I carved your name across three counties...

That's a line from the first track from Middle Cyclone by Neko Case, as she sings from the point of view of a tornado. It's an almost violent kind of song that seems to capture the intensity of a tornado as a metaphor for passionate love. Given the experience we've had with growing up around tornadoes here at the Kool-Aid Gang, it was quite awesome to pick apart the words to this song.

Somehow I avoided listening to this CD when it came out in June. Perhaps I was a bit skeptical given it's prominence at the checkout counter at Starbucks when it came out, but damn if it isn't the best album of 2009.

Dallas finally got a radio station playing music worth listening to, and I happened upon that first track, "This Tornado Loves You," on a drive home from work. I picked up the album shortly after. I'd suggest you do the same.

Check out her performance on Letterman earlier last year:

I kind of enjoyed this video about her creative process making this album, too:

This rating may be premature, and I may change my attitude towards this album after more repetitive listens, but for now, I'll go with:

I think we should all dress up as Space Marines next Halloween...

Here's one for you Firecracker George. I can't remember where I found this picture.

"verily, it tied the room together"

I am a fan of both "The Big Lebowski" and Shakespeare. Adam Bertocci reworked the Big Lebowski script to Shakespearean. Examples of reworked characters:
The Dude becomes "The Knave"
Walter is "Sir Walter"
Jesus is "Joshua Quince, a pederast"

Good reading for this weekend.

find the adaptation at - http://runleiarun.com/lebowski/

Lebowski Line: "You see a wedding ring on my finger? Does this place look like I'm fucking married? The toilet seat's up man!"
Shakespearean version: "Zounds, man. Look at these unworthiest hands; no gaudy gold profanes my little hand. I have no honour to contain the ring. I am a bachelor in a wilderness. Behold this place; are these the towers where one may glimpse Geoffrey, the married man? Is this a court where mistresses of common sense are hid? Not for me to hang my bugle in an invisible baldric, sir; I am loathe to take a wife, or she to take me until men be made of some other mettle than earth. Hark, the seat of my commode be arisen!"


Lebowski Line - Jesus: "Let me tell you something, pendejo. You pull any your crazy sh*t with us, you flash a piece out on the lanes, I'll take it away from you and stick it up your ass and pull the f*cking trigger till it goes "click"."
Shakespearean version - Quince: "Well; but be forewarn’d. It reach’d mine ears That combustible Walter, o’ercome with rage Did shed good sense, and raise his sword in play. I fear not such jade’s tricks, an seeing ill, Would snatch the burden from the jealous knight And pierce his gizzard with the wrongful steel, Points up, as said of Coriolanus."


Lebowski line - Walter: "Is this your homework, Larry?"
Shakespearean version - Sir Walter: "Is this thy parchment, Laurence? "