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ALANIS MORISSETTE
 TORE ONTO THE MUSIC SCENE 13 YEARS AGO with the love-scorned “You Oughta Know” from her record-breaking album Jagged Little Pill. Since then, words like angst and angry have peppered conversations, reviews, and articles about her, despite her subsequent attempts to show us her other facets. (Which just goes to show that a girl can’t get angry without being labeled an angry girl. But enough about us.) There’ve been several happier follow-ups and even a spoof of the Black Eyed Peas’ My Humps. Now she’s trying to show us a softer side with a new album that documents her recent heartbreak. Sure, there’s a smattering of angst here and there. But give the girl a break -- at least she’s letting her music talk for her instead of taking a baseball bat to his car. (Not that we know anyone who’s done that.)
[dl] Music
You Oughta Know
Yes, Alanis Morissette’s newest album is about love lost and how that makes her angry. But there’s more to it than that -- a lot more. By Kevin Raub
THE EMOTIONS INFUSED INTO Flavors of Entanglement, Alanis Morissette’s first studio album in four years, may not seem new at first. The album’s various tracks were inspired by Morissette’s own various emotional heartbreaks -- including her most recent public breakup, with actor Ryan Reynolds -- and her slow recovery from those separations. But such raw emotions have long been a hallmark of Morissette’s work. So what makes Flavors different?
Maybe it’s that Morissette manages to be angry and sad, jubilant and defiant almost simultaneously on this album, which follows the demise of a relationship and the heartache and healing that follow, more or less in sequence. There’s something else different, too: the sound. On Flavors, Morissette pumps up the alt-rock we’re used to with a distinct touch of electronica. The song “Straitjacket,” for example, is a droning tune that evolves into a remix-friendly dance track. And “Giggling Again for No Reason” offers a head-spinning sound that would comfortably fit in a club.
This new sonic approach produces some expected results and, yes, even some surprises. Morissette is definitely fuming -- again. But she also has plenty of nice things to say. And eventually, the album reaches a delicate climax with “Not As We,” an introspective song about heartbreak and healing. The singer-songwriter recently talked with us about her new sound and what the album means to her.
How she found inspiration in her breakup with fiancé Ryan Reynolds:
I really lost myself and unraveled during that relationship, and this record was my way of realigning. It felt very important to write this record, more so than others. Scary, always, but everything is scary to me.
A new album, a new songwriting approach:
Typically, I write about things that happened at least two to three months ago, or even that happened years ago. But in the case of Flavors of Entanglement, I wrote it in real time as opposed to while looking back. I was in the middle of a breakup at the time. The writing process itself served as life support for me.
Why she thinks this album might be more revealing than her others:
When I first started to write songs that were super-transparent, I was scared to do it. But I realized there really is no consequence. And if there is, it’s usually positive. It’s me letting someone who might happen to be listening to this alone in their room know that their humanity is okay. If you’re lost, you’re broken, you’re attached, you’re codependent -- whatever you are, it’s okay. We’re all on our own journey here.
How she knows it’s time to start working on a new album:
I’ll start humming around the house. After a tour, when I’m really burned out, I stop singing altogether. When I start humming around the house again, I get this internal imperative, a giant “it’s time to write” message in my brain.
On her new, electronica-influenced sound:
I realized that in the past, some of the sonic landscapes that were going with my subject matters didn’t exactly match. Certain songs would be so feisty, energetic, and wild, but then the production wouldn’t have the same fire. So I wanted to work with someone whose communication through their sonic landscape was as vital and visceral as the lyrical content, and I felt like [producer] Guy Sigsworth could do that. But it’s not like it’s a salsa record or anything.
The new song that makes her cry:
“Not As We.” That was the most broken moment. It had literally gotten to the point where I would drag myself into the studio. Denial is a fierce thing, and I was in denial for a very long time. That was the day the denial cracked.
On what her exes should think about her albums:
They need not worry. I think it has become evident over the years that I don’t finger-point. I don’t name names. I don’t give addresses and phone numbers. I’m writing this for myself. I’m not writing it to out anybody or to seek overt revenge.
