Leslie Feist, a member of the swarming Canadian collective known as Broken Social Scene and well-respected solo artist in her own right, has been slowly working her way from relative obscurity to mainstream appeal and if the critical plaudits raining down on her are any indication, this album may be the one that propels her into the public consciousness. On her third album, The Reminder, Feist has pared her sound down further than ever before, to chilling and intoxicating effect. The most disarming piece of any Feist song is her voice, smokey and quavering with total control and this album makes the most of it.

“You can’t teach people to write well. Writing well is something God lets you do or declines to let you do.”

—Kurt Vonnegut

When I read that Kurt Vonnegut had died, my first thought was of a different, but equally famous, Cornell writer, E.B. White. At the end of Charlotte’s Web, White wrote, “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.” Like Charlotte, Vonnegut was a good writer, and even for those who knew him only through his work, he felt like a true friend.

Hi, I’m Jared. I’ve been writing articles for the Daily Sun for a while and I was obnoxious and opinionated enough to get a column all my own. I thought that since this was my first column I ought to put all the proverbial cards on the table and start things off right with a proper introduction. We’ll begin with a brief musical autobiography: I was raised largely, though not exclusively, on the Beatles, Elvis Costello and Marshall Crenshaw. By the age of three I was more familiar with Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic than my parents were, going so far as to inform them about which song followed “Night By Night” (for inquiring minds, it was “Any Major Dude”).

If I were three years younger, I would probably have enjoyed 300. It’s got everything a 16-year-old could want: swords, ninjas, elephants, naked women and, if you’re into that sort of thing, scantily-clad men. However, as a relatively mature 19-year old, I was disappointed and bored. While the movie mostly conforms to the conventions set out by its source material, the graphic novel of the same name by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, it does the comic a disservice by contributing nothing worthwhile in the translation to the screen.

Zodiac, the new crime thriller from David Fincher (the director of Se7en and Fight Club) starts off on a strong note. It’s New Years Eve, 1969. A young couple is parked out on Lover’s Lane, alone. A car pulls up behind them, its driver hidden in the shadows. The car idles, waiting, and then drives off. The couple’s relief is palpable until a moment later, when the headlights of the car come back down the road. A man walks up to the window with a blinding flashlight. He pauses, peers inside and, without a word, starts shooting. It looks like we’ve met our Zodiac killer. It’s one of a few times he actually appears in a movie that revolves around him. By the end, though, it’s clear that the lack of a physical presence is beside the point. He’s been around all along, a corrosive force on everyone in the film, sapping them of their energy and spirit in their fruitless pursuit of a madman.

Dane Cook gets a lot of disrespect, especially among comedians. While this is usually chalked up to jealousy, I don’t think these feelings aren’t totally off-base. For comedians, the comedy world has always been a meritocracy. Whatever advantages you may have had, whoever you may know, doesn’t matter if you can’t bring the funny. And comics have doubts about Dane Cook’s funny-bringing abilities. Ipso Facto, Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, Caveat Emptor (I’m just throwing any vaguely Latin sounding words at this point to sound smart — does it show?) they believe that his success has been built on business acumen and canny exploitation of Myspace, to the exclusion of the honing of his craft.

One can only hope for the success of The Astronaut Farmer, if for no other reason than the slew of dual-occupation titles that would inevitably ensue: heartwarming tales like The Ninja Lawyer or The Doctor Plumber. Sadly, I suspect that this will not come to pass, because The Astronaut Farmer is the biggest drag of a movie that’s come around in a while. The Right Stuff for the do-it-yourself set, it aspires to producing the wonder and awe which that movie inspired, but falls far short, while allowing its inane plot to drag on to an interminable but predictable resolution.

I’m not a proud man, so I have no problem admitting that there are many things in the world that I don’t understand, especially when it comes to popular culture. I accept the fact that people will have opinions that differ from mine. And that’s OK. Anyone and everyone ought to be allowed to enjoy whatever sort of books, movies or music they choose. Sometimes, though (and I say this with love) these people are wrong. Totally, totally wrong. Making matters worse, these are usually the people who are most inclined to advertise their uninformed taste loudly and often.

From its advertisements, Music and Lyrics seems like a straightforward, simple romantic comedy. Sadly, though not surprisingly, it is neither of these things, but it is rather unhappily convoluted and unfunny. As for romantic, that’s a matter of taste and personal judgment.

George Carlin has spent his career exposing and ridiculing the hypocrisy in our most sacrosanct institutions; religion, government and families are not simply fair game but are his most common targets. Happily, at 69, his critical faculties not only remain undiminished but have actually hypertrophied, and his particular brand of pointed irreverence has only been sharpened with age. This wit was on full display during his stand-up act at the State Theater this past Sunday, in which he punctured the hypocrisies and skewered the skewed values of American culture with commendable aplomb and enthusiasm.