Gem of the Week

Introducing Justin Townes Earle. The son of folk legend Steve Earle, his middle name comes from his dad's buddy, another legend, Townes Van Zandt. Justin's stuff is definitely country, but he's more old school and soulful than what is now thought of as the Nashville Sound. Think Hank Williams more than Brad Paisley (who makes me want to vomit in my mouth a little). Fans of Cory Branan and Ryan Adams circa Heartbreaker will like Justin, especially his song "Who Am I to Say" off The Good Life, "Yuma" and the title track off Midnight at the Movies. I'd like to go barhopping in Nashville with this guy and bring a pocketful of jukebox money. He's got Television's Marquee Moon listed as his first influence on MySpace. Nice!

Justin plays the Paradise in Boston on Monday, November 9th.

Shoutout to MAPS

Mass Powershift (MAPS) pulled off a flashmob dance (which included "Call on Me" and other legendary dance party jams) at Government Center in downtown Boston yesterday.

They officially kick off their campaign this Sunday with their first sleep out, part of an effort to get the Massachussetts legislature on board with 100% renewable energy for the state in 10 years, before Copenhagen! Yes, they are sleeping outside, every sunday, from now until December 7th. No one ever said saving the world was easy.

See pics from the dance and read more about the campaign here.

Untitled

Last weekend I went apple picking with Annie and Sam in Natick. There I acquired four different varieties of Nature's toothbrush. They were so tasty! Post adventure I was perusing Papa Googs (Google) to learn more about different kinds of apples and was sad to learn than Googling "apples" just brings up pages of crap about iphones and mac books. Thank God I eventually found AllAboutApples.com. It includes information on all apply varieties grown in the U.S., including several with neat names like Swiss Limbertwig and Xavier De Bavay. It also made me wonder if the Yellow Transparent apple is in fact transparent. How crazy would that be? That's how exciting my life has been lately.

Last night I made some pesto and spaghetti sauce to freeze for the winter. As much as I like to cook, I'm also a big lazy ass. I've been known to eat Chef Boyardee beeferoni straight from the can, cold. This way I can put in some effort now and lazily enjoy good homemade stuff later.

Project number one was pesto ice cubes. What would you need to them? Basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil, parmesan (optional), a food processor or blender and an ice tray. At first, I didn't drizzle extra olive oil on top and I realized the frozen pesto blocks wouldn't come out of the tray. I defrosted and tried again but it'd be best if you drizzled with olive oil the first time.

Project number two was a variation of my signature spaghetti sauce. Ususally I do the mire poux thing and use lots of red pepper flakes but I forgot both last night, hence the "variation". Emily and Veronica were still really excited about it so I am including the recipe here:

1 big or two tiny onions, sautee in butter (F olive oil!)
2 sausages, taken out of their casings (my favorites are sweet or spicy italian chicken sausage)
garlic, half a bulb (with the way I chow garlic I better have a healthy ticker)
1 green pepper
italian seasoning (oregano is most important)
1 bay leaf
fresh basil
1/2 glass of red wine
1/2 a beer
large can of stewed tomatoes
fresh tomatoes
1 can of tomato paste
water

Sautee onions first, then add sausage and Italian seasoning, then the wine. Let that hang out for awhile, then add everything else. Cook that baby down for at least an hour and presto! It smells so good in your kitchen people think you're a good cook. I let it hang out in the fridge overnight and then pureed it in the blender this morning. Let me know when you want to come over for spaghetti!

And here are some songs for you to enjoy this weekend.

Wyatt introduced me to Grooveshark. It's somewhere between Pandora and imeem but I like it better than both of them. I'm going to start using it for sharing songs on here but let me know if it doesn't work for you.

1. "Vegetables" by the Beach Boys, Off Smiley Smile
Thanks K Momma for finding my new theme song, with its chomping and random water sounds. "I love you most of all, my favorite vegetable..." Smiley Smile was considered a failure when it came out in the 60's but clearly it worked for some folks, namely Panda Bear. When I listen to this album I totally understand where Animal Collective and Panda Bear's solo stuff came from.

2. "Ego" (Remix) by Beyonce, featuring Kanye West
This song is so dirty but so awesome.

3. "Stadiums and Shrines II" by Sunset Rubdown
An oldy but goody off of Shut Up I Am Dreaming, the guitar in this song is so triumphant. Singing loudly along with Spencer Krug is always fun but this one in particular is a solid pick me up.

