- Valet Mag teaches us gents how to do things people just knew how to do years ago. No eHow required.

- Jonathan Yardley considers the death of J.D. Salinger, and gets points from me for using the word ‘jejune’ so effectively.

- As always, I was fascinated by a recent This American Life episode: Contents Unknown explores British guidelines in the event of a nuclear decimation, what happens to storage units that people stop paying for, and what happens when you wake up in India with no idea who the hell you are.

- I laughed again and again at Samberg’s latest w/Jon Hamm “The Curse”

- Steve Jobs calls Adobe lazy and says Apple didn’t enter the search biz, but Google entered the phone biz. What say you about that now, Sergey and Lawrence E. Page!? (via MacRumors)

* I will say, can’t believe the last time I posted on this thing, George W. Bush was still in office.

#34 – Dave Matthews Band

- It annoys me that I have missed the Newport Folk Festival four years in a row. I’m going next year, damnit! Stereogum has pictures.

- Best iPhone app: I am rich. It costs $999.99, and doesn’t do anything but display a glowing red ruby. Genius.

- Today’s horrifyingly stupid product: Eyelid jewelery! Yes folks, now you too can dangle miscellaneous things from your contact lenses.

- Hey hipsters: How about this for vintage? A pair of Levi’s from the 1890s. [eBay via kottke]

- Skip business school and earn the “personal MBA” by reading the books on Josh Kaufman’s 77 best list. Sweet. Seems I’m already on that track. Oh wait, Pitchfork’s News and Iris Murdoch aren’t on Kaufman’s list?

- Horrifying chart showing how much Americans have changed the daily diet since 1970. [NYT via kottke]

- Cool music video from Bat for Lashes [thanks, mikefro]

- Perfect performance of Blue Ridge Mountains by Fleet Foxes, if you can stand Letterman’s terrible introduction:

Of course, two minutes after all the doors closed the siren from Revere operating the train demanded that I come forward and tap my card to prove I’m an upstanding citizen, yada yada.

So I do this, leaving my leather messenger bag on the seat. I beam a tellingly apologetic smile at the conductor, who responds with a cough that sounds like motor oil mixed with Carlton 100s, and mosey on back to my warm spot in the sun.

Upon returning, I watch a girl my age throw my messenger back to the floor and plop down right where I was sitting. She gave me a look that said nothing and everything all at once: “What?,” simultaneously installing her headphones as I stood next to her, suited and lightly perspiring.

So the lesson here is: one idle messenger bag does not a person’s seat make, at least if you live along Beacon Street.

- Howie Day is doing okay, if this performance from mid-July is any indication. Hopefully the new album is a bit of a return to form for him:

- As predicted, Ryan Adams & the Cardinals announced a small fall tour with nods to a new album due out “at some point” during the fall. I’m catching them at the BofA pavilion in Boston, but you should try to see them at one of the more obscure venues.

Also, in case you were wondering, Ryan is still culturally relevant and alive:

Regardless of varied judgments as to my cultural relevance, i am thankfully alive and exercising my joy in creating. i only hope anyone who hears, reads or sees any of my contributions will permit the work to speak where i cannot.

via the dot com

Dear Chicago – Ryan Adams & the Cardinals (7/29/07, Chicago Theater via archive.org)

- Sasha Frere-Jones has a piece in this week’s New Yorker with a near-perfect subtitle: “Coldplay’s expanding gas.” Settling comfortably somewhere between cautious praise and exhaustion, Mr. Frere-Jones hits Chris Martin and cohorts square on the head when he reflects on the band’s recent free concert at Madison Square Garden:

There Martin was, onstage in his Little Bummer Boy outfit, skipping around and waving his fists. Except the crowd wasn’t going wild, and the music wasn’t calling for a celebration. Though the audience was obviously delighted to see Coldplay appear, the energy in the room remained fairly controlled throughout the set, even dipping to indifference at points. Which made Martin’s moves seem that much more canned. It felt as if he’d done the entire show in a mirror, down to the self-deprecating wisecracks. In one of his increasingly suspect apologies, Martin told his American fans, “We come over here, we steal your women.” That’s right. If anyone in the audience had forgotten, Chris Martin is married to an actress named Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s American. Maybe you’ve heard of her. No? Well, did you know that “Viva la Vida” went to No. 1? No? It’s O.K.—Martin told us, by way of thanking us.

No, dude, thank you.

