CD 11 Joni Mitchell - Shine

Shine is Joni Mitchell's first studio cd in almost 10 years. Coming somewhat as a surprise, since she was alleged to have left the business in 2002, Mitchell claimed that the war and pressing environmental concerns compelled her to write again (the cd includes a jazzy remake of her hit Big Yellow Taxi). Highly touted as one of the best of her 17 albums to date, Shine begins with a beautiful piano overture. Music that is both mellow and complicated follows, with the trademark Joni soprano sax adding interesting accents. The addition of Greg Leisz (who had played on k.d. lang's Torch and Twang, amongst others) means there is a lot of pedal steel guitar, which is sometimes puzzling in the jazzy folk mix that Joni is offering here. The lyrics sometimes become a bit too didactic for the subtlety of her music, but, sadly, it seems likely that that might be owing to the political context that she's addressing rather than a lack of lyrical ability on her part. Like many musicians of her generation (most notably Paul McCartney), Mitchell has made her cd available at Starbucks. Maybe that's where the 5 people who are still buying cds are hanging out (guess that includes me!)

Book 24: Half of a Yellow Sun

This book provides a well-written and fairly compelling fictional account of five characters living in Biafra immediately before and during its brief struggle for independence from Nigeria in the late 1960s. Perhaps it is true that all wars share a good deal in common - innocent people get killed, women are raped, children go hungry, officers become disallusioned and/or corrupt. However, by the end of this book, it felt a little as if each of the required scenes for a war story had been checked off a list. Still, the book kept my interest, I learned a little bit about a part of the world I know nothing about, and found many of the characters to be a satisfying blend of seeming contradictions.

Book 23: Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Fun Fact 30

Lately I have been going back and reading the early work of some of my favorite writers. I had read and loved Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay several years ago. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is his first novel, a great coming of age book about Art Bechstein's adventures in Pittsburgh the summer after his college graduation. At times deadly serious, at times wildly humorous, this book is an interesting meditation on the nature of friendships and sexual relationships (hetero and homo)at that stage of life. For an added twist, Bechstein's father is in the mob. His girlfriend's name is Phlox, his boyfriend's name is also Arthur, and his best friend is named Cleveland. What happens when they all come to know of each other's existence? Chabon's excellent storytelling and compelling writing style make the implausible seem like it could really have happened (perhaps in your own life).

Fun Fact: Amazingly, this book was his master's thesis at the University of California - Irvine! No wonder he went on to win the Pulitzer for Kavalier and Clay!

Feist - The Reminder - CD 10

The Reminder is Feist's 3rd cd and it is very good. It has already appeared on many "Best of 2007" lists. You may be familiar with her work without knowing it. Feists' song 1234 has been on the ipod commerical for some time now. In fact, that platform is largely responsible for her surprising popularity given her ecclectic and largely jazz-like style. She sometimes sounds like Rickie Lee Jones, sometimes like Norah Jones, sometimes like a cabaret singer, and sometimes like no one you've heard before. There is a lot of subtlety to this album. It is the kind of cd you hear something new with each listening. Highly recommended, it definitely makes my Best of 2007 list.

Holidays on Ice - Book 22; Fun Fact 29

What better way to spend Christmas than to listen to David Sedaris' sardonic take on the whole holiday enterprise? Even though we had heard much of it before, we laughed out loud listening to this book on our drive to Athens last week. Santaland is one of the best send-ups of Christmas ever! Fun fact from Sedaris: did you know that Satan is an anagram of Santa? Merry Christmas :^)

LAFS - Experience 29

Right before the holiday break we held our first official session of LAFS - The Lesbian Association of FilmwatcherS. For our first meeting, we watched two rite of passage films - Racing With the Moon (which we all watched in advance) and My Life as a Dog (which we all watched together). Both were good, but neither held up in the way we thought they might. Still, it was a fun night and an excellent initiation of the group. Our post Christmas meeting will feature a discussion of the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men and and (re)viewing of one of our all time favs, The Big Lebowski. "The dude abides."

North Pond - Restaurant 34

Before taking off for Athens, we had a lovely pre-Christmas dinner last Tuesday at North Pond Restaurant. The restaurant is housed in a beautiful craftsman building in Chicago's Lincoln Park. They feature dishes made from organic (but not vegetarian) ingredients and the food is delicious. We stared off with a visually attractive and tasty amuse bouche with smoked fish and goat cheese, which was on the house. Appetizers featuring scallops and shrimp followed, and then salads featuring beets and pate. Finally we had mixed winter vegtables and skate for dinner. Our favs were the amuse bouche and the shrimp appetizer, but it was all very, very good. This is a great place to come for a special dinner -- but be forewarned: if you go, be prepared to lay down some serious cash at the end of the night.

