Tooling Around Town

In my whistle-stop town outside of Chicago, pretty much everything is walkable, (except for the movies since the old theater got taken over by a lily pulitzer. ugh.) a very welcome arrangement after four years of pedaling and walking around Georgetown, where everything is eminently walkable, if not affordable. A great movie catalog endowed by the funds to save and renovate the now pulitzer-ed theater - and that's a lot of movies, folks - and free cds make the public library an especially tempting walk. Today when I went to trade in After the Thin Man for Before Sunset, the following cars were parked outside: three minivans, two Porsches, and one crank-shaft Model-T. Quite the sight to say the least.

Well Maybe Just a Little Satisfaction, Mick

Since seeing St. Vincent in Millennium Park on Monday night, I have been trying to track down "Black Rainbow," one of the songs off her new album. I'd have caved and bought it from iTunes. Really, I would have. But my account isn't letting my complete purchases at the moment, so I've been reduced to more normal, slightly more amoral tactics. After exhausting The Hype Machine and Dilandau unsuccessfully, I went to a crude Google search.

I was pretty bummed that my review of the concert - which name-dropped the song in question, apparently a relatively rare one - didn't show up till the third page of results. Bummed, that is, only until I saw the next hit down: Sasha Frere-Jones' blog for the New Yorker, and its mention of the song. I felt much less shabby topping that, if only by a spot.

Twilighters: The Fifth Column?

Saw this xkcd comic a few days ago and I didn't really realized how terrible the threat was...

Since Condé Nast himself was a fellow Georgetown graduate (class of 1894), I feel that i can speak on his behalf, at least in this matter, and say that HE WOULD NOT WANT ROBERT PATTINSON TO WIN VANITY FAIR'S HANDSOMEST MAN ALIVE CONTEST. Why Graydon Carter - or more accurately whatever other editor was responsible for the list - put him on there in the first place is a bit beyond me. It seems like asking for trouble. That said, that the Twilight actor is beating Jon Hamm or Brad Pitt or even Johnny Depp in this poll is a bit ridiculous, I think it goes without saying.

Dear tweens, please go pick on the polling results of someone your own size. Like J-14 magazine. Or Tiger Beats. Vanity Fair is serious business - they reported on Plamegate and the inner workings of the Bush White House, and I'd appreciate it if you'd keep it that way by staying out of the way of serious candidates for frivolous polls.