Wes Phillips

Musicians On Call sponsors private musical performances in hospitals and treatment rooms for patients too ill to leave their rooms. What a great charity. Support it with donations—or your "gently used" CDs.

I may have found the solution to Jeff Wong's and my return-leg headwind problem. Of course,the http://www.personalpropulsion.com/"> Pacific Wind ThrustPac is noisy and would make us look (more) like dorks, but a personal jet pack that would give us speeds of 25–35mph and it a range of 150mpg might be worth it. Pacific Wind’s website is pretty crappy, but the ThrustPac seems to utilize a 35cc engine.

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The Dave Brubeck Quartet hits one out of the park in this 1966 performance. The fabulous Eugene Wright looks completely out of place as the only band member without eye-wear.

NASCAR meats: Taste the excitement?

When I traveled through Wisconsin in the '70s, you could still buy these for a quarter at junk shops around the state. Sure wish I'd taken advantage of the opportunity—as if we needed more stuff around here.

Carl Zimmer gives us the straight, er, poop on tapeworms.

Richard Taruskin on the media assault on the declining value of classical music, as seen through the writings of Kramer, Johnson, and Finegold—and wouldn't that make a fine name for a law firm?.