It's the "Rest in my arms/Sleep in my bed/There's a design/To what I did and said" that gets to me. Michigan's a rough album! People say Casimir Pulaski Day is a sad song, but it doesn't have the impact to me that The Upper Peninsula or Vito's Ordination song does honestly — still super sad though.

That statement was basically a misnomer, it's a really complex composition and it isn't all in the vein of classical. The first movement is fairly languid, it has a nice piano-heavy composition with some symphonic backing, and a few of the other tracks are similar. Then there's Movement IV, which is very heavy on…

It's hard to jive those interviews with Sufjan. At his concerts he's really soft-spoken and polite and seems almost shy, I think that he's not trying to come off as a prick, he just doesn't have great PR skills. Which makes sense, it's just a guy who wants to make music right now, after people tried to invest in him…

Is it just me?
Has Ounsworth gotten to be a better singer? Most of his stuff from this album feels a lot neater and focused in terms of vocals than CYHSY or Some Loud Thunder, though still weird. Poor unfortunate voice.

Sufjan hasn't completely abandoned state albums — just last year he was putting some consideration on doing an album on Oregon. Mostly due to the fact that he has some strong emotional ties from staying in Eugene with his mother for a few summers, and the way the landscape and the coast struck him. But he's obviously…

P.S. — Illinois isn't an album you really have to 'get through' or focus on, a lot of that structure does have some ambient noodling on strings or brass that's gorgeous, but hard to pay attention to. It makes great background music for driving or the like. If you ever go on a road trip, give it a shot, you'll…

Michigan is definitely one of the best starting places for Sufjan if you don't feel you can really dive into the structure of Illinois, BUT I would also like to make mention of The Avalanche, the outtakes CD from Illinois. It has some very solid songs that just didn't fit into the progression of Illinois, and they…

I think that Seven Swans has that kind of scope and power, but on a more personal scale. Whereas Illinois is a big concept, most songs on Seven Swans correlate directly to Sufjan's personal life, his time growing up, and his faith. Honestly, I connect a lot more with that emotion than I do the thematic depth of…

Okay
As a huge Sufjan fan, I'm just going to say that the BQE is pretty radical. You don't have to be a fan of classical as much as enjoying some of Sufjan's more epic orchestration in general, he had plenty of it on Illinois which everyone seems to get in their head is his only album. Personally, from a musical…

He's already said he's not really going to do an album for every state, and he never really was.

Basically anything involving Hunter can be reasoned to be completely insane. Also if you want a legit explanation, I'm not sure that plastic surgeon really knew how to do a conventional sex change anyways.

Awesome secret/campy organization tally:
OSI, Black Hearts, SPINX, Guild of Malicious Intent, The Order of the Triad, The Fraternity of Torment, Impossible Industries, Venture Industries

'Proper sex change' excuse me one of the characters survived having a robot head embedded in his chest, which was later implied to be a fad relating to Iron Man. I don't think we have to be realistic about Hunter's sex change.

It's probably just a campy reference to how Nazis in general seem to be just solely interested in reviving Hitler in absurd ways. If you wanna think about the logistics, think about this — what would reviving Hitler do in the first place anyways, it's not like he has a country. They're just insane. Also what was with…

They probably sewed his dick back on. Hunter's just that crazy.

Saul was bad, American Dad is Fox just rerun on Adult Swim, and Lucy Daughter of the Devil was unengaging but those other shows were good, also Home Movies ruled, Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job is fantastic, and Metalocalypse is typically pretty funny.

That or of course, it could have been Hunter at some point in his ways. If he manages to pull an elaborate enough sting that it involved a fake sex-change, I'm sure that modding a car wouldn't be that huge of a deal.

Doc and Jackson have shown themselves really strong on backstory and closing those holes in Season 3 and it's got me stoked to see where this is going to go. Besides that secretive organizations are awesome in the first place.

Yay
Gosh I'm so excited that you guys are finally covering venture brothers on its own. This season just promises to be radical. I mean, people were dissing on Season 3, but I'm a comic geek to the heart and I love back story and dense plot, and all of the pop culture allusions they toss in

See it's 'cool' to like Sunny since it isn't breaking the bulge into widely-accepted popularity/acclaim, whereas 30 Rock was nominated for a ton of Emmys and is obviously in a decline, sure.