The great snow has begun.

The snow is coming down and that means it's time for the beer of the month, Smuttynose Winter Ale. It is an amber beer perfect for preemptively staving off cabin fever. There's something woody and tea-like about the smooth flavor that subliminally suggests it will cure what ails and fortify against maladies real and imagined. The amber color is suggestive of water in frozen puddles turned brown by the dead leaves marinating in them. There is nothing festive about this winter beer. It is almost a solemn, almost sober beer. It is one for the months like February and March, a beer for seeing the winter through. Or at least the next day or so.

Comedy Week is Over

It's time for Amateur Night!

 

I just really like that song. Someone please cover it. Hunx? Are you out there? But maybe posting it was inspired by the drunk dudes who were singing alternative radio hits of the '90s outside my window late last night. I think they had bongos.

We found more funny

It isn't even all that nerdy. At least not in the same way that some of this week's picks are.

Behold:

Selleck Waterfall Sandwich.

Henry 8.0

On with with comedy week! Check out this series of BBC Online sketches featuring Henry VIII using the Internet. I mean Henry VIII is using the Internet, though you must also use the Internet if you want to watch it. Then again you are already here. Hi.

To any non-nerds reading this, feel free to suggest possible sources of non-nerd humor for any non-nerds who read this blog. I wouldn't know where to look for it.

Karmic Komix

I thought I'd never find a new web comic to love, but I have. So, let's just make this week comedy week and go for it. I know I make chronic underemployment look glamorous on this blog, but that isn't the whole truth. It isn't all sleeping in and inventing new ways to eat ramen. Sometimes it's hard work. Sometimes I could use few laughs.

That's why I endorse Darwin Carmichael is Going to Hell. It is guaranteed to balance your karma or at least take your mind off the fact that you too may be going to hell. The basic idea is kind of like Constantine meets Friends in Brooklyn. See, Darwin Carmichael is a lot like you and me, only he made a big mistake when he was a teenager involving the infant Dalai Lama and now he is probably going to hell. (It has yet to be explained how he knows this for sure, but stay with me.) Of course, it isn't all hopeless. His best friend is the daughter of saints and she wants to help him. His pet manticore is pulling for him too.

Set in Brooklyn as it is, the comic is loaded with enough urban subcultural references to make it every bit the guilty pleasure that Nothing Nice To Say and other Mitch Clem comics are. However, when it comes to references to obscure mythological creatures, Darwin Carmichael is probably unrivaled in the online cartooning world. For instance, I'll bet you've never even heard of the Leprechaun of Gentrification.

This part of the '90s is allowed to come back

I find Chester's character to be the most poignant. I can identify with the way he hovers eternally between joy, terror and confusion. Also, "Stolen Holiday" is just about the greatest song ever written.

 

 

Best version of this song ever:

Dread and an Eames Chair

Unhappy Hipsters explains why Dwell always made me feel so uncomfortable. There is so much anxiety hidden in those sleek surfaces.

It's a very funny blog. And yet, I'm not laughing.

I've got Yellow Fever

This Austin pair have a self-titled album out on Wild World. It's smart and pretty and, though it is ever so stripped down, it reminds me of Mary Timony's flair for melodic drama and mystery. Also, the singer brings up animals a lot. (Cats and rats.) And they rock out. 

Their album reminded Carrie Brownstein of Quix*O*Tic, which is another good comparison because the music is so spare and the vocals so clean. You can hear a track at Brownstein's blog Monitor Mix or listen to them live right here. Is there a hint of Western balladry in there, or am I being silly?

Murky Recess

Will rip your mind open. It's been in the blog roll for awhile but I thought it was important to point that out.


http://murkyrecess.blogspot.com/

These are fake.

Which one should be real?

BIPL Review of Magas

L Hath No Fury (A Tight-Pantsy Drew Mystery) by Leslie Ann Henkel is a "cozy murder mystery" set in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I thought it was a zine when I ordered it from Etsy, but the slender volume informs me that it is a maga. Zines are old fashioned. Self-published DIY periodicals are now called magas. I have no way of knowing if this is meant as a joke, but it is certainly funny.

Joking aside, L Hath No Fury lampoons young and fashionable Brooklynites in the intimate sort of way that only someone of that tribe could achieve. If there is a flaw in it for me, it's that it is full of distractingly incomprehensible illustrations and slang ... um, much like Williamsburg itself. (Couldn't resist.) Maybe that's not a flaw at all. A lot of exposition takes the form of fictive Wikipedia posts and the like, which is pretty fun. Also, the actual mystery is compelling enough for me to want to get the second installment D.I.Y. or Die! in order to find out what happens.

It all has something to do with something called Dear Drunk Girl, a dead graffiti artist, and a mysterious North Face parka. Go here if this sort of thing amuses you: www.deardrunkgirl.etsy.com

Aaaand ...

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Ceci made me do it.

One for the Bad Idea Potluck Quote Book

It took me a long time to finish reading Carson McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. A friend gave it to me when I was in college and that was a presidency or two ago. It's a beautiful story, but the pacing mirrors the way time passes in the kind of depressed Southern town where the story takes place.

It all paid off for me toward the end as Mick Kelly, a bright young teenager with an intense inner life, sits in a cafe contemplating the shit job she has taken at Woolworth's to support her family. As she enjoys her ice cream and beer, she thinks:

"Next to music beer was best."

Um, it's possible that you have to read the whole thing for that sentence to have the proper impact. Fortunately, you can surely get a copy at your local independent book retailer. The edition I read is pictured above. It has the best illustration on the cover of all editions I have seen.

Vintage Spanking

Vintagespank.com

Re: Jay Reatard

This is actually one of my all-time favorite songs. Right up there with "Drift Away" by Dobie Gray. I think you know what I'm trying to say here. Good night everybody.