Cityview | Central Iowa's Independent Weekly

Our Favorite Holiday Albums

We offer our top picks to jingle your bells

Most of us have a favorite holiday album even if we won’t admit what it is. These favorites remind us of good times spent with friends and family. Whether you’re listening to the songs on a turntable, tape deck, CD player or an iPod, you can’t deny that music puts you in the holiday spirit. We compiled a list of our favorite Christmas albums, and numerous staff members jumped at the chance to share their musical memories with our readers. Here are 12 of our favorites to rock around the Christmas tree with. Just go easy on the eggnog.

Jerry Crawford, John Carlson and the history of chai

Just a bunch of stuff:

Stuff No. 1. Jerry Crawford has registered to lobby for Monsanto in Washington, according to the conservative Washington Examiner, which doesn’t think it’s merely a coincidence now that Crawford’s pal, Tom Vilsack, is Secretary of Agriculture. Tim Carney, an Examiner columnist, writes: “This situation — the Agriculture Secretary’s top fund-raiser, top donor and long-time confidant serving as a Monsanto lobbyist — would seem to create an awkward situation for the Obama administration given the President’s pledges to crush lobbyist influence.”

Stuff No. 2. Word in The Register newsroom is that one reason columnist John Carlson quit is because the management was periodically hassling him about the conservative views that would sometimes pop up in his columns. Carlson, who has been at the paper for 31 years and who has been writing his column for 11 years, was encouraged by previous editors to air his views, but things changed when Carolyn Washburn arrived a few years ago, newsroom folks tell Skinny. Finally, they say, Carlson just decided to hang it up. Nah, says the affable Carlson, he just grew tired of the grind. And, he says, he’s enjoying his three-month-old grandson. “Little guy puked on me three times before I left for work this morning,” he says. “Loved it.”. ...Read More>>

Cursive’s rock keeps Kasher young at heart

Tim Kasher is growing older, but he has no intentions of becoming an old man. Cursive’s 35-year-old singer-guitarist (unmarried and without children) subscribes to the familiar theory that rock music is a young man’s game — whether you’re young in years or young at heart. And you can hear that in the sounds and words of Cursive’s latest Saddle Creek Records effort, “Mama, I’m Swollen,” in which Kasher wrestles with life’s miseries and mysteries and addresses the “Peter Pan Syndrome” of grown men.

“The ‘Peter Pan Syndrome’ is one of the themes of the record. It’s a reluctance of maturity,” said Kasher, via cell phone from the band’s traveling van. “We’re in our 30s now, and there’s a lot of people I’ve grown up with who have kids who are teenagers. I just never went that route. There’s a lot of societal pressure once you hit your 30s to shape up and fit the mold. But I’m glad not to. I think it’s far more interesting what I’m doing.”...Read More>>

New places fill empty niches

Korean cuisine has been missing from the metro since Arirang/Teriyaki House gave up four years ago. Some say sorely missing, as Korean food was named the hottest new dining craze last year in both Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The Korean equivalence of taco trucks are spreading the word in California. So are health concerns. Tofu (soy bean curd), a key ingredient in Korean cuisine, has been called the world’s healthiest protein. Health magazine named Korea’s most famous food, kimchee (chile pickled vegetables), on its list of the five “world’s healthiest foods.”

So Canton Korean/Chinese Food Express’ entrance in the skywalk brings something hot and contemporary back to the civic table. This is an unusually comfortable skywalk venue with a 50-seat dining room and tall windows. Efficiency rules. A single chef worked two woks and a deep fryer to keep more than half a dozen Chinese entrees, plus fried dumplings, crab Rangoon, pork rolls, spring rolls, noodles and two kinds of rice all buffet-ready. Five dollar Chinese lunch specials attracted lines at rush hour — my waits ran three to 14 minutes. These specials, made with fresh vegetables, included entrees, starch and an appetizer or soup. Vegetarian choices were reduced to one, whereas there were a dozen chicken and half a dozen beef dishes on the menu. Chinese food has been downtown for 105 years, so I was more interested in Korean offerings....Read More>>”