Bouchercon 2009, Day 2

Today had the fewest number of panels I wanted to attend, so we began the day with a brief walking tour of Indianapolis. Large swathes for Monument Circle were closed for renovations, so we moved on down a few blocks to the war memorials.
One thing I adore about places where the weather makes sense (if you live in Texas, you have to agree with me that our weather doesn't make any freakin' sense) is the fall colors. Or rather, the glorious riot of color that happens outside. We had a great time photographing the trees, frollicking with satyrs, misidentifying statues ("Look, it's Lenin!"), uncovering discarded gin bottles, taking artsy photos, stalking squirrels, and eyeing the local Scottish Rite building. We were going to try and get closer to the building, but Al thought he spotted some death-laser turrets on the tower. We settled for some performance art, instead. There was also a brief scare at the public library, with what we thought was a giant scary alien. Actually, it might be a giant scary alien, just one that moves rather slowly.

On the way back we stopped in an alley for a gag photo, where I saw this lovely piece of artwork, which you can click to enlarge if you can't read. Love it.

Around 3 we moseyed on over to the convention to sit in on the How I Met My Protagonist (Julie Kramer, P.J. Parrish, Charlaine Harris, Martyn Waites) and Murder At The Edge Of The Map (Leighton Gage, Christopher G. Moore, Tamar Myers, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Michael Stanley) panels. The first panelist had a talented moderator; it would have been easy for Charlaine Harris to dominate the conversation - not because she's an attention hog, but because she's the most famous - but instead the mod kept things pretty balanced. I may have to finally read one of Harris' novels, and I'd never heard of Martyn Waites, but his books sound interesting.

The Murder panel was fantastically intriguing: the focus was on writing mysteries that take place in far-flung (from the United States) places. The authors covered everything from superstitions in Thailand/Brazil/tribes of headhunters (no, really) to the local traffic of these places and exactly how good are hyenas at disposing of bodies? [Answer: they eat literally everything].

Between panels I did a bit of author-stalking. Liza Cody was wonderfully polite when I stopped her twice in the hallway. The first time was to ask the name of the novel she read from last night (Gimme More) during the Dirty Rotten Liars gameshow. The book proved difficult to find in the dealer's room because I guess it's not widely available in the U.S. yet. We even had to convert the cover price from pounds to dollars - not a difficult task, thanks to the fact that I spend far too much time on ebay. Then I pounced on the poor woman a second time to ask her to autograph the book. She was very nice, and although I considered that authors might not enjoy being asked for autographs outside of signing times, I took heart from the fact that she didn't tell me to go to hell; she does not appear to be the type of person who falters at being blunt :-). So, that was my exciting interaction with an author for the day, and I think I'm going to enjoy Gimme More, but I want to finish Hard Line first.

Dinner was at TaTa Cuban Cafe, where dinner - and especially the mojitos - was delicious.
After dinner it was time for a nap (or, in my case, troubleshooting the cable that connects my camera and laptop) so we could catch the late showing of Surrogates.

Three quick notes on Surrogates, because I just noticed that it's almost 1:30 in the morning. First, it is a brilliant example of successful world-building. Second, it's a bit slowly-paced, but well-written and interesting. Third, Bruce Willis kicks a fair amount of ass and looks great (and I don't even need to add the modifier "for his age"). 4 1/2 stars.

Bouchercon 2009, Days 0 & 1

Wednesday - Day 0

Alek flew out from Nebraska (stopping over in Minnesota), and we flew out from Austin (stopping over in Chicago) to meet up in Indianapolis Wednesday evening. This was the first time we'd seen him since he left for college, although he was much the same as usual ... except for the hair. That was different.


Go Big Red!

Then we took the bus to the hotel, which has quite a nice view.
Thursday - Day 1
After a very early start and a half-hour trek through the SkyWalk and the mall (which, at four floors and several city blocks, is enormous), we finally made it the half-mile to the convention hotel.
The last convention I went to was Ikkicon, which appeared to be mostly populated - and run - by teenagers. Bouchercon, in stark contrast, has been around for four decades and is as far as I can tell incredibly well put-together. We each got a huge tote with mystery magazines, a nametag pouch with zippers and pockets, a professionally-printed informational booklet, and a little mini-schedule that fit in the nametag pouch.
In the morning, we hit The Mean Streets of Indianapolis panel (Tony Perona, Brandt Dodson, Michael Z. Lewin, Brenda Stewart, and Ron Tierney). All of the authors were born in the city and/or have set novels here; the discussion topics covered the ways in which they viewed and portrayed Indy, and of course the question, "What makes people in Indy want to murder each other?" As it turns out, Indianapolis gets a disturbingly high number of murders each year for its size.

