Frank & Earthy

o Jonathan Lethem's awesome Harper's essay, "The Ecstasy of Influence." Oddly -- or not, given the theme of the piece -- the section that I quoted the other day was actually lifted/appropriated/borrowed from David Foster Wallace.

o Joel Kotkin on "The Myth of 'Superstar Cities.'" Will read tomorrow. I have a feeling he's onto something.

o My ex-roomie's aweosme clap clap blog has relaunched as clapclap.org, including an incisive deconstruction of freak-folk's relationship to pop.

o Samantha M. Shapiro's fascinating overview in the Sunday NYT magazine about the gray market that has sprung up to accomodate bootleg mixes. It centers on the Aphilliates' recent bust, though never really gets into the meat of why there was a sudden crackdown.

Not reading, but:
o Lullabyes.net posted a lovely solo acoustic soundboard of Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes playing, uh, the other day at Good Records in Dallas. A few nice covers are included, notably Neil Young's "Harvest Moon," the Beatles' "I Will," and a bit of the Olivia Tremor Control's "Green Typewriters." Thanks!