"I probably shouldn't say this, but I still haven't read them all. They're all kind of depressing."

-Dree Hemingway, in an interview with V Magazine, on the novels written by her great-grandfather.

Who dat? Horton hears a halftime show.

If you're anything at all like me—and if not, why not—you rarely stick around for the Super Bowl halftime show. After all, if I wanted to watch a rock band in a sports stadium, I would have gone to see The Beatles play Shea in 1965—and I would've except I was too busy that afternoon getting my hair shorn ever shorter in prepubescent protest. Elvis Presley was right when he told Richard Nixon that those four lilly-Liverpudlians were just a buncha spurnin' anti-American opportunists who invaded the U.S. three years in row, milked it for all they could, and then took their greedy ill-gotten gains back to England, never to jointly return again after 1966. But I digress.

You often hear complaints that Super Bowl games are one-sided blow-outs, but they're positively unpredictable back alley crap shoots compared to what takes place between the second and third quarters. Year after year it's the same old wheeze: a big ugly prefabricated Styrofoam stage gets plunked down at the 50 yard line while hundreds of clean-cut teenagers who've been bussed in from the outer city jump up and down with lit flares in their hands while geezers ten times their age stagger around on stage and laboriously go through the motions devoid of emotion—and it's all forgotten long before the finishing firework smoke starts seeping into the 150,000 spectator lungs.

Prince? The next day all anyone could remember was how he looked so young and acted like a "homo."

Rolling Stones? The next day all anyone could remember was how they looked so old and acted like "homos."

Paul McCartney? He may not be getting any younger either, but at least he's aspersion-proof thanks to his substantial 30 year marriage and subsequent 30 drazillion dollar divorce settlement to that stacked one-legged old-digger.

Which brings me to the two who were Who and, I gotta admit, the last time I was so superhyped about seeing a group with only half its originals members left play the Super Bowl halftime show was when KISS took the stage—after which all anyone could remember was how their makeup looked the same and that they acted like "homos." Or was that Kraftwerk?

Either way, nobody ever accused the 'Oo of being' Omo—not even after Keith Moon waltzed around in dresses and Pete Townshend publicly admitted to having a quick one while he was a gay. (Impressive, I know.)

So you can imagine my delight when I saw that the NFL finally abandoned all of the above-noted staging by allowing the 'Oo to just get up and play, surrounded by a digital stagescape which was as visually innovative as Townshend’s earliest aural ARP efforts. Toss in a barrage of 70s arena laser beams and it was about as perfect a condensed rock 'n roll show as you could possibly ask for in this day and age of treacly pre-programmed tripe.

And if the 'Oo didn’t have enough time to play something from Quadrophenia, well, that's just all the more reason to invite them back again next year—and each and every after that until they finally do, twelve maximum R&B minutes at a time.

Jeffrey Morgan isn't going to Disneyland.

Delivered by Luke Allen Hackney

- The diving horses of Atlantic City. [Petticoat Discipline Quarterly]

- The real Timothy McSweeney has passed away. [McSweeney's]

- New gramophone allows you to record on the spot. [Gizmodo]

- A look at the regime of Kim Jong-il. [Slate]

- Who is to blame for the current state of our Union? The "childish, ignorant American public," says Jacob Weisberg. [Slate]

- A review of Slaughterhouse-Five, written upon its release in 1969. [Time Magazine]

Luke Allen Hackney frequently adds link to Delicious.

In this era of celebrity, when those both with and without talent desperately grasp for the limelight, perhaps the death of J. D. Salinger will remind us of just how dignified the reclusiveness of truly sublime talent can be.

- Robert Ouriel, letter to the editor, New York Times.

- Today's story in The Observer.

- His first published story.

- "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," the first story of Nine.

- 1951 review of Catcher in the Rye.