And there's a cold wind blowing. And there's a silver bell hanging.

Sometimes the randomness blows my mind.

Yesterday as I walked to work, I listened to "Neon Orange Glimmer Song" about three times, on repeat. (I seem to listen to this song a lot lately, its rhythm matches mine well.) I thought to myself that I haven't gotten much new music lately, and that I don't even know if my favorite artists have made new music.

At work, I searched my favorites: Mountain Goats, Magnetic Fields, Polyphonic Spree, I'm from Barcelona, etc. Interestingly enough, the Mountain Goats listed two shows upcoming, one that was THAT DAY in Chicago. Huh? A deeper look revealed an odd $15 tickets-at-the-door-only show as part of a Second City 24-hour fundraiser. Woah.

Ben picked me up at work for my "late lunch" (+some comp time) and we rolled up there. Second City was still performing on a teeny stage in front of an audience of about 50, and I sat there dumbfounded- are they really playing here? Sure enough, 2pm on the dot, John Darnielle takes the stage. No Peter, but it'll do!

Two rows back, I could see the plush purple lining of his guitar case as he pulled out his instrument and got to work. Two older songs. "Distant Stations." A break for Second City. An improv'd song about an old guy who still remembers bad things "she" said to him. Then he took requests. I jumped at it. And he played exactly the song I was addicted to that morning.

Then more requests- "Surrounded" from Moon Colony Bloodbath, "Southwood Plantation Road," sang a capella "Best House Guest" and played piano for a song I didn't recognize that was pry-your-heart-out-with-a-spoon emo.

Anyway, thought I'd share. How often do you trip across one of your favorite artists, in a small venue, day-of, for cheap, and get to request exactly the one song from his hundreds that you want to hear? Nice.

On the home front... 4 workouts in 36 hours, and I've dropped 4 of my "Athena" pounds. Things might work out ok, after all.