Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” has had a weird history. From the schmaltzy (but great!) original recording through John Cale’s lyrical rearrangement and Jeff Buckley’s radical reduction, it’s become an object of abstract emotional grammar, used less for its words than for its gestalt feeling and its ability to convey meaningfulness even in the absence of actual meaning. Its aesthetic beauty feels so timeless that it’s like being in the same room with the Mona Lisa: you just sense you’re in the presence of something important, and you should pay attention, even if you miss the point of the original object. I had always thought that this progression represented a kind [...]

Seven of the ten most popular stories on the UK Mirror's website are about reality TV sensation Susan Boyle, who will not be getting a makeover if something called Amanda Holden has anything to do with it.

The Susan Boyle story offers an opportunity for "sleight of hand artist, actor and author" Ricky Jay to sound off in the Times today. Writing about "expectation and exposure" he makes the point that while Boyle's appearance belied her talent, the overwhelming attention paid to her (in, for example, New York Times essays) hastened our inevitable disenchantment and boredom. (Boyle, who may be the first "celebrity" to ever enter a clinic suffering actual exhaustion, should at least take some satisfaction from having set the world's record for going from anonymity to rehab.) In any event, Jay also shoehorns in a mention of Steve Martin's "Great Flydini" [...]

I don't really follow the whole celebrity stardom of Susan Boyle, of "Britain's Got Talent" fame, but still I find it intensely amusing that now the English tabloids are turning on her because she likes to tell people to fuck off. (Who doesn't like that? Particularly: Who doesn't like that in England???) On that subject, our favorite deranged homosexual writes: "If Susan doesn't win BGT, she's going to go nuts! HOOD RAT STUFF! Susan is going to shave her head, flash her apple fritter, run over the paparazzi, elope in Vegas, dangle Shaheen over a balcony, get three DUIs, go to rehab and get knocked up by KFed. Susan [...]