XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 30 july 06) ::

Yellow Fever :: Señor Coconut & his Orchestra
the Streets of Bollywood and Beyond :: various
Ethnic Minority Music of Northeast Cambodia :: various
Soul Gospel, vol. 2 :: various
Farewell Ferengistan :: Banco de Gaia
Radio Thailand :: various
Radio Algeria :: various
Introducing A. R. Rahman :: A. R. Rahman
Polka in Paradise :: Jimmy Sturr
Lagos Stori Plenti :: various

Ahh... one of the classic media stunts (and a personal fave of mine), getting a reviewer who already dislikes someone to review their latest work. Today's example courtesy of the NYTimes. I just watched Feasting on Asphalt earlier tonight. It was fun. Not Alton Brown's best work, perhaps, but fun. But then, if I'm reading the reviewer right, he doesn't have any best work. It's clear that not only doesn't she much care for Brown, but she completely fails to get the road food movement (which isn't a movement anyway). Oh, where to begin... I cannot take seriously anyone who snarks at road food but doesn't mention either Calvin Trillin or Jane and Michael Stern. She makes it sound like road food was invented by the same guys that came up with the Slim Jim commercials. Her straw-man arguments about road food v. French food are, well, just that. Fake assertions that no one ever made, laid out so she can dismiss them, witheringly. What Trillin and the Sterns and AB (and, frankly, any sensible person) understand, but Virginia Heffernan apparently cannot, is that it's not a question of whether the roast chicken at Bouchon is better than the barbecue chicken at Keaton's. They're not trying to do the same things. But both are insanely successful at being great at what they do. The attitude that only haute cuisine can be great implies that only the rich have a right to eat great food, therefore it doesn't matter what anyone else eats so we might as well pave all those barbecue pits and send everyone to McDonald's. 1-2-F-U, Ms. H. Anyway, real New Yorkers know and love road food. They're down in Chinatown or out in Queens looking for good rogan josh or waiting in line at the Shake Shack.

It's definitely tomato season -- not only are the plants here starting to roll out the 'maters, but it's also the time of year when people are quite likely to give you some. Found myself with 4 or 5 that really needed to be used tonight. Wanted something different than the usual bowl o' pasta tossed with chopped tomatoes. Found a recipe for tomato tart which sounded just the thing. Turned out to be not quite what I'd been thinking of -- after I got started I realized that the tomatoes were just sliced and put on top of the baked tart crust. Later I found a recipe for a baked tart; I'll try that next time. A reminder, I suppose, of the importance of reading the entire recipe before beginning. Anyway, notwithstanding any of all that, it was still damn good. I mean, the tart dough is 4 oz flour, 4 oz whole wheat flour (we were out so I used semolina, which worked fine), 4 oz butter, and 4 oz grated cheese (I used a mix of parm, aged gouda, and the last bit of some dry cheese -- maybe parm, maybe romano -- that was hanging around the fridge). Hard to go wrong with a mix like that. The tip in the recipe about salting the tomatoes and leaving them to drain on paper towels definitely worked. There was no problem at all with the crust getting soggy. I was thinking just now that the tart crust might have been better with a bit of pepper added. That might add a nice contrast. But it definitely succeeds in keeping the fresh tomatoes in the spotlight. And adding the cheese to the crust moves it away from being in any way pizza-like.

For no reason other than sheer pointless meta-ness, I'm linking to Lisa B's link to the Anthony Bourdain article about Beirut that's up on Salon today. What with the TV shows and bluster and outsized personality it's easy to forget that Bourdain can actually write the hell outta something. Well worth squinting thru the ads (opening up another window in front of the ad is also a good avoidance strategy)

While my iPod is still full of Frank, Dean, Sammy and other music themed for the Vegas trip, at home I've been listening a lot to this CD that came into XDU -- Mexaton on the Rise by El Angel. Couldn't find any info or reviews to link to and the photo doesn't do justice to the over-the-top wackiness of this. On one hand it's just a mess of reggaeton, hiphop and Mexican styles. Control Machete it ain't. Hell, Daddy Yankee it ain't even. But on the other, I love how the cheesy MIDI beats tend to wander off into electro, new wave, or even late 80s EBM stylings. To say nothing of the track that keeps coughing up a riff from "Silly Love Songs." Queso fundido! It'll be on the XDU playlist as soon as I can slap a review on it.

