DVDs

Da Ali G Show, Da Compleet Seereez (HBO)

Now that Da Ali G Show character Borat is a household name, the DVD release of the first two seasons of the HBO show that spawned the mustached "reporter" from Kazakhstan has a little more caché. The bonus footage here includes snippets from Borat's appearance at a horse show and a bit he did on patriotism. You'll also want this four-disc set for the hilarious interviews conducted by Ali G, a British b-boy with a heavy patois and a knack for stupid questions, as well as appearances by Bruno, the gay Austrian fashion fanatic. — JN

Six Feet Under (HBO Video)

Packed in a grave-shaped box, this set includes all five seasons (63 episodes) of the terrific HBO drama created by Alan Ball (American Beauty). What made this show so compelling is apparent from the first episodes as the family's father dies in a tragic accident and his surviving relatives' dysfunctions come to the fore: David's repressed homosexuality, Claire's anti-authority impulses and Nate's passive-aggressive tendencies. The set includes a commemorative booklet, audio commentaries and two bonus soundtracks. — JN

Foo Fighters, Skin and Bones (RCA)

Singer-guitarist Dave Grohl lists himself last in the opening credits; he takes a back seat to the band he assembled for this special concert. Nicely lensed by Danny Clinch, who's done concert films for Ben Harper, Guster and Ani DiFranco, this acoustic show was recorded earlier this summer during the band's sold out multi-night stand at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. Fleshed out with violin, accordion and an assortment of other instruments, pedestrian Foo rock tunes such as "Over and Out" and "Marigold" take on an epic quality. The ensemble plays with so much inspiration, the concert comes off as something like a contemporary version of The Last Waltz. — JN

Metallica, The Videos: 1989-2004 (Warner Bros.)

Videos were crucial to Metallica's crossover success. The guys still had their long, mangy haircuts when they shot 1989's "One," mixing in footage from the disturbing film Johnny Got His Gun. The stark video had a quiet intensity to it. That wasn't the case for more stylized videos for "Enter Sandman" and "Unforgiven," both of which got heavy airplay on MTV. As much as they suggested the band's selling out, they also showed grasp of the video medium, something that comes through even in the Western-themed "Mama Said," which never aired. The collection also includes the home video 2 of One, previously available only on VHS. — JN

 

The Pixies, Live at the Paradise in Boston (Eagle Vision)

If you saw the Pixies at the Rock Hall a couple of years back, you know the band's casual approach in small venues. That holds true for this performance at Boston's intimate Paradise Theatre. The group starts with "La La Love You," aborting mid-way on the first try because it doesn't sound right, as if it's a rehearsal. Singer-guitarist Frank Black throws in Springsteen parodies and jokes with both his bandmates and the audience over the course of the 29-song set. The DVD includes footage from a 1986 Pixies show as well; Black looks so much younger (and is far skinnier), it's hard to believe he's the same person. — JN

Nirvana, Live! Tonight! Sold Out! (Geffen)

Commencing with a parody in which the band acts in a fake commercial for "The Art Institutes International," this DVD transfer of a 1994 concert film shows what jokesters the guys were. As the concert begins, singer-guitarist Kurt Cobain is wheeled out in a wheelchair and then pretends to pass out. The group eventually gets it together for a rambunctious rendition of "Aneurysm." Primitively shot and splicing together performances of the same songs from different tour stops, this video is more a document of a great live band than a cinematic masterpiece. With hard-hitting Dave Grohl keeping the backbeat, the band makes one fierce racket for a trio. Bonus footage includes renditions of five songs not on the original VHS release and a goofy goth-rock rendition of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," which the band played on Tops of the Pops. — JN

CDs

The Klezmatics, Woody Guthrie's Happy Joyous Hanukkah (Jewish Music Group)

Woody Guthrie wrote Hanukkah songs? Who knew? Guthrie penned this passel of tunes inspired by his mother-in-law, a prominent Yiddish-language poet. (There are prominent Yiddish-language poets? Who knew?) Ably recorded by the excellent band the Klezmatics, this album makes a welcome addition to the sparse canon of Hanukkah songs, which, let's face it, if it weren't for that fahrkakte "Dreidel Song" and Adam Sandler, would be bupkiss. Bonus points: At no time on this recording is the word "Hanukkah" ever rhymed with "yarmulke." — RK

Ennio Morricone, 50 Movie Theme Hits (Cooking Vinyl)

