An hour's worth of quality holiday entertainment for the day after.

It's not only Sunday. But it's the Day After Christmas kind of Sunday. Which means that you have double excuse to sit back on your couch, get ahold of the remote controls, and not move all morning.

But you've got hours still until football. So how bout you spend an hour of that lazy day listening to something worthwhile. Like This American Life's Comedians of Christmas Holiday Special. Acts 3 and 5 are the best so have some patience or fast forward.

Enjoy.

This American Life comes to LA. Be still my heart.

Thanks to a tip from my good friend STS this morning, I found out that the great love of my young life, Ira Glass, will be coming to town next month for one night (two shows) of what I'm sure will be nothing less than pure, nerdy, genius entertainment.

For those who aren't familiar with This American Life, it's a weekly, hour-long NPR show (Angelenos can listen in on KCRW or KPCC) that features themed stories each week that are sometimes moving, often hilarious, and always compelling.

Lots of folks download dance tracks to hit the gym. I download This American Life.

Tickets went on sale at 10 am this morning (I bought my tickets by the time the clock turned 10:01). Glass' nerdy fans of Los Angeles will surely scoop up seats at both shows soon, so join me and your fellow Glass geeks and pick up your tickets asap.

Find out more and buy tickets.

[via Scenestar]

This Is Just to Say

On this week's This American Life, the show covered a poem I'd long forgotten by William Carlos Williams. It is short and it is wonderful and I'll share it with you here.

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

-- William Carlos Williams

A musical flashback from the 1950s.

On the way into work this morning the background music to an NPR clip struck a chord. I'd heard the melody before and I couldn't get it out of my head. Later, I realized I'd heard a rendition sung in an episode of CSI Vegas.

Here, the original, and far more stunning version of the song I heard: 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' by The Platters.



It turns out the song's been rerecorded countless times...by Julie Andrews, by Cher, by Eartha Kitt, by Jerry Garcia, danced to by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers...the list goes on and on.

And here, a version that I wish I'd never come upon...



Happy listening!

xx * Jessie. B. R.