March 2010
1 post
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Swiss (Hit and) Miss
I’m overdue in writing about Switzerland. It’s been three weeks since beer cost $6 and chocolate was so omnipresent it was actually nauseating, and maybe that means I get some perspective on my recent exploits in the Helvetic Confederation. Doubtful as since then, I have been in: Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, Indianapolis, Orlando, Cleveland, and of course, that foray into Texas,...
February 2010
6 posts
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'Strichtly Speaking
As you may already know, I wrote a research paper that was (somehow) selected for presentation at the European meeting of the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management—wonky, nerdy, economic-data driving researchers who love ‘p-values’. The conference happened to be centered on migration as a study of analysis, and well, despite my lacking said math, I happen to have...
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“Politics is show biz for ugly people.”
– David Cameron, Conservative Party (UK) leader, at TED 2010.
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The Most Exciting Man In Hollywood You've Never...
Now that I have your attention, I can talk about the acting, writing and directing of one Thomas J. McCarthy. Or Tom McCarthy. Or Tom J. McCarthy. The point is, aside from recognizing this guy as a character in mainstream American entertainment (everything from stints on Ally McBeal to Law & Order), little has been said about this guy as a writer. With three seemingly different films to his...
January 2010
12 posts
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Eco-Chic in Nashville
After the New York Times published an updated 36 Hours survey of Nashville, featuring sustainable eating, live music, cowboy boots, and a boutique hotel fit for a Nobel laureate, I’ve been gunning to go back, and specifically, to check out this hotel of lore, the Hutton, an 13-story eco-friendly boutique hotel along West End Avenue, steps from Vanderbilt, Belmont and the fun coffee shops and...
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The Chocolate Wars
(With my apologies to Robert Cormier, whose batshit insane books informed at least a hearty sliver of puberty, and as such, my most nostalgic of chocolate eating days.)
photo: Scott Beale/United Hemispheres, Jan. 2010
It seems like everyone is talking chocolate lately. Chocolate, like beer and burgers before it, is the latest consumer product to be run through an intense marketing...
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A PAC Amongst Friends →
So, I headed out to Cincinnati this week for a soiree of sorts, a gathering of friends, hosted at a small storefront gallery in the East Walnut Hills neighborhood. The gallery, a project of three friends Phyllis, Annie, and Cate (hence PAC), has only been open a year, and had some interesting stuff up when we stopped in. Of note is the Russian propaganda exhibit they are running—big sweeping...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-24) →
The Ting Tings (4)
warpaint (4)
Lauren Zettler (2)
Stars (2)
Venice is Sinking (1)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-17) →
Matisyahu (9)
Ida Maria (5)
Neko Case (3)
The Ting Tings (3)
Jon Brion (3)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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Sweet 'n Spicy: Eating Our Way Through Stumptown
Portland is a foodie’s paradise. No secret here. And with a prime location close to the coast, wine country, and mountains, localvores can rejoice at a bevy of tasty local treats, even in the dead of winter. After all, we need something to eat with all that coffee.
Lovejoy Bakers: In the heart of Northwest (and all the yuppifying condo construction that’s been going on), a new bakery...
You Stay Gorge-ous, Oregon!
Greetings from Portland—and onward to Hood River, the Columbia River Gorge, and the Timberline Lodge, where I will, for the first time ever, ski. Of course, the Gorge has been a bit less serene than this picture (taken on my last trip in 2008), as demonstrated by this epic newscast from the Vista House two days ago. Ugh.
My ultra-cheapo ticket to Portland—$120 r/t has a few strings...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-10) →
The Avett Brothers (16)
Neko Case (12)
Venice is Sinking (11)
Allison Weiss (7)
Radiohead (6)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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Early Starbucks Fans
Getting my nephews Logan & Tyler started early on the coffeehouse craze.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-1-3) →
Lauren Zettler (20)
Devotchka & Mychael Danna (8)
Proud Simon (5)
DeVotchKa (4)
warpaint (4)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Possession
We are trained, at some point in our childhood, to be fearful when the phone rings at 3am. As a kid, I was convinced that those wee hours when evening and morning chit chat expectantly before sunrise were when bad things happened to unsuspecting people. My hypothesis was validated when after spending an entire summer at my ailing grandmother’s bedside, sweaty, sticky summer days with our...
December 2009
14 posts
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-12-27) →
warpaint (15)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs (10)
Neko Case (10)
Lauren Zettler (9)
Thao with The Get Down Stay Down (7)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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“You know, if you can’t be president, by gosh, get to the highest level of...”
– Mike Huckabee, from the New York Times Magazine, Sunday, December 20, 2009.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2009-12-20) →
St. Vincent (14)
warpaint (14)
a. armada (13)
Neko Case (12)
Radiohead (11)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
Under the Pages and Dreaming
I knew it was over only because, in a first, each time I pressed “NEXT PAGE” on my Kindle, the page didn’t flash—but seemingly stood still despite my commands to the contrary. A reticent teenager. The last page had been reached and like a cord snapped, then cut, I’ve been dropped to muddle through the droplets at the basin of Lorrie Moore’s words. More aptly,...
The Best of Everything
It’s around this time of year, when the nostalgia of another year elapsed grabs us, that otherwise levelheaded media outlets resort to screaming hyperbole and announce their BEST OF lists. Indeed, there are so many of these lists, it can be hard to construe meaning from this veritable slush of cultural endorsements. And so many will rush to the pages, checking their membership in the...
