the future after men have become inexplicably infertile. Theo cynically drifts through a world obsessed with porcelain dolls and the birth rites of kittens, but accepts the basic tenants promoted by the government — freedom from fear, freedom from want and freedom from boredom.

He accepts these tenants essentially because rebuking them would require some effort on his part, and he assumes that nothing he or anyone else can do nothing to change it. So before he's even determined whether or not he approves of the government as it stands, he's decided to quietly live his life visiting museums and reading books.

Then, as anyone would predict from a world where no more children exist, a woman becomes pregnant. That's all I'll say of the plot, other than Theo becomes closely tied to this pregnancy and is forced to consider his place in the world.

The theological conversations, putting aside for the moment the well-discussed and often-replicated futuristic dystopia, are really quite incredible. In one scene, Theo is explaining to a group called "The Five Fishes" why he won't assist them in attempting to change the government.

"We may have the best that is possible in the circumstances. There was wide support for setting up the Man Penal Colony. No government can act in advance of the moral will of the people."
Julian said: "Then we have to change the moral will. We have to change people."
Theo laughed. "Oh, that's the kind of rebellion you have in mind? Not the system but human hearts and minds. You're the most dangerous revolutionaries of all, or would be if you had the slightest idea how to begin, the slightest chance of succeeding."
Julian asked, as if seriously interested in his answer: "How would you begin?"
"I wouldn't. History tells me what happens to people who do. You have one reminder on that chain round your neck."

And the religious questions go on, but I give James credit for allowing the characters to have stick-to-itiveness about their beliefs. By the end of the book, no one has said "Gosh, all this experience has made me a believer," nor did some terribly inhumane things reverse the religious-minded. It was almost as if James wanted to present christian and atheistic thoughts together for a literary compare-contrast, and from my perspective, she offers both a fair shake.

I guess this is my way of recommending the book, but I warn you that, unlike movies where you don't know when it's going to end, you'll reach the last chapter, see the last few pages coming and go "Oh god! How will this be resolved!" Don't kid yourself into thinking you'll be getting a happy little epilogue, in fact the book left me wondering whether the ending was in fact happy or sad. I would suspect it's up to the reader to decide whether the turn of events will be for the good or ill of humanity.

Next step! Bumping Alfonso Cauron's take on the story to the top of my Netflix queue.

God bless Alton Brown

2007-10-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

Alton Brown, darling of the Food Network and all around culinary nerd, is not the end all and be all of cooking. Were someone looking to learn the craft of bread-making, and I mean REALLY good bread, I wouldn't turn to Mr. Brown for a deep exposé on baking the finest, naturally leavened sourdough. Because, frankly, he can only get his lessons crammed into one 30 minute span (with commercials).

But he does go by the primary tenant taught in the Pixar film Ratatouille, anyone can cook. That, and most importantly, he is full of tips and tricks skimmed over in most cookbooks.

After reading book after book after book on the bread baking, I was overconfident Mr. Brown would have little to offer me. But beyond the description of gluten and our disagreement about instant yeast, he had a number of points to share, mainly about letting the dough rest at a few key points to help things along. (Mix the dough until all the water is mixed in with the flour, then let it sit for 10 minutes before kneading.) Not to mention his scientific explanations, which are at the very least educational (and when people ask why I spin my pizza dough in the air, I can say "Alton said so!")

And then I soon discovered that he was really fantastic when it came to venturing into new culinary projects. If you haven't done it before, he's the man for the introduction, and convincing you again and again that anyone can cook.

It was with that confidence that a friend and I embarked on the long journey of yeast-leavened donuts with chocolate frosting. I won't leave you in suspense, just ogle at the results.

That's right, fatty, delicious, sugar coated little pastries of great delight, and I was amazed at how easy it was. If you're up for heating up a massive amount of oil (and willing to consume what ends up coming out of it) it's super easy, and super SUPER fun. Check out the assembly line.

Plus, a real good way to get on the good side of your roommates/spouses/friends. Who can resist the allure of a homemade donut?

The results were, of course, tasty, but I will confess that seeing the little droplets of grease on the plate after consumption was a little more than I wanted. But still. And the chocolate glaze was incredibly delicious. I didn't end thinking to myself "Well, it's good, but not like buying it at the store." Quite the contrary. It's far better.

Three tips I would add that, if Alton mentioned them, I don't remember it.

1) Get a bunch of friends over to eat them with you. You end up with a LOT of donuts in the end, and they're not anywhere near as tasty the next day. These are pastries meant to be eaten soon after cooking.

2) If coating the thing in chocolaty goodness seems like too much indulgence (who would think such a thing?) try a little sugar and a lot of cinnamon. Those were REALLY tasty.

3) Every time you rework the dough, it's just going to make the donuts tougher than you want. We ended up taking all the in between pieces and making donut holes out of them and coating them in the cinnamon-sugar combo. Very tasty.

And finally, here's the link to Mr. Brown's donut recipe.

Doing the robot...

2007-09-11T22:38:00.001-07:00

sometimes I wonder if people are out there trying to fulfill my wishes and dreams. This comic, though I didn't know I wanted it before then, is one of those instances.

Starbucks

2007-08-03T14:19:00.001-07:00

I came to an interesting realization today. When I go into Starbucks and order a drink, I typically try and order the least coffee flavored item possible. Coffee frappuccinos, blueberry white iced tea, pumpkin lates, peppermint mochas....

As I left today, I said to my coworker "I picked the blueberry white iced tea because I figured it was the one menu item that embodied masculinity the most fully and completely."

Except it doesn't. But it's tasty. Just like a year ago when I had to admit that when it came to music (ie Feist, Cat Power, Ozomatli, Neko Case etc) I was Starbucks' target demographic, I have to now admit this: My name is Aaron Burkhalter, and I drink coffee with fringes.

*phew* I feel better getting that off my chest.

Final Fantasy meets Andrew Bird meets hip-hop. ...wait, what?

2007-07-11T13:10:00.000-07:00

The entire thing is just too surreal and hilarious to pass up. As it turns out Owen Pallette, the violin looping musician otherwise known by his ridiculus monicker, Final Fantasy, paired up recently with Canadian emcee (okay, we can all stop giggling about Canadian hip-hop now) Cadence Weapon to perform some live music.

I did a little digging and found that Cadence Weapon is pretty damn awesome, in a Anti-Pop Consortium kind of way. Beautiful, fractured beats with an electronic/experimental bent. So they go and perform "Sharks" from his album, with Pallette providing underlying violin loops. If that's not enough for this violin worshiping, hip-hop loving blogger, Pallette decided to build the loops quoting from Andrew Bird's tracks, Imitosis and A Nervous Tic Motion Of The Head To The Left ending with Cadence quoting the latter's lyrics.

