Cameron Crowe’s latest film, Elizabethtown, will rock for more than a few reasons:

• It was shot on-location in E-town, here in Kentucky.
• There are ear x-tacy bumper stickers.
• My Morning Jacket not only plays in the movie, but some of them have speaking roles (and allegedly they play “Free Bird”)
• Cameron Crowe is awesome.
• Mary Jane from Spiderman is in it!
• Legolas is in it!
• And finally — any movie that has any of the characters sporting an Ale-8-One t-shirt meets with my HIGHEST of approvals.

You can check out a 7-minute “first-look” preview here: http://www.elizabethtown.com/video/firstlook/InternetTrailer.mov.

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Dang, so Kelly is “teh olds” today (as she might say). Twenty-seven years and still rockin’. Last night we went to see teh Batmans and then she and I split a sippable sundae at Steak n’ Shake. I had to really brow-beat her to actually eat something she isn’t medically supposed to, but in the end it was all worth it! It was her birthday after all. (The shake/sundae was set down in front of us, and she said “It’s been so long, I don’t know what to do!”, peering over top of the glass and poking at it with the long spoon).

27 years old, and I’ve been lucky to be a part of her life for 1/3rd of that time! I love you, lady!

So, I’ve had a billion things to post about over the last couple of days — I went to California for the first time last week (Mo, Tu, Wed) and experienced Hollywood proper. At the same time I was reading On the Road which is just the proper book when bouncing from coast-to-coast. Many thoughts which may become a singular entry at some point in the near future.

Second, I’ve been listening to Sleater-Kinney’s latest album The Woods OVER AND OVER. I’ve been a fan of them for many years, but not a huge fan. This album may very well upgrade my fan status. In the past I’ve found some of their music a bit too staccato or downright shrill for repeated listenings, but on The Woods they have really honed their rock skills to produce songs with awesome hooks and a lot of dynamic power. Get it now!

Finally, I highly recommend you Louisville-lovers out there to patronize the brand-new WHY Louisville (What-Have-You Louisville) store in the Highlands. Created by the same gents who brought you LebowskiFest, it is sub-titled as a “Fan Club for the City”. At the moment, they peddle a number of Louisville-related t-shirts and knick-knackery as well as the Lebowski-related materials. Personally, I picked up a “Louisville – It’s Not Kentucky!” t-shirt and a pair of fleur-de-lis vinyl stickers. Jason “Fluffy” Clark from krack.org tells me they’ll be expanding their inventory soon — they were rushing to open for the LebowskiFest 2005 ticket sales.

Time has probably lost the name of the first person to ever eat an artichoke, but they were an adventurous and probably terribly hungry soul. The artichoke in it’s natural form is not terribly inviting, and the heart that is normally eaten is smallish and hard-won.

Anyway, I love artichoke hearts, but a while back I went to Dallas on work and we ate at a Cheesecake Factory. Surprisingly, they make excellent food aside from cheesecake. For an appetizer, we had some sort of sesame-grilled artichoke. The artichoke was split in two, grilled and had the “choke” (the flowery center) removed. Surprisingly, the normally discarded leaves were slightly “meaty” and good for dipping and eating. Fast-forward to yesterday, when I announced to Kelly that I was going to attempt such a thing for dinner. So, on with the recipe…

Ingredients

• 1 artichoke
• 2 cloves crushed garlic
• 1 can of stewed tomatoes, or 2 whole tomatoes
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp basil
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• salt and fresh-ground pepper

Directions

• 1. Fill a pot with cold water, lemon juice, salt and the artichoke.
• 2. Bring the water to a boil, and boil for 30-35 minutes. If the artichoke isn’t fully covered by the water, try and rotate it so the whole thing is fully cooked.
• 3. Remove artichoke from water, let cool and cut in half.
• 4. Remove the flowery “choke” from the center, but be careful to not destroy the whole thing.
• 4. Preheat grill, lay the halves on a plate, and baste with the vinaegrette.
• 5. Grill on each side for two minutes.
• 6. Serve on plate, pluck leaves for dipping into remaining vinaegrette. The inner leaves have more “meat” on them, which you scrape off with your teeth. Have another plate handy for discarding the leaves hard skins.

