Assorted Assortments

My friend Paul is interning at NPR at the moment, and he's specifically been working on the Web-only program Open Mic. What will my ecstatic fellow music dork cull from the bins of the Great Unsigned next?

It appears the other day was "Don't Look Directly At The Camera Day" at The A.V. Club. See?



The day before that, my Mark Linkous interview was totally at the top of the page, hence Milwaukee editor Steve and I dominated, bringing a little Wisconsin-power back to AVC for one glorious day, as he pointed out. Or something. Speaking of new guys, the company's announced that it's launching a D.C. print edition soon, so if you or someone you know is an awesome entertainment writer/editor up there, bug my boss.

My other boss recently lost his oldest cat. R.I.P., Oscar Phipps. Once I watched Keith's pets for a weekend. Oscar spent most of the time posturing like a pissed-off, feline Judi Dench on the dining-room table, and indeed, as frail old cats go, he was dignified and slightly threatening. I liked his style.