“Cookies and More” Holiday Special — We want your stories, recipes, advice and more

From Douglas Welch


“Cookies and More” Holiday Special — We want your stories, recipes, advice and more

Douglas Welch cookies 2010

Each year I make over 80 dozen cookies and candies for our annual Cookie Party. After 15+ years of putting this party together, I have collected a lot of cookie stories, recipes and advice.

This year, I am putting together “Cookies and More for the Holidays” — a New Media special full of holiday reminiscences, recipes, cookie baking tips and more… and I would like you to be a part of it

Cookies and More Holiday Special
A Holiday Special from WelchWrite.com
There are several ways to participate:

• Join us live in the “studio” to talk cookies
  
• Call in live via Skype or other online media
  
• Record your story, recipe, question or advice via voice mail by calling 818-804-5049
  
• Post an audio or video clip to YouTube and send us the link
  
• Email your story, recipe, question or advice to cookies@welchwrite.com

I am planning producing the show in mid-December, right after I have finished up all my baking for the party and reminded myself again about all the joys, trials, tips and hints of cookie baking for the holidays.
Start thinking of what you would like to add to this special. You can start sending in your emails, audio and video immediately. If you have any questions, send them cookies@welchwrite.com.

“I Can See Sound” by David Lynch - Review

Can you see sound?

Yes, if you listen to David Lynch’s latest CD “I Can See Sound.”

This is the thematic music of life. Rich melodies brimming with heart and an honest invitation to experience an audio vision. Lynch offers a mixture of romp and contemplation, songs that will cause you to stop what you are doing, listen and experience.

I’ve always been a fan of David’s evocative guitar pieces. He creates movement and place with just a few strings, but with this new CD he has discarded any pretense and opened up his audio soul. He has reworked “Marianne’s Wedding” and “Mahatma” and taken them down a fresh path. 

Is it Country? No. Blues? No. Classical guitar? No. Images of these genres dance through Lynch’s music, but these songs will not be pigeonholed. He calls it “California Bluegrusion.” Is this music inclusive? Yes. Emotionally rich? Yes. Musically complex? Yes, but with an ability to dance with your ear?

When my husband put on this CD I was deeply engaged in work. But David’s guitar extended a hand to me and lead me to the playground where his intelligent and unexpected lyrics painted sound images. Who would have thought that the line “You brown my onions,” could be so sensual?

David Lynch you have given me a visual note of your true self and a new favorite CD. Now I can see sound.

Go see sound for yourself and listen at davidlynchmusic.com

"Gunn's Golden Rules" Review

Looking for a gift book or a small volume to read during holiday travel? May I suggest Tim Gunn's Gunn's Golden Rules; Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work, Gallery Books (A Division of Simon & Schuster), 2010.

When Tim Gunn appears in the workroom on cable's Project Runway, you can always look forward to his design insight and creative influence to inspire the show's contestant designers to reach their fullest potential. With his new book, Tim offers readers an honest look at the modern world, especially the New York fashion world he knows so well. With the skill of an experienced teacher, he provides examples of how to be a polite adult and how to fail miserably. 

One of the attributes that has made Tim Gunn an asset to Project Runway and the numerous television and corporate entities that he collaborates with is his constructive honesty. This book is humorous (and scandalous at times), but it is also completely open and personally candid from an industry that is based on facade. Whether writing about creative inspiration, the pitfalls of technology or "taking the high road," Gunn's Golden Rules offers thought provoking tales in the form of a delightful romp.

Read this book for the fun of it, for the inspiration to be a better you and for the relief of knowing even Tim Gunn has a mother that won't listen to him.

Movie Review - 127 Hours

If you only have time and resources to see one movie this holiday weekend, brace yourself and experience 127 Hours.

Director Danny Boyle as taken movie making to a new height. This film is engaging, experiential and evocative. The visuals are eloquent and realistic. It isn't the blood that is unnerving, it is James Franco's portrayal of an everyman character making a choice we're not sure we could make. If there is a short list for the Oscars, Franco should be on that list.

Boyle also does what too few movie directors do well, he shapes his world with sound–music that provides character and pulse, the whisper of place and the dramatic sound of silence. Boyle allows his sound designers to employ an audio palette that startlingly conveys the agony of severing a physical nerve. Will you cringe? Yes. But there is no gratuitous violence to your senses, just raw honesty.

If you're looking for an extreme entertainment ride, the action and the music will take you there. But if you are willing to dive in deeper and hold on tight, Boyle will take you to a world of self discovery.

The real-life story of Aron Ralston's five-day ordeal trying to free himself from a boulder that pinned his arm to a canyon wall is more than a story of personal challenge. Boyle has molded Ralston's unique experience into a metaphor for the isolation most of us feel in modern society and the solitary way we try to face our personal trials.


Whatever your intimate struggle–joblessness, illness, emotional loss–none of us are alone and we all need help. See this movie. Let yourself take the visual, audio, emotional and physical ride with 127 Hours. It does what only the best movies can do, it delivers every viewer to their own personal destination. Oscars Take Note. - Keri Dearborn
Link to the trailer.

Joy To The World- Pink Martini's Great Holiday Album!

