Silver Spring Sojourn
Table for Two. Maryland Meals, Moody Blues, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Sole Survivor
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This week’s issue includes five more music podcasts, a new short story collection and novella by Amor Towles, two meals in Maryland, progressive rock pioneers, the hero of last night’s Mavericks-Thunder game, and a lost sole. I hope you like the picks and pics.
After returning from our west coast winter near part of our family, we try to visit the rest of our family on the east coast as much as possible. This week we returned to an Airbnb in Silver Spring, Maryland where we stayed two years ago. It’s a 5-minute drive or a 30-minute walk to where Roger and Cristi live. We get to see our other two grandchildren, Sommer and Kieran, and take their dog, Jalen, for walks. And, of course, dine locally.
If you enjoy Fave Five, please share it with your friends who also like books, food, music, sports, or humor. To do so, just click the button below.
Fave Five 84: Silver Spring Sojourn
Towles’s Tales (Table for Two), Maryland Meals (Goldberg’s New York Bagels, Tacos Don Perez), Seventh Sojourn Singers (The Moody Blues), Outstanding in Oklahoma (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), and a Sole Survivor.
Fave Five Lists: Five More Music Podcasts
I previously listed eight podcasts, including five about music (Acoustic Alternatives; No Root, No Fruit; Bob Lefsetz; The Working Songwriter; and Salute the Songbird). This week I feature five more musical podcasts.
A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs - Andrew Hickey presents a history of rock music from 1938 to 1999, looking at five hundred songs that shaped the genre.
Americana - Robert Earl Keen, Americana pioneer and host, interviews musicians, exploring their unique histories, creative processes, successes, failures, and everything in between.
Broken Record - hosted by Justin Richmond with interviews by producer Rick Rubin, writer Malcolm Gladwell, and former New York Times editor Bruce Headlam
McCartney: A Life in Lyrics - conversations between Paul McCartney and poet Paul Muldoon dissecting the people, experiences, and art that inspired McCartney’s songwriting
Why We Write - conversations between folk music reporter Kim Ruehl and a hand-picked array of great songwriters
Book Best Bet
I previously featured A Gentleman in Moscow and The Lincoln Highway. Barb ordered his latest book and I got to read it before she did. I loved all the short stories, some of which were quite moving, and the novella, which is filled with interesting characters and plot twists.
Of special interest to me is the fact that on consecutive pages (241 and 242) in the novella, Eve in Hollywood, Towles mentions the two towns where I went to high school — Clayton, Missouri and Tenafly, New Jersey. Did he take inspiration from my profile?
From Amazon: From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories, including a novella featuring one of his most beloved characters
Millions of Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood.
The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.
In Towles’s novel Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September 1938 with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, Eve in Hollywood describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in a noirish tale that takes us through the movie sets, bungalows, and dive bars of Los Angeles.
Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting fiction.
New York
The Line
The Ballad of Timothy Touchett
Hasta Luego
I Will Survive
The Bootlegger
The DiDomenico Fragment
Los Angeles
Eve in Hollywood
The collection explores turn of the millennium New York and also revisits the late 1930s world of his debut novel The Rules of Civility. by Elena Nicolaou
Towles says the title comes from the intimate nature of the collection. "Most of the narratives deal with fateful interactions between strangers or family members. When I finished the collection, it occurred to me that in many of the stories, a critical moment in the tale involved two of the characters facing each other across a kitchen table to confront some new reality in their lives. I wasn’t conscious of this while writing the stories, but it must have sprung from a conviction in my subconscious that our lives can often change due to a conversation at a table for two," he says.
Towles' novels and stories all take place in history, but he doesn't think of himself as a historical novelist. "I'm just a storyteller," he says. He knew "within minutes" that The Lincoln Highway should be set in the Midwest in the 1950s, and had the same realization for Table for Two being set in the turn of the millennium in New York. The collection came about as a detour while writing his fourth novel. Two of the characters in unpublished short stories appear in the book.
"It struck me that readers should have the opportunity to read those stories before reading the novel. So, I shifted gears," he says, spending the fall completing the short stories and expanding the novella. "While you will not need to read these stories to enjoy the upcoming novel, I think it will certainly add a welcome element of recognition."
