"Movies are like magic tricks."

Jeff "The Dude" Bridges
(born December 4, 1949),
American actor and musician.

Though the first decade of the new millennium produced, as always, plenty of dreadful and thus unintentionally funny music, it is high time to honor musicians at the opposite end of the ha-ha spectrum: performers demonstrating a rapier wit, a sharp tongue, or an oddball perspective that overturns settled notions about the world. The list that follows pays particular tribute to the smart-asses of the world, those quick with a quip, a lip-curling sneer, or a jab at celebrities, in the spirit of Van Halen’s 1980s-era “Hot for Teacher,” in which a smarmy David Lee Roth retorts, “I don’t FEEL tardy!”

For an author who published little, J. D. Salinger had immense influence on successive generations. His literary creation Holden Caulfield became the American Everyboy, a Huckleberry Finn for baby boomers and beyond. Salinger succeeded in encapsulating adolescent distance from the adult world. It was a literary feat he seemed incapable or reluctant to repeat. Secretive to the point of paranoia, he became a brooding, beguiling enigma, a one-book wonder, the Garbo of the printed word.

Civil Rights Viewed Through The Music That Shaped It!

Danny Glover and his team discuss their unique view of the '60s Civil Rights movement through the people that shaped it and the music that kept them united in their must-see documentary, Soundtrack for a Revolution.

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67. “Last Nite” – The Strokes

1) A Matter of Size

A pack of highly insecure, obese working-class Israeli gents decide to stop dieting and become sumo wrestlers. Yes, The Full Monty goes sabra. Amiably lighthearted and blatantly generic, this crowd-pleaser by Sharon Maymon and Erez Tadmor has already been bought by the Weinstein Brothers for an American remake. “So, Mr. Richard Gere, if you can gain 200 pounds by sundown, have I got a starring role for you.” A highlight of the forthcoming 14th New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, this big-bellied comedy proves once and for all the Jewish proverb “Worries go down better with soup.”

He made it to 91. Now begins the drum beat -- recluse, Catcher in the Rye author, are there hidden manuscripts? Let the poor guy rest in peace. Forget Catcher, get out Nine Stories; if you can't read the entire thing cover to cover, immediately read "For Esme...," "Uncle Wiggley," "Teddy," (forget "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"!), and my personal favorite, "The Laughing Man." Then go through everything from Franny and Zoe, and give yourself a treat with the magisterial Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters. Then, we'll talk. J. D., wherever you are, thank you. - Ken Krimstein

Mr. Krimstein is a writer, cartoonist, father, and grump who lives in New York City. So there.

The Cost of Living
by Kathleen Farrell (Macmillan)

Having successfully laid bare the machinations of what love is to many in her previous novel, Take It To Heart, one could have expected Farrell to have continued with the same astute intensity. Instead, in 1956 she delivered the breezy The Cost of Living, a colorful, deceptively simple affair, its lightness of touch belying a certainty of purpose in presenting an apparently scatty arrangement of existence and the echoes of a singular evening. Seldom can appearances have been so delightfully deceptive, and although the flippant undertone never quite deserts these pages, the tone darkens gradually and imperceptibly, in the way an afternoon slips into night.

34. "Fake" – The Frames

This list of my favorite songs (sometimes singles, mostly album or EP cuts) of the '00s not on my top 100 albums is a way to broaden my coverage of the decade just past. After all, not all artists or styles are necessarily even especially concerned with the album as an artistic unit. While the albums these songs come from are not great from start to finish the way the ones already covered are, many are worth getting in full because they are only slightly flawed by one or two less than stellar tracks; however, the ranking here is of the songs, not the albums (or EPs, or whatever) they’re on.

Come What May
by Donal Og Cusack (Penguin Ireland)

The death of Stephen Gately rang out the bells of irony, but their chimes were absent from the mournful proceedings in Dublin. What occurred amounted to a state funeral, in a Catholic country. The deceased, an openly gay, married pop star, was given respect, the kind of respect he would still have been denied had he not been famous. Ireland pretends to be a modernist state, but the Catholic Church still casts a disquieting shadow over the lives of those of whom it disapproves.

Janis Lyn Joplin would have turned 67 years old today.

Her classmate in Port Arthur, Texas, recalled that as a little girl the future Queen of the Blues, "had been cute, then all of a sudden she got ugly. Her total self-respect took a broadside."

