The Very Rich Hours of the Lambrights

I’m killing a little time before the opening keynote address at Computers in Libraries.  Got settled in yesterday.  I did catch the Lincoln exhibit at the Smithsonian but didn’t do much else.  The long day of travel wore me out more than I had realized until I actually contemplated more walking.  So I settled for dinner and relaxing at the hotel for a few hours.  I did notice that the National Mall looks like hell; the grass is in serious need of help.  No doubt the usual effect of winter combined with the tramping of a gazillion feet during the President’s inauguration less than two months ago.

Listened to the Decemberists new album, The Hazards of Love, yesterday on the plane.  I pre-ordered it from Amazon in the hopes that I would get it on the release day (last Tuesday).  It still hadn’t arrived on Friday; that’s the last time I pre-order music.  If I can’t get it right away, what’s the point?  I’ll just go to Best Buy.  Anyway, my friend Mike ripped his copy for me so I could bring it along.  I asked him what he thought and he simply said “Dark.  Very Dark”.  Having listened to it now, I think that’s a pretty good description.  Very dark.  More like The Tain than, say, Castaways and Cutouts.  Colin and Co. had moved in this direction a bit for their last album, The Crane Wife, and seem to have continued in the same vein but even more.  I’ll need to listen to it a few more times before I have anything intellegent to say about the songs themselves.