Rock Candy

So I'm back. Calf-sore, sated on ethnic food and wondering why there's no juice bar in Little Rock. Or is there a juice bar hidden in a coffee house that I don't know about?

If you find yourself in a city where Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks are touring, I urge you to go. With his thumb and forefinger, bluegrass style, he plays long, odd and bright and meandering guitar solos that even the anti-jammiest (I'm in the club) can get down with.

Also recommended: "Design and the Elastic Mind" at MoMA, though perhaps not on free Friday. The website, too, is endless futuristic fun.

Ditto for the Museum of Arts and Design's "Pricked: Extreme Embroidery," which sounds narrowly appealing, but is actually broad, oddball fun. My favorite was an embroidery of an open mouth with a tiny tornado inside. All woven with human hair. And the piece from up top, which was one of 40 or so aphorisms from the artist's Transylvania born mother. Like, "My mother claimed that  I can get a female cold from sitting on anything cold."

Sorry to leave you high and dry with no Arkansas related frivolity. Getting back in the saddle post-haste.

What'd I miss?