last post of the night

I need to go to sleep. I am exhausted, but I am worried about my daddy. going to see him ASAP. all I have to do first is 1) finish my interviews, 2) send in money for the speeding ticket I got the last time I drove through mississippi, 3) take my car to the dealership for a check-up, and 4) gas up and split town. thanks everybody for being so sweet this week...

street songs and more

new issue of wax poetics available now. check the website for downloads and more cool stuff.

blast off

on npr today, the fabulous kitchen sisters visit the hidden kitchen at nasa for this story about space food.

2007 hurricane season

let's hope it's a quiet one... interesting piece in thursday's new york times, right here, about the folks who can afford to buying second homes for evacuation. cajun country and hattiesburg, mississippi are both looking good. seven days into the season, and so far - for the gulf coast, at least - all is well. this forecast, found via a google search, is kinda scary.

I like the monkey's logo best

a swastika for the new world order

no wonder the rest of the world hates the UK and the USA... but does it really cause epilepsy?

when oprah met cormac: "he's no salinger," troy patterson reports

slate's troy patterson weighs in on the not-so-apocalyptic with a play-by-play here. mccarthy, patterson opines, "resembled j. peterman's idea of a wise ol' ranch hand: bright blue work shirt, handsome chinos, and boots that I don't think I can afford."

per his description, "cormac crinkled and twinkled - avuncular, patient, not entirely unsassy. he spilled forth the twang and soft grit of his voice in a seducer's hush you wanted to lean into."

oprah, not to be upstaged, slips into a "pretentious jessye norman intonation," wearing "a sky-blue v-neck and lipstick of a fuchsia shade perhaps deliberately de trop."

spill your scrabble tiles back into the box, my friends - with all these SAT vocabulary words, tp's gotta be the big winner tonight.

crestwood high school, class of '87

today, I had to fill out a form for my high school reunion - I'm going with my best friend lynn. we had our own reunion easter weekend, when we got together at my folks' place down in gulf shores, alabama. anyways, I had to answer two questions and send in a check for $75 (who knows how much I'm gonna spend on clothes and a complete, panic-driven make over before the reunion itself rolls around a month from now). the questionaire was tough - it's hard to write an answer that's not alternately too humble or braggadocious, and one that still manages to sum up the last 20 years of life. I left out the thousands of beers I've drunk, the heartbreak, and years of banging my head against the wall, and somehow came up with this:

Q: what have you been doing since high school?
A: I didn't get to graduate from crestwood, because my family moved (dragging me, kicking and screaming, the whole way) to memphis, yennessee in october 1985. suprisingly, I never left elvis' hometown. after graduation, I dropped out of college after a few weeks, working at various record stores and music labels until I embarked on a career as a freelance journalist. since 2000, I've written about music, food, and southern culture for such magazines as blah blah blah. when I interviewed duran duran a few years ago, my first instinct was to call lynn ellis, julie wolffe, and kelley turner! my first book, waking up in memphis, was published in 2003. I occasionally work in the film industry - I've gotten credits for work on movies like black snake moan and 21 grams, and I just finished production on a documentary called respect yourself: the stax records story, which will air on beulah and mingo.

Q: what are some of your favorite memories from high school?
A: partying with leslie marsh and lisa and erika przybylinski in eighth and ninth grade, and hanging out with lynn and the gang at metroplex and 688 club every weekend in tenth grade. going to hear bands like ban k.a. camping out (without a car, because we were too young to drive) for U2 tickets with erika and christen montgomery. coach gann!! bringing a copy of iron maiden's "the rime of the ancient mariner" to english class. living down the street from tori pater. the great letters and photos julie, kelley and lynn sent after I moved.

mo ryan on cormac on oprah

via jay on the goner board:

"he really responded to the idea that this book came from his love for his son - that’s definitely oprah territory. but so much of what mccarthy ended up saying was sort of banal - we should appreciate what we have, having children 'wrenches you out of your nap,' and so forth. and she was so astonished that he didn’t care about money or book sales. 'you are a different kind of author!' she said. yeah, possibly too different for oprah to really connect with."

more from maureen and patrick reardon on the chicago tribune website.

music biopics

great story in today's new york times about Hollywood's current crop of music biopics. coming soon to a theater near you: la vie en rose, about edith piaf, todd haynes' dylan biopic I'm not there, el cantante, and the joy division biopic. in the works: zoey deschanel as janis joplin, don cheadle as miles davis, and mike myers as keith moon. hopefully these will be better than the sienna miller/edie sedgwick debacle factory girl...

cormac on oprah - tomorrow

cormac will be on oprah in less than 24 hours. on the same episode - bono?!?! and michael moore. oprah, girl, don't fuck this up! I'm praying for ya! more news here.

fresh and delicious... and on paper.

maybe I need to 'fess up and change the focus of this blog to the culinary arts. there's just so much to think and say and read and do when it comes to cooking right now... last week, I got a ton of amazing food-related books in the mail - I am currently salivating over the flexitarian table: inspired, flexible meals for vegetarians, meat lovers, and everyone in between, a few new ones from jane and michael stern, how to pick a peach: the search for flavor from farm to table, and the fascinating looking african american foodways: history and culture. I'm also eating, eating, writing up some food stuff for the memphis flyer's annual summer food issue, watching the new spate of prime-time food competitions on TV, and worrying about my daddy, who's back in the hospital...

all hail the sushi king

the zen of fish- which is about the history of sushi in japan and the US - inspired me to pitch a story to the memphis flyer about
jimmy ishii, the south's sushi king. the indomitable justin burks (who took the "octotower" photo at left) and I sat in on ishii's sushi-making class at the viking cooking school last thursday, where I learned how to make regular rolls (spicy tuna and cucumber and crab) inside out rolls (california rolls), and hand rolls. it felt incredibly satisfying to eat my handmade creations - now I've got to shadow ishii at one of his restaurants next week, and interview "zen of fish" author trevor corson.

oh, jackie!

all you need to know about mr. jack oblivian, in an interview published here. interview by rich tupica and photo by theresa kereakes.

pimm's cup

do you have that one recipe that's your ultimate test? for me, lately, it's a pimm's cup, served new orleans style, with 7-up, lemonade, and a cucumber slice. the recipe in denise gee's southern cocktails: dixie drinks, party potions, and classic libations - published by chronicle - got it right. I'm not sure what to think about the fussy version in the advance material I received this weekend for the hearty boys' cookbook talk with your mouth full - it includes apple slices and san pellegrino limonata, but no 7-up. oh well - I'm not sitting at the napoleon house drinking either right now, just sipping a late-night iced latte while I try to focus on an as-yet-unfinished 850-word assignment with perry mason solving his mysteries in the next room... to read more about the history of mr. pimm and to get the recipes for various versions of his fabulous cocktail, go here or here.