Murphy's Red Hots - Restaurant 33

Here I am out in front of Murphy's Red Hots, just around the corner from our apartment on Belmont and Racine. This place features dogs of all sorts from Chicago to Polish to Italian, as well as excellent crispy french fries. It's great to have a reliable hot dog stand nearby -- you never know when you might get the urge. (I've already succumbed several times!)

The Night Watch - Book 21

Sarah Waters is a young English writer who skillfully explores sex and gender in historical novels, but the device she uses in this book (beginning the story at the end, after WWII, and moving backward in time to the beginning of the war) came off a bit too gimmicky. Tipping the Velvet is her first and her best, a great book set in Victorian England. I've tried her others and found them to be good but not great. Sort of like Paul McCartney after The Beatles in Wings. Not bad, but no comparison to what came before. Check out Tipping the Velvet if you're interested in Waters at her very best.

Movies 18 & 19: Weekend of the Coens

It was a Coen Brothers weekend. On Friday we went to see No Country for Old Men. Great story, but the last 1/4 of it seemed somewhat disconnected from the first 3/4 of it. Tommy Lee Jones is fantastic. As many have noted, there is quite a lot of violence, but so much so that it almost begins to seem cartoon-like at a certain point. You really can't go wrong with the Coen Brothers. On Saturday we went to see Romance and Cigarettes starring James Galdofini, Susan Sarandon, and Kate Winslet, with the Coen Brothers serving as executive producers. Kind of a post-modern musicial about a middle aged couple and their discontents. It was a bit uneven, but there were a number of really funny moments spread throughout the movie. It was worth the price of admission alone to hear Susan Sarandon singing Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart." The singing and dancing New York cops that flounced across the screen throughout the film were also pretty good. To complete the Coen fest, we're planning a reviewing of The Big Lebowski and O Brother right after Christmas.

Books #19 and #20 - Sacred Games and Shantaram

If you think you might be in the mood for a 900+ page book on the seedy underside of life in Bombay, I've got two for you to consider - Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra and Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. If forced to choose between the two (and, really, who needs to read nearly 2,000 pages on this particular topic?), I'd recommend Sacred Games. The shifts in time and perspective can be confusing, especially at first when the reader is also forced to cope with several non-English words in every paragraph (fewer than half of which are defined in the less-than-helpful glossary.) However, as one catches on that most of these terms are variations on "buttfuck" or "(insert relative) fucker", a fascinating story emerges about the professional and spiritual trials of an underworld kingpin and the mid-level policeman tracking him down (sort of). The characters are complex and the plot is compelling enough to maintain interest throughout most of this impressive novel.

Shantaram starts strong, retelling the semi-autobiographical tale of its amazing author which begins with his escape from prison in Australia and flight to India to avoid serving time for a drug-induced murder (this book was actually written while the author was in jail completing this sentence, which may go some way to explaining its extraordinary length.) The main character is refreshingly humble and non-macho and the writing is terrific. Unfortunately, about 2/3 of the way through, he ends up involved in armed conflict in Afghanistan and, I don't know, the book just lost me after that. I finished it, but the emotional richness it began with seemed to generate into a bad Rambo knock-off by the end. Still, the first part is so good that it might still be worth a go.

Moretti's - Beer 26

Last night we went back to Rose Angelis, an excellent northern Italian restaurant that was discussed earlier on this blog. Kate had the same dish as last time -- spinach half moons filled with cheese and cooked in a brown butter sauce - yum! I had ravioli cooked in a sauce made of pulverized sun dried tomatoes. Mmmmm. After sharing these meals and just about finishing both of them we were so full that we couldn't even manage to think about dessert. Although we can't count the restaurant again for 10 x 40 purposes, I did have a new beer, a Moretti, which was a lighter colored beer with a medium strong taste to it.

Book 18: The Essential Triathlete

Of the several triathlon books I have read, this one is probably best suited for the first timer in terms of the perspective it provides. The author tries to persuade beginners of the wisdom of simply finishing the race, rather than setting time goals and so forth. Just breaking the tape takes enough physical and mental preparation in his view. He certainly persuaded me.

