It took me quite some time and at least two renewals at the library (it’s now officially overdue, by the way), but I finally finished Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay the other night. Not for lack of interest, I just kept getting sidetracked by other things. I actually quite enjoyed the book which is the story of two cousins at the dawn of the Golden Age of comics who create a character – The Escapist – as a contemporary of Superman. Chabon does a good job of believably weaving his fiction into the true history of the industry and demonstrating his love of the medium without making it a book about comics – it’s squarely about the characters and their lives, which simply happen to be greatly informed by comics. Ah, fuck it – This is why I don’t do book reviews. It’s a good book. Look into it if you’re interested. For my part, I’ll be checking out Chabon’s other works after I get through my current massive backlog of reading materials.

I’m also planning on picking up the comics Dark Horse has begun publishing chronicling the fictional adventures of The Escapist. Featuring a host of the top talent in comics today, it looks to be the perfect extension of a great novel. The first two 80-page issues have already been collected in a trade paperback, but I think I’ll just be getting the regular issues – they’re thick and squarebound so they’d look just as good on a bookshelf as a compendium.

Wilco on Late Night with David Letterman tonight.

Endearing Records artists The Waking Eyes will be opening for Ted Leo this coming Monday at the ‘Shoe. The Waking Eyes got some serious praise from Chart for their set during NXNE last weekend. Should be good.

New York’s On!Air!Library! will be in town October 12 with Solex. No venue yet.

Paul Westerberg’s Folker has a release date – August 24. Sez Westerberg about the set, “It’s got the classic stuff. You know, the songs of mine that people always like? I think I’ve got more than I need this time. I think it might be a fan favorite.” From Delusions Of Adequacy.

The full official information on the Legacy Edition of Jeff Buckley’s Grace can be found here. I don’t know why they keep listing a Monday as the release date. Even if that is the European release date, you think they’d make some mention of the North American date.

Some release info from Lost Highway – Tift Merritt’s sophomore release has a title, Tambourine, and will be out August 24. The following week will see a still-untitled live Lucinda Williams record hit stores. A live Jayhawks record is out September 28.

Best wishes to Johnny Ramone in his battle with cancer.

Hardcore Uncle Tupelo fans may appreciate this news story. Others… will not.

So thanks to Bradley of the Almanac, I have a shiny new Gmail account. What I don’t have is any idea what to do with it. I already have three fairly entrenched email addresses in use that I really don’t have any problems with – spam or storage. So for now, I’ll just sit here and look at it. Kinda like just breathing in that new car smell without any need to turn the ignition.

np – Spoon / Kill The Moonlight

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