The Boys Recommend a New Product! / Plus, This Week in Local Art News! / And, Richard's Hipster Pick of the Day!

Like many red-blooded American males, the boys were saddened recently to learn of the sale of Budweiser to Belgian brewery InBev ("Damned furriners!"--Chip). However, they're now prepared to forgive and forget since the company is launching a new brew called "American Ale" next month.

Chip: "Even though it's no longer American-owned, this new beer still sounds and tastes like America, and that's what really matters. I believe now I can still drink it and feel good about myself and my country. I look forward to Election Day, when I can drink a six-pack and vote for the Maverick and get this country on the right track!"

---

Local artist and children's author Stephen Johns.n has just released his new book, A is for Art: An Abstract Alphabet, which "depicts artworks that are literal depictions of each letter, accompanied by alliterative captions describing the works" (here's the one for the letter "I": "Indoors, in an industrial interior, is an installation of individually illuminated, isolated, immobilized immersed and inverted identical insoluble imitation ice cream cones.") Source: LJ-World.

Chip: "First of all, I'm fairly sure this is "assonance," not alliteration, and second of all, what the fuck? Unless children are a lot smarter than me, they're going to find themselves very confused here. I'd recommend you read your children "My Pet Goat" or "Poky Little Puppy" and save this book for when they're in grad-school."

Richard: "I know that our old friend, Dr. X, used to teach a work by this author in his children's lit classes. It was called My Little Yellow Taxi. I think they focused primarily on the sexual and political implications of little taxis. But allow me to recommend a somewhat similar, albeit not for children, recent work: The Alphabet of Manliness by Maddox (to be reviewed soon on this site). The first two entries are "ass-kicking" and "boner" and it's been on the New York Times Bestseller list, so it must be important."

---

Richard: "Tonight's hipster show is Ra Ra Riot at the Jackpot. I'm so hip that I'm not even going, but for those who think The Shins are old news (and who doesn't think that?), this might be a good place to get a little Sunday indie-pop fix. If you go, make sure to talk (a lot, but in low and respectful voices) about how the new album is largely a response to the recent death of the band's founding drummer. The show should be packed, but not by the town's most cutting-edge hipsters. Those hipsters saw the band during their last trip through town and wouldn't dare go back again, because that's not hip. So you'll be surrounded by the town's second tier of hipsters who couldn't get in to the band's first Larryville show, along with numerous newbies who just caught wind of the band (ignore these people...they have nothing to add to the proceedings). I predict a "two PBR" rating for this show, and if any of our readers attend, please send in a review!"