Pitchfork

Paul Lukas writes Uni Watch, an ESPN.com column in which he pores over just about every conceivable detail of the uniforms and other duds worn by your favorite athletes. It is a gloriously nerdy pursuit.

Stephin Merritt pens immaculately conceived, highly literate, frequently concept-driven pop songs with his many bands, not the least of which is the Magnetic Fields. It, too, is a gloriously nerdy pursuit.

Despite the nature of their lives' works, however, Lukas and Merritt wouldn't seem to have a whole lot in common at first blush.

Which makes it all the weirder-- but gloriously so-- that Lukas will bring his very particular way of looking at the world to a pair of dates on the Magnetic Fields' forthcoming fall tour. For the band's Minneapolis and Madison shows, Lukas will be joined by his fellow ephemera enthusiast Liz Clayton, who runs the utterly fascinating Not Fooling Anybody. Jointly, Lukas and Clayton call themselves Forewords, and they each expect to take up 15 minutes of your time with a PowerPoint presentation and their chatter.

On Lukas' Uni Watch blog, he notes that he's unsure at the moment just what he'll be going into great detail about on the Magnetic Fields dates, but notes it could be anything from trade magazines to "the design evolution of butchery charts or the cultural history of the baseball cap. Or it might be something else entirely. I'm still deciding."

The Fields' tour kicks off October 10. Thanks to reader Jamin Hollingsworth for the tip.

Don't forget that one of Merritt's own fixations-- the theatrical production of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, featuring music penned by Merritt himself-- opens May 6 at New York's Lucille Lortel Theatre. Plus, Merritt chats with Daniel Handler in San Francisco on September 11 as part of the City Arts & Lectures series "Talking Music".

The Magnetic Fields:

10-10 Minneapolis, MN - State Theatre *
10-11 Madison, WI - Capitol Theater at Overture Center for the Arts *
10-13 Dallas, TX - The Majestic
10-14 Austin, TX - The Paramount Theater
10-15 Boulder, CO - The Boulder Theater
10-17 Atlanta, GA - Symphony Hall at the Woodruff Arts Center
10-18 Raleigh, NC - Meymandi Concert Hall at Progress Energy Center
10-23 Jersey City, NJ - Loews Jersey Theatre
10-24 Columbus, OH - The Southern Theatre
10-25 Philadelphia, PA - The Merriam Theater
10-26 Washington, DC - Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University

* with Forewords