I was listening to the Long Island radio station WEHM the other day and they played "Senses Working Overtime", a fantastic pop song by XTC which I hadn't heard in years. I was suddenly reminded what a great band XTC really was. Led by Andy Partridge, the band in its various incarnations spanned the period 1977-2005. Starting out as a 'standard' New Wave band with edgy singles like "Science Friction", the band's songwriting and instrumentation evolved into a complex post-Beatles British pop sound. In their heyday of the '80s, XTC had their own distinctive character while sharing something in common with contemporaries Squeeze and Elvis Costello. The band's history is messy and chaotic. Partridge had struggled with stage fright during the band's early years, and in 1982 he suffered a debilitating attack of stage fright that caused them to cancel their tour. The band never toured again, and became a studio-only ensemble which interfered with commercial success but cemented the following of their hardcore fans.

I just got the 31-song collection "Fossil Fuel: the XTC Singles Collection" which covers their career from 1977 through the 90's. I'm finding lot of fun tunes that I never heard before and enjoying the ones I do know. Recommendation: you must hear the tracks "Science Friction", "Respectable Street", "Senses Working Overtime", "Dear God" and "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" and you will be hooked too.

I have to admit it: I am a sucker for a feel-good sports movie. This may be the most charming of its genre. I first saw this in 2002, fresh from coaching two seasons of my daughter's soccer team. My wife and I just watched it again and I was amazed at how much fun it was. The setup: Jess (Parminder Nagra - you know her from 'E.R.') is the daughter of orthodox Sikh parents in London, who has a shot at playing professional football (soccer to you Americans) against her parents' wishes. It's a delight from start to finish. My favorite touches: authentic working-class and nearly impenetrable English accents; brilliant casting, with a young Kiera Knightley as her best friend and fellow player, Jonathan Rhys Myers as their dedicated coach; the soundtrack, full of cool obscure Indian pop music; and the climactic game, interspersed with extremely groovy scenes from the Punjabi wedding of Jess's sister. A must-see, especially if you have a daughter who has ever kicked a soccer ball.

Johnson's book is subtitled The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World. The book's starting point is London's horrific cholera epidemic of 1854. Dr. John Snow studied the outbreak and came to the inescapable conclusion that the source of the cholera was something carried in water, specifically water from the Broad Street pump in Soho. Despite the reigning belief in 'miasmas' causing disease, and the fact that microbes like V. cholerae were unknown at the time, he succeeded in getting local authorities to remove the handle of the pump and arrested the epidemic. But the book is not just the story of a maverick scientist bucking the establishment. The clergyman Henry Whitehead visited the sick and understood the social networks of Soho, and as he figured out the movements of people and of drinking water around Golden Square he also understood that Snow was right about the cause of the disease, and lent crucial support to Snow's theory about the source of cholera.
Johnson makes an excellent chain of argument: Snow's scientific rigor, and Whitehead's door-to-door study of the affected neighborhood were both necessary to establish a new understanding of cholera. This combination of disciplines together formed the beginning of what we now know as public health; which in turn led to modernization of London's sewer and water systems; which allowed the sprawling metropolis to thrive instead of choking on its own filth. Johnson points out that this process continues today and is essential to the life and health of cities in an increasingly urban world.

Jane Austen died in 1817, but she's been extremely busy lately. I'm talking about her two recent best-sellers "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" (Austen meets George Romero meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" (Austen meets Jules Verne meets H.P. Lovecraft). The genre collisions are at least amusing and often wickedly funny. I've now read them both and had a blast. I have watched several versions of "Pride and Prejudice" with my wife and they were fun enough. Yes, Colin Firth is adorable. However -- and I apologize, ladies -- the only thing that would get me to actually read Jane Austen is a version of the story in which the Bennets have a dojo out behind the house and Miss Elizabeth Bennet can kick the a** of any man, living or dead. Here's an excerpt of her first walk over to visit the Bingleys at Netherfield, which is interrupted by an assault by the undead: "She retrieved her dagger and beheaded the last of her opponents... letting her battle cry be known for a mile in every direction. Elizabeth found herself within view of the house, with weary ankles, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise." Very stirring. I won't even describe the final showdown with Lady Catherine for you -- you'll have to read it yourselves. All I can say is that it is truly great guy-friendly literature.

Every November, either the day or the day after Yale's traditional drubbing by Harvard, we go up to Northwest Connecticut with the hounds to hike the Pine Knob Loop in Housatonic Meadows State Forest and then go have hot chocolate at Belgique (previously recommended here) in Kent. (This year it was Sunday November 22 -- the day after The Game.) Before we hike, we always have a quick lunch at the Wandering Moose Cafe in West Cornwall. A stone's throw from the West Cornwall covered bridge (and across the street from an amazing Shaker furniture maker), The Wandering Moose has great atmosphere, really good coffee, and straightforward reasonably priced food. Dessert was a hot blueberry cobbler with a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream -- awesome. The setting, the service, the food are all lovely -- you gotta go.

