1. Dear Wes Anderson,

Why haven’t you hired the McMahon family to score one of your films?

Behold Michael McMahon’s Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co’s MySpace, where you can listen to their humorous little ditty “I Hate You.” (Michael is pictured at right. See also SIT&DIE Co’s website. BTW, SIT and DIE Co. is ARCster Jon’s band – we love them around these here parts.)

Revel in Riley McMahon’s Spottiswoode and McMahon’s MySpace where you can listen to “Mommy’s Got Strange Friends.” (Riley’s the one on the phone in that picture to your left, there. He’s also got a website.)

Go crazy listening to “Cynically Yours” on Amy Rigby’s MySpace. (She was a McMahon before she got married – that’s her with the guitar on your right; true to McMahon family form, she too has an additional non-MySpace website. Go have a look.)

Wes, I think the tension between their individual styles and the fact they are ACTUALLY siblings would compliment your cinematic visions nicely. Plus, they’re all from Pittsburgh.

2. If you ever wondered who the better AC/DC vocalist was, Bon Scott or Brian Johnson, wonder no more. There’s now a study out there that posits an answer.

3. Would someone please buy Burkhard Bilger a copy of Marybeth Hamilton’s In Search of the Blues or something? (Yes, that’s the book Dave Marsh reviewed for the New York Times and panned in such a way that made me wonder if he’d actually read it. Well, I wondered until I actually read the book and then I wondered why the Times would have asked him to review it.) Bilger wrote that “The Last Verse: Where Can Folk Music Still Be Found?” article in the latest New Yorker. Having read it, I can only say that people in the popular press need new ways of writing about folk music. To me, the assumptions about what “folk music” is Bilger uses to frame his article are exactly the reason people don’t know that there is folk music still out there.

4. Speaking of the Times, an editorial (of sorts) appeared in yesterday’s Sunday’s issue titled “Was I on a Date or Baby-Sitting?” In it, Julie Klausner, the piece’s author, related the story of a failed relationship she had with an anonymous “indie rock dreamboat.” Oh, it’s your typical Girl-meets-Brooklyn-indie-rocker-has-sex-with-him-and-is-surprised-that-it -doesn’t-work-out-so-she-gets-back-at-him-by-writing-a-piece-in-the-Times-about-it kind of story. Based on Klausner’s description I knew exactly who she was talking about. (He dated a friend in college for a long time.) I can confirm that Joanna was right, he is indeed an indie rock dreamboat:

A-grrr! Anyhow, I hoped that his identity would remain anonymous, but today’s Gawker “outed” him. (Bastards!) Here’s the weird part about this: MY network of Barnard insiders tell me that this encounter – a basic one night stand – took place over a year ago, right when “the dreamboat” was going through a messy custody battle that left him heart sick. (I knew about this at the time – the whole thing seemed very hard for him.) The snotty and opportunistic tone of Klausner’s piece aside, I have to wonder what her expectations were with him then, and what her motivations were in writing this now. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe this whole episode’s been eating away at her for a year. Maybe my sister-in-law put it best: “wow, that girl can’t handle how obsessed she was with him.” Maybe it’s a Sex in the City tie-in. But then again, maybe Julie’s just boring…the world may never know. (Until the next Nada Surf album.)