Bad Goys

I just finished reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union, and I can honestly say that it has changed my life. Not because it's a great book, because I really didn't enjoy it that much. I just couldn't really get into it. For one, I'm not a huge fan of murder mysteries. I enjoyed the dialog and I didn't really find the Chabon's use of Yiddish too distracting, I just felt that the story never really developed enough momentum. The story is organized into relatively short chapters that all end with a punchy one-liner, which was amusing at first, but by the end, it started to feel like Chabon was putting more effort into his chapter endings than the overall plot.

So how did this slightly above average alternate history murder mystery change my life? For one, it's made me finally realize that there's no point in trying to read a novel if I'm not going to be able to be able to finish it in 2-3 weeks. I lose too much of the story if I try and read a novel 10 pages at a time. The other thing it has made me realize is that it's better to seek out books that I really want to read instead of reading whatever happens to fall in my lap. I've been meaning to read Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for a long time, but every time I look for it at the library, it's checked out. I don't tend to buy a lot of new books, and while you can often find gems at the used book stores that I love so much, you're unlikely to find specific titles. I picked up Yiddish Policemen's Union from the remaindered rack at Barnes & Noble, which can also occasionally yield gems, but if you take the money I've wasted on second-rate discount titles over the years, I could have bought a small library of decent books instead. Or better yet, I could just request the titles that I'm interested in from the library and read them free of charge.

One final note, according to this article from last year, the Coen brothers are working on a film adaptation of The Yiddish Policeman's Union.

Fantasy Island

On the recommendation of a friend, I started following Rainn Wilson's Twitter feed recently. Normally, I don't have any interest in celebrity self-promotion, but Wilson's Twitter is often interesting, funny, or poignant. I loved this tweet from yesterday where he solicits advice for his upcoming fantasy football draft. It seems that the staff of The Office has an "office" fantasy football league. I'm not sure if they formed the league because they enjoy fantasy football or it's some sort of method acting technique they use to get into their average office worker characters, but either way, I love it.

Double Trouble

I've seen this commercial for KFC's latest menu item a few times so I assumed that it was taking American by storm. I learned today that this new culinary creation is currently being test marketed in Providence and Omaha, so I'm one of the lucky few able to experience the deliciousness of the Double Down, which is ostensibly a bacon and cheese sandwich with a bun made out of boneless pieces of fried chicken. For the record, I have yet to try one and have no plans to do so. My lack of interest may lead directly to the Double Down not testing well enough to merit a nationwide release, but it's a chance I'm willing take.

Normally, this is where I would go into full snark mode, but after The AV Club called it "the Reichstag fire of health care reform", I don't think there's anything else that can be said. I hope that I have an opportunity to use that analogy somewhere else, though. But is the Double Down really that bad? The concept seems a little dated. The bun-less sandwich sounds like something straight out of the Atkins craze of a few years back. The bacon seems forced, and I feel like the current incarnation of the add bacon to everything craze is starting to fizzle out. Other than that, I don't see how this is much different than other items on the menus of America's fast food restaurants. Don't get me wrong, the Double Down is kind of disgusting and definitely not something you should eat on a regular basis if you care about your health, but it isn't a new low in the field of culinary arts.

Case in point, last night I dined on some deep-friend clam-infused dough balls. Clam cakes, as they're usually known in these parts, are a Southeastern New England institution and a staple of seaside seafood shacks. Clam cakes have a better name than the Double Down and a simplicity that makes the Double Down look even more thrown together by comparison, but are they really all that different? If clam cakes can be considered a classic comfort food cherished across generations, can the Double Down really be considered a harbinger of the end of the times?

Restaurants need to innovate in order to attract customers. For fast food restaurants, that means either offering more calories per dollar than their competitors or combining a limited set of ingredients in new ways. Most innovations across the food service industry will be forgotten as quickly as they appear. A select few will become part of humanity's culinary lexicon for a few years, a few generations, or, if they're really good, forever. I'm not predicting that every greasy spoon will someday serve a version of the Double Down, I'm just saying that the difference between a beloved culinary institution and an affront to good taste on a plate is smaller than we think.

City Lights

July 25 | 10:36 pm | Providence, RI

Newport News

More thoughts from the Newport Jazz Festival.

