BASOONISTS, HOWEVER, REMAIN S.O.L.: The N.Y. Times reports on an unusual series of job openings--apparently, high quality professional oboists are much in demand. The Saturday/Sunday Times is an uncommon bounty this weekend, with Oscar predictions from the Times critics, an article on "Q-Tips," "Rent-Heads," and "Brookies," a tour of Roger Ebert's crib, and an impassioned argument for the elimination of the slam dunk in the NBA. Even more worth your time than usual.

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DEATH OF A PLAYWRIGHT: Arthur Miller, dead at 89. Leaving aside the whole marrying and divorcing Marilyn Monroe thing, and the fact that one of his plays ("The Crucible") is read by seemingly every American high school student, the best witness to his greatness is to look at the actors who have played roles he wrote on Broadway:

• Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich in a 1984 revival of "Death of A Salesman"
• Ron Rifkin, Amy Irving, and Frances Conroy in Miller's 1994 play "Broken Glass"
• Allison Janney, Anthony LaPaglia, and Brittany Murphy in a 1997 revival of "A View From The Bridge"
• Brian Dennehy in the 1999 revival of "Death of A Salesman"
• Patrick Stewart and Frances Conroy in "The Ride Down Mt. Morgan," Miller's last original play to reach Broadway.
• Laura Linney, Liam Nesson, and Kristen Bell in a 2002 revival of "The Crucible"

Even if Miller's later plays didn't reach the brilliance of his early work, he was a tremendous talent whose plays never shirked to tell the hard truths that we (and sometimes he) didn't want to hear. It is indeed a loss.

T-O-N-Y A-W-A-R-D? After stellar reviews following its opening earlier this week, investors are abuzz with bringing new musical "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" to Broadway, joining two of this blog's obsessions--academic competition and musical theatre. Their only problem? Finding a suitable theatre, since most smaller houses are currently booked with shows that aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Now, if there's a transfer by May, I think we've got our anchor events for ALOTT5MA-Con, to be held in conjunction with TARCON7.

FROM ABC TO XTC IN TWELVE STEPS: I will warn you right now -- BandToBand.com is a ridiculously addictive time waster.

So I expect you to share your favorite results in the Comments, of course.

DO YOU THINK I GIVE A DAMN ABOUT A . . . : Sunday night marks the return of what recently has become absolute must-see tv: the Grammy Awards.

Don't laugh.

A few years ago, the Awards were in disarray. The 2000 awards, for example, was dominated by Steely Dan; the year before, Santana; the year before that saw Celine Dion and the misevaluation of Lauryn Hill. Lenny Kravitz won four straight Best Male Rock Vocal Performance awards, the musical equivalent of Juan Gonzalez's multiple MVP honors of the same era.

And then, faster than you can say "Soy Bomb", something changed.

No, the award choices didn't get much better, unless you believe that Norah Jones is the future of American music. But the show sure improved. Somehow, the producers realized what a music awards show could do that no other awards (save the Tonys) could: focus on live performances.

And so, both the 2003 and 2004 broadcasts decided to lower the number of awards presented on stage, and amplify the performance aspects.

Over the past two years, we've seen Paul and Artie reunite; an angry rendition of "London Calling" by Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl, Elvis Costello and Little Steven; Eminem and the Roots on "Lose Yourself"; that fantastic Prince/Beyonce medley to start last year's show; a touching tribute to Warren Zevon; and (and I'm quoting myself here, but I had it fine the first time) "a gloriously messy and exuberant funk segment with Big Boi, Earth Wind & Fire (featuring Verdine "Sexual Chocolate!" White on bass), Robert Randolph and P-Funk, the Mothership; and, finally, Andre 3000 bringing the house down with a wild, party-up, get-down, yeah-Native-Americans-are-going-to-be-pissed-but-it-was-fun performance of "Hey Ya", which was, like, wow."

Best yet: no lip-synching. At all.

So don't sweat the awarding -- pay no attention to the fact that they've again eliminated the Best Female Rock Vocal Performance category and folded Melissa Etheridge in with the men, and while it's good to hope that Kanye gets all the propers he deserves, his career might be better off without it. (Ask Lauryn.)

Just enjoy the performances, which will range from Franz Ferdinand to the Black Eyed Peas, Usher to U2 and Joss Stone to Gretchen Wilson. Because rock and roll isn't about the awards anyway. It's about the music . . . and the drugs . . . and the groupies.

(One final note: this is going to be one hell of a Necrology this year. Ray Charles, of course, takes the lead, but between Johnny Ramone, Laura Branigan, Rick James and the O.D.B., there's a lot of tears to go around.)

HE'S GOOD ENOUGH, HE'S SMART ENOUGH: But do people like him enough to vote for him? Yes, Al Franken's running for the Senate. No word yet on the proposed Fey/Poehler '08 ticket, or Jimmy Fallon's attempt to run for the House in Boston after his movie career dies.

Edit: OK, so he's not running after all (at least not in 2006).