This Friday February 12, the Swedish American Hall presents Clare and the Reasons and Van Dyke Parks for one night only.

Clare and the Reasons is a Brooklyn-based “chamber-pop” group, dubbed as such by the establishment due to their facility (both live and recorded) with cellos, violas, kazoos, baby kotos, saws, recorders, and drums.

Van Dyke Parks, the indefatigable American composer and lyricist says:

“Clare is the Reasons’ raison d’être. Melodious et mysterieux–(the group) defines esprit de corps. Elegant arrangements for your dream escape—chamber music with edge. Get this visa to real musical adventure. Totally transportive!”

Also on board for the night is Josh Mease, a soft-spoken Texan songwriter, whose work reads gentle prairie-like soundscapes.

Parks’ live performances are distinguished by his personal panache, a charm bested only by his infectious percussion on the piano. Parks intersperses poetry and lore among melodic selections from his bountiful songbook. While none of Parks’ albums have gone platinum, his songs all sound familiar as apple pie.

Hope to see you there.

From the San Francisco Chronicle, Eccentric Van Dyke Parks finally reaches S.F. by Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Correspondent

I’m stressed about a number of big projects I have coming up and Real Estate’s dreamy “surf pop” is really soothing me today in my somewhat agitated state. As melancholy as the song’s story might be, there’s something appealing about being alone with a metal detector on a long stretch of beach looking for something you know you’ll never find. I think I’m having a Buddhist moment.

The members of the band are Martin Courtney IV, Matthew Mondanile III, Etienne Pierre Duguay, and Alex Bleeker. I like the affect of the following combined facts about this band: they are from New Jersey, have two members who are a fourth and third, respectively, and a member who appears to be very French. Alex Bleeker, I’m sure there’s something intriguing about you that isn’t evident in your name (although it’s a very nice one; I do love Bleeker Street).

That’s all for today. Check out Real Estate and the other songs from their debut full-length album of the same name on their Myspace page.

Leading off Wednesday Morning Links today is “We Are So Good Together,” the underground icon of, well, different things for different folks I suppose. The full story is told by the artist himself on 20×200′s site, where prints from a numbered edition are available, for the last time, ever, for $50 USD. Are you so good together?

Next, a must-read for food lovers is Everyone Eats: But that doesn’t make you a restaurant critic, an article on the history and current state of food journalism and criticism in the Columbia Journalism Review by the inimitable Robert Sietsema. Sietsema doesn’t hit us over the head, but guides us through a romantic history with its roots in an America where chicken a la king was haute cuisine and housewives were the only ones to read the Food Section of the New York Times; “colloquially referred to as the Women’s Section,” says Sietsema. Unfortunately it isn’t until the last page that Sietsema lays it on us: “I’m all for everyone having his or her say, but when it comes to cultural criticism there is a strong case to be made for professionalism and expertise.” Too true. Here’s hoping that the CJR publishes part two. New media means democracy, but it also means chaos. I’m excited for voices like Sietsema’s to guide us, reasonably and ethically, into new territory.

I just discovered the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s blog The Medieval Garden Enclosed written about the Cloisters Museum and Gardens. Their most recent post is about myrtle, which they call Love’s Herb. The post provides delightful history, mythology, and literary references to the plant. Previous posts include pictures and information about some of my favorite botanicals including Butcher’s room, boxwood, and strawberry tree.

Image of myrtle via The Arboretum at Arizona State University

Who doesn’t love a good debutante exposé piece? The new issue of the Believer (of which both the web and paper issue is appropriately pink) offers Becoming a Lady: British Reality Television and the Development of Good Manners by Amelie Gillette. There’s only a brief snippet available online, but it’s enough to goad me into wanting to read the whole thing. My horror at the opening scene of a late-nineties rave after-party is balanced by my affinity for these words: “From what I understand, entry into the demimonde of New Orleans debutantes amounts to an accident of birth. If your mother was a debutante, you can be one too, even if you’re battling some kind of terrible deformity like a cleft palate, an unfortunate unibrow, or a Yankee father.” As a debutante born of a Yankee father, I can’t demur.

First there was this; a timid foray in the larger scheme of reclaiming the carnation from its flocked, glittered, Safeway/Vons/you-name-it-big-ugly-grocery-store reputation. Almost any flower can look chic when en masse and arranged in a tight mound. But I’m becoming more emboldened, more as each day gets longer. So this week I present the following mixed assembly of blooms—

In Defense of the Carnation.

Butter yellow carnations, white tulips, anemones, and pink jasmine. Pas mal, non?!

The anemones this time of year are amazing. It was a closed green bud (like that one in the background) just twelve hours prior to my taking this picture. And this one (below) is amazing. Red streaked in the back and deep navy and velvety black in the center.

The flower anemone is no less amazing than its sea dwelling counterpart, and just as diverse. Another one that previously appeared to be no more than closed, light green bud:

That bright lime green center blows me away.

Finally, a bit of gesturing jasmine.

Love the carnation.

xoxo

I think this song goes great with flowers.

A portrait of the artist as a young man.

Background.