After a couple of soft weeks for new releases, summer closes and fall enters with a fury of new material from veritable rock powerhouses, including Robert Plant, Linkin Park, Weezer and the Killers Brandon Flowers. During Flowers fall European tour, San Diego Music Award winners Transfer will accompany him on the road. Flowers new record, Flamingo, an homage to his home street, originally started as a Killers record but morphed into the singer's first solo endeavor.In a similar storyline, Plants follow-up to his Grammy-winning collaboration with Alison Kraus morphed into Band of Joy, his pre-Zeppelin project with John Bonham. The critically acclaimed, rootsy endeavor re-teams Plant withlongtime producer and friend T-Bone Burnett. In other pairings, Mavis Staples, 71, teams with Wilcos Jeff Tweedy on a collection of gospel covers and new material, and Linkin Park reunites with Rick Rubin for the rock-leaning follow-up to MInutes to Midnight: A Thousand Suns. Since when did Linkin Park start naming albums a la Iron Maiden records?!?Weezer, on a mission to reclaim hipster cred, releases Hurley, a better record (and title) than Raditude, and Chromeo serves up some ridiculously awesome '70s funk/pop on their third album. Additionally, new offerings from Phish-head Trey Anastasio, Michelle Branch, Of Montreal and Black Milk are worthy of an aural investment. Heres the full list on releases for Tuesday, Sept. 14:2am Club: What Did You Think Was Going to Happen?Mario Abney: 
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Question: I have to admit, Im a little disappointed that its Cristina and Owen getting married in the Greys premiere and not Callie and Arizona. Will you make me feel better by giving us some Callie-Arizona scoop? JAusiello: Theres a major Calzona development in the Oct. 28 episode, but a Greys source assures me that its not a turn for the worse. So dont go barraging Shonda Rhimes with angry tweets. In the same episode, a camera crew invades Seattle Grace to film a documentary about the hospitals recovery in the wake of the shooting rampage. In fact, the entire ep will be shot from the POV of the crew, so if shaky-cam makes you queasy youd best pop a Dramamine before showtime.Question: So sad to hear that youre leaving EW! So, to cheer me up, any chance you could give me some Greys Anatomy scoop? MaryAusiello: The sublime Amanda Foreman, whos currently recurring on Parenthood, will guest-star in the aforementioned Oct. 28 episode as (I believe) a patient. This is also the episode that marks the return of Mandy Moore and Ryan Devlin. BTW, youre not getting rid of me that quickly. Im still here for a few more weeksplenty of time to get me a really expensive farewell gift. (Registry info is forthcoming.)Question: Good Wife scoop, please! CliffAusiello: Sounds like the show is breaking TVs last taboo. No, not [blank], incest! A casting call has gone out for Molly, Carys beautiful 18-year-old cousin whom he is taking on a tour of the University of Chicago. During said tour, little Miss Molly makes it clear that she still has a crush on her older cuz. He, in turn, makes it clear that thats gross hes not interested. Perhaps theyre cousins once or twice or thrice removed? Or maybe theyre cousins in the way that, you know, Keri and I are cousins.Question: Whats the poop, er, scoop on Elizabeth Reasers Good Wife character? TimAusiello: The scoop is Alicia will probably get the urge to key her car. She plays a sports writer, and she and Will develop sparks in a way that Will hasnt with any other woman except Alicia, explains exec producer Robert King. Were thrilled with [Elizabeth]. Ive loved her since The Ex List. Shes doing an excellent job.Question: Could you please give us something good on Law & Order: SVU? KenleighAusiello: Im not sure this qualifies as good, but Oscar and Emmy winner Marcia Gay Harden is reprising her role as FBI agent Dana Lewis. But shes not returning to work on a case. Shes returning to BE the case.Question: Were you able to find out why Glee is casting miniature versions of Puck, Santana, Rachel, Brittany, and Mercedes? Are they doing a flashback? ShellyAusiello: Nope. Its a fantasy sequence. Or nightmare sequence if Sues the one doing the dreaming.Question: You must give us some scoop on whether Darren Criss will be playing Kurts new love interest on Glee! AshleyAusiello: Thats still TBD. All I know for certain is that theyll be good friends.Question: College applications are getting me down. Any news on Darren Criss Glee character to remotivate me? Is it too much to hope that hell be singing one of his own songs? SabrinaAusiello: Sorry to add to your doldrums, but I do