what it means to become an American

I just listened to a good interview between Morning Edition's Steve Innskeep and writer Jhumpa Lahiri. It's part of their week-long series on what it means to become an American. It's sort of comforting (but surprising) to hear other people tell stories from their childhood that mirror mine.

I think I am going to have to pick up her book(s) and give it a look-see.

Frozen River interview on npr

I heard this interesting interview on Weekend Edition Sunday on npr this morning. It's a discussion with Melissa Leo the star of Frozen River. It gives away a little more of the story (no real spoilers, though), but I think it's worth checking out. And if you haven't seen it yet, I think it's a fantastic movie and highly recommend it.

Say hey!

Here's a great song to kick off the weekend. It's called Say Hey by Michael Franti and Spearhead. Go to his myspage page to hear it.

I dare you to try and not to dance or at the least do a little chair boogie when you hear it. It's a happy kind of song. And I just can't resist a song that sings "I love you, I love you, I love you!" over and over again. That's a good song.

as if I needed another reason to move to France

today's story on All Things Considered...

Allons-y!

The part that really bugs? Hearing how the US comes in last rated among industrialized nations at preventing avoidable deaths.

I'm getting off my soapbox and going to prep some vegetables for dinner now.

music?

My friend Sancho posted something about iTunes the other day that got me thinking about music. I'm always on the search for new music to listen to. My music knowledge is a hodge-podge of stuff I hear on my local public radio station, reviews from the various npr shows I listen to and sometimes, someone I admire (a friend, a stranger who I think of as a friend, a musician, artist, etc.) will mention something about a band they really like or an album that they can't stop listening to. And so I'll check it out and often add a new favorite to my growing list. My music knowledge has a lot of holes in it. So while I am a fan of the song Like a Rolling Stone (even before the Pepsi ads, thank you) I have never listened to the album it originates from (Highway 61 Revisited, thank you wikipedia). But that's okay. It just means that there's a bunch of new-to-me music to discover and fall in love with.

I want some new-to-me music to check out and curious to know what my friends are listening to these days? Maybe a little top ten of the stuff that's been feeding through your ears into your head? Shout out. Be creative. Here's mine:

jean's top 10 recent listens

1. KCRW's Morning Become Eclectic (every morning)
2. npr type programs throughout the day (The World, Marketplace, All Things Considered, This American Life)
   
3. John Mayer (um, all his albums)
4. Tom Waits' Mule Variations and Beautiful Maladies albums
5. Yesterday I hit shuffle and iTunes thought the Eurythmics' Greatest Hits and Marvin Gaye's Greatest Hits were one album so I listened to songs alternating from each
6. Radiohead's last 4 albums (I wish I could go to their concert)
7. Elvis Costello and the Attractions Best Of
8. Old Crow Medicine Show (self titled)
   
9. Robert Johnson The Complete Recordings (which I had to cut off after about an hour, because even though I love the blues, man was I getting bummed out)
10. Announcers and cheers from the Celtics playoff games
    

I love public radio

I might have already shouted out about this program, but I have renewed interest in it lately and it deserves another shout-out. M and I were channel surfing one Sunday evening as we were driving around town running errands. And we stumbled upon a fascinating radio program whose topic that evening was Morality. How humans deal with it, how they define it, if it's unique to humans. It was FASCINATING. Sorry, are caps used like that annoying? I am a little at a lost on how I can convey just how compelling this program was. We sat in the car in the middle of a supermarket parking lot for an extra 30 minutes before we reluctantly shut off the radio and continued with our Sunday evening grocery shopping. We found out later on that this show is called Radiolab and is produced out of WNYC. And later on, we found out that there were podcasts, so I signed up.

I'm not sure what I was saving these up for, but I subscribed to the podcasts and never really listened to them. I listened to one once when I was knitting and wanted something to listen to. It was an episode called Musical Language and it totally jazzed that nerdy linguist part of me. I've been listening to one nearly every day as I go out for my daily constitutional. The shows are fascinating. They sort of remind me of This American Life where they take a theme and explore the ideas in the theme and produce stories for the theme. But where This American Life deals with more every day life, human interest type stories, Radiolab deals more with science and how it related to humans in themes.

So far I've listened to stories about stress (the human biology as well as psychology behind it), what happens when the brain stops communicating with the rest of your body, theories on the expanding universe (jenn: it's basically the raisin bread theory, so stuff you and I discussed all those years ago but still fun to hear other people talk about it and also the behind the scenes dirt on Carl Sagan's love-life, it's sweet actually), dominance of a genetic mutation (which I might be a part of incidentally. cool!) and the psychological effects of a placebo.

