AIMEE MANN GETS HELP FROM A FRIEND

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For years, Aimee Mann's sweet voice and her dark and brilliant lyrics have obscured the opportunities for strong electric guitar play in her music. On Tuesday night at Avalon, those opportunities fully flowered under the fingers of sideman Julian Coryell.

From a thrilling, reverberating, show-ending solo on "Long Shot" that was not deterred by his breaking a string to the subtle slide atmosphere he created for "Voices Carry," the 'Til Tuesday tune that Mann selected for her second encore, Coryell was the story of the evening.


A RICH HISTORY OF AA'S COFOUNDER

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From previous books, we know that Susan Cheever, a columnist for the Long Island newspaper Newsday, has suffered heavily under the yoke of alcohol, both as the child of author (and hard drinker) John Cheever and as an adventurous souse in her own right.

Perhaps this helps explain why, for her new book, she profiles history's most influential drunk, William Griffith Wilson, known to legions as Bill W., the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous.


MERCHANT TAKES CENTER STAGE

CAMBRIDGE - The richness of her voice has never been in doubt, but
one never knows which Natalie Merchant will grace the stage on concert
night. Monday night at Sanders Theatre, it was the charming, chatty
one, if also a bit fatigued from giving her third show in three nights.

Interspersed among her 17 songs were observations about the number
of billionaires in Moscow, the prospect of sharing David Letterman's
stage with Bill Clinton, and why anyone would use binoculars in the
Sanders: "It doesn't get more intimate than this."


Double green

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I've mentioned that I'm currently one of the volunteers for Greater Boston Green Drinks, an e-mailing list of about 525 people interested in, or working in the fields of, environmental responsibility. We draw lots of advocates, engineers, builders, policymakers, analysts, students and the just-plain-interested.

I've been going a year, and for much of that time, we met once a month, on the first Tuesday. Beginning last month, we decided to add a second gathering a month, on the third Wednesday.


FOR ONE ADDICT, A SITCOM RINGS TRUE

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Viewers will have many reactions to "Starved," the situation comedy about compulsive eaters that debuts tonight at 10 on FX: It is raunchy, discomforting in spots, and uproariously funny.

But they should not come away thinking that people like the four
main characters Sam, Billie, Dan, and Adam don't exist. If you come away from the show thinking that way, you are wrong, pure and simple.

I can make such a fat-out statement because I'm one of them.


OF SALT AND THE EARTH In a land of kings, these relics are awesome

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PETRA, JORDAN — A downside to visiting any of the world's A-list travel sites is
that they are not so much virgin experiences as they are comparisons
with what you learned in school, with photographs you have seen, or
with tales cousin Jerry told from his summer vacation.

At the other end of the spectrum, you could call it the Z list, are
a million places you have never heard of because there is no reason to
go.


And now Hillary is dead too, only it’s worse

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I labeled a post of a couple of days ago, "John McCain is dead to me," about his asinine proposal to suspend the federal gas tax for the summer.

Dumb idea — we need the money it brings in for infrastructure repairs and suspending the tax would lead to more driving, which means more CO2 in the atmosphere. And, it's pandering, because the 18 cents a gallon is hardly going to make a meaningful difference in the lives of people.

The larger disappointment for me was that McCain's stunting was proof that he would bring no commitment to environmental change if elected.


GIBRALTAR'S PROFILE STILL A SIGHT TO BEHOLD

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GIBRALTAR - Driving down the AP-7, the toll version of the highway
that follows Spain's Costa del Sol, we saw it shrouded in haze about 20
miles out, but there could be no doubt: This was Gibraltar, and it is
one big rock.

It's not only size that makes the impression. Even in the hilly
topography of Andalusia, the rock bursts so abruptly upward from the
bottom of Europe that it is easy to see why the ancients called it one
of the Pillars of Hercules, placed there to mark the edge of the known
world.


BUILDING GREEN, PIECE BY PIECE Assembled onsite from factory-built components, a Lawrence residence is designed to save its owne

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LAWRENCE - With its huge "Think Green, Live Green" banner and its blocks-long mass of space being converted into "ecoluxury" residential and commercial space, Monarch on the Merrimack is the grandest example of this city's plan to go green.

But while the developer of the former Wood Mill has paused to
arrange new financing, a much more modest project - a three-bedroom, 2-bath home built in pieces in a factory and assembled onsite in less than a day - opens to the public today just around the corner.


EARTH, WIND, AND POWER In Westport dream home, man looks to turbine, geothermal wells to propel hopes of energy self-sufficiency

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WESTPORT - When Phillip Burgess gets an idea in his head, he's not likely to let go. Consider how he wound up in the kitchen of celebrity chef Todd English.


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