Restaurant Recommendations
Maryland Meals
Here are two of the meals we have enjoyed so far during our visit. More to come next week.
Goldberg’s New York Bagels 9328 Georgia Ave, Silver Spring, MD 20910
Whitefish Salad on toasted onion bagel with tomato
From the restaurant: Walking into our bakery means being immediately greeted by a delightful smell of fresh bagels that no one can resist. Since 2004 Goldberg’s New York Bagels have offered Washington DC and the surrounding metro area award-winning bagels and deli-style cuisine. We offer a variety of breakfast and lunch options including bagels, sandwiches, soups, and salads. Voted “Best Bagel” by the Washington Jewish Week and the “Top Nosh” award by the Washington Post, we have built our reputation by providing our customers with delicious food and superior customer service. We, Goldberg's NY Bagels, are under the Vaad Harabanim of Greater Washington which certifies that all products prepared and sold here are strictly Kosher.
Tacos Don Perez 12321 Georgia Ave, Silver Spring, MD 20906
Combo Tray: 12 tacos Al Pastor
Asada Torta: A Mexican sandwich with traditional Mexican bread, a layer of frijoles, melted cheese, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, onion, avocado, and jalapeños
Birria Quesadilla: Two large flour tortillas cut in half
Consommé for dipping
From the restaurant: Tacos Don Perez has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a small family-run catering business back in 2017. In May 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we became a once-a-week home-based pop-up, which quickly gained support from our local community. With their help, we were able to purchase and custom-build not just one, but two food trucks, including the largest food trailer in Montgomery County, Maryland. Our hard work and dedication to serving only the best and most authentic Mexican cuisine has paid off, as we were recently featured in the Washington Post's Birria Segment.
Marvelous Musicians
The last surviving original member of the Moody Blues, Mike Pinder, died on April 24, 2024 at the age of 82. In 1972, they titled their 8th album Seventh Sojourn, which fits with the title of this week’s issue.
My sister Joan had Days of Future Passed in 1967 and I fell in love with "Tuesday Afternoon" and "Nights in White Satin." My brother David bought all of their subsequent albums, which I also loved. He later gave them to me as a very generous present instead of selling them with the rest of his LP collection to Streetside Records in University City, Missouri. When the band resumed releasing hits in the late 70s and throughout the 80s, I bought their albums. When my son Roger was young, I used to play cassettes of In Search of the Lost Chord/Threshold of a Dream and To Our Children's Children's Children while we were out driving, and he liked "House of Four Doors." With my daughter Kathy, I saw the Moody Blues (featuring Justin Hayward, Graeme Edge, and John Lodge) at the Fox Theatre on August 30, 2014, and it was a very nostalgic experience. They are one of my favorite bands.
From Wikipedia: The Moody Blues were an English rock band formed in Birmingham in May 1964. The band initially consisted of drummer Graeme Edge, guitarist/vocalist Denny Laine, keyboardist/vocalist Mike Pinder, multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Ray Thomas, and bassist/vocalist Clint Warwick. Originally part of the British beat and R&B scene of the early–mid 1960s, the band came to prominence with the UK No. 1 and US Top 10 single "Go Now" in late 1964/early 1965. Laine and Warwick left the band by the end of 1966, being replaced by guitarist/vocalist Justin Hayward and bassist/vocalist John Lodge. They embraced the psychedelic rock movement of the late 1960s, with their second album, 1967's Days of Future Passed, being a fusion of rock with classical music (performed with the London Festival Orchestra) that established the band as pioneers in the development of art rock and progressive rock. It has been described as a "landmark" and "one of the first successful concept albums".
