YOU WOULDN'T GET THIS FROM ANY OTHER GUY: Barry Manilow just wants to tell you how he's feeling. (HT: Finch.) In other news:

• You'll never believe what Allen Iverson was talking about yesterday. (HT: Bad Dad)
• My winner-gets-in week 13 FFL game with Finch just got complicated by the fact that his WR accidently shot himself in the leg.
• "Against the real likelihood of financial doom for so many people, it feels almost unseemly to consider a donation to a college or university. Surely there must be a food bank or job retraining program that is more deserving," writes fellow Amherst Student alum Ron Lieber '93 in today's NYT. Still, he argues, there remain good reasons to support your alma mater this year, and those of you who are on my class agent list should expect a call this week.
• Also in this weekend's NYT: Can acclaimed film director Michael Gondry solve a Rubik's Cube with his feet? Watch that video, then this. Then watch him solve it with his nose. Then watch Jack Black one-up him.
  

SLOW(ER) BLOGGING: Not as a matter of cultural or media "movements" but in keeping with seasonal rhythms, things around here presently are being thrown with perhaps less than their usual frequency or alacrity. So it seems like a good time to share a link to one of the more occasional and contemplative bloggers I enjoy, The Burro of Information & Culture. I won't try to sum-up, inevitably over-selling or under-rating the merits of what you might find there, but instead just suggest that you pop over and poke around sometime ... maybe on a lazy weekend afternoon when the tryptophans from an arguably unnecessary turkey-and-stuffing sandwich are likely to heighten your appreciation of someone else's absurd evidence, submitted quietly, slightly a-smirk, and speaking entirely for itself.

Hat tip: Big Media Vandalism, linked by Adam back in February for their Black History Mumf film retrospective. The Burro is in their blogroll.

A STRONG, STRONG MAN: If I'm right, this isn't the last we'll be seeing Rick Astley in the next few months. I expect today's appearance to have a major impact on his iTunes sales, and the expected media boost as features writers across America are awakened from their tryptophanic slumber to explain the phenomenon will only lead to more interest, and then the inevitable question: where will Rick Astley show up next?

Will it be on "Rosie Live"? the Grammy nomination special in a few weeks? Halftime at the Super Bowl? An Inauguration ball? The "Today" show? The 5 o'clock news in Quad Cities? An "American Idol" semifinals results show? Seriously, the possibilities are endless, and if Astley has decided to cash in on his Internet fame to generate some real dollars, he can stretch this out for months, easy.

[I have to praise the brilliance of this, by the way: there is no more square, antiseptic and well-watched tradition than the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. To inject this, of all things, with a completely unleaked rickroll was just brilliant, and Astley's people had to know just how immediately it would play out virally.]

So that's the question: where's Rick next?

WAIT FOR IT: A delightful scene from this morning's Macy's parade.

WHAT DO DAVID NAUGHTON AND AXL ROSE HAVE IN COMMON? Some of you may remember the star of An American Werewolf in London, who also had a Top Ten hit in 1979 with the song "Makin' It." Presumably all of you know the leader of Guns N' Roses.

Their connection arises from this slighty surreal dispute. See also the 3rd paragraph of this piece.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING: It is good to have so much for which to be thankful, as Phoebe's impending first birthday reminds me. Consider this to be an open thread for today, for your musings on thankfulness, your live-blogging from the kitchen or anything else that's on your mind.

As for me, I've got a pile of onions to slice now ...

The Olympic Sport of Modern Pentathlon Gets a Little Less Penta - NYTimes.com

QUADROTHLENIA: In what the NYT has rightly called the most "blatant mismatch between a title and its meaning in sports since 1993, when Penn State’s athletics program became the 11th member of the 'Big Ten' Conference," the Olympic sport of Modern Pentathlon is going from five events to four.

Baron de Coubertin's dream of the 19th Century cavalry soldier -- who shoots, fences, swims, rides an unfamiliar horse, and runs -- will instead combine the first and last events as a land-based biathlon finale, with the athletes shooting a pistol at five targets, then running a kilometer, then shooting-and-running again twice more en route to the finish line. (Hell, why not throw in Slamball while you're at it?)

