Month: September 2009

Beer Review: Aventinus

The best beer I have ever tasted. Period. Don't let its darker amber color fool you. It's sweet without being syrupy, full-flavored without being bitter, and complex without being overpowering. I'm honestly not sure I know how to describe the taste, except to say that it's like drinking a loaf of Christmas spice bread. If there was such a thing as a comfort beer, this would be it.

Tuesday Night Irish Music Jam Session at The Grange Public House

Every Tuesday night, there is a Celtic music jam session at the Grange Public House. While most of us sit around in a circle, nursing our ales and listening in a sort of golden haze of happy ecstasy, some of Atlanta’s very best traditional music play—well, whatever you feel like.

Vienna Roast by Atlanta Coffee Roasters

Fresh coffee — coffee sold with a week of roasting, and roasted within a few days of harvesting — makes an astonishing difference. Seriously. Astonishing. I made this discovery at Atlanta Coffee Roasters at the Toco Hills shopping center. It's a micro-roaster. The coffee they sell is flown in daily. If you ever step into the back room, you'll see great burlap sacks of coffee stamped with exotic ports from all over the world, waiting their turn for the artisan's attention. Then, small batches are blended and roasted to exacting standards. By comparison, even when you buy your beans from a gourmet specialty house, the coffee you're getting is usually at least a month or two old. If you're lucky. It's picked, shipped to the US, roasted, packed, warehoused, distributed, and ... well, you get the idea. At Atlanta Coffee Roasters, the beans are roasted literally every day. Much to my surprise, the difference in taste is amazing.

“Palimpsest” by Catherynne Valente

The joy of Palimpsest is in it's lush, dense, baroque, poetic and, yes, even haunting language. Every line is lovingly wrought, a treasure. Every paragraph aches with loveliness. It is utterly sensual and at times even erotic. It's also refreshingly witty. But it's like rich food; it's delicious, even decadent, but it's hard to take too much at once. It's a book to savor, in small bursts of bliss, and return to. It's not a book for careless beach reading; it is for autumn, with blanket, firelight, and blood-red wine.

“I Called I” by Desmond Drive

Listen to I Called I First, disclaimer alert. The band Desmond Drive is fronted by a friend of mine, Bill Shaouy. So I'm a mite on the biased side. I think I'd be saying the same thing anyway, though. Because I really enjoy this album. It's catchy, it's fun, and it's even a little bit … Continue reading “I Called I” by Desmond Drive →

“The Promised Land” by Dar Williams

If you know Dar’s music, you’ve likely already heard The Promised Land. If not, well, think of the realm of Sarah McLachlan and Sheryl Crow, with lyrics that can be mentioned in the same sentence as Waits, Cohen, Williams, Newman, Mercer, Dylan, and Simon. The Promised Land is a good place to start. But then, so is The Honesty Room, My Better Self, The Beauty of the Rain, The Green World, or … heck, any of them.. Do yourself a favor and listen. Closely. Then listen again.

“Anointed: The Passion of Timmy Christ, CEO” by Zachary Steele

"When the Anti-Christ and Satan entered the bar, nobody took notice." That's a great first line. Believe it or not, it's not the start of a joke. It's the first line of Zachary Steele's novel "Annointed," which is a scream. If you're a fan of people like Christopher Moore or Douglas Adams, take a look. Sadly, (in my humble opinion) it hasn't received the attention it deserves.

In Good Company: “The Company They Keep” by Diana Pavlac Glyer

Until the publication of Diana Pavlac Glyer’s new book The Company The Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community, I hadn’t realized how strong was my urge to be a “completist.” A new book out on the Inklings? By all means, I had to have it, period. This is fortunate, because if I paused to remind myself that I’d already read Humphrey Carpenter’s superb biography The Inklings, and then to ask if I really, really needed another book on the subject, the rational part of my brain might have said “no,” and (it’s not completely impossible) might have carried the day. And that would have been too darn bad. Glyer’s book makes a wonderful companion to Carpenter’s more well known volume, and stands very well on its own. Carpenter’s book is a biography; Glyer’s is an examination of the very significant ways in which, as a community, the Inkings challenged, inspired, influenced, and supported one another. The Company The Keep is a terrific and insightful read.

“The Gnostic Bible” Edited by Willis Barnstone and Marvin Meyer

For those interested in the Gnostics and their actual beliefs and mysteries, as well as the early history of Christianity, The Gnostic Bible is a welcome resource. As a matter of fact, The Gnostic Bible is quite possibly the most comprehensive collection of Gnostic materials ever gathered in one volume. The Gnostic Bible collects a wealth of primary sources, Gnostic texts from a wide variety of sources, including three continents and spanning more than 1300 years. The expected texts are present, of course, including the famous Gospel of Thomas, along with some unexpected resources. Making the volume especially useful to students of Gnosticwisdom traditions, the texts are well-organized into distinct movements of Gnostic tradition: Sethian, Valentinian, Syrian, Hermetic, Mandaean, Manichaean, and even, surprisingly, later Islamic and even Cathar texts.

“Coyote Moon” By John A. Miller

As fond as I am of trickster tales, it's hard to imagine anything with a title like Coyote Moon can be anything other than mythic. Coyote Moon doesn't have a lot to do with coyotes, or even with tricksters (although I have a feeling that author John Miller himself may qualify), but the novel is certainly mythic. First, baseball plays a major role in the story. As the brilliant book Ground Rules: Baseball and Myth shows, baseball is a goldmine for mythic material. Add in liberal doses of cutting edge physics (if you're not up on your science, don't worry), possible reincarnation, and the search for meaning and miracles, and the result is a myth lover's delight.

“The Genealogy of Greek Myth: An Illustrated Family Tree Greek Myth” by Vanessa James

The Genealogy of Greek Myth is a handy resource. Packed with well-researched information, this book provides "at a glance" charts and surprisingly detailed information about the complex and often confusing relationships of the immortal Olympians and the mortal heroes they interact with. The author, Vanessa James, spent eighteen years putting the Genealogy of Greek Myth together, and it shows. The data is more than complete, it is exhaustive. More, it provides a truly elegant and genuinely useful way to trace the dynasties and major events of Greek and Roman myth.

“Spirits in the Wires” By Charles de Lint

Spirits in the Wires is fun and entertaining. As a thriller, it's a page-turner. But the myth and the poetry of the writing make it lovely, and the characters make it come alive. Our compassion for de Lint's beautifully-drawn characters moves us, and makes the novel linger long after the last page is turned.