I really enjoy the two hosts' (Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich) personalities. They play off of each other well. And they also produce the program with a lot of audio textures that paint a visual picture for you sort of the way a good movie has a great cinematographer or production designer. I read in their bios that Robert Krulwich has won awards for his science reporting and has a particular knack for explaining really complicated scientific things clearly for the everyday person which I would have to agree with.

PS. Good logo.

survey

If you are my friend and you live in this country, I think you might be interested in taking this survey. I couldn't link to the post directly, but if you go to the website now you can read the info on the survey and how to take it (should you so decide).



I don't know how much I need to endorse this to you guys. Would it be like preaching to the converted? I've had the fortune of attending a live event with Ira Glass twice in one year. He is a spectacular speaker and a wonderful storyteller. Any opportunity you have to see him in person is a treat. But since he is terribly busy with his television show and the radio program (last we saw him, he said something like how he has been working for 6 months straight without a single day off. whew! that's tough) and since he can't very well clone himself and polarize, I guess a satellite screening to a live show would be the next best thing.

he rocked us

Edited to add rockin photo of GLP by Kim. Please scroll down to see.

Who would have believed that this mild-mannered looking chap could have been capable of such rockin' greatness?

(Photo by Denise Siegel)

I should know better than to assume.

M & I went to the Largo last night. I'm no expert, but I think this is the best place to see/hear live music in L.A. It's a small little Irish pub turned supper club with a teeny stage in the corner and when there is a show on, the audience is so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. When the musicians on said stage aren't rockin out, that is. Everyone is there so soak in the music, no silly networking, chit-chatting, hookin' up. Just intense absorption of really good music. From the musicians' hearts to yours.

Anyways, I was under the assumption that Grant Lee Phillips was going to serve us up with a pleasant evening of quiet little accoustic tunes on his guitar. I have no idea where I got this idea from since the first and previous time we saw him perform, he rocked it pretty hard then too. But in a larger (cough: 200 seat theatre?) venue and with a full band, and with Aimee Mann to back him up no less.


(Photo by: Kim Lofgren)

I wish I could have seen his hands at the guitar (I was sitting behind a few folks) while at work on some screamin solos. Dear God!

After the show, he wandered towards where we sat squinting at me. Surprised, I pretended to squint back. I dunno, what are you supposed to do? I knew who he was, but he didn't know who I was, but seemed to think that he did. He wandered away without a word but was back a few seconds later with one of the Largo staff who guided him towards us (he was still squinting) who said: Here he, is! Ned, I want you to meet...oh wait, you're not Ned! Sorry about that. And then whisked him off (probably still squinting) to meet with Ned. Might have been nice to have at least shook the man's hand. Thank him for a rockin' show.

Anyways, I am still trying to figure out how I could have been so foolish to assume mellow-only from this dude. And I've never even watched him on Gilmore Girls. And M is still trying to figure out how this bespeckled fellow that we saw at Aimee Mann's Xmas Show could be the same rocker we were entranced by last night.

free music

You probably know about the free weekly download at iTunes. But there is also good free music to be had at my favorite local radio station (for music, that is. I prefer news content from ).

The only downside is that there is no automatic daily download. I find that if I open up iTunes on my computer every day, and have the podcast set up to download, it will do so for me. I usually hit refresh to get it going, but if I don't load iTunes on my computer, there doesn't seem to be any other way to get the music automatically.

I've been faithfully downloading KCRW's daily top tune for a few months now and I have a great selection of music that I can listen to. A lot of it is stuff I've never heard of which is great since it exposes me to new music that I wouldn't be able to find on my own.

And then there is also Pandora which I have not been keeping up with in a while because...well, because m started messing with the settings and so now I feel like the music they find for me is based on his tastes as opposed to mine. I've told him to quit touching my music settings on Pandora, but really I need to set him up with his own account instead.

study break!

takin’ a quick break from work to do a little dance to the music currently playing on my computer. I got an iPod for christmas (my husband is the BEST-EST!) and I’ve been slowly transferring our cd collection to my iPod. A few things I’ve learned from my quick little study break:

1. Bruce Springsteen ROCKS! Go and give Sherry Darling or Out In The Street a listen and I dare you to keep from dancing. Who knew?
2. Corrollary to #1. My husband has great taste in music! Babe? I’m sorry if I ever dissed your music.
3. Cats don’t dance. Not only do they not dance which I think is a sad lot in life for them, but they can’t even appreciate music. Or can they? The ‘och who likes to sit on my monitor from time to time looked really confused as I jiggled in my seat in my own little version of a dance floor.
   
