Ricky B

Ricky B is another of my friends that was made via my brother. They went to high school together, and little by little I started to consider Ricky a friend of my own. After giving a joint speech together at my brother's wedding I now consider him a close friend. It wasn't so much the actual giving of the speech next to him, or holding his hand while he cried, but more in the preparation of this speech that I felt like I grew closer to Ricky. Eric and Jessica got married on Friday May 2 which Agora employees will recognize the day after a First Thursday. For non-Balitmore friends this is an event hosted by a company that employs at least half of my friends, and the free beer flows for two or so hours after work. Anyway, in the days leading up to this Ricky and I kept talking about getting together to decide how we were going to lay out this speech since we were both saying something. He had one of those typically-Ricky crazy work weeks, and couldn't make it happen before Thursday night. So, we all went to First Thursday and then Ricky and I broke off at 7 to get down to business. We sat in Mount Vernon Stable until (at least) midnight talking about all kinds of things, many centered around my brother and Jessica. But after 5 hours of talking still had no real basis for this speech, no starting point, no appropriate jokes, and no way of putting our love for these two people into words. Come game time I decided to tell jokes and call Ricky gay, and he decided to cry. I don't think it could have been any better.

To sum up Ricky B, I honestly think he is one of the most genuinely good people that I have ever met. Just check out what he does for a living and you can see his dedication to making things better for people. And I don't think a person could ask for a better friend. Within minutes of me talking about the collapse of this blog he sent me a list so we'll keep it alive for a little longer. And here we go. Everything from this point on is Ricky speaking:

This is a very thrown-together list. I wasn’t even going to submit one, but Adam is running out of lists and I would hate for the blog to die so soon. These are not items that are my all time favorites, just things that I have enjoyed and I think are worth checking out.

Music:

Laura Cantrell – When the Roses Bloom Again
--Top five? Quite possibly. Contains one of my favorite songs of all time. She also puts on a hell of a live show.

Ambulance LTD – Self Title LP
--This was a Gittings Recommend. Thanks Mike! I love it.

Antony and the Johnsons – I am a bird now
--Great winter album

Tilly and the Wall – Bottoms of Barrels

Ingrid Michaelson – Girls and Boys
--This was going to be on a list of things that my mom and I both like, but it turns out that this is the only thing.

Apples in Stereo – New Magnetic Wonder
--Great. I don’t know what critics were thinking, this album is f*cking great.

The Minders- It’s a Bright Guilty World

Movies:

--Some fun movies that might have not hit your radar
Angel A
Brick
CQ
Dear Wendy
Guatemalan Handshake
Cashback
Jonestown: The Life…of People’s Temple
In Bruges


Books:

These Five Books were all interesting reads, not necessarily among my favorites, and one of them is completely off the wall and unbelievable. The five of these books however, reinforce the idea that we (living creatures, as well as everything else in the universe) are all connected and also shed light on how manufactured and controlled our world is compared to just a few decades ago. Maybe I’m crazy, but I felt like all five books shared common sentiments, if not themes, and thoroughly enjoyed them all.

The Holographic Universe-–Michael Talbot
Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind--David Berreby (Highly recommended)
Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming-–Paul Hawken
Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression-–Mildred Kalish
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: A Year of Food Life–-Barbara Kingsolver


Other Books:

V.--Thomas Pynchon
--Go to this Wikipedia article
This is one dense and confusing book. It’s the kind of book that you can read over and over and discover something new every time. There are so many layers to this book, and everything is interwoven.

Inherit the Wind – Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee
--One of my all-time favorites. It’s a play and a book. You can’t beat a two for the price of one deal.


Miscellaneous:

Community Mediation
-Changed my life from office lackey who hated being alive, to overworked volunteer coordinator who often works 60 hours a week and once went a month without pay because I loved my job so much.
-www.communitymediation.org – don’t go to this website with Firefox, use Internet explorer.
-www.marylandmediation.org

The End Is Near?

Well, I hope not. This is the official end of the lists, though. Mike Gittings was the last list in the file so there will not be a new one posted tomorrow. I encourage any Friends Recommends readers who haven't yet done so (Matthayes, Ricky B. I'm talking to you guys) to finish them up and submit them. In the meantime there is still plenty of stuff from these others to keep me going for a while. I might even make one of these silly lists myself.

Also, to my faithful readers who have already submitted a list and are thinking "There is so much more stuff that I could put on a list," or "I can't believe I forgot to include that," please feel free to submit a second round of lists. I am fine with this, as long as they include completely different information (and if Jessica does it she promises to not post as many comments as she did for her first). A week or two ago I was happy to give it up as soon as the Gittings list was over but for some reason am re-motivated to keep it going. So send those lists, and make them good. Also if you are submitting a second list they can have a theme if you want. I.E. The Christopher Myers take of things he originally hated, but now shamelessly recommends. Or top-10 80's albums. Or George's top-10 albums to listen to in his underwear (I haven't seen this list yet, but he threatened to submit it).

Junot Diaz--The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

I always take special note when something I have never heard of makes its way onto more than one persons Friends Recommend list. This has happened a couple of times before. Mike Ward and Heather also both recommended Conversations With Other Women, a movie I had never heard of, but intend to watch because of this surfacing on two lists. Pretty much everyone had Arrested Development as their favorite or close favorite TV show. While I had seen many episodes I hadn't seen them all so I started back at the beginning of Season One and am now convinced of its genius as well. There are other examples of this, to be addressed at a later date.

I am not sure why I chose The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao specifically out of the repeats, especially because I haven't read it yet. I guess the main reason for its choosing is because of how strongly people who have read the book stand behind it. Since reading (or maybe hearing) TBWLOW, Heather has insisted multiple times that I read it. I'm getting there. I promise. Soon. Also, does anyone have a copy of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao that I can borrow? I hear it is good. Mike recommends the text version of the book, while Heather recommends you listen to the author read it himself. Here is a great excerpt from the book, and below is a short plot summary courtesy of Wikipedia. I'll be sure to update when I actually read it.

