Long-time readers of (and/or sufferers thru) this blog will recall my fondness for New Year's celebrations which involve dropping oddball giant objects like peeps or pickles or acorns or whatever. Didn't hear about any new advances on that front, but (altho sadly I'm a bit late with this post for Chanukah) in semi-related news of holiday celebrations using unconventional materials, here is a marvelous thing indeed -- a 15-foot menorah made of kosher salami. Meatastic!

Merry New Year, y'all.

Here's part 2 of the 08 faves mix. If nothing else, listening to all this gave me a way of getting the brain worm that is "the Bad Horse Song" out of my head for a few hours. Damn AV Club for reviewing the Dr. Horrible DVD.

SI SE PUEDE (part 2)
01. "killa soundboy" :: Fort Knox Five [w/ Sleepy Wonder & Zeebo] (from Radio Free D.C.)

02. "move" :: Q-Tip (from the Renaissance)

03. "enladeirada" :: 3 Na Massa [w/ Thalma De Freitas] (from 3 Na Massa)

04. "tchiribin" :: Watcha Clan (from Diaspora Hi-Fi)

05. "samba machine" :: Kassin+2 (from Futurismo)

06. "nouveau americain" :: Brazilian Girls (from New York City)

07. "looks like to kill" :: Sonantes (from Sonantes)

08. "quique" :: Cordero (from De Donde Eres)

09. "pebble to a pearl" :: Nikka Costa (from Pebble to a Pearl)

10. "panj bindiyaan" :: Ominous DJs (from DJ Rekha presents: Basement Bhangra - VA)

11. "harampa rija" :: Cankisou (from Le La)

12. "hollaback girl of constant sorrow" :: DJ Erb (www.djerb.net)

13. "end of the road" :: Tom Jones and Jools Holland (from Tom Jones & Jools Holland)

14. "this will never end" :: All Girl Summer Fun Band (from Looking Into It)

End of year = fave music mixes. I started pulling mine together tonight. Right now it's looking like it'll wind up being 3 CDs worth. Interestingly, when I went back to look at the 2007 mixes, I ended up editing them down from 4 discs to 2 discs worth of stuff. That probably tells us something about perspective and distance and staying power. Or some such profound-osities like that there.

SI SE PUEDE (part 1)
01. "strange overtones" :: Brian Eno & David Byrne (from Everything That Happens Will Happen Today)

02. "fulero" :: Zuco 103 (from After the Carnaval)

03. "the whistling song" :: the Pinker Tones (from Wild Animals)

04. "rag mop" :: the Ames Brothers w/ the Roy Ross Orchestra (from Cookin': Choice Cuts from the Famous Fifties - VA)

05. "policia" :: Pistolera (from En Este Camino)

06. "here sat i (off jumps the don)" :: Don Cavalli (from Cryland)

07. "maraou oran" :: Toumast (from Ishumar)

08. "beni beni" :: Niyaz (from Nine Heavens)

09. "bob" :: Otto (from What's Happening in Pernambuco - VA)

10. "medina stepper" :: Jef Stott (from Saracen)

11. "tanta pena" :: Juno Reactor (from Gods and Monsters)

12. "barvoslepej svet" :: Gipsy.cz (from Reprezent)

13. "game set and match" :: the Herbaliser [w/ More or Les] (from Same As It Never Was)

