MUSIC

After spending the past four years out of the spotlight, PJ Harvey plans to make a grand re-entrance in May with the release of her seventh full-length, Uh Hu Her. The album follows the Pretenders-esque Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, which just-narrowly missed Billboard's Top 40 albums chart upon its release in October of 2000, and won her the U.K.'s prestigious Mercury Music Prize.

As previously reported, the questionably titled new release was largely a solo affair: Harvey self-produced, and played all of the instruments, save the percussion, which was tackled by longtime collaborator Rob Ellis. This marks a departure from previous albums, which saw her accompanied by throngs of session players and producers, with the exception of her first two releases, which were recorded as a trio with bandmates Ellis and bassist Steve Vaughn, and produced by the ubiquitous Steve Albini. Uh Hu Her is slated for a May 31st release in the UK, with a Stateside street date to follow on June 8th via Island Records. Additionally, the album will be preceded by a single for the album's fifth cut, "The Letter", on May 17th. Tracklist:

01 The Life and Death of Mr. Badmouth
02 Shame
03 Who the Fuck?
04 The Pocket Knife
05 The Letter
06 The Slow Drug
07 No Child of Mine
08 Cat on the Wall
09 You Come Through
10 It's You
11 The End
12 The Desperate Kingdom of Love



Sarah Harmer
from Macleans magazine

SARAH HARMER, Sam Roberts and Ron Sexsmith walk into a Starbucks . . . and, well, nobody notices. While that would be unlikely in the coffee shops of Canada, it happened in Austin, Tex., just two weeks ago. Harmer and Sexsmith were there to play an afternoon gig on the café's patio for the middle-aged, Birkenstock-wearing set -- while the notoriously hard-partying Roberts dragged himself out of bed just to watch. When Harmer was about three songs in, the crowd began to understand that maybe they were in the presence of Canadian greatness. One fellow even nudged his buddy, saying, "See, I told you there were some good things happening in Canada; it's not all Cowboy Junkies." After Harmer's set, a very sure-of-himself record store owner gave the red-headed beauty his card and told her, in a somewhat patronizing manner, to e-mail him when she comes through Wisconsin. Considering Harmer's 2000 solo debut album, You Were Here, had healthy sales in the U.S., she doesn't exactly need that kind of grassroots support. She was gracious nonetheless. That afternoon the 33-year-old singer proved irresistible -- her pretty songs, impressive musicianship and striking good looks went down well with the non-fat soy lattes.

But you could never dismiss Harmer as just a coffee-crowd pleaser. The night before, she had completely transfixed a jaded rock audience, playing songs from her new disc, All of Our Names, at Austin's South by Southwest music festival. She's got an edge, an indie cred that distinguishes her from Sarah McLachlan and all those other women who don't rock found on Women & Songs CD compilations. Heavily influenced by the musical tastes of her five older siblings, Harmer developed an early interest in the Tragically Hip. When she was in high school, living outside of Burlington, Ont., with her farmer father, Clem, and teacher mother, Isabelle, Harmer joined the Toronto roots rock band the Saddletramps. Then she moved to Kingston to attend Queen's University and formed the rock outfit Weeping Tile and played drums in the Wads, a fun punk side project. "I couldn't sing punk, I'm a good girl," says Harmer. "But behind the kit, yeah, I can let it go."

LOOKING SAUCY in a sheer black top, black bra and Italian jeans, Harmer steps off the Starbucks patio and into a divey bar down the street. Patronized by legionnaires and honest-to-goodness Texas rednecks, the establishment is actually called The Hole in the Wall -- and it's almost too scary to stay. But finding a quiet spot in a back room next to pinball machines and pool tables, Harmer -- along with her friend Julie MacDonald, who plays keyboards in the band -- settles in with a Rolling Rock beer, completely at ease.

