BlackBook

This Saturday 1/8, beloved one-time BlackBook writer Rohin Guha will be reading from his new chapbook, Relief Work, at Brooklyn's Rose Live Music. And he won't be alone; joining the lineup are B.C. Edwards, Matthew Gallaway, Jason Helm, and Richard Lawson. There will be cupcakes and live music. So what's Relief Work about, you ask?

In Fort Greene, in Dallas or on the road, Erykah Badu is always at home

Oh, good. Facebook conquers all not only when Mark What'shisface maybe-steals ideas from classmates and becomes a megazillionairess in the process, but also when its hapless addicts succeed in getting beloved comediennes who probably should've landed a plum hosting role on Saturday Night Live decades ago their overdue time in the sun. And while Betty White hosting and featuring on the only episode of SNL worth watching in the last eight to ten years is irrefutably a good thing, there are still a lot of issues around this installment. Issues that make it clear that, basically, a male-dominated sketch show is attempting to address allegations of sexism with a 90-minute LOLlapalooza specifically engineered to shut women up.

Our heads are already spinning with the complex and layered symbolism of Beyogaga's latest since it bowed last night. It's part-Natural Born Killers! It's part-Bound! It's part-Requiem for a Dream! It's a polemic about the harsh treatment of inmates in our penal system! But most importantly, the most well-executed music video event of the last five years is a nine-and-a-half-long minute advertisement. And the range of goods featured are so generic that it almost seems like Gaga wants to make peace with the same key demo that wrote to the FCC about how she dared to bare her "pubic hair area" on the Grammys sometime back. Well so long as they're a-OK with the lesbian overtones and the diner-specific genocide, Miracle Whip will yet be the glue that holds us all together. Seven products that enjoyed a prominent presence in the opus (a couple more that merited more fleeting plugs documented here), that you'll now go out and buy. Because the power of Gaga compels you.

Yesterday heralded a landmark development where rock band Pink Floyd won an estimated settlement of $90,000 against EMI, who had been selling tracks off the band's concept albums individually on digital retailers like iTunes. The band basically argued that albums like The Wall are meant to be experienced as entire entities, not piecemeal. And their victory begs the question: What other celebrated bits of rock and pop should be sold as entire extravaganzas? To keep this manageable, let's look at it through the same rose-colored filter through which everyone's waxing nostalgic about the '90s. Mind you, these are in no way the best records of their time--although such an assessment wouldn't be untrue in any of these cases, either.

Yesterday, as I strolled through my local supermarket's poultry aisle, this song came on and I thought to myself, "How lovely! Melissa Etheridge has a new, youth-skewing single out! That is terrific of her!" But then just as I chanced upon racks of chicken feet, I came to the conclusion that it wasn't Melissa Etheridge wailing, "Hey, slow it down / Whataya want from me / Whataya want from me / Yeah, I'm afraid / Whataya want from me / Whataya want from me." But rather, it was the dulcet tones of Adam Lambert. What a babe! At this epiphany, I nearly threw up all over the open cooler of chicken's feet. Whether that was due to the unnerving sight of hacked-off chicken feet selling for $1.59 a pound or to hearing this bit of pop discord is anyone's guess. But good on Lambo for getting a radio station to play his song, especially after this kerfuffle. That makes it all the easier for him to pursue his latest goal: Encouraging America's youth to drop acid. Adam, you rogue!

Once in a while, two amazing forces will collide and a sudden, consequent burst of ultratubularity will send the world spinning off its axis and out of its orbit. Today, such a cosmic feat comes courtesy of the confluence of acclaimed Japanese author Haruki Murakami and Radiohead keyboardist Jonny Greenwood. Greenwood is set to score an Anh Hung Tran-directed adaptation of Murakami's Norwegian Wood, due in Japanese cinemas later this year. The tone of the soundtrack? Kind of like a 20-minute composition he wrote for the BBC Concert Orchestra entitled "Doghouse."

Clearly this week, the universe isn't feeling terribly generous about recognizing past pop culture touchstones. First there was that whole episode with the Oscars obviously forgetting to honor Bea Arthur and Farrah Fawcett. Now the universe has seen fit to strip Corey Haim's body of all sentience (will he be included in next year's Oscars "In Memoriam" montage?). Sure nobody's going to be rushing to make diamonds out of locks of his hair, but still, when Corey Haim dies, the world cries. Oh, does it cry.

Never one to be demoralized by diminishing employment opportunities, Lindsay Lohan is recovering from her Ungaro firing quite quickly. Having categorically failed at being a pop star, thespian, fashionista, and lesbian, Lohan turns to what was simply a niche before the recession, but now a growth industry: Nonsensical litigation. LiLo's suing financial services company E-Trade to the tune of $100 million, claiming the company ripped off her likeness in portraying a milkaholic baby in an ad that originally aired during the Super Bowl.

Did you know: Dorothy Zbornak never existed. Neither did Jill Munroe on Charlie's Angels. You see, America, we willed such iconic figures into existence, by sheer force of will, probably fueled by our disproportionate booze-to-food intake--just in time for this year's Oscars. At least this is what the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science wants us to believe. Currently being taken to task for egregiously omitting both Bea Arthur and Farrah Fawcett from their Demi Moore-hosted "In Memoriam" tribute, the AMPAS are playing an unlikely card now: The "If We Pretend They Never Existed, No One Will Care" card.