threat-level yellow sunshine

ach. late-night television today (in which i am indulging unrepentantly--it has been a long day, and tomorrow will likely be longer. which sort of begs the question of why i am not sleeping right now, but whatevs.) has hit my nerd-comedian button. first bob saget, and now patton oswalt. i am now confident enough as a woman to admit that i have always sort of had a crush on that guy, even though he sort of looks like a troll with special needs. sort of. while he is such a sci-fi nerd, he is also extremely literate and bullshit-intolerant and it gets me sometimes. can't lie to you.

anyway:

1. today, while lunching on salmon and field greens, i saw this woman speak about this book at the union league club. pretty damn fascinating. co-sponsored by my board members/pals at the lawyers' committee for better housing. sidenote #1: she looks about 10 years younger than ALL those photos. four kids what? sidenote #2: i am shitty at "networking" even when i try. no one from the board was especially committing to a table, except for those who already had predetermined sidley/jenner seats. so i thought i'd be bold and just sit down somewhere. namely, at the one table--at a talk about the supreme court, about 20 feet away from the northern district courthouse--without any damn lawyers. GO ME. oh well, i had some interesting conversations, and who knows? six degrees, butterfly in thailand, etc. etc.

2. this weekend, i did go ahead and attend the cal robbins/j.robbins benefit concert. good times. the life and times = awesome. i always loved shiner, but TLAT is just so majestic. like, if there were some sort of indie rock venn diagram service, and if more people actually heard of them, i suspect there would be a relatively high degree of congruence between "shiner haters" and "TLAT fanatics." continuing a positive trend from when i saw them last fall, they did NOT fuck up "skateland" (it's like, i know you've played it a jillion times on tour, but when a song obviously wants to go a certain way, you should go with it). rapture + headbanging. in a nod to the reason for the concert, they covered "green glass"--flawlessly--and i teared up. on the floor of the empty bottle, swear to god. "for your own special sweetheart" ruled my high school years and it's on my ipod, three years later. (HA.) although i would submit that the full-length from robbins-and-fam's current project, channels, is among his best work. i listened to "little empires" maybe 4 times today. the songs are sharp, as are the lyrics. whereas the thermals (whose album is still rocking my world, and my running regimen) take our current governance not-as-far-as-i'd-be-comfortable-with to its logical endpoint with impressionistic, queasy (and brilliant) lyrics, the channels album is sublter, yet more immediate, all late-stage capitalism, halliburton contracts, and commuter trains. (ed. note--i just realized this is not the first time i have compared both bands side by side. i guess because they're both so relevant and deserving. as is jennifer o'c. still and forever.)

the rest of the bands (except red-eyed legends, who i'm sad i missed: chris thompson = punk rock por vida) i'd always meant to check out, but mostly never have; i now know i've been missing out. yay chicago. it was a random evening. in contrast to my experience at the union club, i somehow found the one cluster of lawyers at the fucking empty bottle. somehow i doubt that it helped my job search, though. also, i won a subscription to time out: chicago, which makes total sense since i get it for free anyway. and also some coffee mugs. and also some time out: london guides which are total travel porn, since i don't see myself getting there anytime in the near future. a guy standing next to me got the pretenders box set; guess i should have turned up the feminine wiles a notch.

3. also, be swift! there is new andrew bird music! on the internet! here and here (and there was also something on you ain't no picasso, which lapsed.) it's shaping up to be a good one. (the pitchfork link seems weird; just google the relevant terms if you're having trouble.)

otherwise, it's been busy yet uneventful. well, relatively busy: i've also seemed to require and devour way more sleep than usual. it's how i stay so beautiful.