Well, the Andy White show I posted about last Sunday was lovely. It was a shockingly intimate setting, a cozy and beautifully decorated back room at the Celtic Knot where Andy played for a group of about 20 of us, and he was just as charming and entertaining as any Andy fan would expect.
He […]

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Tonight, Sunday evening March 30th, one of my favorite less-well-known-than-he-ought-to-be performers is playing a no-cover live gig up in Evanston.
If you aren’t familiar with him — and most people I know aren’t — the best way I can describe Andy White is to say that if Jonathan Richman had been born an Irishman, he might […]

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Forgive me for posting twice in a row about Larry Craig. After the past week, surely it’s time for him to begin shrinking in the collective rear-view mirror of our culture.
But I can’t help it. On Sunday, someone who goes by the nom de net Blueness posted an absolutely beautiful diary on Daily Kos, called […]

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Scary stuff: There’s a lot of buzz and speculation that starting just after Labor Day, the Bush administration is going to be rolling out a major PR campaign to pave the way for war with Iran. See here and here for starters. Grand Moff Texan at DKos says the Bushies will be using the same […]

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Scary quote of the week: In an article from the LA Times about the sad passing of another indie book store owned by a wonderful old eccentric — which is kind of like losing one of the last 12 rare rhinoceroses or something – anyway, toward the end of that article, we read this:
Dowdy […]

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POLITICS: The Senate Judiciary committee has voted 13-3 to authorize subpoenas for documents related to the NSA warrantless surveillance program. That includes three Republicans on the committee voting in favor of the subpeonas: Sens. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

Poland “stuns” other members of the European Union by demanding that the […]

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Profile of Newtok, Alaska: One of the first victims of climate change, a town gradually sinking into the mud. As the hardest hit of the 180 Alaskan villages suffering from erosion, “studies say Newtok could be washed away within a decade.”
Iceberg of Yuck: The Consumerist says, “Poison toothpaste, killer cough-syrup, and tainted pet food are […]

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Speaking of Jorjet, as I was a couple of posts ago, I spent the evening of my forty-first birthday sharing a table with her at this year’s Alt Q festival at the Old Town School of Folk Music (after having a nice coconut and basil dinner with Lisa Buscani at Thai Classic).
Alt Q was a […]

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Mike Scott, singer, songwriter, and bandleader of The Waterboys, has a thoughtful and entertaining piece in The Guardian recounting his experiences trying to correct errors in the band’s entry on Wikipedia.
Meanwhile, the Waterboys have a new album coming out in April! It’s called Book of Lightning and you can hear samples of a couple […]

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