That panel was followed by BSI: A Canonical and Conanical Confluence (Michael F. Whelan, Steven T. Doyle, Laurie R. King, Leslie S. Klinger, Roy E. Pilot). I dragged the guys to this one for two reasons: 1) I love Sherlock Holmes and 2) I love Laurie King's work. I got the impression during the panel that King's not a huge fan of Sherlockians, but I wouldn't have discovered her work otherwise: At camp, over a decade ago, a friend heard that I was a Holmes fan, and gave me her copy of the Beekeeper's Apprentice to read. I finished it in about a day, and have been hooked ever since. This was an informational panel, if a little dry - Al's been making jokes about the phrase "if I could correct your footnote..." all afternoon.

After the BSI panel, we walked down the street to have lunch at Noodle & Company, which has excellent pad thai and linguini (two great tastes.... ah nevermind).

Lunch was followed by a trip around the dealer's room to check out the silent auctions (I have no hope of winning my bid, but here's hoping), and then Laurie King was doing a book signing! Here is a shot of me basically being a speechless fool while she signs my worn copy of Beekeeper's Apprentice:
Hopefully she'll be at a future Bouchercon, and maybe I'll string more than four words together. Although we did have a little laugh at the spelling of a name ("it's got a silent Q, right?") on a second book a brought. Except I can't tell you what the name is because it's a Christmas gift for another King fan.Also in the dealer's room, we got a stack of books at the 3-for-2 table:

Hard Line, by Michael Z. Lewin; I liked him so much in the morning panel that I grabbed his book when we saw it

Under Vesuvius, by John Maddox Roberts; historical mysteries are usually a good read

One Dollar Death, by Richard Barth; with a title like that? Of course I bought this.

Then away to the Suddenly I'm Thirsty panel (Con Lehane, Chris Knopf, J.A. Konrath, Jason Pinter, Tom Schreck). For a discussion on alcohol and alcoholism in the mystery/crime novel, this was easily one of the funniest panels of the day. Konrath was a bit ... enthusiastic ... but once he started actually answering the questions posed, he had a lot of good points to make. Tom Schreck, on top of being well-spoken and having an amazing job, is ridiculously good-looking; he was also unfortunately seated the furthest away from us. I enjoyed hearing what Chris Knopf had to say about the use of alcohol - he pointed out that it's often used as a sign of a deeper issue, and as a way to let the reader know that a character has faults/flaws/problems not immediately visible.

Alek was tired, so he went back to the hotel to sleep while dad and I visited our final panel of the day, Dirty Rotten Liars: The Game Show (Liza Cody, Michael Z. Lewin, Peter Lovesey). This was a variation on the "two truths and a lie" game, where each of the authors also read an excerpt from one of their novels. Very entertaining, and if you ever get a chance you should ask Liza Cody to tell her story about the time she made half a concert crowd mellow out.

On the way out we stopped by the Crime Scene room - they had a crime scene all set up with little forms to fill out for a chance to win prizes. While my crime scene drawing left much to be desired artistically, I think I scored well on the "evidence you would want collected" and "conclusions drawn" sections, drawing mainly on my extensive experience watching CSI: NY and NCIS. Dad, for his part, decided to fill the entire conclusions section with a sordid story involving a rabid mystery fan, a critic, J.A. Konrath, and a gun. Which is about par for the course.

Later, from 9 to midnight, Bouchercon threw us all a party at Gameworks involving food, music (I have video proof that we got the DJ to rickroll us), and free games. We beat House of the Dead 4, played three-puck (!) air hockey, and various shooting games. And racing games, where Alek showed us new levels of multitasking.

The way back to the hotel had us traveling through a darkened mall, so there were hijinks.

And, I finally realized what the windows in the SkyWalk remind me of - giant James Bond-style sights, like in the opening to most of the James Bond movies:

Countdown to Bouchercon

Days to Bouchercon: 3

All the air fares have finally been arranged (my brother decided he wanted to fly out from Nebraska to tag along), the hotel reservations have been made, and everyone's registered. With all the hard work out of the way, all that's left to do is get excited about the vacation!