Today's best vanity plate: PORKRIND
(runner up: AMIGLUON)

If I can speak cryptically for a moment, I think one thing I've learned recently is that while sometimes failing at something is just, y'know, failing, sometimes you can actually learn things. Given some time and distance, you might understand why you failed. And, maybe, thru some fluke-y set of circumstances, you might get the chance to try again. A bit of perspective, a bit of applied effort, a few sleepless nights... who knows? The second time around might go a lot better. (those who know what I'm talking about will understand... if anyone else cares, I can elaborate in a non-blogging format)

It's cool when things work out like that.

Here's a coupla random bits o' funny:
Wil Wheaton's still blogging the WSOP (now with bonus crayon eating)

Mike Nelson takes it to the next level, where MST3K meets podcasting

(and, of course, any day that includes free cake is a good day)

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 23 july 06) ::

Radio Algeria :: various
Soul Gospel, vol. 2 :: various
Radio Thailand :: various
Ethnic Minority Music of Northeast Cambodia :: various
Trafico :: Think Of One
North of the Border :: Alex Weiss and Different Drum
Ay Caramba! :: Ska Cubano
Farewell Ferengistan :: Banco de Gaia
Lagos Stori Plenti :: various
Introducing A. R. Rahman :: A. R. Rahman

The cool kids have been talking about the Customers Suck LJ. It's pretty hy-larious. It also was reminding me of a site that I'd been reading a few years ago and I finally remembered what it was, bitter waitress. What it lacks in the narrative of Customers Suck it more than makes up for in bitterness. And celebrity gossip.

And here's a bit o' goofiness (via Bookslut) to wrap up the week: Wodehouse or baseball?

I'd heard about this, perhaps when we were out there, but plans are apparently afoot to move CBGB to Vegas. My initial reaction was something along the lines of "give it up." But, on the other hand, why not? One thing I've read (not mentioned in this article) is that Kristal is looking at space downtown, which is grittier, sleazier and overall just less overwhelmingly artificial than the Strip. Sure, CBGB Vegas won't be the legendary CBGB. But then, CBs today is not CBs from 10, 20, or 30 years ago. There is, I think, a difference from what a place is and what a place means (or signifies, if we wanna get all pretentious & shit). So I could, until this fall, go down to the Bowery and go to CBs because it's the same space where Television, Ramones, and Talking Heads played back in the 70s. Or I could go because it's the same space where I saw Big Black, Mekons, Pixies, etc, etc, and so on back in the 80s. That's a memory, a legacy, a history. All of which are important. But they don't necessarily have any direct connection to CBs of now, which seems mostly to be focusing on punk and its many offshoots, and on smaller and local bands. Vegas may not have a rock scene the size of NYC's but I'm sure they've got one. Losing his lease shouldn't mean that Hilly Kristal has to give up running CBGB if that's what he wants to keep on doing. And I doubt that CBs Vegas will be all that much more of a shrine to itself than the 2006 version of CBs in NYC is. Still, it is a cultural landmark and I think Bloomberg should've found some way to get him space in Manhattan.

(CBs article found on gothamist)

Insanely cool foto, which I found thru the artcarz mailing list, courtesy of our friend Dave (of Aerocar). It's from an event in Boston earlier this summer -- an art ape. The ape (pronounced ah-pay) is a three-wheeled vehicle that you see all over Italy. I'm pretty sure it gets its name (which translates as "bee") from the buzzy sound of its engine.

And while I'm on the art car tip, the next event on our calendar will be Louisville. Sarah went last year and said it was a great time, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Right now, out in Vegas, there are lots of people staying up late playing cards. Well, I guess that's pretty much always the case. But this fortnight it's for the World Series of Poker. And Wil Wheaton's blogging it. His latest post is a beautiful slab o' writing. I've driven the same streets and been to the same WFM he mentions. Altho somehow I haven't generated quite that quality level of writing about the experience. (gotta be the shoes...)

