Yer Sweet Chimneys

"A Song After Grace (Orange Eats Creeps)" (excerpt)

2012-02-02T01:19:00.001-05:00

Introducing... Field Guides

2012-01-20T16:12:00.004-05:00

(photo is from HERE)

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://fieldguides.bandcamp.com/album/there-is-always-someone-waiting-somewhere-else"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;There is always someone waiting somewhere else... by Field Guides&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

We're Gonna Die @ The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh • February 17, 2012

2012-01-09T13:03:00.004-05:00

Tickets are now available for a one-night-only performance of We're Gonna Die by Young Jean Lee and Future Wife on February 17 at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA.

More info: http://www.warhol.org/webcalendar/event.aspx?id=5052

Tickets are also available for 4 nights at Theatre Junction in Calgary, Alberta. Those dates are May 2–5.

Ben Seretan (with Ben Kupstas) • Pete's Candy Store • Friday, 1/6/12

2012-01-04T19:32:00.004-05:00

Book Review: I'm with the Bears: Short Stories from a Damaged Planet

2012-01-04T19:31:00.001-05:00

I'm With the Bears: Short Stories from a Damaged Planet
Edited by Mark Martin
Introduction by Bill McKibben

Click HERE to read my review of the new collection of stories loosely centered around climate change, out now from Verso.

Morning Light: Three New Shots by Hong-An

2011-12-19T12:25:00.005-05:00

Slothville

2011-12-14T11:50:00.001-05:00

"It's not that hard to block out the light"

2011-12-13T12:09:00.002-05:00

A new favorite, which I discovered on this here very website, thanks to Nate...

Never Coming Back by Moon

"All Farewells Are Sudden"

2011-12-12T12:26:00.001-05:00

Pigeons — "The Welcome"

2011-12-11T19:02:00.000-05:00

David Attenborough Recites "What A Wonderful World"

2011-12-08T16:58:00.000-05:00

Youth Lagoon

2011-11-27T22:29:00.003-05:00

This kid is all I've been listening to lately. With a bit of Light Asylum thrown in.

This woman is my new hero

2011-11-17T10:49:00.003-05:00

“It would be so easy to say, ‘Well I’m going to retire, I’m going to sit around, watch television or eat bonbons,’ but somebody’s got to keep ’em awake and let ’em know what is really going on in this world.” — Dorli Rainey

"It's Real"

2011-11-04T11:23:00.000-04:00

Tigers Jaw Cover Fleetwood Mac!

2011-10-12T15:15:00.002-04:00

This might be the best thing I've heard from Tigers Jaw yet!

Gypsy b/w Jimmy Piersall (Alternate Version) by Tigers Jaw

Also keep your ears open for something from Fabulous Muscles...

"We'll come back for Indian Summer"

2011-10-07T17:25:00.000-04:00

Tigers Jaw On a Couch

2011-10-07T14:29:00.001-04:00

The Feynman Series: On Beauty, Honours, and Curiosity

2011-10-05T16:07:00.006-04:00

Here's the brilliant, late, great Richard Feynman articulating some thoughts on beauty and mystery and science, arguing against false certainty and mystical (mis)understandings of the unknown—all ideas I've found myself arguing quite often over the years.

"You see, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not-knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong."

"I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in this mysterious universe without having any purpose..."

"On The Air": David Lynch's Post-Peaks TV Show

2011-10-04T15:25:00.003-04:00

Here are six of the seven episodes filmed for David Lynch and Mark Frost's brief return to network television after Twin Peaks.

From Wikipedia:

On the Air (1992) is an American sitcom created by David Lynch and Mark Frost and broadcast by ABC. In the United States, only three episodes were aired although seven were filmed. The program followed the antics of the staff of a fictional 1950s television network (Zoblotnick Broadcasting Company or ZBC), as they tried to put on a live variety program called "The Lester Guy Show" with disastrous results.

"And I remember pretending I wasn't looking"

2011-09-29T16:08:00.003-04:00

Here's an old favorite. Contender for best love song?

