You can make an omelet out of an egg, but you can't make an egg out of an omelet. Sean Carroll finds this almost strange, because "the fundamental laws of physics themselves are symmetric and don't seem to discriminate between the past and future."

The brouhaha over Bob Dylan's recent <I>Rolling Stone</I> interview surprised me. Dylan cryptic, caustic, and cranky? What a shock. Has he ever held a straightforward interview where he kept on topic? Louis Menand reviews <I>Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews</I>.

The fabulous Nancy Friedman of <A HREF="http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/"><I>Away With Words</I></A> points us to <I>BuzzWhack</I>'s "The IMglish Dictionary." IMglish, as in the instant message version of English, for those of us who lack fast thumbs or crackberries.

Sorry about that. Kelli and I flew off to Maine. We spent most of our time on Mt. Desert Island. "Desert," in this case, is pronounced "dessert" (with a French accent, if you like). It was good and quiet. We drove along the coast in our pathetic PT Cruiser (Touring Edition), from Portland to Bar Harbor, listening to the new <a href="http://www.tvontheradio.com/">TV on the Radio</a>. It starts off like a Sonic Youth song, but the drums change it all. And then the vocals change it more. Of the words I could make out: Hey hey, my baby / Won't you lay your hands on me / Mirror my malady / Transfer my tragedy. We decided that he really does sound like Peter Gabriel.

No, wait&mdash;what I meant to say was, nowadays everybody <I>thinks</I> they're speaker designers.