You may have your own opinion; I’ll tell you what I think on Monday.

Rupert Murdoch In Sun Valley: Tipsy, Missing His Wedding Ring (Silicon Alley Insider)

Lord and his ring (Reuters)

You might be a normal person who hears a child chant, as I just did, “Made you look/Made you look/Now you’re in the baby book,” and forget it immediately. I envy you, friend. I, unfortunately, am not a normal person and I am therefore troubled by a number of things in that nyah-nyah:

• Why does making someone look put him or her into the baby book?

• Why is being in the baby book bad and, as a result, tauntable? I like babies. Wouldn’t being in the baby book be a good thing?

• If being in the baby book is indeed a bad thing, what sort of person would trick another person, probably a friend or family member, into looking just to get him or her into a baby book?

The questions could go on forever (and it felt like they did in the original version of this post), and by now the person once sitting next to me would be running away as surely as if I had been pitching scientology, Atlas Shrugged, or CDs of the New Kids on the Block reunion.

(2007) Starts around 7:02:

(197 Fellow old-timers may prefer this one (solo starts around 8:18):

(1975) Even older people may be taken by this one (no guitar solo, but no guitar either, barely a picture to be honest):

Buried in Apple’s new App Store is the ebook reader app eReader. It’s pretty good, considering the small screen, but the best news is that all the ebooks I bought from the eReader store when I thought I’d be on the PalmOS forever work again. Now if Apple could squeeze a competent tasks app into the iPhone I wouldn’s miss my Treo so much.

Naked man hijacks bus (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

Key sentence: “Police said the man was possibly on drugs during the incident.”

Neil Young week is behind us at Jewels and Binoculars, but I must share this unexpected Beatles cover he’s been playing. Stay until the end; it’s all about the feedback:

UPDATE: Someone else has linked to the video — and, unlike me, has bothered to describe it.

Steven Tyler Laid Off From Aerosmith As Band’s Jobless Rate Hits 20% (The Onion)

The numbers don’t lie:

Then read this.

I’m a student of magazine covers. I’m a hardcore Loisite, and I’ve spent decades exploring the best way to mix words and images so people cannot ignore the cover and must grab the magazine.

I’ve had the great pleasure of spending much of my career editing and writing for magazines. Those reading this who know me know that I love magazines. As a reader, I spend way too much time at newsstands. I love the immediacy of magazines. As an editor, I love getting words and pictures to tell stories together. I love trying to fill infinite content into a severely finite space. I even love the disposability of magazines: after this issue is done, I get to work on another one!

Some disclosure: I voted for Barack Obama in the Massachusetts primary and intend to vote for him in November, but I am not among his more enthusiastic supporters. I wrote more than 100 reviews and articles for Rolling Stone during the ’80s, but I lost interest with it during the ’90s and receive it now only because it came as a free offer when I bought a DVD earlier this year. The text of the recent issue is full of both cliches and factual errors (sample of the latter: the Kinman Brothers will be surprised to learn that Alejandro Escovedo “fronted” Rank and File), so I’ll stop receiving the magazine as soon as they stop sending me free copies. That noted, I believe the cover of the new issue of the magazine, featuring Obama, is the most arresting magazine cover I’ve seen in years.

Magazines are about words and images working together, although sometimes words can detract from an image. Is there anything that the cover image of Obama doesn’t say to the reader? It tells you who it’s about and what Rolling Stone thinks about him: everything about content and approach is embedded in the bold image. The smile is 1,000-watt, the (digitally enhanced?) wrinkles coming out of his eyes convey that this guy isn’t too young for the job he wants, and the American flag lapel pin wouldn’t pop more unless the cover was 3-D. And how important does Rolling Stone think Obama is? Important enough to cover half the words in the name of the magazine. That’s an old trick, but it’s especially powerful here.