I'll leave you with this killer beard picture of the Beach Boys.

Commercial Fishing

I saw this bumper sticker on a car in JP and I'm not quite sure what the message is meant to be.
So we've got commercial fishing no matter what and we might as well keep the jobs here? We talk about overfishing in the Enviro community but do other people care about it enough to make bumper stickers? Maybe they're just from Rhode Island?

I'm not sure what to think of it. If you can shed some light on it for me, please leave a comment.

HONK! FEST and band of the week

My band of the week is The Dodos from San Francisco. Though they are often described as indie-folk, their music originally caught my ear with a song reminiscent of Animal Collective. The Dodos too are into rich vocal harmonies, delicious layers and occasional yelping. But, more than that, they've got horns, fun lyrics and a unique drumming style that sets them apart from the other kids in the business. If you're sick of everything you have and you're looking for a new band to get you through the winter, this is it. I promise. I've been listening to last year's The Visiter but I'm sure this summer's Time to Die is good too.

Over the weekend I was fortunate enough to witness Honk Fest, an annual three-day festival of activist drum collectives in Somerville, Mass. The event featured 27 groups from across the country and one from Rome. In seven parks and parking lots, cool kids, nerds, dancers, musicians, singers, babies, dogs and dancing grandmas came together and broke it down. Personal highlights included the all-percussion Cakalak Thunder from Greensboro, North Carolina, the dancers of the Rude Mechanical Orchestra from New York City, and costumes worn by the members of Seed & Feed from Atlanta, Georgia (See photo below).

Raphael Saadiq, So hot right now!

I have a new celebrity crush. His name is Raphael Saadiq. You too will swoon after you watch this video. I think it is cooler than Beyonce's "Single Ladies" video. That's right Kanye, I did!

In addition to being a good performer, he's also a pretty big deal producer, responsible for songs by Mary J. Blige, Joss Stone and another one of my crushes, John Legend. Fun fact: Saadiq's record label, Pookie Entertainment, shares its name with the favorite alias of Green Corps alumna Emily Southard.

Saadiq's last album The Way I See It, was released in 2008. He plays the House of Blues in Boston December 9th.

As reported Friday, October 9th in the New York Times

It was announced today that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. The first and only word that came to mind in my pre-coffee morning daze was "LAAAME." I mean, really? The New York Times headline said he received it "for his extraordinary efforts to strenghten international diplomacy and cooperations between peoples." Yes, the international community likes him a lot but he HASN'T DONE ANYTHING YET. I feel it's no longer just America that has lost all it's imagination. And, from what I understand, this is one of the widest interpretations of Alfred Nobel's orginal guidelines for choosing the award recipient. I really like this response from Friends of the Earth, which points out that, between Afghanistan and the climate crisis, my boy has A LOT of peacemaking left to do.

My friend James said he'd hoped the headline was a joke, perhaps part of a larger fake news day, after reading in the Space & Cosmos section that NASA bombed the moon. I wish, in this economic crisis, we could put all the NASA folks to work doing something else. I'm sure they'd all hate me for saying that but can't Space wait?

After the Obama story, I gave up on real news for the day and came across this audio piece by actor and ladies man John Keegan. After a bad breakup a few years back, Keegan challenged himself to master the art of charming women, setting personal quotas for phone numbers and dates to be achieved each week. He was so successful, the Manhattanite now coaches single men on how to pick up ladies, for the small price tag of $200 a session.

That's nice and all but I'd like to point out two things:

Number one, Keegan is an actor. He's not bad looking and he was getting paid to charm way people before he started using it to get broads in his bed.

Number two, women can't do this as easily. He didn't say they could, but it is something I think about. I'm frustrated with how easy it is for guys to pick people up. It's not just about social constraints but also physical advantages and disadvantages. I had a short conversation with someone about limitations of sex at our house party over the weekend and he asked me, if I was born a man, would I be a different person. My answer? Absolutely. I would do all kinds of things I am too scared to do as a woman, namely hitch hiking and hitting on random strangers.

People may disagree, some women are fearless, but personally, I feel I can't just pick up any guy I meet. There are considerations, the biggest one being potential for sexual assault. Living in fear sucks, let me tell you. It's so limiting. John Keegan, I salute you and your abilities and am very, very jealous that you can meet a million ladies a week and never worry that one might strangle you in an alley and try to rape you.

Rock!

