- This is cool: Over the Rhine is working on a new album, with Joe Henry producing. Joe Henry’s Blood from Stars has been one of my most-played albums of the last six months, by the way, and I’m excited for this collaboration. But the really cool thing is that OTR started their own label and are inviting fans to help fund the new album by ordering it before it’s recorded. Linford explains it all here. Or, if you’d rather cut straight to the chase, go here. I, being impatient, went for Own It and am listening to demo versions RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND. Beautiful stuff, as you would expect.

- New post from me at Teen Fiction Cafe for In the News week, in which I discuss the special absurdities of local TV news. (Saw it on the news, the TV news / In a black and white video / Do you know what blood looks like in a black and white video? / Shadows, shadows…**)

- This is my neighborhood chocolate shop. Seriously, I go by this place like every day. I don’t go in every day, of course, since chocolate no longer has that place in my life, but I was in one day when they were filming and had to sign a waiver. I don’t have cable so can’t watch it myself. You can, though! Maybe you’ll see me buying a dark chocolate lemon creme.

*At first I titled this “Some Links,” which made me think of E.B. White and “Some Pig,” which made me think of other things Charlotte wrote in her web. (Now I kind of want breakfast sausage…sorry, Wilbur!) Random bit of Sara trivia: Trumpet of the Swan is my favorite E.B. White book. Ever since reading it for the first time, I’ve thought Billings, Montana sounds pretty exotic.

**Lyrics from John Prine’s masterpiece of a song, “Lake Marie.” It’s usually playing in my head at some point during any given week.