Fanfare of trumpets!

It's semi-gallimaufry time today. Get. Effing. Excited.

First things first, I haven't watched the show Glee, mostly because - how to put this? - I'm insufficiently fabulous. Too busy doing masculine guy stuff, like riding motorcycles in color-coordinated leather outfits and rolling around with sweaty dudes in my spare time.

Wait, what?

Anyway, the version of Don't Stop Believin' by the Glee Cast is blowing up the intertubes. Apparently the Journey die-hards are hating it, and the tweens are loving it. I heard it on the satellite radio in the rental car. I'm a big fan of the original, but I'm also loving the new version. Video embedded below.

Here's the thing: The song is f*cking awesome. I've sung it with friends in shite bars all over the world. I've sung it by myself in the car. My friend Sam, who works in the music business and is as cynical a music snob as you'll ever meet, said that the highlight of SXSW two years ago was when Badly Drawn Boy covered it to close out his show. Badly Drawn Boy. The hipsters didn't know what to do with themselves. The record execs rolled their eyes. Sam went ballistic. Sure it's cheesy, but cheese is delicious. So the haters should relax a little. New version is not better. New version is new.

Moar raves: finished a superb story this week, from which I cribbed the title of this post. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. This is on many best-of lists for 2009, but if you're looking for some light summer reading it just came out in paperback. It's at least as good as Girl with Dragon Tattoo, but with a lot less rape and incest. So that's nice.

40 seconds of wiener dog

Occasionally I find out that people come to this space for entertainment. It's a testament to how bored they get in their day to day lives. This video is for my friend's ex-girlfriend Sarah, who gets a special shout-out b/c she is an occasional reader and also shares some of my internet genius with her students, and also b/c she is awesome. Not sure if this video will make the cut, but I'm cautiously optimistic. There's got to be some educational value in there somewhere...