A disapproving look at the Christian elements in the new Narnia film, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I have to admit, the Christian imagery didn’t make much of an impression on me when I read the entire series at around the age of 9. Philip Pullman of His Dark Materials fame on Narnia: “Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion.” Secularism v. religion, as played out by children’s novels. Fun. (via kevin drum)

BBC Radio 4 replays Jann Wenner’s famous 1970 interview with John Lennon. This was right after he released his (excellent) first solo album, Plastic Ono Band , soon after The Beatles fell apart. His emotional state, his problems with The Beatles, his primal scream therapy, etc. are all laid bare. (via rw)

Instead of linking to yet another “Best of…” list, I’ve decided to make my own. Compiling a list of the best albums of any year always involves some amount of arbitrariness – there simply is no healthy way for one person to listen to all the potentially great albums that have been released in a single year. Nevertheless, I do find myself hearing quite a few of them, so even if I was superhuman enough to listen to every release in every genre, I think the below list would be a close approximation to the True Top 20. So without further ado:

Watch the entire recent Sigur Ros concert in Reykjavik, Iceland. The band is accompanied by Amina, a 4-piece string quartet, and a large Icelandic brass band. I’ve seen them several times with Amina, but this is their first performance with the brass band. The link is Windows Media; this one is Realplayer.

Long profile on Roger Ebert. Didn’t know he struggled with alcoholism throughout the 70’s. (via rw)

The FCC is finally admitting that allowing cable channels to be sold a la carte might not be a bad idea. The motivation may have come from the religious right (e.g., “Why do I have to pay for the heathen MTV?”), but the results would be good for all of us. I only watch a couple channels (Comedy Central, 24 hour news) beyond the networks and HBO – why should I have to pay for 60 channels?

The Church of Scientology has constructed a secret archive of their founder L. Ron Hubbard’s works underneath the desert of New Mexico, marked by a large symbol so that it can be located in the distant future. I wonder if they’re keeping Hubbard’s terrible Mission Earth sci-fi series down there. (thx, jon)

For years, archive.org hosted thousands of soundboard recordings of Grateful Dead concerts; now they’ve been forced to take them down, and Deadheads are angry and threatening boycott. John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the Elelectronic Frontier Foundation and a fellow of the Berkman Center, isn’t happy about it.