The Bemis. Photo taken at an earlier, less snowy date.

Saturday was a cold, snowy day but Jamie, Erin, Sean and I made it out to the Bemis (Jamie and I made the trip twice, in fact). The following photos were taken from an exhibit/show titled “Visual Art by Musicians.” Let me know if that isn’t descriptive enough. If you want to see a list of all the artists featured, just click on the Bemis link above.

Some artwork. Left by Derek Presnall (Tilly and the Wall), right by Kianna Alarid (Tilly and the Wall).

Photos by Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs).

Artwork by Jacob Thiele (The Faint).

Jamie admiring the antics of Derek Presnall, captured on video.

Flowers Forever. They are a great live band, Derek has a lot of energy and fashionable accessories, a killer combination. Their upcoming CD is coming out on Team Love February 5 (out in stores Feb. 19, pre-order available now).

You can download three songs at Team Love.

Fourth of July. From Lawrence, Kansas. She’s In Love is a super catchy song, and they closed with it.

I returned yesterday night from my family’s annual mini-Fourth of July vacation in Hancock, Wisconsin, one of my favorite towns in this country.

While there is plenty to write about from that adventure, and lots of photos, instead I choose to share with you the joy of podcasts. I am obsessed. The two 8 plus hour road trips allowed me some quality iPod time, and while I did discover some new music that I really like: St. Vincent and Fourth of July (from Lawrence, Kansas!) being two big winners…oh, and I really like the song Wet and Rusting by Menomena, which also has a slightly bizarre yet interesting video for it directed by Lance Bangs, which you can see here…anyway, while music is all well and good, podcasts are really where it’s at.

NPR and KCRW are the two biggest suppliers of my podcasts, including: Bookworm, The Treatment, Morning Becomes Eclectic, All Songs Considered, Book Tour, This American Life and Film Reviews. Other interesting podcasts I would recommend are KCET Podcast: Hammer Conversations, Filmschool has a few good episodes, The New Yorker: Fiction, and The Sound of Young America. If anyone has any other recommendations, I would be happy to hear them.

I’m not feeling in such a literary mood right now, so I’m just going to list the podcasts I listened to on the trip (all of which I would recommend):

From KCET:
David Foster Wallace reads from “Consider the Lobster”
A conversation between Miranda July and George Saunders (for the second or third time)

From KCRW’s Bookworm with Michael Silverblatt:
Vendela Vida (great having just read her book)
Dave Eggers
Greil Marcus
Chris Adrian
Kurt Vonnegut
Walter Kirn
David Foster Wallace

From KCRW’s The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell:
Judd Apatow
Sarah Polley
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Amy Berg
Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden
Robert Altman
Fernando Meirelles

Also listened to Vendela Vida on The Sound of Young America

That is all.