Karl 
LESLIE FEIST, sometime member of Broken Social Scene, talks to PopMatters about her solo album, Let It Die, and also promotes a solo album coming next month from fellow BSSer Jason Collett.
SUPER FURRY ANIMALS: The Welsh quintet, out supporting Love Kraft (scoring 76 and 8.9 at Metacritic) and a slew of deluxe reissues, seems ready for a visit from Scientologists: “We are atheists and not very superstitious, but we just have this desire that our friends from outer space come and sort the world out.” Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!
THE QUASI-ELITISM OF INDIE ROCK: In the Stanford Daily, David Blackman writes: “The Internet has done for music what pornography did for relationships — it took away all the intimacy and made everyone restless.”
ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN guitarist-songwriter Will Sergeant thinks the band well equipped to handle today's music game. “We're more comfortable now because we're not trying to be the next anything.”
MICK JONES: The Clash guitarist has such a vast collection of magazines, records and videos, he wants his own museum to put them in.
STEVIE WONDER is saying all the politically correct things about Africa and war, but it hasn't stopped the bad reviews for his new album: “Gloopy balladry and formulaic funk, both serving lyrics of banal sentimentality or vapid sloganeering, have threatened his pioneering reputation. Back from a 10-year break, Wonder sticks like a particularly stubborn limpet to this particularly unlovely template.” Put another way: “Is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins, is it better to burn out or fade away?”
ANIMAL COLLECTIVE: The band's Feels is streaming as Album of the month at Radio Indie Pop. The album is scoring an average 82 from critics and 8.7 from users at Metacritic.
GEEK RAP, replete with rhymes and references to Star Wars heroes and scientific theories, is gaining ground on the Internet. NPR reports.
U2 were joined onstage by The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers for a special performance of “In A Little While” at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas at the weekend.
ON THE PITCHFORK: Ray Davies is putting out a benefit EP, Thanksgiving Day, on November 22nd, with an album, Other People's Lives, coming in February. High School Reunion: A Tribute to Those Great 80s Films hits stores on December 1st, featuring covers by Frank Black, Kristen Hersh, Matthew Sweet and more.
MICHAEL STIPE: The R.E.M. frontman had a fire in his apartment on Halloween, so he turned up at Paper magazine's first Nightlife Awards at Hiro on Sunday night wearing the green parakeet costume that Generation X writer Douglas Coupland designed for him.
ROD STEWART just says “No” to cocaine, because it's too common and not as pure as it used to be.
PETE DOHERTY-KATE MOSS UPDATE: Fellow supermodel Tyra Banks hopes Moss' drug problems will prompt modelling bosses to stamp out drug use. Moss may be seeking a quiet life in the countryside of the Cotswolds, but is unlikely to return to Britain before Christmas.
PANTHERS CHEERLEADERS UPDATE: Former TopCats Renee and Angela were not only together in a bathroom stall, but there seems to have been a little catfighting with other bar patrons. Screaming, “I'm a Panthers cheerleader. You need to let me go. I'm a Panthers cheerleader!” at the bouncers was a smart move, too. They've been fired by the team, natch. Renee Thomas (imho, the cuter one) denies any sexual conduct in the bathroom, which hasn't stopped Penthouse magazine from trying to convince them to pose nude, natch. If you missed their cheerleading pics, check yesterday's entry here, natch.
MADONNA: No Rock and Roll Fun notes rumors that no one in the US wants to be part of the celebrity turn-out for Madge's album launch. PLUS: A gay blogger dissects Madge and questions the gay community's reflexive adoration of her: “The gay default musical taste is Madonna. She is the fail-safe choice, the aural equivalent of shopping at the Gap.”
HALLE BERRY PREGNANT? So says MTV Europe, but it's the only place I've seen it.
HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE: The first British reviews seem quite positive. The Sun says it's “a gripping watch from start to finish, well acted by all and with enough jokes to keep its audience laughing between sitting in awe.” The Mirror calls it the “best yet.” The Times thinks director Mike Newell's “considerable triumph is to keep the thrills up to exhilarating scratch.” The Times also reported raves from British tweens and teens, as did the Observer.
KING KONG: The latest trailer is up in glorious Quicktime 7.
VAUGHNISTON: Jennifer Aniston, making the rounds to promote Derailed, is refusing to discuss whether she's with Vince Vaughn. But the couple is doing the whole “Bradgelina strolling on the beach thing,” aren't they?
TOMMY LEE is furious to discover only now that his ex, Pam Anderson, is a good singer. He may have to smack her around a bit. Seriously, Tommy, wasn't Pam's ginormous lung and throat capacity a hint?
