The Dark Knight

Let's hope the script for this one is better. They did get rid of Katie-Holmes-as-Joey-Potter, so it's at least go that going for it. Gary Oldman is always fabulous, and the trailer actually looks pretty intriguing. And Christian Bale? Holy hot deliciousness, Batman.

I Heart John Mayer

In the dark arena, John Mayer walked to the microphone and said, "My name is John Mayer. I was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. My music was born in Atlanta, Georgia." The lights went up, and the band launched into "Why Georgia." This moment launched my love for John Mayer into full-blown euphoria.

He really built a lot of great guitar solos into the new songs, like "Vultures" and "Belief." The jumbo-tron shots of his fingers moving over the frets were astounding, and it seemed that he was trying to see who among his fan base would get a thrill out of his well-developed guitar chops. He purposefully (I think) stayed away from "Your Body is a Wonderland" and other softer hits. "Belief" was actually my surprise of the night - I like the song, but the performance made it come alive. And when he closed with "Gravity," man, he rocked it. He and the band jammed, really working the song over.

I thought his voice sounded better last night than the last time I saw him live. He made some of his bizarre faces, but I thought he'd cut down on some of the mouth contortion that overly affected his singing. Particularly "Heart of Life," he sang cleanly and simply. And for a moment, I remembered when this album came out, and I couldn't stop listening to it, and I blogged about listening to this CD on the drive home, and my heart ached for Wilmywood and all that I'd left behind. So much so that I was transported for a moment back to the fall, back to MLK, and I watered up a little bit before returning to my body in Philips Arena.

The entire concert had me amped, but the encore for the show was what made the price of the ticket all worth it for me. "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room" acoustic with three-part harmony. Absolutely gorgeous. And then, the moment where me and Johnny went one on one. Where he looked into my soul and knew the song I most wanted to hear. Sitting alone on a stool under a white spotlight he simply said, "This is the first song I ever wrote." And started playing "Comfortable." From his EP Inside Wants Out. I never thought I'd hear him play it, and certainly not acoustic. It was haunting and wonderful and the only moment that I totally girled out on my brother and squealed.

As if that wasn't enough, he started playing "Georgia on My Mind" while the band reassembled, joined him, and then somehow turned it into "I'm Gonna Find Another You." And as I said to Justin, "Now that's an encore."

Set List
Why Georgia
No Such Thing
I Don't Trust Myself (With Loving You)
Vultures
Covered in Rain
Bigger Than My Body
Belief
Dreaming With A Broken Heart
I Don't Need No Doctor
The Heart of Life
Waiting on the World to Change
Gravity

-- encore --
Slow Dancing (acoustic)
Comfortable (acoustic)
I'm Gonna Find Another You

Nerd Alert

As if the spate of Harry Potter posting didn't tip you off, I'm going to seal the bargain: I am a nerd.

For the past few weeks, I've been watching Simon Schama's The Power of Art on PBS, which comes on a couple of hours after my mother's weekly dose of Antiques Roadshow. The Power of Art is like Behind the Music: Classical Art. Each one is about the rise to heady success, the onset of arrogance, the downfall, and the death in utter disgrace. It's kind of addictive. And I'm mildly in love with Schama, an affable British historian who possesses something of a Tim Gunn air about him. He strolls through galleries in the same open-collar white button-up and black tailored jacket in each episode and tosses out pithy, almost gossipy information about each of the artists and their masterworks. Like Bernini, a sculptor who committed adultery, only to find his brother was doing the same with the same woman, and therefore sent a servant to slash his mistress's face with a razor blade.

I'm no art critic, and, in fact, have very little real understanding of the meaning of most art. But Schama makes these artists into the rock stars of the day, celebrities mingling among the rich and powerful until they decide to make a scandalous statement with their work. It is his exploration of their work that I find so fascinating. The way he talks about it, wandering through the veriest details, it is so captivating that suddenly I can see why David's The Death of Marat is unholy and beautiful and transcendent and treason. And after he raptured about the exquisitely fine line between reverence and revelry in Bernini's The Ecstasy of St. Therese, I hope I get to see it firsthand before I die.