Also right now, the next book by Daniel Pinkwater is being serialized online. I'm almost as excited by this news as Cory over at boing², altho if I hadda pick a Pinkwater fave it'd be one of the Snarkout Boys books, which I note are out of print on their own and only available as part of the 2 big omnibus editions. I have kinda mixed feelings. It's a shame one can't just buy the individual novels. On the other hand, they are still in print. And everyone needs to read more Pinkwater so more is pretty much automatically a good thing. Anyway, no mixed feelings about the new serialization. New chapters every Tuesday. w00t!!

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 16 july 06) ::

Introducing A. R. Rahman :: A. R. Rahman
Radio Thailand :: various
Best Off :: Lizzy Mercier Descloux
Lagos Stori Plenti :: various
La Ghriba :: Cheb I Sabbah
Ay Caramba! :: Ska Cubano
Trafico :: Think Of One
Dog Daze :: Csokolom
Lamp Fall :: Cheikh Lô
the Shine of Dried Electric Leaves :: Cibelle

As usual, I'll begin my Sunday by complaining about NYTimes and their stupid rss linking. There's a really interesting article in today's edition about a diary written by a teenager in 1930s NYC that just turned up in a dumpster -- interesting details from the diary plus the story of how it was found and returned to the now 90 year old author. I'd link to it for you but, of course, the link generator doesn't work for that article. For some reason, articles in the Metro sections -- the ones not included in the outside of NYC version of the printed paper -- seem more likely to fail in the rss linking process.

Instead, here's a couple of other stories:
Love, (the new Cirque show) considered, with a focus on the music. I didn't realize at the time how heavily remixed, remastered, and mashed-up the music was. I knew it was different but wasn't really thinking about why/how.
Part 9000 in the ongoing series Elegy for an Aging Hipster... unintentional hilarity ensues
A great NYC tradition -- blagging your way into the Met (hey, if you care about the scorn and contempt of others, you're not hardcore New York)

and, finally (getting away from NYTimes), let's wrap up with dessert: big pie!!

Now that was a pleasant way to spend an evening. As a reward for getting ourselves thru a long week, Sarah suggested we go out to dinner here. Once we got there, we ran into this local blogger and we had just a delightful evening of good conversation along with the (as usual) fine food and drinks. Plus, as readers of Archer Pelican will know, Phil's something of a regular at Starlu, and he introduced us to the chef. So that was really cool. At one point a very interesting question was posed, about the watercress that came w/ my entree (steak frites cos, hey, it's Bastille Day), and about how few people seemed to be eating much of it. And, in fact, I had eaten hardly any of it. I don't know why. It just hadn't occured to me. When I ate some with the steak it turned out to be an excellent combination. My guess is there's something about the presentation that's discouraging people from eating the cress but I haven't quite figured out what. Or how you'd go about correcting that. I think if they put less on the plate it'd look even more like a "not meant to be eaten" garnish. They could dress it in some way, but it's already a pretty substantial plate (beef, tarragon butter, fried potatoes) and it really wants something clean, light, fresh and not at all oily to balance things out. I'll have to think some more about it.

In other foodie news, Alicia sent me this link. Looks like Tony Bourdain and his film crew are trapped in Beirut. Altho, as is mentioned in the article, with Discovery Channel working on their behalf they're a lot better off that most Lebanese at this moment.

Wanted to recap a few books read recently, mostly while on vacation last month. Long flights are great for getting some reading done.

On the way out I read the Nasty Bits, the latest from Anthony Bourdain. It's of course uneven, as you'd expect from a collection of essays, but even the lesser pieces are fun. I particularly enjoyed the ones that gave a different look at episodes of No Reservations -- esp. the Vegas and Ferran Adria episodes. I also liked that Bourdain included some notes, after-thoughts and revisions about some of the pieces.