Revenge? Definitely not. She loves love:
I had never taken a full-blown year off from committing to a relationship. I was always the serial monogamist. So, I took a full year off [after the breakup with Reynolds], and it was amazing … and exhausting. That’s hard for a love addict. It was hard for just a week.
A little explanation about the song “Straitjacket”:
It’s about when someone says they really want to make a relationship work but their actions don’t follow through -- or when they say they are in a relationship through thick and thin but then when thick happens, they’re not. I had to deal with that for years. It makes you feel like a crazy person; it’s crazy-making. There’s a distinct difference between being crazy-made and just being crazy, but we would need hours and hours to talk about that.
The cocktails she’d suggest you sip as you listen:
I would hate to write a record that has people saying, “Oh, it’s her happy record,” or, “Oh, she’s just devastated.” This album is a diary entry. Some of it calls for a quick tequila shot, and other parts, a gin martini.
Shiny, Happy Person
We’ve heard a lot about what makes Alanis Morissette mad. Here, she tells us what things make her happy.
Song: “Ave Maria” by Aaron Neville
Album: Blue by Joni Mitchell
Acting performance: Kate Winslet in Holy Smoke
Concert: Rage Against the Machine in Europe in the mid-’90s
Breakfast cereal: Wheaties
Ice cream: Häagen-Dazs Dulce de Leche
Travel moment: Hiking in the Himalayas in Nepal
Vegetable: Arugula
Restaurant: Cielo at Ventana Inn in Big Sur, California
Road trip: Big Sur from L.A., every time
Mother’s recipe: Gazpacho
Gift from a boy: I had designed this Kuan Yin necklace [Chinese goddess of compassion], and I got the actual finished version for Christmas.
Way to end a fight: Start validating the other person
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[dl] Television
Open Secret
The newest chef in TV’s kitchen is ready to reveal what she knows and what the rest of us want to find out. By Joseph Guinto
YOU KNOW THE SAYING:
Teach a man to cook bouillabaisse and he’ll eat for a night, but teach
him how to crisp fish skin and he’ll eat for a lifetime. Well, it goes
something like that. However you say it, it touches on the problem with
too many TV cooking shows these days. Simple recipes are nice (think
Rachael Ray), and competition is fun (think Top Chef),
but learning the techniques of cooking is the real key to becoming
better in the kitchen. And not enough shows these days are focused on
instruction -- for my tastes, at least.
That’s why I’m eagerly anticipating the premiere of Secrets of a Restaurant Chef.
This new Food Network show, which debuts late this month, features Anne
Burrell -- the executive chef at New York’s Centro Vinoteca -- teaching
viewers culinary skills that they’ll be able to use over and over
again. You’ll get recipes, sure. But whether you remember the specific
ingredients Burrell puts into her roast-chicken dish isn’t nearly as
important as whether you remember how to truss the bird so the flavors
stay within. That’s a technique -- like dicing an onion -- that you can
use repeatedly, whether you’re roasting chicken or rabbit or duck or,
you know, anything with legs that will fit in your roasting pan.
“One
piece of string, used correctly, changes the whole dish,” Burrell
explains, to my obvious fascination. “That’s a little thing. But it is
always so amazing to me how a little, tiny trick can be so fascinating
to people.”
She has a point. I catch more than a couple of
people trying to listen in on my conversation with Burrell. We’re at
Centro Vinoteca, a popular restaurant in Manhattan’s West Village whose
menu is a hybrid of Italian and American comfort food and whose
clientele includes Burrell’s friend, R.E.M. front man Michael Stipe.
It’s just before the dinner rush, and Burrell is dressed in a chef’s
jacket and a black-and-red cowgirl skirt. This outfit, along with her
spiky blond hair, is Burrell’s trademark look, one that viewers of Iron Chef
would easily recognize. On that show, Burrell serves as Mario Batali’s
sous-chef. She makes pasta very, very quickly -- faster than you or I
will ever make pasta.