I was disappointed to see that RIPTA has discontinued their seasonal bus service from the Newport Visitors Center for Fort Adams. Even in these times of challenging state budgets, it's an embarrassment for city like Newport that relies so heavily on tourism to lack a public transport option from its downtown to one of its most popular attractions.

That being said, the water taxi that I wound up taking from Perrotti Park to Fort Adams was quite nice.

This was my first visit to Fort Adams, and I was really impressed with it. I'll definitely be going back some weekend when it's not playing host to a music festival to check it out.

There was no shortage of booths selling handicrafts at the festival, but I didn't see any selling recordings. Jazz fans are notorious record collectors so I was surprised to see that there wasn't even a tent selling recordings of the featured musicians.

My favorite show other than the V5 was the Christian McBride trio, which kind of surprised me. It wasn't anything earth-shattering, just really good and straight-ahead jazz. I was looking forward to Vijay Iyer's show, but with the exception of their last number, I couldn't really get into any of their tunes.

NPR music was at the festival and has made many of the concerts available for download (not the V5's set, unfortunately)

The ProJo mentioned the V5's set in their review today:

The Vandermark 5, a group of young Chicagoans, started the process with a mix of wailing horns, cello and bowed acoustic bass, completing the demolition on their final song as the second-stage crowd roared. “Some people probably hated it,” said cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, “and some people have told us it was their favorite thing of the festival so far.”

Ken's take on the V5's set, via twitter.

Here's a link to some pictures that I took of the V5 before their set.

New Thing at Newport

Vandermark 5
Newport Jazz Festival - Fort Adams State Park - Newport, RI
Saturday, August 8th

I've never bothered making the trip down to Newport for its iconic jazz festival because, like most big jazz festivals, it tends to feature lowest common denominator acts that play the same old tunes year after year. Newport Jazz impresario George Wein decided to do something about that this year, as this article from the Boston Globe back explains. This year's line-up is fairly impressive, but the Vandermark 5 alone was worth the price of admission for me. Alas, I was not disappointed.

One of the great things about Vandermark is he never talks down to his audience. When I saw him play with School Days at SXSW in 2001, they played a couple of old Archie Shepp and Roswell Rudd songs and he dutifully announced the song titles and composers to the crowd despite the fact that most of them were there for the punk rock act that followed them and most certainly had never heard of Shepp or Rudd (or Vandermark, for that matter). The Vandermark 5, as far as I know, only plays original tunes, so there was no free jazz history lesson going on, but their song selection was in no way pandering to the audience in Newport.

Simply put, their set rocked - literally and figuratively. I don't think I've ever heard them play a set as hard-hitting as the one they played in Newport. The first number that they did started out on a rocking note with Fred Lonberg-Holm playing a great serpentine cello solo against the bass and drums before Vandermark and Rempis joined in on tenor and alto saxes, respectively. Vandermark played tenor for most of the set. He occasionally picked up the clarinet, but his bari was not on stage. His most impressive solo was during the most subdued number of the set, Early Color, but all of his solos were strong. The band sounded really tight. It probably helped that most of the songs were from their forthcoming album, but still, it's pretty amazing to watch a band playing music that is both highly improvised and very precise at a breakneck pace stick together as well as they did.

I was quite impressed with the crowd; at its peak, it was standing room only. Vandermark appeared to share my sentiments, as he spent most of his time between numbers thanking the crowd and George Wein himself, who was on hand for most of their set. The biggest crowd pleaser of the day was Cement, a cacophonous song that was let off by Tim Daisy and featured some devastating hooks in addition to a Vandermark-Rempis tenor sax tête-à-tête.

The few times I've seen Vandermark play in front of a so-called crossover audience, he's been incredibly well-received and this show was no exception. While it's never going to be considered mainstream, this is music that adventurous ears are ready for, even if they aren't particularly attuned to jazz. Hopefully, the Vandermark 5's first US jazz festival appearance won't be their last.

Mr. PC

I recently finished reading More Information Than You Require, the second volume in John Hodgman's three-volume almanac of made-up facts. Was I unwise to start with this volume instead of going back and reading the first book? I don't really think it matters, and I've read enough of The Areas of My Expertise in bookstores to know what I was getting into.

The genius of Hodgman's books is that he doesn't just make up things for the sake of being absurd. There's a kernel of truth at the center of all good jokes and while everything nearly Hodgman describes in his books is not true, much of it is rooted in the truth.

