July 17, 2008

New & Future Music Releases

5/13 DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE - Narrow Stairs
5/13 WE ARE SCIENTISTS - Brain Thrust Mastery
6/3 WEEZER - Weezer (Red Album)
6/3 AIMEE MANN - @#&*! Smilers
6/10 MY MORNING JACKET - Evil Urges
6/17 MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND - A Thousand Shark's Teeth
6/17 COLDPLAY - Viva La Vida
6/17 HOLD STEADY - Stay Positive
7/1 EARLIMART - Hymn and Her
7/8 RATATAT - LP3
7/8 BECK - Modern Guilt

FUTURE RELEASES

7/22 CSS - Donkey
8/5 BRAZILIAN GIRLS - New York City
8/5 THE GRATES - Teeth Lost, Hearts Won
8/19 THE STILLS - Oceans Will Rise
8/19 THE DANDY WARHOLS - Earth to the Dandy Warhols
9/23 MOGWAI - The Hawk is Howling

NOTE: This list will be updated regularly and I'll highlight the changes in bold. To keep abreast of updates to this post, consider subscribing to this blog's RSS feed.

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Posted on July 17, 2008 at 3:46 PM

July 15, 2008

The Big Picture

It's been a while since I've gotten really excited about a new blog but the Boston Globe has an excellent photoblog called The Big Picture which culls photos of current events from the major news wires and posts them in much higher resolution than what is normally seen on news sites. Alan Taylor, the guy who chooses these photos, is doing a wonderful job and it's nice to see such great photography presented in a large format. Today's collection of photos from the Tour de France is a good example of why this blog has quickly become one of my favorites.

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Posted on July 15, 2008 at 10:49 PM

July 14, 2008

Montreal Road Trip

As planned, I spent America's Independence Day in Montreal with some friends (Matt, Kabrina and Kristin). What follows is a brief and long delayed report on our trip. I'm finally posting it today in honor of France's Bastille Day.

We woke up early on Thursday (July 3rd) and took a Metro North train up to the Hertz rental location in White Plains. Renting in the city is very expensive so we opted to take a train to the northern suburb and begin our journey from there instead. The drive north was largely uneventful. We encountered a few spatters of rain but it cleared up by the time we crossed into Canada. I was a bit concerned about the border crossing because my passport had expired, but I had my driver's license and birth certificate on hand so we made it into Canada after waiting in line for about ten minutes.

Our trip coincided with the conclusion of the International Jazz Festival so the city was a bit more crowded than usual, but it was certainly more pleasant than our last trip in February of 2007. Montreal is beautiful in the summer and we all ended up with an even more favorable impression of the city than we had last time.

Beyond a doubt, the most surprising experience of the trip occurred at La Sala Rossa, a Spanish social club on St. Laurent Boulevard. The club serves as a venue for rock concerts by night and Matt and I had checked their schedule in advance and listened to sound clips of several bands playing on Friday night. The bands were playing at the launch party of a local self-described "smut 'zine" called Lickety Split (this link is Not Safe For Work). We thought we were in for a concert but it ended up being much more. The show included some provocative dancing by a local dance group called the Dead Doll Dancers (another NSFW link) and the bathrooms were "gender neutral" meaning it was common to see members of both genders in the same bathroom. We had no idea that it was that type of concert but it ended up being pretty harmless. Oh, and the bands (The Hot Springs, On Bodies, Call me Poupee and Hollerado) were quite good.

Saturday we visited Pointe-A-Calliere, the Montreal Museum of Archeology and History. The museum building itself evokes the old Customs House which stood on the site, and is actually built over its ruins. They have a tremendous multimedia program which gives an overview of the city's history and then visitors go under the building to view the ruins of Old Montreal. It was a unique way to preserve an archeological site and it made for an interesting way to learn about the history of the city.

On Saturday evening we saw a few acts at the Jazz Festival. Rupa & the April Fishes put on a great show on Saturday night. Rupa is a beautiful singer who speaks three or four languages. The show was electric and both the band and the crowd had a great time. The next act, several crowded blocks away, was Beast. The crowd for them was much larger, but we didn't care for the music at all so we left the festival and had some drinks elsewhere.

