I hope you all enjoyed your weekend. Thanks for the well-wishes; my Uncle Hy passed away on Thursday, and we made the early-morning dash into Toronto for the service. It was a sad weekend, an exhausting one, but a good one. Rest in peace, Uncle Hy. We'll jitterbug for you.

One of the unexpected surprises of the weekend came when I heard from Dan on Saturday afternoon, and made it downtown to see the Fiery Furnaces at the Mod Club. It was a brief, dazzling set - they blazed through twelve or fifteen numbers without pausing, Eleanor still mumbling out the song titles. Highlights - "Worry Worry," "Tropical Iceland," and the recurring "Lost My Dog". Tracks from both albums were - as predicted - completely reformed, sent crashing down. I think some of the whimsy was lost, but it was made up for with a loose and free energy - like, indeed, fire in a furnace. I've got to say, though, that the high point came in the encore, with Eleanor and Matthew alone on stage. Gone was the one-setting rock-smashing drummer. Only a song and a half, but there was more play, and even an awkward, unexpected beauty. "Rub Alcohol Blues" was entirely amazing. And then bits and scattered tattered pieces of something old? new? that had balloons. Wond'rous.

Joanna Newsom - "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie". I feel like Joanna Newsom was mp3blogged to death a month or two ago. But coming home today, on this came. And I had to share. Ontario's smudged green trees filed past and Joanna was singing with all that wistfulness that was hiding in the landscape, that was wandering a small room in my heart. She's weird, sure. She plays a harp and yawls. The lyrics are mad, but so too are they inspired, sometimes wise. Damned if out of that strange, squeezed voice, out through the strange, slipp'ry words, she hasn't done something as beautiful as Cat Power ever has, as lonely and at peace and as true. Van Morrison if he lived in sea-shells. "There are some mornings when the sky looks like a road. / There are some dragons who are built to have and hold. / And some machines are dropped from great heights lovingly. / And some great bellies ache with many bumble-bees / and they sting so terribly."

Vetiver - "Amerilie". To continue on the theme, here's a song from the self-titled debut from Vetiver, a sort of psychfolk supergroup that's directed by Andy Cabic and includes contributions from Devendra Banhart, Colm O'Ciosoig (My Bloody Valentine) and even Hope Sandoval. Joanna Newsom's harp is here, glancing in between strokes of cello and the flutter of guitar. I like the long heaving sighs of this song, the feeling of a horizon above the sea, a reassuring drawl that reminds me of Turin Brakes.

gmail swap news: made the front page of the Toronto Star over the weekend. slashdotted again. and something in the pittsburgh post-gazette.