It's all coming back to me now...

Alright. I'm ready to get back into my writing groove again. Still feeling booked and busy, but the mental fog has cleared a bit and I feel like I have something a little more lucid to offer in this little dedicated space of mine.

I bought the new Beck album "The Information" the other day. He's now on my select list of automatic purchases when a new CD is released. I bought "Guero" last year right before I went on a trip to New York City and it was a crucial part of my soundtrack for the long bus ride that got me there. His music has a familiar sound to it that makes it almost automatically pleasing and satisfying, but he packs enough creativity and quirkiness into each song to hold up to closer scrutiny, especially if one enjoys unusual rhymes, wordplay and sonic blips and beeps that pop up in strange and amusing places.

Another bit of fun that I imagine was designed to serve as a counterweight to the tendency of today's audience to download their music is found in the packaging. The CD artwork is minimal - basically, a folded sheet of plain graph paper. But there's an insert sheet of shiny colorful stickers that can be used by the owner of the CD to create his or her own unique album cover. And actually, the sticker sheets themselves are collectible - there are four variants out there on the mass market, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out eventually that even more alternatives are out there somewhere... Kind of reminds me of the 7o's when LP packaging gimmicks reached a high point that I don't think they've ever attained since. This is when you had projects like Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" shrink-wrapped in blue plastic with artsy Hipgnosis-designed postcards inside, Led Zeppelin's "In Through The Out Door" album issued in a plain brown wrapper with one of four different album jackets concealed underneath, and an LP sleeve with paint-dots that would add tints to the artwork if water was applied to the surface.

And who can forget the Kiss "Love Gun" insert, one of those little "air popper" guns made out of cardboard that read "Bang!" when you whipped it quickly with a downward motion. (Kind of hard to describe, but this picture should help you get what I'm saying.)

I have not yet taken the time to create my one-of-a-kind Beck CD cover. In fact, I may preserve the sticker sheet as is and do my own thing on that invitingly blank sheet of graph paper.

More to come later, but first I'm going to go see if the Tigers are able to hold on to that 4-3 7th inning lead and beat the Yankees!