Head crammers
Jam these babies into your brain before pop culture passes you by
DVD: Great World of Sound
This 2007 gem never found its way to San Diego, and it’s too bad, because it’s a sharp, challenging film that plays like American Idol for American Idol haters. Pat Healy is Martin, a quiet dude who finds his dream job scouting talent for a small record label, Great World of Sound. Before he knows it, he and his sales partner, Clarence (Kene Holliday of Matlock fame), are touring hotel rooms and auditioning acts and asking them to contribute toward getting their music recorded. But the label is a boiler room set up to fleece those who sign on the dotted line, and Martin has to work out whether taking care of himself means taking care of the hopefuls in front of him.
—Anders Wright
BOOK: Goodbye Lemon
Unless you’re one of those, um, people with an expensive car, sparkling white teeth and a perfect tan, you’ll truly feel for the antihero in Adam Davies’ Goodbye Lemon. The poor, balding adjunct professor (who drives a crappy car, by the way) had a rough childhood, and Davies’ pen takes you through his forced return to it via darkly poetic gems like this one: The grounds resuscitate my hatred. It is all the same, a time capsule of landscaped anguish.
—Kinsee Morlan
PODCAST: “Show Me Your Titles”
“Show Me Your Titles” (showme yourtitles.blogspot.com) is much more than two girlfriends gabbing about movies, because UCSD grad student and filmmaker Cathy de la Cruz and “Steady Diet of Film” proprietor Erin Donovan both know film, and they aren’t afraid to tell you what they really think. There’s a feminist bent to their beat, but SMYT isn’t dry or academic—it’s more like two cool people kicking it in a bar or a coffeehouse, having an interesting conversation you wish you could chime in on. Each podcast covers three movies tied together with a particular theme. Recent installments include “I Was Born Here and Now I’m a Tourist,” “Dysfunctional Families,” and “The Pregnancy EP,” which had the hosts talking about the recent string of pregnancy movies, Knocked Up, Waitress and Stephanie Daley.
—Anders Wright
BOOK: The New Kings of Nonfiction
This collection of new-journalism essays—painstakingly detailed pieces that involve the writers themselves and often end up changing their lives—are Ira Glass-approved. Since CityBeat approves of almost every story aired on Glass’s This American Life public-radio show, it’s no surprise that we approve of ’em, too. We lapped up every word of the book with thirsty pit bull-like fervor.
—Kinsee Morlan
WEBSITE: Newsmeat.com
Answer: Alex Trebek. Question: What game show host has given conservative senator Chuck Hagel $3,000 in donations? Really, campaign financing has never been so much fun. Newsmeat offers fascinating lists of recipients to whom celebrities, musicians, sports stars, execs, politicos and billionaires have donated money, and how much, and also allows you to easily search for any donations your friends, neighbors or enemies might have made. Sure, it’s all public information, but there’s something nastily voyeuristic about actually looking at everyone’s individual FEC filings. Just how much did Judy Blume give to Obama? How much did Adam Sandler pony up for Giuliani? Jerry Seinfeld’s wife has donated almost three times as much money as her husband, and Jerry Springer has given the Dems more than $170,000 throughout the years. Steven King’s a donkey, Dean Koontz an elephant, Tom Hanks has given cash to both Obama and Clinton, and for all you Macultists out there, Steve Jobs is decidedly a blue-state guy.
—Anders Wright
DVD: El Topo
If you’ve been attending midnight screenings at the Ken as if they were the greatest things since skin-tight jeans and Wayfarers, your new hipster history project is to find out how this late-night-movie business started in the first place. Out of print for far too long, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s surreal pseudo-Western epic El Topo (1970) is generally acknowledged as the first “midnight movie.” John Lennon and Yoko Ono presented its New York premiere in December 1970, and the film continued to screen nightly at NYC’s Elgin Theatre, drawing increasingly devoted crowds and becoming a subculture phenomenon before it practically disappeared in the ’80s and ’90s. Prior to its reissue, the only copies of El Topo you could hope to find were crusty old VHS bootlegs, usually with bad tracking and no cover art. But now it’s finally available on DVD as part of an ultra-cool box set including Jodorosky’s full-lengths Fando y Lis (1968) and The Holy Mountain (1973), the short film La Cravate (1957) and the soundtracks to Topo and Mountain. These are as bizarre as movies get, and Jodorowsky’s LSD-inspired imagery (particularly in The Holy Mountain) will both inspire and haunt your dreams. Here’s some advice—watch the three full-lengths in a row and have yourself one hell of a long, weird night.
