It's been/will be a pretty big week for me here. Observe:

1) Today's my last day at the Superior Court of Justice. Best job of my life so far. The work was mind-blowingly fascinating, the judges were a pleasure to work for, and I can't possibly imagine a funnier, friendlier, smarter or more supportive group of co-workers. Best. Job. Ever.

2) This past Monday, I came into work to find a voice mail from respected criminal defence lawyer John Rosen, asking if I could come in for a meeting. When I got there, I chatted with him and one of his associates, and before long, I found myself taking a tour of the office and being introduced to everyone as "Paul Alexander, who will be joining us in September."

It's a small firm—I'll be lawyer number four (or five, depending on how you count)—and the work, I expect, will be great. Plus I'll get to live up to my last name, which literally translates to "The Defender of Men." Over the past month or two of serious job-hunting, there was a lot of praying and a lot of support from people around me. Both paid off in spades. Likely outcome: Better Than Best. Job. Ever.

3) On Sunday, I fly to Kenya. (Well, really, I fly to Amsterdam, and then on Monday, I fly to Kenya. It takes a long time to fly to Kenya.) I've fantasized about going to sub-Saharan Africa since I was around nine years old, so this is a very big deal for me. Brother Chris and cousin Michelle meet me in Nairobi on August 10, and on August 11 we're off for a safari in the Masai Mara.

Then it's off to Rwanda for a few days. From there, Michelle heads home and Chris and I head overland from Kigali to Lake Bunyonyi in Uganda.

From there, it's a 6-hour bus ride to Kampala, where we'll sample the local music scene and gorge on what we're told is the best Indian and Ethiopian food outside of, well, India and Ethiopia. It's not far from there to the base of the Nile River, whose rapids we'll be rafting. (Given our planned trip to Egypt next February, this means that we'll see both ends of the Nile within six months. I think that's just neat.)

One overnight bus ride later, and we'll be back in Nairobi in time for Chris to fly to South Africa. Me, I might work in a trip to the centuries-old Swahili Lamu Town, on an island in the Indian Ocean just off the Kenyan coast.

And then home, and then I start my new job, and somewhere in there I go see Genesis on their first Toronto date since June 6, 1992. Which was, not coincidentally, the last time I saw Genesis.

So basically, life is just amazing. Praise God!

Question for book-loving friends (themusesbitch and pipesdreams, I'm looking at you here): I'm leaving next week for a month in East Africa, and as Sarah Harmer once sang, "holidays are made for reading." I've got the new Michael Chabon novel, some C.S. Lewis (who may be the greatest Christian writer since, oh, the apostle Paul), a David Sedaris collection, and (just because I'm going to Uganda), a copy of The Last King of Scotland. What else should I be packing?

It's now legally summer. This means it's time for summer albums. Here, in no particular order, are the summer records you should really be playing while you're sipping mojitos in the park:*

• Acid - Ray Barretto
• Reveal - R.E.M.
• Out of Time - R.E.M. (yeah, I know. That's two R.E.M. records. But they're both awesome. You're lucky I don't put Monster on here too.)
• Weezer (The Blue Album) - Weezer
  
• Weezer (The Green Album) - Weezer
• Wild Honey - The Beach Boys
  
• Greatest Hits - Sly & The Family Stone (normally, I consider Greatest Hits albums to be cheating, but  "Hot Fun In The Summertime" was never on an official album. And really, you need that song.)
  
• Abraxas - Santana
• Honey From The Tombs - Amy Millan
  
• Cannibal Sea - The Essex Green
• The World Won't End  - Pernice Brothers
• Daisies of the Galaxy - Eels
• Central Reservation - Beth Orton
• Odessy & Oracle - The Zombies (and yes, they really spelled "Odyssey" that way on the album cover)
• Africafunk, Vol. II - Various artists
• Traffic and Weather - Fountains of Wayne

That should be enough to get you started. Enjoy!

*Sipping mojitos in the park is illegal. You shouldn't do it, unless you want to get a ticket with a nasty fine.

Aug 5:
YYZ - AMS
AMS - NBO

Sept 5:
NBO - AMS

Sept 6:
AMS - YYZ

Another great musical discovery from the weekend: We Can Work It Out: Covers & Cookies of Lennon, McCartney and The Beatles.

There's not much particularly interesting about your average Beatles covers album—hell, who hasn't covered The Beatles? Even if you're not a musician, you've still probably recorded and released a Beatles cover or two. But this is not your average Beatles covers album. It's a collection of mostly-obscure funk, soul and reggae takes on the fabs' music, released by the formidable Harmless Recordings. Harmless is based in England, where they really take their obscure funk seriously, and pretty much every Harmless compilation CD is guaranteed to be awesome. Their albums are imported and therefore expensive if purchased new, so I have a standing policy that I will buy any Harmless disc that I stumble across in a used record shop. They rarely disappoint.