The last time Harmer was at this festival was in 2001, just as You Were Here was catching on in the U.S. That album, inspired by the kind of formative moments someone has in her late teens and early 20s, spawned the hits Basement Apartment and Don't Get Your Back Up, and introduced her as a singing/songwriting force. After touring exhaustively for more than two years, Harmer retreated to her farmhouse in Elginburg, Ont., outside of Kingston, and took her sweet time getting back to work. "I was doing a lot of stuff I like doing, outdoor stuff," she says. "And then I did start to feel like, 'C'mon Sarah, you can garden when you're 50.' I felt a bit of guilt when I saw my contemporaries out there doing stuff and contributing to the creative environment."

Eventually, she got down to it. Harmer and her boyfriend of two years, Martin Kinack -- who lives in Toronto and does sound for the acts Broken Social Scene and Hayden -- set up a studio in her house and produced the new CD themselves. The instruments were recorded in the living room and vocals in the laundry room; the control board took over the bedroom. Harmer played guitar, bass, drums, piano, synth and Wurlitzer. And musician friends would come by and help her flesh things out. "Sonically, we were trying to get the natural quality of my voice, so it sounded like I was right there singing in front of you, rather than using a lot of compression like on the last album," says Harmer.

The result certainly is intimate -- slow and languorous. While there are a couple uptempo numbers at the beginning, including the first single, Almost, and the catchy, quirky New Enemy, the last half of the album is serene and beautiful, if a bit somnolent. "Actually, when we first recorded Almost, it was moodier, a kind of darker version, slower," says Harmer. "It didn't have that much splash. I played it for some people, my manager, and I decided that I could bring it a little bit more to life." In other words, Harmer needed a radio-friendly hit, and the redone Almost is doing the trick. It's moving up the Canadian charts and is in demand on the triple-A radio format in the U.S.

Harmer also had an "upbeat summer driving song" that she'd have liked to put on All of Our Names, but she couldn't write the words. "I had it all ready, the melodies figured out, but I couldn't figure out exactly what it was about. It's still called Ba Da Da." In fact, Harmer almost called the whole album Ba Da Da because that's her default phrasing when nothing else fits, and it's sprinkled throughout this latest batch of songs. Despite those few instances of writer's block, Harmer ended up saying quite a bit this time out. She's made a conscious shift away from the introspective, woe-is-me theme of You Were Here to broader lyrics about interpersonal connections.

She calls the song Dandelions in Bullet Holes the "pride of the fleet. I felt like I entered the world a little more on that song. I had been travelling and my perspective moved around a lot. I was taking in the sea of humanity and trying to weave that all together." The chorus goes: dandelions in bullet holes / we stand in our civilian clothes / on blankets laid out on a lawn / clouds of rain will all move on / and when the mist clears we will see / both of our names on a marquee / across the ocean the same day / and then washed ashore a block away. It describes how she turned a corner on her way to a gig in Amsterdam and saw a marquee that said writer/activist Naomi Klein was also in town that night. "I was reading No Logo at the time. I had no idea she was going to be there, and I thought, 'We're all making this happen, it's not other people.' I felt more involvement in the world, like what I was doing, even though it is incremental, at least it felt like it was rippling in a certain way."

That's probably more serious talk than The Hole in the Wall has seen in some time. So Harmer leans back and hums along to some guy who is playing a very out-of-place acoustic cover of Morrissey in the other room. It elicits her memories of dances at the Knights of Columbus in Burlington: "You know, we'd go, look cool, smoke cigarettes, and they'd play New Order and the Smiths." Over the course of a beer and a diner breakfast another day, Harmer drops tidbits about herself into conversation: she was obsessed with etiquette as a child and still has a big Emily Post book, but she's forgotten all the rules; she watches only Hockey Night in Canada and TVO at home, but on the road she's addicted to channel-surfing; she twisted her tailbone three years ago when she was goofing around on her friend's crutches and hasn't fully recovered.

