The Complete Idiot's Guide to Randy Newman. Don't let the name fool you, Newman's music is not for complete idiots, so don't plan on eating potato chips while you read this. There are links to mp3s of quite a few Newman songs, but I don't believe they are current. I could object to things here (I don't consider "It's Money that Matters" shallow, but find it rather heartfelt, in the same vein as "The World Isn't Fair"), but still enjoyed reading it very much, both for his insight and for encouraging me to think over Newman's entire body of work in one sitting.

As an aside, I will mention a pang of guilt I felt in reading the above article. A co-worker was telling some bizarre story about a website that rents children, that apparently has been all over the news lately, yet no one at work had heard of it besides her. Though I'm sure I made some lame crack at the time, it was not until reading the above article, and encountering the lyrics to "Love Story," that I realized I missed an opportunity to make a lame Randy Newman joke in response to this apocryphal news story. It was the same regret I felt recently, after encountering a link on another site to an article I also linked to, regarding David Byrne's musical factory. Nowhere in my link to the news did I make the screamingly obvious joke, which I encountered in the headline, "More songs made by a building, no food." Funny? Not really. That's not the point. Failing to make the joke, however lame the joke is, makes one even lamer. So let me just say, that unless Stockholm has a greater audience for conceptual art installations than this country, around this factory you won't find long lines, but rather (Nothing But) flowers. A big old factory like that sounds plenty spooky, though--I'd hate to be in there with a psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est? But really, why waste time on such trivial projects when we're living life during wartime? I wonder if David Byrne will appear in the exhibit naked? And so on.