Congratulations Hayden and family!

Oops -- didn't mean to doublepost.

Congrats, Hayden! Sphere, indeed.

Songs JZ has danced to in the living room as I transferred the videos from TiVo to tape:

"The Passenger" - Siouxsie and the Banshees
"Gone, Daddy Gone" - Violent Femmes
"Been Caught Stealing" - Jane's Addiction
"The Boy With The Thorn In His Side" - The Smiths
"Blister in the Sun" - Violent Femmes ("I'm doing the Angela Chase dance. It's after she knows that she has surgically removed Jordan Catalano from her heart and she's throwing her clothes around she's doing this with her hands."

David, I was at a party tonight and ended up talking to this guy -- [link] He said he had just finished a book on glam rock. I said, "Have you seen Lost in the Grooves?" He said, "Oh, yeah. I loved that book. I tore right through it." He said he had e-mailed one of the contributors who had written about an album he really liked.

"Oh, yeah. I loved that book. I tore right through it."

Cooool. Next time you talk to him, aim him at the Bubblegum Book, because I wrote a big article on Glam Rock in that book. Though, I've got a lot more super obscure glam now than I did then.

Bootie's mildly disturbing photoshopped flyers. We heard the Eminem/Smiths one tonight.

I think my favorite flyer is the Bjork/Robert Smith meld.

'80s nostalgia.

The recording industry was slow to act, but over the last year and a half it has belatedly started trying to cash in on it all. Performers lost in the pop wilderness for a generation suddenly decided to get in touch with their old, often estranged mates, and get the band back together in the name of art, commerce or both. A raft of once-popular acts, from the danceable R&B group New Edition to the pop idols Duran Duran and George Michael to the more self-serious Tears for Fears to the standard-bearers of teenage angst, the Cure, all shook off the dust and signed new recording contracts in the past 18 months or so, releasing CD's of new music in some cases for the first time in 15 years. In the footsteps of Motley Crue's double album, the stylishly snarling Billy Idol, the dark darlings New Order and the famously burly rapper Heavy D will be releasing new albums as well.

All have returned with attendant fanfare, sweeping across red carpets and past screaming fans at radio station visits and showcase concerts.

Yet despite the grass-roots enthusiasm and VH1 dogma - not to mention millions of dollars in marketing - the 80's are not selling. People may be donning the once-again fashionable styles of the era (even leg warmers and Flashdance tops) and dancing to the bands of their youth, but they are not going to the store to buy the albums. For the industry that bet on the revival, it's mourning in America.

We Hate the 80's (NYT)

I forgot to mention that he'd also read the Bubblegum book, David.

Cool flyers. I like the Britney/Bowie one.