Heart Shape Box

I interviewed Aimee Mann yesterday. She and her husband Michael Penn are my songwriting heroes, so it was a thrill. Of course, I like to think that we connected over my insightful questions, but I was probably just another press outlet. Her new CD, “Lost In Space”, is another terribly accomplished piece of work, equally as dark as her “Magnolia” and “Bachelor No. 2” CDs. It’s a ten-song study of these Cheever-esque characters stuck in some non-commital malaise. She had some brilliant sound bites (that will make their way to an MTVNews.com story soon) about her interest in probing the psychology of people, about why we’re all “fucked up,” about addiction to love and drugs and other delusions.

Her work and its relationship with my life at the moment seemed like some pretty amazing serendipity. At the end of the interview, I asked her if I could send her a song to sing with me, and she said sure. She said she’d collaborate with me as long as she had some lyrical connection to the material. So I’ll be sending her “Hollywood Arms” (along with a copy of “Crash Site”) as soon as it’s done. I said, “Looking forward to seeing you on tour,” and she replied, “Looking forward to hearing your CD.” So… we’ll see. That’d be huge and amazing, huh?

I spent this afternoon wandering a hazy, hot, and humid Central Park, and took in my inaugural visit to the Guggenheim Museum. It wasn’t the new stuff, the “Moving Pictures” exibit, that got me, but the older stuff — Picasso, Madiglione, Chagall — that was truly inspiring. To be able to get so close to each brush stroke, each descision, was amazing. And humbling in the face of my little four-panel “Heart Shape Box” project, but it did make me feel better about the mildly increased sophistication and decisiveness of my painting. And it made me want to hit more museums. Excepting the excessive use of “ephemeral” and “hallucinatory” in museum captions, they’re pretty neat spaces.

I have the Manhattan Half Marathon in the morning. I don’t have high hopes for much of a personal best (I’d have to beat 1:42:00), what with my recent hip and foot injuries, the unbearable heat, and my overwhelming lack of sleep last night. I’ll just be happy to finish. Then in the afternoon I board American Airlines Flight #139 for LAX. So, I guess I’ll speak with you next from the Left Coast…