"Britney Spears... just wasn’t crazy enough."

You have to understand what your job is.

"Mindset of this dance is: Dress classy and dance cheesy."

Psy teaches Britney to dance Gangnam Style — because Britney tweeted that's what she wanted.

"A curious vocal pattern has crept into the speech of young adult women who speak American English: low, creaky vibrations, also called vocal fry."

"Pop singers, such as Britney Spears, slip vocal fry into their music as a way to reach low notes and add style. Now, a new study of young women in New York state shows that the same guttural vibration—once considered a speech disorder—has become a language fad."

Science Magazine has a big article — and Metafilter's talking about it — but the Althouse blog nailed this topic back in 2007.

Perry goes on Letterman for a "Top Ten Rick Perry Excuses."

You can read the list here, but it's actually pretty fun to watch. Perry is good at doing comedy. In fact, he's so good at doing comedy, he can do comedy without even trying.

I liked #2: "I wanted to help take the heat off my buddy Herman Cain."

But I was especially interested in #10:

Actually there were three reasons I messed up last night: One was the nerves, and two was the headache, and three, um… uh… oops.

What caught my ear was the pronunciation of "oops." Did you notice the difference between the way he said it there and the way he said it at the end of the 53 seconds of hell on Wednesday night? He said it the old-fashioned way, with the "oo" as in "foot." In the debate, he said the "oo" as in "moo," which is a recent and especially girlish way to say it. It's the way Britney Spears pronounces it in "Oops! I Did It Again." (Hey that guy in the space helmet looks like Rick Perry!)

And by the way, there was something painfully school-girlish about the last 10 seconds of the 53 seconds. He starts the list of 3 over again, like a kid who's memorized a list. Then there's the pathetic... "I can't... I can't..." And finally, "oops," said with the Britney Spears pronunciation that seems to express an inane lack of interest in one's own helplessness.

And this extremely weak, girlish ending is especially bad because of the hypermasculine beginning: "And I will tell you, it's 3 agencies of government, when I get there, that are gone." Like he's that Texas gunslinger, comin' in there to git ya. But who's he gonna git? He doesn't even know!

That's why we shouldn't feel sorry for him. He wants to be the guy who's gonna git in there and do big things. He just knows what needs to be done and he's got the balls to do it. But if he doesn't know what he's doing... !!!

"Inebritated passers-by are falling in love with playful pooches frolicking in the window of a West Village pet store..."

"... and the problem has become so bad the owner has banned them from taking the pets home."

A pet shop owns up to the whole problem with pet shops... and does something about what seems to be the worst manifestation of the problem.

IN THE COMMENTS: Lincolntf said:

InebriTated? is that worse than drunk?

A portmanteau word, perhaps, referring to drunkenness and Britney Spears. You shave your head. You get tattoos. You forget you forgot to wear panties.

"Hold It Against Me"...

... Marine version.

"Hold It Against Me."

Come on, let's feel good again! There's a new Britney Spears single!

Who's more authentic Tom Waits/Bob Dylan or Britney Spears?

Musician Jack White thinks out loud:

"I don't know if Tom Waits and Bob Dylan are as authentic as I think they are. Perhaps they're not."

..."Sometimes you start thinking that maybe Britney Spears or someone like that who's doing exactly what they want to do in the way that they best know how, is more authentic than any of those people you could mention."

Think about it.

Unsubtle subtlety you can't get away with on the radio: "If U Seek Amy."

Maybe if you'd written out "you," it could have just been an inside joke. (I doubt it.) But the "U" is the tip that you want the PR.

ADDED: My son Chris notes the poem in James Joyce's "Ulysses":

If you see Kay,
Tell him he may.
See you in tea,
Tell him from me.

"An image right there... of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and ... the Washington Monument.... You tell me why those 2 phallic symbols are placed there..."

NYT columnist Bob Herbert gets embarrassingly mixed up about the image of the Victory Column in Obama's "biggest celebrity" commercial.



Hey, what about the use of Britney Spears in that ad? Spears!! Get it? Everyone knows spears area phallic symbols! Racist too, I might add.

Come on, Bob. Don't give up just because you got the monuments wrong. It's still a phallic symbol, and that ad is full of symbols that just won't quit.

Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Brit + Paris = Europe!

-ney + Hilton = knee + hotel = blatant sexual imagery.

McCain continues his ad theme, making fun of the worship of Barack Obama.