This cover is particularly powerful when you compare it to this recent one that tried to accomplish something similar with its design (although, of course, the politicians and their predicaments are far different):

The Rolling Stone cover makes a starker impact because the designer went 100% of the way: no words. The New York cover cheats. The “<-Brain” thing works because it’s as much a pure graphic element as a word with an arrow, but the words in the top left of the page are a waste. They distract. “The Governor’s Fall” reads the headline. Please. When that cover appeared, mere days after Spitzer and his power evaporated, did anyone in the New York reading public not know who Eliot Spitzer was or what he had done? (The subhead, with its pointless navigation, adds to the offense.) The cover, a step away from brilliant, loses its way because the committee that vetted it didn’t trust the arresting image at its core. Words are important. But sometimes words get in the way, too.

So there we are, both of us sitting on her floor. I am typing on my laptop. She is supervising yet another wedding between Barbie and Ken.

Grace: What are you doing?
Me: Working.
[Grace stands up, walks behind me, and sees what's on the laptop screen.]
Grace: That’s email. You do work in email?

8:49am: Child #3, a little weepy, begs to be kept home from camp today because she has a “stomach ache.” Father suspicious but acquiesces.

9:26am: Child #3, surprisingly lively, takes a break from lining up snow globes on her rug to say, “Dad, can we get Coldstone iced cream tonight?” Father asks about that stomach ache. Child #3: “Oh, I’m much better.”

I’d like to add, belatedly, my voice to the chorus of praise for R.E.M.’s Accelerate. I tend to distrust comeback storylines, so for a while I distrusted my own affection for this record, but Accelerate isn’t merely a comeback; it’s one of the band’s best and the only one they’ve made since Bill Berry left that’s worthy of the band.

R.E.M. is a singles band: a great singles band, but a singles band. Even full-length records of theirs that I have enjoyed — from Lifes Rich Pageant to Monster — have had long stretches of dull. Hey, the only R.E.M. album I like beginning to end is Chronic Town, which has a mere five cuts. But, for four minutes at a time, they can feel like perfection.

Accelerate is not perfect. The slow and midtempo numbers are a step above the snorers on the band’s last three records, but the rockers are outstanding: snarling, angry, bursting with life, the closest they’ve gotten to punk since their debut EP. Most people have pointed to Peter Buck’s rattlesnake riffs as the difference here, and they are sharp and surprising, but the greatest triumph here is Michael Stipe’s. He’s way outside his comfort zone here, both as a lyricist and a singer. On recent records, he’s been most comfortable overenunciating and overemoting. On Accelerate’s fast cuts, he manages being both pissed-off and openhearted simultaneously. Maybe it takes someone who’s been at this for 30 years or so to sound so raw, so surprised by what he’s come up with?

“Living Well’s the Best Revenge”

John McCain may have his own Sandinista project, it turns out. Seems dubious, but amusing nonetheless. Maybe this guy could make a movie built around the alleged event.

P.S. Don’t forget the real Sandinista Project!

I need one — not for this little blog, but for my job. Help us!

Bill Clinton says Barack Obama must ‘kiss my ass’ for his support (Telegraph)

I was hoping to end our Neil Young week last month with some of my favorite versions of Neil Young’s “Cowgirl in the Sand,” as suggested by dedicated J&B reader Brian Johnson. I found some good ones, among them…

a live acoustic version from Massey Hall, 1971

and a more recent live version from earlier this year.

And I’ll add one: Live in London, solo, during his 1973 tour with the Santa Monica Flyers (MP3 format, 15.3M), a distant audience-recorded bootleg, but a performance that manages to be both wavering and strong simultaneously

But wait. Those performances show only one side of Neil: the quiet, precise, intense solo side. The wild, messy electric attack on “Cowgirl” isn’t well-documented on YouTube or any video side I could find (let me know in the comments if you found anything) so Jewels and Binoculars wants to deliver a pair of messages from that side:

Live with Crazy Horse at the Fillmore East, 1970 (M4A format, 15M): Young and Danny Whitten trade scorching solos, Jack Nitzsche adds muscle to the rhythm section; at 16:09, this is way too short (Like it? Buy it.)

Live at Red Rocks in 2000 (M4A format, 16.9M): gets off to a rough start (roughly half the band, including Young, starts leaning into “Like a Hurricane” — with headphones on, you can hear a woman in the crowd yell “Like a Hurricane!” — until everyone agrees which song to perform), then they work up to the expected level. (Like it? Buy it.)

