I first heard about this magazine from my friend Ailish’s then-boyfriend, Dave (this was sometime in 1993, I would guess). Dave fancied himself an artiste: he typed his novel on a portable Underwood, loved Henry Miller and read Harper‘s. I liked him, but was always confused by his pretensions since he didn’t really fit the bill. But regardless, when we visited, I always read his Harper’s. I very quickly got hooked on it and have been subscribing ever since.
Harper’s is another one of those magazines that I don’t immediately get excited about receiving because there’s always the possibility that there will be five really long articles that I want to read in it. And who has the time for all of that? Perversely, I am secretly delighted when there is only one story that I want to read in that month’s issue. But I know that if I’m going to read something in it, it will be good.
Clearly the high point of the magazine is Harper’s Index. The index is a list of various statistics. The gimmick, if you will is that everything is written in such a way that the answer can be given in a numerical value. for example: “Amount the ABBA tribute band Bjorn Again says it was paid to play a concert for Vladimir Putin in January (2009): $27,500; Estimated street value of drugs seized last March at three Phish reunion shows in Hampton, Virginia: $1,200,000.” (more…)
Colin Meloy is the lead singer and songwriter for the Decemberists. This is a recording of Meloy’s solo acoustic tour from 2006. The recording is from several venues on the tour, although it is mixed as if it were one concert.
SOUNDTRACK: WRFF 104.5 FM & WRXP 101.9 FM.
The CD player in my car died. I have been listening to the radio these last few days. At first I was a little 
excited at the thought of listening to these stations that I so recently discovered. But let me say, when working outside in the yard, you don’t mind what the stations are playing as much as you do when confined in a car.
I had read this short book about six months ago, but decided to read it again before posting on it. The second time through was a much more satisfying read for some reason.
This album seems to get overshadowed by the anti-George Bush track “Bu$hleaguer.” Evidently many people were turned off by this track, and that may have had an impact on sales. Of course, I’m sure many other people were introduced to the band by this song, too. Regardless, the rest of the album shouldn’t be judged by this track, as it is rather unusual.
SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-Binaural (2000).
Binaural bursts forth with the rampaging “Breakerfall” and “God’s Dice.” The latter pauses only briefly for a chorus break. They are followed by “Evacuation,” a song that sounds a bit off kilter in this studio version but which blasts off on the live version. It’s got a great shouty chorus too.
SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-Yield (1998)
This Pearl Jam disc is something of a return to form after the experimentation of No Code. Part of me feels bad that they experimented less, because I do enjoy a band’s wild side, and yet these songs are uniformly fantastic, and they include some of my favorites by Pearl Jam.
SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-Vitalogy (1994).
I always think of this as the “weird” Pearl Jam disc. Mostly that’s because the contents are certainly weird (in that it’s made up like an old book, including excerpts from the book in the liner notes). But also because it has some of Pearl Jam’s strangest songs on it, especially “Hey Foxymophandlemama, That’s Me,” easily one of the weirdest songs in their canon, and possibly the weirdest song on a major label. It’s 7 minutes of samples and scratchy guitars. And it’s more than a little creepy. The disc also contains “Bugs” an accordion-based rant about, well, bugs. and “Aye Davanita” a sort of Eastern chanting type piece.
SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-Vs. (1993).
Ten was a solid record, and although it had diversity within it, overall the sound was pretty consistent. On Vs., Pearl Jam mixed it up sonically and otherwise.
Zadie Smith is the editor and she wrote the introduction. I like to cover all of the written pieces in the book, but there’s not much to say about the introduction except that it fills you in on the details of the collection. She thanks Sarah Vowell for the idea but I gather that the rest of the work was done by her.
I don’t recall why I started getting 
SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-UFOs At the Zoo [DVD] (2007).
I’m not going to review the musical portion of the DVD per se…you can download the MP3s with the DVD, and I intend to give the music a good listen once I get it converted to CD. So, this is a review of the movie itself (with comments about the music too, of course).
I Just Read About That... 