Brubeck, Douthat, 46 free songs + Books and Culture giveaway

The Rathaus Christmas market in Vienna.

Truly, I did not think I could possibly find this much in the few days since I've been back from Europe, but go figure. December brings too much of almost everything. I've only had one article published since my last email, but I think it applies to holiday eats in general.

• Why a Big Stomach Belongs at Thanksgiving (not the headline I suggested, but they were going for click-throughs, OK? ;))

And coming next month, I return to the actual pages -- not just the servers -- of Books and Culture, with a review of Christian Smith's book Lost in Transition. Which brings me to my holiday giveaway.

Since the viability of publications like Books and Culture enables me as a writer to not just reach interested readers, but actually get paid for my efforts, I'm giving away a one-year subscription to Books and Culture this month -- your choice of print or online edition. (After all, as artists, we all ought to "support media," no?) To enter, write a one- or two-sentence comment below about why I should give you the subscription (be sure to include your email address in the appropriate comment field). I'll notify the winner shortly before Christmas.

:: events ::

• Tonight! New York Times columnist Ross Douthat speaks on his new book Bad Religion, 6:45-9 p.m. at Christ Church (Cedar and Walnut in Berkeley, 10 minutes' walk from the Downtown Berkeley BART station). Tickets may be scant, but purchase them here.
  
• Sunday: Open Studio at Mills College, noon to 4 p.m. I do believe Dave Young Kim may be one of those with work on display ...
  
• Monday: Join the folks at ReImagine for Filled with the Spirit(s): Towards a Healthy Relationship with Alcohol. People of faith have often had a simple relationship with alcohol: don’t drink. Yet, wine "that gladdens the heart" was praised in the Psalms and the first miracle of Jesus was turning water into wine. Many Christian communities haven't talked about the proper use of alcohol, because it was forbidden. But if we are going to be spiritual people who also enjoy spirits then we need to be thoughtful about how we drink-- inviting each other into honest self-reflection and develop best practices for alcohol consumption. Join us for an evening of lively story-telling and group discussion.

:: tunes ::

• Jazz legend and one-time Bay Area son Dave Brubeck has died -- one of probably very few such musicians whose death could become a Twitter trending topic, as it did this morning. Death is never good news of course, but the jazz lover in me thrills to see the medium touching so many tongues and ears, however briefly. Here's a small roundup of the obituaries and assessments of his career and musical impact.
  
• Ben Ratliff for the New York Times writes, "his mother believed that if you wanted to hear music you should play it." Ratliff also notes that Brubeck learned many pieces by ear, because he was cross-eyed! Lots of great background in this write-up.
• NPR's look at his life includes a number of stories and recordings, from his visit with Marian McPartland to a delightful one-hour set at the 2009 Newport Jazz Festival.
  
• Associated Press, via SFGate
• Noisetrade is giving away a 28-song holiday road trip mix featuring Guster, Young the Giant and others (note: you'll need to "like" them on Facebook to get the songs).
• And Noisetrade and Paste have teamed up on a free, 18-song holiday sampler featuring Sufjan, Leigh Nash and others.
• Paste has compiled a nice holiday gift guide for music lovers, most of which have wrapable mass. For those of you considering electronic gifts, however, say of the Andrew Bird album Break It Yourself, I'm still trying to sell my unused download code so I can buy a real CD version (emails to the record label having gone unanswered; I know you're as shocked as I am). My Christmas special price is $7.50 + mystery holiday treat, probably edible and homemade.
• Album streams:
• The Guardian's featuring an all-instrumental, jazz-age Bryan Ferry redux. I, um, didn't really know who he was until this week, but the songs make me want to find a beaded dress, some new Charleston shoes and a good cloche hat.
  
• And on the NPR website, they're streaming favorite Christmas albums, including a Sufjan doozy: all five albums of Silver and Gold.
  
• Lastly, you can now hear Ryan Adams' contribution to the soundtrack of Judd Apatow's forthcoming movie, This is 40.
  