McCain takes the risky approach of mocking our love for the other man:



Sorry, John, I found myself smiling through all those images — and it was always pretty easy to pick up the humor and the missing context of all the various things Obama was saying.

And as for that "10 Commandments" punchline... Althouse did it first. I feel like you owe me a link.

But the important question is: Will ads like this and "the biggest celebrity" one work? As I said on the radio show yesterday — listen to the first few minutes — it's risky to show ads like this, but I think they work because of the way that they acknowledge that a lot of us love and enjoy Barack Obama, but urge us to separate that love from the serious question whether he is ready to be President. That is how the ads work for me. Now, I do think the ads works differently for different people.

Those who already don't like Obama can have a laugh. Aren't the people who worship the man ridiculous? This is the way Rush Limbaugh took it:

I'll tell you, if the Obama people got mad and fed up over the Britney Spears celebutard ad, this is going to frost 'em. This is fabulous. This is Barack Obama's words right back at him. This is what Obama has said. And it's fun! It's having fun, yes, but it's his own words thrown right back at him.

Obama devotees can also enjoy a laugh: Our candidate is so fantastic that the only thing McCain can come up with is that he's just too fantastic. We can't promote him with lavish worship — isn't it hilarious that McCain is doing the worship mode for us?

But the key is how the ads affect independent, undecided voters. (Like me!) And I think they may be succeeding in encouraging us to separate our thinking about Obama into 2 parts:

1. He's really cool and great and this whole campaign is a lot of fun.

2. Being President is a deadly serious and immensely difficult and important business and we've got to pick the man who is better prepared to take it on.

Views from the Santa Monica pier.

On the beach, a statement about the war:



Take a step back:




I told you Obama is everywhere. And, hey, he really is the biggest celebrity in the world. He's literally overshadowing Paris Hilton, and I don't even see Britney Spears.

ADDED: Enlarge that celebriphoto. I think that's Britney in the back next to Johnny. Depp. (Not McCain!)

MORE: Here's a description of the memorial, which is called Arlington West and is put up by Veterans for Peace. I see that the crosses represent the deaths in Iraq, with red crosses signifying 10 deaths (so that the monument, which appears on Sundays, does not get larger over time, just more red). I couldn't find a discussion of why the Veterans for Peace thinks crosses are appropriate for all of the dead, since not all were Christians.

"He's the biggest celebrity in the world... O-BA-MA... O-BA-MA..."

He's a big celebrity, like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton... and gas prices are terrible.... get it? Being really famous and popular often goes along with being an empty nitwit, so if Obama is famous and popular, he's probably an empty nitwit. And gas prices are terrible.

∴ McCain.

It's logic!

IN THE COMMENTS: Bissage sings:

O-Ba-Me
O-Ba-Ma
Life goes on, brah!
La la how the life goes on.

"Miss Spears, who reportedly had not slept for five days before being committed...."

I feel sorry for Britney Spears, and don't want to set up a post to talk about her. But this news of not sleeping upsets me. News reports had talk of Heath Ledger not sleeping for days before his untimely death. Have you ever gone even 2 days without sleeping? I haven't. I can't imagine having this problem. Some drug is involved, no?

IN THE COMMENTS: Gary Carson writes:

I've gone for weeks with no more than 2 hours sleep per day (mania) and was constantly drinking beer during my waking hours.

I probably would have really gone nuts without the beer to keep me calmed down.

I don't think it's at all weird that two entertainers have recently died [sic] after a period of sleep disorder.

It would be my guess that bipolar disorder has a higher incidence among entertainers than among the general population and it's certianly the case that risky behavior tends to go hand in hand with manic episodes.

"I just realized I'm on camera... looking like a blogger blogging about the election, but I'm blogging about Britney Spears, ha ha, no one knows..."

That's something I wrote on November 7, 2006 — Election Day — when I was blogging from a room full of bloggers assembled by CNN so there could be something to show on camera to demonstrate that bloggers are blogging the election. The quote is in the post "Wait! Forget the election! Britney Spears is divorcing Kevin Federline!"

Considering that, a reader who remembers that post emails, wondering why I let a mere primary, viewed in the privacy of my home prevent me from blogging about the current Britney news. This is an excellent — and bloggy — question. The answer is 3-part.

1. We're picking a president, not just a Congress, like back in '06, and the Iowa caucuses were utterly fascinating, not just because we'd been watching and talking about this cast of characters for 2 years and finally some actual choosing was taking place, but also because we were seeing thrilling upsets in 2 parties. We were getting results at last, but we were also at the beginning of the process, and the situation was ripe for observation and analysis.