After an outstanding start that includes a listing of all US Presidents and important details about their lives (including whether or not they had a hook for a hand), More Information Than You Require starts to drag early in the second half when Hodgman gets stuck talking about how he fell ass-backwards into fame on the success of his first book and the subsequent acting roles to which it led. It's written in a fish-out-of-water tone, but he goes on and on about it for so long that I'm not sure if all of the fame has gone to his head or he's impersonating a writer who stumbled into fame and let it go to his head.

Once he gets off that digression, the book has its moments, but it never really recovers. I was looking forward to the chapter on mole-men, but it wasn't very funny or poignant. The list of 700 mole-man names was tedious reeked of the self-indulgence of the earlier chapters about Hodgman's life as a minor celebrity.

I should go back and read The Areas of My Expertise someday, since it was written before Hodgman became a minor celebrity and probably doesn't have as many digressions into his personal life, but I'm not going to rush out to pick up volume three whenever it arrives.

All in the Family

This interview with Jeff Sharlet is a couple weeks old, but it's a really interesting look at a religious right group known as The Family. I consider myself fairly well informed on matter of church/state and culture war issues, but I had never heard of them before. Their secretive, trickle-down prosperity gospel is brazen, even by religious right standards. Sharlet's book about The Family sounds like an excellent read.

Fasting

Submitted without comment.

Wire Service

We recently watched Man on Wire, and we both enjoyed it. During the movie, I couldn't help but think how such a feat would be nearly impossible to pull off today, even if the twin towers were still standing. Some would argue that though security and litigation, we've effectively banished from our lives the kind of wonder and beauty that people like Philipe Petit provide. I think there is some truth to this view, but I think it overly romanticizes the past and shortchanges the artists of today. All memorable art is subversive in some way, and there's never been, nor will there ever be, a shortage of beliefs and assumptions that someone will feel the need to challenge though artistic expression.

The film itself is quite beautiful, thanks to a wealth of archival photographs and video. If you're afraid of heights, you will definitely feel a bit uncomfortable watching this movie, even though most of the images of the wire walk are stills. While a wire walk between the two (at the time) tallest buildings in the world seems insane, there is a certain logic to it. You're unlikely to survive a fall from anything much taller than a two story building. Since no one would really care if you walked across a wire strung between the 8th floors of the twin towers, you might as well go all the way to the top. In either scenario, you'll be just as dead if you fall, but if you survive at the top, you'll become a legend.

Casino Royale

June 20 | 1:27 pm | Providence, RI

Chinese-Americana

We went to check out a small exhibit chronicling the early history of Chinese restaurants in Providence at the Johnson & Wales Culinary Arts Museum. The three restaurants profiled were all long gone before I arrived in Rhode Island, so I don't have any memories of dining at them, or any other old time Chinese-American restaurants for that matter. Still, it was an interesting exhibit. My favorite part was an old newspaper ad from one of the three restaurants (Mee Hong, I believe). There wasn't a date on the clipping but it appeared to be from the 1960s. The ad was targeting local college students and listed each of the local schools along with a selling point for the students at that institution. I don't remember each of the selling points verbatim, but they boiled down to the following:

• Brown: Authenticity
• RISD: Decor
• URI: Value
• PC: Alcohol
• Bryant: American-Style Food
• RIC: Highchairs
  

40+ years later, the ad probably still resonates pretty well with its intended audiences.

People Who Eat People (Are the Luckiest People in the World)

I just finished reading Max Brooks' World War Z. It's not the kind of book that I would usually read, but I decided to give it a shot on the recommendation of my brother-in-law-in-law. It's an easy read, but it didn't do a lot for me. It's set in the not-too-distant future and chronicles the zombie war though interviews with the people who survived it.

The zombie myth is so pervasive and well-understood in modern culture that this book doesn't really need to spend much time explaining what zombies are and how they work, though I found the way that Brooks delicately examined nearly every tactical aspect of what a war against the undead would look like one of the most compelling parts of the story. I did a little research of my own after reading the book, and I was surprised to learn how modern the zombie myth is. While it's origins are somewhat unclear, it's likely derived from Haitian Vodou and was introduced into popular culture almost single-handedly by the films of George Romero.

