Franz Ferdinand’s (the Scottish band’s) lead singer/guitarist, Alex Kapranos, has apparently been writing a regular food column for The Guardian about dining while on tour. He’s written enough of these articles that they’ve been compiled in a new book called Sound Bites. The only reason that I know anything about any of this is because Mrs. Cayenne came home and said, “hey, did you hear that Franz Ferdinand guy on NPR?” (Listen here.) Dave Itzkoff, writing in the New York Times, says:
Why Kapranos continues to waste his time performing for crowds of ecstatic, devoted, nubile fans when he’s already found his true calling is anyone’s guess.
In other belated news, you can read an excerpt of the new Ian McEwan book, On Chesil Beach, compliments of The New Yorker.
Finally: if you haven’t finalized your list of New Year’s resolutions, consider this one. Ragdoll at My Tragic Right Hip is going to read 52 books from 52 different countries this year. She already has two in the bag. Well, she is bionic after all. Go, Ragdoll, go.
Over the weekend the New York Times Book Review ran a review of Neal Pollack’s Alternadad. I’ve commented on the upcoming book in the past. Pollack has become the poster-child for the new hipster parenting among the Grups. His kid is about a year older than mine, so I tune into his blog as a preview for what lies ahead. Plus, he’s hilarious. I’m reluctant to call myself a hipster, but I can relate to a lot of Pollock’s writing. If you’ve ever wanted to go to see a band play and couldn’t get a babysitter because she has tickets to the same show – you’re the demographic Alternadad is trying to reach. Music and Grup parents seem to go hand in hand. One of Pollack’s favorite parenting accomplishments has been turning his kid into a Johnny Cash fan. He is not looking forward to telling his son that the Man In Black is dead.
In other Grup music news, The NYT has an article today about Laurie Berkner and Jack’s Big Music Show. Jack’s Big Music Show is one of my favorite shows (and my daughter’s). The music is great and it’s funny (often at the same time, see the Schwartzman Quartet). Jon Stewart is set to make an appearance in February. This show is aimed very squarely at Grups everywhere. It’s on Noggin. Set your TiVo accordingly.
Just before Christmas, we brought our daughter to see her first real concert – kids’ favorite (and Grammy nominee) Dan Zanes at Georgia Tech. Halfway through the show, it hit me…I’d seen Dan Zanes in concert before. He was the singer/guitarist for the 80′s “college radio” band, The DelFuegos. Holy… Life is a circle. Anyway, the songs and musicianship were great. A highlight was Father Goose who is a Jamaican dub MC (“real” name is Ranking something or other). Good times.
The blog A Girl Grows in Brooklyn says grow up already, it’s not about being cool. And she’s right. And wrong. Yes, putting a Sex Pistols t-shirt on your kid is about you, but is it really “so wrong?” Maybe. A Sex Pistols t-shirt screams poseur. A Clash t-shirt on the other hand… Maintaining some arbitrary patina of cool is definitely loser-ish whether you have a kid or not. We can all agree on that. However, I think it is important to pass along genuine cultural and pop-culture touchstones to our kids. My own life would have been poorer if my parents hadn’t “insisted” on playing Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Neil Diamond, Sly and the Family Stones, etc. on long family road trips.
I also saw Casino Royale and thoroughly enjoyed it. Since the book is one of the 1001 Books you must read before you die, I thought it might be interesting to actually read a book by Ian Fleming. Let’s just say that this is one case where the movie is WAY better than the book (and smokin’ Daniel Craig is only part of the reason). In summary, the most redeeming line in the whole book is the recipe for the infamous Bond martini:
Three measures of Gordons, one of Vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice cold, then add a thin slice of lemon peel.
The rest of the book read like a cross between a Harlequin romance and a bad Agatha Christie novel. This was Fleming’s first novel so maybe he got better with Bond adventures 2-13 but in this book, his writing was sophomoric and ridiculous. For the first 3/4 of the book, Bond is somewhat contempuous of the partner he was assigned, the beautiful Vespa. Then all of the sudden within a span of 2 pages towards the end of the book, he falls in love with her and decides to marry her. There is no build-up of the romance nor is there any reasoning behind why he wants to marry Vespa. It seemed that Fleming just needed to throw in a reason for why Bond became such a cruel, heartless 007 agent. The book differs significantly from the movie in that it ends while Bond is still in convalescence from his excruciating torture (which is even more vividly described in the book) and does not cover the last half of the movie set in Venice.
There is no need for any further remarks on this book – just go see the movie for an entertaining night out on the town.
Wednesday evening I went to see Casino Royale, which was totally awesome – if you like that kind of thing. One of the previews was for a movie called God Grew Tired of Us, which is about the Lost Boys of the Sudan. With a little planning, Dave Eggers could have marketed his book as a movie tie-in.
With Bond still fresh on the brain, I came across a post on the Penguin Books Blog about the book release party for a new Young Bond title, Double or Die. I didn’t even know there was a Young Bond series. Man, do I wish they had these when I was 12.
In case you missed them (you did), The Onion’s AV Club has a rundown of the least essential albums of 2006. My buddy Shaft has only bought three of these, but they helped him get his volume discount.
The Wall Street Journal has a list of the top sports writing for 2006 with links to all of the articles.
I only read half the books that DJ Cayenne did in 2006 so am only posting my Top 5 books rather than my top 10. Not that I need another reason why this blog is cool, but it has a very useful function as my “book tracker.” When I went back through the blog, there were many books that I had forgotten that I had even read (these obviously didn’t make my Top 5). And I realized that I didn’t post about 50% of the books that I read so I will add that to my New Year’s resolutions. With my myriad of resolutions – I’ll have to fit it in somewhere between the “self-help” category and the “expand my interests” category.
So here’s the list and an important note: I also read Special Topics in Calamity Physics and even though it made DJ’s and the NYTimes Top 10 list of the year – there was too much that annoyed me about the book that it was dropped from my list.
The World to Come by Dara Horn
Drop City by T.C. Boyle
Sweet and Low: a Family Story by Rich Cohen
My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme
Night by Elie Weisel
At my MARTA station, you’ll find a poster for the new, sure-to-be-awesome movie, Code Name: The Cleaners. On one side of the poster is this:
Poor Lucy Liu! Why the quotes? (the full poster looks like this).
Later that same day, a float went by in the Peach Bowl Parade with this huge poster on the side.
It was quite the experice. Don’t forget, we are the third most literate city (tied) in the U.S.
I was off from work yesterday for the National Day of Mourning for Jerry Ford, so today is my first day back in the office. Does anyone remember the Simpson’s episode where Ford ended up living across the street from the Simpson’s? Jerry invited Homer over for football and nachos. No? Somehow I missed the Saddam execution porn all over the news networks. I’m surprised that Fox didn’t make it part of a bowl game halftime show. (Christopher Hitchens has an appropriate response over at Slate). Can we resolve in 2007 to get over the capital punishment already? It’s the 21st century for crying out loud. Can’t we put people like Saddam in cool plexi-glass prisons like Magneto’s from the X-Men movies and call it a day? Hey, where’d this soap box come from? Anyway…
While waiting for my Starbuck’s venti morning roast to work its magic so that I can get going on ’07, I thought I’d share some linky goodness.
Ehhhhh, ok. I’m back to work.
Books | Tim | 
January 9, 2007 7:01 am | 
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