The novel is an epic love story narrated by Yunior de Las Casas, the protagonist of Díaz's first book "Drown" and chronicles not just the "brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao," an overweight Dominican boy growing up in Paterson, New Jersey and obsessed with science fiction and fantasy novels, with comic books and role-playing games and with falling in love, but also the curse of the "fukú" that has plagued Oscar's family for generations and the Caribbean (and perhaps the entire world) since colonization and slavery.

The middle sections of the novel center on the lives of Oscar's runaway sister Lola and his mother Hypatia "Belicia" Cabral and his grandfather Abelard under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Rife with footnotes, science fiction and fantasy references, comic book analogies, various Spanish dialects and hip-hop inflected urban English, the novel is also a meditation on story-telling, Dominican diaspora and identity, masculinity, the contours of authoritarian power and the long horrifying history of slavery in the New World.

Reid Anderson--The Vastness of Space

Once again, this might be considered a cheap post, but my love for this album is so strong that I couldn't resist. This comes from the Gittings recommend list, although I originally recommended it to him, he checked it out, and then in turn recommended it back to all of you. This is a beautiful representation of how Friends Recommends can help everyone. Anyway, Reid Anderson's "The Vastness of Space" is an album I mentioned once before in this blog, back when I was posting my current listening at the end of posts. Brother Eric has called me out for not doing this recently, and he is right. I stopped mainly because for a couple of weeks everytime I was posting an entry I was listening to the Quartet Offensive record. This is not because I am conceded. I just tried to listen to it as much as possible while mixing, so that we could fix any problems. Anyway, this is all beside the point.

Reid Anderson is most widely recognized as being the bass player for jazzish supergroup The Bad Plus. I really like The Bad Plus, and I really love Reid's playing in the band. But we aren't going to talk about the The Bad Plus in this post (even though their new album For All I Care with guest vocalist Wendy Lewis is fantastic). The Vastness of Space is without question, and without any hesitation one of my top-10 all-time favorite albums. It is right up there with Radiohead's "Kid A" for me. I know I am guilty of often over-stating my love for something, sometimes calling multiple things my favorites. This is not like that. The Vastness of Space is one of my absolute favorite albums in any genre of any time period. Period.

I recommended it to Mike mostly because he is a lover of rock music, but is also open to many other styles as well. We have even had a few conversations about old jazz artists like Mingus, Miles Davis, and Coltrane. He likes that music, even though he admits to his exposure being limited to the 1950's hard-bop type stuff. The Vastness of Space is an album that can't be categorized as one particular type of music (although iTunes refers to it strictly as jazz). Don't get me wrong, it is jazz, whatever that means in this day and age. It is a lineup of "jazz" musicians with Bill McHenry on tenor sax, Andrew D'Angelo on alto sax, Ben Monder on guitar, Anderson himself on bass, and Marlon Browden on drums. All of these musicians are trained in the area of jazz and improvisation, but this music goes well outside of the boundries. More importantly each musician on the album has a distinct voice, and Reid Anderson seems to be writing for the individual musicians personally like Duke Ellington used to. All of the songs have some kind of improvising within, but in a very conversational and interactive way that you don't have to be a jazz fan to appreciate. That being said, all of the drum beats are heavily rock influenced often with a backbeat, and the harmonies are very tonal and rock-like as well. I don't want to get too over-analytical of this music because that would ruin it. It is simply put great, beautiful music with a singable quality not often found in modern jazz.

I would highly recommend this album to anyone who considers themselves a fan of music, with the slightest bit of curiousity in jazz and jazz related styles. I would even consider going as far as saying (I learned this from Huff) that if you buy it and don't like it I will refund your money. I am not going to do this, but I would consider it. At the very least give a listen to the final track of the album called Silence Is The Question (for Bad Plus fans, this is also the last track of These Are Vistas, but different versions, obviously) available HERE. It is great with 5 capitol g's. GGGGGreat. Mike Gittings agrees. Maybe you should buy the album and listen to it while you make some curry dishes. You won't regret it. Well, you might regret the curry a little later on if youknowhatimsayin, but that's all. You won't regret checking out The Vastness of Space.

The Gittings Recipes

While I realize that this might not be the most exciting post for some, it was (in it's entirety) part of the original Mike Gittings post. This isn't me sidestepping any blog responsibility. I just realized that I would eventually post Mike's recipe recommendations, and decided to do it right off the bat. Lot's of great stuff from his list to draw additional attention to, so this should be a productive recommend week. Anyway, here we go with the recipes (Ricky this is for you. And also, if I ever get a Ricky list I expect mashed beer potatoes to be on it):

Indian Potato Salad:

4 Cups cubed potatoes
3 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
2 tsp whole cumin seeds
1.5 tsp salt (I cut this to 1 tsp for taste reasons, not health)
1.5 tsp Curry Powder
Pinch of cayenne
2 or 3 scallions, sliced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the potatoes until tender but not falling apart, about 5 min. after the water returns to a boil. While the potatoes cook, warm the oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Sizzle the cumin seeds for a few seconds, and then stir in the salt, curry powder and cayenne. Remove from the heat. Drain the cooked potatoes and place them in a bowl. Pour the hot seasoned oil over the potatoes and add the scallions, bell pepper, and cilantro. Stir.

Curry Chicken Salad:

4 Skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cooked and diced
1 stalk celery, diced
4 green onions, chopped
1 mango, peeled, cored and diced
1/3 cup black beans
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
½ tsp curry powder
¾ cup mayonnaise

Basically, mix everything in a large bowl and serve in pita sandwiches.

