nyc recap (june 8-15), 7 shows/ 5 afterparties/ 5 museums/ 7 wonderful (& expensive & freakishly hot) days:

britt daniels is bowlegged (& no matter what he might insist, plugging your ipod into the soundsystem at lit is not "being a dj")
the coral dress very badly (but have lovely voices & sound even better than on record), they're so earnest it hurts!
lcd soundsystem are embarrassing to watch (think of michael moore in a tshirt, with absolutely no rythmn) which is strange b/c the record is so great & the backing band is more than competent - heard they were much better at jones beach (while I was still on the train, see below*)
maximo park are unintentionally hilarious (& not very nice) but really really fun to photograph (snap! *giggle* snap! omg! look at that grimace!)
the museum of sex is quite disturbing (even more than you would imagine)
the lower east side tenement museum looks a lot like my last apartment
it takes forever to get out of the met and even longer to exit the museum of natural history (take note of exactly where you started!)
being hit on is not especially flattering, or uncommon (the spoon aftershow, the rush line for spamalot, the maximo park aftershow @ orchard) or subtle ("dance with me, I'm desperate!")
sloan chris murphy is still a charmer (but how did we get old?)
the pixies are amazing (& oh can black francis scream!)
and I thought it was just carlos d: it's the ubiquitous daniel kessler of interpol (spoon, spoon aftershow, next to me @ maximo park, outside tonic the next night, the interpol party -as expected- but not until 2:30am)
inviting sloan to the interpol afterparty may not have been such a good idea (it was actually unbelievably lame -was most excited to see this guy although I realize that it's a little messed up b/c he's just a man with a blog- but anyway...)
having 1 combination aftershow for 3 different saturday night gigs (dears/raveonettes/maximo park) makes things very confusing, but does not guarantee the appearance of james iha (or that you are at the "right" party, um, whatever ...)

* Spotted! on the 7:09pm LIRR to jones beach: bob & nick of franz ferdinand (at the next wicket, I mouthed "are you?" & nick gave a conspiratorial nod, he had an awful lot of product in his hair & had an enormous wallet in the back pocket of his tight black trousers- he's got a very small bum so it looked a little weird- young bob was adorable)- they ended up across from me on the train, bob staring out the window for the entire 45min journey, nick on a cellphone discussing some sort of franz business -a video shoot in nyc in July, "I was sure that was going to be the single"- & absently flipping through a copy of new york magazine- I sprinted ahead of them at the station & ended up as the last passenger on the first bus headed to the venue (I arrived just in time for interpol) ... apologies are due, but you know I had to do it ...