Though the restaurant grows louder by the
minute, Burrell manages to outdo her guests. She’s loud. Energetic may
be the better way to put it. She’s engaging too. Hers is a perfect
personality for TV and for teaching. And as for the latter, Burrell has
some experience. After culinary school and cooking in restaurants in
Italy and in New York, the Cazenovia, New York, native left the
professional kitchen to teach home cooks for three years. “I would hear
the same questions over and over again from my students,” Burrell says.
“They were always [about] things -- techniques -- that, in a
restaurant, we all knew how to do and that seemed obvious to a
professional chef. But they’re not obvious.”
She’s talking about
things like trussing that chicken (or whatever) and roasting a leg of
lamb and making your own stock, none of which is likely to come up in
your average episode of 30 Minute Meals.
She’s also talking about even smaller things that a professional knows
how to do. “I tell people on the show that you shouldn’t cook with a
saltshaker, because you will never achieve the level of saltiness that
you would without one,” Burrell says. “Just use a saltcellar.” It’s a
wide, deep dish that you can dip your fingers in to grab salt. “My
saltcellar on the show is huge, and I season with reckless abandon,”
Burrell says as she fl ails one hand about, mimicking the salting
process.
Salt is one thing. Timing is another. Burrell says that
even after she’d left the classroom for restaurant kitchens --
including Centro Vinoteca’s, a tiny, open kitchen that puts Burrell’s
blond locks on display each night -- people would ask her how, at home,
they can serve dinner so that everything is hot and ready at the same
time. “Getting completed dishes out in a timely way is something that
we do in the restaurant every night, a thousand times a night,” she
says. “So we show you in every episode how to time out a meal -- what
you can make ahead, what has to wait until the last minute.”
Maybe you’re thinking that all of this sounds pretty basic. Maybe some of it is stuff you’ve seen on other shows. Molto Mario
certainly extolled the virtues of salt on a regular basis. But still,
think about this: Professional chefs learn by repetition. They’ll make
the same dish over and over and over again until they know how and why
the flavors in that dish work together, until there’s no more need to
think about what they’re cooking, until they can feel their way along.
That’s how the pros develop the instincts that make them creative about
food, about combinations of flavors, and so on. Home chefs don’t have
the luxury of being able to afford such repetition. But cooking shows
can be our substitute. At their best, cooking shows are our culinary
school, our on-the-job training. And we need that. Well, I do, anyway.
“People
will say that cooking is common sense,” Burrell says. “But it is not
common sense if you’ve not learned how to do it. It’s also not genetic.
Just because your mom was a good cook doesn’t mean you’re going to be
one. You have to learn how first. And I hope I can teach you some of
the things you need to know.”
Can You Stand the Heat?
This summer, in two new shows, Food Network is opening its kitchens to home chefs.
THE SHOW
| THE SHTICK
| WHAT WE DON’T EXPECT TO SEE | Paula’s Best Dishes
| Paula Deen
and her drawl invite family, friends, and regular folk into her kitchen
to cook along with her and to share their own best dishes.
| Deen pulling
a Gordon Ramsay and throwing her home cooks’ dishes on the floor while
swearing like a sailor at them. | Grill It! with Bobby Flay
| According to Food Network, Bobby Flay will invite “grilling maniacs”
over to share their recipes and techniques
| Dr. Phil offering his
counseling services to calm the “maniacs.” |
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Chef Anne Burrell’s Favorite TV Chefs
Julia Child
“I’d
watch Julia so much that I used to tell my mom, ‘I have a friend named
Julia.’ So when I graduated from culinary school, my mom said she was
going to write Julia and tell her I became a chef because of her show.
She never did, though. When I saw my show’s set, I almost started
crying. It has a dining room just like Julia’s!”
Mario Batali
“Mario was just way ahead of his time when he was on Food Network. He’s so fun to listen to because he’s so freakishly smart.”
Ina Garten, a.k.a. the Barefoot Contessa
“I get entranced by the Barefoot Contessa because her voice is like Valium. It’s like the snake in The Jungle Book.”
Alton Brown
“My
mom is like, ‘I don’t get that Alton Brown. He’s always popping up from
behind an oven. What’s that about?’ He does do a lot of that. But I
always learn some tidbit of something when I watch his shows. The
information he gives is fantastic. He’s really teaching you the science
of cooking.”