   Definitely concerned. Perhaps even reproachful.

weekend of music

I’ve been obsessed with this gal and her single Like a Star that I can’t hear enough of. Check out her pretty website too. It’s such a sweet little love song. Where was this when I was putting together our wedding cd?

Last Sunday night I won tickets to the First Annual Aimee Mann Christmas Show. How cool was that?

The show was so much fun! Aimee wrote some Christmas songs specially and also played some favorites from her last few albums. Made me realize how much I enjoy her music and damn does she have a lot of really good songs. (Fun to sing to as well.) Like I said, the show was great. It featured guests like John C. Reilley who performed a spirited reading from How the Grinch Stole Christmas with Aimee singing along in the background. That was such a treat.

The best treat for me was “discovering” a new (to me) singer/songwriter by the name of Grant-Lee Phillips who was the other featured guest at Aimee’s show. Dude. Where the hell have I been? Taking a troll through his website tells me that somehow his nomination for best male vocalist back in 95 by Rolling Stone magazine was completely lost on me. Well, I was an exchange student in France for the first time. I can give myself a little slack for not keeping up with the indie music scene (heck, I didn’t even know what the indie music scene was at that time). I’ve been going through the archives of my local radio station to hear any guest appearances he might have made. As luck would have it, there are at least 5 shows that he was featured on. Yay! Now I have something fun to listen to at work.

On top of being an incredible songwriter, Grant-Lee Phillips is a fun perfomer to watch. He really gets into it. I sometimes worried that his exuberant guitar playing would send him flying off the stage so enthusiastic was he. It’s great to watch someone perform their music with such full-heartedness.

His music is lush and a little lonesome. His voice swaying between a country crooner’s wail and The Stone Roses hushed whisper. Listening to his music is like one of those things where you hear something for the first time that just strikes a chord in you (forgive the unintended pun). The album below is from his solo endeavor after his band Grant Lee Buffalo broke up. It’s a little more pared down and accoustic-y than the other stuff, lovely little songs. I highly recommend it. Among the favorites going through my mental radio are:

• Truly, Truly (from Grant Lee Buffalo’s Jubilee)
• Heavenly (from Ladies’ Love Oracle)
• St. Expedite (from Ladies’ Love Oracle)
• Mona Lisa (from Virginia Creeper with the loveliest violin featured that you ever did hear)

Oh they’re all really fabulous, really. I’m inclined to scoop them all up for my listening pleasure.

hollywood bowl

I had a pretty good weekend that I think I forgot to write about. We were productive and the house got really clean. We both got some work done (m writing and me designing). The cats got new treats from Trader Joe’s with very high crude protein content which I hear is important in their diet and development and I would never want to be the kind of pet-owner who impeded her pets’ development(s). I probably should have gone for a swim or something at the gym on Saturday, but just couldn’t drag myself to do it. So on Sunday, before I got ready for a night out at the Hollywood Bowl, I decided to go on a bike ride.

My poor bike has been hanging neglected on my deck for a few good months. It’s collected an embarrassing amount of dust and cat hair along its greasy parts so I took a cloth rag and wiped it down and made it look a little more respectable.

On a weekend bike ride, I’ll just cruise down to the ocean and come back. According to Yahoo!Maps, that’s 3.9 miles each direction (or 6.2764416 km) and it normally takes me about 45 minutes for the round trip. I have no idea if that is a good time or an incredibly slow time, but that is my time and I’m fine with it.

Going to the ocean, I take Montana Avenue mostly and there are some fun parts where it slopes downhill and I don’t have to pedal and Whee! I feel like a kid. Then I head north a few blocks to take San Vicente Boulevard back home. San Vicente is a really wide street with bike lanes on each side and it’s fairly level. There’s a wide grassy median in the middle of San Vicente dividing the street in half. My neighborhood seems to be filled with healthy athletic types who are out cycling, walking, running, roller-blading and walking their dogs. If you don’t have strong self-esteem, you might feel a little less than sexy in the face of all those toned and fit souls who are out there getting even more toned and fit.

