I have written and spoken frequently, and especially recently, about the blurring of lines on the right, between legitimate conservative discourse and crazy extremist conspiracy. But I think it's hard for those who don't pay close attention to this stuff to get what I'm talking about. So I thought I'd show you an example: Andrew C.

Welcome to "Meet the Mayor," a segment in which we interview local Foursquare Mayors in their natural habitats.

Great Scott
Joshua Smith

I understand you promote concerts here?
Yeah, Great Scott's kind of my favorite place to book shows. It's the place bands play their first show, then maybe move up to bigger venues and blow up.

If you enjoy killing Nazis in Call of Duty: World at War and killing zombies in Resident Evil, and if you especially love killing zombie Nazis in Call of Duty: World at War 2, you must see what may well be the first and only zombie Nazi movie, Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola's Dead Snow (2009), wherein hapless medical students uncover and reanimate a host of the frozen Fascists while on a ski vacation in Switzerland.

Sad news to start a Friday, or any day: Trish Keenan of influential UK experimental electronic pop act Broadcast has died, according to a statement released by Warp Records. News circulated yesterday that Keenan had been hospitalized since Christmas with pneumonia after contracting the H1N1 virus in Australia where she and her band were on tour.

Here's the Old E doing two crowd-pleasin' tunes, "Dead Vulture Hurricane" and "Between Wind and Water" at that Allston apartment mentioned in the story we ran this week.

READ: "Down in the folk trenches with the Old Edison"

^{"Between Wind and Water"}

We're fairly certain none of them actually live there (except maybe Liam?).

Tonight | Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge | 7 pm

When Vyacheslav Molotov wasn’t busy helping Stalin commit genocide and sundry misdeeds, he collected rare and beautiful books. Journalist Rachel Polonsky got to know this when, for a time, she lived in his apartment.

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THURSDAY 01.13 | THROWED @ Middle East downstairs

Is Throwed Boston’s biggest dance party? Several hundred screaming-mad, scantily clad, college-aged electro kids can’t be wrong, right? Despite Facebook groups like “Enough with the Throwed Pictures,” E-Marce’s party was promoted from Tuesdays to Thursdays.

So it's time to close the books on 2010 and, like Johnny Hallyday in this still from Johnnie To's "Vengeance" (number 9 in A.S. Hamrah's Ten Best list), and raise a toast to "Another Year" (Number 1 in A.S. Hamrah's Ten Best list). Brett Michel also offers his thoughts and judgments on the past year in film.

A.

Sometime this year, we’ll get a fresh new studio album from HALLELUJAH THE HILLS. Until then, there’s this internet-only live cut of “Nightingale Lightning,” which they recorded last summer on Woody Guthrie’s birthday at a gig in Toronto while on tour with Titus Andronicus. The show has a special place in the hearts of the folksy rock band after they were detained by the border patrol for more than three hours and their van was torn to shreds, en route back to the States.

John Hawkins has now written a blog post in response to my challenge, that you've read about here on this blog, over his claim that liberals are "happy" that Congresswoman Giffords was shot. Hawkins stands firmly by his statements, makes clear that he does not mean it as hyperbole, and adds that people like David Brock, Keith Olbermann, and others have exhibited "inhuman behavior."

Keith Olbermann has given the following comment to the Boston Phoenix, in response to John Hawkins's assertion that Olbermann and others are "happy" and "overjoyed" that Congresswoman Gifford was shot:

"Mr. Hawkins's remark suggests he is mentally disturbed. I'm very sorry for his plight."

And from Ari Rabin-Havt, executive vice president at David Brock's Media Matters for America:

Last night, I began demanding that conservative blogger/columnist John Hawkins name, specifically, which liberals he is accusing of being happy that Congresswoman Giffords was shot. (See my blog post.) Many of you rose to my call, and joined in my protest.

Well, give Hawkins credit for manning up, at least. He has just Tweeted the following:

It's no secret Yahoo! Answers is the cesspit of the Internet, a place where coherent thought goes to die. Recently, I found out it had a Books section. I went searching for Babby, but instead I found several confused people, some misguided aspiring authors, and a whole bunch of high school students too lazy to do their homework.

Ari Up of the Slits at Coney Island in 2000

"Lowell Lecture Series: Boston's Best" | With conductor Keith Lockhart | Boston Public Library, Rabb Lecture Hall, Copley Square, Boston | January 13 @ 6 pm | 617.536.5400 or bpl.org

Meetup Game Nite 8 | Socialize and play Apples to Apples, Settlers of Catan, Trivial Pursuit, and other games | Prudential Center Food Court, 111 Huntington Ave, Boston | January 14: 6:30-9:30 pm | mgn.

After a successful run with last year's Celtics anthem "Who Are We?" - well, successful for the song, at least - Cambridge heavyweights N.B.S. return with "Pats Music" just in time for the NFL playoffs. I don't know a damn thing about football, but I can tell you that this shit hits extremely hard.

Say what you want about latching onto sports teams, but it's clearly one of the best ways for Boston hip-hop artists to gain exposure outside of the regional and underground scenes.

In the new issue of the Boston Phoenix -- in print tomorrow, online now -- I write about the dangerous game Republican and conservative leaders are playing with the conspiratorial fringe, regardless of what happened on Saturday in Tucson.

Some thoughts before I send you to the article. I have tried, from the first moments, to avoid drawing any premature conclusions about the factors contributing to it.

On sale Thursday, January 13

The Pretty Reckless | March 3 at the Brighton Music Hall, Allston | $13 | On sale at noon via ticketmaster.com

Of Montreal | May 1 at the Paradise Rock Club, Boston | $26.50 | On sale at noon via ticketmaster.com

On sale Friday, January 14

"Good vs. Evil: An Evening with Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert" | March 4 at Symphony Hall, Boston | $34-$199 | On sale at 10 am via ticketmaster.

Herman Cain announced his 2012 Presidential exploratory committee formation today, the first (somewhat) significant candidate to do so.

Most importantly, this forces polijournos like me to decide between "Is Cain Able?" "Yes He Cain?" "A Cain Mutiny in GOP?" "Raising Cain" and "Cain-Do Spirit" for our headlines.

John Hawkins runs rightwingnews.com, is a regular columnist at Townhall.com, and in a variety of ways gets treated like a legitimate part of the conservative world, despite the fact that he's an offensive, ill-informed idiot. Which is usually fine with me; I've knocked him on this blog a couple of times over the years, but nothing more than that.