Book Selection: “The Recipe Project” (AND MY LAST FIVE YEARS OF PICKS)

•I finally fixed the page of links to all the Book Selections entries I’ve written on this blog over the past five years, a near-complete list of what I’ve been reading all that time, starting with Leo Strauss. 

•This week, I see, brings The Recipe Project, a cookbook in which recipes are accompanied by appropriate songs performed by One Ring Zero – with guest vocals by Tanya Donelly (formerly of Belly and Throwing Muses) and Claudia Gonson (with release parties in NYC on Oct. 18 and Nov. 3). 

Some related non-book notes:

•Even before I announced I was shifting away from 80s nostalgia to 90s nostalgia on this blog, I called Belly representative of a mid-90s popular music peak of sorts.  I should add they are not to be confused with the Smiths-influenced band Echobelly (the lead singer of which, inside sources tell me, was once visited by Morrissey and was afraid to admit she’d named her cat after him, claiming instead its name was “Maurice”).

•This is a sad week for 90s nostalgists, though, since we just learned about a former bass player for Weezer dying.  But new forms of alternative rock keep proliferating, and the 80s keeps echoing in the form of things like “chillwave” (a.k.a. “glo-fi”), typified by bands like Animal Collective (and solo member Panda Bear), apparently, which should at least provide pleasant background music, if not a new personal anthem.  And on a more-90s note, I am comforted by the realization, fourteen years later, that “Flagpole Sitta” by Harvey Danger should be recognized as one of the best alternative rock songs of all time. 

•On the country music front, ya gotta love the Bocephus situation.

•And I think we know where Earl Cuyler of Squidbillies would stand on the controversy.  He’s like the U.S.-of-American response to all them commie-made cephalopods what them hippies ben drawin’ lately down on the Wall Street ta show the businessfolk is evil.

•We’re probably better off not knowing Cuyler’s reaction to news that Topeka may stop prosecuting domestic abuse cases to save money – exactly the sort of outcome libertarians are warning about when they say that a government that tries to do everything will start neglecting the most basic function of law, protecting people from assault and theft.  I can think of two female bloggers whose reactions to the news would be of interest, one horrified and one likely delighted.  Let’s not talk about either, though.