—Todd Kroviak
BOOK: Brooklyn Was Mine
A decade or so ago, Brooklyn was the borough with enough grime to awaken the cynical, semi-disgusted observer at the core of every good writer. These days, it’s cleaned up, gentrified and priced out of reach for the artists and writers who used flock there; hence the title of Brooklyn Was Mine. A stand out in the collection is Alexandra Styron’s eerily intimate portrait of her father, novelist William Styron—a story that she wraps around the hell that was finding a decent Brooklyn apartment. Why should San Diegans care about the goings-on of another coast? Because the writing is that good.
—Kinsee Morlan
WEBSITE: Paperthinwalls.com
You’re a music fan. And you’re broke. Well, buddy, you and I are like two peas in a pod. Luckily, new(ish) website Paperthinwalls.com allows visitors to sample handpicked tracks before you decide to drop cash on ’em. The site combines the best aspects of Pitchfork, MySpace and Limewire, so unbookmark those tired old sites and start anew(ish).
—Todd Kroviak
BOOK: In Defense of Food
Once you get past the preachy part at the beginning of Michael Pollan’s new book, his chat-over-coffee style will breezily carry you along as he takes a carving knife to the scientific and marketing machinery that supports contemporary eating philosophy. Didn’t know we had an eating philosophy? We do—Pollan calls it nutritionism—and it defines the way we’ve been sold food for the last 75 years. The idea is that if we eat enough nutrients, we’ll be healthy, regardless of what food the nutrients come from. Too bad it hasn’t worked. Even as we’ve obsessed about healthy eating, we’ve become fatter, diabetic and cavity-ridden. Pollan’s dissection of nutritionism makes him a worthy heir to Upton Sinclair, but try to ignore some of his more ridiculous advice—at one point he suggests we buy whole hogs and freeze them. Go to a farmers market instead.
This 2007 gem never found its way to San Diego, and it’s too bad, because it’s a sharp, challenging film that plays like American Idol for American Idol haters. Pat Healy is Martin, a quiet dude who finds his dream job scouting talent for a small record label, Great World of Sound. Before he knows it, he and his sales partner, Clarence (Kene Holliday of Matlock fame), are touring hotel rooms and auditioning acts and asking them to contribute toward getting their music recorded. But the label is a boiler room set up to fleece those who sign on the dotted line, and Martin has to work out whether taking care of himself means taking care of the hopefuls in front of him.
—Anders Wright
BOOK: Goodbye Lemon
Unless you’re one of those, um, people with an expensive car, sparkling white teeth and a perfect tan, you’ll truly feel for the antihero in Adam Davies’ Goodbye Lemon. The poor, balding adjunct professor (who drives a crappy car, by the way) had a rough childhood, and Davies’ pen takes you through his forced return to it via darkly poetic gems like this one: The grounds resuscitate my hatred. It is all the same, a time capsule of landscaped anguish.
—Kinsee Morlan
PODCAST: “Show Me Your Titles”
“Show Me Your Titles” (showme yourtitles.blogspot.com) is much more than two girlfriends gabbing about movies, because UCSD grad student and filmmaker Cathy de la Cruz and “Steady Diet of Film” proprietor Erin Donovan both know film, and they aren’t afraid to tell you what they really think. There’s a feminist bent to their beat, but SMYT isn’t dry or academic—it’s more like two cool people kicking it in a bar or a coffeehouse, having an interesting conversation you wish you could chime in on. Each podcast covers three movies tied together with a particular theme. Recent installments include “I Was Born Here and Now I’m a Tourist,” “Dysfunctional Families,” and “The Pregnancy EP,” which had the hosts talking about the recent string of pregnancy movies, Knocked Up, Waitress and Stephanie Daley.
—Anders Wright
BOOK: The New Kings of Nonfiction
This collection of new-journalism essays—painstakingly detailed pieces that involve the writers themselves and often end up changing their lives—are Ira Glass-approved. Since CityBeat approves of almost every story aired on Glass’s This American Life public-radio show, it’s no surprise that we approve of ’em, too. We lapped up every word of the book with thirsty pit bull-like fervor.