2. Sitting at home, I was better able to perceive and think and write about what was happening, which was something I wanted to do. I wanted to do that too at the CNN party — and that desire was augmented by a sense of obligation — but the pressure and the distractions made it very hard to do my usual bloggerly thing. I needed to adapt and find a way to write in that environment, and writing about Britney was just a little thing that was easy to do — a warm-up.

3. Britney was more of a lighthearted distraction then. Divorce is a serious matter, but a celebrity divorce seems to confirm our belief that celebrities are living shallow lives, that they are starved for the things that we have, things that are so much more important. But Britney's current troubles are pretty sad. ("Britney Spears was locked in a psych ward on Friday night after a meltdown that ended when she was strapped to a gurney and rushed to a hospital.") It's hard to see any value — even as a distraction — to pointing at her.

Because I know you want to talk about it, Part 2.

Britney Spears lost custody of her children today. She's 25 years old. As a young girl she was used to make money by adults who used her to express what they thought would amuse people to see a young girl express. And now she's got nothing left. It's just sad.

"You could tell by the expression on her face. Instead of just blocking everybody out and doing her thing, you could tell she was thinking about it."

Poor, humiliated Britney Spears. She didn't sound bad, because it's an excellent recording, but she made almost no effort to move her lips in the general area of the lyrics. And all those gyrating dancers around her only made her look more unsteady and confused. The choreographer's exaggerated expressions of sexuality -- the undulating torso and the overarched back -- expressed only: oh, I have to do another one of these things.

Watch the nightmarish scene here. And note the looks on the faces of the stars in the audience. The men all look stunned and sad and seem to feel sorry for her or embarrassed to watch. The women, on the other hand... I'm seeing exultation as their competitor falls.

The worst thing seems to be that Britney's own people sent her out there in a bra-and-panties outfit that is begging the entire world to call her fat -- when she could so easily have been encased in dark spandex that would make you look mean-spirited for talking about her weight.

Or was that the Britney equivalent of Elvis Presley's Vegas outfit? Why was that jumpsuit white? Were they trying to make him look like a beached whale? Perhaps there is some level of stardom where you don't try to disguise your flaws, you're just out there saying That's The Way It Is. I'm showing you my flobby belly because It's Britney, Bitch.

AND: Did I say Britney was fat? No! Reread if you think I did.

Is the internet "the end of the artist as a sensitive, bohemian soul"?

Here's a big, interesting NYT Magazine article about how musicians these days use blogs to get attention and success. You can go read all that, which focuses on a guy named Jonathan Coulton:

His fans need him; he needs them. Which is why, every day, Coulton wakes up, gets coffee, cracks open his PowerBook and hunkers down for up to six hours of nonstop and frequently exhausting communion with his virtual crowd.

Key words: "up to." Come on, here's his blog. He doesn't even post every day, and the posts I've read are just little updates on what he's been doing. There's also email:

Now fans think nothing of sending an e-mail message to their favorite singer — and they actually expect a personal reply. This is not merely an illusion of intimacy. Performing artists these days, particularly new or struggling musicians, are increasingly eager, even desperate, to master the new social rules of Internet fame. They know many young fans aren’t hearing about bands from MTV or magazines anymore; fame can come instead through viral word-of-mouth, when a friend forwards a Web-site address, swaps an MP3, e-mails a link to a fan blog or posts a cellphone concert video on YouTube.

Is this a hardship, or are you thinking if only I had these tools back when I had a band?

Across the country, the CD business is in a spectacular free fall; sales are down 20 percent this year alone. People are increasingly getting their music online (whether or not they’re paying for it), and it seems likely that the artists who forge direct access to their fans have the best chance of figuring out what the new economics of the music business will be.

What a fabulous opportunity!

Remarkably, Coulton offers most of his music free on his site; when fans buy his songs, it is because they want to give him money. The Canadian folk-pop singer Jane Siberry has an even more clever system: she has a “pay what you can” policy with her downloadable songs, so fans can download them free — but her site also shows the average price her customers have paid for each track. This subtly creates a community standard, a generalized awareness of how much people think each track is really worth. The result? The average price is as much as $1.30 a track, more than her fans would pay at iTunes.

