We should have a word in English for the feeling you have the morning after you stay up late watching Goldfinger on ill-gotten DVD in your apartment in subtropical China while a Tibetan scirocco blows in through the bug screen and you shower and dress in 15 minutes despite which your wife says you look handsome even though you’ve been wearing the same 3 pairs of pants and 5 shirts and 3 pairs of shoes for two months and you rush to the bus where you plug into your iPod shuffle which you’ve programmed to select 20 songs completely at random from your 10,000 song library and you hear a heavy/bluesy live Led Zeppelin song about fornication and then Lauryn Hill unplugged and then the Beatles’ “For No One” while you pass motorcycle taxis and old women with rickshaws as you descend into the dusty yellow suburbs in the dusty yellow sunshine and then you hear some perfectly anonymous techno song which makes you feel like you’re living the soundtrack to a really surprising Wes Anderson movie and the last song you hear as you pass through the center of the town whose name in English means Apricot Groves but which lost its actual apricot groves 10 years ago to uniformly awful apartment blocks and light electronics factories and shoe factories and metal recyclers and walk-in clinics and plumbing supply stores and international schools is none other than Monty Norman’s “James Bond Theme’ so you realize that your life is better than all but one of Wes Andersen’s movies. We need a word for that feeling. How about liquacious? Salugrious? Help me out here.

The day gets even better when a Chinese colleague asks you to define “sub” and you say it’s a kind of sandwich which is the first thing you think of and she looks at you crosseyed and you say it can also mean substitute teacher and she says that makes more sense and you say it can also mean a boat that goes underwater.

• “The Hero,” Queen
• “Baja,” The Astronauts
• “Thoroughfare Gap,” CSNY
• “Back in Black,” AC/DC
• “Kill Your Television,” Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
• “Roadrunner,” Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers
• “Immigrant Song,” Led Zeppelin
• “History Lesson,” Minutemen
• “Dead Heart,” Midnight Oil
• “Fox on the Run,” Sweet
• “In a Big Country,” Big Country
• “Common People,” Pulp
• “Baba O’Reily,” The Who

OK, so maybe “cry” is a strong word, but power chords definitely make me teary. So do bagpipes. I think this has something to do with being white.

I still get that little-kid feel when I wake up and find completely unexpectedly that it has snowed. Maybe school will be cancelled! Maybe I'll get in a car accident! Let's go make a snow fort! Unfortunately, I have to work. Aw darn.

p.s. I think I sleep better when it's snowing. Somehow I can hear the snow. I slept straight through to the alarm last night. Of course, we were out until 11:30 at the Stereolab show last night, so maybe that has something to do with it...

To You, that’s MISTER...

• ...Big (The Dils)
• ...Cab Driver (Lenny Kravitz)
• ...DNA (Devo)
• ...Eleganza (My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult)
• ...Eliminator (Dick Dale & the Del-Tones)
• ...Freedom X (Miles Davis)
• ...Grieves (Pixies)
• ...Intentional (Lauryn Hill)
• ...Jones (Counting Crows)
• ...Jones (Talking Heads)
• ...Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Dionne Warwick)
• ...Lucky (Henry Mancini)
• ...Machoman (Lords of Acid)
• ...Man (Alicia Keys)
• ...Moonlight (Clinic)
• ...Moto (The Bel-Airs)
• ...Moustache (Nirvana)
• ...Peppermint Man (Dick Dale & the Del-Tones)
• ...Pharmacist (The Fall)
• ...Pitiful (The Commitments)
• ...Psycho (Space)
• ...Rebel (Eddie & the Showmen)
• ...Roboto (Styx)
• ...Stanley (John Hiatt)
• ...Suit (Wire)
• ...Wendal (Arrested Development)

The Music Industry’s Glass Ceiling

• Mrs. Blaileen (Primus)
• Miss Amanda Jones (March Violets)
• Miss America (Styx)
• Miss Fortune (Eagle Eye Cherry)
• Miss Freelove ’69 (Hoodoo Gurus)
• Miss Gradenko (The Police)
• Mme. LeFevre (Fila Brasilia)
• Mrs. Leroy Brown (Loretta Lynn)
• Mmslle. Mabry (Miles Davis)
• Miss Modular (Stereolab)
• Miss Molly (Old 97s)
• Miss Sarajevo (U2)
• Miss Teen Wordpower (The New Pornographers)
• Mrs. Train (They Might Be Giants)
• Miss World (Hole)

At Least Three Artists Perform Versions of These Songs

• 12XU (Gilbert/Lewis/Newman/Gotobed)
• Beyond the Sea (Lasry/Trenet)
• Can’t Help Falling in Love (Weiss/Peretti/Creatore)
• Crazy Train (Osbourne/Rhoades)
• (Ghost) Riders in the Sky (Jones)
• Interstellar Overdrive (Barrett)
• Jingle Bells (Pierpont)
• King of the Road (Miller)
• Mystery Train (Parker)
• Smells Like Teen Spirit (Grohl/Cobain/Novoselic)
• The Christmas Song (Torme/Wells)
• White Christmas (Berlin)

Get Your Paws Off Me You Goddamned Dirty Ape

• Brass Monkey (Beastie Boys)
• Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey (The Beatles)
• Monkey (Bush, Counting Crows, Low) Please note: not the same song
• Monkeys (Echo and The Bunnymen)
• Monkey Gone to Heaven (Pixies)
• Monkey Say (Young Fresh Fellows)
• Monkeyland (The Chameleons)
• One Monkey (Gillian Welch)
• Proudest Monkey (Dave Matthews Band)
• Very Ape (Nirvana)
• You Drive Me Ape (The Dickies)

Where Are We Welcomed To?

• The Occupation (R.E.M.)
• The Pleasuredome (Frankie Goes to Hollywood)
• The Terrordome (Public Enemy)
• My Life (Simple Plan)
• The Cruel World (Ben Harper)
• The Light (2Many DJs)

What is Life?

• Sweet (Natalie Merchant)
• For Living (Santana)
• Grand (Camper Van Beethoven)
• Shit (Dead Milkmen)
• More than This (Björk)
• That (Frank Sinatra)

Who or What Comes or is Coming?

• A Regular (The Replacements)
• Big Day (Yo La Tengo)
• Christmas (Vince Guaraldi Trio)
• My Baby (Cat Stevens)
• Santa Claus (Elvis Presley)
• The Night (Van Morrison)
• The Summer (The Undertones)
• The Winter (Elf Power)
• The Sun (The Beatles)
• Your Man (Pixies)
• The Martian Martians (Jonathan Richman)
• It (Modest Mouse)
• Something (Oscar Peterson)

Do you...

• Like It? (Kinky)
• Know How to Waltz? (Low)
• Know What I’m Saying? (Wendy James)
• Love Me Now? (The Breeders)
• Realize? (The Flaming Lips)
• Remember? (Hüsker Dü)
• Want More? (The Roots)
• Want New Wave or Do You Want the Truth? (The Minutemen)