What's that song? -- It's "Dog Days are Over" by Florence and the Machine

If you've seen the "Eat Pray Love" trailer or watched the premier of "Covert Affairs" on USA, you've heard "Dog Days are Over."

It's one of those songs that puts you in motion. It's exhilarating and motivating and makes you want to clap along, shout out the chorus or dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free.

It's from the fantastic album "Lungs" by Florence and the Machine. Other favorites you may have heard somewhere include "Rabbit Heart (Rise it up)," "You've Got the Love," "Howl" and "Hurricane Drunk." The album can be found streaming in its entirety here.

Countdown: Mad Men

Mark your calendar for July 25th! One week until Mad Men premiers on AMC. Hopefully we'll get some answers to all our burning questions: Are Don and Betty divorced? What year is it? How are things going at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce? Why was Aaron Staton included in that cast photo!?

Never Heard if It?: The Good Guy

Being a devotee of sometimes unpopular tv, I was psyched to see stars from Gilmore Girls, Friday Night Lights and the short-lived October Road all converge in one movie for 20-somethings.

The Good Guy is about Beth (Alexis Bledel) and Tommy (Scott Porter), a young couple in NYC. Tommy's new coworker, Daniel (Bryan Greenberg) arrives on the scene, and after some grooming from Tommy, all hell breaks loose.

At one point the whole plot of the movie is transparently read off the back of a book cover Beth is nominating for book club, but as the pieces start falling into place, you realize the person you've been suspicious of is completely authentic and the one whom you've trusted is not who they purported to be.

The movie includes suitable cameos from Anna Chlumsky, Andrew McCarthy and Aaron Yoo. Overall, it is a good rental: interesting, fun at times and has a great soundtrack featuring Stars and Lets Go Sailing.

New and Improved

Yes, the rumors are true: I'm restarting this blog. Just because it is summer and the major networks are in re-runs doesn't mean there aren't great tv, movie and music opportunities to be found out there.

I will be writing about the usual as well as more Boston-centric happenings. There is so much going on in this city, and I should be out there more.

I suppose I should update my top 5s, as it's been over two years since my inaugural post.

movies: (500) Days of Summer, Funny Girl, Garden State, Whip It and Pride and Prejudice
music (by categories) : songs from Glee, pop hits (Lady Gaga, Ke$ha), alternative (Arcade Fire, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes, Vampire Weekend, Mumford & Sons), musicals, and singer/songwriters (Ingrid Michaelson, Joshua Radin, Regina Spektor)
tv, currently on: Royal Pains, Work of Art, Friday Night Lights, Top Chef and Mad Men

More to come!

The Inaugural Post

Greetings!

Welcome to my little corner of the interweb. I've laid stake to my little soapbox, and am excited to stop hounding my friends and family with questions about tv, movies, music, and whatever else appears in pop culture. Now only those willing to read my musings here will be subjected to my thoughts on these topics.

Why mainstream independent? My top 5 lists usually consist of items just outside of what is popular, but are not crazy avant garde. There is this sliver of entertainment that fits into the ven diagram's shared space of both mainstream culture and independent culture.

Top 5? First pop culture reference? Indeed (High Fidelity). In case you are interested, here are some of my top 5:

Movies: Garden State, Almost Famous, Funny Girl, Stranger Than Fiction, and The American President
Music: Feist, Joshua Radin, Paul Simon, KT Tunstall, The Weepies
TV (currently on): How I Met Your Mother, The Office, Saturday Night Live, LOST, and Scrubs
*These change constantly, and have a lot of close 6-10th place finishers.

Thanks for visiting, I hope to have a lot of interesting things to share with you.

- shk