I was thinking, it has been so long since I have had a pop culture obsession as in my days of youth. I'm not waiting with baited breath for any particular release of a musical artist, author, or magazine. There is no particular show on the radio or TV that would me cause great concern if I had to give it a miss. 

It got me thinking - what gets me out of bed other than the promise of good coffee, the crossword in the newspaper, and the determination to bring my inbox at work down to one screen? And so I bring you...

5 things that are (gently) rocking my world 

1. Paul Simon's lyrics to "The Boy in the Bubble"
I am also in the midst of a Leonard Cohen lyrics kick as well

2. William Struck's "Elements of Style"
I'm too damn wordy. I need to discipline myself and take out my unnecessary words for ...

"Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell".

3. The Massey Lectures
"I like my cars fast, my men dumb and my books short".

4. Other people's obsessions
Even if I am currently void of obsessions, I can at least feed the flames of others'

5. Storytelling
The boy who would be a helicopter ; The triumph of narrative ; The call of stories : all these books fit together - I'm just not exactly sure how 

Man, am I ever lame! 
Pop Culture Industry, save me!