well, you should be.

Okay, you can stop now

Very fun song, Theodosia. Thanks!

When the choir came in at the end, I very nearly did a spit-take.

From Xgau:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

If this comes completely out of the blue, I apologize.

It is now official--Village Voice Media fired me today, "for taste," which means (among other things) slightly sweeter severance. This despite the support of new music editor Rob Harvilla, who I like as a person and a writer. We both believed I had won myself some kind of niche as gray eminence. So I was surprised Tuesday when I was among the eight Voice employees (five editorial, three art) who were instructed to bring their union reps to a meeting with upper management today. But I certainly wasn't shocked--my approach to music coverage has never been much like that of the New Times papers,

Bless the union, my severance is substantial enough to give me time to figure out what I'm doing next. In fact, having finished all my freelance reviews yesterday, I don't have a single assignment pending. So, since I have no intention of giving up rock criticism, all reasonable offers entertained; my phone number is in the book, as they used to say when there were books. What I don't need is a vacation--the three of us just had a great two and a half weeks, and Nina matriculated at BMCC yesterday.

No need to respond. Forward to whoever you will.

Love,

Bob Christgau

Man, Jon, that sucks. And is at the same time completely unsurprising.

Signed,

Lives in a city with one New Times alternate weekly and one independent alt weekly whose staff is bulging with NT refugees.

Oh, Theo, I love "Potato." She did it in a concert at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco once, after a long monologue about how she tries really hard to write something musical every single day, even if it's just a rhymed couplet or a bar or two of something she can noodle around with on her guitar. She went on and on about wandering out in the fields by her house being all open-minded and drifty and receptive to whatever her muse has to send her that day, and then added that some days, like the "Potato" day, the muse comes by with an offering to which the only sane response is "You have GOT to be fucking shitting me."

Hee!

Lives in a city with one New Times alternate weekly and one independent alt weekly whose staff is bulging with NT refugees.

Two NT papers, counting East Bay Express.

Two NT papers, counting East Bay Express.

Can't find it on this side of the Bay; we just have the SF Weekly. But, yeah, the Bay Area generally is infested with NT weeklies.

::ponders::

So is the Bay Guardian actually the only surviving non-chain paper in the entire Bay Area, or is there some plucky independent in the North or South Bay I'm memfaulting on?

waves

Hello, lovely people! This is sort of a cry for help?

Thanks to JZ and Hec, I had a fabulous set of Schoolhouse Rock CDs, which I loved and hugged and cherished and called George, and used in the classroom.

In a tragic packing accident, Grammar Rock was damaged en route to the UK in the summer, and thus I wasn't able to save it to iTunes or, you know, use it ever again.

weeps.

If anyone has MP3s of any of the Grammar Rock songs, particularly 'Unpack your Adjectives', I should be undyingly grateful if you could email me them to thingsinvisibletosee at gmail dot com.

signed

Sorrowful of Thailand

If anyone has MP3s of any of the Grammar Rock songs, particularly 'Unpack your Adjectives', I should be undyingly grateful if you could email me them to thingsinvisibletosee at gmail dot com.

I've got them all. I'll send them, Fay.