Pumpkin Seeds

1. Last night at Acentos was one of those rare transcendent moments that puts a smile on your face and a spring in your step. I was so jazzed, I played Jordan Knight's Give it to You all the way home, complete with in-your-seat choreography! Mahina Movement, with a new-to-me lineup, was simply amazing. A female Rage Against the Machine, they brought tight collaborations with raw verse and absolutely smoked the mic. The open preceding them was an exciting mix of old and new voices, too, with Fish filling in as host like it was second-nature. Nine months in and they are truly hitting their stride. Kudos to Oscar and Fish. And that new guy, Rich, too! They've got something special happening and I'm excited to be witnessing it from the beginning.

2. Next Tuesday, we get to vote on an important referendum (Proposal Number Three: A Question - City Elections) to eliminate partisan primaries and, like the vast majority of major American cities, change to a non-partisan process where candidates must run for office sans party label with the top two vote-getters facing off on election day. This opens the possibility of two Republicans running against each other or, the bigger concern, that someone could potentially buy their way into office. Gasp! Like that's never happened in a partisan election? Of course, the fact that two Democrats might also face off generally gets mentioned as an aside, if at all. The Op-Ed pages are full of boogeyman stories trying to scare people off the concept. Personally, I'm all for it. It forces people to look beyond a label and actually find out what each candidate stands for individually, instead of assuming their interests are covered by some cut-and-paste party platform. Those that don't bother - sadly, the majority, I'm sure - will have their vote decided for them by the media, which is generally the case in partisan primaries anyway. Howard Dean, anyone?

3. Comic book Wednesday is fun! Even if none of the titles I buy are released in a particular week, it's a creative stimulant to scan the covers and skim through random issues, looking for something new and interesting. I came across The Losers that way, now one of my regular favorites, as well as the intriguing Heaven's Devils. Gotham Central is still my overall favorite, while Teen Titans, Spectacular Spider-Man and New Mutants are my other regulars. Sadly, Micronauts was cancelled with issue 11, though Devil's Due promises they will return next year in a new series, and the new Batman story-arc looks lame. Killer Croc as a pimp?!?! Ultimate Six and 1602 are pretty good mini-series that I'm following, but I wasn't all that impressed by Supreme Power or the long-awaited JLA/Avengers crossover.

4. Three chapters in to The Glass Mountain and I'm happy to say that Rydill has deftly picked up Annat's story. Hoo-ray.

5. On a related note, the Dollar-to-Pound conversion sucks on this side of the Atlantic! Some allies THEY are. ;-)

6. The Yankees fired their hitting coach, Rick Down. (Daily News headline: One Down) Ah, scapegoats! If only Joe Torre had the self-respect to tell Steinbrenner to take his job and shove it. Of course, he's the guy that said, "If you're going to take [Steinbrenner's] money, you've got to take his guff," so there's not much hope for self-respect winning that battle.

7. Napster is back and I'm vaguely tempted. The co-branded Samsung YP-910GS looks very cool. It's on my wish list. Just sayin'...

8. Smallville tonight. Perry White shows up. I'll be there.