Of yesterday's festival of bad traffic and whatnot, the less said the better. I95 remains my long national nightmare. Moving on...
Back home and it's freakishly warm around here (which it is so often that I probably shouldn't term it "freakish" but my sense of what counts as normal late December weather is conditioned by having grown up in the northeast and there's nothing I can do about that at this late date). We almost had a white-ish Xmas up on Staten Island. There were still patches of snow when we got there on Wed. But then the temp spiked up into the 50s and it started raining so it was the more typical brown and muddy Christmas after all. But, anyway, while sitting around the house all afternoon w/ the doors open doesn't exactly fill me w/ holiday spirit, at least I was sitting around the house all afternoon and there's something to be said for that.
As for the hols, we had nice visits w/ Sarah's parents and w/ my mom and my brother. Low key. Pleasant. Good food. And a Top Chef marathon so we're almost caught up and ready for when Bravo hits NC (new episodes will start next week so we may have time to catch the 1 or 2 episodes that we've missed). If it wasn't for all the driving it would've been great. I know it's gotten bad when I find myself thinking that flying isn't that unattractive an option after all.
Another highlight was a Friday night cruise around random sections of Staten Island looking for crazy holiday light displays. We didn't see my holy grail -- the electric manger scene w/ Santas or toy soldiers mixed in with the wise men and shepherds. This usually happens on SI because the yards are so small that there's just not enough room to separate the secular and churchy decorations. On our way back from dinner tonight we saw one in Durham where the Santa has clearly been intentionally added to the manger scene. There's plenty of room so he seems intended to be there. Which is cool. But I find the inadvertant collisions slightly more charming. But there were still plenty of impressive displays including one house w/ so many inflatables that not only couldn't you see any actual grass in the yard, you could barely see the house thru all the crowd of decorations out front. An impressive effort indeed.

We've rented DVDs of performances from Nat King Cole's TV show but here's one I've never seen before. And it's killer -- Cole and Billy Eckstine singing "Rosetta." If you only know Mr. B as a suave crooner, this is a reminder that he got his start as a horn player. He blows a mean trumpet and sax. And if you only know Cole as a suave crooner, check out his piano playing. Enjoy!

Christmas? Must be a party!
Okay, so I know that this is actually not an Xmas party. But still, it's a swingin' affair with Hef, Jon Hendricks and Tony Bennett in the crowd, Count Basie on piano and the fabulous Annie Ross singing.
If our holidays are half that cool, we can count ourselves lucky indeed.

...may your ev'ry wish come true

Or like people coming here to tell me that there was nothing "black" about the fist-bump. Damn right there's nothing black about the "fist-bump"--we don't invent slang that sounds like it looks. It's called dap, motherfuckers.

Tired to hearing that your blog is killing intelligent discourse in wherever it is you live? Clay Shirky drops some science in this excellent interview w/ CJR (via Sullivan). Brilliant stuff. Go read it now.

I mean, really, I’m just so impatient with the argument that the world should be slowed down to help people who aren’t smart enough to understand what’s going on. It’s in part because I grew up in a generation that benefited enormously from not doing that. Right? ,,, So, now it’s our turn and we ought to just suck it up.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 21 dec 08)

Around the World :: Señor Coconut & his Orchestra
Reprezent :: Gipsy.cz
After the Carnaval :: Zuco 103
Sprechen sie Pop? :: various
Que Viva el Canto! Songs of Chile :: Rafael Manriquez & Friends
1970s Algerian Proto-Rai Underground :: various
Alegranza :: El Guincho
Piano Jondo :: Diego Amador
Inspiration Information :: Amp Fiddler/Sly & Robbie
Passport :: Brooklyn Rider

this week's video feature: Gipsy.cz

So I think Sarah mentioned that I picked up a couple of pies at the farmer's market. In fact, we ended up having an all pie lunch on Sunday, with a chicken pot pie and an open-faced apple pie. Both magnificent and both by Scratch. Seasonal artisan baking by Phoebe Lawless. Srsly, if you're in Durham do not miss out on this. And get there early on Saturdays, cos she sells out fast. Esp. of the donut muffins, which are a thing of beauty. Just don't get there before me. I only wish I'd been thinking ahead enough to order a pie or cake to take up with us for our holiday visiting. Next time for sure.

