Organizing your writing life

RETAIL THERAPY: The next few months promise to send me directly to the poorhouse. Music and DVDs are my weakness and there is good stuff coming out soon. Here's what I'm most excited about:

Inland Empire: Sweet baby Jesus! A two-disc special edition of David Lynch's brilliantly bizarre and disturbing movie is coming out on Aug. 14. Lynch is notorious about not putting any extras on his DVDs. Hell, in Mulholland Drive he wouldn't even put chapter breaks on the DVD because he thought the film should be viewed as a whole. Well, for Inland Empire he is apparently pulling out all the stops. There is 90 minutes (!!!) of deleted scenes, which would have made the movie nearly five hours long had they been included, interviews with Lynch and star Laura Dern, a behind-the-scenes doc, something called "More Things That Happened," and even a film of Lynch cooking up some special recipes in the kitchen. I love this man!

Skins: This UK hit television series is having its entire first season put on DVD and it will be available over there in September. I've seen a couple of episodes and it is really out there on the edge...even the show's website is filthy. Booyah! It's about a bunch of teens in England who "get high, get drunk and get laid" -- all to shocking excess. To be honest, I'm not even sure Showtime would pick this up (or remake it). The plotline is every parents worst nightmare come true. The show is held together by a remarkable performance from Nicholas Hoult, last seen as the dorky kid in About A Boy with Hugh Grant and Toni Colette. Trust me...you'll forget all about that when you see this. It's a Region 2 DVD release so you'll need a multi-region DVD player. Definitely worth the investment, kids.

White Chalk - PJ Harvey: Polly Jean puts down her guitars and gets behind the piano to unleash her inner-Kate Bush and Diamanda Galas in this new album. Some clips of her performing the new tunes at concerts around Europe this summer have popped up on YouTube lately and the songs are dark, spare and brilliant. She produced the album with John Parrish who she worked with on Dance Hall at Louse Point, which remains one of my favorite albums of the last 20 years.

Shine - Joni Mitchell: Swearing she was going into retirement, Joni has finished a new album and signed a two-record deal with Starbuck's Hear Music label (which also just released Paul McCartney's new disk). This album, out in September, will probably be her biggest hit since the 70s. She did an extensive interview with the BBC this past Spring and they played a few cuts. It's political, fiery and oh-so Joni on her soapbox. But that's what I love about her. Joni is always bitchy and condescending about other artists and the state of music, but she's got something to say about the current administration and the turmoil going on in the world. Can't wait to hear it! A retrospective of her painting is also apparently happening in NYC this fall. I'd love to see that.