Anyway, there are at least three good reasons to track down a copy of this record and give it a listen. They are:

1) Al Green's cover of "I Want To Hold Your Hand."
It's not cool to slam The Beatles, but let's be honest: this song kind of sucks. Or at least it did until The Reverend Green got a hold of it and turned it from a naive bit of Merseyside pop fluff into a searing, smoking explosion of repressed libido.

2) Stevie Wonder's cover of "We Can Work It Out."
I put this tune on the hi-fi a few years ago while my brother was napping. When the chorus hit, he sprung up, stared at me in disbelief, and then declared, "This is how you cover a song. They should teach this shit in school." No exaggeration: best cover version ever. Of any song.

3) An obscure reggae version of "Norwegian Wood."
Admit it: you're dying to hear what that would sound like.

So I was eating at Ethiopian House a couple of years ago (and by the way, if you haven't been to Ethiopian House, go go go! Even if you think you don't like Ethiopian food. I thought I hated it; it turns out I just hadn't been to the right place. Sooo tasty). During the meal, there was some seriously bewitching music playing. It had obviously been recorded in the '70s by people who'd been listening to a lot of funk and acid jazz: it was chock full of burbling Wurlitzer electric piano, wah-wah guitar, and deeply funky beats on what sounded like a battered old drum kit. But it clearly wasn't your average, run-of-the-mill funk—there was a spooky, sinister tone that I'd never heard before. It was really, really good music.

I asked the server what it was. Her response? "Ethiopian music." This was interesting, but not particularly helpful. I spent the next couple of years occasionally wondering what the hell we'd been listening to and how I could find it.

Today, I found it. I was surfing around emusic.com when I stumbled across Ethiopiques, Vol. 4, and there it was. It's a compilation of songs by an Ethiopian jazz artist named Mulatu Astatqe, and man! This is one tasty record.

Like I said, it's clearly funk-influenced, but it's got a dark, smoky, mysterious tone that's utterly entrancing. But it's not obscure.

Well, it is obscure—hell, it's 35-year-old music by an unknown Ethiopian jazz artist—but it doesn't sound obscure in that I-don't-really-get-jazz way. A few of the tracks are actually fairly standard latin jazz things, which is weird, but the rest is an intriguing blend of jazz, funk and Ethiopian music. It's familiar, but just strange enough to be thoroughly hypnotic. (Incidentally, if you've seen the Bill Murray/Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers, this is the music they used.)

Go listen to a few song samples and see what you think.

Does anybody have a Windows Vista Home Premium disc they can lend me? My new laptop came with Vista pre-installed, but they thoughtfully did not include a Windows installation disc with the computer. I'd like to reinstall Vista from scratch, but as I don't have the disc, that's going to prove challenging.

I've got a legitimate Product Key, so I'm not looking to pirate the software or anything -- I'm just hoping to get my hands on a disc so that I can do a clean reinstallation. Help!

Will someone explain to me why I didn't join Toronto Kickball years ago? So, so much fun.

Strangely, I managed to design their web site without ever attending a game—until tonight, when I showed up with the lovely pipesdreams and themusesbitch on my arm. (And yes, we were wearing matching tracksuits.) I'm hooked.

I also got to see my old friend Andrew and my law school friend Kate there—two people who make any day more fun.

Also: the song of the summer will be Feist's "I Feel It All." You heard it here first, people.

...go do these things:

1) Download/buy/shoplift the new Feist album, "The Reminder." (Or at least get track 4, "The Park.")

2) Check out this clip of Neil Patrick Harris (yes, that Neil Patrick Harris) and Jason Segel of the awesome sitcom "How I Met Your Mother" duelling on Les Miserables.

3) Pick up Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventurs of Kavalier and Clay and read it immediately. Go now; I'll wait.

Everyone!

Go to christinefellows.com and listen.

I tend to hear a lot lot LOT of music, but it occurred to me recently that while much of it sounds good, only a little bit actually moves me. I just heard Winnipeg's own Christine Fellows on the Ceeb this afternoon, and am happy to report that they're still making the latter kind of music. Her songs are not unlike literate, sculpted versions of those "la la la" interludes that the wonderful Sam Phillips contributes to each episode of Gilmore Girls. Tiny, odd, wordy, perfect bits of chamber pop.

Go listen now.

(Oh, and yes, it's available on emusic, which I will not stop pitching until everyone I know is a subscriber. Tell 'em I sent you.)