Drinking on the Job

Being an editor at a Jewish blog has its perks. Sure, there are the long hours and lousy pay, but you get tons of review items in the mail. Usually they're book-shaped or movie-shaped. The other day, we got a beer-shaped package.

I don't know if you've ever had He'Brew Beer, which sounds like the sort of kitsch that your weird uncle would give as bulk Hanukkah gifts, but is actually an incredible-tasting microbrew from San Francisco. If you saw yesterday's Jewniverse, you'd know. And you'd know about the incredible Jewbelation 14 -- a blend of 14 malts, 14 hops, and 14 percent alcohol. Zowie!

(And, if you read my work blog, you know that most of the MJL staff are women. Weirdly, only the boys were around that day. Two of our editors having babies in 2 weeks might have had something to do with it. But apparently beer is good for increasing your milk supply, so we'll have to try this again once everyone's respective maternity leaves are over.)

Famous people, socks, and goats.

A truly baffling video advertisement for the 92Y Tribeca, where I host a monthly poetry & music open mic. It was directed by Michael Showalter, stars Paul Rudd, and has a spot from Eugene Mirman, the landlord on "Flight of the Conchords" (and, I'm sure, a bunch of other comedy people I should know but don't). It's very Stella/State humor, which is to say, it's reeeally subtle -- I'm totally down with surrealism and Dada, but this isn't quite surreal, it just has nothing to do with anything. Sub-surrealism? Semidada?

Ten Bests

My editor, the ever-loving David Levithan, asks -- well, pretty much everyone who's ever sent him an email to pass on a list of the top ten albums of the year. This year, because it's the tenth time doing it, he's asked us to compile a list of the ten best of the past ten years.

I know I am damning myself to doom. I also know that it's 3:30 AM, I just spent five hours wrestling with medieval commentators on the Bible, and I'm not thinking clearly. (I just had to remember to delete two albums because they were actually books.) So, with that in mind, here are my almost-weigh-ins for this year and this decade. Please, if I've forgotten anything mercilessly important, let me know -- and a gadillion thank-yous to you Twitter and Facebook people who jogged and jagged my memory.

THIS YEAR

The Sway Machinery, self-titled
Mirah, (a)spera
Tender Forever, Wider
Jeremy Jay, A Place Where We Could Go
Y-Love, This Is Babylon
Nine Inch Nails, The Slip
The Roots, Rising Down
TV On the Radio, Dear Science
Northern State, Can I Keep This Pen?

TEN YEARS

Magnetic Fields, 69 Love Songs
Amy Winehouse, Back to Black
Regina Spektor, Begin to Hope
Ani Difranco, Knuckle Down
CocoRosie, La Maison de mon Reve
OutKast, Love Below/Speakerboxxx
Loretta Lynn, Van Lear Rose
Kanye West, College Dropout
Architecture in Helsinki, Fingers Crossed
Liz Phair, Liz Phair (i know. i know. but it just keeps showing up.)