Paper Mice

These guys are cobbling together quite a following in Chicago and on the East Coast, but they're not getting much love from the local press.  (I keep telling them they've only themselves to blame for this, not dating anyone at the Reader and all.  Ah, Chicago... Oh, you beloved hand-in-pocket, ALWAYS with the heavy petting, city o'mine.)  Their music is fast, bare-bones, and tightly woven, topped with abstract topical lyrics that are (thankfully) short of being cute.  Think the Minutemen (mostly because of the driving baselines) with more tricks in their bag; think Phil Och's notebooks spliced with copies of the New York Times and any newsstand gossip rag and then bracketed into a Mad Libs book devoid of all self-references.  Or whatever.  In fact, never mind, don't.  Just listen to this.  Also, let it be known that their first full-length is good, but they've yet to capture their full energy and dynamics on record.  So if you like the MP3s, see a show.

Why Awkward is the New Sexy

I'm a fiction writer, as of late writing short stories and scripts.  But I, less than casually, enjoy a lot of other things, i.e. film, food, theatre, music, puppet shows, et al.  This website exists because I'm hoping to reach out to the other folks out there that want to know about and share their knowledge of the minutiae of the neighborhoods and cities we live in, as well as of the world at large.  Not that we eschew the more mainstream things—after all, good is good—but unlike the restaurants that won’t bother to sell a particular spirit or wine because too few cases have been produced, or the chain bookstores that have greater concerns then acquiring a book that’s first run is only a hundred copies, these are exactly the sorts of things that we will track down and share.  Not simply because they’re rare, or because first editions are cool (though, yeah, they sorta are), but because often these things struggled into being as labors of love, and even if packaged with a shoddy label or printed slanted with numerous typos, contain little germs of thought or experience not to be found elsewhere. 

Now whether you want to beat your chest or not about having found a particular little saffron seed is entirely up to you.  Truth is, it’s hard to find something beautiful and unique and not be proud, not only because you stumbled across it, but also because you had the wherewithal to appreciate it for what it was.  So pound, boast, gloat to your heart's content (after all, too much decorum makes for dull company), if it’s really that great of a find, the choice (and right) is all yours.  Just don’t be a miser, secreting it under your mattress to suffer the same obscurity it already suffered before you found it.  Instead, throw it up here, where the rest of us may admire it.  And, sure, while debating its worth, its charm, quirk, and carat, this may get awkward from time to time, but when has anything really worth a damn come into the world already bathed and coiffed with pearly capped teeth.  I’ve never been able to fully trust things that pop from the earth looking that way myself.