Sarah Boden on the “New Eccentric” movement in music. From the UK Observer: In the space of 12 months, though, the story has started to change. The smart kids are looking further afield. These days, it’s practically mandatory for any self-respecting new band to stitch together dizzyingly idiosyncratic sounds. Listen to synthetic futurists Late of [...]

By my last count, my wife and I have lived in five apartments in seven years. That means we’ve seen a lot of apartments for rent. Some of them beautiful, some of them awful. The apartment we saw in Sunset Park yesterday made those awful ones look like Mr. Drummond’s pad on “Diff’rent Strokes.” Never [...]

Obituaries are my favorite part of the newspaper. The New York Times today published an obit for Richard Knerr, co-founder of the company Wham-O. Without him, we might not have the Hula Hoop, the SuperBall, or the Frisbee (which had previously been called the “Pluto Platter” before Knerr bought the rights to it). Not all [...]

50, I can see. But Mary J., say it ain’t so… A spokeswoman for Ms. Blige dismissed the report (which included a funny allegation: the drugs were sent to her under the alias “Marlo Stanfield,” the drug kingpin on HBO’s “The Wire”), saying that her client “has never taken any performance-enhancing illegal steroids.” Steroid Cloud [...]

Linda and I are searching for another apartment. Again. It’ll be our fifth apartment in the last seven years. Daily trolling on Craigslist is a thoroughly discouraging affair. So I’ve decided to re-post some of the weirder images I’ve found in apartment listings on the site. HUGE LR w/ mirrors! Just like state fair funhouse! [...]

From Wade: Ryan Adams, Easy Tiger (this I do not back down from) Wilco, Sky Blue Sky (we’re going to see them at the Ryman in March) Eddie Vedder, Into the Wild (don’t turn it off during Track 1, just skip Track 1) Kanye West, Graduation (harder, faster, stronger, better if you see him live [...]