Masaman Curry Beef or Chicken (Thai):

1 lb boneless beef, such as tri-tip or flank steak, or 1 lb boneless chicken thighs
3 cups unsweetened coconut milk
¼ cup masaman curry paste
2.5 cups chicken or beef broth
3 med potatoes, peeled and cut in big bite sized chunks
1 large onion, cut in large chunks
3 Tbsp fish sauce
1 Tbsp palm sugar or brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup dry-roasted peanuts
2 Tbsp lime juice or tamarind liquid

Slice beef into strips and set aside. In a medium saucepan or heavy skillet, bring 1 cup of the coconut milk to a gentle boil over medium-high heat. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until fragrant and beginning to thicken. Add the curry paste and cook 2 to 3 minutes, pressing and stirring to dissolve it into the coconut milk. Add the meat and cook 2 minutes more tossing to coat it with the sauce. Add the remaining 2 cups coconut milk, the broth, potatoes, onion, fish sauce, palm sugar and salt and bring to a gentle boil. Reduce heat and simmer until potatoes are tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the peanuts and lime juice and transfer to a serving bowl.

Curry Tuna (Indian):

1.5 Tbsp Vegetable oil
1 small onion, peeled and cut into very fine half rings
1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 tsp curry powder
1 can tuna, preferably packed in oil
½ to 1 fresh hot green chili, diced
½-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and cut into very fine slices, then strips
2 to 3 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil over medium-high heat. When the oil is quite hot, put in the onion and garlic. Stir and fry until the onion turns brown at the edges. Put in the curry powder and stir once or twice. Put in the tuna. Stir and break up any lumps. Turn the heat to low. Add the green chili, ginger and cilantro. Stir to mix, check for salt, adding if needed. Add a generous amount of black pepper. Mix well and remove from heat, serve hot, room temp or cold with rice or on pita bread.

(Holy Jeez, this guy cooks a lot)

Panang Beef in Red Curry Peanut Sauce:

1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
½ cup water
½ lb boneless beef, such as flank steak or tri-tip, sliced into strips
2 Tbsp panang curry paste
2 Tbsp fish sauce
2 Tbsp palm sugar or brown sugar
3 Tbsp ground or finely chopped peanuts or peanut butter
3 wild lime leaves, cut in fine threads (optional)
Handful of basil leaves

In a medium saucepan, stir together ½ cup of the coconut milk and the water and bring to a very gentle boil over medium heat. Sprinkle in the sliced beef, stirring to keep the pieces from sticking together, and simmer 5 minutes until meat is tender. With a slotted spoon, scoop the meat out into a bowl and set aside, leaving the coconut milk in pan to return to a gentle boil. Stir in the curry paste and cook, pressing and stirring to dissolve the paste, 3 to 4 minutes, until the sauce is fragrant and smooth. Return the beef and any juices to the pan, add the remaining ½ cup coconut milk and bring back to a gentle boil. Add the fish sauce, palm sugar, peanuts and lime leaves, if using. Stir well and simmer 3 to 4 minutes more, until the sauce is smooth. Stir in the basil leaves and remove from heat. Serve over rice.

Mike Gittings

As I am typing this post I am trying to think of how long I've known Mike for. It is a long time...perhaps longer than many of my current friends realize. I am not entirely sure when the initial seeds of this friendship were planted, but I know that brother Eric was the gateway for it existing, since they are the same age and attended multiple schools together. I also know that in middle school we played on the same soccer team, coached by Mike's dad Neil, and grew up playing Hamilton Little League together (technically we usually opposed each other, I guess). I am positive that this particular soccer team occured in the Fall of 1993. My reason for knowing this is a little bit strange, but I have a distinct memory of showing up to a soccer game having just come from watching MTV's top 10 current videos or whatever they called it. This was back when Music Television still played music videos, and not reality TV shows about turning 16 and being a spoiled brat. Anyway, I had just come from watching this top 10 video countdown and had the emotional ballad "Two Steps Behind" by Def Leppard (from the Last Action Hero!) stuck in my head, tugging at my heartstrings. Mike had either been watching the same top 10 video countdown, or listening to In Utero because when I showed up he started singing "Heart Shaped Box" by Nirvana to me. The moments that stay in our memories are weird, as I don't remember anything else related to this particluar soccer game. It also shows that my musical taste in 1993 was much lamer than Mikes.

Anyway, I love this guy, and I would assume everyone else who knows him does too. He is the worst softball coach probably ever, but that doesn't stop me from thinking he is an A+ kind of guy. Also he can sing his heart out and plays the guitar real well. He has a great wife named Jenny, and a great (although the shortest I have ever seen) dog, too. Additionally he has a real knack for making recommendation lists, and here we go. He recommended a few recipes, and while they were too long to post in the list, they will get their own post later in the week. If you don't cook you might consider skipping that post. Buttermaker recommends:

Music:

E-music – I didn’t buy any new music for a long time due to budgetary considerations. I mean I was down to probably 5-10 CDs per year for the last two years. This left me in a musical rut, listening to the same stuff over and over and just not being that much of a music person any more. But beloved site- host Adam Hopkins turned me onto this Emusic thing, in which you pay $20 a month for 75 downloads per month on into the indefinite future. That’s like 6-7 albums a month , for something like 30 cents per track. Also, if you’re interested in getting in on this bandwagon, talk to Adam or me (note from the editor, talk to Adam about this), since we can get you 50 free tracks if you sign up through us.

Bon Iver – Quiet, haunting kind of stuff with high/low doubled vocals all over the place. Acoustic, mostly, at least on the first album For Emma, Forever Ago. Kind of reminds me of Ben Matthews back in the day

She + Him – Star powered but not gimmicky, I wouldn’t say. Or at least the gimmickry is quality stuff. I like the fact that they have some covers on here.

