Get ready for the optimized moviegoing experience, where every instant is calculated to tickle your neural G-spot — all thanks to functional magnetic resonance imaging, soon to be every director’s new best friend.

Scott Brown on How Movies Activate Your Neural G-Spot | Magazine

When Jim Sanborn shows you his latest art, the jaw drops and elegant words fail.

Dr. Frankenstein's lab has nothing on Sanborn's studio in Maryland.

A polished aluminum sphere perches by the ceiling, coupled to a cylinder that could be a meat smoker from Mars. A glass tube the size of your thigh runs down almost to the floor, ringed with gleaming copper halos like a Buck Rogers ray gun. It's all totally Ed Wood -- except that Sanborn's scientific madness works.

What we have here is a real, honest-to-God, no-holds-barred, fully operational electrostatic particle accelerator.

Blake Gopnik - The Story Behind Jim Sanborn's Latest Artwork, 'Terrestrial Physics' - washingtonpost.com

Les Paul, whose innovations with the electric guitar and studio technology made him one of the most important figures in recorded music, has died, according to a statement from his publicists. Paul was 94.

Paul was a guitar and electronics mastermind whose creations -- such as multitrack recording, tape delay and the solid-body guitar that bears his name, the Gibson Les Paul -- helped give rise to modern popular music, including rock 'n' roll. No slouch on the guitar himself, he continued playing at clubs into his 90s despite being hampered by arthritis.

R.I.P. Les Paul

Author JG Ballard, who has died aged 78, cast a huge influence over the literary world. But for those who have never picked up one of his novels there's another forum for learning about his work - pop music.

RIP JG

BBC NEWS | Magazine | What pop music tells us about JG Ballard

I've consumed several TV series on LOVEFiLM, and I've used it to catch-up, to re-find, and to discover new ones. I came to The Wire almost by chance. And having slept on this for a good few months – since I finished Series 5 – I've concluded that it's the best TV series ever produced – up there with Band of Brothers, Sopranos, any of CSI, Lost, 24, Alias...

I recommended this simply because I agree -- alongside Band of Brothers The Wire is the best TV series I've ever seen -- and although I love the Sopranos I think The Wire is better

The Wire Feature | LOVEFiLM

The cottage that provided the location for Withnail and I's disastrous holiday to the Lake District is up for sale. It's one of a number of sites that draw pilgrimages by fans of the cult film.

Sleddale Hall is, in the veiled parlance of a slick estate agent, in need of a bit of modernisation.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Withnail tourism

The Prisoner star Patrick McGoohan, who has died aged 80, was one of the leading British television stars of the 1950s and 1960s.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Obituary: Patrick McGoohan

Wallace and Gromit's latest adventure will premiere on BBC One at Christmas - but it will have to wait until 2010 to be eligible for an Academy Award.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Latest Gromit misses out on Oscar

Matt Groening

A masterpiece of joy and heartbreak

No one needs any formal introduction to Peanuts.
...
I was excited by the casual cruelty and offhand humiliations at the heart of the strip. Peanuts seemed emotionally real (and unlike anything else). Occasional sadness comes up (such as Charlie Brown's complaints that no one likes him, and Patty's un-sympathetic explanations of why this is so), but this is offset by a friendly drawing style, great jokes and a sense of childhood exuberance that makes the discouragements of life seem a worthy price to pay.

Oh boy, Charlie Brown: Matt Groening and Jonathan Franzen pay tribute to Peanuts | Books | The Guardian

Gomorrah has been hailed as a classic mafia movie, which lays bare the savagery of the Neapolitan Camorra and how it developed into a political and cultural force. It is based on a bestselling book, whose author, Roberto Saviano, now lives in fear of his life under armed guard. Former Italy correspondent Ed Vulliamy returns to Naples to meet Saviano and witness, first hand, the brutal gang's reign of terror

In the grip of Italy's bloodiest mafia clan | Film | The Observer