Monthly Archives: December 2011

Dec 09 2011
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Endorsements, Literature, Movies

Unsolicited Endorsements: VI

Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.

Movie: “White Christmas”

Before you go any further… yes, I know, it’s pretty early for Christmas movies. But it’s not that early. It’s Dec. 9, and that means you only have 16 more days to watch Chevy Chase and Macauley Culkin and Billy Bob. And, mostly, you need to watch this one. I will confess: This pick, as most of mine tend to be, is definitely a nostalgic choice. My family would watch White Christmas every December.  Continue reading →

Dec 09 2011
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Culture, Music

Konichiwa, Bitches

This weekend, Robyn is the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, Saturday FREAKING Night Live. At Rockefeller Center. On national TV. As part of one of the most famous shows in American history. In terms of excitement level, for me, this pretty much equates finding a $20 bill on the ground with no one else around and then discovering that a Champion replica Bryant “Big Country” Reeves Grizzlies jersey is available for $20 on EBay, so yeah, VERY high excitement levels. Continue reading →

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Dec 07 2011
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Culture, Essay, Nostalgia

The story of Peter Berg

That afternoon, as the sun began to descend over the colorful mélange of San Francisco hills, we took our seats in the garden, a backyard with strange looking flora, life surrounding everything.

Our hosts looked at us with a hint of friendly suspicion. How could you blame them?  We were intruders, strangers, locusts looking for answers.

But… we did sit quietly. Mostly because we didn’t know what to say.

We had traveled thousands of miles, thrown into a journey that was one-part contest, one-part investigation, and one-part discovery.

And now we were here, sitting in the backyard of an old, white-haired man named Peter Berg, trying in vein to explain ourselves.

At last, the old man spoke:

“I wanna know two things,” he said, “One is why Peter Coyote? And why me?”

 

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Dec 05 2011
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Music

#MusicMonday: VI

Every Monday morning. Music so good… it must be shared.

This week: “Heart to Hang Onto” — Pete Townshend and Eddie Vedder, live on David Letterman

It took me a few months, but I finally saw “Pearl Jam Twenty”, the Cameron Crowe project about the band’s first 20 years. Plenty of great stuff — some of the unseen footage from the early 90s might have been the most compelling part — but there was also a great moment where Eddie Vedder is talking about the first time he met Pete Townshend.

Vedder, he recalls, was paralyzed. This is Pete Townshend. His hero. What do you say? And then, (and I’m paraphrasing here) Townshend spoke.

“I’ve waited so long to meet you,” he said.

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Dec 02 2011
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Endorsements, Food, Music

Unsolicited Endorsements: V

Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.

Album: “Nothing is Wrong” — Dawes

Ever since the first time I heard the first few riffy bars of “If I Wanted Someone”, I’ve tried to place Dawes in a certain time and place. By most contemporary definitions, they are not purely indie rock — at least, if we determine that a band can be classified as indie if a music director at a college rock station would want to put their album into rotation. And they don’t quite fit in with the stringy acts that have proliferated today’s alt-country scene — the Avett Brothers, Mumford & Sons, the Devil Makes Three — or even the kings of the indie/alt-country world, Wilco. Continue reading →

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Dec 02 2011
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Essay

December

Here comes another month. Holidays and Christmas trees and drives down Ward Parkway with the fountains iced over. Kansas City becomes a different kind of city in December. Darkness comes early. And the people in this town focus on the good parts, forgetting about the long winter ahead.

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Dec 01 2011
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Essay, Travel

The Sound of Nothing

Nothing has a sound, and it’s predictably difficult to describe.

It comes in the moment when your own breath sounds like whipping wind. It comes when your shoe’s rubber-on-grass pad is audible from six feet up. It comes when the sky is clear and dark and the air is cold and crisp.

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