I’m here in Paris for three weeks, in the city of the spectacle. Everywhere I turn to look, there are splendid sights to be savored -- the grand boulevards, the graceful buildings carved from…

With the official first release of Gulag Orkestar last year, Beirut joined the growing pantheon of bands built up by a broad Internet fan base to dizzying heights. In this case, the buzz machine does not lie: New Mexico-based Beirut pulls together a sound that is highly stylized and all its own, even while reminding you of half a dozen other bands.

After Douglas Coupland scored commercially and culturally by popularizing the term Generation X , generation naming has emerged as a competitive sport popular among demographers, sociologists, journalists and pop culturists—and let’s not forget the market researchers and marketers who generally give a strong showing but a poor finish.

While not officially cancelled, HBO’s Deadwood remains in limbo, with two two-hour movies to finish off the series in style dwindling into the more remote realms of possibility with each month that passes. David Milch, the creator, writer and executive producer of the show may have moved on, but I have not. I am still mourning, and remain unappeased by the news that Milch is now working on a new show for HBO, the unpromising sounding John from Cincinnati. Seriously, how good can a show described as “surf noir” be?

Yesterday I went to the dentist and the eye doctor, on the last weekday before I start working full-time at my job. Not the best use of liberty, but very practical.

It wasn’t until my first year at community college that my family finally got cable. For one glorious year, from 1996 to 1997, I gorged myself on the programming that I’d missed out on growing up, supplementing my solid foundation in afternoon cartoons with a thorough grounding in MTV and Nick at Night.