I WANT TELL YOU ABOUT THE TOWN OF STOCKBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETS, WHERE THIS HAPPENED HERE, THEY GOT THREE STOP SIGNS, TWO POLICE OFFICERS, AND ONE POLICE CAR, BUT WHEN WE GOT TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME THERE WAS FIVE POLICE OFFICERS AND THREE POLICE CARS, BEING THE BIGGEST CRIME OF THE LAST FIFTY YEARS, AND EVERYBODY WANTED TO GET IN THE NEWSPAPER STORY ABOUT IT. AND THEY WAS USING UP ALL KINDS OF COP EQUIPMENT THAT THEY HAD HANGING AROUND THE POLICE OFFICER'S STATION. THEY WAS TAKING PLASTER TIRE TRACKS, FOOT PRINTS, DOG SMELLING PRINTS, AND THEY TOOK TWENTY SEVEN EIGHT-BY-TEN COLOUR GLOSSY PHOTOGRAPHS WITH CIRCLES AND ARROWS AND A PARAGRAPH ON THE BACK OF EACH ONE EXPLAINING WHAT EACH ONE WAS TO BE USED AS EVIDENCE AGAINST US. TOOK PICTURES OF THE APPROACH, THE GETAWAY, THE NORTHWEST CORNER THE SOUTHWEST CORNER AND THAT'S NOT TO MENTION THE AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY: Philadelphia's WMMR 93.3 FM will be playing "Alice's Restaurant" at 10a, noon and 2p tomorrow. (Thanks, Pierre.)

(We are now forty-three years since Guthrie's arrest. Alice, of course, no longer lives in the church, by the restaurant, in the bell-tower, but in Provincetown, Mass. Officer Obie died in 1994.)

HAND ME MY LONGSWORD: The release of Baz Luhrmann's Australia invites a career appraisal of a director whose films are far more alive than almost anyone else's. Even if you're not a huge fan of his Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge! (and why not?), you can't deny that the man is putting maximum effort into providing ecstatic, original thrill rides brimming with intelligence and wit, set elsewhere but with a contemporary cultural vocabulary. In re The New One:

Dargis: "[O]ne demented and generally diverting horse-galloping, cattle-stampeding, camera-swooping, music-swelling, mood-altering widescreen package, this creation story about modern Australia is a testament to movie love at its most devout, cinematic spectacle at its most extreme, and kitsch as an act of aesthetic communion."

Ebert: "Baz Luhrmann dreamed of making the Australian Gone With the Wind, and so he has, with much of that film's lush epic beauty and some of the same awkwardness with a national legacy of racism.... Coming from a director known for his punk-rock William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and the visual pyrotechnics of Moulin Rouge!, it is exuberantly old-fashioned, and I mean that as a compliment." (Though Ebert has real problem with some Magical Aborigine issues, apparently.)

Anyone with the gumption to pull off the "Roxanne" tango and Shakespeare by way of MTV, and who has the balls to name a movie after his home country? That's someone whose career I'll keep following.

MILEY WHO? I am just about the last person who would ever think to watch the American Music Awards, but oh man, I do love Annie Lennox. Watch this.

FROM OUR "IS THERE ANYTHING THAT TIVO CAN'T DO?" DESK: Your TiVo can now accept scheduling from your mobile device and order a crappy pizza to be delivered to your house.

Oh: and by some point next month, you'll be able to download Netflix rentals right onto your TiVo box.

I'M IN FIVE FANTASY FOOTBALL LEAGUES! Like our friend Alan Sepinwall, I thought that last night's Stella-free HIMYM was an excellent return to form for our favorite sitcom. (And it is a sitcom -- an awesome one.) In case anyone wanted to see all fifty reasons to have sex, here they are. I personally like #28.

Sadly, I can't find a site setting forth all of the Naked Man poses.

OR DO WE JUST ASK JOHN GRISHAM? Grammar/usage/colloqualism question of the day: jury-rig or jerry-rig?

I'VE BEEN THERE I KNOW THE WAY: According to my New Yorker, every part of a shopping mall -- from the placement of the stores to the give of the pavement to the little touches made to remind you of how rich and powerful you are -- are meticulously controlled and planned to separate you from your money. So how is it that the architects were able to sell the developers on the commerce-defeating concept of the shopping maze?

