Wednesday Links

It's too hot to be creative, so let me just throw some stuff your way and see if anything sticks.

Through the beauty of the blogosphere, I grabbed a 1982 U2 show at the Ritz in New York City on St. Patrick's Day. Fabulous stuff from a band that, at the time, was ascending to greatness. I listened to two-thirds of it this morning on the nice air-conditioned subway in. You can listen to/grab the tracks, split into two posts, here and here. According to a U2 setlist site, the show may not be complete, but it's almost all there and the quality is not bad. Thanks to the blog Mars Needs Guitars for the posts.

I finished another back issue of the New Yorker which included a good story by Lara Vapnyar about a young Russian woman trying to make ends meet in Brooklyn. Worth a read here, if you are interested.

Also finished a couple more stories in Haruki Murakami's Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. One, called "Birthday Girl," is unavailable for perusal online, as far as I can tell, but the other, "New York Mining Disaster," is here. Vintage Murakami, both. If you don't want to get the book from England like me, please buy this in the U.S. at the end of the month, or order from an online bookseller like this one.

That's all for now. . .