Also read The Pirates! in an Adventure with Ahab which was even more fun than the first. Piratical silliness from wall to wall to wall. Plus a Vegas connection. And prize hams! (Saw recently that the next Pirates! book will be out this fall... An Adventure with Communists)

I was concerned that I didn't have enough to fill the trip back, so while we were waiting (and waiting and waiting) at the airport, I picked up Busting Vegas by Ben Mezrich. I'd read Mezrich's earlier book about the MIT blackjack team, Bringing Down the House on our Xmas trip to Vegas a few years back. That one was about card counters. In this one, also about blackjack players from MIT, they're using more sophisticated (and more dubious) techniques. It's a good read, definitely a page-turner but I don't think quite as good as the earlier book. For one, having read the earlier, this one's not very surprising. Because the players' are pushing things harder and getting into the casinos for much bigger money, they start catching heat much earlier in the book, eliminating much of the suspense. But I felt that Mezrich tipped his hand, that it was pretty obvious early on where the book was headed. Altho the one annoying thing is that the foreshadowed ending is actually a bit of a cheat. I felt like the whole book was pointing towards a particular ending, in fact, directly and explicitly foreshadowing an event that, when you get to it at the end of the book, is not at all what it seemed. It felt like a cheat. Overall, though, it's still a fun read.

I say Ozo. You say Matli.

Just back from the show, which kicked insane amounts of ass. Others making the scene included Mr. & Ms. Pants, several members of the wrrld music team -- Xiane, Todd, and Sta Salsera, and fellow XDU DJs Mark and Chris. I've no doubt there were more but I stayed pretty firmly rooted to my spot down front. Ozo were smokin' hot from start to finish. They played most of my faves, inc. "Eva", "Saturday Night", "Déjame en Paz", and the Coming Up version of "Cumbia de los Muertos" (w/ the long Middle Eastern flava intro). One highlight: the outro to "Cumbia..." into which they worked bits of "Stir It Up" and "Pass the Dutchie" and "Norwegian Wood". Possibly the best moment of the night: after their last song, instead of leaving the stage and waiting for applause to call them back, the band picked up drums (except for the horn players) and came out into the crowd where they carried on with a big percussion throwdown, during which they paused to lead the audience in "the Hokey Pokey", a futbol chant, and the theme from Sesame Street. Ending up by walking around the bleachers and back down to the stage and finally out, drumming all the way. Best encore evah!

w00t! Cartoon Network has started showing Pee Wee's Playhouse!! I'm pretty sure they've cut the opening song a bit but I'm not enough of a geek to have noticed any other changes in last night's episode. But I am enough of a geek to have spotted Nick Park (Aardman) in the animation credits. Obviously for the "Penny" cartoons -- Penny's pet rat is particularly Aardman looking. So, big tip of the hat to Cartoon Network for bringing the reruns back (Mon thru Thurs at 11pm Eastern). If they wanna max out on coolness points, they should start running it on Saturday mornings too.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 9 july 06) ::

Introducing A. R. Rahman :: A. R. Rahman
Radio Thailand :: various
Trafico :: Think Of One
Ay Caramba! :: Ska Cubano
Best Off :: Lizzy Mercier Descloux
Lamp Fall :: Cheikh Lô
La Ghriba :: Cheb I Sabbah
Lagos Stori Plenti :: various
Dog Daze :: Csokolom
Accidentes de Latitud y Longitud :: Maneja Beto

And the winners are gli Azzurri. I missed the first half, alas (coulda sworn it was starting at 3), which was apparently Italy's better performance. But they hung on, even tho it was clear they had nothing in the tank by the end. I'm pretty sure Italy made it through the tournament w/o giving up any goals that weren't penalties or own goals. It does kinda suck that it had to come down to penalty kicks. Unlike Brazil v. Italy in 1994, tho, I thought this was a pretty exciting game. But I suspect that, in addition to being physically exhausted, the knowledge that penalty kicks are looming has got to shut things down towards the end of overtime. I'd think that knowing you'd have to go on with sudden-death periods until someone scored would increase teams efforts to score. Otherwise when you get to the last few minutes before PKs, it's nothing but standing around, ball control, and head-butts. Seriously, WTF?!? Univision (like the ref) missed it completely, only cuing up the replay after they noticed Materazzo lying on the ground. I rewound several times -- just couldn't believe what I was seeing. All I can say is that's a pretty fuckin' punk rock way to end your career. (stay classy, Zizi!)

forza Italia!