I finally figured out how to get the last six months or so of my Blogger posts into WordPress. The site will look weird for the next day or so while I make sure the transfers worked. Sorry for any inconvenience.

I have two tickets to see Dengue Fever at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts on July 9. Turns out I can’t go. If you’re interested AND YOU AND I KNOW EACH OTHER ALREADY, please let me know and we’ll set up, as they say in crime shows, a drop.

Prince Sues to Destroy All Copies of Tribute Album (Wired)

For a few weeks, colleagues and friends have been pointing me to Wordle, a web app that takes text and presents it as a “word cloud.” I tried it with a few pieces of my own writing with the expected pedestrian results, but then I copied one of my favorite-ever pieces of someone else’s writing, the “Combray” intro to Proust’s Swann’s Way, and saw this work of art:

(You can click on the image for a larger version.)

Why is this so great? Because, despite being a mere text cloud, it tells the story of the first section with elegant precision. The young narrator is in tremendous psychic pain awaiting the arrival of his mother to kiss him goodnight. So “mother” and “mama” are in large type in the center of the image; even larger is the “room” to which he is confined, as is, just below it, “time,” the narrator’s great obsession. And then, in small type, hiding, is that elusive “kiss.” It’s an intriguing alternate way to consider or enter a story. I’ll play with it some more.

One of my regular correspondents has requested “Cowgirl in the Sand” to end Neil Young week. I’ve been scouring the Interweb for good versions to share. I’ve had no problem tracking down acoustic takes (including a pair from Massey Hall, 37 years apart), but I’ve had no luck locating many electric versions, either with Crazy Horse or the strong one from the Road Rock video. If anyone can direct me to sturdy cowgirls, please do!

(Brian, I’m trying…)

Maybe you like the rock video (a little cheesy):

Maybe you like this Crazy Horse version from 2003 (a little messy):

Maybe you like it with the E Street Band (!):

Maybe you like it with Pearl Jam (not bad, despite being Pearl Jam):

Maybe, like me, you think the performance on Saturday Night Live with the all-too-short-lived Lost Dogs, however contrived, stands as one of the wildest things Neil will ever do:

Celeb psychic loses lawsuit over Elvis’ former home (AP, via CNN.com)

Neil Young week continues.

Here’s a good example of how the same song — in this case a more-than-quarter-century-old warhorse — can feel fresh when the band playing it every night is Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

I’m pretty sure the two versions of “Like a Hurricane” I’m pointing to here are from the band’s two nights at the Rock in Rio megaconcert in 2001. Please write me if I’m wrong.

The first version is the standard live version, exciting even in the little YouTube box on your computer screen, with an outstanding final solo:

The second version, though, which may be only one night away from the first, is dramatically different. It starts off on a less elevated plane, but Neil feels his way around the first solo to carve out some new wrinkles. Then, during a breakdown around five-and-one-half minutes in, one of Neil’s guitar strings breaks and chaos ensues. Rather than call for a new guitar, he lets the dead string sway against the five live ones, he moves briefly to the piano, he pulls out the other strings, he shakes the guitar, he supervises pandemonium. You must see this. The last two feedback-drenched minutes of this version are what the end of the world may sound like:

P.S. As a bonus, for the historians among you, let’s revisit the song as performed in 1976:

P.P.S. And let’s not forget its most unlikely cover:

Neil Young’s version of “All Along the Watchtower,” backed by the then-current version of Booker T. and the MGs, was widely hailed as the highlight of the Bob Dylan “birthday” concert in 1993. Less heralded, but also tremendous, is his “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”: funny, loose-limbed, you can feel Young pull the band deeper into the song during his guitar breaks. Indeed, you can hear Neil and the MG’s coalesce as a band as this song progresses: he went on to tour and record with them.

If you must see Neil Young sing “All Along the Watchtower,” why not with the E Street Band?

