Hello there! We’re just a couple of weeks into Fall and here’s hoping the Fall weather near you is to your liking. (Likely not the case in the Gulf of Mexico, though, so here’s hoping those in the path of Hurricane Isaias can stay safe and dry.)
Let’s kick off the weekend in high style, then, with What I’m Watching, Reading, Listening to, and Rediscovering This Week…the 49th straight edition follows, right after the button.
Watching: Jack and Will from Fallow Roast a Chicken (And Some Other Videos from the Pair)
It’s a restaurant! It’s a YouTube channel! It’s Fallow!
I reached out to a buddy who’s a chef and said “hey, do you know about these guys?” The response? “I watch these cats all the time!” Well, my chef friend is not alone: nearly 2.5 Million people are subscribed; and this particular roast chicken video, which was posted on Thursday, now has nearly 750,000 views.
Jack Croft and Will Murray are masters of the craft and unafraid of experimentation. Plus, they’re funny and their chemistry is great. Some of the videos are one of them working solo, and others are the pair playing off each other. Here’s a handy guide to who’s who.
Here’s the roast chicken video, where they test the methods of Michelin-starred chefs to develop their own recipe.
Want pan sauces? You’ve got ‘em!
And we’ll close out this section with the pair making… British Classics.
Reading: The Tenth Parallel by Eliza Griswold
With a subtitle of Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam, The Tenth Parallel by Eliza Griswold remains a fascinating look at a part of the world that seems to somehow be part of quite a few major conflicts over time.
Published in 2010, The Tenth Parallel was Griswold’s second book; she would go on to write other books and one of them, Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America, would win the Pulitzer Prize in 2019.
It’s a wide-ranging and often rather crazy book; travels with Franklin Graham and visits to huts dot the journey through parts of the world, like Ethiopia and Sudan, where people don’t seem to think very highly of each other. It’s almost always about religions and how these religions underpin people’s way of life.
Listening to: Alternative Music from France — M83 and Phoenix
You’ve heard their songs on the radio, as both have had breakout hits. And you might remember their music playing at least a small role in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
But you may not have realized that both of these acts are from France: M83 and Phoenix.
First up, M83, which was formed as a duo in 2001 in Antibes. Anthony Gonzalez and Nicholas Fromageau were the original members; Gonzalez remains and is the primary songwriter, lead vocalist, and the voice you hear on the group’s breakout hit: “Midnight City.”
The song, off the album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, peaked at Number 7 on the Billboard US Rock chart. The video is just…excellent. (And this song was used to accompany the French delegation when they entered the stadium in 2024.)
You can find a continuation of the video story in the song “Reunion,” which reached Number 40 on the US Rock chart in 2011.
From the same album, their song “Outro” is a little dreamy, and a fan-produced unofficial video of the song has outpaced the official version by nearly a 3-to-1 margin. Both follow below.
As for Phoenix, their appearance at the 2024 Olympics was much less subtle: the Closing Ceremony pretty much turned into a Phoenix concert.
Lead singer Thomas Mars has the kindof panache you want in a lead singer — he’s also married to director Sofia Coppola — and there’s evidence in this 2009 live performance of their breakout hit, “1901.” The band’s network television debut was on The Late Show with David Letterman and I think even Dave was surprised to hear where they were from AND to watch them deliver a mic-drop-worthy performance.
“1901” hit Number 3 on the US Rock chart, and another song from the same album — Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix — made it to Number 5. Here’s “Lisztomania.”
And, why not a fun NPR Tiny Desk concert? They do both above songs and a couple others.
Rediscovering: Big Daddy Kane on NPR Tiny Desk
There’s a reason this performance keeps coming up when someone mentions NPR’s Tiny Desk. Big Daddy Kane delivered.
Finally: Mike Ditka, Chicago Legend, Dead at Age 86
He was a little more than a week from his 87th Birthday. Known as both “Iron Mike” and “Da Coach,” he became legendary for bringing the Chicago Bears their first title of the Super Bowl era. And he was a Hall of Famer as a tight end.
Here’s “Iron Mike” visiting David Letterman. RIP.
It’s been one of those weeks, so here’s to Iron Mike, and to you. Thanks for joining us and we’ll see you next week at this time.
Dave