I thought "Toxic" as recorded by Britney Spears was great. Then I heard the Mark Ronson cover featuring Ol' Dirty Bastard and Tiggers (scroll to download).

Jeffy is so sick of chicken...

"It is always consoling to think of suicide:
in that way one gets through many a bad night."

The Nietzsche Family Circus generator, which loads a random FC panel with a random Nietzsche quote, makes me happy. A Gertrude Stein Family Circus might make me even happier.

Best fiction book you've read this summer?

For me, so far, it's Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach.

Shelf Check

...there's been a bit more interest in Shelf Check, the library cartoon I started in April but didn't exactly keep up with (this blog had less library-type, more poet-type readers at the time). I'll be updating it more regularly from now on, and I've added a link to it in my sidebar. Today's cartoon: Jan's Dirty Secret.

Whatever ambivalence (at best) I have about celebrating the USA, I've got none about the ladies of low brass: watch Bones Apart tackle the Stars & Stripes Forever.

Incidentally: worse travesty I ever saw on stage was also on the 4th, at D.C.'s celebration on the mall: James Galway performed "76 Trombones" on piccolo.