What I've been reading and listening to.

Music:

Under the Blacklight, Rilo Kiley's newest release, is a departure from their past discs, but lovable, danceable, and well worth twelve bucks or whatever it costs. I love every track, but especially "Breakin' Up", "Under the Blacklight" and "15". Good friend Meghan saw them last week and said their show was on point. They were actually in Minneapolis at First Avenue on Friday, but I would have had to get a hotel room and gone to the show by myself, so I decided not to go, which turned out to be a good thing in light of the cold. But the disc is hot and you should get it.

I've also been listening to Bob Dylan's Modern Times, which reaffirmed my faith in Dylan. I've always been a big Dylan fan, but in college, my friend Pogge saw him at Notre Dame and said he was ate up. This was when he was also playing the State Fair circuit so I believed him. But Pogge also voted for Bush twice, so I gave Modern Times a chance and wasn't disappointed. AND, Chris and I got tickets to see him and Elvis Costello at the Fox, which, while a pretty penny, we couldn't pass up. Dude is a legend of the highest order, and we'd better witness him in person before it's too late.

Books:

I haven't had a lot of time to read outside of school; articles and books about disproportionate minority confinement in juvenile justice, The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, and Doing Survey Research have occupied my time immensely. The autobiography is awesome, though.

That being said, there's a great magazine y'all should read called Good. There are days when I read the newspaper and the blogs and get really depressed about what's going on in the world, and Good is the remedy. Like its title suggests, it's all about good things: good news, good design, good art and good ideas. I read the latest issue in the airport, and read about green schools, Mormon missionaries and how they are trained, a retrospective on Buckminster Fuller, and great design through the ages. If you subscribe, 100% of your subscription costs (yes, 100%) goes to a charity you choose off the list that they support. It's one of those magazines that doesn't have a "green" issues, because they talk about and support sustainability in every issue. If you are into changing the world, you should read this magazine. There's a great editorial in here about why companies shouldn't do philanthropy.