The intertubes home of author Robert Lanham

	13. Passion Pit Manners [Columbia/Frenchkiss]
	12. Nosaj Thing Drift [Alpha Pup]
	11. Luke Vibert We Hear You (Planet Mu)
	10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs It's Blitz! [Interscope]
	9. N.A.S.A. The Spirit of Apollo [Anti]
	8. M. Ward Hold Time [Merge Records]
	7. The xx The xx [Young Turks]
	6. Allen Toussaint The Bright Mississippi [NoneSuch]
	5. Fiery Furnaces I'm Going Away [Thrill Jockey]
	4. The Love Language The Love Language [Bladen County; 2009]
	3. Grizzly Bear Veckatimest [Warp]
	2. Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion [Domino]
	1. Girls Album [True Panther/Matador]

Posted by Robert Lanham at 04:15 AM | Permalink

Posted by Robert Lanham at 04:32 PM | Permalink

Almovodar does noir and casts Penelope in the lead. I couldn't be more exited. Can't wait to see it:

It opens on November 20th in New York. Check out the high res trailer here.

Posted by Robert Lanham at 01:12 AM | Permalink

And by creepy, I mean wonderful. Evidently this was shot by the late Japanese artist Nagi Noda for the 2004 Athens Olympics. [via Lemdondrop]

Posted by Robert Lanham at 09:39 PM | Permalink

This puts everything in perspective.

Posted by Robert Lanham at 03:25 PM | Permalink

As I mention in Saturday's Salon, the trend has slowly grown on me. Here's my contribution:

1. I met my wonderful, beautiful wife eleven years ago. I feel inspired daily by her creativity, am in awe of her wonderfully twisted sense of humor, and am looking forward to traveling the world with her.
2. I've read all of Haruki Murakami's novels multiple times.
3. I moved to New York from Virginia in 1996 not knowing anyone. I had no job and $800 in the bank. I knew the city was the place I wanted to live after watching the opening four minutes of Woody Allen's Manhattan. I still get chills when I hear the Gershwin score crescendo as the fireworks go off.
4. I often wonder why people enjoy "Car Talk."
5. I love the film "Donnie Darko" and feel it somehow captures the surrealism of my high school years. I later learned that the director grew up in my neighborhood and attended the same high school.
6. I've been a pescetarian for 16 years, but I cheat when traveling abroad, at weddings, and I have a don't-ask don't-tell policy with soup broths.
7. Yes, I know... saying I'm a pescetarian is incredibly dorky and borderline pretentious.
8. Silence makes me uncomfortable so I always have music playing or the television on. I need some type of white noise at night to sleep well.
9. I went through an evangelical phase when I was in high school. I tried to speak in tongues many times but never had any success, unlike my buddy Chip who was fluent.
10. I read a book called The Late Great Planet Earth during this phase. It predicted the Rapture was going to occur before 1989. I was opposed to premarital sex, but made sure I lost my virginity in 1988, as to not be shortchanged.
11. Now, I consider myself to be an agnostic, though I do pay attention to astrology sometimes even if I think it's a bunch of hooey.
12. I was the manager and bartender of an all-night restaurant when I was in college. I typically worked the graveyard shift side-by-side with a guy named John who is the founding bass player of Lamb of God.
13. Even when working on jobs/projects I'm proud of, it makes me uncomfortable to respond to the question "so what do you do for a living."
14. I could never live with someone who owned a ferret, or any other animal that requires cedar chips.
15. I hate it when people try to tell me about "that crazy dream they had last night."
16. My favorite place on earth is Spain.
17. I find it difficult knowing that my relationship with my fundamentalist Christian parents will always be compromised by their inability to accept my sister, since she is gay.
18. I love all food with one exception: maraschino cherries.
19. Before meeting my wife, I was in a relationship with someone who is currently a cast member of "All My Children."
20. "The body's blood vessels... would be 60,000 miles long if they were laid out end to end. That's approximately the distance you'd need to travel if you wanted to circle the globe two and a half times." Heard that when I was a kid. Still don't believe it.
21. The fact that Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans were the top two movies in America last weekend makes me question all this "we've entered a new era of Hope" talk.
22. Who is Paul Blart?
23. And what the hell is a Lycan?
24. My concerns about aging manifest themselves in weird ways. For instance, I wonder sometimes if I've gotten too old to wear shoes with athletic stripes on them when I'm not running.
25. Though I love New York, I hope to live overseas in the near future. Top contenders: Japan, Dubai, Hong Kong, and (of course) Spain.

