House of Dioxin

For all you top scallop fans (no, wait it's NOT top scallop), here's a Fabio update. Sounds like he'll be making an appearance in the upcoming season of Top Chef out in Vegas. No surprise as they seem to bring back the TV faves whenever they can to guest in later seasons. Also, he seems to be working on a cookery-type book. Altho, according to this article, it's being contract published. I guess being not the winner but a fan fave of TC only gets you so far. And apparently one of the places it doesn't get you is to a major/actual publisher. My fave fun fact from the article, though, is that apparently Fabio spent some time working as a personal chef for William Fucking Shatner.

khaaaaaaaaaan-oli!!

Posted by at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 19 jul 09)

Sun People :: Nickodemus
À l'Aveuglette :: Françoiz Breut
Fondo :: Vieux Farka Touré
Thai Funk ZudRangMa :: various
Panama! 2: Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical and Calypso Funk on the Isthmus, 1967-77 :: various
Funk Mundial :: various
Amatoria :: Federico Aubele
Espoir :: Hermas Zopoula
Kelenia :: Oran Etkin
the World is Shaking: Cubanismo from the Congo, 1954-55 :: various

this week's video feature: Federico Aubele

Posted by at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This almost makes me want to sign up for twitter. (Sorry blind link haters but some things are better with the element of surprise... don't worry, it's not a rickroll)

Posted by at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So this article by Andrea Reusing (chef at Lantern) is actually from April of this year but I just followed a link to it this week so it's new to me. I've been thinking about this cos of all the complaining I've been seeing online about how the Durham Farmer's Market is too expensive. First off, I don't think the prices (at least for some things) at DFM are that out of whack. Second, and this is the point Reusing is making, what are the hidden costs of food being as cheap as it is. It's easy to dismiss this idea as elitist. But I think it's more complicated than just "cheap=good; expensive=bad". Altho, honestly, I wonder sometimes about the people screaming that loudest about farmer's market pricing. I don't think they're the ones worried about running out of food money before the week runs out of days.

Posted by at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, just one more moon video.

Posted by at 11:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Moon video #4.

Got knocked offline late last night which is why the moon series is spilling over into Tuesday. To mark the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, TCM showed Melies' Trip to the Moon and a documentary made for the 20th anniversary called For All Mankind that used footage shot during a bunch of the Apollo missions, most of which I'd never seen before. Lots of amazing images, including footage of the command module separating from the last booster stage, shot from a camera in the booster. So you see the capsule fly off and then just the blackness of space and then the Earth appears. At which point you realize that what you're seeing is the booster stage falling back into the atmosphere. Of course. Otherwise how could they have recovered the camera. Because that wasn't a special effect, it was something that actually happened.
The other fun thing I learned was that for (at least) one of the missions, the astronauts got to bring tape recorders so they could listen to music. One of them was a country music fan and Buck Owens and Merle Haggard recorded songs specially for the tape. Also a funny scene of (I think) another group of astronauts (the movie wasn't always very good about identifying which mission they were showing) playing "Also Sprach Zarathustra" on their tape recorder.
Finally, here's a fun list o' Apollo 11 factoids.

Posted by at 6:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Moon video #3

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Moon video #2

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Moon video #1

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A while back, this new restaurant opened up over at ATC called Cuban Revolution. I know... poor taste, right? Or perhaps you don't care. Or perhaps you actually are, say, Cuban American. Then I think you'd have a serious right to be offended. There's been a lot of back & forth in comments both at Carpe Durham and Bull City Rising. Some have been a bit over-heated. Some have been incredibly stupid. The winner in that category was the guy who started taking people to task for being angry over the name of the restaurant, which is "a matter of free speech and expression." Let's pause and admire that logic. 1) Choosing a name for your business is a matter of free speech but complaining about that name is... what? A violation of free speech? An abuse of free speech? Censorship? 2) Yes, he really referenced free speech and expression in an argument about the legacy of the Cuban revolution.
The best comment I read was one that suggested that it's the fact that Cuba is little known and exotic due to the travel ban and that allows people to project these fantasies about Cuban life. The funniest was the person who suggested that some of the people defending Cuban Revolution online might have a different opinion of an Italian restaurant that was serving Mussolinguini.
I went and checked out the Cuban Revolution website. (Odd fact: the original version is in Providence, RI. Today, Rhode Island... tomorrow, Durham?) As you can see, CR has all the depth and political insight of a Che t-shirt. I kinda feel like I've already spent more time thinking about their theme than they have.

next...