One can only imagine how this blogger reacted (I always keep a spare pair of pants around for just such an occasion.) The results are not as awful as one could expect, in fact I shook my booty violently. And the best part, it introduced me to some great hip-hop.

Now the Andrew Bird fan in me has to ask, is this move an homage, a compliment? Or has Pallette thrown the musical gauntlet down expecting some type of challenge. That can only mean one thing... LOOP BATTLE!!!!!!! Begging the question, who will MC for Bird? Following the Anti Pop Consortium tip, I'm putting my money down for Beans.

Give this booty shakin' track a listen

NASA knocks Gnarls Barkley into orbit.

2007-07-02T16:22:00.000-07:00

I mean... just... I... it... we... I... sputter... This looks entirely too hot for words....

Pitchfork reported today that Squeak E. Clean (Spike Jonze's brother) and DJ Zegon are joining forces to make a crossover hip-hopish act to rival the likes of Gnarls Barkley, but with a FAR more impressive guest list.

There is NOTHING confirmed about this album yet. No date, no track list, no label, but the following artists make guest appearances. The album features MANY great artists including (but not limited to): Tom Waits (!!!), M.I.A. (!!!), RZA, ODB, Method Man, Kool Keith, Fatlip and SlimKid Tre (!!!) of the Pharcyde, The Gift of Gab (!!!!!!!!!!!!), KRS-1, *wheeeeeeeeeeeeeze* George Clinton, Seu George, Chali 2na (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and Nina Persson.

Excuse me while I catch my breath. Pitchfork was kind enough to post a stream of the material you can hear on this yet-to-be released, named or even picked up by a label album, featuring 2na, RZA and ODB among others. Needless to say, it sounds quite hot, and I foresee hype building up far beyond what Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse were able to accomplish, and I bet Squeak and Zegon don't even need to dress up in silly costumes to do it.

Given that all but one of my most anticipated albums of 2007 are out now, this album climbs high in the charts for albums I can't wait to get my grubby little hands on.

Editors note: To Chali 2na, your appearance on this album, though most welcome, does not obscure the fact that you've been promising us a solo album for how many years now? Each public appearance (again, more than welcome) brings to surface the fact that we've yet to get the long-promised and much-ballyhooed Fish Outta Water. So pony up dude!

Putting my money where my mouth is...

2007-06-03T17:49:00.000-07:00

So, I can be kinda outspoken about a few things, much to the delight of all around me I'm sure.

One of the biggest is my enthusiasm for participatory media. How hot is it that one can not only go online to find music, video, entertainment, news, commentary et al, but they can also make any one of those themselves? It's a great world we're in now in that we can not only choose what media we embrace (it's amazingly easy to find music outside the norm) but we can also introduce ours to an audience too.

A few of my favorite cases in point:

We Will Build — An electronic group with two albums, available only on their website, available for free no less. Great music. A band that few would have actually heard of until they decided to throw their music online for all to hear.

This little video — Some guy took "In The Morning" by the Junior Boys and spliced together clips from the film "Band of Outsiders" in a way that really works, far better than many other such attempts. It's very slick.

So I'm super excited about this stuff, and will wax poetic, and speak quite a bit about the many things I'd like to do to contribute to this trend — the websites, the home movies, all of that... but I've never followed through.

I don't tend to follow through because, well, I can get kinda lazy. I'm better at spending money to allow me to do new and interesting things than I am at actually doing those things.

Point I'm getting at? I'm trying to break that habit now... I've been dinking around at home, trying to create some music that I've long said I would create, and I've actually finished something I'm willing to share with others. That's really all I've got to say about it... below download my track I've really only titled "C Minor" because, well, that's the key it's in. It's a number of different loops created in various ways, and a piano track laid over the top of it all.

Enjoy, and if you hate it, lie to me. Oh, and if you hate or find laughable the name under which this track is credited, also lie to me. I'd cry....

A Gentleman and a Scholar - C Minor

I greatly hope that there will be more such music in the future. Riddle me just insanely excited that I've actually recorded something I wrote.

Little known facts...

2007-03-08T17:15:00.000-08:00

So SOMEONE tagged me in a chain blog, and SOMEONE also made comments about the lack of posting. That SOMEONE also threatened to force fermented tofu on me were I ever to arrive in Japan, so SOMEONE best watch her back... cuz I'm vengeful!

The game: Each player of this game starts off with ten weird things or habits or little known facts about yourself. People who get tagged must write in a blog of their own ten weird things or habits or little known facts as well as state this rule clearly. At the end you must choose six people to be tagged and list their names. No tag backs!

My variation of this game involves giving the 10 things, and not tagging anybody, because I can only think of like one other person to tag at this point. Sooooooo...

1. While it is public knowledge that I am a die-hard Full House fan, what may be misunderstood is the fact that I sincerely love the show, and not in any kind of ironic it's-so-bad-it's-good kind of way.

2. While in Taiwan for a month during college, I consumed a number of rather disgusting things. The one that tasted the worst was in fact a fermented soy product. We were offered on several occasions what was either called "stinky tofu" or "spicy tofu," but the former is the most apt description. It was vile, and wretched, and it left its flavor and smell on every dish and utensil it touched. Fried is slightly less disgusting than boiled. The other disgusting thing I ate was fried chicken sphinxter muscle. No, I'm not lying. Yes, I'm serious. And no, I did not realize what I was eating. But yes, I was pretty sure they were feeding me something that was gross to my American palat, but I ate it anyway.

3. When in high school and through college, I experimented with many, many, MANY career options. I wanted to be something different every week. Freshman year I went from potter to photographer. Sophomore year I wanted to be an actor, photographer and author. Junior year my photographer and author tendancies led me to journalism. Senior year I thought journalism, then english teacher, and eventually psychologist. Throughout college I stuck with psychology, but considered a number of other careers. Obviously I ended up with journalism. The only common career hope throughout this time was ROCK GOD. Which never really panned out.

4. It's a career thought, but worth its own entry. I considered for a time going into the ministry in the Episcopal Church. Then I found myself entirely unhappy with christianity in general and backed away considerably. I still consider myself a spiritual person, but I have a lot of trouble with christian theology. Today, I couldn't possibly imagine who in their right mind would ever want to be ordained, but that's just me.