:: reading/food for thought ::

• Even if you're not a writer, this analysis of C.S. Lewis' success with Mere Christianity provides food for thought on boundaries in work and ministry (to the extent those are distinct things!). When we feel strongly about certain issues, it can be so tempting to weigh in -- and channels like Facebook and Twitter give us increasingly public platforms for doing so, yet as Lewis' example suggests, restraint can afford long-term fruit.
  
• The New York Times profiles the woman behind the great Brain Pickings blog I've shared from in the last few months.

:: visual art ::

• Writer Tony Carnes' New York City Religion projects shares a cool video on Mako Fujimura's latest painting Golden Sea. The accompanying text reports that some of his works at the Dillon Gallery escaped damage, but I haven't yet found further substantiation of that.
• Two recommendations from the Grotto folks:
• LAST WEEK!! BARRY MCGEE AT THE BERKELEY ART MUSEUM
  "Throughout his career," writes Alex Baker in the exhibition catalog, "Barry McGee has continued to surprise and contradict expectations." Including rarely seen early etchings, letterpress printing trays and liquor bottles painted with his trademark cast of down-and-out urban characters, constellations of vibrant op-art painted panels, animatronic taggers, and an elaborate re-creation of a cacophonous street-corner bodega, along with many new projects, this first mid-career survey of the globally influential San Francisco-based artist showcases the astonishing range of McGee's compassionate and vivacious work. Through Dec. 9.
• THE THIRD WAVE AT GARDEN GATE CREATIVITY CENTER, BERKELEY
  Check out some truly amazing and novel artworks created by IPhone art applications, of all things, in the exhibition "The Third Wave," at the Garden Gate Creativity Center in Berkeley. Artists include DIY types and professional photographers, and contributors have made images from fantastic animals to painterly landscapes to provocative nudes. Garden Gate Creativity Center, 2911 Claremont Avenue, Berkeley. Through Jan. 30.

:: food ::

• Eric Felten, one of my favorite writers for the Wall St. Journal returns to his old beat, cocktails, for a piece on downsizing libations, which is right in step with my experience at two hip Chicago cocktail spots last month. And, the piece includes 11 drink recipes. Merry Christmas.
  
• While in Vienna, I discovered this easy recipe for chicken breasts, which really does take about an hour to make, start to finish.

Homemade hot sauce, 'Old Man' animation, new Bird

This will probably be my last artRecs for a few weeks -- Thursday morning I set off for roughly three full weeks of travel. I've tapered off the writing a bit, but a new piece was published on the Art House America blog since my last post:

• The Gradual Knitter

In other news, Image journal has announced the lineup for next year's Glen Workshops. Hard to believe it's already time to register again!

:: Sandy's impact ::
Though the storm hasn't yet produced any art I'm aware of, it's unfortunately taken a great deal from some artists and galleries who stored work in low-lying areas.

Some of Mako's works, seen in a basement drawer in the
Dillon gallery, October 2011

• Mako Fujimura reported via Twitter that the Dillon Gallery, which had some of his work, was under 12' of water and "there were significant amount of works destroyed, including the most recent Elm Grace." When I was there last October, I so remember going down to Dillon's basement with an assistant, who opened several drawers to show me some of the letter paintings from Mako Four Gospels project. Other Chelsea galleries also lost a lot of work, Business Week reports. The New York Times also reports on the galleries' losses: Where Creations Faced Destruction.
• On the music front, a small but respected record label housed in Redhook, Brooklyn, lost a lot of equipment and files, which weren't covered by any flood insurance (due to the landlord's refusal).

I'll keep you posted as I hear more, especially about any benefits or other efforts to help East Coast artists recover.

:: film & television ::

• Meet the Press interviews Stephen Colbert about politics, satire and his new book. Though I don't usually expect much substance from television (vs. print), the conversation about the Colbert segment goes into some interesting analysis of satirists' current role in exposing hypocrisy, especially in the political process.
• Letterman did the Late Show without an audience at least part of last week -- the night of the storm and the day after, which included a last-minute guest appearance by Andrew Bird. I still need to watch more than the Bird part of these, but I always think Dave nears his best under zany circumstances.
  
