Worker 11811, where are you?

Saw the German silent movie Metropolis this weekend at the Belcourt. It was good. I'd try to explain the plot here, but you'd never believe it. When the slave laborers were being herded up the steps and into the machine in the early part of the movie, I couldn't help but think it was an eerie foreshadowing of what would happen in that country just a dozen years later, with masses of innocent people led to their deaths in work camps.

Rock Star Movement No. 6 ...

Blue Man Group were awesome. Saw them at the Arena on Friday night.

Delbert Mann -- movie director, Oscar winner, Vanderbilt alum

He died out in California over the weekend. I got to interview him once for the student newspaper at Vanderbilt, for which he had served as co-managing editor when he was in school. He seemed like a really nice man.

They're still making typewriters ...

I started college with an electric one, and I've still got the little Royal manual portable that my mother took to the Women's College of Georgia with her in 1965. Yep, it still works.

Banjers on 'SNL'

Three banjos were being picked on stage on Saturday Night Live this past Saturday when the singer Feist performed her song 1234, which is also used in an iPod commercial.

Why is it so hard to find this stuff?

+ Cinnamon Altoids. Is it just me, or have a lot of stores stopped selling the cinnamon flavor in favor of the dark chocolate dipped Altoids? I think it's true. I hate dark chocolate. And I hate peppermint Altoids. I looked far and wide for the cinnamon flavor, but found them only in the candy aisle at my local Walgreen's.

+ Women's jeans that aren't skin tight or low-rise. I can understand that trends come and go, but is it really necessary for all the major stores to get rid of all the clothes that don't fit the trend, as though shoppers don't want anything that's not trendy?

Just a thought.