5. "The Iron Giant," "Toy Story 2," and "The Royal Tennenbaums" all make my cry. As does the last chapter of "The House On Pooh Corner."

6. I come from a family of avid crossword players, and it appears recently that I married one too (my house is regularly scattered with a number of used crosswords) I enjoy them, and yet I am only able to completely finish about one in every 50 that I try.

7. I have a strong affinity for 2nd place. Not any specific 2nd place, just 2nd place in general. I adopted this frame of mind because I a) had an older brother and b) wanted to avoid conflict at all times. So because of this, I guarded 2nd place and 2nd best of anything with a ferocity. I figured that not many people would be gunning for 2nd best of anything, so as the 2nd born I tended to opt that way. Everyone yelled out for the BEST of one thing, be it toy or seat placement in the car during a road trip. When I was younger, I figured that if I yelled out for the 2nd thing first, everyone else would be arguing over the best, which would inevitably go to someone else anyway. When it comes to being second, I'm FIRST!

8. I was really, REALLY into the Phantom of the Opera when I was in Jr. High. I'm not really sure why, but it became the focus of halloween costumes for a couple years. I figured it was because he was a villain that looked way snazzy, and got to wear a cloak. I also was under the delusion that The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Weber was in fact an honest to goodness opera, and I thought an opera that had an overture like that (with all the drums and badassness) had to be freaking awesome.

9. Earwigs scare the freaking crap out of me.

10. I fight for the black jelly beans. In my family, no one but me and my dad seemed to like them. Maybe Daniel. Anyway, I went for those first. Which I'm sure people appreciated more than my phase when I tried to eat every red jellybean on Easter morning before we went to church. I think I thought it would be funny, like in a Sunday comic or something. Oh that Aaron! Every year, eating all the red jellybeans! It never really worked out like that.

There it is! I tag no one, but if you're interested, go for it folks.

JUBILATIONS! It's the Andrew Bird Puppet Show!

2007-02-05T12:43:00.001-08:00

Some saintly YouTuber out there posted up video of Andrew Bird's appearance as Dr. Stringz on Jack's Big Music Show. His antics are not unlike his stage presence. As he sings he pulls guitars, mandolins and violins out from his magical jacket and solos on each one. But I'll let the video speak for itself.

March 20th... the most beautiful day ever....

2007-02-02T10:18:00.000-08:00

Is there something about March 20th that makes musicians with animal names want to release a record? On top of the much-anticipated new release from the ubiquitous (and not very exciting as far as Discords and Harmonies are concerned) Modest Mouse, we have (HIGHLY exciting as far Discords and Harmonies are concerned) new releases from Andrew Bird and Panda Bear.

Of course, because these albums AREN'T out until March 20th, every single blog has already heard them and passed full judgment. Now I haven't heard either of these forthcoming releases in their entirety, and of the available tracks I have heard, I'm trying to moderate my listening so I'm not ruining the full LP experience come March. But far be it for me to be the only blog to have not commented on Panda Bear, and farther be it for me to allow an Andrew Bird tidbit like this go uncommented for this long. Shall we weigh in?

Panda Bear's Person Pitch promises to be a most pleasant affair. In 2004 the Animal Collective member (known outside the animal kingdom as Noah Lennox) released the chilling Young Prayer, a vocal but indecipherable ode to his deceased father. In an ideal world, we will only hear one such album from Mr. Lennox, because as beautiful as it was, it came from suffering and grief, and heck, even for the sake of a great album I hope he's feelin' better this time. And if this track floating around blogs is any indication, the man has leaned towards his Phil Spector and Brian Wilson side to make a pop harmony masterpiece that makes me shake my booty most voraciously. First listen made me think it sounded like a slightly restrained, less screamy outtake of "Feels," but it is far more jangly, and much more harmonious.

Panda Bear - Bros (Edit)

Andrew Birds pre-Apocryphal releases have been something of a mild controversy. Back in January, the album was officially (officially? Is that the right word?) leaked across the globe, and blogs and message boards started reviewing the album crazily, only to be quickly rebuffed by the man himself, who did not want his album sliced, diced and scattered across blogger sites willy-nilly. Several bloggers out there (I Guess I'm Floating for one) retracted their mp3s and released the following track approved by Mr. Bird. Fat Possum Records posted "Plasticities," much to my delight, but also switched the free mp3 sample of the album out for "Heretics," so with all due respect to the artist, we'll post that here. The song itself is also a romping jaunt (like the above Panda stomp!) much in the same vein as "Fake Palindromes" from Eggs. It opens with Indian-infused fiddling and Bird's bored yet somehow amused sing-songing.

Andrew Bird - Heretics

So I hope these two tracks encourage you to do what I'LL be doing on March 20th - I'll be running off to the nearest record story and stocking the hell up...

Andrew Bird, and Puppets!

2007-01-22T13:51:00.000-08:00

He fiddles, he plays guitar, his name has become ubiquitous with the words "professional whistler," and he gets WAY to much press at this here blog (to the three or four readers that read this blog). And now he can add puppetmaster to his resume. Or at least, an associate of puppets, namely Jack of Jack's Big Music Show.

The program is far too cool for school, and cooler than you too. It features guest appearances from the likes of Jon Stewart, and Chicago's own Andrew Bird, who made an appearance on June 21st as Dr. Stringz.

According to the TV Guide listing (cuz I didn't see it), Jack breaks some other character's brand new hammered dulcimer, and turns to our famous fiddle foolin' friend (or just FFFF as he's known on the streets), Dr. Stringz (or Andrew Bird) for a little help. Because I haven't actually seen the episode, I've been living squarely on the edge of my seat since hearing about this. Will Dr. Stringz be able to fix the dulcimer? Have we EVER seen Andrew Bird (or FFFF or Dr. Stringz, if you will) anywhere near a hammered dulcimer before? The suspense is killing me.

So I'm hoping that SOMEWHERE out there, SOMEONE has a kid that TiVo's this show on a regular basis and can YouTube that mutha out there in the netiverse! Until then, I'll leave you with a track from the internet audio archive by Mr. Bird (I can only hope he'll one day perform under the monicker Dr. Stringz).

