Friday Fun
Let the Great World Spin, Detroit Ham & Corned Beef Co., Gin Blossoms, Alex DeBrincat, Finding Fulfillment
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This week’s issue features favorite humor records, an award-winning book, ham and corned beef, an alternative rock/jangle pop/power pop/post-grunge band, the goal scorer the Red Wings needed, and fulfillment in a box. I hope you enjoy the picks and pics.
Fave Five 41: Friday Fun. Twin Towers Tightrope (Let the Great World Spin), Savory Sandwiches (Detroit Ham & Corned Beef Co.), Southwestern Sound (Gin Blossoms), Red Wing Right Winger (Alex DeBrincat), and Finding Fulfillment.
Fave Five Lists: Laughable LPs
Following up on the comedies of two weeks ago, this week I feature my favorite humorous records.
Five Favorite Musical Comedy Albums
Five Favorite Spoken Word Comedy Albums
Book Best Bet
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
This was the first of three books by Colum McCann that I read (followed by TransAtlantic and Apeirogon), all suggested by my sister Joan. I recommend all three. He is a great novelist.
From Amazon: Colum McCann’s beloved novel inspired by Philippe Petit’s daring high-wire stunt. In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann’s stunningly intricate portrait of a city and its people.
Let the Great World Spin is the critically acclaimed author’s most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s.
Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, struggles with his own demons as he lives among the prostitutes in the middle of the burning Bronx. A group of mothers gather in a Park Avenue apartment to mourn their sons who died in Vietnam, only to discover just how much divides them even in grief. A young artist finds herself at the scene of a hit-and-run that sends her own life careening sideways. Tillie, a thirty-eight-year-old grandmother, turns tricks alongside her teenage daughter, determined not only to take care of her family but to prove her own worth. Elegantly weaving together these and other seemingly disparate lives, McCann’s powerful allegory comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city’s people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the “artistic crime of the century.”
A sweeping and radical social novel, Let the Great World Spin captures the spirit of America in a time of transition, extraordinary promise, and, in hindsight, heartbreaking innocence. Hailed as a “fiercely original talent” (San Francisco Chronicle), award-winning novelist McCann has delivered a triumphantly American masterpiece that awakens in us a sense of what the novel can achieve, confront, and even heal.
Praise for Let the Great World Spin
This is a gorgeous book, multilayered and deeply felt, and it’s a damned lot of fun to read, too. Leave it to an Irishman to write one of the greatest-ever novels about New York. There’s so much passion and humor and pure lifeforce on every page of Let the Great World Spin that you’ll find yourself giddy, dizzy, overwhelmed. — Dave Eggers
Stunning . . . [an] elegiac glimpse of hope . . . It’s a novel rooted firmly in time and place. It vividly captures New York at its worst and best. But it transcends all that. In the end, it’s a novel about families—the ones we’re born into and the ones we make for ourselves. — USA Today
The first great 9/11 novel . . . We are all dancing on the wire of history, and even on solid ground we breathe the thinnest of air. — Esquire
Mesmerizing . . . a Joycean look at the lives of New Yorkers changed by a single act on a single day . . . Colum McCann’s marvelously rich novel . . . weaves a portrait of a city and a moment, dizzyingly satisfying to read and difficult to put down. — The Seattle Times
Vibrantly whole . . . With a series of spare, gorgeously wrought vignettes, Colum McCann brings 1970s New York to life. . . . And as always, McCann’s heart-stoppingly simple descriptions wow. — Entertainment Weekly
An act of pure bravado, dizzying proof that to keep your balance you need to know how to fall. — O: The Oprah Magazine
From Wikipedia: Colum McCann is an Irish writer of literary fiction. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, and now lives in New York. He is the co-founder and President of Narrative 4, an international empathy education nonprofit. He is also a Thomas Hunter Writer in Residence at Hunter College, New York. He is known as an international writer who believes in the democracy of storytelling. Among his numerous honors are the U.S National Book Award, the Dublin Literary Prize, several major European awards, and an Oscar nomination.
Restaurant Recommendation
Detroit Ham & Corned Beef Co. 47287 Five Mile Rd, Plymouth, MI 48170
This week’s Fave Five theme, Friday Fun, is based on a new weekly activity I initiated with my local friends. We kicked it off last Friday with a 3-mile walk from my home to Maybury State Park and back, followed by lunch at this nearby sandwich shop.
Kyle Johnson and Jerry Oljace joined me for both activities, and Mark Mitra met up with us for lunch. This shop does mostly carryout business, but we were able to commandeer the only two tables and four chairs to enjoy our meal.
I ordered two sandwiches and was pleased with both of them. I took home half of the corned beef sandwich, and Barb devoured it later for dinner.
The Big Three: Dearborn ham, roasted pork, and applewood smoked bacon with mustard sauce on an onion roll.
Corned Beef: House-cooked Sy Ginsberg's corned beef with Swiss cheese on rye.