An hour ago I was at the Westfield in downtown San Diego wolfing down some food-court fare. On my way out, while walking on what was either the third floor or the third-and-a-half floor, I spied a Banana Republic right across the and greater than or equal to a half-floor below me. But I could not for the life of me figure out how to get there. The escalators that crossed the atrium only ran up, and there were no nearby stairs or elevators. By the time I found a way down, I had walked halfway across the mall and was at the exit, so: screw it. I have had this exact experience at Frank Gehry's Escher-like Santa Monica Place, at the recently renovated, favorably reviewed, and inhumanely designed Rudolph Hall (formerly the Art & Architecture building) at Yale, and driving in downtown Los Angeles, the latter two of which are not malls but which are similarly built around the singularly infuriating concept of "you can't get there from here."

SIR LAURENCE OLIVIER AND STEPHEN BALDWIN ARE THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER: I can pretty much imagine how the casting meetings for The Day the Earth Stood Still went:

CASTING AGENT: You're going to love this. You get to wear suits and it's not on basic cable.
DON DRAPER: I'm in.

(later)

CA: You're going to love this. Don Draper is in it.
COACH TAYLOR: I'm in.

(later)

CA: Guys, I want you to meet your lead, the bass player for Dogstar and the star of the hit films Cancer Lady Made Me a Better Man, Two Dumbshits and a Time Machine, I Now Hate Shakespeare, and Paycheck, Please.
DON DRAPER: [walks out, philanders]
COACH TAYLOR: [hair stands up]

KISSING MEREDITH GREY: For all of the sins of Grey's this season, you have to admit that they regularly cast quality folks in guest roles (some of which turn into regulars)--Mary McDonnell, Joshua Malina, Kevin McKidd, Brooke Smith (and Melissa George as the exception). Seems that the trend is continuing, with Jennifer Westfeldt about to sign for a recurring role as a patient. (Interestingly, this will place Westfeldt in direct competition with her off-screen boyfriend, Jon Hamm, who's apparently going to be a love interest for Liz Lemon on 30 Rock.)

A MEAL FIT FOR JOE BETHERSON ... TON: It is time, once again, to review our Thanksgiving menu choices and questions. For me, nothing new this year -- the 1999 Bon Appetit Sage-Roasted Turkey with Caramelized Onions and Sage Gravy remains so outstanding as to preclude the consideration of another recipe, and there's been a request for the return of the pan-roasted duck breasts using the Mark Bittman plan for whole duck. For a stuffing, I thought I was booking this 2003 Tom Colicchio recipe for sausage stuffing with caramelized onions for its second straight trip to final table, because I'm a big fan of the kick provided by the toasted fennel seeds, but now that I see that Epicurious claims 42 sausage + fennel stuffings, some more research is required.

(Wow, I'm a caramelized onion fan for the day. Who knew?)

Everything else is someone else's responsibility -- stuffing #2, vegetables, sweet potato pie, desserts, etc. What's on your table?

MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA, G-G-G-GEORGIA? I don't know what to say about this leg of the Race that we haven't said repeatedly through this season -- read the f'n clue, people. Beyond that, not much suspense, though it was neat to see the return of an issue I don't recall seeing since Uchenna and Joyce at the end of Season 7, albeit with a different resolution, and one far less satisfying from a race Race justice/strict construction perspective.

Phil Sheridan: Shame on Reid | Philadelphia Inquirer | 11/23/2008

MAN UP: Obviously, either the Reid era or the McNabb era -- and perhaps both -- will end in Philadelphia after this football season. When that time comes, I will be effusive in my praise of the decade of mostly-excellence that they provided, including a run of six playoff appearances (and four straight conference championship games) in seven years. Everything short of a Super Bowl win, they delivered.

Tonight, however, I'm a bit disgusted. Coach, if you're going to bench your quarterback of the past ten years for performance -- for the first time! -- at halftime of a game you're only losing by three points, then for heaven's sake, you need to tell him yourself. Don't turf that one to an assistant. Ugh.

As for what I want for next season, right now I'm leaning towards keeping McNabb for one more year -- assuming his mechanics are fixable -- but with a new coach from outside the organization. I think we've reached the limits of what Andy Reid can teach the members of this team, and it's time for him to move on.

CALL FRAU BLUCHER:The carnage on the Great White Way continues--The New Mel Brooks Musical Young Frankenstein will close in January. It joins Hairspray, Spring Awakening, Spamalot, and 13 in posting a notice for January. The rumored next tenant for the cavernous Hilton has been Julie Taymor's Spider-Man, with music by Bono and The Edge, and allegedly to star Jim Sturgess and Evan Rachel Wood. No idea if they'll push it in this season to fight with Billy Elliot for the big awards.