Andrew Bird (aka Dr. Stringz) - Armchair Apocryphists (Live at Studio Lenoir)

Andrew Bird (aka Dr. Stringz) - Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left (Live at Studio Lenoir)

2007 Anticipation!

2007-01-04T10:17:00.000-08:00

Now that we've sifted through all of those top 10, 20, 50 and 100 lists from yesteryear, it's time to look forward and get all excited about what's coming out in the next year, and I'm not talking about the eminent releases by indie heavyweights Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse. Here they come, in order of Very Excited to VERY VERY VERY EXCITED:

5) No laughing now. Be kind. Yes, I'm excited about Norah Jones' new album Not Too Late. But why not? It's one of the musicians that my wife and I both really truly like, and my wife deserves to listen to something other than Tom Waits every now and again. I've got a weak spot for the kind of music fit for playing Saturday mornings whilst flipping pancakes. It's that Kings of Convenience, Etta James, Norah O'Conner stuff that just feels like home (HA! I made a funny!)

4) Speaking of weak spots, my other is west coast hip-hop, especially if it's extremely local. And around here (being the greater Seattle-Tacoma area) it doesn't get more local than the Blue Scholars. One DJ, One MC. It's hip-hop simplified. I already know that local public radio station KEXP is on their knees every night praying that the forthcoming album will feature yet another shout out like they did in "Freewheelin'" ("Back when KEXP was KCMU") The yet-to-be-titled album is coming out on Mass Line records, run by the Scholars and members of Common Market.

3)So it's already out, as of just this week. But I haven't downloaded it yet, but believe me I will. Madlib and Talib Kweli have collaborated on a short LP, and doing us one better, it's online and totally free for download. You can download the album, the cover art, the tray inlay. Why does Kweli love us so much? I go home tonight to download the album with GREAT anticipation. And let's just mention that I'm already excited for whatever else Madlib does this year, because he will no doubt produce at least 5 albums under 5 different names. Download it from Stones Throw!

2) The best part about this year is the number of my very VERY favorite artists releasing new records, and how Iron & Wine ended up on the number TWO slot? I'm sure none of this is a surprise, as revealed below. But, Mr. Beam claims to be releasing a new album of unknown title sometime this year. Early rumors said February, but with no title and no promises and even fewer rumblings, I'm starting to think it will be later. In an interview with Passing Afternoon, a fansite dedicated to Mr. Beam, he said that the sound would follow along the lines of Woman King which was more electric and dense than previous work. If his last iTunes EP is any indication, the sound is getting more electric all the time, but still sounding pretty hot. On the downside, in aninterview with the Independent Beam said, "It's not a political propaganda record, but it's definitely inspired by political confusion, because I was really taken aback when Bush got reelected." Wait, what? Not that I'm opposed to politically infused music (see Kweli and Blue Scholars above), but Bush was reelected some time ago Mr. Beam. Are you still taken aback? Because we've had our fill of music by people taken aback by Bush's reelection.

1) Well, what else do you expect me to say? Andrew Bird's Armchair Apocrypha is coming out in March, and I couldn't be more excited. Songs the appear on Fingerlings 3 ("Water Jet Cilice," "Dark Matter," "Sythian Empire"), those leaked online and played at shows ("Armchair Apocryphists," "Plasticities," "Simple Excercises") lead me to think that this album will be an awesome step forward in Bird's music. Dosh is collaborating heavily, making it seem more like a record by Andrew Bird AND Dosh than by Andrew Bird alone, especially with Ben Durrant producing (he produced The Lost Take. Also appearing will be tourmates Haley Bonar and Chris Morrissey.

Well that's it. Depending on the releases these five possibly forshadow what my top 10 list of 2007 will look like... which makes me wonder, what does my top 10 list of 2006 look like...?

2006 in a Nutshell

2006-12-28T10:01:00.000-08:00

The older I get, the more I dislike the holiday season. The stress, the noise, the gift giving, the gift receiving. But December offers another Christmas for me, another special treat. The overwhelming conglomoration of top 10's, 20's, 50's and 100's! I freaking live for this. Suddenly I'm ranting like a sports fan over right choices, wrong choices and surprising choices. Below, for the convenience of my two readers, I've compiled some of my favorite best-of lists for quick consumption.

Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums of 2006

We bloggers may bitch and moan about Pitchfork and their choices, usually the BAD reviews and low scores, but occasionally we even gripe when they don't give a great album it's much deserved but highly elusive 10.0 score. But all the same, when these Chicagoans crank out a best of (such as their 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s) we fall all over ourselves trying to consume the music they claim to be the greatest. I look over every list shamed when they post something I've never heard of (Grizzly-who? They sound like the Animal Collective??? DAMMIT!) and overjoyed when they list something I know and love (That's right y'all! Beach Boys is number 1 from 1966 to the twenty-double-ought-six!) So naturally I took this years top 50 and have actively sought out samplings of every album so I too can be a music know-it-all snob! Here's the top 5:

One) The Knife - Silent Shout

Dos) TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain

Tre) Joanna Newsom - Ys

Qua) Ghostface Killah - Fishscale

Five) The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls In America

Also peep out Pitchforks Top 100 Tracks of 2006 especially because they link legal mp3s and streaming audio and video for nearly all of the tracks. There's no less than 50 legal mp3s to nab over there friends, and nab I did!

Stylus Magazine's Top 50 Albums of 2006

Not quite as omnipresent as Pitchfork, but still a worthwhile authority on all things music (and film!) is Stylus Magazine, which is the second music site I turn to for reviews. I favor this list because of the presence of a few acts that I really really liked that were sadly overlooked by Pitchfork, by which I mean Final Fantasy. Here's THEIR top 5:

One) Ghostface Killah - Fishscale

Dos) Hot Chip - The Warning

Tre) Joanna Newsom - Ys

Qua) TV On The Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain

Five) Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury

Prefix Magazines Best Albums of 2006

Kudos to Prefix as well for hooking readers up to some streaming samples from each album. There's nothing like finding out that you're uncool just because you've never heard Herbert's "Scale" and then have no remedy. I'm not saying I want everything for free, but we've got an expectation these days that we can at least SAMPLE and album before we throw down near-twenty dollars.

One) Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury

Dos) TV On The Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain

Tre) Herbert - Scale

Qua) Liars - Drum's Not Dead

Five) Joanna Newsom - Ys

NPR's All Songs Considered Best Albums of 2006

I always consider NPR's music to be a little more ear-friendly. Not that it's better, it's just that they're less likely to throw Masonna onto the programming list. Their territory lies halfway between the boomers' tastes (ie, Bob Dylan's "Modern Times" fairs well here) and the most boomer friendly of indie rock (ie, is anyone at all shocked that a protest album by the Decemberists topped all?) The fun twist on this show is that, well, it's a show. Rather than read list after list, it's an hour of music fun, while Bob Boilen coaxes the voting listeners to push Regina Spektor into the top ten. He also brings in DJs and critics from around the country to include their top 10's. The only downside, it's pretty rare for Boilen to actually play a song in its entirety. Here's the top 5 as determined by NPR listener's everywhere (and FYI, I voted for He Poos Clouds which received no props...):

One) The Decemberists - The Crane Wife

Dos) Neko Case - The Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

Tre) Bob Dylan - Modern Times

Qua) M. Ward - Post War

Five) TV On The Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain

Meta Critic's Best of 2006

I love MetaCritic because I figure, it every single critic loves it (if that's the case) then I must also. If you haven't perused this site, it simply sums up the reviews for a single album (film, tv show, video game or book) and gives it a numerical score averaging all the numbers and stars. Every year they set up a little best of accumulating the top ranking product of each medium. I have made a habit of seeking out and hearing the top ranking albums from the site because, well, if EVERYONE loves it, maybe I will to. Here the top 5:

One) Ali Farka Toure- Savane

Dos) Tom Waits - Orphans: Bawlers, Brawlers and Bastards

Tre) Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury

Qua) Bob Dylan - Modern Times

Five) Joanna Newsom - Ys

Another fun feature of the MetaCritic 2006 roundup is their OWN compilation of Best Of lists from every publication from Pitchfork to Rolling Stone, plus a list of each album on the page and how many times it appeared on the compiled lists (I'll save you the search trouble... TV On The Radio made the most appearances, followed closely by Joanna Newsome and Ghostface.) Disturbing is the number of times (3) the Red Hot Chili Peppers appeared on these lists. Jibbly-jibbly...

A'ight, I'll make my own top 5 or 10 tomorrow... in the meantime, lay yours down here or on your own blog for end-of-year good times!

States I Called Home / What Sufjan Should Write About Part 3: Oregon

2006-12-19T10:00:00.000-08:00

I bet his mom tied that for him and he just loosens it and keeps it hung up on a coat rack.

Today is the conclusion of a series helping every critics favorite SteveReich-PhillipGlass-BrianWilson-JohnFahey-influenced songwriter, Sufjan Stevens, in his ongoing pact to create an album for each of the 50 states. I need not go on too long about my doubts that he'll ever complete such a task, but before he abandons the project (even though I truly hope he doesn't) I've got to secure an album for the three states I've called home. So to help him along, I'm compiling some notes as to what he can write about when he tackles Oklahoma, Washington and Oregon. Today we look at the state I lived in for the least amount of time, but the one where I received my higher education: Oregon!

1) I didn't live in Oregon long enough to come up with the same kind of pet peeves I have for Seattle. I don't have anything in Portland to veto for any album. But I can encourage you towards my favorite landmark in the town. I call it my second home. It's where I go to find peace in the world. It's the largest freaking bookstore I've ever visited: Powells. Maybe there's bigger bookstores in the world, but not anywhere near where I shop. Four stories of new and used goodness, and the easiest way for me to blow a paycheck in a single sitting. Maybe this doesn't scream number 1 pop hit to most, but who thought we'd be rocking out to Casimir Pulaski Day?

2) Astoria. There's so much to be had here. They call it "Little San Francisco." It's got Scandanavians seeping out of the woodwork. It's got a giant column called, appropriately, The Column which visually chronicles the history of the first settlers into the area. There's fish, there's old houses. There's the old canneries. There's a real history there of a once working class town turned vacation spot. C'mon F-ING GOONIES WAS FILMED THERE! This town alone has enough material for an EP all on its own. And what better way to find out about its history than the archives of my last place of employment, The Daily Astorian (I'm not at all biased).

3) Lewis and Clark. What else do you need? This tale is just screaming for a song, or several songs... It's about American expansion, it's about entitlement. It's everything that makes a good Sufjan Stevens song.

4) Eugene is home to many things. Hippies, Ducks (the University of Oregon variety!), tie-dye. Plenty to be found. But if I were to focus on one thing, it would be the strong presence of anarchist communities. It seems like sitting around talking with some locals over some beer might bring up some interesting compositional material, and given the growing presence of noise in Stevens' live set, it seems like he could have some fun with such a theme.

5) And of course... the Oregon mascots. I thought about giving a shout out to my own beloved Ducks (go ducks!) but it's important to note that just an hour north of Eugene lies a school that proudly follows its beaver mascot. Somehow the desire to have aggressive, penis-resembling mascots like most towns (the DAWGS, as they call them in Washington, or Vikings, or whatever the hell else sports teams come up with), Oregon went down to the goofiest and most unassuming creatures of the animal kingdom. Something about Beavers and Ducks could provide material for either a song, or perhaps costume motif for the pending tour.

States I Called Home / What Sufjan Should Write About Part 2: Washington

2006-12-18T11:00:00.000-08:00

"I'm a banjo pickin' man! And I takes cash tips when I can...."
Today, we continue helping our friend Sufjan Stevens in his ongoing pact to create an album for each of the 50 states. Early on I was rather skeptical about his ability to finish this project. As I've mentioned, he's moving at a rate of 1 state every 2 years, putting him well into his hundreds before he finishes the project. While I hate to see him finish the project, I worry that it will never happen, but he can't abandon his dream before he tackles the three states I've called home: Oklahoma, Washington and Oregon. So to make sure he gets on track, I thought I'd steer his research on each of these states this week. Today we look at the State I've lived in the longest, and the one that I see being my home for many years to come: Washington!

1) Let's just cut to the chase and talk about Seattle. We already know that if you create a Washington album (a cover adorned, no doubt, with apples and salmon, resembling a fish and wildlife magazine) that Seattle is going to get a monster track on a "Chicago" level. So let's start here with what you SHOULD NOT sing about. We're tired of the Space Needle. Please, for the love of ALL things holy, stay AWAY from the Space Needle - and when you make your album cover, don't show it poking out from behind Mount Rainier. Also, monorails - touchy subject. I'd just avoid mass transportation (or the lack thereof) altogether. And to sum up a few other things, let's have a hearty NO to the following: Kurt Cobain, Rain, Ted Bundy, Flannel, Grundge, Coffee. Simple rule, if it can be heard in Robyn Hitchcock's "Viva Sea-Tac," we shouldn't hear it on your CD. Sir Mix-A-Lot is fair game though.