There are only eight episodes, and I'm sorry to say I missed three of them - Van Gogh (featuring Andy Serkis as Van Gogh!), Picasso and Caravaggio. I saw Bernini, Rembrandt and David, and still have Turner and Rothko to go. The show is an absolute culture clash in my mind: art deemed so great that it demanded reverence and an explication of it the brings in all the messy passion and rebellion and irreverence. It is art historian meets Perez Hilton. And I can't get enough.

My Boyfriend's Back

I couldn't find the raw photos on this, so please note that I concur with Perez Hilton's assessment. Additional delicious photos can be viewed on the Blackberry Curve site. Oh, how I wish I had better seats for the August 5 concert. A girl can dream.

Leaving: Part Two

Last night, watching American Idol, I couldn't help thinking during the recap of last week's show that I had watched it in my apartment. Particularly, the few seconds of Annie Lennox's cover of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" that nearly brought me to my knees last week.

The literal translation of deja vu is already seen. And we use it to talk about that feeling of having experienced something before. The recap wasn't so much a sense of deja vu, as it was that I had literally seen the show before. But at the same time, it was strange to be trying to match up the first experience with the second. With the window for saying "this time last week I was in Wilmywood" closing up fast, the opportunity for deja vu is going out that window.

But is there a word for the confusion of seeing something out of context? I've seen several cars this week that look like those of office mates and friends from Wilmywood. For a moment, the lines between time and place are obliterated, and I'm left standing there wondering where I am. Similarly, I see things here that belong in other parts of my life. Like Jackson Street, where a long-ago boy I liked used to live. I notice it - something in my brain flagging its importance - and deliberate briefly about whether or not it belongs in the present.

The neatly compartmentalized eras of my life are escaping their confines and blurring together. And without a clear direction - no address, no job, nothing to ground me - I feel like I'm just swirling around in all my different selves, able to be one or the other at any given moment.

Seacrest In?

Dear Ryan Seacrest:
I admit that in seasons past of American Idol, I complained about you. I called you whiny. And punkish. And annoying. I may have even said that I kind of hated you.

I don't know what happened between this season and last, whether it's me or you. But I'm kind of in love with you this season. Maybe it's the way you came to Sanjaya's defense after his "Something to Talk About" performance. Let's face it - he's just a kid and Simon was really giving it to him. And you stepped in and stopped the massacre. All five-foot-four of you! It was kind of a thrilling moment.

And this whole Idol Gives Back effort has me seeing you in a whole new light. Sure, the highlights you got put in before you went to Africa cost more than these kids have ever seen, but you seem genuinely touched by the experience and - dare I say it? - much deeper of a human being than your shellacked exterior suggests.

I might have a little crush on you. Just a little one though. No bigger than your skinny ties.

XO & Ashley out

RuMANations

A girlie-girl prone to crushes since, oh, I don't know, birth, I've always had some celebrity that I secretly pined for - or not so secretly wrote on every notebook I carried. According to the same journal that charted my musical tastes, I've had crushes on the following celebrities:

Dean Cain (of Lois & Clark fame) * Chipper Jones (of the Atlanta Braves) * Adam Duritz (of Counting Crows) * Harrison Ford * Colin Firth * Michael Schoeffling (from Sixteen Candles, although my crush had more to do with the little-known Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken) * Hugh Jackman * Joshua Jackson * John Mayer...and I'm sure there were many, many more whose names I was smart enough to not catalog for future embarrassment.

But far more embarrassing than any of my past crushes is that, I must confess, I still get celebrity crushes. And they seem to come in threes. My current list of crushes includes:

*James Purefoy - British and delicious. If you missed HBO's Rome, you missed his incredibly witty and sexy portrayal of Mark Antony, you missed out. He's just rugged. And wicked. Great voice, too. A guy's never looked so hot shoving a sword into his gullet.

*Christian Bale - I know he was popular among my friends (a.k.a. NIKI!) when he was in Swing Kids. I thought he was cute then, but now? He's smoldering. He's got that mysterious quality. Best Bruce Wayne ever (and with the worst script of all of them).

*Mr. Armani - I tried to find out this guy's name, and the best I can do is find one site that names him Andrew Cooper. But I don't think that's right. So we'll just call him Mr. Armani. He's spearheading the spring campaign for the label, and well, let's just say I'm glad we get GQ in the office so that I could tear the ads out and pin them to my billboard. Plus the latest issue has Christian Bale on the cover - bonus!

Once a crusher, always a crusher.