I discovered Natalia Zukerman in 2003. Not her music, at first, but the musician herself. I walked out of my bedroom, and there she was, standing in my living room, tuning her acoustic guitar.
 
It was my first summer in Washington, DC, and my group house occasionally hosted acoustic shows in our living room--the result of some friendly connections to the ever-expansive lesbian folk network. (PSA: Don't mess with a short-haired woman with a guitar. You can pretty much guarantee she's got an enthusiastic posse of supporters not far down the road.)

Natalia took the living room concert to an entirely new level. Why? For starters, her songwriting is air-tight. Each chord stands on its own, and turns to compliment the next. Also, her style just drips with sex. If she's not a Scorpio, she should be. I wouldn't be surprised if over-heated ladies have thrown their panties on stage during a speed up version of "Fools Gold."

Okay, so enough talk. Here is some of her old stuff. Buy her new stuff and catch her on tour. Support an awesome musician.

1. "Lovelier" - Natalia Zukerman (Mortal Child, 2001)
2. "Fools Gold" - Natalia Zukerman (On a Clear Day, 2003)
3. "Pumpkin Time" - Natalia Zukerman (On a Clear Day, 2003)
4. "Tires" - Natalia Zukerman (On a Clear Day, 2003)
 

Thank you, SOM records and your .99 cent bin. Sometimes I bring home crap, and sometimes I bring home something really special.

Bud & Travis are at their best when they're playing fast, rythmic folk songs. Like a high-powered fan slapping against leather, these two strum guitars and sing "La Bamba" like no other. Read their bios, here.

1. "How Long, How Long Blues" - Bud & Travis

2. "Take Off Your Old Coat" - Bud & Travis 

And something happened. And the clouds, giants plumes of white, welcomed us. The road opened itself to us. We coasted down the highway, as though we'd just been swallowed whole by the sublime promise of the American landscape.

If you do nothing else today, listen to this song.

"Mykonos" - Fleet Foxes (off Sun Giant-EP)

And if you read nothing else this summer, read Blue Highways by William Least-Heat Moon. 

And then, if you're not completely freaked out by the gas prices this summer, hop in your Corolla and discover America.

I've never seen this 1998 hipster film, Somewhere in the City, and I have no idea how its soundtrack came into my possession. But the soundtrack is special, and it's always reminded me of springtime in the city.

"No Meu Soutaque" - Arto Lindsay

"Untitled No. 1" - Spain

"When My Dear Mother Was Seeing Me Off to the Army" - Limpopo

That last one is my favorite. I imagine Beirut's Zach Condon listening to it as a kid, dreaming of brass instruments and gangly Eastern European men pumping their accordians.

And a very 90's song, "Get Another Plan" by Abstract Truth, that makes me want to throw on a sunflower-themed blouse and dance around to Desiree's "You Gotta Be."  

Avalon, directed by Barry Levinson, came out in 1990. I was nine years old--about the same age as the starring character, Elijah Wood--spending my free time climbing trees, brandishing sharpened sticks and 4lbs walkie talkies.

That year, I saw Avalon.  

Every once in a great while, a movie stays with you for life. For some reason, these films are never the great ones. They're not classics. They're not even box office hits.  No, these ones just fit in that sweet spot. Sliding right into that moment in time, fusing together the errant storylines of your own life into a single score.

Avalon did that for me. But years later, it's not the film that resonates with me, but the barebones soundtrack. Something in the eerie, piano tinklings of Randy Newman (I know, who knew!) whisper to me an aching, long forgotten day.

Avalon's soundtrack is out of print. Thank goodness for used CD stores.

Below are the various renditions of the central song off the Avalon Soundtrack, by Randy Newman:

1. "1914"
   
2. "Weekend Musicians"
3. "The Family"
4. "The Funeral"
5. "End Title"
    

What's going to happen to you? You have woke up too soon. And the world's rearranged. And now your feelings have changed. Say goodbye to before. You are not welcome anymore. 

"Bye Bye Bye" - Plants and Animals, Parc Avenue, 2008

I'm pretty sure the book/movie "Fight Club" was about one man's Saturn return. What is it? Well, it's the period between the ages of 27-29, when the planet Saturn moves through your chart, ushering in a painful transition to a new phase in life. It can be a time of great upheavel in our lives, when many chapters close and new ones begin.

 "O.K" - Ani DiFranco, off Reckoning and Revelling (2 CDs), 2001

My friends are smack in the middle of their Saturn return, and I'm staring squarely at mine. I think the real terror set in when I purchased a book called "Managing Oneself". It's a Harvard Business Review classic, and it was the only book I purchased that day. When I got home, I realized that buying that book was quite possibly the most depressing thing I've ever done.

"Whether a business should be run for short-term results or with a focus on the long term is likewise a question of values. Financial analysts believe that businesses can be run for both simultaneously. Successful business people know better."

And it goes on and on like that.

"Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" - The Smiths

I'm finding that the smooth contours of my career don't leave much room for gritty self-reflection. Here I am, perched on my little star. Knowing full well what will lead me to prosperity. I know my passions. My strengths. What it will take to get to the top. And the longer I'm in motion, the farther away from myself I feel. Like, I'm leaving myself behind.

"Electric Feel" - MGMT, off Oracular Spectacular, 2007

I've been watching Ken Burn's "The War" on DVD this week. Sad. Triumphant. Conflicted. Proud. It's bittersweet to hear the stories of 1942. (I'm only on part 1)

"Stardust" - Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra (featuring a very young Frank Sinatra)

That track was recorded years before the war began, in 1936, but it seems to evoke the melancholy of that era. A global depression. Then a massive world war. Decades of misery and togetherness. A whole generation of lives, interrupted.

"Take the 'A' Train" - Duke Ellington 

I won't ramble on about how it was the greatest generation. We know it. We felt it in the precise agony of highschool history books. In the veterans, and in our own families. I'm proud to have my family's history, woven into that great tapestry. My grandmother, a manager of an army post exchange. Her first husband, a dashingly handsome pilot named Charles, who died in combat in the Pacific. My grandfather, a hard-working engineer, fixing bombers in Europe, who would meet my grandmother years later.

Those days feel so far away. Like they were lifted from this earth on a great bullet train, traveling the speed of light, streaming out into an unknown universe. The lives of those who died, flickering in the sky, one of millions in a galaxy of lost memories.

And on a completely unrelated note, Dizzy has a PSA. Bonus: "Hey Pete, Let's Eat More Meat" - Dizzy Gillespie