Best known for the theme songs to Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns such as The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and For a Few Dollars More, composer Ennio Morricone actually had tremendous range, as this three-disc collection demonstrates. Sure, the whistling, eerie Western tunes stand out, but there's a tenderness to "Ninna Nanna In Blu," from the mystery Il Gatto A Nove Code, and "Oceana," from the documentary The Wind Blows Free, is simply exquisite. Also here are the orchestral title track from Cinema Paradiso, an international hit, and the catchy, playful pop title track from Lonesome Gun. — JN

Diana Krall, From This Moment On (Verve)

 

Perfect for late-night canoodling in front of the open fire, Krall's latest is filled with chestnuts of the musical kind. Not unexpectedly, considering her commercial success, the husky-voiced "jazz" singer/pianist doesn't rock the boat, loading up her disc with mostly familiar selections by Rodgers & Hart, Berlin, Porter, Mercer and the Gershwins. But she does break up her typically languid delivery with a few livelier arrangements, including the title track and "Day In Day Out." But it's infused with an aura of peace, love and understanding that suits the season. — AP

BOOKS

The Darwin Awards 4: Intelligent Design

Wendy Northcutt, Dutton

I'll let you in on a secret about Scrooges and misanthropes: We want presents too. And if you can gift us with something richly larded with black humor and schadenfreude, we'll enthusiastically cross you off our hate lists. The Darwin Awards series was tailor-made for this task. An Internet fixture since the mid-'90s, the Darwins are examples of stupid people improving the gene pool by removing themselves from it. This latest installment packs 300 pages with morbidly hilarious tales of death-by-dumb, in small enough chunks to make perfect bathroom-break reads. — RK

America's Polka King

By Bob Dolgan, Gray and Co.

It's easy to romanticize the days when polka was king; it's more of a challenge to capture the complexity of real people in an era when Cleveland's factories and ethnic social halls were alive. Rather than succumb to the temptation of simply marveling, former Plain Dealer columnist Bob Dolgan takes an unflinching look at the life and times of a superstar, Frankie Yankovic. The accordion whiz was the son of a bootlegger who fled West Virginia for Cleveland to escape the law. Dolgan gives a tour of the neighborhoods pulsing with polka in Yankovic's (and the author's) youth, and doesn't turn away when the polka king's touring schedule alienates band members and burns through two marriages, or when one of his sons dies of a self-inflicted knife wound, while another goes to prison. Dolgan co-authored Yankovic's autobiography almost 30 years ago. His wife, Cecilia, is president of the National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame, which contributed photos. — MG

Whatever Happened to Super Joe?

By Russell Schneider, Gray and Co.

 

In this 210-page documentation of Cleveland's unconditional love for the Tribe, Schneider interviews a few men whose names were once known across the country, but mostly guys who were known and loved only in Cleveland. You'll learn what's up with Duane Kuiper, Mudcat Grant, Charlie Spikes, Wayne Garland, and more than three dozen others from the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium days. — MG

Ohio Road Trips

By Neil Zurcher, Gray and Co.

Neil Zurcher mixes trivia and insight in yet another Ohio travel book, finding the tasty and strange in out-of-the-way towns throughout the state. Ohio Road Trips divvies the state into five sections, and then catalogs the weirdness and intrigue that just might be worth a visit. In fact, a college kid with a road-trip jones could do worse than randomly picking destinations from this guide. You could end up at Corporal Klinger's favorite restaurant, Tony Packo's in Toledo, where autographed hot dog buns cover the walls. Or it could be KC's Walnut Restaurant in Mansfield, for French fried pickles. Or you might end up at Mendelson's Liquidation Outlet in Dayton, billed as the world's largest surplus store. They have restaurant equipment, safes, electronics and parts of all kinds, and even an old radar site from Wright Patterson Air Force Base.

— MG

Diane Arbus

By Patricia Brownsmith, W.W. Norton

Though the Diane Arbus biopic is apparently a crapfest, you can always gift the shutterbug in your life with the splendid literary bio. Patricia Brownsmith's work, originally published in 1984 and reissued last year in paperback, is an enthralling look at the life of a portraitist so relentlessly dark that her images remain controversial 35 years after her suicide, even as they continue to do violence to our concept of normalcy. Uh, Merry Christmas! — RK

Yiddish with George and Laura

Ellis Weiner and Barbara Davilman, Little, Brown and Company

The Yiddish with Dick and Jane concept apparently has legs. In this fall-down funny installment, those callous classists of Kennebunkport, the Bushes, engage in truly awful (and disturbingly plausible) behavior peppered with the kind of slangy, everyday Yiddish my dear Aunt Sylvia uses, like anyone's supposed to understand her. Well guess what, Sylvia? Yiddish with George and Laura has an excellent glossary, so who's gornisht helfn now? — RK

 

