Bay Bridge Lights, new Hendrix/Ritter/Grohl streams

There are so many good things to read this week that I'll add very little of my own commentary, except to share the first of my promised online-dating ruminations:

• Hacking her way to a hirsute husband (review of Amy Webb's Data: A Love Story for Paste)

More to come on this topic in other publications. By the way, for those of you on Goodreads, I periodically update the list of what I've read -- especially with reactions to the detective stories no one pays me to read. ;)

Don't forget to watch for the Bay Bridge Lights launch tonight!

:: tunes ::

• For just a few days, you can hear a new Jimi Hendrix album (yes, you read that right), thanks to the good folks at NPR Music. People, Hell and Angels compiles 12 previously unreleased tracks, including the seven-minute blues jam "Let Me Move You" (a personal favorite).
  
• If that weren't enough, NPR also has a stream of Josh Ritter's new album Beast on the Tracks, which I'm sad to say is a breakup album penned in response to his divorce. Beautiful stuff, nonetheless. So far I'm liking the first few tracks as well as anything I've heard from him.
• And, yes, they've got the new Dave Grohl album, too
• Get 28 free songs! Yes, you read that right. Paste and NoiseTrade are partnering on a South by Southwest mp3 sampler featuring Ozomatli, Josh Ritter, Ivan & Alyosha, Billy Bragg, Ron Sexsmith and many more.
  
• Van Cliburn -- the Texas pianist most famous for his award-winning Tchaikovsky concerto performance -- has died. NPR reports that he was the only solo musician to ever receive a ticker-tape parade in New York
  

:: visual art ::

• Keep your eyes on the Bay Bridge tonight! A new light show is set to kick off around 8 p.m.
  
• I think these are the coolest drawings I've seen in a while. The bird image drew me in immediately (I have a thing for birds, when they're done well), but they're all fascinating images. I'd never heard of the artist before, but apparently Pat Perry is an illustrator based in Michigan -- and his prints are for sale online at very reasonable prices.
  
• This item straddles film and music, but apparently Over the Rhine's Karin Bergquist, Aimee Mann, Joe Henry, Loudon Wainwright and some other folks (mostly musicians) are involved in a forthcoming film called Pleased to Meet Me. It may well be one of those insider-ish movies that don't play well to broad audiences, but the trailer intrigued me. Besides, how many films include a theremin player?
• Paste recently highlighted several quote illustrations by a designer who's selling the images on Etsy. They feature the likes of Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo and others. My favorite's the Williams Simms quote depicted as birds flying out of a heart (sounds weird, but it's actually pretty cool).
• WSJ has more on the narrative advantages of television. This piece looks at several books being adapted for the small screen, and the writers who've jumped at the chance to explore the medium, among them Tom Stoppard, who adapted a 900-page, four-part series called Parade's End for HBO.
• Controversy erupts when a Banksy piece disappears from a wall in London and turns at a Miami art auction.
• Shoes as art and obsession: the Wall Street Journal reports on an exhibit at the Fashion Institute of Technology's museum. This made me wish I was close enough to New York to see it as before the show closes. View more of the shoes on the museum site.
  

:: reading/food for thought ::

• You might recall that, last month, I shared a New York Times piece on Afghan women who go to great lengths to write and share poetry. After I also shared it with my some of my-contributors to Her.meneutics, one of them wrote this beautiful piece on the importance of poetry. If you like Karen's writing, she also has a new memoir out called Booked.
• I pretty much binged on this ongoing relationship feature the New York Times started last fall. Called "Making It Last," it's a series of interviews with baby boomer couples who've been married more than 25 years. Aside from the human-interest factor, there's also a lot of wisdom on what it really takes to have a lasting marriage -- often few of the things singles look for in a partner.
  
• Jonathan St. Clair shared this essay on the rise of "foodism" -- a fascinating analysis of how food is supplanting the (mainly visual) arts as a source of high culture.
  
• Flavorwire thinks everyone should read these 17 essays. No pressure, but they're drawn from the likes of Joyce Carol Oates, Joan Didion, Virginia Woolf and Zadie Smith (yes, it's an all-women list).
• Not enough for your reading appetite? Fine, then Publisher's Weekly also recommends you reread these 10 classics probably discovered in high school. I, um, only read three of them in high school, but I've heard of all but one.

:: food ::

• The other night I was flipping through some old copies of Everday Food when I came across this recipe for a chicken-butternut squash soup that involves roasting most of the ingredients in the oven first. I had to add a smidge of hot sauce to get the flavor where I wanted it, but the end result was fairly easy, very tasty and nicely different spin on butternut squash-based soup.
• This one's for the kid in you: a recipe for homemade, gummy fruit snacks. 

Malick preview, new Civil Wars, a story slam + sour milk cake

Last night I stayed late at work for a focus group, which meant I didn't get home until nearly 10 o'clock. As I was unfolding my bike outside BART for the final ride home, I was surprised to realize a stranger had stopped to help me hold it stable as I hooked my two panniers on the back. I thanked her, saying something like, "I'm OK," and then realized she was still standing there, holding the handle bars. So then I asked her how her day was, and we chatted briefly before going our separate ways.

