WE (STILL) HAVE READERS, AND TAKE REQUESTS:  A regular reader asks, "Here's a general question: can we get a thread going on the blog for suggestions of baby books that won't make me insane with boredom? What are the fun ones that he will like hearing/looking at and I won't mind (too much) reading 100 times?"

One hippo, all alone ...

BLACK HOLE SUN, WON'T YOU COME?  Chris Cornell, dead at 52.  While Nirvana and Pearl Jam were the big names of grunge, Cornell might've been the strongest singer, at least technically.  One of my favorites?  A solo track from the soundtrack of Alfonso Cuaron's modernized Great Expectations.