Mondays after vacation.

The first bit is a nice cover of Roy Orbison’s “Cryin’”; which I haven’t heard in years. So that was nice. The second is a new song entitled “Hotel Plaster” with Jef Plate on the assist. Take a listen and enjoy…

They’re good for you.

They’re listening.

Let ‘em fly today.

Thanks!

Glowing trees of Mordor.

Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros are trying a really interesting project. A twelve part musical based on, well, lead singer Alex Ebert can explain it best:

“According to Ebert, Sharpe “was sent down to Earth to kinda heal and save mankind…but he kept getting distracted by girls and falling in love.”

Who couldn’t relate to a story like that? Part 1 and 2 were recently released through AOL Spinner, and while it remains to be seen whether or not the whole thing “works” as a whole, I applaud the ambitiousness and grandeur of the project (I LOVE bands that go for that elusive epic quality in their work) and will be looking forward to part III when it’s released. The music alone holds my interest, but I enjoy the art house aspect of the videos as well. Judge for yourself and let me know your opinion. Here are opening salvos (sorry) “Desert Song” and Part II “Kisses Over Babylon”. Is that Dermot Mulroney in part II? Awesome.

It has been nearly three years since Norah Jones’s last album, Not Too Late, was released. Her unique jazzy pop sound has won her numerous awards since her 2002 debut album, including numerous Grammy’s, which is why many were curious when she spoke about her upcoming album The Fall and said it “has taken a new direction … [and she's] experimenting with different sounds and a new set of collaborators,” which included the likes of Ryan Adams and Okkervil River’s Will Sheff. Here is the first single off her album, which is delightfully catchy. I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on this album.

Taken from a post at Boston.com celebrating the entries from National Geographic’s International Photography Contest. There are a bunch of them and they are stunning to stare at. I’ve stolen a couple and posted them below but check out the main site and look at many more of them and in much higher resolution.

National Geographic’s International Photography Contest attracts thousands of entries from photographers of all skill levels around the world every year. While this year’s entry deadline has passed, there is still time to view and vote for your favorites in the Viewer’s Choice competition. National Geographic was kind enough to let me choose a few of their entries from 2009 for display here on The Big Picture. Collected below are 25 images from the three categories of People, Places and Nature. Captions were written by the individual photographers.

Cassini gives us a glorious shot of what we call the Northern (or southern) Lights here on Earth. This is the first time we’ve seen them in the visible light spectrum on another planet however. And I gotta say, it’s gorgeous!

The high-resolution video was assembled from 472 still images of Saturn, spaced over 81 hours in October, that show the phenomenon in three dimensions. The lights can be seen as a rippling, vertical sheet up to 750 miles high above Saturn’s northern hemisphere.

Each image has a 2 to 3 minute exposure time, and together they reveal that Saturn’s auroras are rapidly changing, as on Earth. But because of Saturn’s lighter, primarily hydrogen atmosphere, the lights reach much higher than in Earth’s heavier oxygen and nitrogen atmosphere.

Though Cassini has spied the alien auroras in ultraviolet and infrared light before, this time the phenomenon was captured in the visible spectrum. The imaging team added false color to the black and white images to highlight the aurora. Scientists are still trying to figure out what color the lights really are.

Whoo.

Another season of Curb Your Enthusiasm has come and gone, this season being the most hyped of its seven season existence, mostly due to the fact that the season’s storyline would revolve around a Seinfeld reunion episode, reuniting the characters from the cast of the television show and throwing the we’re-thinking-it, he’s-saying-it Larry David in the mix.

For anyone that watched the season seven finale, what did you think? Pretty, pretty good or below average? Did it live up to the hype? Did it live up to the other brilliant season finales? Where does this season as a whole rank among the other seasons? Do you think that this was not only a season finale, but a series finale? Thoughts, questions, concerns, and complaints are all welcome in the comments.

Obviously, spoilers are involved in this discussion, so if you haven’t watched the seventh season yet, you may want to avert your eyes.

Anticipation mounts.

click images for ginormous versions:

Something to do on a Monday. Can you name all of these people? I think I got about 10 of them.