Wes Phillips

An easy-enough-for-Americans version.

Or is it? www.moistworks.com; is an aggregator site and a darn good one. Here, it explores the relationship between the chicken and funk—although it does omit the superb "Chicken Stuff" by slide guitarist Hop Wilson. And who could ignore Amos Milburn's rocking "Chicken Shack?" OTOH, any place that posts Swamp Dogg's "Eat the Goose Before the Goose Eats You" is well worth visiting.

When calculation was done factory style.

C'mon, 'fess up—don't you wish you lived in Brooklyn?

"My room is insane! TINY! How is it even possible that I got a room without any view? A tiny stainless steel toilet. There is an incredibly thin mattress. If I didn't know I was in prison I'd think I was in an Ian Schrager hotel."

Thomas Beller meditates on the pleasures of taking an aural time out. At Tyll Hertsens' urging, I began doing this about 10 years ago—it's amazing how much it makes you hear what you normally tune out. Of course, that's not always a good thing, as Beller points out.

You simply have to read "The Peekaboo paradox," a fantastic piece of writing by Gene Weingarten. (It's long, so you might prefer to print it out and save it for later.) It conforms to a formula I admiringly call The New Yorker paradigm, in which a writer introduces you to a subject you think you don't have much interest in (in this case a children's party entertainer) and makes it fascinating. Then you discover that the real story is so much deeper and compelling than you could have ever imagined.