Just three days, a midterm, and a digital storyboard project standing between me and Indianapolis. . .

The hotel sent out suggestions for places to visit in the evenings after the convention gets out. With names like The Slippery Noodle and Harry & Izzy's, how can we not try these spots?

My Songs, You Say?

Ahhh, how I love that new album smell! Considering that most of my music comes from itunes and other web-based stores these days, it was fun to tear the plastic off Your Songs, the new Harry Connick, Jr. CD.

Your Songs is a compilation of famous classic songs, performed by Connick with the assistance of a string orchestra and full jazz band. As you can see, the album is loaded with covers of iconic songs:

All The Way (orig. Frank Sinatra)
Just The Way You Are (orig. Billy Joel)
Can't Help Falling In Love With You (orig. Elvis Presley)
And I Love Her (orig. The Beatles)
(They Long To Be) Close To You (orig. The Carpenters)
Besame Mucho
The Way You Look Tonight
First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (orig. Roberta Flack)
Your Song (orig. Elton John)
Some Enchanted Evening
And I Love You So (orig. Don McLean)
Who Can I Turn To? (orig. Tony Bennett)
Smile (orig. Charlie Chaplin)
Mona Lisa (orig. Nat King Cole)

As these songs are all covers, I of course found myself comparing each of Harry Connick, Jr.'s versions to the originals. One or two unfortunately didn't measure up - as far as I'm concerned, no one can top Billy Joel's Just The Way You Are. And, thanks to my grandmother's taste in music, I have strong opinions on how Besame Mucho should sound.

However, there are a number of tracks I enjoy. Connick's rendition of Your Song is pleasantly upbeat, and my absolute favorite track is Can't Help Falling In Love With You (sorry, Elvis). Can't Help Falling In Love With You is just a great song, and Connick's version has a good trumpet part (I'm a sucker for trumpets). Other notable tracks are All The Way, Some Enchanted Evening, And I Love You So, and Smile.

I'm keeping Your Songs on repeat in the background as I work today. The songs are relaxing, but by no means boring. Harry Connick, Jr. has a great voice, and it matches beautifully with the music. Personally, this entire album makes me want to dress up and go out dancing :-)

Oh, and in case you haven't been clicking all the links I included ... well, shame on you, and you should at least check out the behind-the-scenes video. It offers a good feel for the album and includes some of the music.




As ever, thank you to the One2One Network for the chance to enjoy new music!

Last Photos

Here are the last of the photos from California - Anonymous has been asking, and since she's the only one who left a comment, she gets to dictate the direction of the blog. So there, non-commentators!

Beach photos - click to make big:

Reviews Galore

More photos of California can wait - I have reviews and news!

Wow, my mom hit it right on the head when she said, "we're never going to get part two of the photos", didn't she? That woman's like magic.

But, as I've said, photos can wait. For this:

Review #1: Measure for Measure

I almost turned down an invitation to see Measure for Measure at the Long Center. As much as I loved all of my language arts teachers in school, "Shakespeare" generally conjures up memories of long afternoons spent teasing through archaic language, hunting for all those filthy jokes the older students promised us - and coming up empty. Although, there was that time during reading circle when one of the guys put entirely the wrong inflection on "Bring me my sword, ho!" and brought class to a screeching halt for about half an hour. . . Anyway, the point is that Shakespeare is, in many cases, bawdy and fun, but that's hard to understand when you've been staring at the same passage for twenty minutes.

No so with a performance on stage. Even in the midst of Austin Shakespeare's bizarre coupling of the original language AND varying southern accents, the humor shines through. My host for the show (a theatre critic who writes for the Austin Theater Examiner and blogs - infrequently - at cinemopolis) told me that there is apparently a lot of controversy over categorizing Measure for Measure as a comedy: I think the Long Center playbill hit the nail on the head with the phrase "dark comedy." The many laugh-out-loud lines are neatly balanced by a few truly intense scenes, some emotional sadism, and plenty of suspense. Speaking of suspense, it was a truly new experience to feel some during a Shakespeare performance; there's something to be said for watching plays everyone doesn't know the ending to.

The actors do a good job as a group, with the clear stand-out performance coming from Matt Radford. Which is a great thing, because his character goes in disguise as another character, meaning he spends quite a bit of time on the stage. I'll not get into plot specifics here, because Ryan covers that in his review of Measure for Measure on the Austin Theater Examiner page. So, you know, go check that out.

