BMAG BUZZ Currents

Have you just finished a book you can’t stop talking about? Is there a CD you’ve been recommending to everyone you know? Want to share your recommendations with Birmingham magazine’s readers? Contact Carla Jean Whitley to learn how you can be included in Currents.”


listen
Act of Congress, Declaration
 Late last year, a friend told me I should check out local band Act of Congress—and to ensure my interest, he compared them to my favorite, now-defunct band, Nickel Creek. I waited far too long to follow his advice, but I heard the band perform twice during City Stages weekend. The Nickel Creek comparison is apt; Act of Congress sounds like echoes of that newgrass band, circa their 2000 selftitled album. I was instantly hooked, and waited anxiously for their debut LP. Declaration is a largely upbeat number, with two versions of the catchy “In the Middle” bookending a mix of instrumentals and songs with thoughtful lyrics. “Nature of Things” builds tension, moving from its staccato introduction to lush, full-band instrumentation. “When We’re Through” is a melancholy lament that beautifully exhibits each player’s instrumental talents and vocal abilities. In all, it’s an engaging collection. The CD release party is Sept. 5 at WorkPlay. —CARLA JEAN WHITLEY
MY tunes
Lesley Cavender
Pastry Chef, Kathy G & Co. Catering
What’s music? Lately, I’m a public radio podcast junkie. In particular, I’m hooked on “The Splendid Table” with Lynne Rossetto Kasper. Basically, this is a show about food—about making, eating, reading, living and breathing it. It’s breakfast, lunch and dinner for the ears and right now it sounds better than any band I can think of.
MUSIC
makers
Jon Black stuck mostly to upbeat rock originals during his solo set at City Stages in June. But on Goodbye Golden Age (Rebuilt Records), the Birmingham resident’s introspective songwriting is evidenced in both those raucous numbers and mellower tunes. Black’s label mate Natalie Moon is also a Birminghamian, and also has a new disc out. On the EP Short Stories of Epic Proportion (Rebuilt Records), Moon’s clear voice hearkens back to some of country music’s greats.

The songs on Peter Bradley Adams’ Leavetaking (Sarathan) are thematically focused on wandering and the loneliness that leaving brings. It’s a subtle, delicate collection by the former Birmingham resident, and its highlights are more in textures (notice the eerie banjo on “I’ll Forget You”) than in stand-out tracks.

The Duhks’ 2006 release, Migrations, was an irresistible folk concoction and the same can be said of their latest, Fast Paced World (Sugar Hill Records). It’s largely filled with enticing, dark compositions that retain the band’s earthy charms.

On “It’s Alright,” the opening track of Promised Land (Razor & Tie), Dar Williams optimistically transitions from “I know change is a bad thing, it breaks me down into a sorry sad thing” to “It’s a sad and a strange thing, but it’s time and I am changing” by song’s end. When she says “It’s Alright,” you believe it will be.—CARLA JEAN WHITLEY
learn
Get smart
Who uses their phone strictly as a phone? Not many people these days. I’ve got a basic—by today’s standards—cell phone, but I still use it as an alarm clock, for text messaging, as a calendar, to take pictures and to check weather forecasts. But I’m way behind the times. It’s an understatement to say the Apple iPhone created a buzz when it debuted in 2007, and even as Apple has released its second generation phone, competitors enter the market. Take a quick look at two touch screen devices that will grab attention as they organize your life.

Apple iPhone 3G
Carrier: ATA&T
Cost: $199, 8GB phone; $299, 16GB phone
Talk time: Up to 10 hours
Dimensions: 4.5” x 2.4” x .48”
Screen size: 3.5 inches
Weight: 4.7 ounces
Features: The updated phone includes built-in GPS, an App store, enabling users to purchase and download applications wirelessly and more. Early iPhone adopters are already familiar with the email, web browsing, visual voicemail, touch keyboard and ability to use all iTunes content.

Samsung Instinct
Carrier: Sprint
Cost: $129 as of press time, with rebates; requires a two-year service agreement
Talk time: Up to 5.75 hours
Dimensions: 4.57” x 2.17” x .48”
Screen size: 3.1 inches
Weight: 4.40 ounces
Features: The Instinct offers wireless connectivity, mobile TV, email, camera, camcorder and more. Users will also find a music store, and data is inputted through a touch keyboard. —CARLA JEAN WHITLEY
read
Stop your darn rubber-necking is the main bit of advice everyone should glean from a great new book by Tom Vanderbilt about a daily trial, Traffic (Knopf, $24.95). Vanderbilt has spent his career writing about a wide variety of topics from the mundane to the sublime. “Why We Drive The Way We Do” is the subtitle to this latest research-laden fun ride into our psyches and souls.

Modern mayhem and crime in Georgia bubbles to the surface in Atanta novelist Karin Slaughter’s latest crime novel Fractured (Delacorte, $25). In her latest Atlanta investigator Will Trent goes after a brutal killer in tony city neighborhoods.

Telex from Cuba (Scribner, $25) is a first novel by Rachel Kushner set in pre-revolutionary Cuba. An imaginative tour-de-force of storytelling and history with figures as disparate as Christian de la Mazière, a real-life French former Nazi, and Ernest Hemingway, this novel uniquely captures a facinating time and place.

Julia Reed was a successful, New York based writer born in the Delta who found a new life and love in New Orleans. Then Katrina hit. The restoration of a city and a home is at the heart of Reed’s new book, The House on First Street (Ecco, $23.95). Trouble enough for a couple of lifetimes makes The Night of the Gun (Simon & Schuster, $26) by New York Times journalist David Carr a fascinating memoir about succumbing to and then beating back the personal demons of addiction and bad choices that haunt Carr’s personal and professional life.

Benjamin Wallace brings to life the manic, money and fraud-fueled world of rare wine in The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine (Crown, $24.95). The hoax of Thomas Jefferson’s unclaimed wine shipment is meticulously and artfully unraveled in this new book.
E D I T O R ' S
 CHOICE
The Bible Salesman by Clyde Edgerton (Little Brown, $23.99) adds another cast of unforgettable characters to the beloved North Carolina author’s pantheon of success that leads from the more recent Lunch at the Piccadilly back to Walking Across Egypt and Raney. This new novel brings together petty criminal and car thief Preston Clearwater and bible salesman Henry Dampier in a post-World War II romp across the Southern countryside.
WHAT THEY'RE READING
Kristen Stewart
Child and family photographer

"Persuasion" by Jane Austen
I really appreciated Persuasion. It’s immensely enjoyable after you’ve read other Austen and can see the development in her writing. The heroine, plot and characters are very Austen, but with some thought-provoking differences. I’m looking forward to discussing this with my book club and would highly recommend it!
Zackery Moore,
Freelance publicist

"The Chronicles of Narnia" series by C.S. Lewis
During a recent move, I rediscovered a Chronicles of Narnia box set I’ve had since high school. After realizing the books aren’t going to read themselves, I dove right in to the adventures of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. I love C.S. Lewis’ writing style and storytelling ability. His books remind me of being told fairy tales as a child.
January Birmingham, Alabama

  

 
Digital Newstand

View Magazine

bmag buzz

What are you doing
this Weekend?
 



 
bmag bonus


This Month's Giveaway ...
Tickets to the Rigling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, which will be in Birmingham from Jan. 28-Feb. 1.

Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter,
the bmag buzz, and be automatically entered for your chance to win!