The heart of the book consists of several training charts that prepare the reader to reach this goal. The problem is he conflates the sprint and standard triathlon training chart into one chart, undermining the whole idea of keeping training and race goals as modest as possible. I think one could easily adapt the chart back down to sprint level, but it was frustrating not to find one dedicated to that level of racing in a book that is designed for the first timer.

Suzanne Westenhoeffer - Performance 12; My Pie - Restaurant 32; Park West - Place 27

Last Saturday we went out with a group of the girls to see famed lesbian comic Suzanne Westenhoeffer at the Park West, where she was doing a benefit for a local non-profit, the Lesbian Community Cancer Project (the LCCP). The evening started with some delicious pizza and drinks at My Pie, around Clark and Fullerton. This place features deep dish pizza and maybe the best pizza crust we have encountered while here in Chicago. After adequate food and drink were had we walked over the Park West, a few blocks south on Clark and Armitage. We had really good seats in this very comfortable venue where we proceeded to laugh pretty continuously for the next hour and a half. Westenhoeffer's show is a combination of set pieces interspersed with banter from the audience. And really, when all is said and done what's better than laughing at and with your own kind?

Amitabul and Selmarie- Restaurants 30 & 31; Fun Fact 28

Last Friday we joined a couple of friends after work and headed over to Amitabul, a restaurant featuring vegan Korean food. This is a great place that is very different from the vegan restaurant we visited a couple weeks ago. Whereas Karyn's cooked tried to replicate meat based comfort foods with vegan ingredients, Amitabul centralized a wide variety of really tastily prepared vegtables. We each ordered a dish and then shared, and they ran the gamut from mildly to wildly spicy, from salty to fruity sauces, with mushrooms, peppers, rice, noodles, etc etc. The servers were very friendly and the atmosphere very cozy and warm. To top it off, this restaurant is very low priced. We had a meal for 4 with an appetizer for under $60. The only possible drawback is that it's located on the NW corner of the city, near the Superdog on Milwaukee and Devon, so it's a little bit of a haul -- but well worth it!

After dinner we stopped in at the Cafe Selmarie for dessert. I had a truly amazing chocolate mousse cake. Kate had orange chocolate decadence which was good, but not as good as the aforementioned mousse. Our friends had cherry pie.

Fun fact: In the middle of our desserts two strange women came up to me and one asked if I knew who she was. Of course I didn't initially, not having a context in which to place her. But then I realized it was my old friend Margie, who I went to high school with here in Chicago roughly 30 years ago! She currently lives in Oregon and was just in town visiting her family for the weekend. What are the chances that the two of us would meet up and recognize each other in this huge city? Amazing!

CD 9: Cat Power: The Greatest; Fun Fact 27

This CD was given to us by our friends Stephanie and Moe when they visited earlier this summer. Reading an interesting article about Cat Power by Sasha Frere-Jones in this week's New Yorker reminded me that I had not yet blogged about it. Cat Power (real name: Chan - pronounced Sean - Marshall) has been around for a while and has played with some pretty big names including Patti Smith, Liz Phair, and Eddie Vedder. Early success and addiction issues seemed to have led to some uneven performances characterized by extreme stage fright, though most critics recognized her raw talent throughout those perilous years. (She certainly looks like she's having a great time performing now, if the picture here is any indication.) In any case, her new CD, The Greatest, is getting a lot of attention, suggesting that it may well become her breakout recording. She has a great voice, which puts me in the mind of white soul singers such as Shelby Lynne or her foremother Dusty Springfield. (And you really can't go wrong with Dusty, now, can you?)

Fun Fact: This is not the first time The New Yorker has commented on Cat Power's work. Check out this 2003 story, by Hilton Als.

CD 8: Gipsy Kings - Este Mundo; Fun Fact 26

We have started to think about taking a trip to Spain in a couple of years. We'd like to spend two weeks there, with each of choosing a theme to focus on. My theme will be music and Kate's theme will be religious art (icons, etc.) I was talking with our friend Miriam about this one day on the phone (she's travelled to Spain many times) and she was kind enough to send us several discs to get us started. The first one we listened to was The Gipsy Kings' "Este Mundo." Their music is said to be designed to bring traditional flamenco music into the pop world. This was a very accessible and entertaining place to start our musicial exploration of Spain. Thanks Miriam!

Fun Fact 1: The Kings are actually from France, as their parents fled Spain during the Civil War.

Fun Fact 2: Their cover of "Hotel California" is included in the soundtrack to the Coeh brother's film, "The Big Lebowski" (one of my favorite movies of all time - "The dude abides!"