But let's stick with the positive, shall we? I can't narrow down what topic you'll cover for this fair city, but I can make one rock solid recommendation. When you visit Seattle, stay off of I-5 and travel strictly up and down Highway 99. This was once the way to get through Seattle quickly, and also sports the best view of the best parts of Seattle. Heading North you see the oldest portions of Seattle, Pike Place Market, the Puget Sound and our arsenal of Ferry Boats. Head north out of Downtown and you can see the Seattle Center (remember what we discussed about the Space Needle?) You head toward Ballard (which frankly deserves its own song) and Wallingford. Stop at about 85th. There's only car dealorships and box stores that far up. Also, pull off at Fremont to see the Troll underneath the Ballard Bridge.

2) The Skagit Valley is where we grow our foods and flowers on the West Side of the state. It's also the home of the Tulip Festival. Lots... and lots... of tulips. As I've been told (by sources that may or may not be reliable) the tulips come from Holland and were shipped to the Northwest as a safety precaution, preserving the old Dutch blossom. When? I don't know... during some war, or some drought, or something... I just heard they're from Holland. But drive through during tulip season and you will see fields, and fields of technocolor flowers. They're not for picking, and many of them are not even for harvesting. Half the fields are just to draw in tourists who see a couple acres of nothing but red and yellow.

3) Edward R. Murrow spent the better part of his childhood in Edison, Wash. Mr. Sufjan, if you make it through these 50 states without the godfather of broadcast media, we may have some issues. This is a good place to start. It's where he learned hard manual labor and grew to appreciate the working class before running off to report the Blitz from London rooftops. Across the state he attended Washington State University, which was otherwise considered barely a blip on the academic map until he brought it some national attention.

4) Fair is fair, and if I'm trying to steer you away from unnamed coffee behemoths and the grundge movement, I've got to steer you towards our computer and internet history. There's gotta be some good songs to be found here. What rhymes with Microsoft?

5) As if you needed more to think about in Seattle, taking a trip through Pioneer Square is necessary, being of the oldest areas. Taking the Underground Tour is interesting, but alarmingly uneducational when you discover that the tour guides just make crap up. And while you're there, you can peep out the Elliott Bay Bookstore, the bestest darned bookstore in Seattle!

States I Called Home / What Sufjan Should Write About Part 1: Oklahoma

2006-12-14T10:35:00.000-08:00

I had a uniform like that, and a hat EXACTLY like that. And it was covered in pins too!
So it occurred to me that if Sufjan Stevens is going to complete his 50 states project, he's going to need some help. To begin with, at 1 state every 2 years, our 30-year-old songster is going to be well into his hundreds before he's done. I'm not holding my breath waiting to own an album for each state, and I give him less than 10 albums before he jumps to EPs (in the best case scenario) or cans the entire project (in the worst case scenario). But he can't give up yet! He's yet to touch on the three states I've called home: Oklahoma, Washington and Oregon. So to make sure he gets on track, I thought I'd steer his research on each of these states this week, starting with my birth state, Oklahoma.

Mr. Stevens, here's FIVE great things to check out when you're travelling through the prairie!

1) For 13 years of my life, I was fed, clothed and sheltered off of paychecks bearing "Halliburton." Now I don't want to see Sufjan's material descend into political cockamame, but down in Duncan, Oklahoma (my birth town!) lies the ground where Erle P. Halliburton established the first headquarters for New Method Oil Well Cementing Company (later Halliburton Energy Services) in 1921. The town is what it is, mainly because of Halliburton. There's some interesting territory to explore for sure. Duncan is also the birthplace of Ron Howard and Jean Kirkpatrick.

2) Tahlequah, Oklahoma is one of the final destinations for the displaced Cherokees at the end of the Trail of Tears. If us proud Oklahomans are lucky, Stevens will not cover the Trail of Tears when he writes about Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri and Arkansas.

3) Some reference to the old slogan, "Oklahoma is OK!"

4) Bill Wallace, from Chickasha, Oklahoma, was a favorite author of me and my bros when we were younger. I imagine that if Sufjan Stevens were to have spent his childhood on the prairie and got trapped in caves, chased by panthers, or had a younger brother dying of lukemia, that it'd look an awful lot like a Bill Wallace book.

5) Only in places like Oklahoma can you get away with using geographical terms like "Panhandle" without people looking at you oddly. Take advantage of this.

That should get you started on your next state installment Mr. Stevens! No need to compensate me for my time or genius, just mention me in the Thank You section when the CD comes out!

I've put "The Unusual" on hold as my originally-intended 5-part series. It'll pop up now and again, but never again will I promise a continuing series without their being written in advance.

The Unusual, Day 3: El Perro Del Mar

2006-12-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

I've taken a shine to five musicians recently, in last week's effort to seek out the Dr. Pepper of music, as I like to call it: The Unusual. I'd found myself in a rut of listening to the same-old same-old and my ears needed a jolt. I searched out music I've never heard, and music I never gave a chance, and the five performers highlighted this week stuck out like sore thumbs to soothe my bored ears. Today: El Perro Del Mar!

So it's almost a little unfair to place El Perro Del Mar on a list titled "The Unusual," seeing as my attempt was to branch out my tastes a little bit. El Perro Del Mar's most obvious influences are Phil Spector and the 60's girl groups, but El Perro Del Mar pulls equally from the 1960s easy listening vocals that creates a beautiful and eerie discomfort. She pulls from much of the same music as the Pipettes, but without the dance floor backdrop.

The week I snagged this album, I was having some odd nausea and car sickness, and the music was so compelling that I refused to listen to it for fear of picking up an aversion to the music. I believe I succeeded at this.

The track "God Knows" really highlights just what is so compelling about this Swedish songster. There's a steady beat that's only noticable if you're paying attention, there's the pips that never overwhelm, and then El Perro Del Mar's vocals kick in with such fragility that a board mix is the only thing that layers it above anything else.

It's music that really speaks for itself.

El Perro Del Mar - God Knows

sidenoteNPR's All Songs Considered broadcast its Best of 2006 show last night. The top ten list (by listener vote) and the show can be foundhere. It's worth a listen to hear the different top ten lists from the guest, including KEXP's John Richards. I voted for He Poos Clouds by Final Fantasy because I figured Joanna Newsom didn't need any more help...

The Unusual, Day 2: Devendra Banhart

2006-11-22T10:42:00.000-08:00

I've taken a shine to five musicians recently, in last week's effort to seek out the Dr. Pepper of music, as I like to call it: The Unusual. I'd found myself in a rut of listening to the same-old same-old and my ears needed a jolt. I searched out music I've never heard, and music I never gave a chance, and the five performers highlighted this week stuck out like sore thumbs to soothe my bored ears. Today: Devendra Banhardt!

