DEPARTMENT
OF GOOD STUFF

BEETHOVEN'S FIFTH AS SALSA FILM OF 1906 SAN FRANCISCO STREET LIFE LIBRARIANS GO GAGA WHY CAN'T CONGRESS BE THIS MUCH FUN? SOME GREAT BOOGIE WOOGIE   THE INTERNET IN 1997 STRANGE MAPS On January 10, 1992, a container holding almost 29,000 plastic bath toys spills off a cargo ship into the middle of the Pacific Ocean and breaks open. The unsinkable toys, which were en route from Hong Kong to Tacoma (Washington), include a lot of iconic yellow rubber ducks that have since been caught up in the world's ocean currents and continue turning up on the most improbable shores MAGIC WHEEL TOM WAITS SHOWS HOW TO CONDUCT A NEWS CONFERENCE TEENS HELP A TOWN GO GREEN WHAT HAPPENED WHEN JOSHUA BELL PLAYED VIOLIN IN A SUBWAY STATION STUNNING WATERFALL VIDEO GREAT MOMENTS FROM 'THE WIRE' THE VISITOR - "In a sense, "The Visitor" is about the global econ professor bonding with the illegals, but the movie's not a tract. It's really about how people can come into our lives, change them, and leave. This is a film of our times - paranoid, heartbroken, disillusioned - and the rare recent American movie whose characters react the way actual people might." - Wesley Morris, Boston Globe CATHERINE RUSSELL: "After listening to a continuous stream of releases by purported rising jazz singers - who couldn't have lasted through a chorus in a contest with Ella Fitzgerald or Betty Carter - it's a delight to hear the real thing in Catherine Russell. . at the center of gravity that has always kept the music alive is 'the groove' that Cat Russell embodies." - Nat Hentoff

"As the world is getting faster and crazier, I've noticed sleepers around the streets, just everywhere," writes photographer Romain Philippon. "Of course, I also see some poetry and dreamings in all of that, but the contrast is so interesting to me, people trying to escape to their condition…" Philippon is self-publishing a book on the topic called "Inconscience". The Boston Globe has posted eight of these great shots. MODERN WEDDING   Folksinger and storyteller Utah Phillips, a national treasure if there ever was one, died last Friday. His performances featured the songs, jokes and lore of hobos, tramps, cowboys, migrant workers and Wobblies. Although he made a number of fine recordings, he was most truly in his element in live performances, where he knew how to draw the audience into a song or story and would leave us cracking up with laughter at some outrageous punch line that would unexpectedly pop up in the middle of his apparently rambling reminiscences. VIDEO FROM A UTAH PHILLIPS PERFORMANCE SOUNDS & SLIDES OF WOODSTOCK NEW YORKERS TAKE OVER PARKING PLACES ACTUALLY, BILL O'REILLY IS A LOT CALMER THAN HE USED TO BE FINALLY, A GOOD USE FOR SPY CAMS: MAKING A CHEAP VIDEO WEEKLY GROUP SKATING THRU PARIS The Friday night skates were started by a small group of friends. After the transit strikes in 1995, which forced Parisians to find a new way to get around town, thousands of people began to show up on Friday evenings just to practice moving through the city on roller blades. The numbers inspired Pari Roller to form an official association working with Paris', and the world's, first roller blade national police unit. TWO WHEEL TOW TRUCK