"Have yourself a merry little Christmas / It may be your last/ Next year we may all be living in the past."

The original lyric to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," which I learned about after happening to catch the tail end of ...

Dogged journalist grills a guy who looks like Bono.

Makes a big deal out of it before it's figured out that they guy was not Bono. Pavel “Bonodouble” Sfera showed up [at some big music eve...

"Perhaps it was Zeppo’s ardent pursuit with dinner invitations and flowers or the new Thunderbird convertible he bought for me."

"Or was it the time he stood behind a group of strangers in an elevator and pulled faces until I was laughing so hard I had to get off...

"... Sinatra was a singularly fluorescent vocal phenomenon."

No, of course that's not what the NYT review of that new book about Frank Sinatra says. It says "Sinatra was a singularly incande...

After Harry Connick night (AKA Frank Sinatra night) all of the Idol contestants are at risk.

And with only one female left in the group of 5, I bet the producers are desperately regretting that they tucked Crystal Bowersox in the cen...

What word in what Frank Sinatra song would Siobvan Magnus have magnificently shrieked?

She got sent home last night, so it's alternate reality speculation. But look at the song list — after the jump — it's real. "A...

The food carts of Madison.

I'm back in New York City, after arriving in the wee small hours of the morning. But I'm still dragging Madison photographs out of t...

It's Kurt Vonnegut's birthday, the first since his death.

So let's read this 1992 Playboy Interview with him and Joseph Heller, who is also dead. There's some talk of Norman Mailer, and he...

The Unacceptable Tomato.

Don't put that thing on that thing on the plate! This was served in New York City. So you New Yorkers, if you find yourself out in Middl...

Unwinding.

Here's the lobby of my hotel. Does it look familiar? Have you been here? There's a nice fire over there in the fireplace. Isn't ...

"It's an institute you can't disparage."

The theme this week on "Theme Time Radio Hour With Bob Dylan": marriage . I like the way the old hipster is blatantly square in ma...

"American Idol" -- the final 7 sing old standards.

Rod Stewart is here tonight to lead the kids into "the great American songbook." "I've always loved these songs. I was br...

"American Idol" -- the guys!

Oh, yeah, I am here, ready to blog the guys. Sorry, I had to talk on the telephone. Now, to the TiVo. Patrick Hall . "Come to My Window...

Songs transformed with the sex of the singer.

What songs well-known as girl songs would take on intriguing meaning sung by a guy? Tori Amos comes up with a list of 20 songs , but I find ...

Pick a decade.

Driving around in my car, I like to listen to the satellite radio, especially the XM "Decades" channels. I always start with the 6...

The night "Broadway" was not an insult.

After three seasons of using "Broadway" as an insult, "American Idol" makes Broadway show tunes the theme. I've got ...

The latest in Duke Ellington CDs.

My wonderful colleague Stewart Macaulay sends out advice about buying Duke Ellington records to the faculty email list here at the Universit...

Dylan's "Chronicles": Chapter 3.

Continuing with my reading of Dylan 's autobiography. (I do Chapter 1 here and Chapter 2 here .) Poet Dylan is excited to meet who turn...

Day 1 of the Republican Convention.

(I'll put all my observations for tonight in this post, with numbered paragraphs to represent the updates.) 1. I love the grand video sc...

Shopping.

So, as I said, I was down in the outskirts of Chicago yesterday shopping. I can't help it, but I like the Oakbrook Center , with its nic...