Friedrich --

* Polly Frost (here) sings the praises of samurai movies, and offers her own ten-best list.

* John Nye writes about the economics of taste and style here.

* Virginia Postrel reports on a study a couple of economists have done on buzz and word-of-mouth, here.

* Mike Snider continues to talk sense (evo-bio and otherwise) about poetry and rhythm, here and here. Great passage: "An endless stream of ones carries no information, and neither does an endless random stream of numbers. What matters are variations within a recognizable pattern."

* Anyone curious about the thoughts and contributions of the urban theorist (bad word for her, but ...) Jane Jacobs should find this excellent 1997 Robert Fulford article fascinating, here. A (slightly-edited) teaser:

Jane's responses to urban settlement ... are both radical and highly personal ... She likes street life, people sitting on porches, short blocks, diversity, informality, old-fashioned neighbourhoods, high density, and different types of buildings ... She doesn't like grandeur, she doesn't like complicated plans drawn up by bureaucrats, and she has an aversion to big institutions ... Her friends tend to be on the left in politics, but she's no socialist. She's attracted to entrepreneurs, people who create wealth for themselves and others, who see a need and imagine how it might be filled.

Contrary, pragmatic, arty, humane -- that's how we (often) like 'em around here.

* The Queens house where Louis Armstrong and his wife Lucille lived is due to open as a public museum next week. John Leland and David Dunlap provide pre-coverage , here and here. If you can keep your eyes from misting over while reading these pieces, well, you aren't as big a Louis Armstrong fan as I am, I guess.

* Alexis translates a short Samuel Johnson essay into modern English, here. His posting wins this week's Best Compare-and-Contrast Oscar.

* Hey, an artist who really knows what he likes, here. Click on "dolls," and be amazed and amused.

* Hey, the first Neuroeconomics blog, here.

* Women suffer worse hangovers than men do, here.

* Glenn "Mac" Frazier has never been busier, here. I'd feel overwhelmed by the length of his obligation and chores list, but he says he's never felt happier.

* Tim Hulsey keeps the is-Classical-music-dead conversation illuminatingly alive, here and here.

* JW Hastings finds that working for a charitable nonprofit organization has moved his politics to the right, here. Great quote: "I don't think anyone of any political persuasion is against giving help to people who deserve it. The question is whether or not the government should be in charge of doling out the help."

* Have you wrestled with the work of the hot Belgian artist Luc Tuymans? Here are some of his paintings, and here's a book about him. I haven't settled yet on whether I approve or disapprove of his art (I know the world can't wait to find out my decision), but I did once run into something he said that was amusing. The subject was painting, hard work and patience. Tuymans said that he woke up one morning and realized he didn't like spending more than a day on a painting -- so he devised a painting style and method that would enable him to finish a fullscale oil painting in a single day's work. Short-attention-span me nods enthusiastic approval.

* Felix Salmon finds himself suspecting that blogging may not change the world after all, here.

* Alan Sullivan has had it with the anti-smoking campaign, here.

* Philip Murphy visits relatives in Rome and discovers how some Italians view the war in Iraq, here.

* George Hunka wrestles with the hype quotient in modern art (here), and confides that he doesn't have much luck impressing his wife (here).

* Sasha Castel has invited a handful of other bloggers to join her. The result is a perpetual blogging party, and the best ongoing linkfest on the Web, here.

* The science writer Carl Zimmer has started a science blog, here.

* Lead? Asbestos? Red food dye? Aaron Haspel reviews the risks, here.

* Lynn Sislo has discovered the joys of digital photography, and volunteers a short list of sad pieces of classical music, here.

* James Russell (here) points to an online version of the Gutenberg Bible (here).

* Hockney paints Freud, and Freud paints Hockney. Alexandra Ceely is reminded of Van Gogh painting Gauguin, and Gauguin painting Van Gogh, here.

* Quote of the day: "There's this enormous disconnect between what people in publishing think about books and what readers think about books" -- Karen Templer, creator of Readerville, here. You said it, lady.

Best,

Michael