She also describes herself as a "terrible gift-giver." But the facts don't back her up. After all, in 1998 she recorded some of her father's favourite country and jazz songs on her back porch and gave him the CD, Songs for Clem, for Christmas. Not only was it thoughtful, but it was so popular that friends and family convinced her to release it. This past October, Harmer began working on the follow-up, Songs with Clem. "We recorded 13 songs and really worked my dad. It was his first time singing into a nice-sounding mic and hearing his voice back. His voice is really beautiful." Harmer had written some original acoustic country tunes for the project, but Clem insisted they also do songs that people know -- he chose Spanish Eyes, Four Strong Winds, Somewhere My Love and On the Road Again. "We did that last one late one night," recalls Harmer, who had invited friends over to play bass, mandolin, banjo, violin. "Of course, my parents go to bed at 10. We were still recording upright bass, and my parents were sound asleep. I felt like I was in high school, tiptoeing around."

While there's still work to do on that record, Harmer has to put it aside for a while. She's gearing up to start a tour with an essentially new backing band. There will be a couple of dates in Europe before a full-on assault of the U.S. -- and then she'll tiptoe back to Canada, bringing her dreamy new songs to the hole in the wall she calls home.

Words of the day

valetudinarian - weak or sickly person especially one morbidly concerned with his or her health

quiddity - the essence that makes something the kind of thing it is and makes it different from any other

desuetude - a state of inactivity or disuse

iTunes Songlist

Girls - Death in Vegas
I wanna make it wit chu - Desert Sessions
Each coming night - Iron & Wine
Think for yourself - Beatles
Going down - Stone Roses
Theologians - Wilco
Sea of Teeth - Sparklehorse
Slide away - oasis
Came on lion - Sarah Harmer

iTunes Songlist for the weekend of March 27th

Iron & Wine - Naked as we came
Sarah Harmer - Pendulums
Phoenix - Everything is everything
Stone Roses - Bye bye badman
Ass Ponys - All by myself
Wilco - Old maid
Beck - Everybody's gotta learn sometime
Ron Sexsmith - Whatever it takes
Feist - It's cool to love your family
Beta Band - Assessment
Elf Power - Walking with the beggar boys
Madvillain - Raid
Beastie Boys - Shadrach (Peanut Butter remix)
Sebadoh - Beauty of the ride
Rahzel - All i Know
Wilco - Jesus, etc.
Feist - Let it die

LYRICS

Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime
Change of heart, look around you
Change of heart, it will astound you
I need your loving like the sunshine
And everybody's gotta learn sometime
Everybody's gotta learn sometime

Funeral Blues
W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
T. S. Eliot

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, `` What is it? ''
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening.
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains.
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys.
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me.
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ``Do I dare?'' and, ``Do I dare?''
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
[They will say: ``How his hair is growing thin!'']
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
[They will say: ``But how his arms and legs are thin!'']
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep. . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Woud it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: `` I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all''--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: ``That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.''

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow, or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
``That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.''
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.


I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.


Wild Geese
Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Pi
Wislawa Szymborska

The admirable number pi:
three point one four one.
All the following digits are also initial,
five nine two because it never ends.
It can't be comprehended six five three five at a glance,
eight nine by calculation,
seven nine or imagination,
not even three two three eight by wit, that is, by comparison
four six to anything else
two six four three in the world.
The longest snake on earth calls it quits at about forty feet.
Likewise, snakes of myth and legend, though they may hold out a bit longer.
The pageant of digits comprising the number pi
doesn't stop at the page's edge.
It goes on across the table, through the air,
over a wall, a leaf, a bird's nest, clouds, straight into the sky,
through all the bottomless, bloated heavens.
Oh how brief - a mouse tail, a pigtail - is the tail of a comet!
How feeble the star's ray, bent by bumping up against space!
While here we have two three fifteen three hundred nineteen
my phone number your shirt size the year
nineteen hundred and seventy-three the sixth floor
the number of inhabitants sixty-five cents
hip measurement two fingers a charade, a code,
in which we find hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert
alongside ladies and gentlemen, no cause for alarm,
as well as heaven and earth shall pass away,
but not the number pi, oh no, nothing doing,
it keeps right on with its rather remarkable five,
its uncommonly fine eight,
its far from final seven,
nudging, always nudging a sluggish eternity
to continue.