believe its too much to hope. But let me get confirmation of that from Criss himself. Well, it really isnt up to me, shrugs the up-and-comer. But even if it was, and as cool as that would bepersonally, for me as an artistI think its important to keep a bit of separation from the actors realities and the characters realities. For example, as much as I would love to geek out over Matthew Morrison singing Passeggiata from Light in the Piazzaor any of the Spring Awakening-turned-Glee kids doing a number from that showit probably would shake the audience out of the world of McKinley High, or at least the Broadway fans of the show anyway. But hey, whats best for the show is best for the show, and I trust the creators in their choice of music. If the time was right, and they ever approached me to have one of my songs used in the show, of course, Id be absolutely thrilled. Talented, pretty, and eloquent? Bitch.Question: Do you have any scoop on the upcoming season of Southland? AutumnAusiello: It premieres in early January, and therell be a new face on the force. The show is casting the role of a Latina cop who is impulsive, no-nonsense, and occasionally annoying. Shes also, and I quote, not gorgeous, but real. Id hate to be the actress who gets recommended for that role.Question: Any new Smallville scoop? AdelleAusiello: Present-day Clark comes face-to-face with future Clark (a.k.a. Superman) in next Fridays 200th episode. But Im pretty sure thats old news. Heres some new news. In the Oct. 22 episode, Clark finally decides to tell Lois his secret. Which is kind of funny because thats the same episode she decides to tell him her secret: that she already knows! Hilarious, right? I thought it was.Question: Any cool Big Bang Theory casting scoops? BarrieAusiello: This isnt as cool as Eliza Dushku guest-starring in an episode, but...
Parliamentary sketchwriter Simon Hoggart has met every British prime minister since Harold Macmillan. And each has, without fail, proved to have their own idiosyncratic foibles, as he recalls in these extracts from his new book, A Long LunchIt is certainly not fashionable to say this now, but I have always had an affection for most politicians. As sketchwriters, we are verbal caricaturists. Nicholas Garland, the brilliant cartoonist for the Daily Telegraph, once described to me how his profession worked. A new person swims into the public gaze. They may have an apparently quite ordinary face, like John Major or Tony Blair. The cartoonist then finds something, anything, about their appearance that is even slightly off-normal.Various cartoonists fastened on to Major's upper lip, on which a sort of phantom moustache seemed to hover. My colleague Steve Bell spotted that Blair had, like Margaret Thatcher, one mad staring eye. (I claim credit for noticing that this was sometimes the right, sometimes the left, as if the daemon within took its pick each morning.) By the end of Blair's period in office, Bell was able to draw the eye inside an electricity pylon, as the viewing hole in a prison door, or as an untethered balloon floating away into the sky, and achieve instant recognition.In the same way, we sketchwriters develop our own shorthand for the people we write about, exaggerating language, absorbing verbal tics, fastening on to some minor eccentricity and pumping it as hard as we can. One way or another, I have met every British prime minister since Macmillan. They are often rather odd, and it seems to be, in some way, a condition of getting the top job. The party leaders who were most like real human beings Neil Kinnock and William Hague, for instance never quite made it. I think the electorate wants their leader to be different, slightly set apart, a little bit weird.Margaret ThatcherBeing Margaret Thatcher was a very demanding, 24-hour-a-day job. Like many people held in the grip of their own convictions, Thatcher had trouble understanding the thoughts and words of others. She was, and no doubt is, a kindly woman. Staff were always pleased when she remembered their birthdays, even more when she remembered their children's birthdays. She could be tolerant of other people's way of living, even when she did not understand or sympathise with it. However, if she had a sense of humour, it was well hidden.There are many stories about this. When the Liberals adopted a sort of stylised yellow bird as their logo, one of her speechwriters produced a passage based on Monty Python's parrot sketch "this parrot is no more, it has shuffled off this mortal coil and gone to join the choir invisible . . ." She had to be persuaded that the lines were funny, and would be recognised by the audience. She had one