Beltmann

Dr. Dog

In "Shake It Off," I always hear "When I'm awake enough" as "When I'm whacking off..." I'd feel guilty, but I'm pretty sure it's totally normal. 97% of Wilco fans hear it that way, and 3% are liars.

After two months in prison, Jafar Panahi is released--but he still might face trial. Good news. Some of my favorite movies of all time were made by Panahi--if you haven't seen The White Balloon or Crimson Gold or Offside or The Mirror, you really should--and his film The Circle was the single best film of 2001, in my opinion.

I went into the booth planning to vote for "Poor Places," but once I was in there I second-guessed myself and ended up pulling the lever for "Handshake Drugs." "Poor Places" is perhaps more sonically adventurous, but there's something about the expressionism of "Handshake Drugs"--a perfect abstract representation of the kind of jolting pain and suffering that requires, um, handshake drugs--that really resonates with me.

Holy crap. Another new album? It's a good time to be an Eels fan.

Panahi's statement

Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi was arrested for "unspecified crimes" several months ago, and I've been following the story ever since. (In my view, he's one of the best film directors alive.) Apparently, he is now planning to protest via hunger strike. Linky

That's the key, I think. I don't think anyone was seriously suggesting that Barb abandon her long-standing relationships. That phrasing was really just a way of making a larger, more serious point. At least that's how I interpreted bobblehead's remark.

We are so over.

Trevor Hoffman makes me cry. A lot. Might Rollie Fingers consider a comeback?

Wow. Good for the guys. After a week, I can say this: I've listened to nothing else for a week. Those poor New Pornographers, sitting on the shelf, not getting their fair due. And I haven't even cracked open the Dead Weather. Right now, I don't want to hear anything but High Violet. It's fast on its way to becoming an important fact in my life.

That's what I was thinking.

I think you might be right, bleedorange. I voted for YAMF (and apparently I'm the only Wilco fanatic who doesn't love "Impossible Germany"). Speaking of songs that we didn't like at first... initially I thought "On and On and On" was one of the weakest tracks in the entire Wilco catalog. I've come around on it--it's now one of my favorites on SBS. Seeing it live--and seeing the emotion in Tweedy's performance--helped it to open up for me.

I saw that when it first came out, and it was my introduction to Eric Bana. Later I was stunned to learn that, before Chopper, Bana was best known to Australian audiences as a comedian. Very convincing as a psychopath.

NP are playing Milwaukee in June, if that helps. I plan to see both NP in June and The National later in the summer.

That's how I view it, too.

Drag the River might be a good choice, too.

How about Langhorne Slim's Be Set Free? I love it for some of the same reasons I like the Avett Brothers. Let me second Mumford & Sons and also Deer Tick--definitely pick up Born on Flag Day. It's a little grungier than the Avetts, but terrific.

Has anybody mentioned the weird noise that sounds like a spring in "Far, Far Away" at about the 2:39 mark? Weird, but I like it!

Not sure if this has been posted... The National is scheduled to appear on David Letterman's show on Thursday, May 13.

Perfect, too, for thematic reasons: The entire record is about the difficulties of communication.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is one of the great American movies in recent memory, I think. I actually just finished teaching the movie in a high school course called Film as Social Criticism; we studied it in terms of allegory and what it says about our modern cult of celebrity.

I had seen the other one many times, but never this one. Thanks!