Aw, that's cool. (Note that bloggers who give their writing away and may spend "up to" 6 hours a day writing have PayPal buttons that allow for the subtle creation of community and the heightening of generalized awareness.)

“If some kid is going to take 10 minutes out of his day to figure out what he wants to say in an e-mail, and then write it and send it, for me to not take the 5 minutes to say, dude, thanks so much — for me to ignore that?” [said Tad Kubler of the rock band the Hold Steady.] “I can’t.”

You know, it actually takes much less than 5 minutes to answer email like that, especially if you only write "Dude, thanks so much, Tad." Realistically, if you got 25 messages a day from fans, you could turn them around in half an hour, and you'd be crazy not to within this web-based economic model.

Yet Kubler sometimes has second thoughts about the intimacy. Part of the allure of rock, when he was a kid, was the shadowy glamour that surrounded his favorite stars. He’d parse their lyrics to try to figure out what they were like in person. Now he wonders: Are today’s online artists ruining their own aura by blogging? Can you still idolize someone when you know what they had for breakfast this morning? “It takes a little bit of the mystery out of rock ’n’ roll,” he said.

But those unreachable idols always released some personal details in their PR. They chose what to tell, and I'm sure some of it was just made up to give us whatever intimacy they wanted.

The same is true for blogging. It's an illusion of intimacy. There are only tantalizing little impressions. You may think, for example, that you have a view into my life, but I choose what you get to see and how much of it.

Look at this post of mine from Mother's Day and tell me what you know about my relationship with my mother. A commenter wrote: "You can tell by the pictures with your mother you were a good daughter." Another wrote: "Your Mom must have been a wonderful person." Another: "It's nice to know that even when your parents aren't with you physically, that they are still with you in every other way. I can just imagine that your mother is beaming with pride right now." I let those comments stand, signifying what they do, and I don't say whether the impressions are accurate. But apparently, you feel as though you've been embraced by some maternal warmth.

It's an illusion of intimacy. Part of the illusion is the appearance of revelation and frankness I'm generating right now.

So Kubler has cultivated a skill that is unique to the age of Internet fandom, and perhaps increasingly necessary to it, as well: a nuanced ability to seem authentic and confessional without spilling over into a Britney Spears level of information overload. He doesn’t post about his home life, doesn’t mention anything about his daughter or girlfriend — and he certainly doesn’t describe any of the ill-fated come-ons he deflects from addled female fans who don’t realize he’s in a long-term relationship.

Yes, exactly. This is what it takes to blog. Think about how little you know about my private life. And yet I'm constantly told that my blog is so personal. People who worry about blogging don't understand this distinction.

The author of the article -- Clive Thompson -- worries that the internet will "change the type of person who becomes a musician or writer":

It’s possible to see these online trends as Darwinian pressures that will inevitably produce a new breed — call it an Artist 2.0 — and mark the end of the artist as a sensitive, bohemian soul who shuns the spotlight....

It is also possible, though, that this is simply a natural transition point and that the next generation of musicians and artists — even the avowedly “sensitive” ones — will find the constant presence of their fans unremarkable.

I don't really see the problem. You control access to yourself even more on line than you do when you venture out into the physical world. I think a shy, introverted artist had more trouble in the past trying to find success when it required interacting with people in the flesh, when they were available and had a moment to give you a chance to make a good impression. It's so much easier for a sensitive artist to allow the world to see what he wants seen by using a website and interacting with people in writing.

"The 20 Worst Cover Songs in Pop Music History."

According to Cracked. Can't trust Cracked? They have the videos to prove it.

Some of these are new to me. For example, I didn't know Hillary Duff sang "My Generation," let alone that she changed the words to "hope I don't die before I get old." Actually, I think Cracked is revealing too much of a distaste for young women singing guys' songs. And not enough of a sense of... odd for Cracked... humor. I think Britney Spears singing "Satisfaction" is pretty amusing. Of course, I'm just watching it once, not having it inflicted on me repeatedly. But I think a bit of a mismatch in a cover song is nice.

And does Cracked have a conservative slant? Read this (about Counting Crows doing "Big Yellow Taxi"):

We absolutely loved the way that lead singer Adam Duritz (the hairy Fraggle wearing the arty-fart Dr. Seuss hat in the video) changed up the phrasing to make it more liberal than the original Joni Mitchell version. Because if there's one thing that Joni Mitchell could've improved on, it was being more liberal. That made all the difference to us. We've since started buying organic apples.

