Check out House of Sugar, a weekday-updating webcomic version of Rebecca Kraatz's criminally-overlooked comic strip! Hope will be publishing a full-length House of Sugar collection later this year. (There's also a livejournal feed that hasn't started updating yet as of this writing, but add it anyway!)

(If you know who Joel Plaskett is, well, Rebecca has been his girlfriend for a million years and has done many album covers for him. And in the interests of full disclosure: I personally designed and coded the website for the webcomic.)

Recent stuff!

• CHUD interviews me (with Devin Faraci, at MoCCA on Saturday)
• Fluxblog interviews me (with Matthew Perpetua, via Gmail Chat, early last week)
• Torontoist interviews me (with Mathew Kumar, in Toronto a few weeks back)

i vaguely recall the setlist i played at the mocca afterparty...

1. 21 (i fucked it up pretty bad because i realized how drunk i was only after i started playing the chords)
2. totally untitled
3. lydia long-ago
4. you practically rock
5. refresh me (i haven't really recorded the final version of this one, it's the "i fought the war, i got the girl, kill me now" song)
6. stars
7. don't let the archons get you down (this is a new song that i haven't recorded yet, but it came out pretty well at the show)

MoCCA report: Two hours of sleep to start. Our flight got changed so it took us a while to get to New York. We had great lunch at Gobo with Hope's assistant editor at S&S, Jordan Brown. Walked around with Lucy (Knisley) and her friend Laura. Ate dinner at Wild Ginger with Hope's agent Judy Hansen (this food was not quite as good as Gobo).

The show went well. I sold out of books (24 volume 1, 18 volume 2, 54 volume 3?) in a matter of hours, and did a few interviews. I ate three lunches (a taco, some sushi, and later Subway with Chris).

Afterwards Chris and I went to check out the preparations for the afterparty, and then we went across the street and I had just one (double) gin and tonic, and a pile of fried calamari, and I became extremely drunk very fast, probably due to tiredness and a crazy day. We went upstairs and I had one beer and I played my songs. I felt drunk at first but better once I finished the first song. The last (new) song came out well and people said "woo" at the best part and that made me feel good.

Later we went on Jon's roof with the Dumbrella boys and some of their random lady-friends. I also ate pizza during this section and it was extremely delicious (breaded chicken w/ tomato).

Sunday was more low-key. I bought shirts, Hope bought a dress, we hung around the show, ate sushi, etc. Crazy dinner at the end of the show at Spring Street Natural with like a zillion people. My caeser salad was good but Hope's meal apparently not so good. We ducked out pretty early and said bye to everyone. We went to see A Prairie Home Companion at a nice movie theater on Houston east of 2nd Ave. Conversation with the guy who took our tickets:
ME: Is there a bathroom upstairs?
HIM: Maybe.
ME: Maybe?
HIM: Nice shirt. (turning to Hope) Nice dress.

On Monday we walked around, bought kitchen stuff (her: sweet rolling pin, me: Microplane grater w/ rubber handle), looked at comic and book-stores in St Marks Place, ate at Cafe Colonial (Hope said it was her favourite meal of the trip - she had the Brazilian beans and rice). Hopped in a cab, dragged our asses back to the airport. Bought books (her: The Devil Wears Prada, me: Until I Find You). The end!