stroke

 Ron Rosenbaum of The New York Observer is probably my favorite arts columnist. Unfortunately, for the past couple months, he's been writing about Middle East politics, where he always irks me. Glad to see he's back to books, with another good Jane Austen column. One of Rosenbaum's best columns was a character study of the Jane Austen oeuvre in which he concluded people's personalities can be determined by which novel they like most (that column isn't available online, but here is another Jane Austin column from the past). This week's column returns to the idea, but this time tackles Northanger Abbey, which he left out in the past. (Not to be a spoiler, but Rosenbaum reports that Martin Amis is working on a script of the book for Miramax.) His rambling style -- full of asides about the trivialities of language, such as his discussion of the phrase "playa-hata" in this column -- never lacks surprises.

 Could anyone have predicted this weird resurgence of '70s Stooges/VU-style punk? First The Strokes and the White Stripes, and now the The Hives. Not me. Nonetheless, here's a BBC Radio 1 page with the entire Hives album, including the video for "Main Offender". (If you're slow to the punch, BBC's Radio One page is generally a good stop for finding out what MTV will be playing next month.)

 I was walking through the bookstore the other day thinking that it was strange that Macromedia doesn't have it's own in-house magazine. The thought occupied me long enough to consider contacting the company about starting one. Well, nevermind then.

 TV anchor marries the surgeon who gave her a boob job. Gawd, I love this business.

 The Boston Globe's take on the new Wired.

 Stanley Fish uses Charles Barkley's romance with Madonna to illustrate a point about academia and journalism.