Tunes4U

The holiday season is officially upon us (tomorrow is December?!), and what better gift to give than that of good music? For your aural pleasure, some slammin' jams:

Click for a free download of Lupe Fiasco's new mixtape, Enemy of the State: A Love Story.

If you haven't already, check out Blakroc, the rap-rock collab from The Black Keys and Damon Dash, featuring Raekwon, RZA, the late ODB, Mos Def, Pharoahe Monch, Ludacris, Q-Tip and more.

And lastly, swoon over "Heaven Can Wait," the first single from Beck and Charlotte Gainsbourg's collaboration titled IRM. Love. them. both.

Happy [Polish Spam] day

Das Racist does Thanksgiving, recession-style (with a little help from an ex-Gourmet food editor). Better than a combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell:

Thankful for all you lovely people in my life. Happy eating!

Thanks, MTA!

When you allow your eyes to scan all 400 square feet of your Manhattan loft, does something feel missing? No, I'm not talking about a dishwasher or a laundry machine, I mean something that would lend that special bit of New York apartment je ne sais quoi. Like, for example, a door from the subway car you ride to your poorly-paid-but-creatively/intellectually-stimulating job?
I know all I want this holiday season is to replace my front door with one of these puppies. But which? Decisions, decisions.

Blistering barnacles!

Image credit

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, directed by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, is set for a Dec 23, 2011 release date, but the live-action version is officially finished!
The motion-capture adaptation, starring Jamie Bell as Tintin, Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock, and Daniel Craig as the villainous Red Rackham, will need about two years of post-production work, but, as Jackson recently told the BBC, a rough draft has been cut together. The animation technique is the same Jackson used to create Gollum in Lord of the Rings, but with a futuristic twist: it's going to be in 3D.
The forthcoming adaptation (based on the Belgian comic series comics about an intrepid young investigative reporter) has been almost thirty years in the making. Spielberg first bought the rights to a film option in 1982 from Tintin creator Georges Remi (better known by his pen name, Hergé), who thought Spielberg was the only person who could do his iconic character justice.

Starry-eyed SNL

This past week's Saturday Night Live featured my imaginary celebrity boyfriend, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (he of 3rd Rock from the Sun, 10 Things I Hate About You, and 500 Days of Summer fame ... weird number theme going on there), who rocked the house in all his heel-clicking hosting glory. Oh yeah, and then I saw him in the East Village on Sunday smooching a Zooey Deschanel lookalike - grrr. Check his performance out here:

Shoutout to this week's musical guests, Dave Matthews Band, who my uncle currently plays with! Okay, celeb-session ending now.

Party in my dress

What do you get when you combine two London-based designers with 24,000 LEDs? One Galaxy Dress. This piece of futuristic fashion is the largest wearable display in the world and runs on tons of teeny iPod batteries stashed in the crinoline of the dress' fabric. Wear it, and I can guarantee you'll be the light of the party.

A night in Tim Burton's brain

Last night I got to accompany a friend to a party and sneak preview at the MoMA in honor of the Tim Burton retrospective that opens to the public on November 22nd. There are no words. Okay, a few, which could not begin to do him justice: quirky, creepy, wacky, whimsical, definitive, bizarre, macabre, imaginative, unparalleled, otherworldly ... nope. The man defies description. The exhibit displays his dark humor and widespread vision by leading the viewer from his early years of alienation in Burbank, CA, through sketches and drafts of his work on films like Mars Attacks!, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, and more. His body of work is a visionary masterpiece far from completion: Burton's upcoming adaptation of Alice in Wonderland has fans of the filmmaker and the classic tale waiting with bated breath.
I could go on and on about the pitch-black room displaying his blacklit sculpture and velvet paintings, or the candy cane-nosed witch of his adaptation of Hansel and Gretel (previously screened just once), or his illustrated volumes of poetry, but ... you should see for yourself. I plan to. Again.

Free music Wednesday

Courtesy of insound.com, free mp3's from their top 50 most downloaded albums of 2009. Kewl.

Better brussels

Anyone privileged to have sampled West Village tapas spot Alta's "Crispy Brussels Sprouts" (topped with fuji apples, pistachios and creme fraiche) understands the desire to order two or ten of the small plates. This past weekend for a pre-Thanksgiving potluck back in Baltimore, I decided to embark on a culinary adventure the stakes of which were nothing short of sky-high (okay, I exaggerate but hey, this dish is really good). Alexandra's Kitchen (a Bittman favorite) offers a take on the delectable morsels. I chose to slightly revise her educated guesses, ending up with a plate that was part-Alta, part-Alexandra, part-Allegra, and all good.
Here's the recipe. I substituted pecans for pistachios and decided to forgo the balsamic-honey mixture in favor of an apple cider reduction that more closely approximated the original. I found that baking the sprouts for 15 minutes then flash-frying them produced a crispier texture. Finally, if you find yourself in a creme fraiche-free situation, sprinkle a half cup of sour cream with a pinch of salt, stir in a half cup of heavy whipping cream, and refrigerate until use.

Leonid meteor shower

via the Examiner

One of the best meteor showers of our time will cross the night skies between 11pm tonight and dawn, peaking at around 5:30am Tuesday, with twenty to thirty or meteors per hour in North America, and as many as 200-300 per hour in Asia. Although city folk won't have as clear of a view, I'm still planning to squint from my rooftop and take in what I can of a sight that's sure to be out of this world.