When I have nightmares in which I'm pursued by knife-weilding pscychos, those psychos look like Devendra Banhart. When I have nightmares about being held captive by a bunch of stoned hippie flower-children, they talk like Devendra Banhart. The rest of my nightmares look like the album covers of Devandra Banhart.

Several years ago, after ordering an Iron & Wine album off of Amazon.com, the website's recommendations started pointing me towards Banhart. And his outward appearances found him a little to eccentric initially.

As I was making a mix I noticed Cripple Crow sitting in iTunes, ignored since I first put it there, because if the covers freaked me out, what would the music do? But after listening just once to the title track, I was completely hooked. I still can't quite figure out what makes this guy tick, but I shouldn't have judged this odd book by it's even odder cover.

Banhart, and much of the other nu-folk artists, somehow appeals to the music my mother raised me on (Joan Baez, Peter Paul and Mary and a bunch of other fairly accessible 50's and 60's folk performers) and the avant music of my college days.

Despite what his initial pscyho-killer appearance, I find his voice and his sound entirely accessible. It's the kind of music, despite its eccentricity, that I'd play for my parents if they came over for dinner. Lyrically... well, I've stated once already this week that lyrics aren't really my thing. I enjoy memorizing the words and singing along, but it takes careful sitting down and reading to understand, and Banhart's would take a little analysis.

Devendra Banhart - Queen Bee
Buy Cripple Crow at eMusic

Editors note... the giant thing on the Cripple Crow cover art looks like a Skeksi

The Unusual, Day 1: Joanna Newsom

2006-11-21T11:53:00.000-08:00

I've taken a shine to five musicians recently, in last week's effort to seek out the Dr. Pepper of music, as I like to call it: The Unusual. I'd found myself in a rut of listening to the same-old same-old and my ears needed a jolt. So I ran out seeking some music to appeal to my wee ears. I searched out music I've never heard, and music I never gave a chance, and the five performers highlighted this week stuck out like sore thumbs to soothe my bored ears. Today, Joanna Newsome!

Megan and I listen to music in very different ways. When I say, "good god, listen to that little pulse of percussion," Megan says, "What the hell are you talking about?? Listen to those horns!" When I describe a song based on the instrumentation and textures, she has no idea what I'm talking about. When she talks about a song in terms of lyrics, I have no idea what she's talking about. In one instance, we both told each other about our favorite song off a particular album, not realizing we were both talking about the same song.

But the strongest of our differences. When I play Tom Waits, Antony and the Johnsons or anyone else who's voice falls of the scale of what one normally expects from someone with a record deal, Megan generally just doesn't want to hear it. Add to that list Joanna Newsom.

Joanna Newsom, living proof that a few more gelflings survived than we originally believed, has a squeaky voice that lies somewhere ten miles east of Nina Simone and Antony. Her first album, Milk-Eyed Mender rubbed me somewhat the wrong way. Her voice pierces and burns over the delicate steps of her harp fingering, and I wondered why such a good songwriter wouldn't pull in a softer, more palpable singer to take on these tunes. So my initial reaction to her first album was to ignore it.

Then this album hits and the critics go abso-freaking-lutely wild. A quick jaunt over to MetaCritic shows Newsom ranking well among online and magazine critics ('cept for Rolling Stone... but who cares about them?) So I decide to give the gal another chance, to discover, as I did with many another artist, that my first impressions were wrong.

Ys, recorded with string arrangments by Van Dyke Parks (he wrote most of the lyrics for some album of mild significance) completely kicks my ass. I've got the bruises to prove it!

Unlike her first album, Newsom's voice does not pierce and burn, but nestles easily between the Parks' string arrangements and Newsom's own harp. The lyrics are acute faery tales which present a simple story to begin with, but, I predict, are far more complicated than the coniving schemes of a wayward monkey as featured in "Monkey and Bear." (Like I said, lyrics really aren't as much my thing).

For an album this dense and abstract, it's a wonder I'd take a shine to it so quickly, but I've been in love with this music since the first pluck and bow of the strings of the opening track.

Joanna Newsom - Emily
Buy Ys at eMusic

Brian Wilson Doll

2006-11-08T11:09:00.000-08:00

Pitchfork always helps us remember where we should draw the line. A Brian Wilson doll is where my line sits.

I tend to go on fandome kicks. Elliott Smith, Miles Davis, Brian Wilson and Andrew Bird have all had peaks in my obsessiveness to the point of irritating those around me, but I have yet to purchase an action figure, such as the one pictured above and discussed in this pitchfork article. It's these things that remind me to ease up on the obsessiveness, and feel a little better knowing that there are those out there (300 of them in this case) who would blow their money on such a product.

A little amusement for you on post election day/day of rumsfeld's much awaited resignation. Next week I'm going to do a series of posts I'd like to call "The Unusual" in my attempt to find some new music to whet my audio appetite... Who knows... I may even post about Masonna... but my ear isn't so neglected that it's turned to noise yet...

I said I WANT the UNUSUAL

2006-10-30T16:22:00.000-08:00

So try as I might, I could not locate a YouTube broadcast of the 1980s Dr. Pepper ad in which a humanoid enters a Star Wars-esque cantina demanding "the unusual," and turning away beverages of unique shapes and sizes only to be satisfied in the end by a bottle of Dr. Pepper.

But that ad, if any of you remember it, expresses my feelings about music right now. This isn't a statement about music today, or yesterday or whatever. It's just me sitting in front of my iPod clicking through looking for something a little different. Something new and exciting, and I'm not finding it right now.

So I'm here to see if anyone can coach me towards a band I've never heard of, or one I've heard of but never gave a proper chance, and maybe I'll find something to delight my bored ears.

Obviously Andrew Bird, Petra Haden, Final F... er... Owen Pallette (he almost got me there), Iron & Wine and the Pipettes are disqualified from this list. Not that they aren't unusual, but I need some variety, and unfortunately my listening habits push these guys into overwhelming dominance.

Hook me up people! Give me something new! I said I WANT the UNUSUAL! Post anything you've got in the comments box.

Vicki Brown

2006-10-28T11:38:00.000-07:00

So I've been called "old" by someone for discovering music via NPR. I'd like to point out that this individual that SOME would call a "sibling" which is a French word meaning "big stupid idiot person" has been doing New York Times crosswords for a good 5-plus years now. Fogie.

But, that said, I discovered NPR's Open Mic program and discovered some nice music from it, one album of which I may seek out and purchase.

Vicki Brown's fiddle stylings appeal to me quite nicely, as do many who don the horse hair instrument, namely Owen Pallette (who has a band name I avoid saying), Petra Haden and someone who is named far too often on this blog.

