You may want to duct tape your mouth shut before sitting down to read Lucky Me by Sachi Parker. You’ll still be able to laugh when you need to but you’ll be able to avoid any insects or raptors flying into your mouth when your jaw drops. And it will. A few times.
A brief disclaimer – I know Sachi. We are in the same theatre workshop and she read one of the roles in one of my plays. At the time I had no idea who her mother is. I pride myself on my ignorance of these things. Anyhoo… Read more »
By Amanda Bloom
Originally published in The Mercurial.
Elissa Altman’s first book, Poor Man’s Feast, reads like a good, hearty meal – by the time the last page is turned, you feel as though you know Altman intimately, that you’ve sat at her table countless times, filling up with fine food and colorful stories. Feast, part memoir and part cookbook, begins in the 1980s with Altman working at the upscale grocery Dean & DeLuca in SoHo, a neighborhood where, as Altman writes, “there was money everywhere, and there was food, and art, and drugs.” Notables such as David Lynch, Isabella Rosellini, and Kyle McLachlan were regulars, along with Richard, a terrier with a hankering for candied violets. Read more »
I grabbed this book the second it hit the shelf because I wanted to know the story of Pantera from the perspective of its quietest member, former bass player Rex Brown. All I knew about Pantera were assumptions formed by a series of band interviews and tour videos from over the years. Official Truth, 101 Proof reveals Rex’s personal life, the glory of the Pantera days, his struggles with addiction and the drama surrounding Dimebag’s funeral.
The book’s prologue starts out with, “Dime, I can’t handle your fucking brother.” Rex trash talks Vinnie Paul throughout the book and for that reason alone you need to check it out. Read more »
Nine-hundred and nine pages later, I’m done with A Memory of Light. Done with the Wheel of Time series. Forever.
I was sad as I read the last chapter. This is it! I would never again read the adventures of Rand, Mat, Perrin, Rand’s harem of women, or the countless other characters that made up Robert Jordan’s intricate fantasy. In truth, there were so many characters that by the end of the series, I didn’t even know who some of them were. Of course I kept track of the important ones… Read more »
She had the moon in her mouth. It was a light that radiantly beamed from deep in her throat; a light that could impair any man’s mind into blind, incoherent pleasure. She was born with the talent. When she presented her show-and-tell at the front of her third grade class, all the boys would scratch at their jeans in desperate attempt to tickle their cocks. The moonbeams could squeeze through her teeth, roll of her tongue like waves and part her lips like opening gates of heaven. And much like admiration for the moon itself, every glance at her light enforced desire. Men’s brains would lean on the windows of their eyes and daydream on touching her surface, exploring her secrets, claiming her as their territory. And for a while, like the moon, she kept her distance. Read more »
A couple months ago, I got an awesome housewarming present from Vegetarian Metalhead: Mosh Potatoes, a cookbook of recipes by metal musicians. Compiled by Steve Seabury, each dish in the collection begins with an anecdote from the artist/cook, and there are lots of funny pictures of the bands “rocking out” in their kitchens.
But can the musicians make food you’d actually want to eat? So far, the answer is yes.
The first recipe I tried was Lita Ford’s Black Bean and Corn Salsa. Here’s the recipe as it appears in the book, minus Lita’s opening blurb: Read more »
For those of you that have forgotten or are too young to remember, MTV (formerly Music Television; they changed it to MTV a few years ago) was a network consisting almost solely of music videos, music-related programming, and not much else. As the many, many articles and documentaries about MTV have shown, people liked this so much that it became a cultural revolution to the point where it may have shifted the 1992 presidential election.
The creation, popularity, and current change of MTV is a topic that’s been well covered, almost since the actual creation of the network. I Want MY MTV, written by Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum is an exhaustive, detailed oral history of the period from 1981 to 1991, called “the golden era” by everyone interviewed. When I say exhaustive, I really mean long; the book tops out at 600 pages and a good 150 of those pages consists of a grouping of rock stars/video directors/former executives re-wording the same thought. “There was no template for music videos in 1981″ is a solid and probably true statement, but when everyone from the CEO to John Taylor from Duran Duran says it, it feels like I Want My MTV could really have used a good editor. Read more »