One week before, on an unofficial Friday Fun outing, Kyle and I visited Lile’s Ham Sandwich Shop in Dearborn on its last day of business. Their entire menu consisted of four items: two sandwiches (ham and corned beef) and two soups (bean and pea). I tried all four but was not impressed. Kyle liked Lile’s ham sandwich better than the one he had at Detroit Ham & Corned Beef Co., but I preferred the two I had at DH&CB.
Marvelous Musicians
Today is lead singer Robin Wilson’s 58th birthday. He was born on July 12, 1965 in Detroit. Ticket presales for this year’s Farm Aid began today, and I feature a video from Farm Aid 1994 below.
I liked the band’s hits and bought New Miserable Experience in 1992. On July 24, 2019 we saw them perform at the Charlevoix Venetian Festival. We had tickets to see them at Red Rocks on June 23, 2020, but that show was postponed for some reason. I also saw them on March 3, 2019 at the SWFL Event Center.
From Wikipedia: Gin Blossoms is an American rock band formed in 1987 in Tempe, Arizona. They rose to prominence following the 1992 release of their first major label album, New Miserable Experience, and the first single released from that album, "Hey Jealousy". "Hey Jealousy" became a Top 25 hit and went gold, and New Miserable Experience eventually went quadruple platinum; four other charting singles were released from the album. The band's follow-up album, Congratulations I'm Sorry (1996), went platinum and the single "As Long as It Matters" was nominated for a Grammy Award. Gin Blossoms broke up in 1997 and reunited in 2001.
Gin Blossoms has been described as an alternative rock band and as a jangle pop band. According to Rolling Stone, the band excels at "marrying world-weary lyrics with ebullient melodies." In 2017, the Salina Journal described Gin Blossoms as a "Tempe, Ariz.-based indie band [acclaimed] by critics and fans alike for its chiming guitars, introspective lyrics and catchy pop-rock melodies," adding that "Gin Blossoms has maintained its longevity by being mostly a road band." The group is known for the "Mill Avenue sound", or "southwestern sound", similar to other bands from Arizona.
Found Out About You
Until I Fall Away (Live at Farm Aid 1994)
Allison Road (Acoustic)
My Playlist
Sports Star
The Detroit Red Wings last appeared in the NHL playoffs in 2016. They last won a playoff series in 2013. They last appeared in the Stanley Cup Finals in 2009, and last won the Stanley Cup in 2008.
Red Wings fans are passionate about hockey. They have been supporting their team throughout this long drought and are eager to see it end. Steve Yzerman’s recent free agent signings and acquiring and extending Alex DeBrincat have ramped up expectations for next season.
My brother and I were New York Rangers fans back in the 60s. I was never a Blues fan when I lived in St. Louis, but I became a Wings fan when I moved to Detroit in 1986. I have learned more about the game since living here, but I still don’t know the sport in as much depth as I do baseball, basketball, and football.
I hope the Wings make the playoffs next year. And it would be great to see Steve Yzerman bring the Stanley Cup back to Hockeytown in the next few years. If he does, we will look back on this trade as being the modern equivalent of the trade in 1996 that brought Brendan Shanahan to Detroit, resulting in multiple championships.
From Wikipedia: Alexander DeBrincat (born December 18, 1997) is an American professional ice hockey right winger for the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was selected by the Chicago Blackhawks in the second round, 39th overall, of the 2016 NHL Entry Draft. He has previously played for the Blackhawks and the Ottawa Senators.
Born in Farmington Hills, Michigan, DeBrincat spent one year at Harrison High School before transferring to Lake Forest Academy in Illinois. He had planned to play college ice hockey in Massachusetts but signed with the Erie Otters of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) for the 2014–15 season. There, he set a franchise record with over 50 goals and 100 points in his first season, and he won the Emms Family Award and CHL Rookie of the Year trophies. During the 2016–17 season, DeBrincat became the all-time Otters goal leader, as well as the top scorer of any OHL player born in the United States, and he won the Eddie Powers Memorial Trophy, Jim Mahon Memorial Trophy, Red Tilson Trophy, and CHL Player of the Year award for his performance. He spent three years with the Otters, becoming the second player in OHL history to score 50 goals and 100 points all three years.
DeBrincat joined the Blackhawks for the 2017–18 season, where he experienced goal streaks and droughts as a rookie, including three hat-tricks. He surpassed his rookie scoring totals in 2018–19 but fell into a slump during the 2019–20 season, particularly when he was not on the power play. DeBrincat's offensive production improved during the COVID-19 pandemic-shortened 2020–21 season, during which he maintained a pace of over a point per game. DeBrincat continued this production the following year, when he represented the Blackhawks at the NHL All-Star Game and recorded his second 40-goal season.
Free Press Sports with Carlos and Shawn: How Detroit Red Wings' acquisition of Alex DeBrincat has raised expectations (featuring Helene St. James)
Picture Pun
I have been seeking this my whole life.