The Wild Times

By Martin Perlich, Emptypress.com

DJ Martin Perlich made his reputation in the '60s with a late-night freeform program on classical station WCLV-FM that showcased his eclectic musical tastes. He passed through pioneering Cleveland FM rock stations WNCR and WMMS in the early '70s before decamping for L.A. where he's currently program director at KCSN. His novel is a transparent roman a clef (anyone who can't figure out that "Trout" is legendary 'MMS program director Billy Bass is a little dense) that covers his childhood, his years in Cleveland radio and his early years in L.A., ending with the murder of one-time 'MMS production whiz kid Tree (here helpfully called "Tree"). It's a walk down memory lane for those who were there and a peek into another world for those who weren't — and the first in a promised quartet. — AP

Growing Season

By Gary Harwood and David Hassler, Kent State University Press

Photographer Hardwood and writer Hassler portray the life of a migrant-worker community on a family farm in Hartville. The book's big score is that it treats the subject with the complexity and humanity it deserves, and doesn't subjugate it to a narrative about politics, social justice and the law. Luxurious photos of people in the fields, in their living quarters, and going about their daily lives reveal not just a vital component of the food economy (which is dependant on migrant workers, largely from Mexico, for labor no one else is willing to do) but also a vital component of the rural population: a tight-knit community of families and friends. — MG

Saint Morrissey: A Portrait of this Charming Man by an Alarming Fan

By Mark Simpson, Simon & Schuster

Christmas is the season of love, and few love the object of their devotion more passionately and unshakeably than Morrissey fans. London-based writer Simpson clearly considers the former Smiths lead singer to be the single most important individual in pop music history. Openly subjective, Simpson explores the star's psyche through the lens of his own in a way that's almost stalkerish. Any dedicated Morrissey fan will be able to relate. — AP

Gay Power

By David Eisenbach, Carroll & Graf, Publishers

 

Those Virginia Slims ads that reminded women that they'd "come a long way, baby" could have made just as much sense with another kind of queen in that long cocktail dress. Eisenbach traces gay culture from its completely closeted times to the present day, where the political strength and increased social acceptance of gays is manifest in prime-time sitcoms. The book starts with the first gay student group (founded at Columbia University in 1966) and follows the evolution of the gay-rights movement through organizations that evolved out of the Stonewall riots. A Ph.D. in American history, the author has effectively indexed the book and provided copious notes and a collection of landmark photos from protests and other events. — MG

Mary Poppins, She Wrote

By Valerie Lawson,

Simon and Schuster

We wouldn't have Super Nanny without Mary Poppins, and we wouldn't have Mary Poppins without Pamela Lyndon Travers. An Australian who moved to London in 1924, Travers was a journalist who traveled in literary circles, among the likes of William Butler Yeats and T.S. Eliot. When Walt Disney adapted her tales of the magical nanny to the big screen, he famously scolded her for "thinking you know more about Mary Poppins than I do." In the first ever biography of Travers, Valerie Lawson explores the mind of a writer who believed that "everyday life is the miracle." — MG

Greetings from E Street: The Story of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

By Robert Santelli, Chroniclebooks.com

This slip-covered coffee table volume is not only a riot of visuals — photos, posters, magazine covers depicting the full span of Springsteen's illustrious career — it's studded with pockets and envelopes containing such extras as a concert flyer, a tour laminate, a backstage pass, set lists and a promotional booklet for one of his early bands, Steel Mill. It's accompanied by text that's straightforward, informative and well-written, as befits a historian/educator/journalist of Santelli's caliber. — AP

Cleveland's Metroparks

By Thomas G. Matowiz Jr., Arcadia Publishing

Arcadia is known for its vast roster of photo-heavy, local-interest paperbacks that capture the histories of regional landmarks. The latest is Cleveland's Metroparks which visually documents the evolution of the "Emerald Necklace," the construction of some of its landmarks and various activities that have taken place there over the years. Other recent volumes likely to interest Cleveland devotees are Cleveland's Flats by Mattheew Lee Grabski, covering over a century of dramatic changes, Marion Morton's crash course in the legacy of Cleveland movers and shakers Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery, where the outward changes have been less dramatic, and Euclid Creek, devoted to the Euclid Creek watershed and its surrounding East Side communities. Arcadiapublishing.com and local bookstores. — AP

 

