Because buying LeSportSac for any other reason would be just wrong.

My life can be boiled down to Joan Didion essays, anecdotes about Kevin Shields, and episodes of Family Ties.

• I have been asked if I do not find it strange that Vanessa Redgrave is playing me. I explain: Vanessa Redgrave is not playing me, Vanessa Redgrave is playing a character who, for the sake of clarity, is called Joan Didion. Joan Didion writes about the process of writing a play.


• I was planning on writing an entire post about "Family Ties," but this is slipping further and further away from being contemporary, noteworthy information, so I'll link now and consider elaborating later: Season One of "Family Ties" is out on DVD. The New York Times review is now available to TimesSelect members only, but the review at Slate is available, and features 30-second clips. As a teaser to a possible lengthy Family Ties post in the future: I started buying LeSportSac a few years back not to emulate Upper West Side women, but because I'd noticed in reruns of the show that it's the brand of bag Mallory keeps the speed pills in when Alex tries to take them off her in one of the "Very special episodes." Do you feel sufficiently teased?


• Memoirs and rock music, on the other hand, do mix. John Sellers has a memoir out about being an indie rock fan, Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life, and is the subject of Largehearted Boy's most recent Book Notes. His clever open letter to Kevin Shields makes me forgive the guy for not paying The Wedding Present any attention until after he'd finished writing the book. I once bumped into Kevin Shields while browsing at the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street. I noticed we were standing at the end of the 'M' section. What I said to him: "Are you looking for your own albums?" What I wish I'd said to him: "Kevin, the albums don't just appear in the store. You have to make the music that goes onto them first." John Sellers said what I wanted to say on that fateful day, when my own mouth was full of things such asinine things as "you sure did look like you were having a lot of fun twiddling that knob."


• The 2007 Tournament of Books kicks off this Thursday, and The Morning News is encouraging us to take part in an office pool.


• Dutch at Sweet Juniper visits the world beyond the suburbs and finds a barber shop selling tombstones and a goldmine of a junk shop. I love this post.