POETRY

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
e.e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

Kubla Khan
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw;
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

PLAYLIST OF THE DAY

Radiohead - I will (LA version)
Lambchop - Nothing Adventurous Please
Sarah Harmer - Greeting Card Aisle
Tommy Guerrero - Tomcat
Bill Withers - I'm her daddy
Neil Young - Bandit
Broken Social Scene - I slept with Bonhomme at the CBC
U2 - PLease (Hasta la Vista Baby version)
Outkast - The way you move
Ryan Adam - Wonderwall
Jim Guthrie - So small
Blur - Out of time
Rufus Wainwright - Dinner at eight
Zero 7 - Home
Sarah Harmer - Home soon
Zero 7 - Somersault

Coldplay - 2000 miles
U2 - All I want is you (Dublin, 2003)
Nancy Sinatra - Bang Bang
Richard Ashcroft - Buy it in bottles
Air - Cherry blossom girl
Cardigans - Communication
Sun kil moon - Gentle moon
Astrud Gilberto - Here's that rainy day
U2 - Kite (Boston, 2001)
Broken Social Scene - Pacific Theme
Zero 7 - Passing by
Nick Drake - Saturday Sun
Super Furry Animals - Slow life
Blur - Sweet song
Sarah Harmer - Tether
Norah Jones - Long way home
Zero 7 - Space between

Brad Mehldau - Everything in its right place
Broken social scene - Lover's spit
Zero 7- Somersault
Jeff Buckley - Lover, you should've come over
Brad Mehldau - Nearness of you
Beta Band - Assessment
Sufjan Stevens - A good man is hard to find
Rheostatics - Loving arms
Beatles - Norwegian wood
Nick Drake - Hazey Jane II
Lemonheads - Brass buttons
Buffalo Springfield - Four days gone
Air - Surfing on a rocket
10,000 Maniacs - hello in there
PJ Harvey - horses in my dreams

MOVIES

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Don't expect anything standard-issue from this uniquely funny, unpredictably tender and unapologetically twisted romance. Jim Carrey, dropping the goofy faces, has never done anything this deeply felt. The brilliant screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation), often accused of an excess of cleverness, plumbs new emotional depths. And visionary director Michel Gondry, whose music-video flash for the likes of Bjork, Radiohead and the White Stripes kept his 2001 collaboration with Kaufman in Human Nature on a showoff level, reveals a bracing maturity in his commitment to character. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind chases so many ideas that it threatens to spin out of control. But with our multiplexes stuffed with toxic Hollywood formula, it's a gift to find a ballsy movie that thinks it can do anything, and damn near does.
Carrey stars as Joel Barish, a weary Manhattan wage slave who wakes up one winter morning, calls in sick and takes a train out to a beach in Montauk, on Long Island. Something draws him there; maybe the same thing that draws him to Clementine Kruczynski (a never-better Kate Winslet), a free spirit with dyed blue hair -- she calls it "Blue Ruin" -- whom he meets on the train home. These polar opposites feel a connection they can't explain.

So Kaufman gradually fills us in. Without giving too much away, let's just say that Joel and Clementine have both had all memories of their two-year relationship erased. She had the process done first, having seen a TV ad for a company called Lacuna in which Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (the invaluable Tom Wilkinson) asks, "Why remember a destructive love affair?" Joel, hurt by her actions, follows suit. In his apartment, on the night before the train trip, Dr. Mierzwiak's assistants Stan (Mark Ruffalo), Patrick (Elijah Wood) and Mary (Kirsten Dunst) attach the weird headgear and zap the recollections one by one, the most recent first. It's a botch job, mostly because Patrick splits to make a play for Clementine (he has stolen Joel's memories), and Stan and Mary strip down to get stoned and boogie.

