THE WEEKEND STARTS HERE:
FRIDAY TIMEWASTER: Puzzle your way through a round of Ray-Ray.
THE MAGIC NUMBERS' album gets a US release Tuesday but you can stream it wih a nifty Flash player today. I like track five, “Love Me Like You.” And “I See You, You See Me,” which I think is inspired a bit by “I'll Be Your Mirror.”
SUFJAN STEVENS “is the artist who might have been birthed by Flannery O'Connor and Nick Drake, had they ever hooked up.”
THE MOUNTAIN GOATS have a photo-diary from touring down under.
RAY DAVIES is not the cute one, okay?
I'M ONLY SLEEPING, not bidding.
LISTEN MY FRIEND: A new documentary, Spend an Evening With Saddle Creek, tells the story of how a group of friends single-handedly forged one of the biggest labels in the indie era, “and in godforsaken Omaha, of all places.”
DUNGEN: The “Swedish psych-rockers' literally awesome live show reveals them as what they essentially are — a freaking jam band.” But in a good way, I would add. The Pitchfork also reports that the band's U.S. success is getting its 2002 album, Stadsvandringar, a release here on Tuesday. However, from what I've heard, the current disc, Ta Det Lugnt, is less jammy and better.
CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH show the DIY way to hefty profit margin. “Everything started to change as soon as I started wearing brownish-yellow socks,” says frontman Alec Ounsworth.
A.C. NEWMAN has been reading a lot about the New Pornographers, “and it's left him a little perplexed, to say the least.”
NEIL YOUNG: His latest, Prairie Wind, scores a middling 5.8 on the Pitchfork, but there appears to be a wider spread at Metacritic.
SHE'S TAKEN EVERYTHING? The Sonic Impact T-Amp, a 30 dollar, 15-Watt amplifier “easily outperforms amplifiers that cost 100 times more.”
THE ROSEBUDS: Their new album, Birds Make Good Neighbors, scores a respectable 8.1 on the Pitchfork. You can stream a few tracks from the band's MySpace page, but try “Boys Who Love Girls” from the band's debut, too.
PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: Moss has checked into a rehabilitation clinic in Arizona. Sarah Doukas, head of the Storm modeling agency, said Wednesday that Moss would soon sign a contract to represent a luxury perfume brand.
THE SHINING: Remixed in glorious QuickTime. If you haven't seen it, you're cheating yourself.
GWYNETH PALTROW: Knocked up again. Anyone betting on “Banana?”
ALICIA SILVERSTONE: Knocked up? Or just sloppy?
MADONNA wishes she was as talented as ABBA. And she owes thousands in parking tickets, because she's too lazy to walk to her fitness classes. That's her arm that's broken, not her leg.
ADAM SANDLER rumored to be ruining Gilligan's Island, though Jennifer Hawkins could move me out of the “Mary Ann” column.
COURTNEY LOVE, in a moment of clarity promises never to show her breasts in public again because it’s “slutty.” She actually has a few moments of clarity in the midst of a whole lot of crazy talk about her crack phase and more in Spin. And yes, that was a bad pun… is there any other kind?
GREEK CYPRIOT SOLDIERS BANISHED as punishment for an all-night sex romp in Nicosia with a mother-of-three who had them queuing up for more.
BRADGELINA UPDATE: Jolie announced the Global Business Coalition's plan for world domination at an event innocuously billed as an AIDS fundraiser. Don't be fooled! One ring to rule them all! Or was it an elaborate product placement for St. John's knits?
BEYONCE has a foot-long chili dog, much to the amusement of boyfriend Jay-Z. Wonder what he was thinking…
KATE WINSLET will likely join Cameron Diaz for Holiday, the next movie from Nancy Meyers after Something's Gotta Give.
FESTIVUS book coming at the end of October.
TYRA BANKS, fresh from showing her TV audience that they're real and spectacular, gets Jennifer Love Hewitt in on the act.
STEVE BUSCEMI is set to be honored at New York's sixth annual Woodstock Film Festival. Way to go, Mr. Pink!
CIVIL THREESOME: A Dutchman and his wife have signed a co-habitation contract with a woman they met in an internet chatroom.
JESSICA ALBA: Into the Blue gets scads of bad reviews, with the notable exception of Roger Ebert. USA Today gives us a clue as to how co-star Paul Walker will feel reading them. But if it flops, maybe Alba will get around to doing nude scenes.
IRAQ: Only one Iraqi battalion can operate solo, down from three. That's bad news, though at least it shows we're monitoring these batallions. Bill Roggio looks at chaos in Ramadi. The US has reportedly handed over security responsibilities to Iraqi army and police units in Karbala. Sunni opposition to the draft Iraqi constitution is softening, making it likely that voters will approve it in the Oct. 15 referendum. Major K blogs about trying to overcome Iraqi fatalism, which he calls “one of the greatest challenges that we face in training the New Iraqi Army.” And Michael Yon's latest isn't gripping so much as heartwarming.
DeLAY UPDATE: David Corn of The Nation asks top crisis management expert Eric Dezenhall about DeLay's likely strategy. Byron York of National Review reports that prosecutor Ronnie Earle has gave a film crew “extraordinary access” to make a motion picture about his work on the case.
GROUND ZERO: Forgot to mention that NY Gov. Pataki, bowing to a growing campaign by furious 9/11 families, the firefighters and police unions, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and ex-mayor Rudolph Giuliani, ousted a proposed freedom museum from ground zero Wednesday, declaring that the International Freedom Center generated “too much opposition, too much controversy” as to its content and location.
JUDITH MILLER, the New York Times reporter jailed since July 6th for refusing to testify in the C.I.A. leak case, was released Thursday after she reached an agreement with a federal prosecutor to testify before the grand jury. Tom Maguire has analysis, including strange reporting on the story by the NYT.
WHEN DID YOU STOP BEATING YOUR WIFE? An imam who wrote a book on how to beat your wife without leaving marks on her body has been ordered by a judge in Spain to study the country's constitution. Sure, that will turn him right around.
CULT OF THE iPod: It's never too early to start indoctrination.
PODCASTING: turns out there might just be money in it.
NANOTECH: A research team creates a molecule that walks like a human. But can it walk like an Egyptian? Like you didn't see that one coming a mile away.
MIGHTY MICE: Genetically altered mice discovered accidentally at the Wistar Institute in Pennsylvania have the seemingly miraculous ability to regenerate like a salamander, and even regrow vital organs. Am I the only one whose eyebrows went up about the “discovered accidentally” part?
RUN RUDOLPH, RUN! The Danish airforce paid damages to Santa Claus after a blast from a low-flying fighter jet left Rudolph the reindeer lifeless.
WILD GORILLAS use tools when we're not looking. D*mn dirty apes.
HONEYBEES kill invading wasps by cooking them to death.
EVICITING A PIG is risky business.
ANIMAL HOARDING: A French case may be the world's record, as animal welfare officers discover 340 dogs living in a single house.
CHEWBACCA makes it to The Show.
HORNY FEMALE SWALLOWS keep shopping around even after mating. And they aren't looking for good providers or even good company; they want only the best-looking birds, according a research team at Cornell University.