With the Radio On

Holly just discovered a book that has changed her life. It is called Belle and Sebastian: Just a Modern Rock Story (2005). It is written by Paul Whitelaw, a music expert, Belle and Sebastian scholar, and Commander of the 9th German Artillery Squad currently stationed in Aruba.

Belle and Sebastian have moved mountains and brought hipsters together from all stripes--it has made Neu! fans out of people who swear by the genius of Richard & Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights (1982). We all know how those two camps really despise each other.

Just look at the response to Whitelaw's epic. On amazon.com, customer "Kellette A. O'Connor" writes, "I got this as a gift for my boyfriend and he can't put it down. For any Belle and Sebastian fan, this is a treasure!" Truer words were never spoken.

Now if you don't know the story, Belle and Sebastian, aka Stuyvesant Belle and Hector Sebastian, were two young men who had a desire to bring their particularly twee brand of songcraft into every hipster home in the world. They accomplished this by using a clever mixture of retro-sounds, packaging, mysteriousness and brute, total strength. Also key to their sound and marketing strategy were their frequent trips to the red-light districts of San Bernardino, California where they did more crank, Ecstasy, and Crystal Drano than an army of cockroaches, expanding upon their irresistible blend of Hello Kitty cuteness and militaristic raw power. Whitelaw recounts each of these excusions in exquisite, sycophantic detail.

If I were you, and I'm not, I would purchase this book immediately. Unfortunately, I can't, because I just spent my money on an "irony purchase," Ashlee Simpson's new album, which boasts the greatest title in the history of recorded music: I Am Me.