Current Obsession: Joanna Newsom tells a midget joke.

Seriously.

h/t brooklynvegan.

Current Obsession: The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

It is amazing how you can be drawn to something for no reason that turns out to be perfect for you. The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a novel/graphic novel/children’s novel that came out last year and was nominated for a national book award. Drawn to it at first simply due to a cool cover, the book (an inventive and thrilling hybrid of the novel, comic book and silent film) begins as fantastic adventure story set in a Parisian train station. Little did I know that by the end it would cover film history, the relations of fathers and sons and the value of artists. I urge everyone to go take a look at this quick-yet-satisfying story, at least to prep yourself before what will certainly be a great film (apparently none less than Scorsese is attached to the adaptation at the moment).

Current Obsession: Tokyo Police Club.

So I’ve always been a little in the dark, music wise. I am attempting, as best I can, to remedy this by listening to as much new music as possible at work. Today, via the nice hipsters at Pitchfork, I started listening to the two EPs by Canadian indie band Tokyo Police Club.

They are quite awesome. I can’t wait to hear their first album, due out in April.

Citizens of Tomorrow

Nature of the Experiment

Current Obsession: Mos Def.

I really can’t under-emphasize the magnetism of Mos Def. Brilliant MC, an actor with amazing range, and a political figure with something to say; he is someone that should be a major figure in popular culture today, yet still lives on the hipster cool fringe.

This song, off his first solo album, is the fucking shit.

Current Obsession: In Rainbows.

The new Radiohead album is so fucking good it is amazing.

Current Obsession: Yi Yi.

Most of my favorite films are, admittedly,  huge downers. But Edward Yang’s beautiful, sad film affirms more about life, art and connection than perhaps any other piece by a filmmaker that I have seen. In Yang’s world life may be happy or it may be sad, but it is always magical.

Current Obsession: Joanna Newsom and Okkervil River.

I’m not sure at all why Will Sheff’s Okkervil River and the outsider harp of Joanna Newsom are intrinsically linked in my head. I came to them in the same year : Okkervil through the song Westfall from Don’t Fall in Love With Everyone You See and Joanna through Swansea from The Milk Eyed Mender. There’s not a lot that would make them similar on the surface (except perhaps the initially offputting vocals that grow on you until they become beautiful), but at the moment, the two most important musical threads in my life belong to this odd pair.

Okkervil River “Westfall”

Joanna Newsom “Swansea”

Okkervil River “Our Life is not a Movie or Maybe”

Joanna Newsom “Monkey and Bear”