Portly? Could be your genes. Beautiful? You may be a genetic lottery winner. Your personality, though, that's probably 80% your fault.

Frederick Crews' <I>Follies of the Wise</I> puts the boot to Freud, creationism, and "peacemaking scientists" who attempt to reconcile science with "improbable claims that are in principle empirically testable."

"I don't dare open the file you left in my folder," says JA.

What a shock, a hard-hitting <I>Slate</i> article&mdash;on Robert Christgau's firing, no less. Jody Rosen's appreciation of Christgau is spot on: When he's good, he's brilliant, but he does have some seemingly inconsistent blind spots.

Did Kandinsky <I>hear</I> his paintings?

Scott Berkun has written a nice essay on writing&mdash;or more specifically, on overcoming writer's block. He leaves out the one that usually works for me: Work for an editor you don't want to disappoint. Of course, spending the money before you get the check works, too&mdash;although apparently not for everyone.

<I>Business Week</I> writes about the increasingly sophisticated measures stores are using to prevent shoplifting. Okay, but when I was in retail and I took inventory control classes, the experts said the most effective anti-shoplifting measure was the phrase, "Can I help you?"

As we all know, the focus of <I>Stereophile</I>'s music section, and rightly so, is recorded music. But in my unsubtle opinion, music writers or just music fans who <I>only</I> listen to recorded music and never see anything performed live, are missing half the ballgame. If the only way you know a certain artist is through their records, then sorry to say, and yes, I know that not everyone lives in a city where they can see live music, you’re only getting half the story. I know critics who've been let go because they basically refused to go out to see live music. They were happy to stay home&#151hey, no traffic, no lines, no fighting the elements, sounds good to me&#151and listen to CDs or LPs. Unfortunately though, while they may have stayed comfy cozy at home, their opinions on music ended up having only a certain amount of value. The X factor about seeing music live versus hearing it on record is that often you have to see the music performed live to make any sense of the record. Though rare, it can also work in reverse as well: you have to listen to the record to make sense of a live show.

I'd have to agree with <a href="http://cgi.stereophile.com/cgi-bin/showvote.cgi?477">Tom Warren</a>. My current favorite indie record label is also Drag City &#151; home of Smog, Silver Jews, Joanna Newsom, <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/records2die4/203r2d4/index3.html">The Fucking Champs</a>, Espers, Jim O'Rourke, The Red Krayola, <a href="http://www.dragcity.com/bands.html">I could go on</a>.