A Slight Delay

This recipe was (nearly) written in blood, and underscores why it’s a good idea to keep bandaids and a good antiseptic in reach of your kitchen. But I digress. The following is a reasonably tasty potato soup. You’ll need:

5 lb. of Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled
1 32-ounce container of store-bought chicken broth*
1 package of bacon**
1 smallish bunch of green onions
3/4 cup or thereabouts of light cream or half and half
About 1/4 cup sour cream
Half a package (about one cup) of shredded sharp cheddar cheese***
Dash of black, white, and red pepper
Kosher salt, if needed

The procedure: Read the rest of this entry »

A brief post, albeit one I’d rather not have to write…

By now, a day after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake demolished what was left of already-demolished Port Au Prince, you’ve already seen the visuals, and heard the first faltering attempts at making sense of what’s happened in Haiti. A couple of times already, I’ve commiserated with friends who’ve still got friends and family there, as they try and try again to get word of who’s safe, and who’s lost.

If you’re of a mind to help, there are a number of organizations soliciting donations for disaster relief. While news reports focus on the lack of medical supplies and drinkable water, it should be emphasized that what’s needed most at the moment is cash. In the absence, at least for the short term, of means to distribute supplies, a check–even if only for five bucks–would likely go further than the donation of a case of water. This page on MSNBC.com provides links to a plethora of organizations, including the American Red Cross, UNICEF, and Doctors Without Borders that are on the ground in Haiti and offering assistance.

I received an email a couple of days ago. The message in this disturbing missive: “Only YOU can save Christmas!”

Dammit. It was bad enough when only I could prevent forest fires.

The email comes courtesy of an outfit calling itself Heading to Heaven. They’ve nicked a page out of the Bill O’Reilly playbook and decided that Christmas is under attack by secularists, or progressives, or JC Penney or someone. And how do you save Christmas? By spending a buck ninety-eight on a cheap pin that says, “Keeping Christ in Christmas.” This is a rare opportunity since, according to their website, “Unfortunately, we only ordered a limited print of 1 million buttons.” So, only a million buttons at $1.98 a pop. Only two million bucks. They apparently asked themselves, “WWJD?” and come back with the answer that Jesus would’ve turned the situation into an opportunity for monetary gain, camels and needles’ eyes be damned.

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You very nearly have to feel sorry for one-hit wonders. In some rare cases, that single shot of fame eclipses the rest of a damn fine album, and in others, it’s viewed — very wrongly, as it turns out — as a high point in an artist’s, or a band’s, career.

The Flaming Lips fall into the latter category, having hit it small with “She Don’t Use Jelly” in the aftermath of Nirvana.¹ While Transmissions from the Sattelite Heart had its moments, it wasn’t ’til a couple of albums later, with the experimental Zaireeka (a four-disc opus that could be enjoyed in its component parts, or on four CD players simultaneously) that the band would really start to hit its stride. When 1997’s The Soft Bulletin dropped, it was apparent that the Flaming Lips’ sound had come to full bloom, in all its hallucinatory grandeur. Half the fun of the band’s evolution from Zaireeka through The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, At War with the Mystics, and finally their latest effort, Embryonic, has been listening to a handful of musicians setting out to do something different and startling on each successive release and generally succeeding. The other half of the fun, at least ’til Mystics, was often as not in the songs themselves, finely constructed miniatures with lyrics that would’ve done Syd Barrett proud married to music that sounded like Brian Wilson had recorded Pet Sounds while listening to Brian Eno’s Another Green World.

Embryonic is a logical progression from what’s come before. It’s also their most challenging album since Zaireeka. This is not, as it turns out, a bad thing.

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 It can be hard writing about music, all the “dancing about architecture” stuff aside. You want to say something that will evoke what’s coming through the speakers sometimes, what it makes you feel other times. Actually, forget writing about music; the hard thing sometimes is just listening to it in the first place. Music is all about context. First of all, there’s the pile of emotional baggage that some artists’ work carries with it. Then you also have to deal with a web of connections and connotations that comes with a lifetime of listening to music. Sometimes this is a good thing, especially when that past experience reminds you of something—a throwaway line or bit of phrasing, lyrical or otherwise—that somehow deepens and enriches the experience.

Sometimes, though, it’s just frustrating. I’m reminded of the more frustrating aspect listening to Wale’s debut effort, Attention Deficit.

