This pretty much made my year. You can visit The Writer’s Almanac website and listen to the podcast here, or I’ve archived the MP3 here for posterity. Just wow.
image via
The Website of Robert Lanham
Misty Harris included a quote from me in her latest trend piece on “place-dropping:
“The inevitable I-wanna-be-on-vacation factor makes the pretension harder to dismiss,” says Robert Lanham, bestselling author of three books on cultural foibles.
Lanham suggests the key to a successful place-drop is knowledge of which travel war-stories will help and which will hinder — something he carefully considered after stumbling upon a clothing-optional beach during a recent trip to Mexico.
“It’s not going to win me any favours to place-drop that ‘John Denver songs sure sound better when performed on a pan flute by leathery nudists in Tulum,’ ” says Lanham. “And yes, this happened.
Aforementioned, scary nudists after the jump. Too bad I don’t have video of them playing “Annie’s Song.”
I got a really nice mention in the Yale Daily News.
In closing his talk, Monks read a popular piece from McSweeney’s entitled “Internet Age Writing and Course Overview” by Robert Lanham. The piece is written as an English class syllabus but satirizes the new state of writing on the Internet, from blogs to Twitter and Facebook. The “course” covered everything from “Week 1: reading is stoopid” to “Week 5: I can haz writing skillz?” and demanded “ENG: 231WR — Facebook Wall Alliteration and Assonance” and “ENG: 232WR — Advanced Tweeting: The Elements of Droll” as prerequisites, among others. Monks said the piece exemplified what McSweeney’s tried to publish: “pop-culture oriented conceptual humor.”
Thanks Christopher! Here’s the piece.
I recently went fishing with Dean Ween which was, well, awesome. From Vice:
Since getting his captain’s license last summer, Mickey Melchiondo, better known as Dean Ween, has been leading fishing tours off Long Beach Island, New Jersey. He’s the kind of skipper who also kindly gives shelter to anglers when there’s room in his trailer the night before and books it all himself through the magic of a lo-fi internet information page, mickeysfishing.com.
Mickey also has his own online fishing series called the Brownie Troop Fishing Show that’s kind of like that old Fishing With John series hosted by actor and musician John Lurie, but without the irony. The Deaner is dead fucking serious about fishing.
“Lurie’s show was more about the guests,” Mickey told me. “Mine is about the fishing.”
So far Mickey’s posted 11 episodes on brownietroopfs.com, a site that also looks like a 16-year-old designed it in 1996. Go there to watch guests like Butthole Surfers’ own Gibby Haynes get blind drunk and say stuff like “I dunno where the fuckin’ stern is.”
Like the rest of the world, I’ve been a fan of Ween since the early 90s, so of course I had to sign up for a Mickey-helmed fishing trip. As a committed landlubber with wobbly sea legs, I was plenty OK when Mickey called and said he’d prefer to surfcast. He had just returned from tour and finds it more relaxing. But at $300 a whirl, you might want to consider making him hoist the anchor instead.
More over at Vice. And you can check out that Gibby Haynes video over at www.brownietroopfs.com.
This is what I was listening to this year. The obvious oversight is Dirty Projectors. I appreciated their record—and they are flawless live—but I just didn’t listen to them enough to add Bitte Orca to my list. In addition to the records below, I’m totally addicted to Adron’s self-released first record which came out in 2008. Do yourself a favor and go buy it now.
Overall, 2009 was really a great year for music and I was happy to be in Brooklyn which has become the epicenter for the indie music scene.
13. Passion Pit Manners [Columbia/Frenchkiss] |
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12. Nosaj Thing Drift [Alpha Pup] |
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11. Luke Vibert We Hear You (Planet Mu) |
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10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs It’s Blitz! [Interscope] |
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9. N.A.S.A. The Spirit of Apollo [Anti] |
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8. M. Ward Hold Time [Merge Records] |
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7. The xx The xx [Young Turks] |
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6. Allen Toussaint The Bright Mississippi [NoneSuch] |
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5. Fiery Furnaces I’m Going Away [Thrill Jockey] |
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4. The Love Language The Love Language [Bladen County; 2009] |
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3. Grizzly Bear Veckatimest [Warp] |
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2. Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion [Domino] |
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1. Girls Album [True Panther/Matador] |
Update: I just posted FREEwilliamsburg’s list too. Check it out here.
Visit my Brooklyn-based culture guide, FREE Williamsburg.
Garrison Keillor discusses my work on The Writer’s Almanac.