Nine Things on Thursday

1. Toad the Wet Sprocket has a new album coming out in the fall! Thank you NoiseTrade for alerting me. I like a lot of their songs (and Glen Phillips) but this year I absolutely fell in love with Fly From Heaven. It's so weird because Justin McRoberts included it on his Through Songs I Was First Undone (which I reviewed on this blog!!) but it wasn't until this year that I looked up what it was about. And it's about James, brother of Jesus, and his apprehension of the way Paul was taking over the church. And well, I feel like what comes out in the song is also a sort of raw grief on the part of James. I don't know it's kind of an interesting idea...and something I had never bothered to think about before + nice melody..I like it! So I'm looking forward to their new stuff. Oh and also, I think Andrew Peterson has said Haven's Grey is musically inspired by Toad, so there's that.

2. I reviewed Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock yesterday and today read this great interview with the author Matthew Quick. I love that he says he spent a lot of time listening to The Cure and The Smiths...I can relate!

3. Wonder of Wonders by Alisa Solomon is a whole book about Fiddler on the Roof coming out and I want it so badly. One of my favorite and most formative musicals/stories period. Here's the description: A sparkling and eye-opening history of the Broadway musical that changed the worldIn the half-century since its premiere, Fiddler on the Roof has had an astonishing global impact. Beloved by audiences the world over, performed from rural high schools to grand state theaters, Fiddler is a supremely potent cultural landmark.In a history as captivating as its subject, award-winning drama critic Alisa Solomon traces how and why the story of Tevye the milkman, the creation of the great Yiddish writer Sholem-Aleichem, was reborn as blockbuster entertainment and a cultural touchstone, not only for Jews and not only in America. It is a story of the theater, following Tevye from his humble appearance on the New York Yiddish stage, through his adoption by leftist dramatists as a symbol of oppression, to his Broadway debut in one of the last big book musicals, and his ultimate destination—a major Hollywood picture.Solomon reveals how the show spoke to the deepest conflicts and desires of its time: the fraying of tradition, generational tension, the loss of roots. Audiences everywhere found in Fiddler immediate resonance and a usable past, whether in Warsaw, where it unlocked the taboo subject of Jewish history, or in Tokyo, where the producer asked how Americans could understand a story that is “so Japanese.”Rich, entertaining, and original, Wonder of Wonders reveals the surprising and enduring legacy of a show about tradition that itself became a tradition.

4. Speaking of books I want, the fourth book in the The Last Survivors series by Susan Beth Pfeffer came out. I really want it! I loved how utterly bold and depressing the ending was to the last one, lol. Anyway, I totally didn't even know it was coming out until release day was upon us. I'll never forget how utterly obsessed I was with these books when I first read them!

5. There's going to be a holiday CD from Pitch Perfect! Confession: I've listened to the soundtrack while working, lol. Anyway, I think a holiday CD will be great, you all know how I love my Christmas music!

The Next Items Involve TV Spoilers!

6. So apparently Orphan Black is casting the role of a "mercurial leader of a radical faith based “Prolethean” sect “who is fervently anti-science and views GMO’s and synthetic biology as a modern affront to God’s work." This makes me so excited! This is everything I want, the continued clash between science and religion. While Helena and Tomas sort of fulfilled this role last season, I think that the science side was far better developed. So I'm excited to see these two sides develop and how the clones handle it.

7. Michonne is riding on a horse looking badass and beautiful in The Walking Dead Season 4, but this reasoning behind the transportation choice leaves something to be desired. It's not that I disagree with the notion that it's more practical than cars, it's just that the horse is also food. I mean this show's first season had a horse devoured by zombies. So hopefully this gets mentioned on the show, because it's the kind of thing that drives me nuts for a show to overlook.

8. Also, The Good Wife is still trying to make Grace happen, sigh. That was the last spoiler I wanted to read about the show!

9. Speaking of fall TV, I know it's a bit early, but is there anything you guys are looking forward to in particular? The only shows I'm interested in seem to be coming midseason (The Returned and About a Boy) but if I have time, I'll probably try to cast a wide net again in hopes of finding something.

That's it! I tried to come up with 13 things, but it wasn't happening.