links of dubious usefulness, no. 3

o Aquarium Drunkard posts what I’m guessing is the August 1967 rehearsal preceding the Beach Boys’ gigs in Hawaii — their last shows (I’m pretty sure) as the original quartet of Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson, Mike Love, and Al Jardine. Smile had already combusted, but Brian was still pretty far from a vegetable (though Mike Love’s brutal dickheadedness comes to fore atop what sounds like a great sounding rehearsal of “Heroes and Villains”). Still, the harmonies are brotherly and beautiful. (Thanks, Justin.)

o Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan posts the following:

We want to let you know that once again Yo La Tengo will take to the airwaves of the mighty WFMU and do our best to help them make some well-deserved money. Listen live over wfmu.org (details available on the Schedule page at yolatengo.com) on Tuesday March 7 from 8 pm – 11 pm, eastern time. Anyone who pledges to the station during that time gets to make a request, and Georgia, James and I — helped out as always by Mr. Bruce Bennett– will do our best to play it. Don’t miss it.

o The New York Times Magazine’s real estate issue proclaims Bourgwick to be the Next Neighborhood (bypass registration) in an article subtitled “How An Undesirable Neighborhood Becomes the Next Hot Spot.” The Times has covered Bourgwick before, but not at this level, with at least a half-dozen color newsprint photos (with circles and arrows!) of places within a two-block spitting range. Unlike the last story, which was about the social development of the place, Robert Sullivan’s piece gets into the mechanics of the neighborhood’s economics. Our neighborhood is very much a satellite of Manhattan, and sometimes seemed pleasantly untouched by the bustle of the big island to the west. (Today, for example, dozens of bike messengers gathered on the basketball court out back and veritably jousted.) Of course it’s ignorant to play naive about the real estate development happening underfoot, but it’s also not something that’s easy to find out about. I need to give the article a better read.

o Two blogs I’ve been quite enjoying of late are the Proceedings of the Athansius Kircher Society and Tinselman — both esoteric cabinets o’ digital wonder, featuring bizarre architecture, optical illusions, and other delights.