The group released six more albums and toured extensively until they went on hiatus in 1974. Their records from this period were among the most successful in the progressive rock genre, and produced FM radio hits such as "Nights in White Satin" (1967; charting again in 1972), "Tuesday Afternoon" (1968), "Question" (1970), "The Story in Your Eyes" (1971), "Isn't Life Strange" (1972), and "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)" (1973). After resuming activities in 1977, Pinder left the following year and was replaced by former Yes keyboardist Patrick Moraz. In the 1980s they took on a more synth-pop sound, having hits with "Gemini Dream" (1981), "The Voice" (1981), "Your Wildest Dreams" (1986) and "I Know You're Out There Somewhere" (1988). "Your Wildest Dreams" made the Moody Blues the first act to earn each of its first three Top 10 singles in the United States in three different decades. Moraz departed in 1991, followed by Thomas in 2002. They continued to tour throughout the 2000s and later reunited periodically for events, one-off concerts, short tours and cruises, until Graeme Edge, the last remaining original member, retired in 2018.
Clint Warwick died in 2004, followed by Ray Thomas in 2018, Graeme Edge in 2021, Denny Laine in 2023, and Mike Pinder in 2024. Justin Hayward, John Lodge, and Patrick Moraz all remain active in music.
The Moody Blues have sold 70 million albums worldwide, including 18 platinum and gold LPs. They produced 16 studio albums, six of which made the US Top 20 (with two reaching No. 1) and eight of which made the UK Top 20 (with three reaching No. 1). They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, for "over 50 years of exhilarating and significant music that has influenced countless musicians and rocked fans around the world".
“If I heard strings, I could play them with the Mellotron,” Pinder told Rolling Stone. “If I heard cello, brass, trumpets or piano, I could play them … I could create the backdrops and the landscape for the melodies that the guys were writing.” Nights in White Satin reached 19 in the UK, while a 1972 re-release took it to No 2 in the US, though its influence permeated far beyond mere chart positions. Pinder’s voice could also be heard reciting the lyrics of Late Lament, a musical postscript to the song.
Tuesday Afternoon
Gypsy
I Know You're Out There Somewhere
The Other Side of Life
The Actor
My Playlist
Sports Star
One of the reasons the Oklahoma Thunder finished in first place this season in the ultra-competitive Western Conference of the NBA is the play of their MVP candidate, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (known as SGA). He finished the regular season third in scoring and second in steals in the league.
So far in this postseason, he is averaging 27.6 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 5.8 assists. Last night SGA led OKC to a resounding victory over Dallas in the first game of their best-of-seven second-round series.
Gilgeous-Alexander has 29 points to help Thunder roll past Mavericks in Game 1 of West semifinals by Cliff Brunt of the AP
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was his usual self and Luka Doncic wasn’t. Gilgeous-Alexander had 29 points, nine rebounds and nine assists to help the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Dallas Mavericks 117-95 on Tuesday night in Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal series. Gilgeous-Alexander made 8 of 19 field goals and 11 of 13 free throws before coming out of the game with 3:26 remaining and the Thunder leading 111-89.
From Wikipedia: Shaivonte Aician Gilgeous-Alexander (born July 12, 1998 in Toronto), also known by his initials SGA, is a Canadian professional basketball player for the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played one year of college basketball for the Kentucky Wildcats and was selected 11th overall by the Charlotte Hornets in the 2018 NBA draft before being traded to the Los Angeles Clippers that same night.
In his rookie year, Gilgeous-Alexander was named to the NBA All-Rookie Second Team before being traded to the Thunder in July 2019. In his first year with Oklahoma City, he was their leading scorer and helped them make the playoffs as a fifth seed. After dealing with injuries the next two seasons, Gilgeous-Alexander was named to his first NBA All-Star Game and was voted to the All-NBA First Team in 2023, when he finished fourth in the league in scoring with 31.4 points per game.
With the Canadian national basketball team, Gilgeous-Alexander won the bronze medal at the 2023 FIBA World Cup and was named to the World Cup All-Tournament Team. He was given the Northern Star Award in 2023 as Canadian athlete of the year, only the second basketball player so honored.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s funky pregame outfit (peanut butter-colored clothes)
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ELECTRIFIES The Thunder in Game 1! ⚡
Picture Pun
The sole survivor. When I saw this, I knew something was afoot.
Comments on the original post:
Tom Stewart: Who knows if that is real evidence, or the work of some facetious planter?
My reply: Tom, your comment is a shoe-in for counterpunniest.
Tom Stewart: Thanks! I thought I'd nailed it. It behooves me to say, however, that you get credit for the set-up.