pralines, headaches and light bulbs

Newly available in stores (at least at Amazon, anyway): Marooned, the Phil Freeman-edited anthology of music critics writing about an album they'd take to a desert island. (It's a sequel to the Stranded anthology that Greil Marcus edited in the '70s; Marcus wrote the introduction to this one.) It includes my essay about Stereolab's Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements, which I'm pretty happy with. Also: Daphne Carr, John Darnielle, Geeta Dayal, Simon Reynolds, Michaelangelo Matos, and much more...

I had an email discussion with Timothy Callahan this week about New Avengers #32, authorial intention and "bad readers": the whole thing is here.

Some very nice things being said about Reading Comics by K. at Unprintable Version and by Leigh at Picture Poetry.

Laura H., as I type this, is in the middle of a 24-hour marathon of reading and reviewing comics. Go Laura!

And me, the person behind the curtains of type? Uh... Maoz Vegetarian is a fine addition to Union Square!... I'll get back to you.