Sunday’s ride was hard. I don’t know if it’s because I am so terribly out of shape or because it’s been so long since I’ve been on my bike or if the winds were blowing really really hard (I am choosing to believe that it was this last option) but I was having a tough time out there. On gentle little slopes, I’d downshift to the lowest gear and could feel my muscles straining to push down the pedals. On the return trip up San Vicente Boulevard, I had to take two (okay, maybe three) breaks because my arse was sore and I could feel every single pebble on the road against my more ahem, delicate parts. And I was going so slowly I thought to myself that I could make better time if I got off my bike and walked it back home. And as an added bonus I didn’t feel the pebbles. I’d get back on my bike because I had no other choice and I couldn’t call m to pick me up since he was at the gym and I’d left my phone at home and we had plans to go out that night, so I couldn’t just take my sweet time. A snowy-haired elderly woman hobbling by with a cane passed me. I shifted up a gear and tried to pump my legs harder. A swollenly pregnant lady, glowing and peppy passed me. Okay, technically she was jogging in the opposite direction, but if she were heading in the same direction as me, I know she would have passed me.

Somehow I managed to make it back home where I lay on the floor of my living room trying to will myself to get up and cook the side dishes that I was responsible for our potluck picnic at the Hollywood Bowl that night. Somehow I must have done so because the next thing I remember is that we were at the Bowl going to our seats with our picnic baskets.

The Hollywood Bowl (yes that Hollywood Bowl) does a summer concert series where you can bring picnic baskets (with alcohol) and there are even tickets for $1 for seats all the way back which is a great deal because they are no worse than the seats you pay $13 for. They even have shuttle services for lots of L.A. locations for folks who don’t want to drive. It’s a neat way to enjoy a night out. And cheap too!

Sunday night was the last night of the summer concerts and Willie Nelson was playing with Ryan Adams and Neko Case (!). What a great trio of performances. Friends janet and eric joined us for a picnic and fun night out. We ate some great food under the watchful eye of a neighboring concert-goer who kept swiveling around to see what we were eating. I think she got a crick in her neck from all the swiveling and staring. It was pretty funny. Our menu consisted of:

• roasted Armenian style chicken and tri-tip schwarma from Zankou Chicken
• steamed brocoli with roasted garlic cloves drizzled with some really good kalamata olive oil
• tons of hummus and pita bread also from Zankou
• a La Brea Bakery baguette which I crisped in the oven before we left and put in the cooler to keep warm
• some really good brie for the baguette
• green grapes (because it makes some people fart and we thought that was kinda funny)
• assortment of olives in brine
• Estancia Pinot Noir which didn’t taste as good drunk out of a metallic lined travel mug
• Trader Joe’s baklava and profiteroles for dessert (I also heated the chocolate sauce packets at home and stuffed them in a travel mug to keep warm)

We made a happy mess stuffing ourselves with our delicious meal (doesn’t food just taste better when eaten in open air?) and leaned back to enjoy the music.

We heard Neko Case

who was funny and told us that “y’all’s food smells good” and commented on the coolness of playing at the Hollywood Bowl, just like Bugs Bunny. Her band was good, with a really kick-ass banjo player and her songs were charming.

It-boy Ryan Adams was up next

and what a let-down that was. All his songs sounded the same with too much self-indulgent noodling and the like. He was really absorbed with his guitar riffs and seemed to be playing for himself instead of for an audience. And then a two minute monologue about eggs (I kid you not, eggs, like the kind you get scrambled in a diner) during which I think janet fell asleep.

We were glad when it was finally over and we could enjoy Willie Nelson.

His show is actually called Willie Nelson with Family and Friends as his sister, two sons and friends each did a piece of their own. That was nice. Willie was great. He was funny and played all the favorites (Crazy, You Were Always On My Mind, On The Road Again, Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys), he played a beautiful Django Reinhardt number that was perfect for a moonlit evening outdoors and a few new tunes with funny lyrics that the crowd enjoyed. It was a good time.

Yesterday I was listening to my local public radio station and guess who was their guest studio performer? Neko Case! She played a few sets of music and then I won one of the signed autographed copies of her latest cd. Yay!

apropos

Well now. I just got this update from This American Life:

This American Life Update
August 24, 2006
The “Steady Paycheck” Edition
_________________________________________________

THIS WEEKEND, 8/25-27:
Americans In Paris. Many Americans have dreamy and romantic ideas about Paris, notions which probably trace back to the 1920s, to the vision of Paris created by the expatriate Americans there. But what’s it actually like in Paris if you’re an American, without rose-colored glasses?

You know I’ll be tuned in!