Music Will Provide the Light You Cannot Resist

[Added from journal notes on the road, but published with the appropriate date]


Spent the evening watching The National, Modest Mouse, and R.E.M. A good evening for music. Modest Mouse was more rock in concert than I expected. R.E.M. gave a stand out show, and one of the real highlights was their stage design which was one of the most stand-out I've seen at a concert. I wish the picture could convey it, but then, you'll just have to trust me. It was an awesome show, with lots of old favorites thrown in (check out the set list if you don't believe me). And since the night had a few extra guests including Scott McCaughey (of the Young Fresh Fellows and the Minus Five) and Johnny Marr (of the Smiths).

If you get a chance to check 'em out, by all means do. It even made sitting in the parking lot for an hour worthwhile.

RBOC: Summer Goodness

I suppose I should be irritated that my summer plans haven't gone off the way I wanted (ah, who am I kidding - I am irritated). Instead, though, there's some decent things going that are worth a brief nod (or that will, at least, fill a quick blog post while I wait for the phone to ring...):

• first day back at the gym. No death, and the knee seems to have held up well after so long off of it. We'll see how tomorrow goes
• news of a new Charlie Kaufman (of "Being John Malkovich", "Adaptation", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" fame) called "Synecdoche" and that has one of my geeky actress crushes Samantha Morton (of "In America", "Jesus' Son" and "Sweet and Lowdown" semi-fame). This is good news.
  
• concert trips to see Pearl Jam and R.E.M. in the next couple of months. I've seen both before - very memorable shows for very different reasons (both were outdoor but one saw 115 degree temperatures). It should be good times (and cooler)
  
• writing is getting done
• finished The Raw Shark Texts, and while it's interesting in terms of the story of memory being told, what stuck out to me was its take on the social construction of language. It also reminded me, a bit, of William Gibson's Idoru, in that it seemed to posit an interesting (but not too) sci-fi look at the impact of swimming in information. Gibson gave us information/media allergies, while this gives us information predators.

And that's probably enough for now.

Hooray! The phone!