Rating: a solid "To be" on a scale of "Greek to me" to "Some rise by sin"
I liked it, and would recommend it to any group of adults.



Review #2: iPod Touch

This new toy marks the first purchase I've made from Apple since I got my first iPod four or five years ago. The old iPod is named Grim Speck, and poor Speck has been languishing in a drawer since the new one arrived yesterday. I'd planned to go with an A-Team theme (there's an "on the jazz" quote engraved on the back) and name this iPod Hannibal; however, when it arrived it was just too glossy and shiny and pretty - definitely a Faceman.

Let me just say: it's a nice gadget. This thing makes playlists for me without being asked and lets me know when I have new emails/tweets/Facebook messages/news stories - which surprisingly saves time. The free games so far leave a bit to be desired, although Tap Tap Revolution (Dance Dance, but with your fingers) is pretty cool. And I downloaded an Army of Darkness app, because you never know when you're going to need to produce a chainsaw sound effect on the spur of the moment.

But while it's cool to watch CSI or NCIS on-the-go, as it were, the teensy screen isn't a strong selling point for me. And, compared to my old one, I'm convinced this iPod's going to break if I give it a stern glare; my case hasn't arrived yet. Oh yeah, and that "engraving"? Parts of it are already rubbing right off; not that you can really see it once the case is on.

Rating: a "Boomstick-plus" on a scale of "Come get some" to "Gimme some sugar, baby"
Cool and fun, but hardly a necessity


Yet to come: Two CDs came in today from the One2One Network, so I will post reviews of those within the next week or three. Also, I really am going to put up some more photos from California: scout's honor.




This post was composed while listening to:
The Grand Illusion, Styx
Paradise By The Dashboard Light, Meat Loaf
Rock 'n' Roll Band, Boston
Take Me Home Tonight, Eddie Money
Save The Last Dance For Me, Bruce Willis
My Hometown, Bruce Springsteen
Blue Collar Man, Styx
I'm on Fire, Bruce Springsteen
Baker Street, Rick Springfield

Vacation Photos - Part the First

Putting all of my photos into one blog post would probably be a bit of a visual overload. Instead, I have here the first chunk (yes, that is the technical term) of shots from my week in California. These include the view from my bedroom window, a ping pong action shot, and a handful ofmy favorite photos from an afternoon on the lake in a speedboat.

I think the speedboat was my the highlight of my first few days there; my 14-year-old cousin kept beating me at ping pong, which took some of the fun out of it. Thankfully, I got my own back - and cemented my geek status - by totally kicking her butt at pong. Specifically, the hockey version of pong, on my uncle's Atari Flashback.

My evening, in reverse order :-D

Sorry...

... I can't blog tonight; I'm busy resting after a terribly strenuous day on the lake:

Rock of Ages

This is one of those CDs that went straight into itunes so I could listen to it on my ipod at the gym - the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Rock of Ages.

I hadn't heard much about the musical before my CD came in, which is really too bad, because it sounds like a fantastic program. You can see the Making of Soundtrack video here on YouTube.

Rock of Ages is a five-time Tony Award nominated Broadway musical, and it stars Constantine Maroulis (an American Idol finalist). The story of Rock of Ages follows the old "small town girl runs off to the big city" plot line, but it appears that most of the action takes place in a legendary Sunset Strip rock club, in 1987. I'm a huge fan of 80's music, so this is a match made in heaven: Rock of Ages features all the hits of the era, from artists like Journey, Bon Jovi, Styx, Reo Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, Foreigner, Twisted Sister, Poison, Asia, and Whitesnake.

I mean, just look at this track listing:

Just Like Paradise / Nothin' But A Good Time
Sister Christian
We Built This City / Too Much Time On My Hands
I Wanna Rock
We're Not Gonna Take It
Heaven/More Than Words / To Be With You
Waiting For A Girl Like You
Wanted Dead Or Alive
I Want To Know What Love Is
Cum On Feel The Noize / We're Not Gonna Take It (Reprise)
Harden My Heart / Shadows Of The Night
Here I Go Again
The Final Countdown
Any Way You Want It / I Wanna Rock (Reprise)
High Enough
I Hate Myself For Loving You / Heat Of The Moment
Hit Me With Your Best Shot
Can't Fight This Feeling
Every Rose Has Its Thorn
Oh Sherrie
The Search Is Over
Don't Stop Believin

Being a musical, these are all the classic rock songs sung by different singers, the songs don't all run the full length of the original, and there's a bit of dialogue interspersed between songs. However, the singers do a great job and you can really feel the story unfold over the course of the CD. I particularly enjoyed the We Built This City / Too Much Time On My Hands track, with my second favorite being the closing track Don't Stop Believin'. (Oh, and there's a little bonus at the end of this song!)

Interested? You can purchase your own copy of the Rock of Ages soundtrack here on Amazon.

My copy of the CD kindly provided by the lovely women over at http://www.one2onenetwork.com

Peer pressure. . . cont.

Following yesterday's update on what I'm watching, here comes

What I've Been Reading
Or, Half-Finished Books On My Nightstand

• Would you believe, I'm still trying to finish Death By Gaslight. Yeah, that link leads to a blog entry from September of last year. On the one hand, the book got lost among the boxes when I moved, and I just found it recently. On the other, I've been dreading the ending and so I keep putting it off -- I really only have about three chapters left to go.
  
  So far, I get the feeling that I might have enjoyed the story quite a bit more if the author had used original characters; a book that makes a protagonist of the evil nemesis and an antagonist of the good guy can be quite interesting. However, because these are characters that I have known and loved (except the nemesis) since elementary school, every time they behave out of ... well, out of character, it pulls me out of the story.
  
  Of course, I can also see where the author is coming from. It is ever so much easier to use well-established characters when writing in that the audience knows Sherlock Holmes; almost anyone can at least pull up a mental image of the Great Detective. It is almost certainly easier to write hero-as-antagonist when it's been firmly established for a century just how good the "good guy" is.
  
  But it's just not working for me in this book. I'll write more once I finish, but I get the feeling my opinion won't change much.
  

• The Dragon Lensman. A party favor from a comic-con themed party Ivy threw a few years back. Thin, yet hard to finish, but I hate to leave a book once I've started reading it.
  
  
• The Cheapskate Monthly Money Makeover. Because I am currently enjoying a brief period of respite between living paycheck-to-paycheck and being a broke graduate student -- it seems like a good time to read this book.
  
  
• The Final Solution. Loaned to me by a fellow book-lover who knows what a huge Sherlock Holmes fan I am.
  
  
• Rumspringa. A castoff from my soon-to-be Anthropology student little brother.
  
  
• Under The Black Flag. A birthday gift, I believe from my ex. I do love nonfiction works about things relating to what I love in fiction: this one's about pirates, and next on my list are biographies of Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle.
  

Not sure what I'll do tomorrow. Either "What I'm Listening To" ("To What I'm Listening"?) or "What I'm Doing".

Peer pressure

It's been pointed out that I haven't updated my blog in a very long time.

So here comes a series of short updates. [And look for a CD review in few days, too!]

What I've Been Watching

• Last night, my Bigshot Critic friend scored us some tickets to a production of Little Shop of Horrors at the Long Center. It was the first time I'd seen a live version of Little Shop, and the experience was highly enjoyable; the acting and singing were a few steps up from what I'd expected, and there was a good sense of comedic timing overall. Definitely a play to check out, although I hear that the show's been sold out recently.

• Leverage! TNT has a good summary of the program:
  
  

  [Timothy] Hutton stars as Nate Ford, a former insurance investigator determined to bring down the kind of corrupt bigwigs whose neglect led to the death of his son. His highly skilled team includes Sophie Devereaux (Gina Bellman – Coupling), a grifter who uses her acting skills to corner her marks; Eliot Spencer (Christian Kane – TNT’s Into the West), a “retrieval specialist” with bone-crunching fighting skills; Alec Hardison (Aldis Hodge – Friday Night Lights), a gadget and technology wizard who keeps the team connected and informed; and Parker (Beth Riesgraf – Alvin and the Chipmunks), a slightly off-center thief adept at repelling off buildings or squeezing into tight places. Together, the team puts their energy, quick minds and keen intellects toward securing justice for society’s underdogs.

  
  
  Thanks to Netflix I was able to catch up on Season 1 before the summer season started three weeks ago. In addition to some fantastic writing, Leverage has an amazing cast and chemistry going for it. I don't watch tv much anymore, but I catch enough to know that Leverage is easily one of the smartest shows on TV at the moment. And you can find most of the cast and writers on Twitter. For example, Hutton posted this photo today, which I may use as my new desktop background.

• A-Team (finished season 1, now on season 2), and CSI: NY (finished season 5, working on season 1). These shows are completely unrelated, except for the fact that I'm watching both through Netflix. Well, Netflix actually only had the most recent season of CSI: NY available, but for $12 I got the season 1 box set from ebay. After the horror that is CSI: Miami (it has so many drama units per square inch that I can't finish an entire episode), I'm not sure what made me try the NY version, but I'm glad I did. While occasionally farfetched, the plots are always interesting, and I could watch Gary Sinise act all day long. As far at the A-Team is concerned, I missed a lot of the show when it was on tv, since it started its run three years before I was born. However, I am definitely enjoying the catching up. It might just be the soft spot in my heart for almost everything 80's (except the fashions), but I'm hard pressed to just watch one episode at a time.

Check back tomorrow for What I've Been Reading

The Brothers Bloom

Short review:

Go see this movie.

Slightly longer review:

Go see this movie. Tonight.

Full review:

Our little ragtag "movie group" decided to see this movie mostly because a) it wasn't Transformers and b) it wasn't UP (my brother apparently hates old people and children). It was only showing at the Arbor, the local artsy fartsyhouse-type theatre, which usually means I'm not going to enjoy myself much.

However, enjoy I did. Quite a bit actually --I might have been embarrassed about how much/how loud/how long I was laughing, but most of the rest of the audience seemed to be having a wonderful time as well.

I say most because, for some reason, the other four people I saw it with were not as in love with The Brothers Bloom as I. In the interests of fair and balanced reporting, I will state that some of them found it "confusing" and "too long". . . and Jyan muttered something about "third act problems", whatever that means.

A fie on them, I say! I enjoyed this movie from start to finish, even though parts of it were heartbreaking (yes I'm a sap) and I did tear up a little (did I just admit that?) towards the end. The plot also had its cliched moments, but overall the story was interesting enough and the pacing strong enough that I never got board. There was a brief moment of "oh, really, argh" when I realized that the movie had another half-hour to go ... until the story perked up again.

The acting was very good, and the locations were just gorgeous. As, in fact, was most of the cast. I also loved that there was always something happening, keeping the scenes more dynamic. The brothers don't just talk for minutes on end: they talk while an escaped camel roams past in the background, or while one of them does magic tricks, or while a dynamite enthusiast shoots down a palm tree. I thought this was part of what made the film so much fun to watch.

If you're interested -- as well you should be -- you can watch the first seven minutes of The Brothers Bloom online.

Diane Birch: Fire Escape

I was excited to receive my copy of Diane Birch's debut album Bible Belt from the lovely women over at the One2One Network earlier this week. I hadn't heard much about her myself, but the free single I found online got me interested. As did this snippet from her biography:

For singer-songwriter Diane Birch, music was a refuge. Although Diane was born in Michigan, her childhood was spent on the move as the daughter of a preacher, living between Zimbabwe, South Africa and Australia, before her parents finally settled in Portland, Oregon. When she was in her early teens, Diane absorbed a unique and cosmopolitan perspective on life that shines through her music and makes a simple categorization of it impossible.

Unfortunately, my dad had read a lot of buzz about Diane Birch, and he had heard the free mp3 of Fire Escape himself. So, he snagged the CD out of my hands the moment it arrived to give it a listen or two (or five) himself.

When I finally got Bible Belt to myself, I was quite surprised with the tracks. I must have listened to it a half-dozen times before I sat down to write this review -- while working, while playing Zuma, while checking my email. It works just as well to actively listen (did I mention that I love her lyrics?) as to put on for some interesting background music.

There's a nice mix of upbeat and slower tunes, and Birch's voice is beautiful throughout. The music isn't dated, by any means, but there's something about Birch's voice that reminded me of singers from decades past. In fact, I think Vanity Fair hit the nail on the head when they wrote, "she pays tribute to the classics too -- Motown, Delta Blues, old-fashioned pop -- without sounding musty."

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed all thirteen songs on Bible Belt, although my stand-out favorites were Fools, Rise Up, and Mirror Mirror.

Interested? If you are, you can check out Bible Belt and support a great cause, at the same time. As you can see from the widget below, your purchase could benefit Autism Speaks. Or, if you go to the Discover & Donate page, you can get a button to benefit another charity, including Susan G. Komen for the Cure or the March of Dimes.