YIKES this isn't really my list, it's just some stuff we talked about as we wrapped up. I adore the Beatle box except for the packaging. (Still, this fits in with their longstanding tradition of tanscending Capitol's packaging.) The real find is Reigning Sound, which gets better upon each listening. Here's the year-end chat with Robin Young, aired today (click here for audio). … [Read more...]

LEAD OF THE WEEK: Kinky Does Parrothead "THERE is a fine line between fiction and nonfiction, and I believe Jimmy Buffett and I snorted it in 1976..." (in the Book Review) And why is this guy a regular on every media outlet? Come again? Don't we have video of Buchanan calling for Trent Lott's resignation? Have we ALL taken crazy pills? … [Read more...]

From Ron Rosenbaum, in the New York Observer: In Ohio, where a switch of some 68,000 votes could have changed the name of the next President, the count deserved maximum scrutiny. Especially when the combination of allegedly "spoiled" invalid ballots (93,000) and the number of "provisional" ballots (155,000)—whose examination and tallying is still underway as I write—could have made a substantial dent in the 135,000-vote Bush margin. I think it’s unlikely it would have changed the result but, when we’re told the entire American polity … [Read more...]

UPDATED 2004 LIST: Dogs Die in Hot Cars PLEASE DESCRIBE YOURSELF (V2) This guy sounds distractingly like XTC's Andy Partridge, waiting for that association to drop away... The Veils THE RUNAWAY FOUND (Rough Trade) This guy sounds like a cross between Neil Diamond and Bono... but in a GOOD way. AD OF THE YEAR (category: running series): For revealing hidden meanings to the Kinks's "Picture Book" (1968): this Hewlett-Packard series dazzles for reorienting your vantage on photos: are we all frozen moments in time, or are pictures … [Read more...]

CULTURE SHOCK: Walking around Harvard Square last week it was like a trap door opening beneath me to discover the hollowed out space where Wordsworth's used to be. 28 years. Where will tomorrow's movie critics come from? Then, on a routine trip to Davis Square, the sign on Disc Diggers announces it's closing December 30th, leaping up onto the web. We got out JUST IN TIME... Picked up a few new discs at CD Willys yesterday after getting Moses his Cub Scout uniform. Very handy, Will had a bunch of toys set out for the boys to fiddle with while … [Read more...]

Here's my review of Dylan's Chronicles on WBUR's Arts pages. Here's the passage nobody else seems to have noticed yet: "...In the midst of all this blarney, there are scenes that conjure up dodged bullets. Once, while sitting around Johnny Cash's house after dinner with Graham Nash, Kris Kristofferson, and some others, trading tunes, an anti-Semitic remark from a Country Music patriarch Joe Carter stops the camaraderie cold. Dylan barely blinks. It's not news that the Carter family were paranoid misogynists with redneck vinegar in their … [Read more...]

Nancy Franklin's lead is (as SKL would say) "crashingly banal": "Though there has not yet been a poll to prove the validity of this claim, it’s probably fair to say that most Americans will not be glad to hear that the 2008 campaign started on Wednesday, November 3rd." Versions of that sentiment appear the week after every presidential election. But this sentence, buried deep below, is far worse, and people have been fired for less: "The television news organizations, having burned themselves in the 2000 election by calling Florida too … [Read more...]

Here's the funniest graph from this weary obituary, but far from the least likely: Mr. Bush's Republican Party had, during his time in office, so effectively marginalized the opposition Democratic Party that it all but ceased to function in many states. After the suspension of the filibuster rule in the U.S. Senate, the remaining 45 Democratic senators were unable to block any of Mr. Bush's appointments to the federal courts or the executive branch of government. The Republicans had so successfully supported Mr. Bush as an infallible and … [Read more...]

Dear Tim, I am glad you tracked down "That's Where I Went Wrong," and am not surprised that you were evidently a bit disappointed. Thems the perils of nostalgia. The funny thing about this is that I had the same odd desire to track down the song, although I could only remember fragments of the lyrics; then when I was living in Canada it was suddenly playing on the radio and almost fell over. I am very amused that you remember the song's bus imagery, because I couldn't make out the word bus. I heard the lyric either as "this house is awful … [Read more...]