At the Wooster Square Farmers' Market we have the good fortune to have our stand next to the table from Yale Farm. (See the website for the Yale Sustainable Food Project for more information on the Yale Farm and how Yalies are "gathering people around shared food, shared work, and shared inquiry". ) We have gotten lots of great veggies from Grace, Laura, Peter, Nozlee, and many other undergrads who work with the Yale Farm, but the most intriguing one is this little lettuce. Delicate, crunchy and colored a deep green with deep red-brown speckles, it is known as Flashy Troutback. Thus it wins the prize for Best Lettuce AND Best Lettuce Name. You are looking at a photograph of what may be some of the last Flashy Troutback of the 2009 Season.

We just read his collection "Consider the Lobster and Other Essays". Sheer brilliance. Whether he's tackling the morality of boiling lobsters, the adult film industry, the McCain 2000 campaign, or the inner life of champion athletes, the effect is always amazing. His keen wit, compassion and own moral sense makes the reader a participant in the essay. David F.W. took his own life earlier this year and we are all much, much poorer for it.

Why does the network with such dodgy news programming come up with all the cool shows? Fox has done it again with 'Glee'. Developed by Ryan Murphy, who also created 'Nip/Tuck' and 'Popular', Glee brings us an improbable prime-time comedy about.... choral music. The setup: Will Shuester (Matthew Morrison) is a teacher at his old high school in a nondescript Ohio town, and ends up as director of the Glee Club. His club consists of, among others, several football players, one of whom he blackmailed into joining; a gay fashionista, a kid in a wheelchair who sings bari and plays electric guitar. Oh, and several cheerleaders who never take off their uniforms and who are there at the bidding of the psychotic cheerleading coach (Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester) to bring down Glee from within. The characters would be fun enough but the real star is the music. There's at least one amazing number every episode. So far we've seen a high school show choir doing Amy Winehouse's 'Rehab', the whole football team dancing to "Put a Ring on It", and the Glee Club doing an unauthorized, jaw-dropping version of Salt-n-Pepa's "Push It" during a high school assembly. Even the incidental music is choral. If you haven't seen it yet, start from the beginning on Hulu to bring yourself up to speed.

Do you love the quality and variety of locally-produced fresh fruits, vegetables and other whole foods, but can't always get to the farmers' market? Deb Marsden's Connecticut Farm Fresh Express has the answer: Let her bring it to you. CTFFE carries products from more than twenty Connecticut farms, bakeries and artisans, all of which can be ordered online and then delivered to you on a weekly basis. Yes, Nate's Naturals is among them, which is all the more reason to visit the CT Farm Fresh Express website, and let them deliver some Connecticut goodness right to your door.

Rick and Elizabeth Conrad, longtime residents of and lovers of New England, started the Common Good Market website in 2008 to promote goods made in New England. They are dedicated to making beautiful products available from craftspeople and artisans "who have pledged to always use local labor, to never outsource outside of our region, and to create their products in an environmentally responsible and sustainable fashion. Please visit their site: http://www.commongoodmarket.com. Online ordering will be available in the fall of 2009.

I found out about this from listening to the Living on Earth podcast. In an age when people increasingly use their cellphones to check the time. the venerable wristwatch is becoming an endangered species. The Thousand Watch Project aims to record the images and stories of a thousand watches. To see the project so far or to add your own watch to the project, visit http://www.moskowarchitects.com/TKWP/index.html.

This excellent bookstore and cafe (just like its name suggests) has occupied its space in the Louis Kahn-designed Yale Center for British Art on Chapel St in New Haven since Nate was an undergraduate. Our favorite coffee/book stop in New Haven (although there are others that come close). Excellent soups, breads, sandwiches, organic coffees, books, books and more books... and now, Nate's Naturals granola, in yogurt parfaits and in the handy 2-oz Granola is Go cups.
Online: www.atticusbookstorecafe.com

Bishop's, in Guilford, CT, is our favorite farm market. You can get just about everything you want there. Ask the friendly staff if you don't see something you're looking for -- they'll help you find it. Huge selection of fruits and veggies, many of them grown at Bishop's. Bishop's own apple cider is our favorite. Organic and free-range meats, bakery, local and imported cheeses, Connecticut wines and Bishop's own apple wines. And Nate's Naturals granola too! Oh, right, and a long pick-your-own season for delicious fruit.

The Whitneyville Food Center is a great little grocery where you can get everything from the everyday to the gourmet. Excellent produce, and a really good deli counter. And everybody there is so friendly!

Dagmar's Desserts is the eponymous business name of Dagmar Ratensperger, who brings Bavarian baking to the New World. Based in Deep River, CT, Dagmar makes incredible pastries, tarts, cakes and, of course stollen breads.

Dagmar helped us get going in the professional baking biz, and gave us all kinds of helpful advice. Danke schoen! Look for Dagmar on the Web and at various stores and farmer's markets around Connecticut.

