Back from Athens

'Scuze the absence of editrix-penned posts recently: I've been in Athens, GA, interviewing folks for the Neutral Milk Hotel book I'm writing for the 33 1/3 series. My lovely assistant Craig and I started feeling like we were in the midst of a Citizen Kane scene, as each person we talked to supplied new facets of this fascinating and touching story. I'm more excited to be working on this book all the time.

Thanks go out especially to Mike, Eric and Leslie, who were such great hosts even as the former two raced to complete the new Athens Music Museum (website still in progress) for Sunday's grand opening. The indefatigable Mike and Eric work at Wuxtry Records, host Athens Popfest, publish Bee's Knees zine and put out indiepop records under the Happy Happy Birthday To Me label. They also know some pretty amazing stories about rednecks.

And even if they'd been really mean to us, I'd still say that you should check out Leslie's Pancake Meow website, where she sells the most astonishingly realistic scented clay jewelry that looks like cakes, pies, ice cream and (wow, unbelievably perfect) stacks of maple and butter drenched pancakes.