Rock and Soul Class Part I - Experience 29; Fun Fact 25; CDs 6 &7

Last night I finished the first semester of a year long class on the history of rock and soul, taught by WXRT DJ Terri Hemmert (pictured right) at Columbia College in downtown Chicago. Fun Facts: Terri was the first woman assigned the morning drive slot in Chicago radio, over 25 years ago. I used to listen to her show when I was home from college working downtown during the summer. Columbia College is the largest media and arts college in the country.

This first part of the class focused on the roots of rock and soul starting with Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith in the 20's and ending up with The Beatles and Black Sabbath in the 60's. It was a fantastic in-depth review of the popular music of this period, facilitated by Terri's truly amazing dvd collection.

Next week the real students in the class will take the exam (in this case it pays to be a poser ;^) and then we'll all meet at a Thai restaurant across the street for an end of the class celebration. Kicking off the holiday party in advance, Terri gave all of us two fantastic cds. The first is called the College of Rock and Roll Knowledge is basically a review of the central roots artists that we studied this term, including Billie Holiday, Louis Jordan, Big Mama Thornton, Irma Thomas and others. The second is the 2007 edition of her Christmas disc which includes Christmas songs from artists who performed in Chicago during the term. Both are sensational and include excellent picutres of Terri dressed as Santa and Terri as a dj at maybe 4 years of age! Thanks for a great term Terri! See you next semester!

Another Pre - Experience 28

This is yet another catch-up post. We were invited to another "pre" dinner at our friends Mary and Amanda's place on Thanksgiving Eve. (We had three Thanskgiving dinners when all was said and done.) They cooked up a really tasty turkey (very moist) and had all the great traditional sides and the company was great too! If this keeps up we'll be as big as houses by the time we return to Athens!

Thanks to Mira and Eric for the great picture, taken just before the party was breaking up. (I lifted it off their great website, Life of Miric.)

First Winter Storm! Experience 27

The first winter storm of the season arrived in Chicago today, and it is looking like a doozy! It started out this afternoon with some beautiful big flaked snow, but by the time we got out of the movie (see below) the temperature had risen and it was sleeting, leaving the streets with a layer of ice on top. Here's hoping this is a sign that we're in for a very white holiday season!

For The Bible Tells Me So - Movie 17

Today we braved the beginning of a winter storm and slogged over to one of our favorite theatres, The Music Box, to see a documentary called For the Bible Tells Me So. This film focusses on five families that have gay children, as well as strong, fundamentalist Christian belief. How do they reconcile, or fail to reconcile the two? Two of the families include very public personas (Gene Robinson, Episcopalian Bishop of New Hampshire pictured above and Chrissy Gephardt, daughter of Congressman Dick Gephardt) and the other three families are everyday folks. This interesting and sometimes moving film shows the real and often very damaging human consequences of the anti-gay rhetoric of the religious right. It also offers an interesting and more complicated interpretation of what one interviewee calls the fifth grade level fundamentalist interpretation of the bible verses from Levitcus and Romans that are invariably trotted out to justify such beliefs. In one of the most powerful scenes a family tries to get in to see Rev. James Dobson at Focus on the Family in Colorado and is arrested for their efforts. Great way to portray a literal refusal to engage a challenging viewpoint. The movie is playing at least through this Thursday here in Chicago. Two thumbs up, way up!

Jin Ju - Restaurant 29; OB - Beer 25; LaShondra Barnett - Performance 11

Last Sunday I went to a discussion led by LaShondra Barnett about her new book, I Got Thunder: Black Women Songwriters and Their Craft at Women and Children First bookstore on Clark and Foster. This is a great book filled with interviews of black women songwriters ranging from Nina Simone to Alicia Keys. About 25 people turned out to hear Prof. Barnett (she's in Amereican Studies at Sarah Lawrence) talk about the accomplishments of these women as well as the way that they are usually diminished through a focus on the personal. Afterwards, I met up with Kate and we had dinner at Jin Ju, a Korean restaurant just down the street. We had a delicious scallion pancake and a tasty seaweed roll for appetizers. We each also had an OB beer (Oriental Brewery) which was a pretty unintersting lite beer. For dinner, Kate had Bi Bim Bop (a variety of mixed vegtables mixed together in a hot stone bowl right there at the table) and I had tilapia with eggplant and mushrooms. Both had excellent sauces with just the right amount of kick to make them interesting. The atmosphere was pretty quiet, it being early Sunday evening, but I'm sure the place jumps during the weekend! I've been told that there are cheaper places to get this quality of Korean food, so stay tuned for more soon!