I remember a summer's day
I remember walking up to you
I remember my face turned red
And I remember staring at my feet
I remember before we met
I remember sitting next to you
And I remember pretending I wasn't looking

So we'll try and try
Even if it lasts an hour
With all our might
We'll try and make it ours
Cause we're on our way
We're on our way to fall in love

I remember your old guitar
I remember "I Can't Explain"
I remember the way it looked around your neck
And I remember the day it broke
I remember the song you sang
I remember "The Way You Look Tonight"
And I remember the way it made me feel

And we try and try
Even if it lasts an hour
With all our might
We'll try and make it ours
Because we're on our way
We're on our way to fall in love

A Voice from the Shadows

2011-09-29T14:15:00.002-04:00

Sketchybook

2011-09-18T20:47:00.005-04:00

Here are some old sketches from my notebook...

A Winged Victory For The Sullen

2011-09-14T11:00:00.005-04:00

Stunning, haunting music from one half of Stars of the Lid, Adam Wiltzie, plus German pianist Dustin O'Halloran.

A Winged Victory For The Sullen (EXCLUSIVE FULL ALBUM STREAM) by erasedtapes

The album is available via Kranky HERE.

Things to Read, Drinks to Drink: Charles Baxter's The Soul Thief & Segura Viudas Cava

2011-09-11T11:57:00.007-04:00

Charles Baxter's The Soul Thief & Segura Viudas Cava

A slim, complex, and completely engrossing novel, Chales Baxter's The Soul Thief is a book that's hard to describe without revealing too much. A good deal of the pleasure derived from reading it comes from Baxter's delicate and precise prose. (This is obvious to Baxter's readers perhaps, but to put it plainly: Baxter is one hell of a sentence writer, a writer of such consideration that the pages fly, even as the situations and characters Baxter presents grow ever more complicated and difficult.) Baxter has wit to spare, but the book is never didactic, never obvious, which is a feat given that the setting of the first half of the book is a graduate program at SUNY Buffalo, a school whose reputation for poetic seriousness and the study of critical theory precedes it. As such, the book is shot through with references to classical composers both popular and obscure, and mentions of (and quotations from) dead writers abound. Brilliantly and thankfully, these details aren't present to polish Baxter's bonafides, but to lend his characters depth and dimensionality.

The novel's protagonist, Nathaniel Mason, is a serious student and is seriously a wreck. He's got a strong moral compass, but runs headlong in to moral quandaries of his own making. He's got the brain of a savant, but is easily confused and agitated. He's the model of academic asceticism, but his self-neglect becomes a kind of dangerous self-torture. And then things really go off the rails...

It's a deceptively straightforward sounding novel in some respects (graduate students studying and screwing and drinking and talking shop have difficult and interesting and ecstatic times even while a dark pallor hangs over them) and a slim book to boot, but it was, hands-down, one of the best reading experiences I've had in a long while.

That got me thinking of those refined alcoholic beverages that, on the surface, may appear uncomplicated or common. Best among these, perhaps, are the Spanish sparkling whites called Cavas. And among those dry, often floral or nutty, effervescent wines is a commonly available and completely delicious series of bottles from the maker, Segura Viudas.

Located in the Penedès region (in Catalonia, near the French border and on the Mediterranean), Segura Viudas has become all too common in American wine shops and restaurants in the last decade. And for good reason: it's wines are absolutely delicious and they're completely affordable. In the $10 range, the Extra Dry is well worth keeping on hand just for the hell of it. Look a bit harder and spend a bit more (around $21) and try the Brut Heredad. While it comes in a goofy, ostentatious looking bottle, it's lighter in color and more delicate in flavor than either the Extra Dry or the Brut Reserva and is great with a variety of foods. Incidentally, it's also great while sitting in a bar finishing an exacting, beautifully written, surprisingly illusive novel.

StoryCorps Makes Me Cry Once Again...

2011-09-09T17:39:00.004-04:00