MGMT – Keyboardy dance type music with drum machines and loops. The vocals strike me as a little dumb sometimes, but it doesn’t really matter with stuff like this, does it? Think Faint, although maybe a little less dark.

Pete and the Pirates – Credit Mark O’Donnell for turning me onto this one, although I’ve acquired some more of this stuff on Emusic. Kind of everything Bon Iver is not…this is peppy and poppy and fun. Clever and unpretentious in the vein of early Weezer, but with arguably more interesting guitar parts.

Animal Collective – Credit George French for making me a believer. AC incorporates a lot of weirdness into their songs, which turned me off at first. But then I realized that underneath all the beeps and boops and screams, there are really great pop songs at play here. This is based on Strawberry Jam, their last LP, since Merriwether Post Pavilion doesn’t come out on E-music until March 3.

Reid Anderson- Another shout out to Adam Hopkins here. The Vastness of Space is apparently one of his favorite all time albums. If you like what Dierker and Trudel do in Quartet Offensive, you’ll probably like this stuff too. Personally, I mainly know the classic Coltrane and Miles stuff, and from my limited availability of reference points, this stuff is closest to Blue Train era Coltrane with more varied beats, as in less of the stereotypical bop beats. Actually, now that I think about it, it has a little bit of Birth of the Cool to it too, with the really cool horn riffs interlacing with each other. A true jazzbo could probably explain it better. All I know is I like it.

Books:

John Hodgman-–More Information that You Require - Mike Ward and I are completely in agreement that this man is a genius. I just finished the second book, and though I can’t remember a single thing he wrote in it because it’s all fake and of absolutely no consequence, I do remember laughing my ass off almost every time I sat down to read it.

Junot Diaz–-Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz is a Dominican writer who grew up in New Jersey and writes with a kind of tough guy aesthetic you’d expect from a street kid on the Wire. But his writing flows so well and is so beautiful, you have to believe that he’s actually a pretty meticulous writer. Really touching book, at least so far, I’m about halfway into this one.

Michael Chabon-–Yiddish Policemen’s Union - The movie Wonder Boys with Tobey Macguire and Michael Douglas was great, right? That’s a Michael Chabon book. And so is The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, which won him a Pulitzer, and then he wrote Yiddish Policemen’s Union. There were a few steps in between those, a forgettable book called The Final Solution, maybe a few more I missed, but I’m pretty sure these are the big ones, and they’re all great.

Hiruki Murakami–-Wind-Up Bird Chronicle - Most mysterious and amazing book I’ve read since The Master and Margarita. I have a feeling I’m going to be reading a lot of Murakami for a long time. He’s jumped right up into my favorites club.

John Updike--Rabbit Run - Updike died recently and I just thought I’d recommend a good starting place if you have never read any of his books. I’m not really sure this is the best Rabbit book he wrote, but it is the start of a long saga that’s basically about a former high school athlete searching for meaning in his rather mundane suburban life as a car salesman. Who can’t get behind a theme like that? I like the whole Rabbit series actually, but like I said, this is where it all starts.

Food:

Recipes – I spend a lot of time cooking. Since I stopped playing in a band, I would say it’s the number one creative thing that I do. Here are some good recipes that all involve some form of curry.

Indian Potato Salad – This is the one recipe that my ancient teacher friend Joe Cegelski wants the recipe for. It’s much better than your everyday potato salad.

Curry Chicken Salad (Jamaican-ish) - Since Jenny, my wife is a vegetarienne (well, pescetarienne), I substitute either seitan or Morningstar farms fake chicken in this. I got this recipe from a free university cooking class a few years back.

Masaman Curry Beef or Chicken (Thai) – I’m a fan of the masaman curry at Thairish and that’s what inspired me to try this one. Basically Masaman has some cinnamon sweetness to it and believe that cinnamon should really be in almost every dish out there. (I don’t really believe this.)

Curry Tuna (Indian) – Best use for canned tuna ever invented

Panang Beef in Red Curry Peanut Sauce – I believe every dish should have peanut butter in it. (I don’t really believe this.)

The Arcade Fire--Funeral

Some may blame me for this being another easy post, because I am already very aware of this record, and already very in love with it. I would go as far as to say that it is among my favorite rock albums I've heard in the past three years. I don't know why I picked three years, but that is the number that came to me and I stand strong behind it. I find Funeral to be at it's very best during the first days of Spring, when everyone is happy that it is warm again, and you are driving (or riding) in a car with the windows down, and that for me is the perfect situation for this album to be heard, loudly. If you already have the album, I suggest putting it away and taking it out on the first real day of Spring and try this method of listening after not having heard it for a while. If you don't have it, I suggest buying it and burying it in the yard like a squirrel with a nut, and dig it up come spring time, and enjoy it while riding in your car with the windows down. Perfect.

Funeral was released in September 2004 by a bunch of Canadians. I also really enjoy multi award-winning 2008 release Neon Bible, but it falls a little bit short of Funeral quality. Still good though, and still recommended. There is a lot going on within the sounds of Funeral. It is best described as indie-rock, whatever that means to you, but what really sticks out to me are the thick instrumental textures. There are a lot more instruments than your typical guitar, bass, drums, vocals rock album. I am currently listening to Neighborhood #3 (perhaps the most well knows song from the album) and bells/glockenspiel (looking at the liner notes it is probably xylophone, actually) and string parts really stand out to me. Perhaps the bells on this album are what drew Chris Laun to it? Also played on the album are a variety of synthesizers, accordian, recorder, multiple percussionists, violin, viola, cello, horn, harp, double bass (woot!), and last but not least male and female lead vocals. That is a lot of additional instruments not often heard on rock records, and the thick instrumentation really makes the album. Great, great songwriting too. Solid all around...Adam wholeheartedly recommends. Some clips:

