Take a lonely, conflicted young man in a frozen Midwest setting. Add an anatomically correct, blow-up doll named Bianca. Put them both in a chaste church setting. And somehow, the creators of Lars and The Real Girl produce one of the sweetest, most transcendent films of 2007.

Lars and the Real Girl is a sheer delight. Like the gentle character Lars Lindstrom, it is rare, refreshing and deserving of special attention. This modest movie needs to be savored and nurtured. At first it may appear off-putting, but patient viewers will be rewarded with a sweet satisfaction.

 

Sorry Tony Danza, Bruce Springsteen is the Boss (but you still have the Tony Danza Show). Springsteen's 58 and I'll just say it... he rocks. And I don't mean that like the kids mean it. I mean, this man IS rock and roll. His latest album Magic came out on October 2^nd and he was featured on 60 Minutes on October 7^th (you can see the 60 Minutes piece below). On 60 Minutes Springsteen describes his shows as equal parts circus, dance party, political rally, and big tent revival. But his quote might be a little misleading. This all comes from the same place; it comes from Springsteen's search for meaning, his search for a story. When asked why he continues to do what does at the age of 58 Springsteen responds that writing music and performing "gives me meaning, gives me purpose." And isn't that why we listen to music, to find meaning and purpose somewhere in the stories and experiences that we somehow share with others through music?

I have been reading some heavy theological books lately—the kind with sentences that are a paragraph long and have 12 commas in them. There was one point where I ran into a word I didn't know, so I looked it up on dictionary.com and after reading the definition I still didn't know what the word meant. I laid the book down and wondered if this kind of writing exposes my ignorance or if it simply shows the failure of some great minds to communicate what they have locked inside.

For the last several years I have feared that this is what was happening with one of my favorite bands, Radiohead. This morning I found waiting for me in my email inbox evidence that this is not the case. In Rainbows is a reopening of the door.

Travis Pastrana, of X-Games Motocross fame, recently went skydiving . Without a parachute. On purpose.

He dreamed up this stunt of going skydiving without a parachute, found an operator in Puerto Rico that would help him do it, and, quite literally, jumped at the chance.

The way the jumped worked: he jumped out of the plane, did a few flips and flipped open a can of Red Bull (what else?). Then, he "docked" with another jumped to stabilize himself by grabbing hands, belly down. Finally, another jumper came from above him and hooked his parachute to a climbing harness that Pastrana was wearing beneath his shorts. The two of them landed together on a beach in Puerto Rico.

When I read this story, my first thought was: "What? No parachute?"