Overheard (coming out of mine and other nearby mouths) at a tavern in Brooklyn:

<b><i>Country International Records</b></i><br>
Starfish Records<br>

The Beeb is canceling <I>Top of the Pops</I>. Not that I ever watched it, but it's one of those things like the Grand Canyon that always seemed like it was eternal.

Friends like John Marks actually send me stuff like this John Derbyshire <I>National Review</I> book review of Nicholas Wade's <I>Before the Dawn</I>. Derbyshire's essay is argumentative and intriguing&mdash;the very qualities that Wade seems to have mastered in his book.

On his website, Neil Gaiman pulls off the difficult accomplishment of making me want to read Alan Moore's <I>Lost Girls</I> in a longer version of an essay published in <I>Publisher's Weekly</I>.

IBM has announced a "philantropic cultural heritage initiative" that will allow folks to virtually tour the 800-building Forbidden City complex using immersive cell-chip technology developed for gaming.

<I>Mark Lowery's Exciting World of Chess</I> reproduces two of the immortal chess games of all time: the 1851 "Immortal Game" between Anderssen and Kieseritzky and the 1852 Anerssen-Dufresne "Evergreen" game. The best part, if you struggle with chess notation, Lowery has animated the games so you can watch them unfold&mdash;at your speed.