Let's wrap up some loose ends from the last seven. Sarah was under it pretty severely with a cold all week so not all that much has gone on. Did see Germany lay a beat-down on Portugal this afternoon. Actually, only the second half was the extreme beat-down I'd been expecting. Still, it was a good match at the loser's lounge. I remain amused that Portugal's Christian Ronaldo has become the designated prince of darkness for the tournament. As the blogger at the Guardian pointed out today, he hasn't elbowed anyone in the face, delivered a headbutt, or stomped on anyone's nads. As for tomorrow, I'm backing the Azzurri. As I think I said earlier, I have fond memories of Sunday mornings spent watching Serie A matches on RAI -- they were picked up by one of the UHF stations in New York.

Watched a couple of movies this week. One was Mars Attacks, which we'd tried to watch once a few years ago and gave up on. I enjoyed it much more this time. It doesn't all work but when it does, it's quite fun. It feels to me like Burton set out to make his version of a bad 60s/70s blockbuster -- big cast of mostly "B" stars, rambling plot, too many characters, cheesy effects. Plus it's partly set in Vegas (inc. lots of Luxor, several scenes filmed in the Neon Museum Boneyard, a casino implosion, and many shots of Vegas locations now gone). And how can I not love any movie where the aliens are killed off by yodeling? And that ends with Tom Jones (!!) singing "It's Not Unusual" in a scene that's a clear and self-conscious Snow White homage. A long slide down the quality scale to our next cinematic offering, National Treasure. I wanna tell you, this may be the stupidest movie I've ever seen. (and, yes, I've seen the Core) Nic Cage steals the Declaration of Indepence. To keep Sean Bean from stealing it. They both want it because there's actually a treasure map on the back. Which they reveal by smearing the back of the Declaration with lemon juice. Oh, and the treasure belonged to the Knights Templar, who became the Freemasons when they moved to America. I'm pretty sure Tom Hanks, Jesus' great-great-granddaughter, and Rat Scabies do not make an appearance, altho I wouldn't guarantee that as my brain started to glaze over after a while. Jon Voight and Harvey Keitel do show up, phoning it in about as badly as Cage and Bean. Just stupefying, really. Made Tomb Raider look like Citizen Kane.

So tonight was just an absurd dining experience. Seeing how it was a nice cool evening and Sarah was finally feeling like she was getting over her cold, we decided to go out to eat somewhere we could sit outside. Our first choice was Brixx, but they were mobbed. So we moved on to Patio Loco in Chapel Hill. All I can say is thank Crom neither of us had a watch on. Altho we knew it was taking for-frakkin-ever, being unaware of the specifics (about two hours) made it a bit more tolerable. The kitchen was obviously in the shit, as Gordon Ramsay would put it. All the waiters were heavily into damage control mode. And altho they were great, it would've been nice if management had comped the drinks. Or done, I dunno, anything beyond having the waiters apologize over and over. When it's taking hours for the food to come out and you're running out of plantains, green rice, and salsa (!!!), saying "sorry" is pretty much the absolute least you can do. The fact that the wait staff were clearly doing there best, along with the fact that the food, when it did come out, was damn good (as it usually is there) is the only reason why I'm thinking that it'll be a while before I go back there, as opposed to thinking that I'll never go back

Here's last night's playlist. A pretty good show, I think. And I got one of the best phone calls I've ever gotten. Someone called up to thank me for introducing them to Way of the West and wanting to know if the CD I'd played was a good place to start. It would, in fact, be a good place to both start and finish (containing as it does their entire recorded output). That is, it would if it existed commercially. Which it doesn't. (many thanks again to swanhunter!! for hooking me up). I did some googling last night and discovered that: (1) the Way of the West catalog (five 12-inch singles, iirc) has never been issued on CD; (2) it's really hard to search for info on the band, because the movie keeps getting in the way. For those born too late or just not into the same kinda music as me (what?!?), Way of the West are one of the great forgotten bands of the 80s. I know... they only released a handful of singles so that's not too surprising. Best known (when known) for "City for Lovers" and "Don't Say That's Just for White Boys."

