Filed under: Uncategorized
I had the sudden realization last night that it’s actually 2009. Not only does this mean that I’ve probably been mis-dating my deposit slips, it also means that I’ve got to start brainstorming for the inevitable end-of-the-decade lists that will soon begin appearing in every publication imaginable. Best books, best bands, best albums, best new foods.
I’ve got some faves in mind. Thinking cap officially on.
Filed under: Beer
Christmas is a season of excesses, one of which has to be holiday beer. Some of these seasonal concoctions introduce holiday flavors like caramel, cinnamon, nutmeg, and chocolate, creating a perfect holiday flavor for your celebratory toast. But, like any Christmas indulgence, you can have too much of a good thing. I recently tried Thomas Hooker’s Nor’easter winter ale and was absolutely knocked out by the caramel sweetness. This was not a session ale–one was more than enough. In my opinion, a perfect holiday treat requires a bit of the bitter and the sweet, the naughty and nice, if you will.
So, in hopes of finding that perfect balance, my buddy Will and I brewed up a batch of Charlie Papazian’s “Holiday Cheer” recipe using ginger root, cinnamon stick, honey, and orange zest. I lugged home a dozen of the bottles to share with my family, and I broke out the first taste with my dad last night. It’s definitely still a “young” beer that will probably need a few more days or even weeks to come into its own (gotta improve on the timing next year), but I could already sense that we hit closer to the mark.
The color is quite dark, nearly porter-like, due to the crushed black patent malt. Since we crushed the grains ourselves, I think we ended up with a good amount of the roasty coffee and chocolate flavors on the nose. The amount of cinnamon spiciness is comparable to Harpoon’s excellent Winter Warmer seasonal. There’s a hint of the honey sweetness in the flavor, but the hops, ginger, and orange haven’t come through yet. Once again, the beer still needs time, but for a first taste, I’m satisfied. It’ll be a great way to toast the new year–cheers!
With the news that Paul McCartney hopes to release a lost Beatles track called “Carnival of Light” and a nearly 8-hour trip to Orlando on the horizon (don’t ask), last week seemed like a good time to dig out an old uncracked chestnut from the Fab Four’s cinematic career: Help. C’mon, you know that only acid-era Beatles can match the trippy stylings of Mr. Walter Elias Disney! Plus the TVs were out in my row on JetBlue!
I’ve seen A Hard Day’s Night a few times and love its irreverent sense of humor and goofy directing, so it was hard to avoid using it as a measuring stick for Help. Of course, I knew from the first Technicolor scene that I was in for something completely different from the grainy black-and-white of A Hard Day’s Night. (Other factors compounded my confusion: Help features a cold open, and the Beatles don’t actually appear on screen until a few minutes into the film. I actually had to check the DVD to make sure I had grabbed the right movie!)
A Hard Day’s Night was basically a film about the Beatles on tour, so the first thing Help adds to that minimal equation is a plot, albeit a rather ridiculous one. In what I assure you is a fully fair summary, basically Ringo has a giant ruby ring that some vaguely Eastern cult requires to perform its ritualistic sacrifices, and they’ll stop at nothing–nothing–to get it! This structure has two distinct advantages for director Richard Lester, who was kind enough to join the boys for a second foray into film.
- As the leader of the cult musters his goons for yet another far-fetched attempt for Ringo’s ring, Lester has reason to keep the rather heavily self-medicated band out of frame for as long as humanly possible.
- It creates an excuse for the band to be on the run, which basically means that John, Paul, George, and Ringo got to film the whole damn movie while on vacation. Brilliant!
Except it’s kind of not that brilliant. If it weren’t for the musical interludes this movie would be damn-near unwatchable. It might hold my attention if I were on the same stuff as John was at the time, but alas, JetBlue could only provide a gratis G&T in lieu of their usual in-flight entertainment.
Looks like I won’t be attempting Magical Mystery Tour any time soon, but you can find Help and some other Beatles classics up on Google Video. Hurry–their lawyers will be on it in no time!
The dark side has turned amber.
