this weekend i started and finished a neat little book. john darnielle of the mountain goats, writing an entry in the 33 1/3 series. if you’re not familiar, these are great, small-size, maybe 100-page books devoted to classic albums. they’re deep-dives into some of the best albums ever made, by critics, fans, sometimes other musicians. this was my first dip into their very extensive pool — i think here are almost sixty out by now — and it was fantastic. not only because it was really interesting to see a longer piece by one of my favorite songwriters, but because for this particular one, on black sabbath’s master of reality, he tackled it in the form of a diary, written by a fictional sabbath fan in the 80’s who’s going through his own issues. the way the character related to the album made it impossible not to appreciate. very, very cool.

now i think i will be picking up the decemberists’ colin meloy on the replacements’ let it be in the very near future as well. and the neutral milk hotel one is apparently their best seller, so i imagine i’ll get around to that soon too.

i’ll probably be trying to catch iron man this weekend since i still haven’t, and leave a potential trip to see the new indiana jones movie for another time. i’m pretty hesitant, because a) i heard it’s about aliens, b) the ads all make it look super cheeseball (the “you’re a professor?”…”part time” exchange is on par with da vinci code‘s “i have to get to a library!” line in my mind), and a double-bolded, underlined, capitalized letter C) i fucking hate shia lebouf.

i mean i’ll give it a chance probably, but after seeing transformers, i can’t understand why anyone likes that guy. granted, that whole movie blew big time, so it’s not entirely his fault. but he seems like such a whiny twerp. how can you put him next to indy? especially after sarah showed me this youtube montage of his, shall we say, specialty, i just don’t see him doing anything but drag the movie down.

then of course spencer, the voice of reason, stepped in and reframed it for me as an expectations game. i realized that if i go in with the same attitude as i had for the die hard sequel, i should be okay… just be glad that after growing up watching them on TBS or USA, i’m finally going into a theatre to see an indiana jones movie, and as long as it feels like one, it’ll be at the very least a good time and even possibly a decent movie.

still, i’m definitely more excited to see robert downey jr. blowing things up than a 60-year-old harrison ford (is he 70 yet?), swinging from rafters.