A great animated video for the previously mentioned Neighborhood #3:



And a special bonus live version of Wake Up from Funeral, with guest David Bowie!:

They Might Be Giants--Flood

After not having thought about They Might Be Giants since the Egg Babies covered Birdhouse In Your Soul (when was this, Chris'?), I had two reasons to revisit them this past Friday. The first being the obvious nod to them in the Chris Laun list. The second was a little more unexpected. Lady and I decided to go out to dinner at Tapa's Teatro and see Coraline at the Charles. Little did we know that They Might Be Giants did the music for the film. When the following song came on screen Heather leaned over and asked who that voice was. At the end of the movie we both concluded with certainty that it had to be without question John Linnell of They Might Be Giants. Really, after hearing the clip there is no way that it could be anyone else. It is only 30 seconds, and I think it is great so take the time to watch it. Please?



So in two ways on Friday They Might Be Giants came charging back into my life, after having only heard them on the theme to Malcolm in the Middle for a bunch of years. That being said, I still to this day think Flood is a fantastic album. This is the TMBG album that I know more than any other by a lot, and it is pretty flawless from start to finish. Really great song writing, with some goofy twists in most cases, but they always seem to tell interesting stories even if the songs are full of nonsense syllables. The obvious highlights of the album are well known songs Particle Man, Istanbul, and Birdhouse in Your Soul, but for me equally as good as them are Whistling in the Dark, Your Racist Friend, Road Movie to Berlin, and Letterbox. I could have picked more, but we'll leave it at that. If you've heard of TMBG but don't have any albums and want to investigate further this is without a doubt that first album you should get ahold of.

Strangely (maybe not so strangely) my introduction to They Might Be Giants came via Tiny Toon Adventures when I was over Jeff Amrein's house in elementary school. Particle Man was the first clip we saw, and thought it was hilarious. Jeff's older brother Mike bought the album, and after hearing the whole thing I bought it as well (maybe with a gift certificate to Waxi Maxies?). This had to have been one of the first CD's I owned, coming shortly after M.C. Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em (I even had a t-shirt of that one). Anyway, They Might Be Giants were a perfect fit for Tiny Toons, as their style really lent itself to cartoons. Did anyone else discover them through Tiny Toons or was that just me? Regardless, here are a couple of the clips, one for Particle Man (I love that Punch Out opening), one for Istanbul:

Requiem for a Dream

This movie is simultaneously one of the greatest and most terrible movies I have ever seen. From the director of Pi and previously mentioned on Friends Recommend The Wrestler, Darren Aronofsky. I had heard that it was a depressing movie, but good friend Aaron Gause insisted that I watch it during my senior year of JMU. I agreed, and he said if we watch it in the daytime and hang out and maybe have a beer then it isn't so bad. So I went over to his house to watch Requiem, we put it on, and 15 minutes into it he gets up to go hang out with his roomates and leaves me sitting there for the remainder of the movie. By the time it ended it was dark out, and I was severly depressed. It was a Friday night of my senior year in college, and I remember going back to my apartment and just sitting in my room sulking.

Requiem for a Dream follows the lives of four people who begin the movie as (relatively) mild drug users but over the course of the movie turn into full-fledged addicts. I won't tell you where they all end up, but I'll just tell you that they start in a low but hopeful place and steadily decline over the course of the whole movie. Ellen Burstyn (not Laura Palmer's mother) plays an amazing older woman who gets addicted to caffine pills and it is terrifying. Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans, and Jared Leto also play great parts in the film. As upsetting and terrible as the message of the movie is, it is very well done and overall one of the better movies I have seen in my life. It sucks that I swore I would never watch it again. I think it should be shown in all high schools. I really can't imagine anyone wanting to do drugs after watching this movie, and I'm sure it would stop a couple teenagers from considering it. It is dark. Real dark. The music is also fantastic. World-renowned string quartet the Kronos Quartet plays Clint Mansell's score and it is amazing. Really modern string quartet writing with the use of some electronics. It is so good that it was also used in the trailors for the Da Vinci Code and Lord of the Rings 2, I Am Legend, Babylon A.D. and video game Assassin's Creed. I highly recommend anyone who hasn't seen this movie once to see it. You may hate it because of how it makes you feel, but there is no denying that it is a great film. Here is one clip of the soundtrack from youtube:

Chris Laun

So I think Chris Laun was actually the first person to send me a list. Even before TJ and Cory participated I got a Laun list. He told me he didn't know what I was up to, but that he'd participate anyway. Then there was a lot of confusion on my part, and his list (now updated!) is just getting published. I am sorry for the delay, but now is better than ever.

The past three people who have posted lists were current Egg Babies. Chris Laun makes it the fourth Egg Baby in a row. Also, four of the past five have been members of Team Orange, our 0-19 fall-league softball team. I don't know if this is of any significance. I think it probably isn't. But next week we'll have the now exiled coach of Team Orange, and former Egg Baby Mike Gittings. I don't know if that is significant either. Regardless, I like this Chris Laun. I like his list, and I look forward to diving deeper into this stuff. If he ever gets on first base on Team Orange and I'm batting behind him, there is no way that I can't hit him into a fielder's choice and take his place on first base. I'm not sure why this happens every time without fail. I want to make this up to him somehow, but I don't know how to do that. Maybe next time he's on first I'll hit a dinger. That'll show 'em. Enjoy!!!!:

Books:

Alan Moore--Watchmen - I'm pretty damned excited for this movie. The graphic novel is fantastic. There's even a great way to check it out now with these new motion comics. They scanned the original artwork and animated it and have someone reading the dialogue like an audiobook. It's only $2 an episode and they run around 30 min a piece so you can check out the first one and see if it's up your alley. They're great though!