And, for balance, here’s a clip of Bob Dylan singing Neil Young’s “Old Man”:

Plenty of people hate this performance of Neil with 3/4 of Led Zeppelin performing “When the Levee Breaks” the night both of them were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Plenty of people voted for Barry Goldwater, too, so don’t let that stop you from enjoying this.

The naysayers have a point: It’s a long, messy performance. When you have Neil Young and Jimmy Page onstage, it’s perverse to have Robert Plant take a guitar solo. (Don’t worry; Neil solos, too.) Indeed, Page betrays something close to a genuinely human smile as Plant spits out his surprising solo.

That solo isn’t as perverse, though, as the jam, which develops/deteriorates into Plant helming a pre-Danger Mouse mashup, singing the words to Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” over the music of “When the Levee Breaks” and trading brief, efficient solos with Young. It’s a glorious mess, a wonderfully sloppy example of what pros can do when they’re playing for their own entertainment, regardless of the presence of TV cameras and audience.

The cover story of yesterday’s New York Times Magazine is about equally shared parenting, which the Times has belatedly decided is a trend. (Last month, the Mag discovered that blogging is a trend, too. Thanks, guys.) The main couple profiled in the article run a website on the topic, and last year that site published a great, nuanced essay by Jane called “Family Dance Party” that captures the complexities, frustrations, and rewards of not-quite-equal modern parenting. Jane was onto this trend years before the Times caught up.

Back in March, I gave up print newspapers. Every day since then I’ve read all of The New York Times, most of The Wall Street Journal, and some of The Boston Globe and a few other dailies, but I’ve read them all online. It was hard getting used to; indeed, I’m still getting used to it.

So imagine my delight yesterday when I received my Father’s Day present:

This is what a paper newspaper feels like now: a luxury, a gift, a change of pace, maybe even an indulgence.

It’s 9 a.m. on a Monday; time to start wasting time. I’ve been on a Neil Young kick lately, so every day this week I’ll point you to some of my favorite rare Young material available on the Interwebs.

Let’s start with a double shot of “The Sultan,” an ultrararity that will be part of the Archives box coming (yeah, we’ll see) in the fall. It’s an instrumental recorded in 1963 by Young’s first band, the Squires, and it sounds a little something like this:

On his recent tour, which Eric and I had the pleasure to witness during its Boston stop, Young ended a few shows with “The Sultan.” It is, I believe, the first time he played the song live in more than 40 years. Here’s the Paris performance back in February:

What better way to start a new week than by winning a free copy of The Sandinista Project? The first person with a correct answer will win a copy of that semilegendary two-CD set. Good luck!

In what Steven Seagal vehicle is the lead character, played by “the world’s only aikido instructor turned movie star/director/writer/blues guitarist/energy drink inventor,” as he is identified in Seagalogy: A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal, writing his autobiography on an Apple Newton?

First correct answer in the comments wins. Please don’t cheat. This isn’t Scrabulous.

Capitol Records To Be Run By A Supercomputer Named HAL (Idolator)

Just read her Harvard commencement speech and some commentary on it. Regular readers here know I’m interested in mistakes and failure. Part of Rowling’s section in her speech on what failure taught her struck me as worth remembering and passing along:

“Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

Onward…

Jane (surprised): “Hey, that was interesting. Why don’t you put something like that on your blog for a change?”

I think the reasoning goes something like this:

If it happens to three people, it’s a trend.
If it happens to two people and I know one of them, it’s a trend.
If it happens to me, it’s a trend.

Back in October 2007, at the Web 2.0 Summit, I raved about Jonathan Zittrain’s talk on generativity and the web. Now you don’t have to take my word for it. Zittrain’s recent book, The Future of the Internet — and How To Stop It is now available via free download. Read, argue, decide for yourself.

UPDATE: Turns out there’s more Zittrain news today.

Demand for Kosher Cuisine Swells Ranks of Jewish Prison Chaplains (FORWARD)

“I may need to blog this.”

Deval Patrick’s gambling addiction (Media Nation)

Endlessly malleable…

with The Band (1966)

with The Band (1969)

with Johnny Cash (also 1969)

with Rolling Thunder Revue (1975)