… And the Best of the Really Small Screen
Ming Tsai: This Boston-based chef gets plenty of TV time. He’s done several series for PBS, and his current show, Simply Ming,
even offers a free companion vodcast. Subscribe through iTunes to get a
new three-minute-long episode roughly once a week. That’s just enough
time for Ming to show you how to trim artichokes, devein shrimp, or
make a compound butter. And you can always hit rewind and watch again.
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[dl] Misc.
Worth Your Time
Here are four entertainment options to see with your eyes or listen to with your ears.
CD: Nectar (ESL Music, $16)
LADIES FIRST:
Natalia Clavier is the first female artist signed to label ESL Music,
an outfit based in Washington, D.C., and best known for backing
electronic artists like Thievery Corporation (whose founding duo of
Eric Hilton and Rob Garza are owners of ESL). But don’t let that
association fool you. Though the album does have techno touches, it is
much less Moby than it is Norah Jones -- a Spanish-language Norah
Jones, that is. Clavier is a native of Buenos Aires and the wife of
Argentinean musician and ESL Music labelmate Federico Aubele. She cut
her musical teeth singing jazz in Barcelona, Spain.
CRY FOR ME, ARGENTINA: Nectar
is dominated by romantic tunes featuring Clavier’s lilting voice. You
could easily imagine it as the soundtrack to a haunting foreign film
about heartbreak. And if the almost lullaby-like “Mi Mentira” doesn’t
make you a little teary on first listen, then you, friend, may be dead
inside.
OUR TAKE: Sorry, Madonna, but this is what Argentina really sounds like.
IN STORES: June 10
-- J.R.
BOOK: The Forger’s Spell (HarperCollins, $27)
PREMISE:
In World War II–era Europe, a small-time Dutch artist named Han van
Meegeren passes off six of his own paintings as 300-year-old works by
famed painter Johannes Vermeer, the genius behind Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Milkmaid.
YOU DON’T NEED A DEGREE IN ART HISTORY: Author Edward Dolnick won the Edgar Award for his previous book, The Rescue Artist, a thrilling and at times hilarious account of the maverick art investigator who recovered Edvard Munch’s The Scream
after it disappeared from Norway’s National Gallery in 1994. Dolnick
adopts a more subdued tone here, but the book is no dull still life. He
deftly covers the historical background of Nazi-occupied Holland and
the plunder of Europe’s art treasures while also offering entertaining
chapters in which reformed fraudsters discuss the techniques for
creating new old masterpieces.
OUR TAKE: Unlike Van Meegeren’s paintings, Dolnick’s book is a genuine treasure.
IN STORES: June 24
-- Kristin Baird Rattini
TV SHOW: MVP: The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives
PREMISE: Like the BBC’s Footballers Wives and the CW’s The Game,
this series, originally produced for the Canadian Broadcasting Company
and now about to air on SoapNet, follows the off-field competition to
win the affections of pro hockey players.
TAKE OFF, EH?
Given that hockey players are oft depicted as slick-haired, toothless
thugs, you’d think that hockey fans would be thrilled with a series
that shows them instead as sex symbols. But not everyone is. Consider
this, er, critique from HockeyBeat.com: “I hope Canada turns their back
on it. It’s so HBO, and Canada is so not HBO. Canadians love hockey,
and, like, 70 percent of us (or something) are hockey families -- no
one wants to think that the awesome hockey wife or hockey mom is a
sex-crazed, two-timing tramp!”
OUR TAKE: Good-looking men plus good-looking women plus scandalous behavior equals a hat trick.
SEE IT: Premieres on SoapNet June 19
-- John Ross
DVD: 10,000 BC (Warner Home Video, $29)
PREMISE: The story line is as old and as classic as Homer’s The Iliad.
A beautiful woman is carried away by a rival group. The man who loves
the beautiful woman decides to bring her back at all costs. But whereas
Helen of Troy’s abduction (or willing departure, depending on your own
reading of Homer’s text) launches -- as Christopher Marlowe later put
it in Doctor Faustus -- a
thousand ships, the abduction of Evolet, played by Camilla Belle,
launches a thousand spears. Also, there are saber-toothed tigers. Grrr!
