america the beautiful

POLITICS/CULTURE

The America Spectator names Jon Stewart's America the worst book of the year. Can't wait to read the rest of the conservative's four-month-old recap of 2004. Maybe the Spectator staff will finally reveal what they think about this whole Franz Ferdinand phenom!

Pitchfork has a surprisingly good essay on The Pop Culture of 9/11.

BLOGS

Across the pond (did I just use that phrase? oh fuck it), the blogger Belle de Jour was a pretty big deal -- well, to pervs. The hidden identity of this supposed call-girl memoirist was even in the tabloids (yes! tabloids wrote about bloggers!). It seems she's been pegged as Lisa Hilton, a British author based in America. This was the blog that ostensibly revealed her identity. It's not really stated, but I think this means that the escapades were fiction. At least our secret salacious journals were real (well, probably). Update: of course the bloggers had her pegged months ago.

I am almost certainly the only person who gets giddy to see Lizzy Spiers write about the Tina Brown and Ana Marie Cox quasi-feud via a Liz Smith column. Move along.

MUSIC

Beck's new album, Guero, is out today.

The new Chemical Brothers video is adequately rad.

Guaranteed punchline headline for Weekend Update, Daily Show, and every late-night talk show: Rappers are being asked by McDonald's to name-drop big macs.

Somewhat funny New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs today: My Exes: The Set List.

FILM

David Duchovny is blogging. And not one damn word about Scully.

Closer came out on DVD today. Buy it for your girlfriend, and she'll always wonder how messed up you are.

If you watch the trailer to Bewitched, you'll get to see Nicole Kidman wiggle her nose, which is all you really wanted to see, so you can now skip the film.

TV

Grandmothers rejoice! The First Season of Murder She Wrote came out on DVD today.

Gotta love those fake blogs: I'm Stuck In Rehab With Pat O'Brien.

Salon pepper-sprays and then pees on PoweR Girls, the Lizzie Grubman reality tv show that I simply can't stop watching. And since you're waiting through the day-pass over there, might as well read an interview with the creator of Veronica Mars.

ADVERTISING

Fast Company profiles Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

ONLINE

Andy added some new features (tagging, API, etc.) to Upcoming.org. Cool.

LOCAL

The Rake's story on "Minnesota's greatest invention," the Post-It Note, is quintessentially Rakish.