This is the time of every year that “This is Just a Modern Rock Song” becomes my favorite Belle and Sebastian song. (Taking over from “Lazy Line Painter Jane” or “The Boy With the Arab Strap,” which rule at other times.) Because now that summer is all-but-technically kaput, and we can finally put the Great Shorts Debate behind us, at least for another seven or eight months, I most often find myself pulling on a pair of corduroy pants in the morning

Great Scots Belle & Sebastian played Jimmy Fallon's show last night, before they become the next band to get soaked by New York's monsoon season at their outdoor show in Brooklyn tonight. Questlove, the drummer and leader of Fallon's house band, The Roots, joined them for the title track to their new album and the old nugget "Piazza, New York Catcher" and it all sounded really nice.

"The new rules will also relax a restriction on administering lie-detector tests and searching people’s trash. Under current rules, agents cannot use such techniques until they open a 'preliminary investigation,' which—unlike an assessment—requires a factual basis for suspecting someone of wrongdoing. But soon agents will be allowed to use those techniques for one kind of assessment, too: when they are evaluating a target as a potential informant. Agents have asked for that power in part because they want the ability to use information found in a subject’s trash to put pressure on that person to assist the government in the investigation of others." —There are lots of reasons why [...]