Oh, Karen

I know this guy, he's a dark-haired graduate from the U of A. Haven't seen him since June. Never met a guy who made sad sound so funny. He said he would head for California after graduation. Had ambitions to be a television writer. There was a Saturday morning, one summer, I asked him, "What did you do last night, Mattie?" He quirked his mouth and took another bite from his bagel. "Oh, the usual. Cleaned my rifle and prayed for an accident." Then he laughed. The bagel went everywhere.

Here's to you, Matt, for keeping your eye firmly on the bottom of the barrel. Hope you make it to your own [adult swim], or whatever version of Family Guy will have you. You'll be brilliant. And I'll get to say I knew you when.

Reading: Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston bought the rights to this debut novel. IMDB says the movie is in production, but wouldn't that production be part of the Plan B studio stuff that got cancelled when BP and JA split up? But this novel would make a burner of a movie. Yeah, I'm reading one of last year "hot" books, and that makes me a Mennonite by blogger standards, but whatever, whatever. The Time Traveler's Wife is the perfect antidote to that boredom-fest half the blogosphere has lauded in The Historian. Yeah, this is a concept novel, Time Travel For Dummies, but I get the idea it would work great told linearly as well. You see, Henry and Claire love each other. Henry is being biologically yanked through time. Claire isn't. Complications ensue. Violent complications, even. This novel is the kind of genre-obliteration which makes Motherless Brooklyn or Adam Fawer's Improbable such succesful stand-outs on the shelf. The author does a great job of ratcheting up the tension, too, and I'm neck-deep in empathy, hoping for a good end to things, because things are getting bad and I care about the characters. Aaagh! Sometimes I HATE that. But if you don't, and if you don't mind being a Mennonite, travel back to last summer and be cool with me, reading The Time Traveler's Wife + Audrey Niffenegger

Listening: The music is weak, but the video is disturbing enough to get my attention. Plus, the short was directed by Karen O, who is the ultimate sexy sexy indie singer (that's how I wrote it in my My Big Secrets book) and I'll pay attention to anything she's involved in, cause I'm biased like that. Thirlwell references Montreal, cause that's not where he's from, but he's so indie it hurts and maybe he's liking the current trend out of that city. Despite the name, the band isn't death-metal or satan spawn (but what do I know, they might be satan spawn after all, I'm just saying, okay?) and you can sort of hear NIN keyboarding in the back. The video is all The Fly and cheap zombies and Andy Warhol-ish face-shots, not neccessarily bad ingredients. You know what? I'm going to watch it again. Come with me and see "Blessed Evening" + Foetus