factoidinal procrastination

it’s been like two years so it’s ok to reiterate the joyous time-vacuum that is the iTunes celebrity playlist. how else would we learn Stephen King’s (correct) opinion of Beach Boys’ “Don’t Worry Baby” (“The Beach Boys song to which all others must be measured”) or that jared leto does not apparently listen to music past my so-called life era top 10 alt-radio (The Cure’s “Fascination Street” makes him want to put on “lipstick and fishnets, ’nuff said”). Or Cowboy Troy loves “Baby Got Back” because it is the “most popular song in the clubs I’ve come across” or that Goapele loves both Common “Faithful” and Bilal, whose album “didn’t get the attention it deserved” (i accidentally saw bilal play the other night and it was, indeed, like wrapping one’s self in chiffon and hang-gliding slow from a mtntop, if you, unlike jaguar wright, are still ok with marrying neo. shhhhhhhhhhh)
Gus Van Sant loves Joni Mitchell “Free Man in Paris,” as do I. This is late, but if you have the music issue of Interview magazine lying around, from a couple months ago w/Pete huffing Doughtery on the cover, there’s a terrific conversation between Joni and Camille Paglia, who breaks down some Joni work in her new book “camille paglia reads poetry” ( title not to scale) which i read, partly, and is dense and sharp–we like camille paglia better on the lit-crit tip than basically–anywhere else.