In Which It Was A Week That Never Stopped

The Week in Review

Baseball celebrated its centennial in 1969, This Recording will celebrate its own occasion in 2106. It will be a special moment and we can only assure you that we will secure Joyce Carol Oates for that event. She'll be cold and brittle, but it won't feel like that when you see her up close.

In between those hundred long years, we will only think about how blogging was at the beginning. First came Prodigy...then Instapundit. Andrew Sullivan showed up a little later, asking if we'd seen any bears. We referred him to the Prodigy chatroom. It was like that for awhile. You weren't there. You didn't know.

• Almie's two types of guys.
• The Bachelorette made a poor choice among other poor choices.
• We learned important things about the world's biodiversity.

People who don't know how to blog, or how to blog reliably, are intruding on my cyberspace all the time. They write these long essays with no pictures of supermodels in between. Am I supposed to read such drivel? I prefer to spend my time quietly analyzing why Gif Party makes me laugh harder than anything else in the world.

• Michael Cera brought you his mixtape of his favorites.
• Lauren explained (500) Days of Summer better than I ever could.
• Almie thought it was really great you had a boyfriend.

These "pros" don't know how to blog, so some of them podcast, and others of them run Mediate. This is the way of things, you can't get too caught up in it. If the world stays this way, it might work to get angry. But the internet consumes all its inefficiences way better than any other medium ever has.

• Georgia brought you the thrill of kissing her for the first time.
• Ellen Copperfield broke up with her boyfriend in a multitude of ways.
• Molly brought the horror of True Blood to your doorstep.

We return so often to the classics.

• The 100 Greatest Writers of All Time parts 50-26.
• The 100 Greatest Writers of All Time parts 75-51.
• The 100 Greatest Writers of All Time parts 100-76.

You can find last week's Week in Review here.

"Autumn" — Message to Bears (mp3)

"Running Through Woodland" — Message to Bears (mp3)

"Hope" — Message to Bears (mp3)

In Which I Don't Read The Internet, I Just Maintain It For A Fee

The Week In Review

It was a fairly interminable June, and July is already slipping out of my grasp. I tried to rent a vacation home for myself, but the one above wasn't available, and in these times, it's good to have a cliff nearby.

As I was walking across the Williamsburg Bridge yesterday I saw two people painting the opposite view of Brooklyn and New York. This is no time for art, I whispered to them, and left a white business card with the address of my website.

• Andrew Zornoza got the whole summer reading jaunt started.
• Anjelica Huston granted a rare interview.
• Alex reviewed Your Friends & Neighbors.

Williamsburg is a fairly arbitrary collection of pheromones. Everyone seems afraid of each other and wont to burst into tears at a given moment. This is what you want to get away from. We tried to think of some places for you to go:

• Meredith detailed the problem with dating in Los Angeles.
• Nick described his appearances in Chicago.
• Alex's admiration of the depressed lesbian known as Kristen Stewart took center-stage.

My plan is to have a light series of people reviewing cities who have never in fact been to those cities. The purpose of this is to get the conversation started, and keep it going, until I submit my next review of a Neil LaBute movie no one's ever seen.

• Joan Didion and Woody Allen got together in one article.
• Boy Meets World taught Owen pretty much everything he could ask for.
• Alex assumed we didn't know about these summer reading bks.

You can find the TR twitter here, and the TR tumblr here.

"Santa, Bring My Baby Back To Me (Peel session)" - Belle and Sebastian (mp3)

"If You Find Yourself Caught in Love (Peel session)" - Belle and Sebastian (mp3)

"Photo Jenny (Peel session)" - Belle and Sebastian (mp3)

In Which It Was A Week of Biblical Proportions

The Week in Review

A crowded train is the center of empathy for a lost world. Mere years ago the New York-Boston Amtrak corridor was the nation's greatest singles bar. Even if you were married, it was a meeting ground for freaks and pushers, Catholics and castradas. You never had to worry about buying drugs for travel; they had them in the cafe car.

• Alex broke down the best of SF writer Poul Anderson.
• Yvonne's awesome adventure in stock photography.
• Sex with Christians hurts a lot.

Once I met a childless Washington-based couple who felt like the church kids were theirs, too. They never could conceive. I gave them as much of myself as I was able. Jesus I was cute as a button in 2002, why didn't I realize it?

• David Foster Wallace trashed John Updike.
• Lambert analyzed what bands in fact SMELL like.
• Yvonne visited Ruben in his elevator where he spends his time.

On a crowded train you can meet anyone, hear a sob story that would make Oprah ovulate with jealousy. The proliferation of cell phones opened up new spheres for the budding Pollyannas of this generation. Lives would be shared, no permission required.

• Events spiralled way of control for our tastes. Chaos!
• Kathryn held a lot of envy in her heart for Jonathan Franzen's success.
• An excerpt from Mathias Svalina's Play.

Train travel is the partial inspiration for Bret Easton Ellis' The Informers, it's where they decide to execute each others' Kill Lists on Strangers On A Train. The subway, costing 2 exruciating dollars, offers little of this satisfaction. It is like picking through still black and white photographs: Amtrak's in technicolor. For what they charge, it should be.

• Kill lists are difficult to maintain and execute.
• Alex broke down the greatest movie of the 1990s.
• Tyler was amused by so very much.

A government-run mass transit system is the most inefficient business besides Newsweek Magazine. They never should have built these rails, which sit fallow and empty at prices few except the very rich can afford. No wonder the train's denizens are a self-satisfied bunch. For years I rode mostly at night, wherre the weeping throes of colege students filled each car, hormones flooding through the central air conditioning, businessmen drunk from the mere thrill of being douchebags.

• Molly discussed the results of American Idol.
• Karina tackled the legacy of Tennessee Williams.
• Chad investigating the meaning of National Lampoon's Vacation.

The rails are now more sedate. 

"Infinity Guitars" - Sleigh Bells (mp3)

"At The Beach" - Sleigh Bells (mp3)

"Ring Ring" - Sleigh Bells (mp3)