As of Friday, I’m leaving City Paper to enter a doctoral program at UNC Chapel Hill. It’ll be a lot like working here, except the dick jokes are fancier.
I’m going to miss covering baseball-bat crime; waxing pedantic about bad drivers; conducting opaque interviews with Zachary Mason and Van Morrison; reporting on Elie Wiesel's undue influence [...]

Jonathan Lethem's Chronic City is one of the best books of the year. So sayeth me; so sayeth the sage critterpoos at the New York Times, who include Lethem's eighth novel in their holiday gift guide. (Speaking of guides, check out ours!) While a good friend of mine alleges that Chronic City, which is about [...]

Van Morrison's gift was the ability to cop a religious experience from the little stuff—the shade of a redwood tree; Jackie Wilson on a staticky radio; a glass of water. Oh, and women—not for nothing was his first hit (with Irish rockers Them) an elision: Gloria, the chick, and gloria, the great hosanna.
That spiritual suggestibility [...]

Friday

The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Lil Ronnie & the Grand Dukes. Birchmere. $25.
Orquesta Ashe, Ocho de Bastos. Black Cat. $12/$15. All ages.
Van Morrison. DAR Constitution Hall. $95-$350.
Keith Secola & His Wild Band of Indians. Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. Free.
O.A.R., Matt Nathanson. Merriweather Post Pavilion. $30–$38.
The Start, Normandie, The Perfects, Skydivers. The Red & The Black. $10. [...]