Here's a fabu Aardman/Bond mashup.
(I've lost track of a similarly brilliant thing -- something I saw earlier this month during the week when I was coughing my lungs out. Perhaps I'll remember what it was some day)

Happy solstice! And Chanukah!
Y'know, you might not think the difference between 4 hours of radio and 4 hours and 20 minutes of radio was all that much. And maybe it shouldn't be. But I really hit the wall when our Xmasville Lounge experience ran a bit overtime this afternoon. The 6pm DJ no-showed. Thank FSM that the 7pm DJs were listening and came in early. Also thank FSM that Sarah still had enough gas left in the tank to get thru the bonus beats portion of the show.
Aside from that glitchiness, I think it went really well. We actually found way more new music than we could even get to. The alternate Santa transportation set went well. The Hannukah sets were awesome. And I was particularly happy with the tribute to Thurl Ravenscroft. Lots of good fun that is funny. Here's the playlist.

Yesterday morning was my last radio show for the year. Since all our playlists are archived online, I checked and found that I did 43 shows this year, including 9 Mondo Mundos and 4 Divaville Lounges. That number doesn't count any weeks when I co-hosted with Sarah. Speaking of which, we'll be doing this year's version of Xmasville Lounge this Sunday from 2-6pm.

Today's cool site to check out: Shorpy. I think the description on the site sums it up best: "a vintage photography blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950."

We finally got our tinsel trees decorated tonight. They've been sitting on the tables all week but with one thing or another (cough... mouse problem... cough), we hadn't gotten further than that. But now they're done and I'm sitting here drinking eggnog and watching "the Nutcracker" on TV. How frikkin' festive. No, seriously. Altho the day started out fine at the radio station it was rather sucktastic at work. So it's nice to come home and get yr holiday on. Plus we went out to the AV/Geeks show earlier. Which was great, as usual. The theme was "How Star Wars Ruined Educational Films." Skip even included a bonus showing of Hardware Wars as a little cinematic lagniappe.

good times

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 14 dec 08)

Inspiration Information :: Amp Fiddler/Sly & Robbie
...At Carnegie Hall :: Buena Vista Social Club
Sprechen sie Pop? :: various
Shivaboom :: Eccodek
Piano Jondo :: Diego Amador
After the Carnaval :: Zuco 103
1970s Algerian Proto-Rai Underground :: various
Alegranza :: El Guincho
Live at the Village Vanguard :: Bebo Valdes & Javier Colina
Sarod Recital: Live in Peshawar :: Asad Qizilbash

this week's video feature: Zuco 103

Another sign that the economy is in the crapper -- none of the local malls seem to have the store that sells nothing but Xmas decorations this year. Oh, they've all got plenty of empty retail spade. But apparently no one thought there was any money to be made in ornaments and lights.
Also, here's a radio update (since I know you're planning your days around this info). I'll be on again this Thursday, 7-9am. Sunday, 2-6pm, I'll be sitting in with Sarah for Xmasville Lounge 2008. Then I'll be off until New Year's. I'll definitely be on 7-9am on 1/1, altho it's up for grabs how coherent and well-rested I'll be. There's also a chance I'll be back on the air from 4-6pm as part of XDU's Top 100 of 2008 countdown.

Encore, the next phase of the Wynn in Las Vegas, is getting ready to open on Sunday, And apparently Steve Wynn was not too crazy about having the broken down New Frontier sign still standing right across the street. So he's paying to have it taken down. The casino's been imploded and torn down. It was already an empty lot when we were there back in February. It's supposed to be the future home of the Plaza (owned by the same folks who own the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan) but no ground has been broken yet. When we were at the Neon Boneyard, our guide said that they probably weren't going to get the Frontier sign because the company was planning on keeping it. Sounds like now they're trying to get involved and salvage some of it. My understanding was that they have little budget to pay for any signs so they mostly have to depend on owner donations. And even though the New Frontier was (as I've mentioned once or twice previously) a wretched hive of scum and villainy, the sign was something of an old school Vegas classic so I hope they're able to save at least some of it.

