After being rescued from the brink of extinction a decade ago, the Moleskine notebook has been reborn as the PBR of stationery goods. A marketing campaign from Italian publisher Modo & Modo cast the oilcloth journal as a requisite for travelers, writers, artists and otherwise impoverished people, and the company’s popularity has since mushroomed into a cult following.

The mythology surrounding Moleskine touts two centuries of storied users, including Breton, Hemingway, Sartre, Picasso, Matisse and Van Gogh, who are all reputed to have captured their fleeting moments of inspiration in the notebooks.

Standing at the foot of this tradition is Cambridge artist and designer Chris Piascik. Now on his fourth Moleskine, Piascik has been jotting down drawings every day since January and publishing them on his blog. The drawings are influenced by a sense of creeping media saturation and showcase Piascik’s ability to craft emotive typefaces and fonts.

In the first compilation of his drawings, the Election Collection, Piascik assembles a highlight reel of his reflections on the presidential campaign. The brief flashes of political ephemera remind me a lot of this website.

You can purchase a printed copy of the Election Collection for $9.60 at Magcloud. You can also see the whole thing online in a really sweet flash viewer at Issuu or download a digital copy here.

Chris Piascik’s work will also be on display at Tremont 647 starting next month. The gallery will hold an opening reception Dec. 8 from 6-8 p.m.

I am scheduled to interview Norwegian singer/songwriter Sondre Lerche at 12:10 p.m. on Wednesday. Lerche is in the middle of an east-coast tour, and as the hour arrives, I hunker down at my desk with a magazine, anticipating the usual problems (late phone call, crappy connection, tight time constraints). But just as I settle in, the phone rings — right on time.

Mellow and soft-spoken, Lerche chats from New York City, where he is hanging out prepping for his gig at the Bowery Ballroom.

“I’m definitely playing some new songs,” he says. “It’s sort of a mini-tour to try out the new ones. I always have a great time in Boston, so I really wanted to get a Saturday night there.”

And a Saturday night in Beantown he shall have — Lerche will drop by the Paradise tomorrow night, where he promises a “dynamic, hilarious, and intense” performance.

The crooner played the same venue last November during the end of a promotional swing for his fourth album, Phantom Punch — an uncharacteristic offering that shed pop charm for harder rock sounds.

“I like playing here because people have an easy time getting into things,” he confesses. “People really show it here. They are good at responding, and they’re more vocal. It’s especially helpful during solo shows, when you’re up there by yourself.”

“Two Way Monologue” Sondre Lerche

 

“Phantom Punch” Sondre Lerche

Don’t feel too bad, though, ladies — he isn’t always on his own. Lerche often plays with his band The Faces Down, and has toured twice with life-long idol Elvis Costello. He also collaborated with Regina Spektor on the single Hell No.

After some heavy persuasion, Lerche took on the role of composer for the film Dan In Real Life, starring Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche. The terms “Norwegian indie-pop star” and “film composer” aren’t exactly PB&J, so how did Lerche pull it off?

“I wonder that myself,” he says. “I’d never scored a movie before. I was asked by the
director, who said he was a big fan, to do the music for a film he was writing. He convinced me to do it, so I worked with him throughout the writing process. I worked with the actors, too, which I’d never done before. It was a lucky break.”

The Dan in Real Life soundtrack generated some great buzz and critical acclaim. Lerche says that he usually enjoys reading reviews and likes to check up on what the critics have to say, but one print column still has him perplexed.

“The album did pretty good with [Rolling Stone], but the one thing I really remember is that they said that I looked like Britney Spears’ younger brother.”

“Was that a compliment?”

“I didn’t know,” he laughs. “I still don’t know.”

Audio

About 100 people held a walking vigil Thursday night in Allston to remember victims of violence against the LGBT community.

The procession moved from Packard’s Corner to a courtyard in front of Horace Mann school, where organizers addressed the group and the names of victims killed in Massachusetts were read aloud.
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After a brief rain delay, five members of Boston’s Team Rekloos finished up their contribution to the graffiti wall at Central Kitchen in Cambridge.

You can see more of their work at http://dev.rekloos.us/

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It looks like all bets are off in Massachusetts these days. Q2 is on the books, the constitution’s been extended to gay people, and now Grand is inviting customers to trip out on magic berries.

They won’t produce any mind-melting visuals, but Miracle Fruit will keep even the most experienced Somerville native entertained for an hour. The berries trick out your taste buds for a short time to make bitter and sour foods taste sweet. Take it away, wiki:

The berry contains an active glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculin.[5][6] When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue’s taste buds, causing bitter and sour foods to taste sweet. While the exact cause for this change is unknown, one hypothesis is that the effect may be caused if miraculin works by distorting the shape of sweetness receptors “so that they become responsive to acids, instead of sugar and other sweet things.”[3] This effect lasts between thirty minutes and two hours.

All 30 tickets for the tasting sold out this week, but I spoke with the store last night and they’ve got 6 more tickets available on a first-come, first-served basis. Just show them the loot ($15) and you’ll get a spot for the tasting.

If you want to learn more about the history of Magic Berries, check out this interview from Democracy Now. The story behind the guy who tried to bring them to the US in the 70s is actually incredibly interesting (high-speed car chases, espionage, industrial sabotage etc.).

John from Planet Records tells us why community records stores kick ass and take names.

Check out their online store for some scratch-free vinyl:

http://www.planet-records.com/

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