We shamble through a set, most of which is Gar solo on guitar. Mar can sing better than she says.

Mikal Cronin, Mikal Cronin.
Charlie and the Moonhearts are the best band not from Rhode island to have uncovered the sandy cave where the beach boys meet the Ramones. (The one from Rhode island would be the Queers.)
The bassist of the Moonhearts is intermittently solo, getting produced by the band’s drummer Ty Segall, with the third Moonheart, Charlie Moonheart himself, providing a guitar solo on “Green & Blue.” The sound in consciously less harmonic or clattery than C&TM but with a similar smoothed-out sandpaper sensibility. It’s got that echoey, dispossessed thing happening, but at a frenzied clip that swooshes you along in much the way the Moonhearts do. For a one-man effort, it’s impressively layered, and loaded with gentle personality. Hearing Beach Boys harmonies deconstruct into raw Arch Hall Jr.-level rock frolics before your very ears, as it does on the album-opening “Is It Alright,” is a delirious experience even before the woodwinds break into the mix.
Folky starts get power-chord endings (“Apathy”). Feedbacky beginning go blissfully psychedelic (“Green and Blue”). Quiet, glistening tinkles become strum floods (“Gone”). The vocabulary is kept simple, so it all works. The far flung influences are joined smartly by swooping vocals, catchy melodies and beats so fast you don’t question, you just follow.
Simple and direct on the face of it, I’ve so far been unable to hear this album the same way twice. It comes at me from new directions with every listen. You know how the Beach Boys’ “Be True to Your School” has sweet harmonies collide with a cheerleading section? Mikal Cronin imagines the sports field, and tailgating, and the loners smoking under the bleachers as well.

God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales
By Penn Jillette.
Penn Jillette knows he’s a blowhard. He knows he’s the biggest and loudest and foulest-mouthed guy in the room. He knows that if he went on attitude alone, he wouldn’t have a prayer of convincing people of his diehard disbeliefs, the chief among them being that there is no god.
It’s not that Penn doesn’t have a moral code. He has never drunk alcohol or done recreational drugs, for starters. This book is framed as an attempt to rewrite the Ten Commandments for atheists, without the bombast and subservience. He’s going the whole distance here, not just questioning organized religion but offering thoughtful alternatives.
I’ve interviewed Penn Jillette a couple of times and seldom missed Penn & Teller when they toured to Boston or New Haven in the ‘80s and ‘90s, before they settled in Vegas. Jillette isn’t just outspoken and articulate, he has amazing natural timing. He can philosophize at the drop of a (rabbit-filled) hat, and make it sound like a Lenny Bruce routine.
In his carefully worded fresh non-commandments, Jillette places creativity on par with the highest spiritual values. He’s also unfailingly entertaining in all that he does. This is a book bursting with backstage anecdotes and frank lifestyle advice. We get a full description of Penn & Teller’s Vegas office space and work habits. We meet their friends and co-magicworkers. When Penn mentions celebrities he’s encountered (a ridiculously varied list, epitomized by the rock stars and others who attended a days-long party he threw at which the main attraction was an obese naked Elvis impersonator), he has nothing but respect for those who play the fame game squarely, and total disdain for assholes who rip off audiences and indulge in petty feuds. His settling of an ancient score with the Amazing Kreskin is a poignant short story worthy of F. Scott Fitzgerald, while his admiration of the bespangled Siegfrid & Roy is eloquently argued.
Penn Jillette knows that he’s arrogant—he co-hosts the skeptic series Bullshit!—but he thinks a ranker arrogance comes from those who inflict their (often unfortified) viewpoints on others without acknowledging honest differences of opinion. Jillette describes atheism as an honest admission of uncertainty. He can bitch and bellow as madly as the most enthusiastic evangelists, but with an unmatched sincerity, and a deep-rooted need to entertain and enlighten. God, what a book this is.

Tricked by the trash again–and loving it.
Monday was Columbus Day. Ordinarily on Holiday weeks, trash pickup is understandably delayed a day. But not always, especially on iffy, local but not national days off like Columbus’.
So a bunch odd IA on threw block put out our trash anyhow.
Results have varied. Sometimes the big blue receptacles get no relief for another day. Sometimes we’ve gambled correctly on whether a school holiday is a sanitation break as well. Once– and thirds is the sort of event which gives you good feelings about local government for years afterward– we didn’t put out the bins and woke, frazzled and frantic, to the sound of garbage tricks coming up the street. We watched dismayed as the truck stopped at the neighbors… Then gazed joyously as a worker steroid into our driveway, found the trash bin that hadn’t been placed curbside but (we know now) should’ve been, wheeled it to the truck and ceremoniously took our trash away.
Yesterday, here’s what happened. No trash truck at the customary dawn hour. But sometime between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. the trash vanished.

This has happened once before. Some rogue mid-morning truck swooped through the neighborhood, finessing the fishwrappings of the fastidious. It’s like benevolent gods looking after the anguished.
Gee, I love election years. What service!