Williams Goldman--The Princess Bride - I had never read the book until last year and it is awesome even if you already know the movie. It's written as though William Goldman is editing a story he knew from his childhood and is only keeping the good parts so he breaks the 4th wall a lot. Clever and fun.

Joseph Heller--Catch 22 - It's been awhile since I read it but I enjoyed it a lot.
Dave Eggers--Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Harry Potter books - If you haven't read them they're a lot of fun. For real.

TV:

Firefly - Borrowed this from Myers and loved it.
Lost - If you can put in the time to catch up, it's my favorite thing on TV.

Arrested Development - I hope you've already seen this but if not, it's awesome

Music:

Prince - Purple Rain

Elvis Costello - This Year's Model

They Might Be Giants - Flood

New Pornographers - Mass Romantic

Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun
Arcade Fire - Funeral

Tom Waits - Rain Dogs

Springsteen - The Wild, The Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle

Movies: (Most of my favorites have already been covered but here's a few others)

The Truman Show
Dr Strangelove
Annie Hall
28 Days Later
Miller's Crossing
The Muppet Movie
Requiem for a Dream
UHF

Video Game:

Bioshock: Don't know if you would have the ability to play this but Mike Ward recommended it to me and the story was really smart and fascinating. This video gives you an idea of the story, mood, and look of the game though you don't really beat up little girls like it implies you do. Really creative game though.

Day Off

Friends Recommend took the day off today. I am sorry about this, but I put in for it two weeks ago. We'll resume tomorrow with a brand new Chris Laun list which should be really nice. If you are free there is some great music at the Windup Space tonight at 9:00pm. I don't usually use this blog as an advertisement for shows, but I just did. It won't happen again.

Just so you don't feel 100% ripped off here is a scene from the Big Lebowski. It is great in the unedited movie when the Dude and Walter are trying to intimidate little Larry into telling them where the money is. The famous line is "See what happens Larry? See what happens when you F*** a stranger in the a**?" This is the edited for TV version, and in many ways I think it is even better. Also, you can just barely see at the end that after all of that, they still went to the In N' Out Burger. Enjoy:

The Wire

OK, I know I am going to catch crap from my Baltimore fans for this, but I feel for my out of town friends I need to at least mention The Wire. It is difficult to go out in public in Baltimore, mention The Wire, and not have a total stranger offer their perspective, or tell you that they just started Season Three, and isn't Stringer Bell just a real jerk? Maybe you can go out in public, talk about The Wire, and not hear this stuff. But I know that brother Eric and I discussed it at an Agora function and made a friend because of it. I don't remember this friends' name, or anything about her for that matter.

The Wire is an HBO original series based in my beloved hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. It shows a side of Baltimore that I am admittedly not too familiar with, but I do believe it exists. Believing is enough...I don't have to see it. Anyway, this incredible HBO series aired for five seasons from 2002-2006. I just finished Season Five last week, and this show approaches but does not break into my top 5 favorite TV shows. It comes close though. Sidenote, as I conclude finally watching Arrested Development Season One in order, it comes dangerously close to breaking into my top five favorite TV shows.

One central element of the show is the Baltimore City Police Department, which plays a key role in all five seasons of the show. The shows title comes from a wire tap that a special department of the BCPD uses to build evidence against a major drug (the most major? majorest?) circle in the city. I don't even want to get into character names here, because it would take up more than one post. The seasons are brilliantly self-contained. Major characters are continual from season-to-season, and plot lines even vaguely continue, but each season has it's own theme or Baltimore problem that it addresses and occasionally wraps up in the end. Like I said, all seasons are heavily focused on the BCPD, but Season One examines a drug empire run by Avon Barksdale, Season Two the Baltimore docks and you guessed it, drugs. Season Three returns focus to the Barksdale family but introduces some new drug players and begins to examine the cities politics with the intro of unloveable Tommy Carcetti. Season Four covers the Baltimore City schools and may be the most disturbing and saddening of all five seasons. And Season Five focuses on new drug kingpin, Marlo Stanfield. This can't even begin to explain all of the well excecuted side plots, story lines, major character development, and emotional content that The Wire contains.

If you are in any way faint-of-heart, or easily disturbed The Wire is not your show. It can be pretty graphic and violent at times, but it is just so good. I highly, highly recommend it to anyone who can stomach it. I am thrilled that ganster-robinhood Omar Little has his own wikipedia entry here. Like everyone who has seen the show, Omar is easily my favorite character and I would definitely wear this shirt, pink or not. After just completing the fifth season I am ready to watch the whole thing again. My current order of the seasons, favorite to least favorite (bear in mind that they are all good, just some are better than others):

1) Season Three--I was overjoyed by the return of the Barksdale crew, especially following my least favorite season at the docks.

2) Season One--I think I loved it so much because it was new. I'm curious to see how this would stand on second viewing of the series.

3) Season Four--This would be higher if it didn't upset me so much.

4) Season Five--This would be better if McNulty wasn't such an idiot and that stupid serial killer plot just hadn't happened.

5) Season Two--The docks didn't do it for me. Ziggy's duck was good, but you know a season isn't great when a duck with jewlery is the best part of it.

I can't possibly pick a scene, or even three to sum up this series. All I can say is borrow Season One from a friend, or Netflix it. If you don't need to see more after it is over then it might not be your thing.

You Can't Do That On Television

A few things about this Nickelodeon show from my youth stand out in my memories. Kids getting slimed for saying "I don't know", those great different colored lockers, that woman who could make the insanely high sounds with her voice, and later Alanis Morrisette.

Things I didn't remember/realize about this show. It was Canadian. There was a 20 minute reunion show filmed in 2004 with some of the original cast members called Project 131. Youtube link to the entire episode here.