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A couple of months ago in this space, I reviewed Gustavo Cerati’s “Deja Vu” as a teaser of sorts to his new album, Fuerza Natural. At the time, I included the disclaimer that it’s pretty difficult to extrapolate the sound of an entire album on the basis of one track, and speculated that this album, like its predecessor Ahi Vamos, was likely to be a more straightforward rock effort. I turned out to be more right on the first point than the second since, as so often happens with Cerati, this disc is anything but straightforward.

A lot of the usual influences are here, including Charly Garcia, Luis Alberto Spinetta, and the ever-present shade of Cerati’s former band, Soda Stereo. There are also surprises here in the echoes of George Harrison and Todd Rundgren. There’s a stopover (”Magia”) in the same ZIP code previously occupied by ELO, and a riff on “Amor Sin Rodeos” that would do a certain Mr. Petty* proud.

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Luis Alfredo Garcia-Roza: Alone in the Crowd. Garcia-Roza’s Espinosa mysteries, of which this is the seventh, need not necessarily be read in sequence. This is a good thing, since that makes this book as good a place to start as any if you’re new to the author. Some series — Armistead Maupin’s beloved Tales of the City books come to mind — tend to rely too heavily on back stories and on the sense of connection that some readers develop with authors’ characters, to a point where the authors seem to skimp on other things that count, like a compelling narrative. It’s to the author’s credit that in this case, as much sense has been paid to crafting a story worth telling, and reading. I won’t spoil the plot (there’s plenty of spoilers available online); suffice it to say, if you’re a fan of Chandleresque detective fiction, with a twist, you’ll find much to enjoy in this book.

Chuck Klosterman: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. Criticism can be dismal business. I’m reminded of this as I read things that start from the assumption that you can’t say something intellingent about something without a ranking or a handful of stars attached, and some wiseass will likely be reminded of it while reading this. 

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 I don’t think I’ve ever been, nor do I think I’ll ever really be, what hardcore tech types and marketing gurus like to call an “early adopter.” I tend to adopt late, if I bother to adopt at all. Let the early adopters deal with the high prices, buggy performance, shipping issues, production shortages, and the fact that all the cool features typically come out in the second generation. The early buzz on Barnes and Noble’s new Nook e-reader indicates that there may just be good news for those of us who habitually lag behind the times.

Taken on its own merits, the Nook would appear to be a worthy competitor to the Kindle. It’s premature to call it the “Kindle killer,” as Wired has; the fact that Amazon was there first (at least vis-a-vis the Nook, if not the e-reader market in general) with a good product means that Nook’s presumed dominance — even with a product that looks this good — isn’t a done deal just yet. Entropy goes a long way toward reinforcing brand loyalty.

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 In which we come to the final part of the journey, the part where you scour your vacation destination in search of unique swag to bring back for family and friends. If you’ve ever been to Times Square or the Theater District in Manhattan, or anywhere frequented by tourists in nearly any major metropolitan area in the United States, you’ve already got a pretty good idea of what we encountered in Puerto Rico. In San Juan, one smallish hole-in-the-wall purveyor of cheap Chinese-made tchochkes, in fact, had thoughtfully but bluntly been named, “The Tourist Trap.”

As with any other trip — whether around the world, or around the block — a little persistance pays off. If you’d like something unique from your stay in Puerto Rico, there are two places that we’d highly recommend. This will sound like an advertisement, but rest assured we didn’t receive compensation from either place; we were just overjoyed to find somewhere that wasn’t hawking the same chintzy t-shirts, beach towels, and license plates that you could probably get on the NJ Turnpike (though if that’s your bag, you’ll find no shortage, either in San Juan or in Ponce).

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 The State Department frequently issues travel advisories for various corners of the globe. Since Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, though, you won’t generally see much by way of advisories. This is a bit of a shame, since it would’ve been nice if we’d known before we went that practically the whole island was on strike the day we arrived. The streets of Old San Juan, if not for their distinctive architecture, could easily have been mistaken for a quiet suburb somewhere in Jersey. Both nights we were there, the largest number of people we saw out late at night were a handful of people playing dominoes in the Plaza de Armas. This isn’t to say there wasn’t plenty to do in Puerto Rico. Sure, the museums were mostly shuttered, but once you’ve run the gauntlet of the scores of McDonalds and other chains, there’s plenty to see. A few highlights:

El Morro: This fort is one of a string of fortifications–along with San Cristobal–that defended Old San Juan. If you’re coming to Puerto Rico from the mainland, this can be quite an experience, given that there’s not much on the mainland that’s any older than about three hundred years old, and many of our landmarks are more recent than that. While Puerto Rico has undergone its fair share of development, luckily it hasn’t all been at the expense of a sense of history.

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