Did you campaign for him, vote for him, watch all the Inauguration coverage, and still feel left out? Here's your chance to be a part of history: Make your own iconic poster after the style of Shepard Fairey's iconic image, courtesy of Paste Magazine:

http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/

Pollan has written a neat little book that convincingly explains how, in the last fifty years, we have lost our nutritional way. The reductionist pseudo-science known as "nutritionism" has us obsessing over fats and carbs while we, as a society, have grown fatter and sicker, and enjoy our eating a lot less than we used to.

The answer is given in the subtitle: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants. Very simply, we will be better off if we eat real food -- exactly what kinds of real food don't matter all that much -- in moderation, and take time to prepare and enjoy our meals.

This book has probably been read by anyone who spends any time at a farmer's market, and rightly so. It certainly reinforces the world view of Nate's Naturals -- real food is what we're all about.

http://www.michaelpollan.com/indefense.php

A friend of mine just sent me a link to to a YouTube performance of "And the Glory of the Lord" from "Messiah" as performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. It's a joy to listen to, and a joy to sing as you'll know if you've every belonged to a choir. If Messiah were the only piece that Handel ever wrote he'd still be considered one of the greatest composers of all time. And, as a coincidence, he appears in a small but critical role at the climax of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle.

One of the inheritors of the literary mantle of Thomas Pynchon. He has gone way beyond his cyberpunk origins. "Snow Crash" was cool and entertaining, but his novels have gotten more ambitious and satisfying since then. "Cryptonomicon", about cryptographers in the Second World War and the present day, made me want to do crypto for a living. "The Baroque Cycle", three separate books, is about 1800 pages of swashbuckling romance, history-of-science fiction and, um, the history of the modern financial system, and I loved every minute of it. Now I have "Anathem" and am waiting for Christmas holidays to read it.

We just watched WALL*E again on DVD, having seen it in the theatre this summer. It is just as hysterically funny and touching the second time. WALL*E is the most adorable animated character to come along since Wallace and Gromit. Watching him sort his beloved trash collection is a delight -- where does the newfound spork go? With the spoons or the forks? Other highlights - he makes the MacOS chime when he is fully recharged, and his love interest Eve is definitely a descendant of the iPod. Stanton and company are brilliant as usual. Cool bonus on the DVD: a little piece on sound designer Ben Burtt, who made the animated story real with excellent sound --- and when there's no dialog for the first 45 minutes, sound is all that much more important. Disclaimer: I hate Disney but love Pixar.

One of my favorite novelists, an Australian who was recommended to me many years ago by my friend Tom Bishop (also, as it happens, from Oz). Many Americans might know of him because his novel "True History of the Kelly Gang" became the screenplay for the movie "Ned Kelly" with the late Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom. But everything he writes is fascinating. The beautiful and hallucinatory novel "Oscar and Lucinda" became the beautiful and hallucinatory film "Oscar and Lucinda" (1997) with Ralph Fiennes and introduced us to Cate Blanchett. Richly-drawn characters and compelling stories always make for a great read.

I'm reading "My Life as a Fake" right now, and am getting drawn into the literary mystery drawing its characters in like a whirlpool.

We love these spices. For baking, grilling, soups, sauces, salad dressings, we use Penzey's. And especially for spicing our granola. www.penzeys.com.

This site was built on a Mac. 'Nuff said.

This website was built on a Mac with RapidWeaver. Also 'nuff said.

Nate read his sprawling masterpiece 'Infinite Jest' back in '96 and loved its wit, humor and emotional depth. When Wallace died tragically this fall, many people wrote remembrances of him. One common thread was that the guy who wrote such complicated, academic prose was such a down-to-earth, humble and very likeable guy. We've lost a lot with his passing.

McSweeneys is a literary website that promotes books, freedom of expression and humor. Come for the funny bits, stay for the books. Nate's Naturals' "Recommends" page was inspired by "McSweeneys Recommends" which is a lot cooler than ours. But we're trying.

Belgique, in beautiful Kent, Connecticut, is a real Belgian chocolaterie that makes the best chocolate on the Eastern Seabord. Their hot chocolate is what chocolate would be like if it were a pure element -- let's call it chocolatium -- that came bursting out of the earth as chocolate lava. Plus their pralines -- filled chocolates -- are awesome, and well worth the price.

Over the Rhine, the husband-and-wife team of Linford Detweiler and Karin Begquist and various collaborators is our favorite band. Our second real date, back in 2002, was an OtR gig in Cambridge, MA, on the same weekend that we also caught a Natalie Merchant concert at the now-defunct Palace Theatre in New Haven. The album Films for Radio (2001) is a pop masterpiece. Since then they have taken a more rootsy tone -- consider the somber, beautiful double album Ohio (2003). Last year brought us The Trumpet Child, much more jazzy in the New Orleans vein, with excellent horns and upright bass. (Although the concluding track -- If a Song Could Be President -- is pure country.)