Janis’s parents – Seth, a Texaco engineer, and Dorothy, a college registrar -- knew this all too well. Their eldest daughter had seemed happy in her early years, then in high school, “She just changed totally, overnight,” recalled Dorothy.

Wounded by her classmates’ mockery, Janis became a fighter, a foul-mouth, and a hell-raiser.

(Steve, you've outdone yourself with this exhaustive, yet informative list. I trust our readers have enjoyed it as much as I.)

51. Death Cab for Cutie: Transatlanticism (Barsuk, 2003)
Ben Gibbard’s twee voice delivers some of the most poignant lyrics in indie-rock (though after this album, the band inevitably made the leap to the majors and has been on Atlantic ever since). All of Death Cab’s albums are wonderful, but this one’s where their production values and songwriting intersected with the zeitgeist for maximum impact.

If George W. Bush has left one legacy to the arts, it’s that under his administration more films about the Apocalypse and ecological destruction went into production than under any other presidency.

The latest to be released is the Hughes Brothers’ The Book of Eli. Consider this tepid offering “Cormac McCarthy Lite.”

Like McCarthy’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning The Road (and its recent first-rate screen adaptation), The Book of Eli takes place after civilization’s been decimated.

The devastation is daunting. But here are few simple ways to pitch in. Scott Harrison of Charity Water is asking that all current donations be made straight to two affiliated partner charities. Wyclef Jean suggests texting "Yele" to 501501 to automatically donate $5 to the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund. It will be charged to your cell phone bill. If you prefer donating your money to someone who is actually heading to Haiti, send Ms. Alison Thompson -- filmmaker and relief effort worker who helped rebuild an entire village in Sri Lanka, documented in her award-winning documentary The Third Wave -- a PayPal payment through her email alisonthompson123@yahoo.com. And check out my friends at One.org for practical relief efforts. peace, Dusty

Fullscreen it, please.

A FULL-CGI animated piece that tries to illustrate architecture art across a photographic point of view where main subjects are already-built spaces. Sometimes in an abstract way. Sometimes surreal.

Vampire Weekend: Contra (Beggars Group/Rough Trade)

On Vampire Weekend’s second album, gone is the occasional pseudo-intellectualism of Ezra Koenig’s lyrics, replaced with a literary style reminiscent of J.D. Salinger. Musically, the album is a departure from and an expansion of their previous effort. The production values are much better than their self-titled debut, and the risks they take in terms of instrumentation are much greater.

ACE HOTEL, MANHATTAN -- "This is as safe as barebacking a $5.00 whore," notes Lionel "Elvis" Cormac, a former vampire who’s regained his mortality, in the highly entertaining new sci-fi thriller Daybreakers.

Smiling impishly, Willem Dafoe who plays Lionel, notes, "Nothing was improvised...but there’s a couple of lines [in the film] that when I hear them, I can think that’s my line. I can remember the one about 'barebacking.' I thought, can we say that? That’s kind of racy. This word 'barebacking' is quite specific. I know it more from -- oh, boy, I’m getting -- it’s kind of gay cruise parlance.

Sixty-four years ago, January 8, 1946, Gladys Presley gave her beloved only son a guitar for his 11th birthday. The high-spirited boy had wanted a bicycle, but his ever-protective mother had feared he might hurt himself.

A decade later, Elvis rehearsed "Heartbreak Hotel" on his birthday and, two days later, recorded it at RCA Studios in Nashville. The tune became the biggest hit of 1956, turning the former Crown Electric truck driver into the King of Rock and Roll himself.

Thomas Durden, a Nashville steel-guitarist, had composed the historic song after reading a Miami Herald story about a man who had killed himself over a lost love. His suicide note simply read: "I walk a lonely street."

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Baddest (and Nicest) Guitarist on the Planet on Vidcast!

Award-winning guitarist and bandleader Derek Trucks discusses his music, family, life on the road, and his appreciation for the blues, Eric Clapton, and the Allman Brothers. Plus some tasty guitar playing! (Powered by Podkive.)

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Buy Jazzbo's Exclusive CC Concert!

From his early piano wizardry in the David S. Ware Quartet to his 28 recorded works, Matthew Shipp has helped define the modern era of jazz. Often cited as one the leaders of improvisational music, his metaphysical approach can be witnessed in this exclusive 45-minute concert. Order Mysterious Principle below:

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