Sunday morning we went to St. Joseph's Oratory for morning mass. The church is located on top of Mount Royal. It faces the boring side of the city but the church itself is interesting. It's actually several churches built on top of one another. The church at the top of the whole complex is built in a very modern style and involves lots of concrete. In other words, it's big but stark. We went to the English mass in the lower crypt church instead.

After mass we checked out of our hotel and headed back to New York. The return trip did not go as smoothly as the trip up. At some point before the border, as we were driving down the highway, the engine stopped. The fuel gauge indicated that we had about a quarter tank left but this was obviously not the case. We figured the fuel gauge was faulty and resolved not to trust it for the remainder of the trip. Luckily, we were only about a quarter mile from an exit which happened to have a gas station so I walked to it and brought back some gas.

With the car filled up we got back on the road and resumed our trip, thankful that the car didn't have any serious problems. However, we were foiled again when we joined a long line of cars waiting to cross the border into the United States. The U.S. Customs Officers must have been looking for some bad guys because the wait was ridiculous. We ended up spending nearly SIX HOURS in line. There was no way to pull off the road and there was no food or water to be found. Someone with bottled water walking along the highway could have made a fortune. Of course the four of us found various ways to amuse ourselves in the car and at one point I took a walk along the road out of sheer boredom.

After the interminable wait and a successful border crossing, we stopped for food at McDonald's, picked up some snacks at the wackiest convenience store I've ever seen in my life, and hopped on the interstate, thinking we'd be back in New York by 2:00 AM.

Half an hour later, in the middle of nowhere, the engine stopped and we were on the side of the road again. As it turned out, the fuel gauge had been correct all along and we had a much more serious problem than we thought. Basically, the engine was just stopping as we were driving and none of us had any idea why. Thankfully, after about ten minutes, Matt was able to start the car and we made it to the edge of Plattsburgh, NY. We stopped there and Kristin called Hertz who informed us that a new car would be sent out from Burlington, VT. Burlington is not very far from Plattsburgh. As the crow flies, it's only about 20 miles. However, because the trip involved a ferry boat ride across Lake Champlain on a Sunday night, it took THREE HOURS for the replacement car to be delivered. By this time we were feeling just plain goofy. We looked at the stars, killed mosquitoes, sat in the middle of the road and talked to a few locals (luckily for Matt, one even offered to let us use his bathroom).

At midnight, we had the new car and were back on the interstate. I let my three friends, who had to work in the morning, sleep and I drove the rest of the way back to New York City, arriving as the sun was coming up around 5:30 AM.

And that, my friends, is the story of an awesome weekend in Montreal and the arduous journey home. What did we learn from trip? Never, ever, under any circumstances, should you purchase, rent or even ride in a Chevrolet Malibu.

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Posted on July 14, 2008 at 10:25 PM

July 2, 2008

Manyhighways on Eurotrip Podcast

I'm in New York right now, staying with my good friends Matt and Kabrina. Matt is the main administrator for Eurotrip, the big backpacker website. Today he asked me a few questions about photography for the latest Eurotrip podcast.

Download it directly from Eurotrip or subscribe and download via iTunes.

Post a comment and let me know what you think!

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Posted on July 2, 2008 at 9:40 PM

June 28, 2008

Smokestack Demolition

I consider myself a fairly well informed person but I was disappointed to discover that I missed out on the demolition of a 570-foot high concrete smokestack this morning just a few miles from my apartment. However, the smokestack hitting the ground does explain why I felt my building shake at 7:30 am. Although I wasn't there to witness the event, others recorded it on video (below) and in photos. I am so very bummed out that I missed this!

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Posted on June 28, 2008 at 1:33 PM

June 27, 2008

Border Security in Northern Minnesota

The United States/Canada border up in the Boundary Waters is a strange thing. In the area that we canoed, the border ran through the middle of Crooked Lake in most cases. Of course, there were no markings in the middle of the lake to denote the invisible line, even though being on the Canadian side of the lake is technically illegal (an offense which we and others committed countless times). On land, however, the border is marked by little .2 meter tall bronze posts (photo), which look like mini obelisks and have strange markings on them. As it turns out, the bronze markers in the Boundary Waters are just one of a dozen different ways of denoting the border between the two countries.