Joy To The World  - Pink Martini's Great Holiday Album!


http://pinkmartini.com/


What a joy!!  I just picked the CD up yesterday at our Local Starbucks!

This eclectic band or "little orchestra" has done it again!

The album has a true excitement and a passion for the holiday season without being a  rehash of the "tried and true" usual fare of Christmas Albums.

Each track is fresh and thoughtful in it's approach and tone  with excellent structure, arrangements and musicianship.

If you only buy one holiday album this year- pick this one!!

Joy to the World

Released in 2010  -  Heinz Records
1. White Christmas White Christmas”

…sung by China Forbes in English  -gorgeous

2. White Christmas (part II) feauring Saori Yuki
.... in Japanese.  - way cool

3. Shchedryk (Ukrainian Bell Carol)
…stunning recording

4. Santa Baby
…sung by China Forbes - poppy and fun 
not a sex kitteny approach

5. Elohai, N’tzor
…sung by China Forbes,  Ida Rae Cahana & Ari Shapiro -  
- beautiful

6. Little Drummer Boy
… timeless with a modern take on the great beat!!

7. Congratulations – A Happy New Year Song
… really neat!!

8. Do You Hear What I Hear?
… I had no idea it was written during the Cuban Missile Crisis-  
great back beat


9. La Vergine Degli Angeli
… beautiful recording


10. We Three Kings
… modern take on the rhythms


11. A Snowglobe Christmas
… original westerny- hawaiian slack guitar fun

12. Ocho Kandelikas (Eight Little Candles)
… definitely a Pink Martini  beat!! - China Forbes & Ari Shapiro

13. Silent Night
... love the choir

14. Auld Lang Syne
... really fun in multiple languages - 
makes you look for the Brazilian drum corps!


From The   http://pinkmartini.com/ website:

"Joy To The World is a festive, nondenominational holiday album with music from around the globe.

“There are 14 songs on Joy to the World,” says Thomas Lauderdale, “including well-known traditional holiday songs like Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas”…sung by China Forbes in English and by the incredible Saori Yuki… the Barbra Streisand of Japan… in Japanese.
With the Pacific Youth Choir and the handbell choir Bells of the Cascades, we recorded “Shchedryk,” known in English-speaking countries as “Carol of the Bells,” with the original Ukrainian text which tells of a lark flying into the house at the start of a new year, thus bringing good fortune.

We recorded a Hebrew prayer “Elohai N’tzor” with Ida Rae Cahana and Ari Shapiro and Patricia Costa Kim. (Ida Rae Cahana was for many years the canter at Central Synagogue in New York City and now lives in Portland… Ari Shapiro is the NPR White House correspondent… and accordionist Patricia Costa Kim was just named director of education at Experience Music Project in Seattle, but is also known by millions on YouTube as the keyboardist bandleader of Sonseed and their Christian ska song “Jesus is a friend of mine”).

There’s a Chinese New Year song from 1946, a Felainspired version of “We Three kings,” a song in Ladino (the intersection of Spanish and Hebrew), “Silent Night” in the original German, as well as a verse in Arabic and another in English.

The album ends with a samba parade of “Auld Lang Syne” with choruses in English, Arabic and French over the incredible percussion of the Lions of Batucada.”

Lauderdale notes, “I love the holidays and all the music that goes with it. We strove to make an inclusive and non-denominational album that could be played anywhere in the world.” "

http://pinkmartini.com/audio/index.html

This November... Sit and Think a Spell.... Before you Vote

 

Think before you blink.... Thanks SNL!!

Rally to Restore Sanity Announcement Daily Show Jon Stewart

http://www.rallytorestoresanity.com/

check it on faceboook

 

October 30th, 2010

Probably one of the the most important things to stand for - 
SANITY in the political process:


Keri and I'd be there but we have s#%t to do!

Play the clip!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rally to Restore Sanity Announcement
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

Pink Martini at the Hollywood Bowl 2010

 Sept. 12, 2010

Once again Pink Martini presented an evening of romping music that highlighted their unique mixture of classical themes, bubbling jazz and ethnic flavor.

The new pieces from their latest CD, Splendor in the Grass, celebrated their forte with clever story/relationship songs. The romantic lament "And Then You're Gone," sung by the group's chanteuse China Forbes, plays with themes from Franz Schubert, but becomes a unique duet when followed by "But Now I'm Back," the response from her fickle male love.  Guest Ari Shapiro, usually heard on NPR Radio as a the White House news correspondent, brought a playful quality to the "But Now I'm Back" bad boy that made you understand why his lady would let him return.


Pink Martini crosses age demographics not only in their music but by honoring musicians of the past and introducing them to young audiences. For me it was an absolute delight to see Jane Powell on stage again. The last time I saw her perform live was in South Pacific with Howard Keel at the Pantages in the late 1970s. She may be 81, but she still burns bright and sings from her heart.

But if you are looking for a ditty that is bound to become a classic, its "Bitty Boppy Betty." For me this is the essence of Pink Martini, inclusive. Music touches our best selves when it is fun and brings people together. 


If you missed Pink Martini closing the 2010 Hollywood Bowl season, you can be excused this time. But don't make the mistake again. When they come your way, experience Pink Martini.