other concern: "This Monty Python, is he one of us?" (Interestingly, Cameron referred to the same sketch in his party conference speech this week, confident that everyone would get the joke.)Earlier, Peter Jay, the son-in-law of the then prime minister Jim Callaghan, had said that Callaghan saw himself as Moses, leading his people after long travails into the promised land. It was a silly thing to say, and Thatcher's people seized on it. They wrote a line for her party conference speech: "My message to Moses is: 'Keep taking the tablets.'" But she didn't get the joke and tried to change it to "Keep taking the pills." Only after it was carefully explained to her did she agree to the proper version.She was nonetheless the source of much unwitting humour. Just as, in an early silent movie, when you see a man up a ladder with a pot of paint, you know with near certainty that the star is going to walk under the ladder at exactly the wrong moment, so with Thatcher. When a double entendre appeared in the offing, you felt she was certain to utter it.I recall Thatcher being asked in the Commons about pacifists handing out leaflets outside an army barracks. "I'm sure soldiers will know exactly what they can do with those leaflets!" she said, to outright laughter from the Labour side and surreptitious giggles from the Tories.At a training centre in Putney, she was introduced to an extremely large youth who was working with a giant wrench. "Goodness," she said, "I've never seen a tool as big as that!"But Thatcher saved the best of all for her victory tour of the Falkland Islands. She was taken to inspect a large field gun, basically a ride-on lawnmower with a barrel several feet long. It was on a bluff, overlooking a plain on which another Argentine invasion might one day materialise. She admired the weapon, and the soldier manning it asked if she would like to fire a round."But mightn't it jerk me off?" she replied. Chris Moncrieff of the Press Association, who was covering the visit, recorded the manful struggle of the soldier to keep his face, indeed his whole body, straight.If Gladstone addressed Queen Victoria as if...
Nightmare Before Christmas Party Goods Mylar Balloon - Bookshelf
48 pages
Dillweed's Revenge, A Deadly Dose of Magic
An adventure-deprived young boy's neglectful parents and abusive servants receive their just desserts.
About this book
Dillweed's parents go on adventures and leave him behind with Umblud the butler and Perfidia the maid, who treat him like their slave. Neither Umblud or Perfidia or the parents appreciate Dillweed's cherished pet, a creature named Skorped. When they threaten Skorped's life and well-being, Dillweed opens his black box and casts the runes, which releases smoky monsters, who do the dirty deeds. And then it's Dillweed turn to go on adventures. Filled with nasty characters, beautiful details, and subtle humor, this stylish book follows in the tradition of the deliciously dark work of Edward Gorey, so Dillweed's happy ending undoubtedly means the end for someone else.
380 pages
Mind of the Raven, Investigations and Adventures With Wolf-birds
An award-winning scientist presents a lyrical and scientific exploration of the raven, one of the most complex and engaging creatures known to man. Photo insert. Line drawings throughout.
About this book
Heinrich involves us in his quest to get inside the mind of the raven. But as animals can only be spied on by getting quite close, Heinrich adopts ravens, thereby becoming a "raven father," as well as observing them in their natural habitat. He studies their daily routines, and in the process, paints a vivid picture of the ravens' world. At the heart of this book are Heinrich's love and respect for these complex and engaging creatures, and through his keen observation and analysis, we become their intimates too. Heinrich's passion for ravens has led him around the world in his research. Mind of the Raven follows an exotic journey—from New England to Germany, and from Montana to Baffin Island in the high Arctic—offering dazzling accounts of how science works in the field, filtered through the eyes of a passionate observer of nature. Each new discovery and insight into raven behavior is thrilling to read, at once lyrical and scientific.
255 pages
The Tin Woodman of Oz
Dorothy tries to rescue the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow from the giantess who has changed them into a tin owl and a teddy bear and is using them for playthings.
About this book
Woot the Wanderer and the Scarecrow help the Tin Woodman find his old love. Nimmie Amee, suffering the ignominious enchantments of Mrs. Yoop's yookoohoo magic along the way.
