GOOD STUFF

Last night I finished reading my 9th book of the year - Shadowbridge by Gregory Frost. It's a rich fantasy novel set on a world full of endless spans of bridges, as well as islands and other land masses. The world is full of magic and darkness and gods and danger and stories, lots of stories. Stories are the business of Leodora, daughter of Bardsham, who was acclaimed as the greatest storyteller ever. She is touring the spans as Jax, collecting stories and entertaining the masses. There is mystery about her and about Diverus, a former mute who is given the gift of music from the gods. The novel is great and my only problem with it is that it continues in a second book yet to be published. Soon, please!

There was a great bit in a solid episode of The Simpsons on Sunday. Willie tells Bart he's going to write something in his journal, then proceeds to pull out a knife and starts carving his arm with "Dear Diary." Random and hilarious.

I picked up Vagabonds, the new Gary Louris solo album, the other week and I've been playing it quite a bit. It's got a bit of a 70s singer-songwriter vibe to it and is full of beautiful melodies and really good songs. He's been out on the publicity trail and you can here some sessions with him here and here.

Due to the writer's strike, we won't be getting new episodes of Flight of the Conchords for a while longer. In the meantime, you can tide yourself over with a documentary they made about their trip to SXSW in 2006. Brilliant.