Fans of The Books will no doubt recog­nize the lyric “I can’t find the books/ They must be in La Jolla”. I always assumed it was no more than a passing refer­ence to the group’s name, perhaps from an old movie or TV show. In the car yester­day on the way from New Haven to New York, I caught part of a This American Life program, rebroad­cast from 2002, that revealed the line to be so much more. Turns out it is excerpted from a “viral voice­mail” (people had to amuse them­selves somehow before YouTube) that was circu­lated around the Columbia campus during the early 1990’s (perhaps around the time Paul de Jong was working as an assis­tant to Otto Luening). All these little unex­pected connec­tions between things; the line now takes on a completely differ­ent meaning, which I think is just the kind of cultural archæol­ogy The Books love. I won’t spoil the episode by reveal­ing the content of said voice­mail, but you can listen to the entire episode, which is excel­lent, here.

Both of my Sunday concerts (at Yale and LPR) went swim­mingly; Wendy’s concert was a heart­warm­ing, family affair, which can happen when you come from a family of string players. I’ve already got a solid record­ing of Clamber Music up for you to hear (thanks, Fred Plaut Record­ing Studio!). LPR was also a pretty emotional scene, because it was the last Ensemble ACJW concert of the season, and lots of its members are “grad­u­at­ing”; scary, to be cast out into the open sea of New York Musi­cians with no nour­ish­ing mother to get you gigs and order you around.

Tangen­tially related: Why is Carnegie Hall‘s website so terrible? I feel like it’s 1998 and I’m loading it on my G3 Power­book in Internet Explorer 4. Half the thing doesn’t even show up on my iPhone/iPad. You’d think mobile devices would be one of their primary targets (imagine you‘re out and about and wonder what’s on tonight. Just try pulling up the site on your iPhone; the calendar won’t load. You could always go to the very user-friendly text only version). The design is a weird mishmash of fonts and colors jammed together into one hideous mosaic. To round it all out, there’s a huge, empty black footer. Carnegie Hall, you’re so wonder­ful in so many ways; your web presence is not one of them, and it doesn’t do you justice.