No matter. The core of the movie is what's going on in Joel's head. And it's here that the filmmakers lavish their most creative and insightful notions. As Joel struggles to hold on to the memories of the woman he truly loves, Kaufman and Gondry grapple with the concept of memory itself and how it defines our lives. This is heady stuff -- gorgeously shot by Ellen Kuras -- that might fly off the handle into meta-hot air were it not for the grounded and groundbreaking performances of Carrey and Winslet. Never once do we doubt the bond that holds these embattled lovers despite their crippling flaws. He's recessive to the point of inertia. She's impulsive, with moods that change as frequently as the color of her hair -- the dyes range from blue to green to red mist. They're always hitting a wall. "Just because you talk constantly doesn't mean you're communicating," says Joel.

Carrey burrows far inside the emotionally withdrawn Joel until we see the soul worth saving. And Winslet, one of the best actresses anywhere, is electrifying and bruisingly vulnerable. All the actors have shining moments. Wood, eons away from Frodo, gets creepy laughs but also measures the loss of leading a stolen life. Dunst brings a wounded dignity to Mary's betrayed trust in Mierzwiak, enhanced by the dark melancholy Wilkinson invests in the role. And Ruffalo proves again that he can find dramatic nuance in the corners of comedy. When Mary asks Stan how she looked with Mierzwiak when she first developed a crush on the doc, he takes a beat. "You looked happy," he says, "with a secret."

Unlocking secrets is part of the richness of a fantasy film that grows increasingly real. Even the lyrics of the silly song that bears Clementine's name -- "lost and gone forever" -- take on a poignant resonance as Joel fights to keep Clementine in his head, forcing memories of her into his childhood, where she never played a part. Kaufman, Gondry and the pitch-perfect actors have crafted a remarkable film that can coax a smile about making the same mistakes in love and then sneak up and quietly break your heart.

TODD BERTUZZI

One of these days, the National Hockey League will finally get it. That will be the day one of its goons kills another player on the ice. Don't think it can't happen. It almost did Monday night in Vancouver. - Tim Dahlberg, The Associated Press

The NHL clearly is guilty of full idiocy. Somebody should knock sense into the heads of the league and the teams and the players association. An exchange of punches between two players is silly, macho one-upmanship. Blindsiding and cold-cocking an opponent, then slamming his head into concrete-like ice is a premeditated violent attack with intent to maim. No wonder the NHL is continuing to slip from a bad fourth in major-league sports popularity and racing toward disappearance next season. It's a league without a clue. - Woody Paige, Denver Post

There is no room in hockey for what took place at GM Place Monday night. No room at all. Now, it's up to the NHL to determine what will happen to someone who could do such a thing. - Gary Mason, Vancouver Sun

The NHL has, of course, suspended Bertuzzi and it will be widely debated as to the length and severity - but the debaters, unfortunately, will miss the essential point. It's not the player that required severe corrective measures - it's the game. - Roy MacGregor, The Globe and Mail

There was premeditation. There was intent to injure. There was extreme violence. For this, Bertuzzi should forfeit his right to participate in the NHL. He should be banned for the rest of this season, including the playoffs, and if someone wants to make an argument for a permanent ban, I'd sure be willing to listen. - Damien Cox, Toronto Star

Bertuzzi has made his bed and he must lie in it. But the NHL must share at least some of the blame. Alone among professional sports leagues, the NHL not only allows but, by its inaction, fosters a vigorous system of vigilante justice that may have worked in another generation but is totally out of date in 2004. One guy is in the hospital nursing a serious injury. The other is now in the fight of his life for his livelihood and his good name. His team is left in the lurch. And you know what? Hockey should count its lucky stars it wasn't worse. - Ken Fidlin, Toronto Sun

