Now here's a group of funny guys.

Covering Saturday's events of the New York Times Arts and Leisure Weekend, I was super stoked to hang at the Times Center all day to shoot and hear interviews from Tavis Smiley, Keith Olbermann, Vampire Weekend and Lewis Black.

Keith was pretty funny and Lewis Black is hard to beat in any comedic realm, but naturally, Vampire Weekend stole the show for me... even though Ben Sisario spent half the sesh talking about Paul Simon and the other half about the origin of madras. I guess that's what makes good music journalism these days ... good God Lester, Hunter, where are you when we need you??

These guys stylistically have somehow perfectly written lyrics to match their fascinating arrangements of underrated instruments, such as the cello and the harpsichord. And come on! No one's rocked out on harpsichord like this since Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, so you've got to at least give them credit for that. However, as intriguing as their sound is, you really can't ignore the pretentious drips of prep/ivy undertones, but really, it's ok. For once, the marketing overkill on image is actually who these dudes are. They are preppy, they did go to an Ivy League and they are attempting to set a tone for a genre. Now, Ben! Shut up about Graceland already!

One of my favorite lines is from the song One (Blake's Got a New Face) off of their self-titled freshmen album. It goes as follows: "English Breakfast tastes like Darjeeling, but she's too cute to even ask..."

Not the cute part, but a line I can obviously love and relate to. And guess what, I'm not a prep and I went to a state school! And come to think of it, Ben, I DO love Paul Simon!

This image is one of those "ride the flash" moments, as Roger Kisby would say, and I think the light from the right totally adds to this particular moment with the boys of Vampire Weekend.