Posted by at 8:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Interesting article at the Atlantic website -- Grant Achatz on celeb chefs, leaving the kitchen, and related issues. I've read similar takes on those topics by Bourdain and Boulud. So he's in good company. And it makes sense to me. Both the need to do something other than just be in the kitchen cooking in order to find inspiration or recharge the batteries, and that as a chef's career evolves he's going to be spending more time doing other "stuff" and less time actually cooking. I only spent a few weeks in a pro kitchen (not cooking; washing dishes) but it was long enough to confirm what pretty much every chef or writer or blogger says: cooking (esp. line cooking) is a young person's game.
The other thing I wanted to say about the Achatz article is that it never ceases to surprise how some folks can get so bent out of shape if "the chef" isn't there. I dunno... I'd have thought that anyone going to Alinea would be enough of a food geek to understand how it works in a bigtime restaurant. We've been to a few "big chef" restos and only once have we ever even laid eyes on the chef. That was at Morimoto when he was working the sushi bar for a while the night we were there. Certainly didn't see (or expect to see) Colicchio at Craft. The idea that you'd expect the presence/absence of "big chef" to make any huge difference in your meal strikes me as whimsical at best. The idea that you'd get bent out of shape and actually let it ruin your meal seems flatout fucking insane.

Posted by at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At the end of a post about Caribou Barbie's fundraising, the usually reliable Nate Silver made a point about small donors to campaigns who, he said, "have a way of turning into activists and, ultimately, voters." That is almost exactly wrong, I think. Donors (or anyone else) do not turn into activists and/or voters. It takes a highly organized effort to channel enthusiasm and to organize it into productive campaigning. That's what the Obama campaign understood -- that it takes a lot of hard work by a lot of people. Sure you need enthusiasm but unorganized enthusiasm tends to look a lot like chaos. It's not some magical process that will happen just because everyone in Wingnuttia is clicking their heels together and repeating the magic words.

Posted by at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 12 jul 09)

À l'Aveuglette :: Françoiz Breut
Thai Funk ZudRangMa :: various
Panama! 2: Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical and Calypso Funk on the Isthmus, 1967-77 :: various
the World is Shaking: Cubanismo from the Congo, 1954-55 :: various
Funk Mundial :: various
Welcome to Mali :: Amadou & Mariam
Thank You Very Quickly :: Extra Golden
Amatoria :: Federico Aubele
Fondo :: Vieux Farka Touré
In That Bright World :: Jody Diamond

this week's video feature: Amadou & Mariam

Posted by at 11:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reading this thread on Whatever and the comments are pretty interesting but part way down the thread someone starts tossing around the word MacGuffin and it wasn't actually until Scalzi called them on it that I realized that they were completely misusing the word. So there's yr internet tip for the night. If you plan to get all pedantic up in the grill of a bunch of writers, it'd help to understand the meaning of the words you're planning to toss around.

I'm just sayin'

Posted by at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Further proof arrives (as if any were needed) that I may know what I like, but I may not know art. NYTimes just reviewed Shen Wei's Re:, which they're performing at Lincoln Center and the reviewer Did Not Like It At All. He was not impressed, not happy and overall pretty condescending. I googled around a bit but didn't see any other NYC reviews yet. Not even sure if any papers up there other than the NYTimes even do dance reviews. I think the Village Voice might still. Somehow I don't think the WSJ has a dance critic on staff. So, yeah, it's weird for the first review I read to be so opposed to my experience of seeing the dance. Obviously, I have to grant that he knows what he's talking about -- he's spent a long time reviewing dance. But on the other hand, I don't give a fuck what he thinks. I thought it was wonderful. Easily the best thing I've seen at ADF this year. And I'm not gonna change my mind just cos the NYTimes has rolled w/ a negative review.

Posted by at 12:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Went to see Pilobolus at ADF last night. They're about as brand-name as it gets in modern dance, I guess (maybe Twyla Tharp is bigger). I'd never seen them before and I found it interesting how 3 of the 5 dances weren't really "about" anything. We were talking about this some last night. I don't know enough about dance to have the correct vocabulary. The first thing I thought of was "non-narrative" which, while true I think (there's certainly no story to most of the Pilobolus pieces) doesn't quite get at it fully. There's not a storyline to Shen Wei's Re: but it's still "about" something more than just movement, shape and form for its own sake. My fave pieces were Walklyndon, which had the dancers running across the stage and into each other in a variety of ways. Lots of fun. Also enjoyed Redline (a new commission) which seemed to have echoes of Walklyndon and looked to be blending Pilobolus style with club moves and breaking and also was partly set to music by Autechre. Best moment was when one of the male dancers did this hunched over tippy-toe run across the stage that was straight out of classic Warner Brothers cartoons. How they resisted the temptation to score that with a plinky-plink pizzicato is beyond me. The dances that closed each half of the program were a bit different in that they seemed to be about something. I liked Rushes (which apparently premiered at ADF 2 years ago), particularly all the business with the chairs. Impressive and fun. Was less thrilled with the other new commission for 2009, 2b. The music was good (altho I didn't recognize it as Tom Waits or Elvis) but the overall effect was like Pilobolus mixed with second-rate surrealism. Sorta like low budget Cirque de Soleil or something. It had its moments but it went on a bit too long and reached the point where I felt that it just wasn't ever going to mean anything and the fact that it was trying to was a distraction.

