I’ve been catching up on comedy: Flight of the Conchords (amusing mumblecore with novelty songs, best appreciated in small doses) and the mindbending The Mighty Boosh (hilarious, surreal, bizarre, brilliant). It’s interesting they both exist as radio, stage and TV series.

This sly, provocative video for Jerk It led me to the buzzworthy group Thunderheist. Can’t stop listening. Work it.

I finished The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2) last week but am taking a break before starting the final book. It’s interesting, and reading that it’s a retelling of Milton’s Paradise Lost makes me want to dive into that epic poem (some day). For now, I’m reading some early pulp detective stories in Raymond Chandler: Stories and Early Novels (Library of America), which I found at a neighborhood used book store, Every Other Book. Hardboiled.

I recently discovered (through The Onion AV Club’s New Cult Canon series) Lynne Ramsay’s film Morvern Callar. Samantha Morton plays the title character, a young Scottish woman whose humdrum life is overturned by her boyfriend’s suicide. Following her initial paralysis and avoidance, Callar places her name on his unpublished manuscript and sends it off to a publisher. Collecting his assets, she sets out on an impromptu holiday to Spain. The film’s soundtrack—featuring music by Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Broadcast, Ween, Can, Stereolab and the Velvet Underground—punctuates her existential journey of clubbing, random impulsiveness and quiet confusion. By the end, Callar seems to find solace from her soul-searching and inherited success.

Third, Portishead’s first new music in more than ten years, is being released on April 28, 2008. If you’re industrious, you can preview an advance copy that’s floating around. Portishead cornucopia: Homepage, MySpace, Wikipedia, iTunes, Amazon MP3.