Holiday Music You Can Enjoy. →
Finally, holiday music you can enjoy! My review of Lauren Zettler and Cameron Mizell’s new holiday EP, Sounds Like Snow. For lazy readers, this is some inspired holiday music—delicious like a badass figgy pudding. You may just want to buy it and save yourself from “Frosty the Snowman” on loop all season.
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Baby, It's Cold Outside
Greetings from Chicago! Thanks to a chorus of friends (a librarian, ad-man, a pastor, and a nanny, for starters), we reminded this city who’s boss. That’d be me. Chicago means a few things, and mostly, it’s eating incredibly delicious and oh-so-bad for you food and buying knick-knacks.
Success on all fronts! First, to Ann Sather’s for a gooey cinnamon-bun inspired...
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On the Corner of Amazing and Hype
Few restaurants in Chicago, to my knowledge, command as much intensity of emotion as that on an otherwise unassuming corner of Belmont Avenue in Avondale. The fans and even those who spew venom made the hajj to the West Side and endured the interminable waits for a table. From the city that waxed encased meats in to an act of dining and tourism and one, a restaurant with so much buzz around one...
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That Part of the Story Where Cool People Send Me...
When my no-frills Japanese-design-wonk friends at MUJI asked me to check out their ice ball maker, I happily obliged. I had spent many an afternoon getting lost in MUJI’s bleak, minimalist stores in Osaka and Tokyo when I was in college and romping around Japan. I brought back, in addition to plenty of sake (this was very much pre-the 3 ounces-or-less shenanigans of the modern flying era),...
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November 2009
14 posts
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Row 14, Seat C
Row 14 is an Exit row, a hotly coveted spot with a few extra inches of legroom on this mislabeled ‘regional jet’. In recent years, the jet and I have been on a national tour, and ‘region’ becomes far more muddled in the subtle moves from Florida palms to the grayness of New York—a haughty weightiness that let all know they were in a city of global consequence. But, I...
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To the lady who shoved me at Wal-Mart... →
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Snacking Whilst Shopping
Happy Black Friday! We’ve survived the turkey and stuffing and the trip to the photo albums for a blow-by-blow of the awkward years. Yup, it’s the holiday season. Time to break out the ugly hat with the ear flaps and brave the cold for some hardcore American-style shopping! You’ve got to do it, you may even want to do it, but skip the florescent-lit box stores, because the real...
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Because you wanted to poke your eyes out with a... →
via basquefishing, who contends she can’t stop watching it. Once is enough, disturbingly enough.
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Baggage Claim
Tomorrow, the day the media boasts as the ‘busiest travel day’ of the year, I’ll be heading South and visiting family in Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday. I’m cautious with the word ‘home’, as it’s not my home: I never lived in this house, and I’ve spent more time in Chicago, for example, than in Florida at any point. I can’t be possessive...
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You + Me Can Make Sweet Music Together. →
I’m one of a crop of audiophiles blogging over at East Meets Left about all the latest and greatest in the world of music. Worth a look. Let me know what you think!
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“The snow is really assaulting the windshield as I head for the Louisville...”
– This week, I’m celebrating the 2000 miles I’ve driven in the last two weeks: To places like Cincinnati, Nashville, and along I-74, much like the narrator in this story, to and from Urbana, Illinois. My own ramblings to come, but until then, the tart, if not sweet perspective of one tired...
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Jonathan Safran Foer's Cow? →
Cutting through the muck and the uproar and the allusions to Derrida (there are at least three so far), Foer’s Eating Animals is bringing out the savage beast in vegetarians and literary fiends abound. He’s taken argument with Peter Singer and Michael Pollan, and he’s placed himself at the forefront of moral piety. Exploding Dog today offers a cartoon that does a better job, best...
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Film for sale!
A shout out through the Tumblr-sphere for robmizell, who has some delish film to scoop up. Polaroids! Infrared. Yum. You know you want it.
Rob says:
Five rolls of Kodak HIE High-Speed Infrared Film (whatever ISO you damn well feel like shooting that day) all the same batch number and all expired 08/2004. This film is no longer in production. Also, from what I gather, this film hasn’t been...
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Great Press for a Delicious Bookstore →
Celia and the folks at Omnivore Books are getting much love—and snagging exciting events with the food world’s most thoughtful and thought-provoking writers. Foodies and readers alike.
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"You Were Supposed to Spend That on Books" and...
Berlin, 2005
Look at that kid. He is so happy. All he wanted to do was smile for me, a paunchy, goofy-looking, American with a backpack that could hold the rations of a small army. Especially those dehydrated curry bags they give the British soldiers. It was Sunday, my last day in Berlin and he was doublefisting paper airplanes. There was an idealism even a cynical college student could reach...
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Pharmakon for the Teenage Soul
Back in high school, when I fancied myself an intellectual, I realized I could endear myself to my English teachers (objectively to be regarded as ‘cool’, after all) by embracing my emotional sloppiness and erratic curiosities by writing. Writing earned me an admission ticket to an elite club—the English department office—and they ate their lunch, shit with a lot of sprouts...
October 2009
10 posts
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“I’d like to think it’s because I’m fabulous. But I’m...”
– Michigan author Bonnie Jo Campbell, on the nomination this week of her book, “American Salvage” for the National Book Award http://bit.ly/OxW1m
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Hunting and Gathering
Greetings from St. Louis, Missouri. I’m in a hotel room that is some respects criminally luxurious. Perhaps I should explain: I’m cozied up by a fireplace in a two-bedroom, two bathroom suite overlooking the city’s Forest Park. It is the kind of hotel room that in fact does not encourage the kind of exploration I am if not prone to, then at the least, find myself ultimately...
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