For their 50th anniversary, Dr. Martens put together 10 covers with videos - a bunch of great songs, redone by great artists - The Cinematic Orchestra, Buraka Son Sistema, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club to name a few - with cool videos (and making-of videos). And the MP3 downloads are free. What's not to like (other than that they're not all available yet)?

• Frost & Wagner - Remixes
  • Liked the remix they did of Deeper Waters by Recloose, so I looked them up. Great album of their remixes of others, pushing towards but not always getting to dub. Bright, shiny, and happy feeling touch. Nice.
• Billy Joel - Cold Spring Harbor
• Billy Joel - Turnstiles
  • I've always been a Billy Joel fan, way back to my middle school days. Since I grew up in New York, his frequent references to NY places in his songs of the 70s meant something to me. I don't care too much for his more recent works, although I haven't listened to his classical dabblings. But I found a stack of his albums on the sidewalk, and I'm kicking myself for not taking what would be a nearly complete set of his albums. I only grabbed these two. Oh well, these are gems - especially Turnstiles - and are both in great condition. So spare, so much feeling in the lyrics, offset by an angelic yet NYC edge

I hope the new Calatrava designed PATH terminal turns out to be as good looking as this rendering. His Milwaukee Art Museum addition is awesome. Would be nice to have the same grandeur in lower Manhattan.

Another awesome clip from The Daily Show. I can't give them total credit for this, it can't be too hard to write stuff this funny when your targets are actively spewing utter nonsense...

I don't watch The Daily Show too much anymore, mostly since I don't have too much time to watch anything... But - this clip from the other night on America's dependence on foreign oil, and our inability to do much about it, is testament to the greatness of Jon Stewart and his writers. Funny, historical, not even particularly biased, and showcasing Jon Stewart's great facial expressions.

Awesome.

On the monday front page of the New York metro freebie, there was the best picture I've seen in a while. It made my week.

Just the description of what's going on here is hilarious: a Thai red shirt protester is flipping the double bird while straddling a bush with his pants down to his knees, wearing turquoise bikini underwear and a motorcycle helmet.

It's like a bizarre dream come to life.

I nominate this guy for president of the world.

I'm a long-time fan of Century 21, because I can get very nice clothes at great prices. The place can be a bit much, but if you know what you're looking for, or at least where to look for it, you can contain your exposure to the madness. They're not kidding with their slogan 'fashion worth fighting for.' 

The one issue, mainly with men's clothes, is that they don't have dressing rooms. So the m.o. for most people I know including myself is to buy whatever you can figure will fit, try it on at home, and just return what doesn't fit. You have to navigate your way up to the 3rd floor for returns, but like I said, once you know where to go it's not too bad.

I returned a jacket yesterday and found out that any return over $150 must be brought back to the department you bought it in and have a return slip with 2 signatures on it filled out before you can then bring it up to the main returns desk. What a pain. Not sure if I've ever returned things that cost that much before, so I don't know how long it's been in place. What this means for me is that i'm probably going to shop their less, since and item I buy over that amount had better fit perfectly or else it's going back, and spending a half hour returning something is not high on my list of things to do. Bummer.

Interesting report out from Brookings – The State of Metropolitan America. It’s fully readable with lots of good comparative graphics. The ‘five new realities’ from the exec summary pull out the major trends, although the report makes more sense when you read through their descriptions of the types of metro areas.

Speaking of the graphics, there’s a great interactive map feature online with the report, that shows various statistics at the metro area, city, suburb, and state level – like change in foreign born population, how people commute, all kinds of stuff that are talked about in the report. It’s simple and relatively easy to use.

Consider the previous Brookings report along with this article in the Harvard Business Review about the Unintended Consequences of Cul-de-Sacs, probably the most representative form of development for the American auto-dependant suburb. Could it be that along with the demographic shifts occurring in cities/suburbs is an awareness that current patterns of development are not affordable in the long-term, for the new residents of these places?

Lots has been written lately about re-tooling or retrofitting the suburbs to make them more sustainable – mostly from a transportation perspective. So there’s recognition that connectedness is inherently a good thing, and maybe now we’re swinging back around to pre-war development layouts. Many more pieces to this puzzle than just streets, though. If you’re going to make a community more connected, more walk/bike-able, then you need a local destination, like a park, or a store, or a community school, etc.

 Good article from the Center for Public Integrity on the state of federal transportation policy, seen through the lens of the various groups that are lobbying for a new transportation spending bill. Sometimes this comes down to a public transit vs. highways debate, but constructing one or the other is not that different (in most ways), so it’s hard to see what the problem is for many construction firms. Of course there are specialties to each mode, but the bulk of the work is still in basic civil and mechanical disciplines, pouring concrete and erecting structures. If we build less of one and more of the other, we’ll probably still end up spending the same amount of money. I suppose a perceived threat to one's business is still a threat, even if that perception is misguided.

• The Kings of Drum + Bass
  • 2-Disc compilation of old-school dnb by 4Hero and DJ Marky. Good stuff. 
• Jónsi - Go
  • Former lead singer of Sigur Rós doing something much happier - or at least with much more range of emotion, and bouncy beats. We're going to see him at Terminal 5 on May 9th.
• The Church - (nearly anything they've produced)
  • We went to see them at City Winery for their 30th anniversary tour, and they were awesome. They played a song from every album in reverse chronological order, roughly. Show was nearly 3 hours with short intermission and 3 encores. Hard to believe they've been playing and releasing albums since 1980 - 18+ albums, various bits and pieces, side projects, etc... And most all of it is good, if not great - or in the case of Starfish and Priest=Aura, absolutely amazing. Steve Kilbey's voice and lyrics are something special, and the layered guitars of Peter Koppes and Marty Wilson-Piper always beautiful. The latest release, Untitled #23, is quite good and grows on me more every day.
• Trama D&B Sessions
  • A few years old, but still a sweet compilation of soulful, jazzy, Brazilian-influenced dnb tracks, put together by Patife and Mad Zoo - most of them are remixes by one of them. I only know one or two words of portugese, but it's still beautiful to listen to it sung. A good followup to The Drum & Bass Fiesta from the year before.