More liberal phrasing? I don't know... You listen to it. I can't.

Simulblogging the Oscars!

I've got to get home first. The flight to Madison is boarding, so let me get going. Start without me!

ADDED #1: Hey, I made it home. No flight delays, but you should have seen how buried my car was. Well, you will see, because I took pictures. Anyway, I can see you're way ahead of me talking about this. 29 comments as I start. But the TiVo is running, and I've seen the really charming Errol Morris film that kicked things off. A sweet, self-effacing attitude. And now, here's Ellen DeGeneres, continuing the sweet, charming, self-effacing tone. She's wearing a dark red velvet tuxedo -- with white shoes -- and looks very sharp. Her first joke makes me laugh. She has a nice joke about Americans not voting for Jennifer Hudson (on "American Idol") and then how they did vote for Al Gore. For no apparent reason, a gospel choir comes out and Ellen dances and plays tambourine. Now, for the first award, for Art Direction, and it's Nicole Kidman, looking very Barbie-like, all plastic-y and shiny. She's wearing an impossibly tall, thin red dress, with a knot at the side of the neck. The award goes to "Pan's Labyrinth."

ADDED #2: They didn't start with a supporting acting award. Good! Now, there's a comedy song, and I'm using it as a chance to try to catch up with you guys. On to the next award: makeup! Again, with the "Pan's Labyrinth." The makeup did look pretty cool. Ooh, now it's Abigail Breslin and Jaden Smith. Kids. They're short, so they do the nominees for shorts. Sorry, it's another fast-forward opportunity.

ADDED #3: Wow, you guys are up to 43 comments. I'm desperately trying to catch up with you. Ooh, it's Rachel Weisz. She looks just great in a strapless beige dress that has a nice jeweled swirl across the chest. I like her dark red lipstick and piece-y dark brown hair. She's doing the Supporting Actor award. Aw, Eddie Murphy looks like he really wants to win. It's Alan Arkin. My favorite. I love this guy. He puts the Oscar down on the floor so he can pull out his speech. The film -- "Little Miss Sunshine" -- can help us in our "fragmented times." It's a choice not to act out the speech. Surely, he could have memorized it. Maybe he was acting the part of a guy reading a speech.

ADDED #4: Melissa Etheridge performs the song from "An Inconvenient Truth," and then out come Leonardo DiCaprio and Vice President Al Gore. Al looks happy (and carries his great weight well). Leo asks him if he's got anything he'd like to announce. He says he's "just here for the movies." He thanks Leo for being "such a great ally" in his anti-global-warming efforts. Leo's all "thank you, sir," and the camera -- pretty randomly -- goes to Jerry Seinfeld, who's caught looking like this:



Cameron Diaz, who also has piece-y dark brown hair, gives the award for animation to "Happy Feet," and she's unbearable cutesy and phony. Nice clip show about movies about writers. At the end, we see Jack Nicholson -- who was featured in the clips for both "The Shining" and "As Good As It Gets" -- and he's shaved totally bald. (A tribute to Britney Spears?)

ADDED #5: "The Departed" wins Best Original Screenplay. Hey, you guys are up to 75 comments. I'm still not reading them, because I'm trying to catch up. I'm sure it's all clever and stuff. There's a great commercial for American Express -- must be a Jerry Seinfeld thing, explaining the "random" shot noted above. And a beautiful ad for iPhone... of lots of hellos from movies. (No need to convince me to buy one of those things when they are available, so the commercial seems to just be about getting me more excited about it.) They're doing the costumes award now. "Marie Antoinette" wins. Tom Cruise presents the Jean Hersholt "humanitarian" award to Sherry Lansing. We're in the depressing "dead" center of the show now, so let me regale you with pix of my car, as I encountered it after my long trip home. It was in this deep:



And here's how it looked after digging just enough of a space to back it out:



How did I get it dug out? Am I the kind of person who keeps a shovel in the trunk? No, but as I was walking to the car, dreading seeing how locked in it was, I ran across a woman with a shovel, and she loaned it to me. Then, carrying a shovel, I attracted a man who helped me because he needed a shovel and a second man who had his own shovel. These two guys dug out the snow while I scraped the windows and lights. (I do keep a scraper!) And I was out in no time. And don't just say: Guys! Because there was also that woman with the shovel. I asked her, "Do you work here?" And she said no, she just drove over with a shovel because a friend called her up, and she trusted me to return the shovel to a spot in the snow that we agreed on. I left that trust with Guy #1 and I'm sure he kept it.