Excellent New Yorker article on Dogfish Head and the extreme beer scene. Gives new meaning to the phrase "crazy about beer."

And the beer du jour is the Mendocino Imperial IPA. I love a good winter seasonal!

Wil Wheaton's got a nice guide to lounge music in his column for LA Weekly. Good stuff and a good intro to the scene, esp. on the more contemporary, neo-lounge sound.

In that spirit, here's the awesome power of Ethel Smith

In case you were wondering where the new holiday humor classics are coming from, here's a gem from John Scalzi.

And, yes, it's that holiday time o' year. Over the weekend, there was a reader comment posted at the Daily Dish that summed up my position on the whole subject of yuletidiness pretty well: "As a religious holiday, pre-modern Christmases were rather austere celebrations defined by lengthy church services. That this coincided with pagan culture's raucous celebrations of the winter solstice was a source of great displeasure to institutional Christianity for centuries. The "kitsch" that Harris discusses (Evergreen Trees, the man from the north who brings us goodies) are pagan icons. Giving gifts and spending time with your family and friends (instead of spending the day in mass) are also holdovers from popular tradition of drinking and reveling which the church had been actively hostile to. In short, everything WE secularists value in Christmas has been entirely appropriated by the Christian world."

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 7 dec 08)

Live at the Village Vanguard :: Bebo Valdes & Javier Colina
After the Carnaval :: Zuco 103
...At Carnegie Hall :: Buena Vista Social Club
Inspiration Information :: Amp Fiddler/Sly & Robbie
More, Love :: Terne Chave
Piano Jondo :: Diego Amador
1970s Algerian Proto-Rai Underground :: various
Alegranza :: El Guincho
Que Viva el Canto! Songs of Chile :: Rafael Manriquez & Friends
Sarod Recital: Live in Peshawar :: Asad Qizilbash

this week's video feature: Asad Qizilbash

Happening right now, baby: Divaville Lounge tribute to Sammy Davis, Jr. More info here and here. Or just go listen. 88.7fm in the Durm area or online at wxdu.org (link in the sidebar).

Swingin'

This year's Durham holiday parade was this afternoon. Not as many car clubs this time and no horses. We all wondered if maybe the application fee had gone up. Although it was very overcast, the rain held off until tonight. Highlights were the Southern and Hillside bands, the Re/Max flame jet (okay, it's actually a hot air balloon basket), and the joyfully chaotic mob scene of the Scrap Ex and Beaver Lodge crews, with musical accompaniment by the Scene of the Crime Rovers.



Good times!

Our long national nightmare is over. Okay, it was really more of a localized nightmare. Anyway, Bravo is finally coming to Triangle cable. Sure, that doesn't get us Project Runway any more. But at least we'll be able to get our Top Chef on. And here I was worrying about what I was going to waste my time on next year.

So this is a very cool thing. Virtual Sands being created by students at UNLV and Politecnico di Torino. Awesome. Although I must admit that when I was looking at the slideshow with that article my first thought was that the virtual Sands should be in black and white. Doh! Once I got my beain into a more Ocean's Eleven kinda headspace I was able to work better with the concept. I want a virtual Copa room with 3 shows at 10, midnight and 2. Altho, unlike the UNLV prof, I don't think anyone needs to spend time coding up a virtual New Frontier experience. That we can safely lose to the sands of time.

That's enough crisp bacon!

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 30 nov 08)

Que Viva el Canto! Songs of Chile :: Rafael Manriquez & Friends
After the Carnaval :: Zuco 103
Piano Jondo :: Diego Amador
Sprechen sie Pop? :: various
Inspiration Information :: Amp Fiddler/Sly & Robbie
Shivaboom :: Eccodek
Live at the Village Vanguard :: Bebo Valdes & Javier Colina
1970s Algerian Proto-Rai Underground :: various
Alegranza :: El Guincho
More, Love :: Terne Chave

this week's video feature: Diego Amador