The Magnetic Fields show last Sunday was good, but part of why we were interested to begin with was that Andrew Bird was opening. He plays violin, and is currently touring without his band, Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire. I’ve liked him since his Squirrel-Nut-Zipper-y days, though the stuff he’s doing now is not very much like that at all. There’s a nice little interview here.

So a solo violin show was kind of interesting; for the most part, he would begin with playing something which then got looped, and he’d start playing over it, and occasionally adding to the loop as he went, tossing in an effect pedal here and there.

We picked up a copy of his album Weather Systems, which I highly recommend. A lot of the live versions were different, though; the album version if “I” is missing the clever little lifting of the “We All Live in a Capital ‘I’” song from Sesame Street. That song has always given me an overwhelming and satisfying feeling of loneliness and melancholy. It was a nice little unexpected surprise to hear it paraphrased in the middle of a different song.

Also,he works out of his barn, which, I can’t lie, I think is enviable. My barn would also be in the middle of nowhere, but have wi-fi and nearby rail access to a major urban ganglion.

from Slate: a short paean to the mix tape in general within this spiel on celebrity iTunes playlists (’There’s an obscure little ditty out there called “Hey Ya!” Avril Lavigne and the Flaming Lips and Alice Cooper and Mischa Barton, star of The O.C., think you ought to give it a listen.’).

A phone user’s manual from the 40’s

Here’s another example of how the war on terror continues to cut away at other important issues…

David Hasselhoff. This must be a hoax.

I don’t care if this is fake, I still intend to have one someday.

I posted something a while back about a woman who toured chernobyl by motorcycle, and it sounds like elements of the story (the solo motorcycle trip) are fabricated. While I’ve seen links to a post debunking it in a couple of places, and people seem disappointed, I always thought the interesting part was not the motorcycle bit, but the tour of the region and the photos, which do seem real.

In Ikea and Somerville news, hopefully Major Joe can get the ball rolling again for Ikea Somerville. If he does, he’s got my vote to become the next Mayor Mike.

Time.com: Ikea milestones.

Somerville, home to the Terri and Ezra show headquarters, is eyeing a fight to issue marriage licenses to out-of-state gay and lesbian couples.