Jams of the Week

Music Jam: "Beat and the Pulse" (Remix) by Austra

One of the surprising things Sean and I share is a love of pulsing, hypnotic electronica. It's kind of hilarious if you met us...we're pretty much the last people you're going to run into at a rave or a Miami nightclub, but I love zoning out listening at work and I catch Sean listening to electronic music while he plays XBox all the time. Anyways, I heard this song in the trailer for "Pusher" and it sounded badass, so I looked it up and I love it.

Book Jam: "The Art of Fielding" by Chad Harbach

I finished Chad Harbach's first novel, "The Art of Fielding," yesterday morning and for an hour or so, I sulked through my birthday because I was so sad it was over. I was an English major, so I can dissect with the best of them, but when I read for pleasure, my definition of a good book is one that I find thoroughly engrossing, with fully realized characters and a place that feels completely real. This is one of those books.

Google Image Jam: Pics of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe

I just finished reading Patti Smith's memoir, "Just Kids," about her life with best friend/former lover Robert Mapplethorpe and she describes so many amazing photo shoots they did that I have spent half the week searching Google images to get glimpses into the life written in the pages. They were seriously amazing and took incredible, timelessly cool shots.

Trailer Jam: "On the Road"

Like all good English majors, I put my time in reading Jack Kerouac's classic work of pure modernist mayhem, "On the Road," and so I must see the film. It only took 50 years to bring it to the big screen, so I think it's fair to say there's a decent amount of anticipation. I've been keeping an eye on Garrett Hedlund since he starred in the movie "Friday Night Lights" and I think his turn as Dean Moriarty (one of the truly emblematic characters in literature) could be the starmaker for him. Let's agree to disagree about the presence of Kristen Stewart, though.