Vinaegrette

• 1. In a blender, add tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, basil and garlic and puree
• (As with any sauce, taste for yourself and make adjustments)

A few interesting links for you candy-cane children out there:
Jack White Weds Model Karen Elson, and White Stripes: Get Behind Me Satan album review. (Both from Pitchfork Media, clearly the only news I ever read). Finally, a good interview with Jack White from the LA Times.

Yeah, what the deuce? Album is released, Jack White gets married (with Meg as a bridesmaid) and www.WhiteStripes.com says it’s the first marriage for both newlyweds. I love Jack’s oddly-crafted public persona as much as the next guy, but this coupled with Get Behind Me, Satan‘s “departure” from the Stripes’ norm, I can’t help but feel that this all lies on the edge of a precipice.

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I’ve been listening to an advance version of Get Behind Me, Satan for a couple weeks now, and while there are some great songs on it, this album falls far from their prior Elephant. Whereas Elephant managed to hit both qualifiers for seminality — expanding musically and not leaving the fanbase behind, Get Behind Me, Satan might have not hit the latter on many of the tracks. Granted, had they had made something better than Elephant, my mind would have caved in and my chest would have exploded, leaving me a weeping, broken man for the beauty of it. However, Satan left me wondering if Jack has spread himself too thin with his other engagements and left this album rushed. Not to completely heap beratement on the album, though! Many tracks on the album do rank as some of my favorites — lead-off track “Blue Orchid”, “Little Ghost”, “Doorbell”, “The Denial Twist” and “Red Rain” all showcase Jack’s dangerously beautiful songwriting skills. The album itself — including the album art and video for “Blue Orchid” also show a growth of the White Stripes — at least in a character sense. The Spanish/Victorian/goth influences as well as the increasing introduction of the color black (beginning with White Blood Cells) into the whole Stripes “scheme” seem to indicate progressive change of some sort — and I’m very interested in seeing where they’re headed, both musically and aesthetically.

So then what is to become of our beloved Jack and Meg? Who am I to question someone’s marriage, but giving Jack’s anti-publicity/pro-image-crafting penchant one is left to wonder what all is going on in his head. Speculation has whirled since Elephant that there might be one or two albums left until the peppermint drumkit is put into storage for good. On all things art-borne, I am of the school-of-thought that dynamic art (a category which I think the White Stripes certainly fall into) should come to an end at some point before it can begin the mouldering process in the public view. Few music acts can continue in their same form and keep it up –a nd those acts don’t have to keep up the bizarrely concocted public personas. Even KISS took off their makeup… and then promptly started sucking.

Lately, I’ve been more into cooking and eating fish than I ever have before, and it being prime grilling season, I have ventured to make some tasty fish dishes for my lady.

While looking on teh intarweb for tasty ways to cook salmon, I noticed a recipe for “Maple-Balsamic Glazed Salmon”. Oh daaaaaang that sounds good. I had some tasty Vermont straight-0utta-the-tree maple syrup in the freezer, and some really tasty Balsamic vinegar, so I set out to try it. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

• 2 salmon filets (approx. 6-8oz each)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 cup maple syrup (you can substitute the sugar-free stuff)
• 1 tsp crushed garlic
• optional: 1 tbsp coarse mustard

Directions

• 1. Whisk together the ingredients well. If you are going to bake this, it’s perfectly acceptable to cook this sauce down to a glaze.
• 2. Use half of the sauce to marinade the two salmon filets in a shallow bowl. Anywhere from 1/2 hour to a few hours would be nice. Keep the other half for basting.
• 3. Over a medium-hot oiled grill, place the salmon flesh-down and cook for 4 minutes
• 4. Flip onto the skin-side, baste, and cook for 3 minutes.
• 5. Baste again, flip onto the flesh-side and cook for 3 minutes.
• 6. Remove from grill, and apply the other 1/2 of the sauce.

I’ve made this twice in the last month, and both times it has turned out wondefully. I still need to get a feel for grilling fish, but the sauce has turned out very nice. Give it a shot!

In honor or Katy Dixon’s birthday, today begins the week-long (perhaps longer) celebration known as Katypalooza.

May God have mercy upon us. Also, happy birthday kay-dizzle.