Posted by Robert Lanham at 05:15 PM | Permalink

These are great. Thanks Kevin.

Posted by Robert Lanham at 03:36 PM | Permalink

I guess Kool Keith cursed himself by being too prolific, but his latest Dr. Dooom 2 has been completely ignored. Too bad because it's totally demented, in a great Kool Keith kind-of-way. Not as good as the original Dr. Dooom—Keith's best record—but how could it be?

Posted by Robert Lanham at 03:40 PM | Permalink

We're getting reading to post our year end music list over at FREEwilliamsburg. Here's my black jack list of music for 2008. I can't defend the inclusion of Kanye West, but I have been loving his 808s and Heartbreak, fully knowing that autotune is the dorkiest thing to take over pop music since Peter Frampton. Oh well, I liked him too. Overall, it was a pretty good year for music, despite all the beards...

21. FENNESZ
Black Sea

20. The Eagles of Death Metal
Heart On

19. TV ON THE RADIO
Dear Science

18. Department of Eagles
In Ear Park

17. The Tallest Man on Earth
Shallow Grave

16. HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR
Hercules and Love Affair

15. GZA
Pro Tools

14. KANYE WEST
808s & Heartbreak

13. JAY REATARD
Singles 06-07

12. EL GUINCHO
Alegranzo

11. DEERHUNTER
Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.

10. THE WALKMEN
You & Me

9. JOLIE HOLLAND
The Living And The Dead

8. JOHANN JOHANNSSON
Fordlandia

7. SHE & HIM
Volume One

6. BON IVER
For Emma, Forever Ago

5. JASON COLLETT
Here's to Being Here

4. FLEET FOXES
Fleet Foxes

3. BEACH HOUSE
Devotion

2. VAMPIRE WEEKEND
Vampire Weekend

1. SANTOGOLD
Santogold

Posted by Robert Lanham at 04:21 PM | Permalink

Posted by Robert Lanham at 05:23 PM | Permalink

A wonderful—and yes real—ad from the Seventies. [Thanks Kevin K]

Posted by Robert Lanham at 09:39 PM | Permalink

My buddy Sloane wrote a book. (Yeah, that Sloane). It's really really funny, so go out and buy it now. Here's what Jonathan Lethem says about it:

Sloane Crosley is another mordant and mercurial wit from the realm of Sedaris and Vowell. What makes her so funny is that she seems to be telling the truth, helplessly.

Posted by Robert Lanham at 03:29 AM | Permalink

In case you missed it, Whitehead has a hilarious article in the Times about the hype surrounding Brooklyn writers. Here's a taste: [thanks Jeff]

As you may have heard, all the writers are in Brooklyn these days. It's the place to be. You're simply not a writer if you don't live here. Google "brooklyn writer" and you'll get, Did you mean: the future of literature as we know it? People are coming in from all over. In fact, the physical act of moving your possessions from Manhattan to Brooklyn is now the equivalent of a two-year M.F.A. program. When you get to the other side, they hand you three Moleskine notebooks and a copy of "Blogging for Dummies." You're good to go.

I have a hard time understanding all the hype. I dig it here and all, but it's just a place. It does not have magical properties. In interviews, I get asked a lot, "What's it like to write in Brooklyn?" I get invited to do panels with other Brooklyn writers to discuss what it's like to be a writer in Brooklyn. I expect it's like writing in Manhattan, but there aren't as many tourists walking very slowly in front of you when you step out for coffee. It's like writing in Paris, but there are fewer people speaking French. What do they expect me to say? "Instead of ink, I write in mustard from Nathan's Famous, a Brooklyn institution since 1916." "I built my desk out of wooden planks taken from the authentic rubble of Ebbets Field. Have I mentioned how I still haven’t forgiven the Dodgers for moving to Los Angeles?" READ IT ALL

Posted by Robert Lanham at 04:16 PM | Permalink

Posted by Robert Lanham at 05:13 PM | Permalink

Pretty damn proud of my wife who's currently working on a project in Rwanda. She's got a great blog post about some saloons she's encountered there.

Posted by Robert Lanham at 05:47 PM | Permalink