Quick Clicks

2001 was a good year for music.

PopMatters interviews famous film score composer Ennio Morricone.

Leave it to the Japanese to put LEDs on something like this.

The Hold Steady front man Craig Finn is set to direct the film version of Chuck Klosterman’s Fargo Rock City.

Michael Cera is 12. Swear to god.

I’m certainly not interviewing for Oxbridge, but what a great list of books.

Quick Clicks

Your “no shit” news of the day: Glenn Beck is an idiot.

NIN’s “Pretty Hate Machine” turned 20 years old. I’m not even going to pretend like I wasn’t three when it came out. I didn’t catch on until later.

A revolting collection of vampire-themed merchandise that shouldn’t exist.

R. Crumb retells the story of Genesis in a graphic novel format.

Speaking of, seems like everyone is interested in the Bible as text these days: Check out the tracklist and stream the songs here. Great album.

Depression has its evolutionary perks, particularly if you’re a writer. But we’ve always known that.

More than you ever wanted to know about the Smurfs, who made their debut 51 years ago this week.

Quick Clicks

The Mountain Goats announced US and European tour dates for this fall. They’ll be in NYC on December 1st and 2nd at Webster Hall and the Bell House, respectively.

Was Atticus Finch a classist? Probably.

Playlists from the cast of Mad Men are available to download on iTunes.

You can play Slate’s charming “How Will America End?” game right here.

Why didn’t I think of this. God DAMN it.

Here’s John Vanderslice. Being awesome. Enjoy.

The A.V. Club interviews Matt & Kim. Love them. But I Must. Stop. Writing about hipsters.

Quick Clicks

PopMatters takes on what Bob Proehl calls the “Ghetto of Genre” in music.

The Groove Effect lashes back– albeit a bit weakly, in my opinion– at critiques of hipster culture.

Web Del Sol lists its top 50 online literary magazines.

Director Guillermo del Toro weighs in on why vampires have become so popular on the NYT Op-Ed page.

I want these AC/DC Converse.

British lawmakers are considering legislating against undisclosed photoshopping of images.

Quick Clicks

The Ladies & Gents of Something Awful list the best albums of 2009, so far.

Slate’s Farhad Manjoo offers solutions to Facebook’s design flaws. Right on.

The Rumpus interviews author Jonathan Ames.

Annie Leibovitz is b-r-o-k-e. I can’t imagine selling off your negatives.

A cache of Roald Dahl’s personal letters has been recently discovered. His biographer rescheduled the  release of Dahl’s biography for next year in light of the new material.

Austin 360 profiles singer-songwriter M. Ward.

In other Roald Dahl news, the full trailer for Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox is up.

HBO has renewed Entourage, True Blood, and Hung for another season.

Quote of the Day

I would say that music is the easiest means in which to express, but since words are my talent, I must try to express clumsily in words what the pure music would have done better.

–WILLIAM FAULKNER

for S.

Wizard(s) Rock

Paste:: Catching Up With… Harry and the Potters.

I’m about to buy tickets online to see HP6 on Saturday night. If you’re having trouble filling your time until it premieres tonight at midnight, however, check out Paste’s interview with Harry and the Potters, the band who “sings about books.”