Armed Librarian

In case anyone is wondering how to reach me, look for me on Twitter or Facebook. Name's teh same. Mercurywaxing.

Because you liked:
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
Psycho
Singin' in the Rain

We think you'll like:
The Thief of Baghdad (1924, Douglas Fairbanks)

Thanks Netflix!

I'm trying to get back to healthy, more natural eating after the holidays. The problem is that The word "Organic" doesn't always mean "healthy" or "tasty." Sometimes "organic" doesn't even mean "organic" any more. And have you seen how much "all natural" food costs? I can't afford to almost double my grocery bill. What's a shopper to do?

Become a label reader. I'm going to do my best to avoid additives and preservatives. High Fructose Corn Syrup is as out as possible. If something has the word "modified" in it, forget about it. I want to know what it's being modified for, anyway! I also want to know what Yellow #5 is (other than the greatest song title the Beatles never used). If I don't know what it is, why should I eat it?

Believe it or not there are low cost major label products that are good on all these counts. I've found three you might never expect. I won't say they are healthy, one definitely isn't, but they do follow some guidelines:

*at most one chemical preservative, listed last.
*no high fructose corn syrup. It's very very bad for you.
*as few ingredients as possible.
*nothing "refined."

Let's start with some common condiments.
MUSTARD: French's Honey Dijon Mustard is a standout. Many include high fructose corn syrup or artificial color. I suppose the natural color mustard isn't day-glow yellow enough for middle America. French's is extremely well priced, has good flavor, no preservatives, and uses a natural ingredient for color. Ingredients: Distilled Vinegar, water, Mustard Seed, Sugar, Honey, Salt, Spices, Carrot Extract for color.

SALAD DRESSING: Newman's Own Light. It's priced at the low end of the "boutique" dressings, but most of the money goes to charity. Natural preservatives (lemon juice). Uses sugar or cane sugar. Just 3% USDA daily fat. No artificial color. Ingredients: Water, distilled vinegar, sugar, soy sauce (wheat, water, soybeans, salt), ginger pulp (ginger, cane sugar), ginger puree, sesame oil, canola oil, salt, pineapple concentrate, lemon juice concentrate, dried garlic, dried onion, toasted sesame seed, xanthan gum (a natural carbohydrate created by bacteria and used as a thickening agent), caramel, spice.

Let's take a break here to point out that salad dressing and mustard have nearly identical ingredients as the first two listed. That must mean something. If you know what please tell me.

MAYO: Fat city, but hey if you gotta have your tuna or potato salad you gotta have your mayo. Kraft costs less than the grand champion of mayo Helman's and has only one preservative and very few ingredients. The downside is that it has a fairly short shelf life. Mine will only last to 5 months from now, a short life by modern shelf standards. Ingredients: Soybean Oil, water, eggs vinegar, egg yolk, lemon juice, dried onions, dried garlic, paprika, calcium disodium EDTA.

That's three common items, moderately priced, one chemical preservative between them.

If this is helpful to you, tell me.

Lupe Fiasco's "The Cool" is dangerous. Rap hasn't had lyrics this smart, political, and extreme since Public Enemy rapped about killing the governor of Arizona. For example, he raps about how video games prepare children for gang life, how Satan has control of the Oval Office and big business. Chuck D is smiling somewhere. Agree with him or disagree, it's nice to hear a rapper with a point to make.
The chorus of the video below explains the problem he faces. If you can't figure out the first verse, that's the point and the joke. He starts to make sense in the second verse. Give it a minute...




some honorable mentions:
Battles - "Mirroed"
Iron and Wine - "Shepard's Dog"

and that's it. Happy New Year

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss are an unlikely match made in heaven. On the album "Raising Sand" they both push each other into realms they rarely never been, and never been at home in. Plant quiets his howl down to a haunting whisper at points, and Krauss raises her subdued delivery to meet him somewhere in the middle. Each get their standout tracks. Krauss sings 'Sister Rosette Goes Before Us' in a haunting ethereal voice that Plant complements perfectly as a sideman when he comes in on harmony. Plant's 'Please Read the Letter' is equally commanding. When they sing together, as on the haunting opening 'Rich Woman' their voices, spare and distant, prove what an apt collaboration this it.



'D.A.N.C.E.' from the band Justice's debut album "(cross)" is the most overplayed track of the year. Some songs get overplayed for a reason. This album is the booty-shakingest dance album of the year, maybe of the past two years. It throws a lot of religious imagry out there and... aw who cares. The music is what matters, and all it wants you to do is dance. So just stand up already.