Most mystifying of all about Bertuzzi's actions, however, is why a skilled player, albeit a very large one, felt he had to personally dispense frontier justice, at what may turn out to be enormous cost - not merely playoff wins but millions of dollars in revenues - to this team. Heavy work is best left to heavies. Not only are they better at it, they are less costly to lose. - Cam Cole, National Post

In the long term, whatever those forces of authority do, it won't change a thing. A business that still thinks it needs fighting as a marketing tool, that allows threats to be carried out and that all but encourages vendettas isn't about to clean itself up. There are bigger fish to fry right now - like winning a salary cap from the players, at all costs. In the short term, Bertuzzi ought to be suspended for the rest of this season and the playoffs. And he ought to be charged. - Stephen Brunt, The Globe and Mail

Bertuzzi is no dainty tulip, nor is Moore, never mind his Harvard pedigree. They both have volunteered to make a living from an ability and an eagerness to dish out punishment. The NHL should ban Bertuzzi for life, or for the length of Moore's life, anyhow, though, most likely, it will be just for the season. It will be a gesture as hollow as it is transparent. - Bernie Lincicome, Rocky Mountain News

Hockey is a violent sport. That's one of the reasons we love it. But within the organized chaos of high sticks and slashes and hockey fights, there are rules, there are boundaries, there are lines that shouldn't be crossed. Todd Bertuzzi crossed one of those lines Monday night, and he should not play another game this season because of it. - Mike Heika, Dallas Morning News,

The NHL should suspend Todd Bertuzzi for the rest of the regular season - at least. If it hurts Vancouver's Stanley Cup chances, so be it. Bertuzzi deserves to be punished severely. The league must make a statement. - Nicholas J. Cotsonika, Detroit Free Press

Bertuzzi's attack was not a spur-of-the-moment, heat-of-combat lapse in judgment. Rather, he stalked Moore like a thug working a dark alley. Though he outweighs Moore by about 60 pounds, he slipped up behind Moore and punched him with his gloved hand. What a coward! And as the dazed Moore fell helplessly toward the ice, Bertuzzi jumped on him and smashed his face into he ice. He could have killed the guy. - Jeff Gordon, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Bertuzzi's cheap-shot sucker punch from behind on Colorado's Steve Moore on Monday night in Vancouver, and then his driving of Moore's head into the ice, was despicable and indefensible. Bertuzzi should be suspended for a year. A full year. It's sickening, and that was the case even before the news broke Tuesday morning that Moore had suffered fractured vertebrae. He has the use of his limbs, and there will be no paralysis, but that doesn't lessen the shock - or the disgrace. - Terry Frei, ESPN.com

It would be apt to say that Todd Bertuzzi's vicious attack on Steve Moore gave hockey a black eye, if the face of the sport didn't already sport a shiner, a misshapen nose and a perpetual bully-boy sneer. Despicable and cowardly as Bertuzzi's sucker punch was, it's really just one extreme incident in a continuum of needless violence that is as much a part of the game as the speed and skill such episodes too often obscure. - John MacKinnon, Edmonton Journal

Song of the day

Don't Worry, Baby -- The Beach Boys

Well its been building up inside of me
For oh I don't know how long
I don't know why but I keep thinking
Something's bound to go wrong

But she looks in my eyes
And makes me realize
And she says "Don't worry baby"
Don't worry baby
Don't worry baby
Everything will turn out alright

Don't worry baby
Don't worry baby
Don't worry baby

I guess I should've kept my mouth shut
When I started to brag about my car
But I can't back down now because
I pushed the other guys too far

She makes me come alive
And makes me wanna drive
When she says "Don't worry baby"
Don't worry baby
Don't worry baby
Everything will turn out alright

Don't worry baby
Don't worry baby
Don't worry baby

She told me "Baby, when you race today
Just take along my love with you
And if you knew how much I loved you
Baby nothing could go wrong with you"

Oh what she does to me
When she makes love to me
And she says "Don't worry baby"
Don't worry baby
Don't worry baby
Everything will turn out alright

Don't worry baby