Thursday, July 16, 2009

Cass McCombs on Job Satisfaction


There is work. There is play. There is play that is work, and play that is play. And work that is work, and in only one of these lies happiness.

Cass McCombs: The Executioner's Song

Friday, July 10, 2009

Advertising Gone Bad


I don't know what it is about a baby gleefully holding a razor to his (or her?) face that makes me want to go out and buy the new Gillette Fusion. But it does.

Monday, July 06, 2009

R.I.P. McNamara

Today Robert McNamara died. Read about his fascinating life in this NYT obit. Several years ago Errol Morris filmed one of my favorite documentaries of all time on McNamara's life, The Fog of War.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Two Weeks



This is one of the best songs I've heard this year. The drumming is nails.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Read This Poem. Now.

Joe Plicka (poet, teacher, and friend), has published a beautiful poem with Anti-Poetry. To read it click here. He visits this site from time to time, so leave a comment and tell him he's crazy and/or brilliant.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Dancing on Lime Green

I grew up in rural Idaho with no MTV and very little pop music in the home. What I got came from Saturday morning radio (Casey Kasem’s Top 40) and my older brother and sister (AC/DC, Ratt, Def Leppard, etc.) It seems I was born with a fascination for pop music that has never quite left me (as you can plainly read). One of my earliest memories, and most certainly my earliest musical memory, is from about the time I was in Kindergarten. My oldest sister Alison came home one night, having borrowed a record from her friend. She went into our front room and put the vinyl on the turntable and let it spin. I spent the remainder of the entire evening dancing around on our shaggy green carpet to “Beat It”, “Billy Jean”, and “Thriller”. I’ve always appreciated Michael Jackson as an artist. There is a lot that can be said about him, great and terrible. But I’ll always remember green shag carpet and Eddie Van Halen’s unmistakable guitar in “Beat It”, driving a five year old boy mad with joy.

What are your earliest musical memories?

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Lynchian

What is David Lynch up to these days besides making really weird films, you ask? Well, let me tell you. He's up to Interview Project. Over the course of a twenty thousand mile road trip his crew would stop at random and talk to the men and women of this great nation. There is a fascinating humanity on display in these vignettes (uploaded for your viewing pleasure at the rate of one per day. I suppose any life is worth considering for at least that long).

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Gus and Milo

Christy and I have two fine boys. See them here through the talented, generous, friendly, artistic, focused-despite-the-unchecked-rowdiness-of-my-children, lens of Lacy Jane.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Discovery


You may want to put this one on your calendar for July 7th. The album is called "LP" (how clever!). Discovery is a two man electronic side project, Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend and Wes Miles of Ra Ra Riot.

Discovery: So Insane

Monday, June 15, 2009

In Memory


My Grandma, Beth Reynolds Blake
1916 - 2009

"Late Fragment"

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

-Raymond Carver

(see also)