I almost didn't include this one on the list. I love the Pipettes, and in the end this barely made my favorites list. The songs are simple and catchy. It's the summer road trip album that never was. This bit is only available as a single, but it's my favorite.

The Bird and the Bee put out two very strong albums this year, but their best was "Please Clap Your Hands," a 5 song ep released in November. Their music has a very calculated feel to it, as it if was made by Hal 2000 trying to replicate the lounge sound of the 60's. The singer has a heart of faux. Usually music calculated to within an inch of it's life is a deadly processed thing devoid of life or style. Yet by processing our retro memories The Bird and the Bee have created an intriguing and loving reproduction of your parents favorite lounge album for a time where most music is processed to death, heartless, but rarely loving.

This video is straight out of David Lynch's Black Cabin...


The Flight of The Conchords. The fourth most popular folk parody band in New Zealand (the third is a Flight of the Conchords tribute band), however if you are alive and on the internet you have heard of them. Their HBO series of 12 half hour musicals is a bit of sublime silliness. The best thing is that unlike most music parodies you can listen to them more than a few times and still enjoy it. I won't go on much more. Just listen to this, and explore the other videos.

Todd is visiting and he's given me some good music tips. I won't share those with you (it's 15th c. chamber) This is a good excuse to give up my favorite albums of the year. I'll spread out the posts over the next week as I become more and more bored.

This year I'm leaning towards fun albums with a lot of story songs. The story song is almost a lost art. Clear characters and details of their life. They aren't always about love, or saying I love you, or confrontation. Just a time in the life of a person.

The first album features great songs, and very few of them are about love. In fact one is titled very frankly "I'm Leaving You Because I Don't Love You." Naturally, the woman he's telling goes into an asthma attack. Jerk, maybe. But don't you wish some of your old relationships ended honestly?

The album is "Night Falls Over Kortedala" by Jens Lekman. Much of the songs on it shouldn't work. The wordplay is too dense, the music leans towards the cute (do you need that much glockenspiel?) and even the downbeat songs are cheerful. Everything fits together perfectly. If this album had come out in the 70's it would have fit perfectly next to Harry Chapin, Warren Zevon, and Randy Newman.

We meet a man trying to explain to his beloved sister that he's homeless in "The Opposite of Hallelujah," a young person looking for fun in the Swedish countryside but again ending up spending "Friday Night at the Drive-in Bingo," a 17-year old who decides just never to talk again in "It Was a Strange Time in my Life," and a pen pal tricked into being the pretend boyfriend on a visit that ends in him sending "A Postcard to Nina."

Now, check how dense and original some of the wordplay is:

Your father puts on my record
he says: so tell me how you met her
I get embarrassed and change the subject
and put my hand on some metal object
He laughs and says that's a lie detector
he Takes out the booklet and starts reading
So i heard you're moving out next season
I say: Yeah, New York is nice that time of year
almost as green as it is here
He says: I thought you were moving to Sweden?

English is not his first language, but his rhyme meter is more complex than most native speaking lyricists. The words he finds are also oddball ones to match up. Subject and object. All this is in the service of his great stories and characters. By the time each song is done you feel like you know the characters and want to hear more about them. How is Nina?

The weak part here is the music. It's a little too "twee" at times, just a touch too cute. Violins, flute, the afore mentioned glockenspiel. A lot of what he's throwing against the wall is sticking, but when it misses you almost feel embarrassed for buying the album. Even the flower children would take your lunch money if found out you owned it.

Don't be. This is an oddball piece of minor brilliance from a fine artist who will always be just under the radar.

Other than a lot of decorations on my trip to Disney, I barely noticed. Sure a lot has been going on but I have to get with it. I have no gifts! I have no decorations! Not even a tree! I better get on this and put something up soon so...

Oh, hey! Project Runway is on!

Back from my mini vacation, and probably facing hell at work tomorrow. Between my personal and bereavement days I've been at work 2 days out of the past 7. My boss gets on my back about things like this.

I'd like to thank those of you that called wishing me well. This has been a monumental ordeal. It's nice to know who the people are that will be there for you. You are my real friends.

Up till now, most of experience with early music was the noodling of SCADians walking around with lutes and making up bawdy rhymes. Now that I'm listening to music made in the 1500's done professionaly much of it is bringing me to a complete other place. It lifts me up. I'm suddenly falling in love with 16th c. music, mostly of the sacred variety. The album "Music for Compline" by Stile Antico has been my lullaby for the past few months. Much of the work is from the English composer John Sheppard.

The Kronos Quartet introduced me to modern interpretations of John Dowland and Guillaume de Machaut. Who else should I listen too? What groups are good. I don't want a huge choral sound. I want an intimate feel.

Thanks in advance.