MR. BOSTON OFFICIAL MOBILE BARTENDER'S GUIDE

Name: MR. BOSTON OFFICIAL MOBILE BARTENDER'S GUIDE
Author: Anthony Giglio

by Anthony Giglio and Jim Meehan developed by Kiwitech ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 6, 2010

Of course, the classic Mr. Boston Official Bartender’s Guide, originally published in 1935, was also made to be handheld,...

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Everything you want to know about mixology in the palm of your hand.

Of course, the classic Mr. Boston Official Bartender’s Guide, originally published in 1935, was also made to be handheld, and this app is only marginally easier to use than the book. Both are organized by main ingredient and searchable by index. As with the paper version, the app includes a charmingly written guide to bartending, with erudite references to the profession’s golden age in the late 19th century when the best known cocktails were invented and their recipes first recorded. The bar basics section covers everything from essential equipment, bar stocking and glassware to mixing techniques. The app can change the text’s font as well as font size to make recipes easier to read, and you can probably find what you’re looking for a bit faster with the app’s search function than by flipping through the book’s 250-some pages. You can also share recipes easily via e-mail or Facebook, and convert to metric measurements with the flip of a switch. To make things even a little more interesting, if you give your iPhone a shake on the home page, a random drink recipe will pop up on the screen to the sound of ice cubes rattling in a shaker. Otherwise, the app is so basic in its functionality as to be a little boring. So what do you want for 99 cents?

Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2010

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Wiley

Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011

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THE HISTORY OF JAZZ

by Ted Gioia ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1997

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Gioia, musician and critic, winner of the ASCAPDeems Taylor Award for The Imperfect Art (not reviewed) takes on a daunting task, tracing the history of jazz from preCivil War New Orleans to the embattled music of today—and does a creditable job of it. Jazz's history has been written by entirely too many mythographers and polemicists. Gioia, mercifully, spares us the myths and polemics. ``The Africanization of American music,'' as he calls it, begins farther back in American history than New Orleans's aptly named Storyville red-light district around the turn of the century; he starts his narrative in the slave market of the city's Congo Square in 1819, and when it comes to Storyville, he offers hard facts to puncture the picturesque racism that finds jazz's roots in the whorehouses of New Orleans. Indeed, one of the great strengths of Gioia's account is the sociohistorical insights it offers, albeit occasionally as throwaway sidelights, such as his observation about drumming as an avatar of regimentation more than of freedom. He is particularly good in explaining how the music was disseminated and shaped by new technologies—the player piano, the phonograph, radio. He is also excellent at drawing a portrait of a musician's style in short brushstrokes. His prose is for the most part fluid and even graceful (although his metaphors do get a bit strained at times, as in his comparison of Don Redman's ``jagged, pointillistic'' arrangement of ``The Whiteman Stomp'' and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle). Although Gioia is much too generous to jazz-rock fusion of the '70s and '80s and probably gives more space than necessary to white dance bands like the Casa Loma orchestra, if you wanted to introduce someone to jazz with a single book, this would be a good choice. (9 b&w photos, not seen)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-19-509081-0

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Oxford Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | ETHNICITY & RACE

- BOOK REVIEW
MUSIC
by Ted Gioia

- BOOK REVIEW
DELTA BLUES
by Ted Gioia

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DRESS YOUR FAMILY IN CORDUROY AND DENIM

by David Sedaris ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2004

Sedaris’s sense of life’s absurdity is on full, fine display, as is his emotional body armor. Fortunately, he has plenty of...

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Known for his self-deprecating wit and the harmlessly eccentric antics of his family, Sedaris (Me Talk Pretty One Day, 2000, etc.) can also pinch until it hurts in this collection of autobiographical vignettes.

Once again we are treated to the author’s gift for deadpan humor, especially when poking fun at his family and neighbors. He draws some of the material from his youth, like the portrait of the folks across the street who didn’t own a TV (“What must it be like to be so ignorant and alone?” he wonders) and went trick-or-treating on November first. Or the story of the time his mother, after a fifth snow day in a row, chucked all the Sedaris kids out the door and locked it. To get back in, the older kids devised a plan wherein the youngest, affection-hungry Tiffany, would be hit by a car: “Her eagerness to please is absolute and naked. When we ask her to lie in the middle of the street, her only question was ‘Where?’ ” Some of the tales cover more recent incidents, such as his sister’s retrieval of a turkey from a garbage can; when Sedaris beards her about it, she responds, “Listen to you. If it didn’t come from Balducci’s, if it wasn’t raised on polenta and wild baby acorns, it has to be dangerous.” But family members’ square-peggedness is more than a little pathetic, and the fact that they are fodder for his stories doesn’t sit easy with Sedaris. He’ll quip, “Your life, your privacy, your occasional sorrow—it’s not like you're going to do anything with it,” as guilt pokes its nose around the corner of the page. Then he’ll hitch himself up and lacerate them once again, but not without affection even when the sting is strongest. Besides, his favorite target is himself: his obsessive-compulsiveness and his own membership in this company of oddfellows.

Sedaris’s sense of life’s absurdity is on full, fine display, as is his emotional body armor. Fortunately, he has plenty of both.