Obscure Recommendations

Book: I've not seen anyone mention Alice Hoffman, and Seventh Heaven is among my five favourite novels.

I'm not sure how obscure this place is, but it's certainly overshadowed by being within a couple of minutes of the Topkapi palace and museum, the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and the Istanbul Museum: the ancient cistern in Istanbul, dimly lit, with boards making a path above shallow water, with hundreds of ancient Roman columns. Wonderful.

Music: Willie Tee's Walking Up A One-Way Street is a supremely lovely New Orleans soul number, with the biggest gulf between despairing lyrics and the perkiest, happiest tune imaginable.

Some of the best and most varied scenery in US and, possibly, the world. Mountains, plains, deserts, forests, a few nice lakes, good weather, good food, lots of history, oldest continious settlement in new world. Seems to get overshadowed by Arizona, Colorado, and California.

West Coast indie rap shit done right--the guy (Pismo) makes all the beats and raps

canned hamm (karazma karaoke)
crack: we are rock (noise pixel crush)
casiotone for the painfully alone (my hero... sigh)
electric turn to me (ex-laddio bollocko)
DACM: showroom dummies (pita - mego)
m. ward (just got signed to merge and matador europe so not obscure for much longer)
thanksgiving (band from portland led by 16 year old singer... early palace brothers meets swell maps)

anyway:
Vacaciones - Sonrier
Juniper Moon - El Resto De Mi Vida
Niza - Canciones De Temporada

Monika: http://www.m-enterprise.de/monika/index.html

Quarks, Komeit and Barbara Morgenstern are all great.

Prince's incredibly hot chicken, in north Nashville, Tenn. Burned my mouth and it didn't heal until I got to the Michigan state line.

(Music: Willie Tee's Walking Up A One-Way Street is a supremely lovely New Orleans soul number)--you are right, Martin Skidmore, that is a great number, I have this on a mono LP called "Beach Beat" along w/Tee's "Thank You John" and my favorite song of all time, Stick McGhee's 1949 version of "Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee." Which everyone should know too.

(Blackbird) Red 76 "Collective" mogul Sam Gould has recently turned his search-and-destroy, art gestapo tactics towards indie label territory. The performers tonight are all representatives of the new label's eclectic approach, but the spotlight is on Project Perfect, who are celebrating the release of their debut CD. PP's electronics are more like displaced musique concrete than bedroom-ridden IDM. The local duo arms itself with transistor radios and a handful of more sophisticated toys, twisting AM static into confetti rhythms and grainy, tonal explorations. The Bering Sea's slumbering, melancholic throb easily puts them at the top of the heap of local "space rock" groups (largely because their avoidance of the British shoegazer cliches so tied in with the genre). Rounding out the evening significantly is Thanskgiving, the hard-hitting rock trio led by avant-folk boy genius Adrian Orange. Those of you complaining about the lack of anything interesting happening in Portland should take this opportunity to come down to the Blackbird tonight to prove yourself wrong. SIMON GASKEN

Book: Anything by James Branch Cabell that's not Jurgen (that's good too of course)

Music: Closedown's Nearfield, to which I listen this very second.

He's fanstic though, or at least live -- I've never heard the recorded stuff.

He opened for Sl**ter-K*nney recently; [prudently deleted].

I mean, damn, maybe he's grown a few inches in the last few months, but... if so, shee-it. ;-)

Book: the writer Barry Hughart - "Bridge of Birds" is a marvellous romp, a cross between the "Monkey" legend and a sweeping chinese epic, sort of Pratchett meets Zen sages. Or something.
Film: Suburbia. Not the Richard Linklater one, the Penelope Spheris one (it was her first film), noteable becuase no one in it is an actor, and it shows; it is a real period piece of LA 80s punk, and Flea from RHCP is in it, and he cant act for toffee :D

Movie: Sweet Movie by Dusan Makavejev. I will not attempt to describe it. It is extremely f-ed up. You just have to see it.

Record: The Wanderer (1988) by Kevin Rowlands of Dexy's Midnight Runners. It is a straightfaced country album and I love it. Not to be confused with My Beuty. Good luck finding it. If you find it let me know. I have been looking to replace mine for a while.

Not to start a debate over obscurantism. If anyone has knowledge of any of these I'd love to discuss!

In less obscure news can it really be true that the WHite $ox/Shlubs series is sold out? I hop ewe can scalp some seat stogether for our 2nd City FAP.

Well that's cool if you made it through the movie unscarred. I've heard about it and wanted to see it, but I didn't want to bother if it was just pointless shock-fest.

L'Amour fou, 1968 movie by Jacques Rivette. She goes mad, he decides he has no choice but to go mad, too. Entwined around a production of Racine's Phedre, which sounds like it might be precious, but it ain't. In a similar vein: Jean Eustache's The Mother and the Whore (La Maman et la putain).

I don't think I've ever met anyone who has even heard of this book.

Also, the documentary American Fabulous made by Reno Dakota. He filmed this crazy, too-smart-for-his-own-good, southern junkie scenemaker queen being driven around his hometown in some big old car telling the most incredible stories. He's dying and he knows it, so it's very poignant, too. If you were touched by that American Family followup documentary that focused on the last days of Lance Loud--well, this has a similar feel.

ed, the pieces in the museum are all reproductions, with the originals in the presidential palace somewhere.