—Kinsee Morlan
WEBSITE: Newsmeat.com
Answer: Alex Trebek. Question: What game show host has given conservative senator Chuck Hagel $3,000 in donations? Really, campaign financing has never been so much fun. Newsmeat offers fascinating lists of recipients to whom celebrities, musicians, sports stars, execs, politicos and billionaires have donated money, and how much, and also allows you to easily search for any donations your friends, neighbors or enemies might have made. Sure, it’s all public information, but there’s something nastily voyeuristic about actually looking at everyone’s individual FEC filings. Just how much did Judy Blume give to Obama? How much did Adam Sandler pony up for Giuliani? Jerry Seinfeld’s wife has donated almost three times as much money as her husband, and Jerry Springer has given the Dems more than $170,000 throughout the years. Steven King’s a donkey, Dean Koontz an elephant, Tom Hanks has given cash to both Obama and Clinton, and for all you Macultists out there, Steve Jobs is decidedly a blue-state guy.
—Anders Wright
DVD: El Topo
If you’ve been attending midnight screenings at the Ken as if they were the greatest things since skin-tight jeans and Wayfarers, your new hipster history project is to find out how this late-night-movie business started in the first place. Out of print for far too long, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s surreal pseudo-Western epic El Topo (1970) is generally acknowledged as the first “midnight movie.” John Lennon and Yoko Ono presented its New York premiere in December 1970, and the film continued to screen nightly at NYC’s Elgin Theatre, drawing increasingly devoted crowds and becoming a subculture phenomenon before it practically disappeared in the ’80s and ’90s. Prior to its reissue, the only copies of El Topo you could hope to find were crusty old VHS bootlegs, usually with bad tracking and no cover art. But now it’s finally available on DVD as part of an ultra-cool box set including Jodorosky’s full-lengths Fando y Lis (1968) and The Holy Mountain (1973), the short film La Cravate (1957) and the soundtracks to Topo and Mountain. These are as bizarre as movies get, and Jodorowsky’s LSD-inspired imagery (particularly in The Holy Mountain) will both inspire and haunt your dreams. Here’s some advice—watch the three full-lengths in a row and have yourself one hell of a long, weird night.
—Todd Kroviak
BOOK: Brooklyn Was Mine
A decade or so ago, Brooklyn was the borough with enough grime to awaken the cynical, semi-disgusted observer at the core of every good writer. These days, it’s cleaned up, gentrified and priced out of reach for the artists and writers who used flock there; hence the title of Brooklyn Was Mine. A stand out in the collection is Alexandra Styron’s eerily intimate portrait of her father, novelist William Styron—a story that she wraps around the hell that was finding a decent Brooklyn apartment. Why should San Diegans care about the goings-on of another coast? Because the writing is that good.
—Kinsee Morlan
WEBSITE: Paperthinwalls.com
You’re a music fan. And you’re broke. Well, buddy, you and I are like two peas in a pod. Luckily, new(ish) website Paperthinwalls.com allows visitors to sample handpicked tracks before you decide to drop cash on ’em. The site combines the best aspects of Pitchfork, MySpace and Limewire, so unbookmark those tired old sites and start anew(ish).
—Todd Kroviak
BOOK: In Defense of Food
Once you get past the preachy part at the beginning of Michael Pollan’s new book, his chat-over-coffee style will breezily carry you along as he takes a carving knife to the scientific and marketing machinery that supports contemporary eating philosophy. Didn’t know we had an eating philosophy? We do—Pollan calls it nutritionism—and it defines the way we’ve been sold food for the last 75 years. The idea is that if we eat enough nutrients, we’ll be healthy, regardless of what food the nutrients come from. Too bad it hasn’t worked. Even as we’ve obsessed about healthy eating, we’ve become fatter, diabetic and cavity-ridden. Pollan’s dissection of nutritionism makes him a worthy heir to Upton Sinclair, but try to ignore some of his more ridiculous advice—at one point he suggests we buy whole hogs and freeze them. Go to a farmers market instead.
Published: 01/29/2008
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I think the podcast link for Show Me Your Titles is actually:
http://showmeyourtitles.blogspot.com