Book Review: Zombie Eye For The Living Guy: Look Undead, Cook Undead, Dress Undead, and Live Undead

By Jemiah Jefferson

In a world where The Walking Dead is one of the most successful TV programs on the air, where politics shambles on brainlessly, and it seems that the end times are nigh, why wouldn’t you want to dress like it’s Halloween? If you live for the absurd and obscene, there is at last a lifestyle book for you and your peers. This black-hearted parody of the best-selling Queer Eye for the Straight Guy tie-in books brings an undead perspective to the perennial challenge of living well, looking good—or, in this case, horrible&mdash’and being exactly the decaying, mindless flesh eater you’ve always wanted to be.

For those who have read the Queer Eye book, the parody is dead-on and hilarious. With sections titled such things as “Inner Preparations,” “Should I Eat Human Brains?” and “Social Skills,” every aspect of the gruesome, yet satisfying world of being a walking abomination is addressed with wit, variety, and a very silly thoroughness. Yet this is not just a point-by-point parody; Zombie Eye also contains quite a few pointers to enrich and enliven (so to speak) any good zombie costume for those still breathing.

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Book Review: The Wrong Word Dictionary

By Jemiah Jefferson

Are you one of those people that flies into a laser-eyed rage when you see grizzly misused in the place of grisly? Or are you one of those people who has no idea what the difference is between a gourmand and a gourmet; all you know is that they love their food or something? The English language is a tangly beast, easy to give the impression of mastery for any native speaker, and yet almost no one, even linguists, editors, professors of English, or journalists writing in the New York Times (ahem) will always choose the correct word, sometimes using an incorrect homonym or a related word, and only the driest (or perhaps the most frothy) pedants ever seems to notice.

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Laetitia Sadier, Silencio

By Jemiah Jefferson

The chanteuse of compassionate socialism hasn’t changed much since the earliest days of legendary agit-pop group Stereolab, and this is a very good thing; Laetitia Sadier‘s cool, clear-eyed voice, alternately crisp and authoritative and velvety-dreamy, is one of the greatest resources in music. As a songwriter, too, she only develops further complexities while keeping the core characteristics intact. Sadier has always created intensely listenable tunes to transmit messages of the political and the personal, and Silencio is no exception. (more…)

John Lee Hooker, Cook With The Hook: Live 1974 DVD

By Jemiah Jefferson

One of the rare live video recordings of blues legend John Lee Hooker was filmed with three cameras at a festival in Massachusetts called “Down in the Dumps,” the second in a hoped-for series of concerts on the site of a city landfill area, and shown on local access television in 1974. Thank heavens that this footage didn’t suffer the fate of so much video tape of the era, and survived to the 21st century to released on a bare-bones DVD called Cook With The Hook: Live 1974. Additional material might have been nice, but we must assume there isn’t any, besides what’s on the explanatory, single-sheet disk insert.
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John Singer Sergeant

By Jemiah Jefferson

Riffing on the name of the famous 19th Century painter, this intriguing solo project by Apples in stereo alum John Dufilho is a delightfully mixed bag of influences and styles, with each song featuring a singer other than himself. Most of the other instruments are performed by him, though, and as befitting his Elephant 6 associations, he’s good-to-excellent at all of them.
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Charlie Parker; Dizzy Gillespie; Bud Powell; Max Roach; Charles Mingus; The Quintet: Jazz at Massey Hall

By Jemiah Jefferson

This new remaster of The Quintet: Jazz At Massey Hall—a truly historic convergence of five of the most celebrated musicians in jazz—is so classic, so iconic, that at first it’s hard to understand what’s so special about it. It really does take some schooling, and some careful and studied listening, before the true magic trick is revealed. For anyone with an interest in jazz, however, this album is essential listening, and can be enjoyed without knowledge of its importance.
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Thelonious Monk, Misterioso

By Jemiah Jefferson

It must have been a thrill for audiences in 1958 to imagine that the performances they witnessed in smoky nightclubs could be recorded and released as brilliant record albums to be savored and studied at home by those less lucky than they. I doubt that many of them could have imagined that more than fifty years later, those same performances would be captured on a shiny silver disk, played back by a laser beam, and savored and studied just as avidly. It’s also possible that the audience listening to what would be titled Misteriso, the live performance by the Thelonious Monk Quartet at the Five Spot Café in New York had no idea of future audiences or listening technologies at all, being entirely too occupied in experiencing the delights of a genius at the peak of his abilities.
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Portland Cello Project, Homage

By Jemiah Jefferson

While the sparkly and joyous “Hey Ya!” has long been a part of Portland Cello Project‘s live repertoire, Homage is their first full-length release of cover versions of hip-hop songs (they have done hip-hop covers before, but never a full album). In every case, PCP’s arrangement and performance of the melodies and rhythms found in these chart-smashing hits brings new delight to the listener, both in the chuckle-inducing recognition of the original and in admiration for how smoothly these tracks have been adapted.
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