Look around, 'round, 'round, 'round..

There's a moment every year, just before Thanksgiving, when I get the email reminding me that a new music issue of the Oxford American is coming along. And it makes me smile. And click the link. The tracklist this year looks particularly strong. I can't wait to dive in!

Other various and sundry observations and notes and internet scrapings:

• A great write up of The Ear in the NY Times. One of my favorite bars in the world. And it pulled me back to those late-summer nights in early 2000's NY. A different world, for sure, on so many fronts. The layers of history, a palimpsest.

• EO sent me this amazing oral history of Nirvana's Unplugged sessions. Well worth the read! I love this image:

  Bobcat Goldthwait (comedian-filmmaker): Kurt was a fan of my stand-up. It’s like finding out that Jimi Hendrix really liked Buddy Hackett. He wanted to meet me. It was before the band had broken. I was in Ann Arbor doing a gig and I think Nirvana was playing the Blind Pig. Kurt wanted to meet me, so he interviewed me on the college radio station, even though we were both guests. It was weird. He’d written a bunch of questions on a paper bag, and it really just digressed to us making fun of the Grateful Dead.

• Dylan's been doing a James Brown cover lately. Not sure it measures up to the original, but love that he's digging deep again.

• Earlier this week I caught the Pulse show at the Hirshhorn just before closing. And the place was empty. And it was _amazing_. Seeing an entire room of old filament lightbulbs beat in time to your hearbeat for a few seconds, and then get swallowed up into the most recent bulb, was quite powerful. I found it more emotional than I expected. There was subtlety and beauty and that sort of awe you get when you look at the stars on a clear night.

• Speaking of emotional. The end of Serial this week was quite powerful. She didn't pull punches - and Josh's story was a good note to end on. But the frustrating thing is that it doesn't seem to be making any difference. Aside from at the margins. Within the choir. But it's making me think about my role within the system. And what, if anything, I can do. But at the very least, well worth listening to. And thinking about. And debating.

• After There, There, I'm headed back in time to pick up one of the books I missed in High School! Let's hear it for Pip and Great Expectations! So far it's funnier than I expected. And a fairly easy to read.

• Been listening to a lot of White Album this week. The NPR podcast, All Songs Considered, does a great deep dive on the making of the album that got in my veins. They were only 27! Amazing..

That, for now, is all. I'm working up an art-centric NY trip soon-ish. On the agenda: the Armenia show at the Met (and maybe Delacroix), and the Klint show at the Guggenheim. And, if its available with a TKTS-discount and the timing is feasible, The Ferryman.