The lack of border security became a big joke during the course of our trip as I insisted on carefully looking at each canoe we passed to make sure none contained suspicious persons. Luckily, we didn't find any. The Minnesota chapter of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps must be doing its job.

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Posted on June 27, 2008 at 11:21 PM

June 26, 2008

"New York City Waterfalls" Now Flowing

I'm excited to be heading to New York next week, not just because it's been six months since I've seen all of my friends there, but because the city is hosting their biggest public art installation since Christo and Jean Claude's "The Gates" which were documented on this site's photoblog (here, here, here, here and here).

The latest art project does not involve bright orange fabric of any kind, but is far simpler. Four large scaffolds were erected in the East River and water began flowing over them this morning. Olafur Eliasson is the man behind "New York City Waterfalls" and he intends to make people aware of the water that surrounds them. After all, four of the city's five boroughs exist on islands - a fact that many New Yorkers are oblivious to, or at least don't regularly consider. I think the project is an interesting concept and I look forward to seeing if the waterfalls live up to the hype. From what I've read so far, people seem unimpressed.

As a side note, I narrowly missed being able to see a neat art project called the Telectroscope (a "tunnel" which linked London and New York) which was just recently taken down. I won't complain too much however, because I expect the waterfalls will make for more impressive photos.

UPDATE: I almost forgot to mention another unusual art project I saw in New York back in 2005: Robert Smithson's "Floating Island".

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Posted on June 26, 2008 at 10:47 PM

June 25, 2008

My First Eurotrip

Almost exactly ten years ago I made my first trip to Europe. I had just turned 18 and just graduated from high school and had some relatives living and working just outside Mulhouse, France. I think it was my parents who suggested I go over there to visit and that's exactly what I ended up doing. I spent about half the time with my aunt and uncle and the other half exploring France and Germany on my own and staying in youth hostels. My grandma even came over to visit while I was there, making the trip even more memorable. It was also a great way to do some independent travel and the entire experience left a huge impression on me. I've been to Europe about a half dozen times since and plan to make many other trips in the future.

Here comes the shameless plug...

One invaluable resource for that first trip in 1998 and the many others that followed was the website eurotrip.com. It declined a bit several years ago but they are back producing new content, including podcasts, under the leadership of my good friend Matt in New York. The forums are especially active and contain great tips and advice for traveling (on a budget) in Europe, just like I did ten years ago.

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Posted on June 25, 2008 at 9:00 AM

June 24, 2008

Year of the Rat

Yesterday was "Year of the Rat" night at the St. Paul Saints game. Thus, in true Saints fashion, there were a ton of gags involving rats and not just the animal. As we walked into the stadium the sides of the concourse were plastered with photocopies of famous rats. The Rat Pack got several mentions, there was a guy dressed as Benedict Arnold and the entertainers at the game frequently mentioned the type of rat that snitches and goes into the Witness Protection Program. Their favorite target however, was Norm Green. Perhaps the most hated man in Minnesota's entire 150 year history, Green was the guy that moved the North Stars hockey team to Dallas in 1993.

The most amusing moment came during the "Is it a Fish?" game, in which a fan is given a bunch of names and he has to decide if it's the name of a type of fish or not. The final name the fan had to decide on was Bonpensiero. This name sounded vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place it. Then they showed a picture of the actor Vincent Pastore and I realized that they were referring to the character Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero from the Sopranos, who betrayed the family by becoming a rat and wearing a wire. Of course he was then murdered and tossed off Tony Soprano's boat. So, although Bonpensiero is not a type of fish, he certainly does sleep with the fishes. Ha!

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Posted on June 24, 2008 at 10:35 AM

June 21, 2008

Out of the Wilderness

I arrived back home from the Boundary Waters yesterday afternoon. In short, the trip was amazing, and I'll be posting some details and photos over the coming week. Stay tuned!

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Posted on June 21, 2008 at 8:11 PM