Everything You Wanted to Know About Sufjan's "BQE"

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Everything You Wanted to Know About Sufjan's "BQE"

Right at this very moment, an opera house full of some very lucky New Yorkers is taking in the premiere of Sufjan Stevens' orchestral piece "The BQE" at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The rest of us are patiently waiting to find out what the hell "The BQE" actually is.

Lucky for us, the Asthmatic Kitty website posted today a tractor-trailer-load of information about the piece.

Want a brief overview of Sufjan's fascination with the hippest highway in indie rock? Go here. How about Sufjan's thoughts on how the hula hoop is related to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway? There ya go. Or a list of things Sufjan and the NYPD found on the side of the road? (Choice quote: "4. Your cane. Why walk, when you can drive the BQE!") The official bird of the BQE? The House Sparrow, of course.

What about, you know, the actual music thing? Oh, that. Here's a list of everybody who's performing with Sufjan. Looks like My Brightest Diamond, Marla Hansen, and members of Crystal Skulls, Clare & the Reasons, Antony's Johnsons, and many, many more.

So what did we learn here? Well, Sufjan is a very good writer. And a funny guy! Also, we should all move to Brooklyn.

Posted by Amy Phillips on Thu, Nov 1, 2007 at 9:26pm