- Daytrotter has an interview with and the requisite perfect performance from Bon Iver. Please read and listen. Here’s a bit of their praise for Justin’s work:

If you hang a dirty, stinky shirt or pair of pants in a closet for long enough, they don’t stink anymore. It’s the same principle – in a way – that’s incorporated into the touching and heartrending work that Vernon wrote and recorded for For Emma, Forever Ago, a record that is as stunning in its natural grace and shape as any that’s come into this world in the last five years, maybe longer.

Also in the New York Times.

Mr. Matthew Pond

So I have to correct my previous post about matt pond PA, my favorite band. They are not going through any kind of pseudo breakup, but rather fighting the good fight as plain old matt pond PA. This according to the affable Mike at Altitude Records:

I have been fielding calls and e-mails from nervous fans wondering about the status of matt pond PA. MATT POND PA HAS NOT BROKEN UP! In fact, the band is in the studio this summer working on new material, of which there is plenty! The band is doing all of their own recording and mixing this time around (guitarist/keyboardist Chris Hansen is a seasoned studio engineer), and the songs I have heard so far are bright, clear and gorgeous, if I may say so myself. If all goes according to plan, you can look for some new songs as early as this fall!

Great news! The Dark Leaves did have a MySpace page, but it has since been removed. Glad to hear it. I didn’t like the name The Dark Leaves, anyway.

Measure 3 – matt pond PA

Just some really great songs I’ve been listening to recently:

Young Love – Mystery Jets

Elizabeth – Ryan Adams & The Cardinals 

Ragged Wood – Fleet Foxes

Re: Stacks – Bon Iver

Brand New Colony – Ben Gibbard

Sleepy head – Passion Pit

Weird Fishes – Radiohead

[early morning commuters image courtesy of Mark Daniel Lowen]

But thanks to the miracle of eBay and a little common-sense concept disguised in fancy economist jargon called profit margins, I am the proud owner of the aerodynamically organ-like 3G. 

Like brothers on a hotel bed, except one of them is going to live with some lady in Canada.

If you are a current owner (“early adopter”), you might want to think about selling yours on eBay. The bubbly concierge at the Boylston Street store told me that prices are only going to increase on used original iPhones, but that was before anyone figured out how to unlock the 3G. 

Do you need an iPhone 3G? No way. The 2.0 software update should’ve made your old iPhone kick some serious ass. How cool is Remote, or Urbanspoon, or the program that turns your eye into a myriad of shapes when you hold it up to the camera? In fact, the 3G really doesn’t improve anything — except voice clarity. The people I call can actually understand what I’m saying, I get reception in essential places like my apartment in Boston, and I needn’t worry about the occasional gust of wind on Beacon Hill killing the mood. Still – if you can sell an original iPhone, get twice the amount of cash required to by a new one, and can stomach AT&T’s ridiculous plans for data devices, then I say divide and conquer. 

As of this writing, 8gb unlocked iPhones from the first generation are selling for nearly $500 on eBay. $500 for a year old product! I have one of these in my basement in Delaware. Think it’s worth anything?

- New Death Cab video for “Cath…” One of four songs on the new album that are absolutely outstanding (the other three being Grapevine Fires, Bixby and No Sunlight).

- Blackberry etiquette reaches all time low for Boston rental agent:

Hi we can definetly set up a time for Saturday I just have a couple questions to see if I have any other listings that might work for you what is the maximum you guys can spend on rent what parts of town would you like to be in anything you can tell me about what your looking for would be very helpful thanks and I hope to hear back from you soon

- Sub Pop, the best record label around, turns 20 years old! I wish they would do another free iTunes sampler. Last year’s was superb, and Brooklyn Vegan linked us to their Single’s Club, but it’s $75, and my AT&T bill is too much to afford that. Damn.

- 25 well designed book covers. Cool. [EW via Kottke]

- Oobject is “…like a Billboard chart for gadgets”

- Google’s treading on Second Life’s territory with Lively, a new avatar based virtual world app due out later this year. [WSJ]

- Wind power guy T. Boone Pickens (who happens to have the best name I’ve ever seen) is using Facebook to drum up support for his interesting campaign.

- Mad Atoms wonders what will happen when the record store clerk – an iconic fixture in society – finally dies. Some potential replacements include sushi chefs or the “long haired asshole” at Cinefile.

- My Morning Jacket is going Ryan Adams on us (har har funny prolific musician joke har) by working on a follow up to Evil Urges a month or two after it came out. Nice.

Coming soon – these daily links are getting a little too disorganized for my OCD tastes, so all 5 of you that read this are going to start seeing a breakout of links between miscellany and music stuff. Don’t be alarmed.