I'm headlining (for the first time in over a decade!) this Thursday in Berkeley. If any localistas are available and interested? I'm not one of those folks who believes in late being fashionable so I'll be trying hard to keep us on schedule, realizing that some people work and go to school. I'll be baking some refreshments and think I'll provide some mulled wine, too.

Thursday, April 13, 2006 8:00 PM

DaSilva Ukulele Co.

2547 8th St., Suite 28

Berkeley, California 94710

510-649-1548

FREE

Crooners & Songbirds is a monthly cabaret focusing on vocal jazz, blues and popular music from the '20s and '30s. Prepare to tap your toes and get runs in your hose as Megan Lynch scorches the torch songs and gets saucy, Tony Marcus caresses his archtop guitar into sweet submission, Kelly McCubbin shows you the dark side of ukulele, and Amy Z wrestles the saw even more melodically and provocatively than Marlene Dietrich did.

• Megan Lynch has crooned, warbled, belted, and yodeled at Crooners & Songbirds, Bijou, Mighty, Noe Valley Ministry and other establishments where they serve fine tarts.

• Tony Marcus has performed music from Dublin to Yokohama and from Alaska to Florida. Bands he has played with include R. Crumb & the Cheap Suit Serenaders, Cats & Jammers, Geoff Muldaur's Fountain of Youth, The Arkansas Sheiks, The Royal Society Jazz Orchestra, and The Frank Wakefield Band. He currently also performs with Patrice Haan as Leftover Dreams.

• Kelly McCubbin, The Uke of the Apocalypse - Uke with attitude and withoutborders. Kelly plays favorites from the 20s, 30s and other popular decades.If you've always wanted to hear Cliff Edwards segued into Billy Squire, this is the uke player for you!

• Amy Zing has always loved shiny and dangerous things, and on that fatefulday in the hardware store, when her eyes landed on Stella, funny ideas beganto bubble in her brain. Liberating each other from lives of mundane utility,they've both learned to appreciate the beauty hidden under the rust.

I live in New York now. Brooklyn, to be exact. Hi.

I got the job! It's a part-time position as the Young Adult Specialist at a local library, and I'll be there for at least the next 2 years while finishing up my degree.

This is really exciting for a number of reasons: it's excellent experience in exactly the field I want to work in; it pays decently (though it's only part-time, so I'll still be living partly on my financial aid) and has benefits; it's a new position, which means I have a lot of leeway in how I want to set up and run the programs; the library itself is a really cool place and I think I'm going to enjoy working there; and it gives structure to the next two years of my life, which is really as far ahead as I can ever think.

To sum up: yay!

[link]

SQUEE!

I got listed.

If you'd like to read about my Colorado River trip last week or see the pictures I took, you can go here: The River Muppet.

Going dark gray until Wednesday as I drive up to Canada to celebrate the resurrection of my in-laws' savior.

If anyone has any spare job-ma hanging around, I'd be grateful if you could send Good Wishes towards my best friend/flatmate, who has headed back to Britain for a fortnight in search of a job for next year. She doesn't have any interviews lined up yet, which is pretty scary, but she's a smashing teacher. And she's sort of a Buffista-by-proxy.

Going dark until Tuesday, or, more likely, Wednsday. Off to Maine for Easter and escaping Marathon Monday.