But what do I know...

Posted by at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 05 jul 09)

Welcome to Mali :: Amadou & Mariam
Fondo :: Vieux Farka Touré
À l'Aveuglette :: Françoiz Breut
Funk Mundial :: various
Thai Funk ZudRangMa :: various
Amatoria :: Federico Aubele
Panama! 2: Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical and Calypso Funk on the Isthmus, 1967-77 :: various
Kimba Fá :: Eva Ayllón
In That Bright World :: Jody Diamond
Thank You Very Quickly :: Extra Golden

this week's video feature: Françoiz Breut

Posted by at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's an excellent takedown on the whole "real America" thing. It really makes me wonder just how many times the legions of wingnuttia will have to lose before that meme gets unstuck from the yammering class of mainstream media. If you're a glutton for punishment you can find a clip of that Morning Joe segment on YouTube or wherever. What amazes me is that they seem honestly surprised that anyone would be upset that they just made up a partisian political litmus test for who counts as a "real American." Do these people actually have the attention span of a gnat? Can they really not remember back as far as last fall? (I know, I know... stupid question... if anyone could remember back as far as last fall, they could just recycle all their comments on McCain's campaign suspension for Palin's resignation instead of taking the time to write something "new").
Anyway, I'm down with the comment I saw online somewhere -- proud to be a fake American.

Posted by at 8:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Interesting blurb on All Singin', All Dancin', All Weekend, a film festival salute to the American movie musical which ran last weekend up in NYC. I'm kinda bummed to have missed it. But most of the movies that had new prints (*King and I*, Pal Joey, Oliver!, Tomy) I'm not all that interested in. And of the other movies, a lot of them I've been lucky enough to see on the big screen already -- including Top Hat, Rocky Horror..., Hair and Singin' in the Rain. It would've been nice to see Swing Time on the big screen. OTOH, there's a DVD of it shelved not too far from where I'm sitting right now.

Posted by at 9:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We're probably making a fruit cobbler for desert tonight (on account of its seeming more 4th-of-July-ish) but we should probably be whipping up some schadenfreude pie. I mean, is the GOP (2009 model) not the gift that keeps on giving? You'd think one incoherent governor press conference would be enough. But, no, following shortly on Sanford's public meltdown, we're graced w/ Palin's (as someone online put it) Hello Kitty diary worthy scribbled out resignation presser. Frabjous day, indeed. Like many, I suspect there's a big shoe about to drop. Other than that, my take-away is basically: WTF? Altho I guess one of the things we've learned is that in South Carolina resigning would be taking the easy way out and the honorable thing to do is to face the music and tough it out (and other cliches). Whereas up in Alaska it's sticking around and actually doing the job you were elected to do that's the easy way out and the bold and maverick-y thing to do is quit. (Wolverines!)

Happy Dia de la Independencia

Posted by at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Big ups to wordnerdy for passing along the news that the new Miyazaki movie is opening next month. Looking forward to that.
After reading some about Ponyo I got to wondering what ever happened to Tales from Earthsea (Gedo Senko). Some details here. Basically, SciFi Network still holds the rights in the US cos of that miniseries they ran a while ago. Those rights expire sometime this year, after which the Ghibli film (directed by Miyazaki's son, Goro) can be released here. From what I've read online, it seems like the movie got a rather mixed response. But I'm still interested in seeing it.

Oh yeah, and speaking of movies, ...Half-Blood Prince in two weeks.

Posted by at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 28 jun 09)

Panama! 2: Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical and Calypso Funk on the Isthmus, 1967-77 :: various
the World is Shaking: Cubanismo from the Congo, 1954-55 :: various
Thank You Very Quickly :: Extra Golden
In That Bright World :: Jody Diamond
Kimba Fá :: Eva Ayllón
Infinity :: Warsaw Village Band
Hello Hello :: MIDIval PunditZ
Dabke 2020 :: Omar Souleyman
Treeg Salaam :: Group Doueh
Welcome to Mali :: Amadou & Mariam

this week's video feature: Eva Ayllón

Posted by at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)