THE FRENCH HOTEL has her pose mastered.
BRITNEY SPEARS: Her husband Cletus is total nimrod (which the pop tart has pressured OK magazine into ignoring) — but she's the one buying raunchy lingerie to spice up her marriage? Okay…
WILLIAM SHATNER is confused by the law of sexual harassment. Who'da thunkit? ALSO: The Shat is writing Star Trek prequels that may be developed for television.
EVA LONGORIA: The Desperate Housewife is recycling her Brazilian wax schtick, which I noted in August. But some schtick is timeless.
SID AND MARTY KROFFT: Debbie tipped me to this NPR piece on the creators of H.R. Pufnstuf, Lidsville, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Land of the Lost and more.
BRAD PITT and GEORGE CLOONEY investing in a Laguna Beach gay bar named The Boom Boom Room? The duo denies it, NTTAWWT.
EVANGELINE LILLY: The Lost lovely's ex-husband is breaking bad on her for dumping him after landing the TV role. But was it the fame or the lure of taboo Hobbit love? BONUS: How Lost reinvented television.
HAROLD RAMIS and DAN ACKROYD want to wreck whatever fond memories you might have of the Ghostbusters franchise.
IRAQ: Bill Roggio interviews Col. Stephen W. Davis, the Commander of the Marines engaged in Operation Steel Curtain. Col. Davis reports that Husaybah has been cleared and secured, with Coalition forces constructing bases in the city to maintain a permanent presence. Almost 1,000 Iraqi troops were involved in the operation.
PARIS RIOTS: France declared a state of emergency Tuesday. The AP continues its line: “Although many of the French-born children of Arab and black African immigrants are Muslim, police say the violence is not being driven by Islamic groups.” Michel Gurfinkiel, the editor of Paris-based Valeurs Actuelles, partially disagrees: “The fact remains that only ethnic youths are rioting, that most of them explicitly pledge allegiance to Islam and such Muslim heroes as Osama bin Laden, that the Islamic motto – Allahu Akbar – is usually their war cry, and that they submit only to archconservative or radical imams. The fact also remains, according to many witnesses, that the rioters torch only 'white' cars, meaning white owned cars, and spare 'Islamic' or 'black' ones…”
CULT OF THE iPod: There's a growing market for used iPods, especially the iPod Mini, which is now deemed “retro-cool” in the wake of the Nano model. Speaking of which, the Nano class action suit has spread to Mexico and the UK.
SONY'S CD ANTI-PIRACY SOFTWARE has been added to Computer Associates' list of spyware programs that collect personal information from computer users without their permission.
CURLY IS FROM MARS, LUCY IS FROM VENUS: Women seem more likely than men to enjoy a good joke, mainly because they don't always expect it to be funny. According to Dr. Allan L. Reiss of the Stanford University School of Medicine, men's brains are less discriminating in evaluating humor: “It doesn't take a lot of analytical machinery to think someone getting poked in the eye is funny,” he commented when asked about humor like the Three Stooges. Why, I oughtta…
FUELISH REPORTING: London's Guardian ran a story with the lede: “It seems too good to be true: a new source of near-limitless power that costs virtually nothing, uses tiny amounts of water as its fuel and produces next to no waste.” If it seems too good to be true, maybe the reporter should use Google.
IRAQ II: London's Independent claims that US forces used chemical weapons during last November's assault on Fallujah, based on a documentary on Italian state TV. The “reporter” asserts that the assault on Fallujah “went unreported by any Western journalists” (when in fact it was all over the media) and uncritically reports that people hit by white phosphorus would just lie in bed. In reality, the use of white phosphorus shells in Fallujah was reported at the time. Indeed, the stuff almost hit US troops. The BBC notes that white phosphorus shells are incindiary, not chemical, weapons and that the US is not a signatory to a treaty restricting their use. The US soldier quoted in the documentary and in the British press has a blog where he's apologizing for suggesting that there was no terrorism in Iraq.
COW-TIPPING: London's Times claims that it's a myth and brings the physics to prove it. Of course, the part about the purported cow-tippers being drunk is most likely true. And in the town where I grew up, it was always crows, never cows…
THE MIGRATION OF THE MONARCH BUTTERFLY: As many as 200 million Monarch butterflies may migrate to Mexico this year — a nearly tenfold increase over 2004, when unfavorable weather, pollution and deforestation caused a drastic decline in the population.
SEALS and SEA LIONS are also growing in population in Cali, which means good eats fror the Condors.
THREE DOWN: A cat is resting up at an animal shelter in Washington state after leaping from a pickup, scampering through traffic, plunging 70 feet into the chilly Columbia River and swimming 600 feet to shore.
