Fun With Lists
There is a danger in completing your Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving: the kids change their minds. L. made a brand-new Christmas list yesterday. Luckily one thing on it is up in the attic, so she won’t be totally disappointed. I know many of you saw this last week, but it was absolutely worth making sure no one missed it. Enjoy Deadspin’s…
Favorite Songs Of 2013, #9
9 – “I Don’t Know How” – Best Coast As I wrote when I first shared the video for this song last month, singer Bethany Cosentino drives some critics nuts with her repetitive lyrics. But I love her. And I love how this song begins as a droning, (indie rock) torch song and then gains (false?) confidence through the middle…
Favorite Songs Of 2013, #10
Here we go. The top 10, one per day for the next two weeks. Enjoy. 10 – “Amsterdam” – Gregory Alan Isakov. Most gorgeous song of the year. That final verse, “Oh churches and trains…” Mercy! You can have your Mumford and Sons. I’ll take Isakov for beautiful, warm, country-tinged neo-folk.
Favorite Songs of 2013, 20-11
My Favorite Songs Lists are always works in progess. Each January I start a new list in iTunes called XX Favs, where XX = that year. As I listen to music over the next 11 months or so, I toss my favorites into it. A few times during the year I’ll scan the list, delete songs that no longer delight…
Seasonal Sounds
The era of cheap and easy streaming music makes it easy for anyone to assemble a pretty nifty playlist for the holidays. However, you need to go beyond just your favorite songs. You need to dive into Christmas albums and build sets that can be spun for hours as the soundtrack for your parties, dinners, and Christmas morning celebrations. The…
Books, JFK
Six Seconds in Dallas: A Micro-Study of the Kennedy Assassination – Josiah Thompson Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK – Gerald Posner Well, I got a little obsessed around the anniversary of JFK’s assassination. Aside from numerous TV documentaries watched and online stuff read, I came across an Errol Morris film that features Josiah Thompson. After…
Not So New Wave
There’s no real way to tease this, other than to suggest you go look at it. New Wave Artists Aging Gracefully Well, not all of them are aging gracefully. Be on the lookout for: Boy George (!), Tears For Fears (???), and Simon LeBon (WTF). I think it’s safe to say that Pete Burns has had the most profound change…
American(s) Music
Note: I’ll kick off my look back at the music of 2013 later this week. Here’s an appetizer about music in, but not of, 2013. I forget what the motivation was, but for some reason last night I decided to check and see when season two of The Americans was supposed to start. Unofficially, I found early February. Which is…
Books
A full month of books, but also one in which I got obsessed by a specific topic late. So I’ll chop this into two entries: one for the non-obsession books then a second, tomorrow, for the books that haunted my dreams for a couple weeks. The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien The Quiet American – Graham Green I began…
Thanksgiving Wrap Up
Mondays are for catching up. After a long holiday weekend there’s even more to share, so here we go. The girls had a long, five-day weekend. We could have used warmer weather as we really needed to shove them outside more. I’m not sure where they get all their energy. Or why they refuse to listen to us. Wednesday M.…