Sarah's already said pretty much everything I wanted to about Love, the Cirque du Soleil Beatles show at Mirage in Vegas. I did have what's probably a near-universal experience for first-time viewers of CdS spectaculars -- that moment (here it's right at the transition from "Because" into "Get Back") when you find yourself staring slack-jawed and thinking "holy shit, there are people flying thru the air." Here's a review from the Vegas paper.

In other news, I'll be on the air in just under 4 hours. 88.7 if you're local. XDU website (linked to yr left there) if not.
Also, next week is Ozomatli. I just hope it doesn't rain...

Wow

I was planning to be parked on the couch with a tasty beverage by the time Italy v. Germany got underway. But thanks to a 2.5 hour meeting (among other things), I didn't end up leaving work until halftime. Fortunately, thanks to Sarah and the awesome power of the DVR, I got to see the whole of the 2nd half and extra time, including the amazing finale. One of the best matches I've seen so far.

What's that you say? Today was some sort of holiday? I'm interested in your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter...

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 2 july 06) ::

Best Off :: Lizzy Mercier Descloux
Dog Daze :: Csokolom
Trafico :: Think Of One
Siete Rayo :: Descemer
Extra Golden :: OK-Oyot System
Afro-Riddim Sessions, vol. 1 :: Ex-Centric Sound System
La Cantina :: Lila Downs
Accidentes de Latitud y Longitud :: Maneja Beto
Rosa :: Rosa Passos
III :: Yoshida Brothers

Here's the playlist from yesterday's Mondo Mundo radio program. It was the Copa Mundial show -- all the songs were from the 8 quarter finalists. Without any much advance prep time (I only came up with the idea on Friday), I was at the mercy of what I could find in the XDU library. Which turned out to be a bit thin on all things German. I only managed 1.5 German tracks (one of them was a German harper playing Celtic music). I could've done the whole show just on Brazil or France. In fact, I've done those shows. Anyway, I thought the mix actually worked pretty well overall.

Found this on Scrubbles. Please enjoy this slice of high order grooviness from 1967, The two-tone tights on one of the singers are particularly impressive.

back to Vegas

What would a Vegas trip be without a little gambling? Actually, for many people I'm sure it would be just fine, if not better, w/o the gambling. And, yes, I'm a gaming wuss. All I play are slots. I was quite saddened to find that Paris had gotten rid of the French baker themed slots they had two years ago - those were cool. Also MIA were the Sinatra slots, which I'd seen at Bellagio and Alladin, on both the last two trips. I did see some Elvis slots, but the play on those was weird and confusing. It never made any sense -- just burning up the virtual nickels w/ not much happening. Esp. with nickel slots, I don't need to win. If the machine's entertaining enough and I can play for a while before going out (maybe getting a free drink along the way) that's all good. Old TV still seems a popular slot theme. In addition to perpetual faves I Dream of Jeannie and Munsters, I saw I Love Lucy and That Girl and even Hee Haw machines. Didn't see any of the Saturday Night Live slots I remember from previous trips. Movies? Check. I was pleased to see a few of the Hitchcock slots still around. Those are fun (altho I never did hit the Birds bonus round). Best new slot, without a doubt was the nickel Star Wars machine. Specifically the Dark Side slots. Vader, Tarkin, Palpatine, Fett, AT-ATs, TIE fighters... all your eeeevil faves are on the reel. Plus video clips and sound bites. And if you get three Death Stars you activate the bonus round, which is intro'd by a big Darth Vader head. Choose the right planet and win bonus turns, awarded by the big, spinning Death Star on top of the machine. Insanely fun. But of course, my all time fave remains Chainsaws and Toasters. I thought they'd also disappeared from the Strip, but I finally found a few in Bellagio. Just for the completely bizarre pairing, I'd have to love them. Plus they make chainsaw noises. How cool is that... Oh yeah, and I got into them twice for enough to cover airport parking, buy us one last nice meal on Sunday, and a bit to spare.

(photo this time by spacegrrl... and yes it was way too hot out to be wearing that suit but i didn't pass out and managed to get thru the afternoon without looking too wrinkled, i hope)