Some of my favorite things about YCDTOTV were the opening sausage machine montage:



and maybe most of all, Barth:

The Dismemberment Plan--Emergency & I

This is an easy one for me. This one is maybe too easy for me. I would feel bad about how easy this one was, except that I think more people in the world should know about it. I think George was made aware of my Dismemberment Plan obsession after I posted about Todd's Maritime pick (a band which includes members of D-Plan). It turns out we have both seen the band a bunch of times, and were probably at a number of the same shows, unaware that we would one day be co-managing a fantasy baseball team together. If you are unaware of who they are this wikipedia post sums it up pretty good, and dismembermentplan.com lets you know what they are all doing now.

I first saw The Dismemberment Plan when I was (a sophmore?) in high school at the Small Intestine in Baltimore. This pretty much changed my life. They blew up the tiny, Ben Valis-owned club on Bel Air road with one of the most energetic performances I have ever seen or heard anywhere ever. I was hooked. My brother bought their debut album "!" at this show and I have loved them ever since. Nick Prevas and I became obsessed further in our early college years, right around the time Emergency & I was released. We went to a bunch of shows together from 2000-2002 at the Black Cat and 9:30 Club (they were born and raised outside of DC). One of my favorite shows was the "Death and Dismemberment Tour" (with Death Cab For Cutie) stop at 9:30 Club. I am a fan of Death Cab, but man did Dismemberment Plan slay them at this show. Death Cab played a (good) set of angsty, emotional, softish, mellow music, and then D-Plan came on and blew the place up again. It was amazing. I remember their playing at that show not being great compared to their other shows, but they got the audience worked up like crazy. Nobody could make a crowd dance like them. Wikipedia claims that they were often referred to as dance-punk, which I don't remember but I find it appropriate.

All of their albums deserve a place in anyone's music collection, but Emergency & I is their for-sure masterpiece. It is one of the most underrated albums in all of indie music in my opinion, and George and I would both put it on a top-10 all-time desert island music list. I listened to it for months straight when it first came out, and still listen to it, though not as often, and I am listening to it now (Gyroscope!) and I never get tired of it. I will admit that I have recommened it to some friends (Huff) and expected them to love it as much as I do. They never love it as much as I do and I can't help but feel like there is probably a strong feeling of nostalgia tied in with this album for me. The Plan was really the first local band I ever got into and I have seen them live more than any other band, so it might be a little unfair of me to recommend it so strongly having these memories tied in with the music. So, a disclaimer. You might not love this album as much as I do, or as much as George does, or any of us who grew up listening to this band, but the music stands strong on its own. Really strong, and put all the live shows aside and this record still rules. It is solid from start to finish, but What Do You Want Me To Say, Spider In the Snow, You Are Invited, Gyroscope, The City, and Back and Forth are all standout. If you interested in checking out the band this is the album to get. If you like it you will probably like Change, and if you still need more then go back to "!" and take it from there.

The Dismemberment Plan broke up on January 19, 2003. It was a sad day indeed, but a sadder day was when they re-united in 2007 and I couldn't get tickets to either of the Black Cat shows that sold out within minutes of tickets going on sale. Anyway, here is the album cut of Spider In the Snow from Emergency. There are also a ton of great live clips of the band on youtube.



Whenever they played Ice of Boston live (they always played it) fans would flock the stage and dance. George claims to have done this twice. I never did it. It is one of the major regrets of my life thus far. This clip is from the first day of the 2007 re-union, and is the biggest Ice of Boston gathering I have ever seen. It makes me happy and sad simultaneously:

George French

Not sure where to start with this guy, but what a guy he is. For those who don't know him, I apologize. I met George at the beginning of this past summer as the new guy on the softball team (him, not me). And even though his summer stats show him logging 17 errors (slightly more than twice anyone on the team) it would be unimaginable to play on this team without him. Especially because he is the guy you can always talk into staying for one more beer at our weekly post-softball-game gatherings at Swallow at the Hollow. He later joined the famed Egg Babies Orchestra (the second of two unadvisable things for him to do) which turned out to be a great time as well. We'll just consider him my sangria partner before EBO sets from now on. Anyway, this list he came up with is good. Real good. Chris Myers might say that he is lobbing softballs all over the place at me, but the truth is that it's just packed with real good stuff. Enjoy:

Movies:

The Big Lebowski
The Shawshank Redemption
Good Will Hunting
Boogie Nights
Better Off Dead
Animal House

Music:

Tom Waits
The Dismemberment Plan (esp. Emergency & I)
Animal Collective (esp Merriweather Post Pavilion)
The Silver Jews
Loretta Lynn
The Velvet Underground

Books:

Kurt Vonnegut: Timequake, Slaughterhouse Five, Mother Night
Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged (it was a phase but I did genuinely enjoy the book)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Notes from Underground
Jim Bouton - Ball Four
George Orwell - 1984
Joseph Heller - Catch 22

TV:

The Wire
Anything on the History Channel
The Simpsons
Three Sheets
Aqua Teen Hunger Force (the movie kicks ass too)
You Can't Do that on Television

Since I'm generally illiterate when it comes to visual art, I will make my recommendations in the only medium I am familiar with.

Comics:

Calvin and Hobbes 10th anniversary book
The Prehistory of the Far Side

Memento--Christopher Nolan

Memento is another movie that I hesitated to discuss here because I just assume everyone has seen it. I don't know why I feel that way, and it probably isn't true. My advice...if you haven't seen Memento you should see it. Very soon. I enjoyed it much more on second viewing because I spent most of the first viewing pretty confused. Everything makes much more sense the second time around, like Donny Darko.

