Erstwhile Pop Jesus Bob Dylan made a move I’ve been expecting him to make ever since he started producing himself under the name “Jack Frost.” He’s celebrating the birth of actual* Jesus with a record. It’s called “Christmas in the Heart.” And while “Ring Them Bells” has been showing up on my Christmas mix tapes [...]
My birthday is in two weeks. I’ll be 25 years old. At this point, there aren’t very many things that make me feel old. On the Media found a way, though. In this week’s all-music episode, the first segment points out that Napster started 10 years ago. I remember using my limited computer time at [...]
It’s pledge time again at public radio and TV stations all across the country. They need money to keep the news coverage and shows you love on the air, and you have some. I know you do. There’s totally a spare $5 in your wallet right now or a $20 sitting in checking that you’re [...]
One of the things I’ve always loved about the public radio approach is the exploratory attitude the hosts/correspondents/commentators/reporters take when dealing with an unfamiliar topic. This effect is most pronounced when the person talking needs to explain the relevance of the subject. One of the greatest strengths of “Planet Money” is that the show’s staff [...]
Interesting stuff on this week’s recap – namely the technical glitch that made this post a day late: The fact that I forgot to hit “publish.” So I’m taking this opportunity to rework it. For no particular reason. It happens. I’ve been feeling way under the weather, Kerry’s been out of town, I fell asleep [...]
I can’t say I’ve ever wanted to buy a six-year-old a beer before, but Falcon Henne has earned it. I mean, not only was he and his family on ABC’s “Wife Swap,” not only did he star in a totally awesome rap video with his brothers, but today, Falcon Henne goes down in history not [...]
There’s this song, “The Gift,” by the Velvet Underground. It’s John Cale reading a short story about a guy shipping himself across the country to his girlfriend, while the rest of the Velvets jam on an instrumental number that sounds like Booker T. and the MG’s from Hell. What’s notable about the song, other than [...]
I almost had to pull over to the side of the road after the line, “Don’t worry — McTool survives this heart attack, but he’ll probably have a few hundred more in the next year,” but I was losing it well before this point. It’s just that, in his story about an Arizona training hospital [...]
Hey, it looks like we’ve some new rules to play by, but we’ve been pretty good about abiding by them anyway – basically, you can’t be shilling something as a blogger without being up front about it. You all know that we’re not paid to do this, right? That we don’t make a damn thing from [...]
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Football is Bad for the Brains
When I was in New York last week, I had dinner with Matthew’s copy of the New Yorker at a cafe in Soho. He’s had a New Yorker subscription for almost a year, but doesn’t read it often. The articles are long, the print is tiny, and I can usually make it through the entire [...]