Hot Jam Week!

Last week I was asked to list my top three favorite songs. Of all time. After much thought, I tentatively decided on Red Rubber Ball, Band of Gold, and Black Water. It's a work in progress. I'm trying to think about it logically - narrowing it down by genre then ranking those songs in order of greatness.  I need a bracket system. In the mean time, here are some hot jams that might not be in the top three, but I didn't want them to feel left out.

1) No Diggity - Blackstreet

No Diggity is one of those songs I always forget about, and that is totally unfortunate, because it's an amazing hip hop anthem. I mean, Dr. Dre uses the word eargasms. Not everyone can pull that off. Not to mention there are an EXCESS of overalls in the video.

2) Jackson - Johnny Cash and June Carter

I wish this song was about Jackson, WY, one of my favorite places in the whole wide world. But I guess Jackson, MS makes more sense (Although it's never specified). But the location is unimportant, it could just as easily be called Dallas or Nashville. I love that it combines revenge with a "anything you can do, I can do better" attitude. Both halves of the couple are going to find someone new and they are going to do it better. Isn't that the best kind of revenge?

3) Tears Dry on their Own - Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse made straight-up terrible life decisions (Drugs and alcohol aside, all that teasing cannot be good for your hair). But the girl could sing. Amy had a lot of really good songs but I like Tears Dry on their Own for one line: "I'll be some next man's other woman soon." This is is a break-up song, she could have easily written something about finding someone better, but instead she wrote about finding someone better and becoming their other woman. Ballsy. You could throw a lot of psychology words at that, I'm sure. But I'd rather enjoy the bluesy-soulness of it.


Bonus: What's your Fantasy - Ludacris Because it dirty and gross and sometimes that's exactly what you are looking for in a hip hop song.

Jackson Hole and The Hold Steady

In case you haven't checked your calendar lately, it's January. And in case you're new here, I live in Anchorage. January in Anchorage looks like this.

And sometimes like this.

I'm feeling nostalgic for warmer, brighter days.Let's reminisce together, shall we? Some of my favorite warmer, brighter days were spent here:

Grand Teton National Park

I spent summer 2009 teaching environmental ed in Jackson, WY and it took about 35 seconds for the general Jackson Hole region (Jackson is the town, Jackson Hole is the whole area) to become my favorite place in the whole world. I could write pages of reasons I love Jackson Hole, fraught with flowery language and extended metaphors. But I still wouldn't do it justice.

A lot of times this was my job:

Sometimes, it was this:

Other times, I wasn't working, so I floated the Snake River

Or made rock art at the Gros Ventre slide

 I got in bison jams

And played kickball:

Long story short, I made no money, but spent everyday in the sun. Worth it. I've been a lot of beautiful places, especially here in Alaska, but nothing compares to staring up at the Tetons from String Lake or the alpenglow on Sleeping Indian.

This week's hot jam is Magazines by The Hold Steady. I love the honesty (and I'm not sure honesty is quite the right word) of The Hold Steady songs. I love that they don't try to glamorize anything. The songs all tell a story, and usually not a  very pretty one, but it's covered up with catching choruses. Genius.

Cooking, Erik Larson, and Pure Prairie League

I'm adding a new feature to a few of my favorite things this week, but I'll get to that.

In general, if it's between the hours of 5pm and 7pm, you'll find me like this:

Sometimes without the beer, sometimes bundled up in pants and sweatshirt, sometimes wearing a full apron, but you get the idea. I love cooking, more specifically, I love the science of cooking. I like seeing 5 seemingly random ingredients turn into something delicious. I like watching soup thicken after adding corn starch. I like feeling like a mad scientist when I'm mixing stuff up.

My favorite part of cooking is figuring out how to make something I've eaten at a restaurant. There are a lot of restaurant hack websites around if you are looking for something specific, but I mostly just mess around until I get it right. There is a restaurant in Flagstaff, AZ called MartAnne's. It's the best Mexican breakfast food you can get.Whenever I go, I get enchiladas y huevos. I had a giant craving for them, but being 3000 miles from Flagstaff, I had to make them myself. I found a super easy and delicious enchilada sauce recipe online and went to work. (If you are interested, it's here. I don't use flour, because it always gets thick enough without it. I also add a little cocoa.) And they turned out delicious!

New Feature!
I read a lot of books. Like a lot. Last year I read 50. I read all sorts of stuff; fiction, non fiction, short stories, biographies, etc etc etc, so I decided to add book reviews to my favorite things. Here's how it's going to work: If I'm reading/have recently read a good book I think other people might like, I'm just going to write a little about it and then maybe you'll want to read it too. Fun and informative

Right now I'm about half way through a book called The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson and it's excellent (so far).

It's an extremely well written book that combines the story of the architects of the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago and America's first serial killer, H.H. Holmes.  The architects were using the fair to put the United States on the map, so to speak, and  H.H. Holmes was using the fair to lure young women to their death. In fact, it's so well written that I can only read it during the day because the parts about Holmes are so unsettling. Pardon the colloquialism, but H.H. Holmes was mad scary.

It's also full of interesting facts that I'm sure will come in handy if I'm ever on Jeopardy! For example, in the first 6 months of 1892, there were nearly 800 violent deaths in Chicago (e.g., deaths due to stabbings or shootings). That's about 4 per day! And that's not including deaths due carriage accidents, streetcar accidents, or any of the numerous maladies (typhoid, small pox, cholera) that plagued the city.

This week's hot jam is Amie by Pure Prairie League. A couple years ago I spent the summer in Jackson, WY. (Which is beautiful and amazing and one of my favorite places ever.) Every Tuesday at the Silver Dollar Bar in Jackson is bluegrass night and a band called One Ton Pig always plays.They play originals and covers and one cover that always seemed to come up was Amie. Which is fine with me because I love that song.



Sorry, I couldn't find a good live video.