Welcome to Baby Lucia Grace.

She’ll be a month on Friday. Which, not coincidentally, will be the one month anniversary of our last good night of sleep. But who’s counting?

Yer(evan) Blues

It’s been a healthy year for Armenian news. First, the Borat revelation, now the latest attempt by Congress to attract attention to something that happened to us almost a century ago. The fact of our military bases there and of Turkey’s feverish historical amnesia won’t stop the Dems, God love ‘em.

This is, of course, while the Turks and Kurds are rolling up their sleeves.

We are not a people normally credited with the gift of good political timing, but hey, as anyone who attended Fresno State can attest, the party doesn’t start until the Armenians get there.

Long Live the Mendoza Line.

This autumn marks the final release from Brooklyn’s Mendoza Line, a band that you’ve doubtless never heard of and that doubtless never made a cent.  They certainly made a go at it, however, producing a decade’s worth of glorious music that crystallized, from out of the formless void of American indie rock, songs that made husband and wife Timothy Bracy and Shannon McArdle their generation’s Richard and Linda Thompson.

No one quite captured the sound of an imploding relationship like the ML. In fact, their songwriters’ ears were so attuned to the language of doomed love that they are no longer, apparently, a husband and wife team. Long Live the Mendoza Line.

Myleen is the Best.

I can’t say how proud I will be to attend my friend Myleen’s show here in LA. She is a one-of-a-kind humanoid, a talented photographer and all-around maker of excellent things, a gifted eater of taco truck tacos, a devout and irreverent person. Yay Myleen!

Net Radio Threatened?

As a grad student in a distance learning program, I spend a lot of time at my PC. As a music junkie, I spend a lot of time listening to music, old and new, on CDs and Ipods and the computer and on whatever else I can configure to play some tunes. Like many of you trapped in cubicles, I turn to internet radio, as a sound alternative at those times when my music collection seems boring and old. Pandora is my current fave.

As the music industry impotently rages against everything around it while CD sales drop, they are lashing out against internet radio providers, who are being asked to pay ridiculous royalty fees to artists (read: record companies) for the privilege of playing their music. Which they already do. But to pay 10 times (or more) what terrestrial radio providers pay? Read more about this current battle in this great article in the SF Weekly.

The Hollywood Librarian

Those of you lucky enough to be going to the upcoming ALA conference should keep an eye out for the premiere of this documentary about librarians in film in particular, and about librarianship in the 21st century, in general. Looking through this filmography by Martin Raish at BYU-Idaho was actually surprising in its length and breadth. Actors from Ned Beatty to Noah Wyle, and from Dame Judi Dench and Rachel Weisz have all played librarians, apparently. The roles present the occupation in different ways, from your archetypal spinster of yesteryear to more contemporary portrayals.

Though I confess I haven’t seen too many of the performances listed, it’s hard to imagine one better than that of the indefatigable Parker Posey in the 1995 film Party Girl. Any other favorites?

Baby’s First Tome…?

So in about five months my wife and I will be joined by our first child.  It sounds very strange to say out loud, and we’re both getting used to the idea, slowly, and with a slight nervousness (as we are both creatures of individual routines, occasional selfishness, and in my case, great clumsiness), with profound wonder (the other night she rather quizzically admitted to me, “I can’t believe there is something in my belly that has elbows…“), and also with growing excitement.  I for one am most immediately excited by the prospect of purchasing children’s books. 

Here We Go Again…

Obviously, the topic of God is one that has the potential to inflame audiences.  Not so obviously, not even the virtual space of Amazon.com is safe from that volatile discussion.

 I wanted to pick up a copy of Christopher Hitchens’ new controversial tome about the, well, shortcomings of organized religions. Not that I have a particular horse in this race, as one might say, but who doesn’t love a good screed? And any author who could write an unflattering bio of Mother Theresa must be considered a genius of the form.

Welcome

to the short man’s room. With the summer upon us, for some it means time to hit the beach, or maybe get out of town for a bit. But for me it means baseball season, and 2007 has been a dramatic one thus far. This past week has brought men behaving badly, many of whom play for the Chicago Cubs. However, I like to get into the spirit of the season in a much less confrontational way, with a good baseball book. Some might say that it’s a long way from the ivory towers of literature to the dust of the baseball diamond, but here are a few books that might convince otherwise.