A new story by Roddy Doyle. 'Nuff said—except that the "f-bomb" is dropped in the second graf. Of course, I already said it's by Roddy Doyle.

I've been fascinated by AMC's summer series <I>Mad Men</I>. Its depiction of 1960 America is revelatory&mdash;even though I was alive then, if only eight. And, as Ellen Feldman observes, it's not just the details that make it so powerful, it's a throwback in terms of character development and, dare I say it, pacing. Although AMC has commercials, it doesn't observe the same rhythm other channels do, so some scenes develop for 11 or 12 minutes before a break.

It's cheese, Grommit!

I’ve listened several times these past few weeks to Erik Friedlander’s new CD, <I>Block Ice & Propane</I> (on the Skipstone Records label), a haunting, sprawling, majestic piece of Americana. The album is subtitled “Taking Trips to America: Compositions and Improvisations for Solo Cello,” and that sums it up. The cellist’s father is the master photographer, Lee Friedlander. When Erik was growing up, Lee would spend summers driving a 1966 Chevy pickup truck around the country, taking pictures, and he’d take the family along: he and his wife in the front, often blasting the radio, Erik and his sister in the thin shelled-box camper up above, watching the clouds and the road markers flash by. <I>Block Ice & Propane</I>—named after the old techniques for keeping food chilled and gas stoves lit—is a remembrance of those summers, an elegy for innocent adventure, a musical road trip in its own right.

The amount of flux in the world of music and the businesses of marketing and selling creativity continues to be absolutely amazing. In nearly 25 years of writing about music I’m seeing things I almost don't believe.