I’ve been gradually (granulatedly?) working through 15 pounds of brown sugar I overbought at Costco last year. The godsend foodstuff for brown sugar gluts is oatmeal cookies.
Finally worked them so they had crisp edges and melt into flat shapes. These aren’t soft, squishy oatmeal cookies. I don’t know how to make those.

1 ½ cups brown sugar
1 cup margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs (don’t have to be large)
1 cup white flour
1 ½ cups spelt flour (you can use whole wheat; I just happen to have a lot of spelt berries around these days)
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups uncooked oats (not the “quick” kind or any fancy kind; just the generic round tub of oats).

Beat the hell out of the brown sugar and margarine, until frothy. Add the vanilla and eggs and beat it more. Toss in the flours and baking soda—stir more gently this time. Finally, the oats. Don’t let them get soggy.

Heat the over to 350 degrees. Use that cooking spray stuff, or very lightly butter, a couple of cookie pans. (I use a cast iron pizza pan. I mention this because it has a heavy bottom and I don’t burn the cookies as easily when I use it.) Spoon teaspoonfuls of the batter onto the pan. (Use a spoon, not your fingers. You can thank me later.) Cook for about 10 minutes. I find it helps to switch the pan from the upper rack to the lower rack, or vice versa, midway through.
Eat, and rejoice that you’ve just used 1 ½ cups of brown sugar in one fell swoop.

It’s Fashion Week in our little burg. Semester Abroad, who named the band before the event in their title came true, indeed did Europe up proud and came back all wearing black for their homecoming Bullfinch gig. Flower Names, next night same club, also wore remarkably similar outfits—none of which involved flower patterns. A coincidence, says percussionist Pansy, “but having done it, we want to do it again.”
Meanwhile, that was Sonny Blit’s signature cape (with the red lining) being worn by Vommy of two drunk two screw last Friday at a Tree Street basement show. Sonny’s laying low due to his latest scene embarrassment; his clothing is apparently bolder and more social than he is.
Meanwhile, three out of four members of Yes Table wore ties when they opened the early March Waters show at D’ollaire’s Sunday. Excuses: two of them had rushed to the gig from church, another from the morning shift at DiPizza’s Ristorante. Ordinarily they would NEVER dress up for a gig. Who would?

Parties at Pickfair and The Pepper Youngs at The Bullfinch… The Tenth Men and The Creaking Door at Hamilton’s… An evening with Cuddles and Tuckie at D’ollaire’s…

Our band has booked its first gig in our living room, two nights from now.

The Happy Thoughts
Wish I’d discovered this band in Spring (when their album The Happy Thoughts was released) instead of now. It’s jaunty raw indie rock, and pops up like dandelions. Doesn’t work in autumntime for me, though. I keep wanting those freewheeling solos and frisky lyrics to be ironic. Still, “Half Day” works better during the school year, I guess.

It felt just like when Charles Schulz died just as the last episode of Peanuts appeared in the Sunday newspapers. I received the latest issue of MacWorld, with its cover teaser “Jobs Resigns: What’s Next for Apple?” and hours later learned that Apple’s top human icon had expired.

Having the luxury of monthly deadlines and not at-the-moment improvs, MacWorld has a measured view of Apple post-Jobs. They provide a timeline of the company’s successes and failures. They opine that Apple is a much more robust and secure brand than it was when Jobs rejoined it a decade ago. They reprint his resignation letter, which demonstrates took he recommendation to appoint Tim Cook as CEO. They profile Cook.

But the way MacWorld most clearly answers the question which has swamped the media these last two days—whence Apple sans Jobs?—is on its cover. Jobs’ resignation may consume the magazine’s columnists and sidebar-writers, but it’s not MacWorld’s cover story. That would be “Lion Revealed—Tips & Tricks for Making the Most of OSX10.7.” It’s a positive and practical 16-page section devoted to the latest operating system update. The future is already now. There are new fields to conquer. We don’t need to be living in the mortal past.

Talk about culture wars: The Yale press has gone all swirly over reports that the forthcoming frozen yogurt shop on York Shop, Flavors, has been accused of stealing design concepts from Froyo over on York Street. Froyo’s co-owner Derek Bok says he was “disheartened” to have learned that Flavors’ proprietors were old friends of his, and called their new business “betrayal.” Amusingly, considering the bad feelings, one of the things Flavor is accused of lifting from Froyo is its logo: a smiley face.
I find Froyo’s unsmiley sensitivity here appalling. Froyo’s moved in on the very block where an older frozen yogurt store had been established for years. Now in the Yale Daily News Bok is bitching about Flavors opening “literally in our backyard”—actually several blocks away, a whole separate shopping district in downtown terms, whereas the Liberry which Froyo stomped out of business could be seen through Froyo’s window.
Now it wants to compete in an open marketplace by browbeating other upstarts, accusing them of betrayal, theft and more? You’re a fair-weather product, Froyo, and apparently a fair-weather friend. Keep your cool.