Shiny Objects -- No. 5

1. Citra -- Lottery winner!

My Citra lottery winKern River Brewing recently released a fresh batch of Citra, a Double IPA that has earned a Gold Medal at the Great American Beer Festival and a 100 rating from the Beer Advocate. This beer is that good, and brewed in such small batches that the brewery conducts a lottery to dish out each new batch. I got lucky, and won a six-pack. The genius part is you have to drive to Kernville to pick up your winnings, which means you get to drink Citra fresh from the tap, and save the bottles for later.

I may sound like a homer but Citra is a seriously good beer and well worth the effort to win a six-pack or drive up the hill from Bakersfield to taste it right from the tap. But move fast, because the scarcity of the Citra hop means supplies are limited.

2. The Bakersfield Sound

The Bakersfield Californian recently partnered with Zocalo Public Square on an in-depth discussion of the state of The Bakersfield Sound. It was a great evening at Metro Galleries in Bakersfield, and spawned a number of related pieces of media in addition to this video:

• KVPR "Valley Edition" interview with Californian editor Robert Price, author of an upcoming book on The Bakersfield Sound (with which I'm heavily involved). 
• "Singing Harmony With Buck Owens" a first-person column by Bakersfield singer Jennifer Keel Faughn. 
• "A New Anthem for Bakersfield," a search for Bakersfield's next iconic song. 

3. “The Americans”

“The Americans,” my current favorite TV show, just started its third season and I can’t recommend it enough. On the surface, “The Americans” is a terrific spy thriller. But underneath is a thoughtful drama that tackles parenting, politics and sociology in a smart way that has you rooting for both sides.

Grantland’s Andy Greenwald, who also considers “The Americans” the best show on TV, eloquently wrote recently why the show resonates far beyond its base storylines.  

 “The Americans has won no Emmys, its ratings have broken no records. And yet, in its insistent, understated way, the show has proven that cable dramas, like spies, don’t need to be loud to be great. It’s far more important to pay attention to the smallest detail, to exploit every fatal weakness. The Americans transports you to another place and time only to reveal, with quiet desperation, that you really haven’t traveled anywhere at all. What is a sleeper agent anyway but someone with powerful, unsettling desires hiding in plain sight? And what is an American but someone who believes, deeply and truly, in the right to live out private contradictions in public? We are as we’ve always been: one nation, undercover.”

4. Magnificent magazines

I’m a magazine geek so love stuff like the American Society of Magazine Editors annual awards, which does a great job of recognizing new blood, innovation and great journalism.

I’m still poring through the award winners (the link above will steer you to terrific work), but have been sidetracked by Nautilus, a newby that gives science a new twist, with forays into psychology and sociology. Brilliant.

5. Radio Silence

Galley view of the Radio Silence coverSpeaking of magazines, I’ve been spending more time recently consuming printed compilations of online publications -- Volume 3 of Radio Silence is just one example.  With much swagger, here’s the Radio Silence mantra:

“A magazine of literature and rock & roll, presented across three platforms—print, digital, and live. RADIO SILENCE features the best contributors, issue-by-issue, of any magazine in the history of publishing.”  

Well, alrighty. If this issue is any indication, I will argue with the suggestion assertion Radio Silence has the best contributors of any magazine in the history of publishing. The 180 or so pages mix non-fiction, fiction and poetry that address mainstream, underground and plain quirky topics, most of which have a music connection.

Highlights were Lucinda Williams’ “Where the Spirit Meets the Bone,” Ian MacKaye’s “The Making of a Punk” and “All I Could Do Was Cry,” an excerpt from Greil Marcus’ superb book “The History of Rock ‘N’ Roll in Ten Songs.” This is a magazine I’ll consider again, but I'm not yet convinced it's the greatest ever, so I won't be subscribing soon. 

6. “The Queen of Code” 

Everyone should know about Grace Hopper, a computer programmer who through sheer will quietly shaped the computing systems that are the foundation of our daily lives. Five Thirty Six has released a short documentary that does justice to a woman whose legacy is astounding.

• Here’s a Grantland interview with director Gillian Jacobs http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=12244460

7. Reading Analysis

I was always told that newspaper journalist should write to eighth-graders in order to maximize the reach of their audience.

This interesting story from Contently indicates I wasn’t too far off the mark from the author. What is interesting is learning his writing was twice as advanced as Ernest Hemingway, who measured at a fourth-grade level!

Disagree if you want, but give the test a try first before arguing too vehemently.