Pop Culture Petri Dish

The mantle of Britain's rock and roll poet laureate gets doled out to some flavor of the month with numbing regularity (the current recipient appears to be Alex Turner, frontman of post-punk darlings The Arctic Monkeys --at least according to the British music press and Entertainment Weekly ), but this side of Elvis Costello there's no bloke more richly deserving of that oft-bandied-but-seldom-earned title than Jarvis Cocker . Here in the US you've probably never heard of him unless you're a rock critic, a music nerd, or English (or some combination of the three) but across the pond Jarvis Cocker is an honest-to-God institution, a charismatic, funny, and refreshingly self-deprecating pop star whose sharply-observed lyrics of class struggle and love in its many incarnations have endeared him to a whole generation of musicians and fans. His words--and his irresistible baritone voice--are as tartly, quintessentially British as a really great bag of salt-and-vinegar crisps...

No home internet connection for nigh three weeks has turned me as crabby as a chain-smoker being denied cigarettes on an airport layover, so this clandestine post comes from my fine place of employment between routine tasks. Just don't tell my boss... 'Twixt relentless bouts of schlepping boxes, commuting between work and two residences, and cleaning various species of insect from the dark corners of my new pad, I squeezed in a visit to the local cinema for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End . And the wind appears to have forsaken the franchise's sails. If you're a fan of the first two Pirates movies (and I am), no amount of kvetching is gonna dissuade you from seeing this final installment, but be forewarned not to spend full-price (if anything) on a ticket. From this cramped perspective, it's a pretty epic disappointment. Depp's Captain Jack still charms at spots, kernels of promising ambition bob up amidst the chaos, and the damn thing looks as go...