When I still walked to BART from work in the days before my bike, I sometimes stopped in for a latte at Caffe Trieste. One day, an elderly man who proved to be a jazz musician, struck up conversation with me, and I stayed to drink my latte at his table. It was gloriously mundane, our talk, yet also a kind of ideal version of what can unfold from "how was your day?" I must have confessed to avoiding some tedious task at work, for we eventually wound up discussing procrastination and the merits of just diving into something you don't feel like doing. One time I stopped by the day or week of my birthday, and B.J. insisted I take $5 to buy myself a drink. When he wouldn't take the change, I kept it and used the rest to buy some yarn and notecards at a thrift store. He later died from some kind of cancer, but I'll always remember our short, but unhurried conversations.

In some ways, both they and last night's exchange are like stones you could store inside yourself and still draw warmth from anytime you happened to draw out the memories and gently tumble them against your fingers.

For good or bad, many creative outputs are probably far less enduring than such gemlike moments, but I'm a bit hopeful my latest two pieces for Her.meneutics (a two-part series on singleness) hold up better than usual.

• Part 1: Stop Telling Christian Singles What They Can't Do
• Part 2: God Didn't Make Our Bodies Only for Sex

:: events ::

• March 2: local band Thao and the Get Down Stay Down (recently featured on NPR's First Listen) play Great American Music Hall, with opening bands that include Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside. I found Thao's new album a mixed bag, prompting equally strong like and dislike by turns, but I really enjoyed hearing Sallie & co. when they opened for Wanda Jackson last year.
• March 9: The Relatives play Bimbo's. The just got a very nice write-up in the New York Times, which situates their resurgence in a broader trend of "young crate-digging producers" resuscitating the careers of long-forgotten bands.
  
• March 11: The Moth story slam, which I believe is the first such event in SF (Moth slams take place in other cities, too). Theme: secrets (you have to prepare a 5-minute story to deliver, including a conflict and resolution). 
• March 20: Josh Ritter plays the Fox, and you could win tickets for two by entering Book Passage's short-story contest. Stories must involve a musical theme or concern music and cannot exceed 2,500 words. How to enter.
  Also that night: Ivan and Alyosha's show in the Mission, which I hope to catch (see below).
• April 11-13: Dark Star Orchestra residency at Great American Music Hall.
• May 12: Buddy Miller plays Great American Music Hall; tickets on sale Feb. 24.

:: visual art ::

• Get a look behind the scenes at Terence Malick's new film To the Wonder (due out in April) with three short video features released this week as part of the film's UK debut.
• While this may be one of those things you forget by next week, I feel sort of obliged to share this timelapse drawing depicting the history of music.

:: reading/food for thought ::

• My friend Susan Isaacs wrote a piece for Donald Miller's Storyline blog this week that I really liked. Titled "What's that big thing God wants you to do," it's a reflection on inspiration and calling that packs in a lot more wisdom and nuance than one could get in many similar pieces. Pieces like this could so easily be a bit fluffy and superficial, but I really thought she packed a lot in.
• I found this a thought-provoking take on "platform" and its construction, from an editor at Intervarsity Press. In it he wrestles with the new book Platform from publisher Michael Hyatt -- which basically talks about current expectations and methods for marketing yourself and your work. I appreciate some of the questions Zimmerman asks. Part two of Zimmerman's series.
• When does talent shield you from breaking the rules? This reflection on the recent suicide of programmer Aaron Schwartz is a thoughtful meditation on risk-taking, ethics and the way perspective changes over time.
• From the Paris Review archive: 1967 interview with John Cheever. I'd never heard of him until I confessed disappointment with the stories of John Updike to Dana Gioia a few years back. I love Updike's prose (which it's almost criminal to read silently), but the narratives left me cold. Dana recommended I read some Cheever. I have lots of short stories left to read, but Cheever's certainly proven more memorable than Updike. Some favorites so far: "The Enormous Radio," "The Day the Pig Fell into the Well" and "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill." If I read any more Cheever on those evenings when the sun sets well after my return home from work, it will be a good summer.
• Coffee-lid design probably doesn't consume your thoughts unless one works badly, but the Wall Street Journal had interesting article on one design that highlights the beverage's smell better than many lids. and other inventions on display at the Crunchies Awards.
• Musical ability has been linked to cognitive improvement in other areas, such as reading (note that this speaks more of musical training than talent, per se, implying that music lessons pay off even if you're not that good).

:: tunes ::

• Several months back when NPR did one of their seasonal music previews, a song called "Be Your Man" wooed my ears with its joyful, multi-part harmonies and driving rhythm. The song was from a band called Ivan & Alyosha, which apparently had no full-length album out at the time. Now they do, and NPR Music brings the whole thing to First Listen. My ears are very, very happy.
• New Civil Wars music: Despite cancelling their tour a few months back, the duo is still working together, Paste reports, and collaborated with T. Bone Burnett on the soundtrack to a food-related documentary called A Place at the Table, due out later this month.
  
• NPR has a nice assessment of trumpeter Donald Byrd's career, that looks at his commitment to education -- particularly ensuring the presence of black voices in music departments that were often mostly white and focused on European music. One of his breakout hits from the 70s was the album Black Byrd. Hear the title track.

:: food ::

• I can't remember if I've shared this here before, but do you ever have your milk go bad before you've drunk it all? If you're inclined to toss it out, why not make cake instead? I've served this simple sour-milk spice cake at several events, and it's always a hit. (Note the tip on making sour milk if you don't have any on hand.)