A Week of Pleasant Surprises

A short while ago, I learned that Sam Phillips has a new CD coming out this week. I'm not used to music releases sneaking up on me like that; I'm typically inundated with the usual Pitchfork updates of "Hot band-of-the-moment in the studio!/finishes recording!/reveals album title!/reveals tracklist!/reveals release date!/announces tour!/releases album!/eh . . . we give it a 6.2." It pays to be into musicians who aren't beloved by hipster douchebags.

Anyway, I've been going through some low-key Sam Phillips withdrawal over the past year; since Gilmore Girls was cancelled, I can no longer count on a weekly dose of her pleasant, strummy acoustic pop. A new album should fill that void quite nicely.

She's not the only one with a stealth release this week, though. I walked into Borders today on my lunch break and was confronted by a display of David Sedaris's new book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames. Once again, I had no idea this was even being published, and I actually had to pick up the book and skim through it to convince myself that it was, in fact, a new book, and the publisher hadn't just thrown a fake cover on some surplus copies of thesauri as a cruel hoax.

Finally, I'm always saddened when I blog that I read goes silent (such as this one, this one and this one). When I clicked over to Pandagon tonight, though, I discovered that the site's founder, Jesse Taylor, had pulled a prodigal son and is back at the site. Jesse was one of the first bloggers I read with any regularity, back in the heady days of 2004. And not only that, but apparently Michael Berube has come out of exile as well! I am, against my better instincts, giddy.