Things might get messy as I get this thing into shape for renewed activity.

Be patient.

From the crazy world of self-publishing…

Ed Mueller alerted me to Wonderside Publications, which sent the Writing Program a copy of Expository Elucidation. This 150-page compendium on thinking and writing, presented in disorganized yet intricate systems of space-impaired bulleted lists and boxes, could function as the world’s worst composition reader. And the best. Wonderside’s website gives you a pretty good taste of their design aesthetic. But don’t laugh it off just yet: this book comes to us courtesy of Dr. Brian Kevin Beck, a Wisconsin professor emeritus with a number of academic publications.

…to Chrome by Catherine Wheel. Adam and Eve might be everyone’s favorite album, but this one’s their best.

Some YouTubes from the album:
“Crank”
“The Nude”
“Show Me Mary”
“Fripp (live)“

The mother of all northwestern road trips starts on the 24th. I won’t be online during that time, but I’ll be taking a lot of photos, and you’ll see ‘em on Flickr. Here’s the itinerary:

24th: Pullman, WA
25th: Seattle, WA
26th: Wedding @ Scenic Beach State Park, WA
27th: Larrabee State Park, Washington
28th: Vancouver, BC
29th and 30th: Lightning Lake, Manning Provincial Park, BC
31st: Portland, OR
Aug. 1st and 2nd: Wallowa Lake State Park, OR
Aug. 3rd: Back in Pullman, WA

From Cute Overload, the best duck story ever.

Sure, I’m voting for Barack Obama. But gosh, he does love that word change – so much, in fact, that I had to make my own special banner for the blog. I call it “The Zombama.”

Scroll down to see it – or hit the End key (which is not to be confused with the Apocalypse key, of course).

For my money, “Bulletproof” is the Afghan Whigs‘ best song. But one of the things I like the most about Greg Dulli is his friendliness with Motown – pretty rare in an alt-rocker. Check out the little surprise he slips into this performance in place of the bridge (approx. 4:00).

Jason Lytle probably doesn’t have many plans for the Grandaddy MySpace page now that the band is broken up – but he keeps posting anyhow. Now on the site: recordings of a French children’s choir covering Grandaddy tunes. Why? Somewhere, a French choir director is a Grandaddy fan, I guess.

A key:
“kids in france” = “The Saddest Vacant Lot in All the World”
“french kids” = “I’m On Standby”
“more french fun” = “The Stray Dog and the Chocolate Shake”
“the young rapture choir” = “Underneath the Weeping Willow”

EDIT: Found out some more info: They’re called the Young Rapture Choir, and they performed nearly 20 Grandaddy songs live. A few of these are on their Myspace (these versions are quite a bit messier than the ones above, though).

36 pics from Marie’s visit: Cape Cod and Providence.

SPC ECO, the dirgey dreampop project of ex-Curve frontman Dean Garcia. They’re strictly on the indie path at the moment, but still managing to make a career of it. Quite a change from Garcia’s other projects – the dark, Massive Attack-like band The Black Holes and the straight-up house band The Chrono-Logic.