• A couple weeks back, I shared the "Gangnam Style" video with its frequently parodied horse dance, but this piece offers a different, richer take -- how it both reflects and mocks a fascination with Western culture, while sharing Koreans' sense of social connection with the West. 
• Via Brainpickings, here's a hand-drawn stop-motion animation of the The Old Man and the Sea. Pretty cool.
  

:: tunes ::

• If I gave awards for top aural delight of the last couple weeks, it might go to the Cody ChesnuTT album stream on NPR's first listen. If you don't know his name, he has a great soulful sound that's somewhere between Marvin Gaye and Cee Lo Green, but also pushes beyond them. His album came out last Tuesday, but so far they haven't pulled the album stream. My favorite track: Under the Spell of the Handout.
• Paste reviews Andrew Bird's new EP, Hands of Glory.
• Lately I've been trying to buy my CDs from the neighborhood record shop, Down Home Music, which also happens to be a real gem. I assume the staff know far more about music than I ever could, so I enjoyed a slight satisfaction the other day when I picked up an order that had come in -- Bill Fay's Life is People -- and was asked who he is. I told the guy what little I knew, which is that I've seen him mentioned by NPR Music and Christianity Today but almost nowhere else. I'm just starting to listen to the album, but so far my favorite song is the still the first one I heard, "Never Ending Happening," which NPR featured in its summer music preview. Already I get the sense this is a very rich album. Listen for yourself on the Paste site (they have a full-album stream in the video player at the article's end).
  
• Folks weren't supposed to shoot it, of course, but one attendee got footage from the recent, intimate show the Rolling Stones performed in Paris.
• Robert Cray gives NPR a tiny desk concert.
• Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward -- a.k.a., She & Him -- cover "Stars Fell on Alabama" in this video karaoke session. 
• Calexico performs "Splitter," a breakup song off their new album Algiers, which came out last month. 
• Taking inspiration, perhaps, from Bob Dylan, Cee Lo Green has a Christmas album due out this year. "All I Need is Love" features the Muppets. Really.

:: visual art ::

• Manipulated photography before Photoshop: WSJ takes a look at the show up at New York's MOMA.
• Depicting our fears as monsters: the New York Times commissioned a short series of works by visual artists. I'm not sure which was more compelling -- the concept or the execution.
• America for Beginners -- Or the Forgetful. The NYT's Lens blog looks at a new book by photographer Arthur Grace, which apparently features a lot of pictures he forgot he took. I didn't have time to see all of them, but his style reminds me of some of the early street photographers like Robert Frank.
  

:: reading/food for thought ::

• As I've probably mentioned before, I really love what little of Dave Hickey's writing I've read, especially one essay in his book Air Guitar. However, I've also retained a lot of his thesis in the shorter volume The Invisible Dragon -- and there aren't many books I read that long ago that I could still summarize. All that to say, I therefore perked up when I saw his name come through my Twitter feed ... in an announcement that he has supposedly quit the art world. The piece that followed was an interesting look at the current state of the fine art world.
  
• I'm not a huge fan of books by and about celebrities, but Dwight Garner's review of The Richard Burton Diaries is enticing.
• Purists are probably shuddering at this, but some guy figured out how to make a plastic guitar with 3D printing or something.
  

:: food ::

• I've been cutting back on cooking a tad, pre-trip, but recently I made a quarter batch of this hot sauce recipe, using regular serrano chilis. It makes about of pint of the condiment, which turns out beautifully if you roast the peppers first. This is an easy recipe for occasional cooks, too -- after roasting the peppers in the oven (split them in half, brush lightly with oil, then roast at 400 until they start to char), you basically blend them up with a few other things. I found it kept several months in the fridge.
• When I get to Chicago, I hope to visit a bar called the Aviary, which apparently makes a pretty wild hot chocolate. I plan to try Tasting Table's recipe for reproducing it once I get back, though I'll have to make my first ever purchase of tobacco.