Posts from February 2010

TMBG went on Craig Ferguson’s show recently and did two songs back-to-back. First they did the classic, “Why Does the Sun Shine?” which they followed immediately with the brand-new “Why Does the Sun Really Shine?” which corrects the out-of-date science of the first song. Also, special guest John Hodgman! And plus, Ferguson is a pirate for no discernible reason.

Link of the Month:
Sleep Talkin’ Man
A sweet, mild-mannered British man falls asleep and lives a strikingly different life than his waking one. He’s suddenly arrogant, boastful, mean, and terrifically vulgar—and hilarious as all get-out. How do we know? Because he talks in his sleep. Loudly and frequently. And thankfully for us, his wife records it all for our (and their) amusement! Listen to the recordings and/or read the transcripts; there’s some absolute gems coming out of Sleep Talkin’ Man’s dreams, like: “My badger’s gonna unleash hell on your ass. Badgertastic!”

Album of the Month:
Marian Call: Got to Fly
A good, old-fashioned geek folk album. Most all of the songs on the album were “inspired” by Joss Whedon’s Firefly and the modern Battlestar Galactica, but they’re inspired in a good way; Marian Call takes specific characters and themes from these shows and spins them out into universal metaphors that (almost) never explicitly reference their sources. Her hauntingly beautiful ballad for River Tam, “Dark Dark Eyes,” is a longing song about wanting to protect someone you love from any more suffering. She never actually says the song is about River Tam, so that even if you don’t know who that character is the song still stands on its own. And if you do know Firefly, then the song has another layer of resonance. Here, click this arrow and listen for yourself: Good stuff.

DVD of the Month:
Whip It
A very fun movie that I’m very glad to be able to watch whenever I want. It’ll probably be pretty frequently. You can read my full review to see what all I thought of it.