Three dollars and 63 cents

I think I liked it more than I initially thought I did. I just finished Flynn's first collection of poems, Some Ether last night, and I got a lot more out of it than I would have without reading his memoir first. He's got a great ability to capture broken, beautiful things on the page, that's for sure.

I'm torn. I said I was going to hold out for the official release, but now that it's actually leaked, I don't know if I can wait another few weeks.

I think it comes out June 9. Definitely sometime in June. I saw them for the first time back in September, and they completely knocked me on my ass. I've only been listening to them seriously for about a year and a half and still have a lot of their albums to get, but Sonic Nurse has been one of my favorites the last few months, along with parts of Washing Machine.

I'm hoping Jeff plays this when I see him again next month. Saturday's show was great, but this is one of the songs I missed out on by not going Friday! Also, I think I'd pee my pants if Wilco and SY ever played together again, with or without Jim O'Rourke.

This was my first time seeing Jeff solo, and I felt spoiled rotten. We were in the center of the front row of the balcony, which was the perfect spot, aside from the waitress who spilled a glass of merlot and some of it landed on my scarf. It's really hard for me to pick a favorite from the night, since he played a lot of songs I was hoping to hear, especially New Madrid. Fake Plastic Trees was even more beautifully haunting than I expected it to be, and I loved Be Not So Fearful. That drunk stupid guy really needed to have his mouth duct taped shut, but I guess it's a good thing that we did

Two nights ago I finished David Kirby's The House On Boulevard Street: New and Selected Poems, and last night I started Nick Flynn's first collection of poems, Some Ether. That's a huge shift in tone and subject matter, that's for sure. Kirby's poems are long and rambling and funny, and I highly recommend him. He was also one of the most generous and good-hearted teachers I had in grad school, which I know doesn't really impact his writing, but it makes me respect him tremendously and seek out his work whenever I can. A few weeks ago while I was fighting insomnia I read Nick Flynn's memoir A

I was right. The Calvin's website lists Pronto as the opener now

Oh man.

Nels posted some extensive notes on the album on his website yesterday (from Chicago...gee, I wonder what he's doing there...?). Read them here.

Today is the album's official release date, so it should be on Amazon, iTunes, etc. if it wasn't already. Here's the review from the New York Times:

My birthday is a month from Friday. Will somebody buy me this badass jacket for $5,000? I can wait until next year for the matching $1750 pants

The performance on the Grammys last night was a little rough, but the giant video screen made me think of Popmart and Zoo TV and I got really excited. Also: apparently you can hear 30 second clips of every song on the album in Wal-Mart's mp3 store (or at least you could this weekend). I haven't gone looking for them because I'm holding out to hear the album in its entirety when it officially comes out, but they're out there for anyone who's curious.

A lot of time (as in U2's case), the lead-off single will be eligible for an award one year, then the whole album and the second or third single will be eligible the next year. It seems a little redundant, but I guess it makes sense. I set up my DVR to record the show, then tuned in to see who would perform first. I watched U2, which was who I tuned in to see, then stopped the recording and turned it off.

plus

As it says on the site, there will be a limited # of tickets released the day of the show. so you may not be completely out of luck. I don't know how the Calvin handles ticket drops, but you can call them. Also, you never know who will have extras or won't be able to go. Keep checking here. I'm pretty sure my friends have one extra, since they got confused and bought one for me after I got one for myself, but I see that you need a pair.

I think either this or Sonic Nurse is my favorite. Washing Machine has been growing a lot on me lately, though, too. SY is one of those bands I feel like it's going to take me another ten years to fully explore even though I still consider them one of my favorites now.

This looks like it's going to be so awesome

Happy birthday Melissa!

The label has been shipping it for about a month. I'm listening to Alex's album right now, and it's completely different but also fantastic.

All About Jazz has a very good review. Here's the last paragraph:

I sort of OD'ed on this album the summer after it came out, so it's not one of the albums I listen to a lot now. When I do revisit it, though, I always enjoy it. It takes me back to a specific time in my life, a summer that was filled with a lot of big changes, and there are a few songs that will always especially remind me of that.

I'm about finished with another listen to this. Next up is

All of her other books up until now have been nonfiction, mostly with more of a political activist slant to them. I thought I heard somewhere in the last year or two that she was trying to write fiction again, but I still haven't seen another novel from her. I wrote a paper about the novel in grad school and read a great interview with her online somewhere, I think it might've been on Salon. And I have Dog Years and have tried to read it. For some reason, it's the only Mark Doty book I haven't been able to make it through. Give me a whole stack of sad books about people and I'm fine, but gi