MISCELLANEOUS

T Time

Nothing captivates kids like dinosaurs. Currently the Cleveland Museum of Natural History is displaying a cast of Sue, the T-rex skeleton from Chicago's Field Museum, the most complete ever unearthed. Needless to say, the Museum's store is highlighting dinosaur books (as if it needed an excuse to showcase these perennial favorites). Pick up a volume such as Starring T. Rex: Dinosaur Mythology and Popular Culture by Jose Luis Sanz, which tackles the mystery of why these beasts have fascinated not just kids, but filmmakers and other artists as well. Slip a couple of admission passes to the exhibit into the book to sweeten the pot. Go to cmnh.org or stop in at the museum (1 Wade Oval, University Circle). — AP

My Jingeling

The story of how Mr. Jingeling, "The Keeper of the Keys," saved Christmas by unlocking Santa's toy repository was created for the old Halle's Department store 50 years ago. It became a beloved local Christmas tradition that outlasted the venerable downtown institution. Old-timers can share the story with their kids and grandkids through a mini-picture book, How Mr. Jingeling Saved Christmas, and a CD that recounts the story and includes Mr. Jingeling's theme song in sing-along version. Available at mrjingeling.com. — AP

CIA operative

Dana Schutz, who graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2000, has become something of an "It" girl in the currently booming art world. Her colorful paintings, which feature a stylized quasi-primitivism that's the product of a well-trained, sophisticated, historically aware sensibility, are now commanding big prices and being acquired by museums. Currently, MOCA's got a show of her work running through the end of the year. Stop in and see it, and pick up the 93-page catalogue ($30): Dana Schutz: Painting 2001-2005, which includes a couple of essays on why she's considered so red-hot. — AP

After the storm

The Neighborhood Story Project — "our stories told by us" — was founded in 2004 to document the culture and history of New Orleans neighborhoods that tourists don't often visit, Mid-City, the Ninth Ward, the Sixth Ward, the Desire Housing Project. No one could have foreseen that its six books would memorialize a largely destroyed world. But volumes such as Stories from the Ninth Ward, Palmyra Street and the newly published Coming Out the Door for the Ninth Ward, in which members of the Nine Times Social and Pleasure Club talk about their memories and their fierce devotion to their home turf, communicate vividly the unique value of the city's culture, the strength of its ancestral ties and the urgency of rebuilding it respectfully.

www.neighborhoodstoryproject.org. — AP n

 

Ultimate Cleveland Films Box Set

Got a teen at home who's itchin' to leave this one-horse town for Hollywood the second he turns 18? A homemade box set of the best films ever shot in Cleveland

may be your chance to keep him here. Remind him that great films can be made right here in Ohio. Any box will do, crammed with these DVDs:

American Splendor: This post-modern biography of local comic book writer and curmudgeon Harvey Pekar perfectly captures the feel of Cleveland. It embraces our steel-town grittyness and celebrates our essential weirdness. If your kid doesn't laugh at the "jelly bean" scene, he has no soul.

A Christmas Story: It's not just a kids' movie, damn it, it's great storytelling. And while the story's set in Indiana, it was filmed right here in Cleveland. See, that's our Higbee building!

Deer Hunter: Perhaps the only movie to film inside the U.S. Steel Mill. Producers had to pony up for a $5 million insurance policy. Great filmmaking, but kind of a downer.

Welcome to Collinwood: Made in Cleveland, directed by Clevelanders, using a crew of Clevelanders. Doesn't get anymore Cleveland than this. It's also very funny.

The Shawshank Redemption: The best Stephen King adaptation, of the best King story ever, was shot at the Mansfield Reformatory in 1993. Why don't you own this already?

The Year That Trembled: A poignant tribute to the disillusionment of a generation following the Kent State shootings, starring the late, great Jonathan Brandis. Shows what's possible on a shoestring budget. — James Renner

At 84 Charing Cross Bookstore, these days located at 6411 Detroit, book seller Todd Whitten has a copy of John Drinkwater's The Pilgrim of Eternity: Byron, a conflict. The blue, cloth-bound hardcover volume would be just another old book but for the fact that it's inscribed to "Mr. And Mrs. Thomas Hardy" by the author in London on the first of March, 1926. Folded between its pages, it also has a letter from the author to Mrs. Hardy. In researching whether the book actually is what it seems to be, Whitten found that it was in Thomas Hardy's library and was sold at an auction of the author's estate in 1938. The 19th century author of Tess of the d'Urbevilles and The Mayor of Casterbridge actually held this volume in his hands. Whitten hasn't yet priced it, but figures its worth to be in the realm of $700 to $800. Books with that kind of pedigree are rare, but prowling the aisle of Charing Cross Books will give you the feeling that you just might discover something that might speak volumes to the bibliophile on your list. If you go there in the next week, you'll get a deal: a 20-percent-off sale is under way, in preparation to move early next year to 1023 Kenilworth, in Tremont. — MG