The basic plot, and you can read more summaries at IMDB here, is of a man named Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) who has no short term memory, and no ability to form new memories (he does recall long-term memories via flashback). Interesting, but not that interesting, right? But WAIT, this guy is trying to hunt down his wife's killer! Nut's...how does he do it? Basically, he forgets anything that happened 10 minutes after, but if he can write himself a note quick enough or take a polaroid he can create a false memory. The notes he feels are most important to his wife's murder he tattoos on his body, which startle him every time he wakes up because he doesn't remember a thing about them. The plot is strong, and the way Christopher Nolan lays out the story line you get a good impression of what Leonard Shelby is going through because you feel just as confused and clueless as he does. According to wikipedia, medical experts have cited Memento as one of the most realistic and accurate depictions of aterograde amnesia in any motion picture.

Perhaps the most interesting element of the movie is the sequence of events and how they are presented to the viewer. The film is split up into scenes in black-and-white and scenes in color. The scenes in black-and-white follow the normal chronological sequence, but the color scenes are in reverse chronological order right from the get go. This sounds like it might not work, but it's executed really well and the twist ending (which is technically the twist beginning because it is a color scene) ties the whole thing together. This one gets an A+ from me, and the users at IMDB agree by voting it to number 27 on the top 250 movies of all-time list. Here is the awesome opening sequence:

Piero Manzoni--Artist Feces

This is an oldy but a goody, from our very first post by Timothy J. Huff. I revisit this for two reasons. 1) I am tired, and it is going to be short, and this is an easy one to sum up without being wordy. 2) I still need to further investigate this Myers list. 3) I feel like a lot of people missed this one in the first list. When I mention it to anyone they don't remember it being here. It is funny. I don't know if it is supposed to be funny, but it is. WARNING, this might gross you out slightly. But trust me, it is funny:

In 1961, Italian artist Piero Manzoni collected his own feces in 90 numbered cans, which contain 30 grams of feces each. Each can is labeled with "100% pure artist's sh*t" in English, German or French. Originally they were sold for their weight in gold, but they are currently valued to be worth between $25,000-35,000. In May of 2007 one of the cans sold for 124,000 euros(!) at Sotheby's. At the time 124,000 euros was the equivalent of $167,400. Search for it if you don't believe me. Pictured above is the English version, and below are the French and German. Discuss, please.

Friday Night Lights (TV)

Well, I have to hand it to The Christopher Myers for this one. Following his theme of "Things I Was Determined To Hate" I walked into watching the first episode of Friday Night Lights (for free, on hulu.com) determined to never watch another episode. I mean, come on, I hate football. But a weak little man inside of me loves epic sports scenarios, be it on a softball field in Druid Hill Park, or unfortunately be it on a made-up football field in Odenton, TX.

I never saw the movie Friday Night Lights, but I am imagining it follows the same theme. Top-rated football team, in football town Texas, and all the things that happen in football town. Really though, the show had me at hello. It was a cheap shot, but after the credits rolled the first song playing on the jukebox in football town diner was Debra by Beck off of my all-time favorite party album Midnight Vultures. That was a low blow, Friday Night Lights. The direction of the first episode is a little bit obvious from the onslaught, following backup quarterback and his grandma, and his non-football playing (for shame!) friend. And in the next scene following the top-ranked quarterback in the nation and his top-ranked girlfriend. I think what happens in the first game is made pretty obvious, but it makes for real good television. So, we'll see where it takes us.

It is 12:41am currently, and I have to be up much earlier than normal to mix the Quartet Offensive record. But I am hooked enough to watch just one more episode before bed. Damn you The Christopher Myers for this one. I never asked to like this show.

P.S. you might remember from a previous post the mention of Cory recommends band Explosions In the Sky writing the soundtrack to the movie version of Friday Night Lights. Don't be deceived, the theme music is not them. It is a television composer (not a chump...he did score the Wonder Years, The West Wing, My So Called Life, and Felicity (!!!)) but he is still not Explosions In the Sky (it is however, a terrible rip-off). They are used for some music throughout the show though, so not all is lost. I don't know. Maybe you should check this out? Especially football fans? One this is for sure...Texas is a weird, strange football loving, praying in the middle of football games, kind of place.

The Wrestler

Please, don't consider this a snub of The Christopher Myers' list. He will get his due, I promise. It does however require a little more research than some of the others, and I need to get my notes together before I dive in. I'm going to watch some TV shows, that's for sure.

But for today I will state that Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler is the best movie I have seen in a long time. I know it is hyped, and a couple days ago I posted John Waters' top movies of 2008 and the Wrestler sat at a strong number 7. For me all the hype is warranted, and true, and this movie is amazing. There have been a slew of (supposedly) great movies released in the past month, including the highly acclaimed Slumdog Millionaire. Both were good, but The Wrestler was great, great. They are both sitting very very high on the IMDB top 250 (Slumdog at 34, Wrestler at 47) but in time they will come down a little from that.

The Wrestler follows the story of Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke) in the years of his wrestling career well after his prime. Rourke and Marisa Tomei are both great in the movie, but Rourke especially stands out. The Ram, a world-famous wrestler in the 80's, is now living paycheck to paycheck wrestling on weekends and working behind a deli counter during the week just to pay the rent on the trailor he lives in. I was never a wrestling fan growing up so I was very surprised by how much I liked this movie. It is pretty heartbreaking to follow the dark and lonely life of a guy who was once worshipped as a wrestling king, and see him now barely living off the fame. And on top of that his daughter, the only family he has sort of hates his guts.

The movie depressed me a little, partially because it was sad, and partially maybe because HSV and I went to the movie right after a visit to my (now tied for first with The Windup Space) favorite Baltimore bar, Birds of a Feather. Maybe good scotch makes me overly emotional? Regardless, The Wrestler is a movie not to be missed, wrestling fan or not. Also, I was sure that the song in this trailer was Tom Waits, but alas it is Bruce Springsteen giving us his best Tom Waits impression. Enjoy, and go see this movie: