The poster for the new film Charlie Bartlett brought to mind another brightly colored high-contrast portrait with words on sunglasses lenses, the cover of Black Grape’s 1995 album It’s Great When You’re Straight… Yeah. That album cover seems to have inspired other work even more directly, and I’m sure the idea wasn’t an original one, […]

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It’s been a busy week, particularly the last two nights, whenI went to see a few concerts at venues I’d never been to before. On Tuesday night, Jeff and I ate at the Bowery (great mac and cheese) and then took the subway to the (Wilshire + Western = ) Wiltern for the Bloc Party […]

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I’m currently working my third and last shift preparing for the show, providing another opportunity to catch up on work and downloaded TV shows while I wait until someone wants to use a tape in my cabinet. Earlier this week, I worked a twelve hour shift and one person borrowed one tape for ten minutes. […]

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Every summer, Aimee has had a “cousins party” back home; this week, we decided to have one out in L.A. Unofficially, I guess, but still, two of Aimee’s cousins paid us a visit over the last few days, and we had a great time showing them around. Lauren visited on her west coast swing for […]

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I feel like my taste in music has remained pretty stagnant over the last few years. Leaving college and the radio station behind didn’t do it, as cd-burning mania struck just after I graduated, and kept new music flowing into my life for the next few years. Maybe I’m just not paying attention as closely […]

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Even before we moved, I knew that KCRW was just about the best thing about L.A., but now that we’re here, we’re learning first-hand. First and foremost, Morning Becomes Eclectic is about the best radio show out there, and the rest of the lineup is interesting and intriguing as well. Second, the Fringe Benefits card […]

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Not Sinatra at the Hollywood Bowl, and not really Sinatra at all, actually, but this week we enjoyed some strange and interesting musical performances. First, last Sunday, we walked over to the Hollywood Bowl in the afternoon and picnicked on the grounds, with a loaf of bread, some brie, wine, and grapes, which made for […]

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Our busy weekend continued on Saturday night with the Revenge of the Book-Eaters event at Royce Hall at UCLA. It was a great event in a beautiful space, even if it involved Andy Richter wearing only a vest and leather pants. And a wig. Channeling Jim Morrison. Or maybe that’s why it was great. Anyway, […]

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Though that sounds like some sort of social agenda for pets, it’s actually how we spent last night, seeing Cat Power, a.k.a. Chan Marshall, play the late show at the Malibu Performing Arts Center. I got home from my first day of a four-day fellowship at the lab around 4:45 – the day was a […]

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Never a dull moment here in moving-land… We returned from Los Angeles Wednesday night, and after a brief spurt of packing on Thursday, we headed to Boston to be with Aimee’s family for the weekend. Friday and Saturday were spent hanging out with the kids in Portsmouth, as well as with lots of family friends […]

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Aimee and I attended our first concert at the Eastman Theatre on Monday night, a great holiday show from the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra under the masterful and unpretentious leadership of Wynton Marsalis. We saw the LCJO and Marsalis at Symphony Hall in Boston last fall; this time, Dianne Reeves wasn’t around, but Duke Ellington’s […]

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Not until he played his first few songs in the cavernous gym of a Christian liberal arts college did I realize how many of Jeff Tweedy’s songs mention Jesus, Satan, the church, heaven, and other topics which might seem either very appropriate or very off-color for that particular venue. But that’s where we found ourselves […]

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For no other reason than that “everyone deserves a treat now and then,” Aimee got me an iPod shuffle this week, and it’s about the best thing I’ve seen since, well, my other, beefier iPod. And to boot, she had those exact words printed on the side (about the treat, not the beefier iPod), just […]

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Last night, Aimee and I headed to the Paradise for one more show, catching Liz Phair at the beginning of her pre-album acoustic tour. The relationship I have to Phair’s music is one of the more complicated, troubling ones I have to any artist. Her first album is so good, so interesting, and so evocative, […]

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This weekend was one of our last in Boston, even though we don’t move for another two-plus months – that’s what happens when you decide to get married, move, quit your job, and go to school, all in a six-week period. Friday night, I met Josh outside Avalon for the Doves show. The last time […]

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