Fractionals

Between my twin brother getting married (it was great) and getting sick afterwards (it was not, unless you're a big fan of fevers) I'm even more behind on things than usual, and it's already too late in the night for my own good, so you get a bunch of things that deserve full posts with good writing about them thrown into one post. With shitty writing. But mark my words, everything I mention in this post I highly, highly recommend to you and urge you to take the time to read/watch them.

Well, except for the first thing, I guess. Since the actual thing is my review of the great new Silent League record. What you should take as highly recommended is the album itself, which is amazing. Many thanks to my friend Shannon Fields from the League (and the immortally great Stars Like Fleas) who didn't hold my past work against me and passed me this one.

Speaking of friends, here's my good friend Rachel playing in a band called Semi-Formal on St. Patrick's Day down in North Carolina:



The song is Rachel's own, and one I've loved for years. That show looks like it was a hell of a lot of fun. The band's MySpace is here.

Speaking of videos, this makes four songs from the new National record that I've heard (the other three I heard live in Toronto). Am I very excited for the new album and for the excellent seats I have to see them in Toronto in June? Yes, yes I am.

I may or may not like Los Campesinos! incredibly good Romance Is Boring more than this guy. But I will be hard pressed to write a review half as good as he did - this is seriously the best/most personally inspiring (in the sense of not wanting to embarrass myself) album review I've read in a long time. Lots of stuff to respond to, to think about, there.

Phonogram was the best comic book I've ever read. There, I said it. Better than Planetary, better than... okay, maybe it was tied with The Invisibles. In any case, there almost certainly won't be a third series. And here's why. Again, lots to chew on here. I can't and don't blame Kieron and Jamie in the slightest. Remember folks, for now if you like comic books you have to keep buying them physically. Or they go away. Were I to, say, win a truly obscene amount of money in one of the lotteries I don't play, I'd have to seriously considering funding another series all on my own.

And last but far from least, there's a ton I want to say about this, but the boiler plate is: Science confirms what I've been saying about music (or rather what Jeff Mitscherling taught me about music, or rather what Ingarden taught Jeff about music) since my undergrad days. It's not a new idea - it wasn't when Ingarden was writing - but this is some further proof and some elegant writing on the subject.