My musical pick of the week is Atlas Sound. It is dreamy, electronic and wonderful. I can't stop listening to it, especially while I run, of all things. If you can find the track "Airdales," start there. Atlas Sound is a solo project of Bradford James Cox, lead singer of the Atlanta-based five piece Deerhunter. The band sound is similarly good, though less electronic and more about straight guitar rocking. I would argue that Deerhunter is better than Deer Tick, and much better than Deerhoof. At some point, I am going to investigate the origin of all these deer-themed band names. There are a plethora of bands with names about wolves, deer and bears. What's next? I'm rooting for meerkats.

Atlas Sound plays the Paradise here in Boston, with Broadcast and the Selmaniares on October 22.

While I'm writing about music, I want to give a shout out to the Improper Bostonian for its current music issue. They did a nice piece on Boston-based breakout bands and an interview with Passion Pit front man Michael Angelakos. Check it out.

And if you haven't heard the Run Toto Run cover of "Sleepyhead," please watch the video now. It might be better than the original. Might be.

Where the Wild Things Are, Part 2

My mom sent me this article about WTWTA that clears up a couple things:

1. CGI technology was used for the faces of the Wild Things. Someone told me there was no use of computer technology. That person was incorrect.

2. Karen O. of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs put together the soundtrack for the film, hence the weirdness and awesomeness of the music.

3. The MoMA is currently running a film retrospective entitled Spike Jonze, The First 80 Years. Who's up for a trip to New York?

As part of the show, they are showing the classic tear-jerker, and one of my childhood favorites, The Black Stallion. From a description of the screening:

The Black Stallion. 1979. USA. Directed by Carroll Ballard. Screenplay by Melissa Mathison, Jeanne Roseberg, William D. Wittliff. With Teri Garr, Mickey Rooney, Kelly Reno. An enchanting yet rarely seen film adaptation of Walter Farley’s beloved 1941 book, about an American boy and an Arabian stallion who forge a nearly mystical bond of love and empathy when they are shipwrecked and forced to take refuge on a deserted Mediterranean island. “As soon as we started working on the script for Where the Wild Things Are, The Black Stallion was the first movie Dave Eggers and I watched. It was our aspiration to capture what Carroll Ballard had: a boy on an island finding his way with wild creatures and the camera trying to tag along—not to get in the way, but to capture the beauty of it all” (Spike Jonze). New 35mm print courtesy Academy Film Archive. 118 min.

Monsters

In support of 826 Boston, the 2nd floor of 34 Robeson attended an advance screening of Where the Wild Things Are last night. Author and screenwriter Dave Eggers and Oscar-winning actor Chris Cooper (the scary dad in American Beauty) spoke before the film, and there was a charming video of Martin Sendak, author of the original children's book, recounting a story from his youth. Eggers talked a little bit about how he and Spike Jonze spent the last 5 years unravelling the 388 word (or something like that) book into a feature film. I was pleased to hear that naps are a big part of Jonze's creative process. Got to love Eggers for letting you in on those special details.

So was is good? Yes. Should you see it? Fo sho. Is it the best movie ever? I didn't think so. I actually felt like there might be something wrong with me when I walked out of the theatre and found that I was the only person without tears in my eyes. I was less into the story and more impressed by high quality of craft.

Being a Spike Jonze film, WTWTA was artistically mouth-watering. That man did not spare one detail. (His budget for this film is estimated to be between $80 and 100 million.) I would watch it again for the cinematography alone. Each scene is like a weird but very well composed earth-toned photograph. The settings shift between an Australian forest, massive desert mountain, ocean and a huge fort made of sticks, among other awesome dream-like landscapes. And the sound! The banging of Max around his house as he chased his dog, the sighs of the monsters. I was distracted by the attention brought to even the smallest sounds in this film. I love it. And if that raving wasn't enough, I couldn't get over the incredibly realistic facial expressions of the monsters. They were so good that I knew the actress playing the character of KW was actress Lauren Ambrose, before I even heard her voice. This is partly because I spent much of last winter watching Six Feet Under episodes (she plays the little sister Claire), but mostly because the monster's face moved just the way hers does. Amazing! My guess is that the monster suits use computer technology to read the faces of the actors inside. I haven't been able to find a good article on this yet so I hope Jonze elaborates on the technology after the film comes out in theatres next week. Until then, read more about Jonze and WTWTA in this NY Times Magazine piece.

After the film, we went to a pretty sweet funk show at Wonder Bar in Allston. More on that soon.