SERIOUSLY, GRRR! National Geographic
this ain’t. So, if you like your prehistoric creatures -- both man and
beast -- all fossilized and historically accurate, you might want to
stay away from this film from director Roland Emmerich, who also helmed
Independence Day. But if you like movies to be big and loud and bright and -- did we mention loud? -- this is the film for you.
OUR TAKE: The movie is best appreciated viewed at home in a high-definition format, with the speaker volume turned way up.
-- J.R.
Would You Believe ...
that Get Smart and The Incredible Hulk have a lot in common? So do some of June’s other big releases. By Joseph Guinto
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| MOVIE | Get Smart | The Love Guru | Wanted | WALL-E | The Incredible Hulk
| | TV STAR IN A STARRING ROLE? | The Office’s Steve Carell takes Don Adams’s Maxwell Smart from the small screen to the big screen. | It’s former Saturday Night Live funnyman and sometimes Dr. Evil, Mike Myers. | James McAvoy has done his share of British TV, but he’s best known as Mr. Tumnus, the faun, in The Chronicles of Narnia. | Cheers’ John Ratzenberger provides one of the few human voices in this animated movie. | Edward Norton (who replaces Eric Bana as Bruce Banner for this second
Hulk film) is no Bill Bixby, and the computer-generated Hulk is no Lou
Ferrigno.
| | OUTRAGEOUS PLOTLINE? | The incompetent Smart falls all over himself and all over just about
everything in his path -- literally -- in his effort to save U.S. spy
control from the evil KAOS organization. It’s like the Pink Panther
movies, but with fewer faux French accents. | Myers plays an American who’s raised in India by gurus. Wearing robes
and a silly beard, he returns to the West to try to reap riches. His
first assignment is in Canada, where he attempts to repair the
relationship of a star hockey player and his wife. | McAvoy is recruited by a fraternity of assassins because he has the
rare ability to fire a bullet that curves after it comes out of a gun.
Also, he throws a fantastic toga party. | Rampant consumerism has so polluted Earth that humans have rocketed off
to live elsewhere, leaving robots behind to clean up. Only one of the
original robots survives: WALL-E. He also falls in love. | An accidental dose of radiation turns a guy into a big green monster
who is usually angry but, confusingly, can also occasionally be nice
and do the right thing. Kind of like your boss.
| | BEAUTIFUL COSTAR? | Anne Hathaway as Agent 99 | Jessica Alba as the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs | Angelina Jolie as the tattooed assassin who trains McAvoy | Only if you find animated robots beautiful
| Liv Tyler, who replaces Jennifer Connelly as Bruce Banner’s love interest, Betty Ross
| | KOOKY CAMEO OR COSTAR? | Forget Dwayne “Don’t Call Me the Rock Anymore” Johnson, who plays Agent
23. The best wrestler in this movie is the seven-foot-two Dalip Singh,
who World Wrestling Entertainment fans know as the Great Khali. | Take your pick: Mini Me Verne Troyer as the coach of the Maple Leafs or
Justin Timberlake as a curly-haired, mustachioed, Speedo-wearing
Quebecois hockey star. | Kooky is not among the adjectives we’d use to describe Morgan Freeman. | Kathy Najimy -- anybody who was in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit definitely qualifies as kooky. | Robert Downey Jr., who just so happens to be starring in Iron Man,
which just so happens to have opened in May and just so happens to also
be a Marvel Comics story, is in this film too. Weird, huh?
| | A BOX-OFFICE BONANZA? | Though Carell’s movies have had more ups and downs than the Dow Jones
Industrial Average, we’re betting this one will not, as Smart would
say, “miss it by that much.” | Hate to break it to you, Mr. Myers, but hockey season ends in June. | It’s difficult to get tired of seeing Angelina Jolie on the big screen. But how many times is she going to play an assassin? | Robots, cartoons, voices like R2-D2’s -- what’s not to like? | As the Hulk might say, “Hulk smash prior box-office take, but set no records.” |
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