Chris Stroffolino: December 3, 2006

Mustard on a Lonely Highway

1. Robert Wyatt,Rock Bottom
2. Merle Haggard, “If We Make It Through December”

   Great Seasonal Music, accepting of the pressure and despair, yet also soothing in a way.

3. John Lee Hooker, ”(You’ll Never Amount to Anything If You Don’t Go To) College”

   From his 1974 album Free Beer and Chicken (especially “A fortuituous concatenation of events”)

4. Robert Altman,Secret Honor_

   Not his best film by a long shot, but a one-man show with a weird take on Richard Nixon, from 1985, in which Altman basically seems to identify with Nixon’s fall, at the nadir of his career before his big comeback in the late 1980s. R.I.P.

5. Princess Elizabeth Lane, “Surely He Died on Calvary”

   Amazing new release showing that contemporary female passionate gospel performance is alive and well. For those not inclined to the “Jesus” message, just listen to the voice, it transcends the sectarianism of religion.

6. Sara Wintz and John Darnielle

   You needn’t be a fan of The Mountain Goats, though that certainly wouldn’t hurt, to appreciate the debut postcard in Sara Wintz’s The Pretty Panicks Press (www.myspace.com/prettypanicks), which includes a rough draft from one of Darnielle’s notebooks that documents “the exact moment when” he became convinced his songwriting was going to yield something “worthwhile.” In this case, “Moon Over Goldsboro.”

7. Rajiv Chandrasekaran – Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone

   Regardless of whether you agree with his conclusions, this book is a well-researched investigation of Bush’s Green Zone palace in Baghdad.
   A must read for any of the freshman Democratic congresspeople as they try to figure out how to undo the mess Bush made. Send a senator one as a stocking stuffing

8. Howlin’ Wolf, “Coon on the Moon”
9. Eric Andersen, “Everything Ain’t Been Said”
   I wonder if Suzanne Baran would like this 1965 song. I bring it up because I heard “She’s the One I Call My Own” by Eric Bachmann, and it reminded me of Anderson.
10. Exene Cervenka and Jake Eichert

    Mr. Eichert conducts a great interview with Ms. Cervenka in the newly released _Encyclopedia, edited by T. Bryant, M. Mellis, and K. Schatz. Especially great is toward the end when Cervenka turns the tables and decides to ask Eichert some questions.