56
DECEMBER 2012
•
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
HERE’S THE THING
about
Song Reader
,
the latest release from relentlessly
inventive singer-songwriter Beck: It’s not a record. It’s a lavishly illustrated,
idiosyncratic book of original sheet music. In other words, if you want to
hear it, you’re on your own.
Song Reader
is a throwback to the days before recorded music, when
popular songs were performed at home. “The idea of si ing around a piano
and playing a song with your friends and your family was as much a part
of our consciousness as Facebook is now,” Beck says. “People didn’t have a
definitive version of a song. They came up with their own slant. You got so
many variations of songs, they developed eccentricities.”
The music in
Song Reader
was composed as a simple framework, open
to interpretation. “Use it as a starting point,” Beck says. “Take the music and
write your own lyrics, or take the lyrics and write your own music.” The
possibilities are limitless. “Willie Nelson could sing one, and a pop singer
could sing a different one, and a jazz singer could do one.
“
It’s gonna have its own life,” he says. “It’s gonna be every man, woman
and child for themselves.”
dec. 7
GINA RIBISI (BECK); PHIL KONSTANTIN (JENNINGS)
AMa er of Taste
The American Museum of
Natural History gets cooking
Do you knowwhere your food
comes from? If not, a visit to
“
Our Global Kitchen: Food,
Nature, Culture” at New York’s
American Museum of Natural
History might be in order. The
exhibit examines trends in food
production, trade and cooking
over several millennia. Displays
include a full spread of Olym-
pian Michael Phelps’ breakfast
and a sculpture made from the
food wasted in a year by
an average American.
And if you’d like to
kick the takeout
habit, here are a
few techniques
you can learn
while you’re
there:
How to pick
a pepper:
The
exhibit’s “Growing”
section is stocked
with models of
different chili types,
set along a heat scale.
How to poach an egg:
An
interactive cooking table
allows visitors to virtually
chop, mix and cook such
dishes as poached eggs with
hollandaise sauce and South
African peanut soup.
How to cook a squirrel:
A floor-
to-ceiling display of cookbooks
includes an early edition of
The
Joy of Cooking
,
complete with
instructions for roasting your
favorite garden pest.
nowopen
Don’t sleep with an
electric fan on—you’ll
suffocate!
(
Korea)
“
Fans may circulate air,
but they don’t change
the breathability of its
oxygen in any way.”
Sitting on cold concrete
will make you sterile!
(
Russia)
“
In fact, the only result of
sitting on cold concrete
is the temporary medical
condition ‘cold butt.’”
You’ll get a bellyache if
you drink water after eat-
ing cherries!
(
Germany
and the Czech Republic)
“
Some say this is due to
the yeast on the fruit skin
being activated. Nope!
Even ‘watered-down’
stomach acid is way
too acidic for yeast to
start bubbling.”
Don’t wear red in stormy
weather, or else you’ll
get hit by lightning!
(
The Philippines)
“
This is true—if the item
of clothing is a red hat
with a tall metal pole
mounted on it.”
DEC. 4
MythBehavior
In playfully debunking time-
honored parental advice in
his new book,
Because I Said
So!
, “
Jeopardy!” champion
and trivia czar
Ken Jennings
draws on the chestnuts he
and his friends heard growing up in
the U.S. But American moms and dads
aren’t the only ones imparting dodgy wisdom
to their kids, as Jennings reveals for us here:
Sheets to
theWind
With
Song Reader
,
Beck is
going tomake youwork for it