Although each of the above initially grabbed my interest by their choice of instrument, each showed in their own way that they had far more to offer than the fiddle. Owen Pallette with his obscure and atheistic lyrics over chamber music style pop, Petra Haden with her vocal harmonies and her brilliant idea to transform famous pop songs into vocal orchestras and the latter unnamed for reasons far too oft-cited on this blog.

Though I have yet to fall on my knees and worship the ground Brown walks on (having only heard a handful of her tracks) she's got my initial interest, and her take on sound seems to be instrumental ambience in a very experimental folk sort of way. It's all very pleasant, without being uninteresting.

Check out her music at that news agency for old people or on her MySpace Page. I'm particularly fond of "Take Flight."

Sibling... you can skip all that and just go here.

Updates

2006-10-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

Miss Courtney has once again attempted to pull me out of the blogger void. Yes it has been some time, and I really should be here more considering my lack of writing.

The fool even said I could write about Andrew Bird, and believe me with a new live album out, and being featured on four tracks of Dosh's new album The Lost Take not to mention having seen him live twice last month, there was much to write about.

But I think I'd be more interested in seeking out other topics. But in the meantime, a wee update.

I'm working at an organization called the FaithTrust Institute as an office temp. They are fully aware of my journalistic ambitions and I'm keeping them in the loop on my application and interview process, and are ready for me to up and leave for something new. It's a great place to be in the mean time.

I'm pursuing four different things in the journalism world, one writing arts for a nearby newspaper. We're keeping our fingers crossed. I've expanded my search to include radio opportunities and internships.

Megan has not yet gone completely insane from working so hard, but I'm quite convinced that she's meandering close to that line. But it's all getting much easier.

That's the news from Lake Woe-be-gone. I'll have some more interesting updates coming this week.

Wait, is this another post about Andrew Bird?

2006-09-18T20:45:00.000-07:00

Well... yeah... it is.

My laptop is sadly broken and I have no internet at my home, which means that I'm limited to when I'm able to come down to the computers available at the aparment building common rooms. Not that I'm complaining! The mere fact that our apartment offers computers to use is amazing. However, once jobs are secured and the massive amounts of money that a journalist and a teacher earn start rolling in, we'll be back on our internet feet!

But in the meantime. Andrew Bird fun is here! His tour began this weekend, and he'll be hitting the lovely Northwest next week! You should hop on buy to one of the following shows in the Oregon/Washington area, or else be shunned as a hater.

Sept. 26 at the Wow Hall in Eugene, Ore.

Sept. 27 at Aladdin Theater in Portland, Ore.

Sept. 28 at Chop Suey in Seattle, Wash.

Sept. 30 at The Nightlight in Bellingham, Wash.

But more immediately, you can run off to his MySpace page to hear a new track (that's right A NEW TRACK) off of Fingerlings 3! It's the track titled "Sythian Empire," which we can only hope will appear on the album out next year.

Fingerlings 3 is out super soon, so you'll be hearing about that whether you like it or not.

Oh, and if you're obsessive and insane (like myself) Fingerlings 2 is available with a new snazzy cover, available at his website. HOT!

Excited? Cuz I am!

UPDATE: Over at Dosh's myspace page there's a new track titled "Um Circles and Squares" with some tell-tale violin loopin' therein.

2006-09-06T22:17:00.000-07:00

Musical Melodies

It's funny that I would stumble on both of these things on the same day. But there it is. This YouTube is a hilarious lesson in how to write a Fugue. This is definately humor in the P.D.Q. Bach style, so I hope it's your thing. It's pretty funny either way.

If you're a huge nerd, like myself, you might also enjoy this NPR feature I stumbled on called the Piano Puzzler, where this performer picks a common melody (like "This Old Man" or "Rock-a-bye Baby") and performs it in the style of a famous composer (like Bach, Bizet or Brahms...). Call in guests try to figure out the mystery tune and composer style. I freaking love it.

Listen to the Piano Puzzler

The Sufjan Claus...

2006-09-05T09:49:00.001-07:00

Christmas is about excess. We eat too much, buy too much, and spend WAY too much time with people we feel oblidged to visit. Christmas is, if anything, a giant experiment that annually proves that there is in fact too much of a good thing.

If I were to find one person that could possibly represent this culture of excess, it would be Sufjan Stevens. Now wait! Don't hurl tomatos and rotten veggies at me! I love Sufjans as much as the next blogger (and the next, and next, and next) but really. The man is putting out a full album for each of the 50 United States. I've loved the first two albums, but in all honesty I can't see myself keeping interested in Sufjan's antics for however long it takes him to create the next 48. (At the rate he's cranking them out, I'll probably be dead by the time they're done)

Keeping with his excessive releases (I mean, this year we got ANOTHER CD of Illinoise material) he's putting out a FIVE (repeat it for emphasis FIVE) CD set of Christmas music. It collects the short EPs he's put together each year (except for 2004) for the last 6 years.

Now I like a good Christmas album probably a slight bit MORE than the next blogger. Christmas albums are typically hated, typically because they're slapped together and you get freaking SICK of them after December. But still, Megan and I run out and pick up an album each year to rock around our own little plastic Christmas tree. So when I heard Sufjan Stevens would be releasing his much-pirated Christmas material, I was overjoyed... UNTIL I FOUND OUT IT WAS A FIVE-CD SET!

I have to ask, Sufjan, why not do 12? I mean, you could make a full LP analyzing each of the 12 days of Christmas! (THAT WAS A JOKE! I DIDN'T MEAN IT! DON'T DO IT SUFJAN!!!!!!!!!)

For those of you thinking "HA! I already have them!" one of the CDs is new material for this Christmas. And of course, in the grand tradition of excessive christmas joy, it comes with stickers, booklets, and enough goodies to make it way too freaking expensive. Each CD is packaged individually as well, or so I'm told. Oh, and there's a total of THREE versions of O Come, O Come Emmannuel.

O come, O come, O COME ON SUFJAN! A music fan can only take so much! Can you look at yourself in the mirror knowing that your output could financially cripple a poor music fan!

I'm still teetering on whether in the end this is a good thing or a bad thing. My Christmas wish (aside from my two front teeth) is that Asthmatic Kitty will have the sense to release them individually as well, so we can pick and choose, or just by the one with the new material.

Anyway, for more details, peep out this Pitchfork news item or you can hear it straight from the asthmatic horse's mouth.

(I'll post a few of Sufjan's xmas tracks later tonight)