Like many other beer people, there are several reasons why I don’t like Budweiser. It’s ubiquitous, tasteless, and breaks one of the sacred covenants of brewing by using rice in its production process, rather than sticking strictly to malted barley. Also, I can’t say that Bud’s recent associations with “Joe Sixpack” have helped my overall impression of the St. Louis icon, either.
That said, I’ve never felt so personally courted by Big Beer. After seeing American Ale advertised heavily on Slate, This American Life, and other arugula-friendly sources, I knew American Ale had been designed for exactly my demographic. I had to give it a try. (more…)
I began reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao with high hopes. How can you avoid it when you’re reading a Pulitzer prize winner? Though I was initially intrigued by Diaz’s frenetic narration and humor, I quickly began to feel like I was being jerked around. It was enough to keep pinballing back and forth between the text and the extensive footnotes, but as the plot kept taking left turns, I found myself wondering when it would veer right again. Even when I’d resigned myself to going with the flow, I didn’t love where it was taking me. I started dragging my feet and looking for other books to read, and in all fairness to Diaz, it couldn’t have helped my overall impression of his novel.
Clearly this is a plot with several levels, but the stories of Oscar, Lola, and Belicia are essentially the same. There is a rebellious feeling–often misguided love–inside each of them, and it nearly–or truly–brings them to ruin. (“How’s that for eternal return,” Yunior, the narrator, writes at one key point in the plot.) When this repetition is called “fuku”, a Dominican term for a family curse, apparently it’s supposed to mean more, but I couldn’t bring myself to care for these stubborn, capricious characters, or in the end, the novel.
That said, there’s still a side of me that wants to be proven wrong. Hit me in the comments.
Filed under: Commentary, Linkage, Politics | Tags: Linkage, Politics, video
In anticipation of tonight’s debate, here are a few choice links on the bespectacled mother of five who damn well might be on-deck for the presidency:
Rik Hertzberg loves him some idiocy. Of some choice snippets of a transcript from Palin’s interview with Katie Couric, he writes:
The whole thing reads like something rendered from the Finnish by Google Translate.
Slate hires a linguist to parse her labyrinthine sentences.
And finally, the YouTube video that simply needed to happen:
It’s a week to the day since my second favorite scarlet-haired songstress, Jenny Lewis, dropped her latest solo album, and one song–well, one part of one song–has been playing back on repeat in the old domepiece. In the title track, “Acid Tongue”, Lewis starts out telling one of her trademarked lonely-girl-looking-for-love stories. From the intimate, demo-like production, it sounds like it could be just her and her guitar in the candlelit studio. Then the chorus hits.
Lewis sure invited a lot of friends to sit in on the album, and it seems that all of them showed up for this tune. Whether they’re backing up Jenny singing “liar”, “fire”, “tired”, or any other rhyme that the warped little tape loop in my skull can muster, Lewis’s choirboys and girls know how to give a chorus that big time gospel lift. Think Springsteen’s Seeger Sessions, but with hipsters. And I mean that in a good way.
There’s no doubt that Acid Tongue lacks the cohesion and confidence of Rabbit Fur Coat, but it is nice to hear a return to the folkier Lewis after Rilo Kiley’s stripper-pop stylings on Under the Blacklight. “Bad Man’s World” and “Trying My Best to Love You” are great ballads that introduce some new sounds (strings!) into the album’s sonic palette, and Elvis Costello absolutely busts it out on “Carpetbaggers”. The epic 8:45 “The Next Messiah” unfortunately falls a bit flat. (EDIT: Much cooler to see it live, but still–why so long!?)
Acid Tongue may be a bit sweet and sour, but it did lead me to the very enjoyable tunes of Johnathan Rice, Lewis’s beau. You can definitely hear his influence throughout Acid Tongue, and, more often than not, that’s him playing guitar. Saying complimentary things about Rice without turning greener than Bruce Banner is taking my last shred of decency, but I guess anyone who’s good enough for JLew is good enough for me. “You know I’m a liiiiiiiiiiiiii-aaaaaaaaaaar!”