In film and literature, zombies are generally used stand-ins for the fears that are gnawing at society at the time. I'm not sure what, if anything, the zombies are supposed to represent in this book. The war on terror is an obvious choice. I think Brooks leaves the story loose enough to allow the reader to provide his own stand-in.

Brooks applies the same precision to the geopolitical aspects of World War Z that he does to the technical aspects of zombie combat, and that's where the book really falls short. I found the politics of the story far too predictable. The nations that fared best in the war were, for the most part, fortress societies. Nations with authoritarian streaks used the war to consolidate their power. Without going into too much detail, the chapters dealing with wartime Japan were so stereotyped that it almost read like a pamphlet written by far-right Japanese nationalists as a cautionary call to arms. Brooks definitely did his homework, but there's a real lack of imagination in the geopolitical parts of the story.

I generally avoid stories built around dialogue because it's really hard to write compelling dialogue. World War Z is far from the worst book I've ever read in this department, but the dialogue isn't great. Since it's written in interview form, there really isn't any time to do much character development.

I hear that the book is being made into a movie. I think it could be pretty good as a film, especially if they can whittle the story down to a few compelling characters.

Whole Wheat

I received a beer of the month club subscription for Christmas last year. So far, my two favorite selections have been wheat beers, which has come as something of a surprise since they usually aren't my thing. The first one I tried was Woody's Wheat from the Sand Creed Brewing Company in Wisconsin. It's got a lot of flavor, though it's not overpowering, and has a crisper taste than most wheat beers. The second was an orange infused wheat beer from Four+ Brewing in Utah called Rype. I was initially skeptical of an orange flavored beer, but I really shouldn't have worried, as the flavor was very subtle and I'm a fan of a number of fruit flavored ales.

Star Search

We caught the new Star Trek movie this weekend. I've never been a big Star Trek fan, and this movie didn't convert me. It was enjoyable from a summer blockbuster point-of-view, but the story was pretty weak and most of the character development was devoted to laying out the back stories for Spock and Kirk and felt more perfunctory than anything else. Perhaps now that they've gotten that out of the way, the next installment of the franchise can do something a little bit more interesting.

Graffiti Bridge

The ruins of the old Michigan Central Train Depot is probably one of the most iconic symbols of Detroit's decline. Still, I had to chuckle a big when I saw my family name graffito tagged in front of the buildings crumbling facade.

It caught my brother's eye while looking through this photo gallery from the Detroit Free Press. He claims to have no idea how our name wound up spray painted in front of the depot. I've looked into his alibi, and it seems to check out.

Frequently Asked Questions

I feel like I've spent enough time crammed into an aluminum tube at 35,000 ft. to call myself a seasoned traveler, so I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that until a couple days ago, I had no idea how easy it is to prevent frequent flier miles from expiring without even having to go to the airport (thanks, Mahalo). I had a bunch of miles on American Airlines that were about to expire. American doesn't even fly out of Providence anymore, so the chances of me being able to use the miles or keep them active by booking an American Airlines flight were looking pretty slim. I started looking into donating the balance when I discovered that most airlines will keep your miles active as long as you do something before they expire. That could be as little as donating 500 miles to a charity or buying a $5 item from one of the airline's partners to earn yourself a couple frequent flier miles and keeping your mileage balance active in the process. I donated a pittance to American's Miles for Kids in Need program to see if it worked - and it did. I'll probably just wind up donating the rest of the miles anyway, since I'm unlikely to fly anywhere with American Airlines in the next 18 months, but it's nice to have options.

Rhododendron

May 10 | 6:05 pm | My Front Yard

Beethoven's Last Symphony

Taken out of context, this panel from today's Hi and Lois is probably the funniest thing that has come out of that comics page institution in decades.

h/t: The Comics Curmudgeon

In Which I Agree With Same-Sex Marriage Opponents

Here's a quote from today's ProJo cover story from Christopher Plante, director of Rhode Island's chapter of the National Organization for against (same-sex) Marriage. It's a great quote because it works no matter how you feel about marriage equality.

“It is amazing that four centuries after Roger Williams founded this great state on liberty and individualism, Rhode Island again stands alone in New England, holding back a tide of cultural revolution and belief that would radically change our families and communities"

I agree that it is amazing that Rhode Island is honoring its heritage of liberty by denying equal marriage rights to all of its citizens - amazingly bad. I also agree that granting same-sex marriage rights would definitely change our families and communities - for the better.