Logrolling in Our Time, Part 2: Still have a backlog of blogworthy material, including stories about last night's Tuesday Night Trivia and beyond, but running off to my medical-billing gig [life is not all New York Post], so I'll refer you to Caren's blog, which has published some exciting new entries of late.

Revisiting My Favorite Intellectual Property: I don't say a lot about my emotional life on this Weblog. That's partly because I don't think it's that interesting to people outside myself, and partly because I don't want those close to me to think that every interaction they have with me may show up here. But there is one thing I'd like to say, for those who have followed The Dawn Patrol for a while. I had dinner with my friend who formerly bore a trademark, and I still love him. There's nothing new to report—everything else in that regard stays as it has been for the past few months, and I don't foresee it changing—but he is still special to me.

I want you to know that because I think that a friend who doesn't often communicate with me might look at The Dawn Patrol and think that my life is somewhat superficial, just flitting around to the next trivia night or newspaper shift or whatever. No, wait, come to think of it, that is my life. Emotionally, however, while I'm enjoying what I hope will be a brief period of dating freedom and wearing my "single girl haircut" (as a girl at Tuesday Night Trivia called it), I don't change so quickly—nor do I want to.

Polishing the Gaits: I just did the first comprehensive update to my main page, Gaits of Eden, in nine months. Do check it out. You'll find links to some things that I've mentioned in The Dawn Patrol, like my "Mighty Wind" review and Oliver liner notes, as well as information on the recently released Warren Zevon collection, which likewise boasts my notes.

Oliver's Story: Bowing to popular demand*, I have just added my liner notes for EMI's unreleased Oliver greatest-hits package to my online archives. They were written in 1997, at a time when the label was in transition and shelved several projects just as they were ready to go. Now you can read more information on the late singer of "Good Morning Starshine" and "Jean" than was previously available on the Web—or anywhere else, for that matter. Although Oliver was still alive at the time, I wasn't able to reach him—nobody at EMI had his contact information—but I did get wonderful quotes from his producer, the legendary Bob Crewe.

While Oliver's soaring vocals and Crewe's gorgeous production work make a very pleasant impression on my ears, I'm not really a passionate fan or collector of the singer's work. Thankfully, fellow rock historian Patrick Beckers is, and he helped me so much with my research that I gave him a co-writing credit on the notes. (That last link will take you to Patrick's "About Me" page, which includes links to his extensive Wondermints fan pages.)

*Joke.

(G)not the Worst Threat: As I catch up on a backlog of blog material, I'd like to share my friend Richard J. "Rick" Stuart's thoughts on the article I mentioned that detailed Gnostic references in "Star Wars" and other pop-culture creations:

Great article, but I can't agree that "Gnosticism may be, at the beginning of the third millennium, the most dangerous enemy to our Christian faith." Maybe I'm naive, but I think it's much easier to talk to a person who recognizes that there is a spritual dimension to life and point them towards Christ, than to convince people with hedonistic world views that a spritual dimension to life exists.

It's a good point. I'm not sure myself if any one ideology can be considered "the most dangerous enemy"; I tend to go with George W. Bush and say that the greatest enemy is just plain evil. However, I think the article's author, Alfonso Aguilar, makes a good case that, within Western culture, Gnosticism in its modern form—defined by relativism and what James Taranto aptly calls "Cafeterianism"—is currently the most visible enemy to Christian faith.

It turns out that, from the point of view of the article's author, Stuart is right. After Rick sent his comments on the article to Alfonso Aguilar, the author wrote back to say that he indeed regretted calling Gnosticism "the most dangerous enemy to our Christian faith" without distinguishing it from hedonism and materialism. He noted that, compared to the latter, Gnosticism is only more dangerous in that it may make people think that they are following something compatible with Christianity when they are in fact losing their faith.

Tell It to the Murrain: At Passover time, I received a mailing from an Orthodox synagogue that contained one of those classic temple-bulletin typos: an exhortation to purchase "Memorial Plagues."

Everyone Knows I'm Windy: My review of "A Mighty Wind" is now up in the film section of my friend Joshua Tanzer's excellent online guide to NYC arts and entertainment, Offoffoff.

Best of All, It Won't Rot Your Teeth: Most of "The Candy," the nifty neo-bubblegum tune by Chris Butler that I raved about in The Dawn Patrol a short while back, is now available as a download on the site of Chris's notorious pseudo-European act Kilopop! Scroll down to the "Downloads" section and you'll find it. Easily the best "candy" song since Aqua's "Candyman," its gorgeous female harmonies evoke the B-52s' "Roam."

Blows Against the Empire: I was browsing the always-interesting Weblog at ChristianityToday.com and found a fascinating article from the National Catholic Register about the Gnostic roots of "Star Wars," "The Matrix," and "Harry Potter". Being nondenominational, I don't entirely subscribe to the writer's Catholic worldview (nor can I understand why he and other Catholic scribes think the Pope is such a brilliant writer), but his interpretations of those popular-culture creations are remarkably insightful.

Everyday Eden: A friend who reads The Dawn Patrol wanted to know if I was still feeling sick. I am, so I called my doctor yesterday and got a prescription for antibiotics....I should have headed the entry about my misremembering my headline "Dawn of Correction". Sometimes these things only come to one when it's too late.

This Round's on Me: Tonight I'm treating Tuesday Night Trivia players to a tasting round, instead of the usual visual round. Sorry, no touching round, though you are welcome to muss my hair within reasonable limits.

This Is What Happens When I Blog at 7:26:12 a.m.: I must have been in a cinematic mood yesterday morning, because my headline was "A fare of the heart" and not what I wrote in The Dawn Patrol. Thanks to Kevin Walsh and Ron Hogan for pointing it out to me. Kevin's e-mail was headed, "It just ain't fare." (By the way, I just luuuuurve being able to name-drop pals who have such first-class [and famous!] Web sites.)

Today's Token Headline: I should have a headline in today's paper, for a MetroGnome column on nostalgia for subway tokens: "A fare to remember."

A New Title for Sir Paul: Woke up yesterday morning from a dream where I heard a Paul McCartney song so obscure that he'd even forgotten about it. The title, which didn't have anything to do with the song, was "Warm Mead in A Flat". Knowing how my sleeping brain works, it's probably an anagram for "I.M. Dawn, Fart Least" or something like that.

The Button-Down Mind of Caren Lissner... may be glimpsed in the funniest blog I've seen.

Logrolling in Our Time: I am honored that the kind people at the official Mike Smith's Rock Engine Web site have put the photo of me with Mike Smith on their "The Fans Meet Mike Smith" page and plugged it on their "Bits and Pieces" message board. They even gave the photo a special built-in caption to insure that photographer Bruce Alexander was credited. Thanks, guys (and gal)!

He Does Look Like a Movie Star: Within hours of my posting Mike Smith's photo on The Dawn Patrol, no less than three friends—Perry Gartner, Jay Bennett, and Roy Currlin—wrote to me, all saying more or less the same thing:

Perry: "I think you should come clean and acknowledge that the man sharing the stage and mike with you is not Mike Smith at all, but is of course Kirk Douglas."

Jay: [In an e-mail headed "Mike Smith? Or Kirk Douglas...":] "Separated by birth or LSD? The likeness is uncanny."

Roy: "What are you doing onstage with Kirk Douglas?"

So, let the truth be known. Mike Smith is Spartacus.

White Lines: Last night at Tuesday Night Trivia, my friend Richard J. "Rick" Stuart and his team had a prize-winning witty answer to the question, "What is the title of the White Stripes' new album?": "I Married a Line Painter."