We’re trying out for Manfred Mann’s role in the school play.

As busy as usual:

• Old Joy proved more love­ly than I expect­ed, rem­i­nis­cent of the 70’s films I love rather than just being a flim­sy imi­ta­tion. Beau­ti­ful­ly shot, ellip­ti­cal and brief, it’s a movie that gives you a lot to think about with­out clang­ing you over the head with polit­i­cal pots and pans or over­wrought exis­ten­tial trac­tus­es, while being both polit­i­cal and existential.
• S/FJ cel­e­brates his fifti­eth col­umn at the New York­er. If there were a form that would explain why I asked for a sub­scrip­tion I would sim­ply pro­vide his ini­tials. It sure as hell isn’t for David Denby.
• My Com­cast blog launched yes­ter­day. I list­ed my favorite 28 albums of the year so far, along with a few like­ly can­di­dates that’ll jump into the mix before ’08 gets under­way. Apolo­gies for its appear­ance, but it’s in an embry­on­ic form and I don’t expect it to remain housed in user forums for long, but for now it’ll do. Think of its cur­rent loca­tion as an incu­ba­tor where it can grow strong and healthy.
• Still haven’t picked up my Mac­book yet. Read­ing the stu­dent dis­count page reminds me that when I arrived at school my dorm had­n’t yet been wired for the inter­net. In fact, most of them under­went ren­o­va­tions in turn after I left for the summer.