Spatula Forum

The Easter Bunny's coming to your house

'Tis Easter weekend, and New Zealand pretty much shuts down completely the entire time. Me too, I've got five of six days off, so we're off to the beach to enjoy a last hint of late summer. And Wilco comes to town Sunday! Huzzah!

• The Mountain Goats aren't coming to New Zealand or Australia next month due to medical reasons. Ticket refund time. Fudge. Get well soon, John Darnielle. Sadness, and hoping for a reschedule soon.

• Elvis Costello's plans for his new album manage to baffle, confuse and irritate me all at the same time. Hey, I may be stuck in 1999, but I like CDs, darn it!

• I discovered Dr. K's nifty blog, and he's running an all Planet Of The Apes week, which is, like, the most awesome thing ever. Ongoing discussion of the grand nihilism of "Beneath The Planet Of The Apes," the darkest darn ape movie of all time and a flick that warped my young mind irreparably. Nuclear holocaust for everyone!

• Barack Obama writes and delivers a truly great speech trying to actually talk intelligently about a minor controversy. Right wingers work overtime to try and whittle, mangle and recast it in such a way that it ain't that no more. Whether you agree with the man or not, you've got to be pretty unforgiving not to concede that the man is thoughtful in a way we usually don't see in politics. He wrote his own speech, which you know shouldn't really be that big a deal but actually sadly is considering how rarely this happens in presidential politics these days. (I highly recommend Obama's two books, one stirring memoir, one more policy focused for all those who keep repeating the party line that he has no ideas.)

• Watched groovy "Eastern Promises." Don't mess with the Russian mafia. They will cut. you. up. And Viggo Mortensten naked can still beat the crap out of any man alive. I love the David Cronenberg even if this wasn't quite his top work, still a good yarn.

• Quote of the day that nearly made me spit coffee on the MacBook, from one of my favorite newspaper columnists, San Francisco Chronicle's Jon Carroll: "I've never been a fan of St. Patrick's Day; it seems to me that celebrating being Irish by drinking is like celebrating being black by picking cotton."