ADDED #6: Speaking of movies, I got my little movie up at last in the previous post. You can hear me and my long-time ex-husband RLC talking about things seen in a record store window. Whoa! You guys are up to 119 comments! Okay, I've gotta rush. Visual Effects. Doesn't Naomi Watts look lovely in that yellow-gold, strapless dress with a thick black band under the breasts? "Pirates of the Caribbean" wins. Now, we see Catherine Deneuve for... what the hell is this? Ah! There's Sacha Baron Cohen in the audience. He's so adorable! "Best Foreign Language Film. "The Lives of Others." Oooh! It's George Clooney. He's handsome! Best Supporting Actress!!! Jennifer Hudson!!!!! She says: "Look what God can do!"

ADDED #7: It's Jerry Seinfeld. He's doing the Documentary award. Oh, so they showed him before when Al was on stage because later he was going to present the award for which Al is nominated. Seems too fix-y to me. And Al wins the Oscar!!!!! Closeup of the oh-so-pleased Steven Spielberg. Why did they make the film? Because of the problem of global warming??? Oh, no: "We were moved to act by this man." So says the director, reaching over to touch the hem of Al Gore's garment. He's gasping with awe. It's kinda embarrassing. He pumps the Oscar weirdly twice in Al's direction and he says "We share this with you." The camera goes to Larry David, clapping righteously. Now, Gore speaks: global warming is "not a political issue, it's a moral issue." I like Al. He makes his wooden squareness hip and cool.

ADDED #8: Kirsten Dunst is wearing a beautiful, witty dress. It's gray and has a see-through section at the top with a collar that seems to belong on a prim blouse. It's intelligent. And the dress makes me love Kirsten! The award is Original Screenplay, and it goes to "Little Miss Sunshine." Now, we see Jennifer Hudson sing a song, which must be fun for her, having already won the Oscar. I try to imagine how Simon Cowell would detect deficiency. Beyonce joins her, and -- isn't it true? -- Beyonce is the better singer. Does Beyonce feel she needs to prove her superiority?

ADDED #9: There's a Michael Mann montage about "America." We're racist war mongers, you know. Then the elegant Thelma Schoonmaker wins the editing award for "The Departed." Now, we see Jodie Foster, dragging excess yards of slate-blue fabric along with her. But she's introducing my favorite segment, In Memoriam. I'll impolitely name the ones that had the most effect on me: Don Knotts, Sven Nykvist, Robert Altman.

ADDED #10: Phillip Seymour Hoffman arrives to give the Best Actress award. It's no surprise that the wonderful Helen Mirren wins. I love the array of actresses as the award is announced. They all do a perfect performance of the thought: Indeed, Helen Mirren is grand! I love the way Mirren "salutes" Elizabeth Windsor.

ADDED #11: It's Reese Witherspoon, here to give the award for Best Actor. She's got major hair extensions and a simple black strapless gown. Oh, don't you want Peter O'Toole to win? Yikes, what is that incredibly smarmy look Jada Pinkett Smith gives Will? Does she hate him + is a terrible actress? And it goes, as expected, to Forest Whitaker. The look on Peter O'Toole's face says: And now, it's impossible. He's very old. Whitaker raves -- touchingly -- about how acting is the belief that we can connect to others and create a new reality.

ADDED #12: Coppola, Lucas, and Spielberg gang up to deliver the long-awaited Oscar to Martin Scorsese, and the Oscar really does go to Marty. Li'l Marty hugs C, L, and S. He stammers and just thanks a lot of people. "So many people over the years have been wishin' this thing for me."

ADDED #13: Damn! I never caught up! I've been struggling and fast-forwarding, but I never could make it. I hope you accept my belated scribblings! Well, Best Picture now. Presenting: Diane Keaton (swathed in black) and Jack Nicholson (gloriously bald). I'm just thinking about how nobody made a political statement tonight. They kept it clean and elegant. And the winner is... "The Departed." Excellent!

ADDED #14: I turn off the lights and collect my bags to trudge upstairs after a long day. I peer out the front door and see the people came to shovel my walks as I was watching the Oscars. I'd parked my car in the street and stalked through foot high snow when I got home tonight. So I put on my big down coat and went outside to pull my car into the driveway. Let me leave you with one last shot of my car at the airport. Actually, this one is so abstract, I'm not positive it is my car: