Besides spending an inordinate amount of time on Fleet Street, I've been gulping down media like cold beer on a hot day. It's probably a combination of my desire to escape a few things going on the the physical world, a major post-holiday influx of new material, and illness-induced insomnia; whatever the reason, there a lot of shiny new stuff in my brain.

Sweeney Todd [2005 recording]; Sweeney Todd [1979 recording]; Hvarf/Heim; Heima; Popeye the Sailor: 1933-1938, Vol. 1; Popeye Vol. 2: "Well Blow Me Down!"; The Sex Club; Mort and Reaper Man; Twin Peaks; Mingering Mike; and at least another dozen CDs, DVDs, and books.

My media consumption would be so much easier if I limited myself to one of two narrow categories of choice, and disparaged and dismissed everything else. But then I would be an art critic, and nobody wants that.