Friday’s Cultural Pickings
May 3, 2013 § Leave a Comment
Image Source: NPR Music
It’s Friday. It’s sunny. It’s relatively warm. Time to lighten things up a bit. To that end, here are 5 items from this week’s cultural onslaught to help you while away the weekend. Enjoy.
1. Andy Kulakov’s cover of Coldplay’s “The Scientist“. One seriously talented dude.
2. The Target ad “Acceptance” created by Deutsch, Inc. Originally released in 2012, it is airing once again. I dare you not to tear up.
3. Vulture.com announced that the music from Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby has been released. You can listen to a stream of the songs on NPR. Because … Florence + The Machine, 100$ Bill – Jay Z, Bryan Ferry, Beyonce & Andre 3000, and more. The soundtrack is available in the usual places (iTunes and Amazon) on May 7th. Next up, the movie on May 10th.
4. Steven Soderbergh – A double punch. First, The San Francisco Film Society released the video and transcript of retired filmmaker Steven Soderbergh’s speech on the State of Cinema presented at the San Francisco International Film Festival. As you an imagine, he is not optimistic. One brilliant passage quoted in The New York Times reads:
Cinema is a specificity of vision,” he said. “It’s an approach in which everything matters. It’s the polar opposite of generic or arbitrary and the result is as unique as a signature or a fingerprint. It isn’t made by a committee, and it isn’t made by a company, and it isn’t made by the audience. It means that if this filmmaker didn’t do it, it either wouldn’t exist at all, or it wouldn’t exist in anything like this form.
Second, earlier this week, Mr. Soderbergh began publishing a suspense novella titled “Glue,” tweet-by-tweet, @Bitchuation. At last look, he was up to the conclusion of Chapter 11, all 140 characters and the occasional twitpic. Epic.
5. Sophia Grace and Rosie perform “Thrift Shop” on Ellen. Just because.
Where Chefs Eat: A Guide to Chefs’ Favorite Restaurants
April 16, 2013 § Leave a Comment
If you’ve read this blog before, you’re likely already aware that I love to eat, and my friends love to eat, as does my family. So when, not long ago, it came time to purchase a birthday gift for one of my foodie friends, you’ll understand when I say that I experienced kismet. Wandering through McNally Jackson bookstore here in New York, as I am wont to do on random weekends, I stumbled upon the perfect present, a recently published tome titled Where Chefs Eat: A Guide to Chefs’ Favorite Restaurants.
According to publisher Phaidron, it is:
The ultimate restaurant guide chosen by the real experts: more than 400 of the world’s best chefs from Heston Blumenthal to René Redzepi and David Chang.
From bargain noodle joints to high-end restaurants; late-night haunts to all-day breakfasts; neighbourhood eateries to destination restaurants, Where Chefs Eat has more than 2,000 personal recommendations for where to eat around the globe.
Said friend loved it. As luck would have it, he had a trip planned to Northern Italy just a few weeks later. He perused the guide and decided on a side trip to Modena to visit Osteria Francescana, a tiny restaurant with only 11 tables, serving three different tasting menus (enough to satisfy the pickiest and hungriest eater), where food becomes art at the hands of chef Massimo Bottura. The osteria has earned three Michelin stars, was included in Food and Wine Magazine’s list of “100 Restaurants Worth a Pilgrimage” (May 2013 issue) and was just listed in the No. 3 spot of The World’s Top 50 Restaurants (according to the U.K.’s Restaurant Magazine).
I received his email after the meal, and I quote, “I can’t move.” I loved that.
Molto bene!
“The Imperfectionists” – Pretty Close to Perfect
January 21, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Image: RandomHouse.com
If you missed Tom Rachman’s The Imperfectionists when it was originally published in 2010, you’re in luck. It’s just been released in paperback. Well-received when it debuted, the novel made several best-of-the-year lists. There’s good reason for this.
Recently, I caught Mr. Rachman on the first night of his North American book tour. Held at Brooklyn’s Book Court, a more accessible and intimate space than I’m used to when attending readings in Manhattan, the author read from his novel and participated in thoughtful Q&A session. Intelligent and forthcoming, he charmed the audience with his self-deprecating wit. Humble but confident, humorous but at the same time quite serious, I found him to be somewhat like the novel itself.
If you’re not familiar with the book, it is composed of a series of short stories centered around an American-owned, English-language newspaper based in Rome. Each story is told from the point-of-view of a different newspaper staffer (with the exception of one story which is told in the voice of an avid newspaper reader – according to the author, the only one based on true-life events and, not surprisingly, the most outrageous). But you don’t have to be a news lover or have an interest in the art of reportage to appreciate the the stories and how Mr. Rachman has chosen to tell them. During the Q&A, we learned that the individual stories came first (more were written than were included in the final version) and the unifying theme later. And while it tackles the decline of the newspapers and the printed word, much of the focus is on the messy, complicated lives of the staff away from the paper. Only when you reach the end, do you experience the full impact of the individual narratives and, not incidentally, do you appreciate the brilliance of the novel’s structure.
So, make the trip to your local bookstore or click your mouse, set aside the weekend, and be prepared to be transported to another time and place (and, yes, to laugh and cry). Mr. Rachman’s grasp of human nature, and his ability to translate that into the written word, make this one not to miss.
Read well.
