Bill Bryson, Douglas Adams, Lee DeWyze, Tom Lehrer & More About Jim Leeson

It was warm enough around noon today for me to sit out on the deck and eat lunch, and then read a little from A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, though I didn't have much time for such a large subject. By evening, an un-May-like chill was in the air. It's supposed to be around for a few days. Go figure.

I read A Walk in the Woods about a year ago and enjoyed it immensely, so that was my spur to pick up A Short History. Pretty good so far. Bryson has that Douglas Adams flair sometimes. Regarding the distance from Earth to the realm of trans-Neptunian objects (e.g., the planet Pluto), he writes, "and how far is that exactly? It's almost beyond imagining. Space, you see, is just enormous -- just enormous."

Yeah, don't forget to take a towel. Fortunately he doesn't lay that kind of writing on too thick.

I drove through parts of Mount Prospect, Ill., yesterday and saw no fewer than three highly visible signs alongside the road asking me to call in a vote for hometown singer Lee DeWyze. Without the 12-year-old riding with me, I would puzzle at them and then forget about them. But she watches American Idol with regularity and has adolescent-girl admiration for Lee DeWyze, so I know who that is too.

I've only seen bits and pieces of the show, so I don't have much of an opinion about it. Occasionally I ask Lilly if the contestants are going to be yodeling on the next episode, or something equally unlikely. Maybe I'll suggest Tuvan throat singing next time. But at least the contestants seem to sing actual standards sometimes, as opposed to whatever pop glop has emerged lately from the dark Satanic mills of the ailing music industry.

American Idol will probably never get around to featuring their contestants singing from the Tom Lehrer songbook, but it should. I heard last week that much Lehrer has been re-issued this year, along with a CD/DVD collection, so the time is ripe, at least in terms of marketing. In high school I discovered the three Lehrer LPs we had lying around the house and learned them well. My circle of friends were also fans. Now with the help of YouTube, Lehrer is being passed to a new generation. In honor of spring, I plan to show Lilly the following (she expects this kind of thing from me):

(Link for Facebook readers.)

After posting about Jim Leeson on Tuesday evening, BTST got hits from dozens of places it never has before, mostly people looking for information about Leeson, who clearly had a wealth of friends spanning more than one generation. This isn't the place to find out about him, however.

Tom Wood's heartfelt piece in The Nashville Scene is. It was posted earlier today, around the time that the Tennessean got around to publishing a standard obit (I figure the Tennessean has a lot else to do about now). Other publications are now posting articles about him too. Makes me a little sorry that I lost touch with him over the last 25 years, but such is life, if you live long enough.