This month, Brandi and I took a more-or-less spur-of-the-moment trip to Chicago to see my favorite band, the National, on the third night of their tour to promote their new album, First Two Pages of Frankenstein. It was a whirlwind weekend. We only had a few hours in the city before the concert, but the city was glorious, and the show itself (opened by Soccer Mommy, a band I was unfamiliar with but am now happily exploring) was euphoric.
The Commaphile 