David Kelly looks at Sopranos lit in the NY Times: Literary critics and historians, neo-Marxists and theoretical feminists, postmodernists and pre-post-post-structuralists are scrambling to stake their claims to David Chase’s series. The name-dropping in these books borders on the felonious — why stop at Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese …

Jeff Jarvis will be our latest Blogcritic! Very exciting news. While we are getting the paperwork straightened out, we will link his excellent review of the HBO lineup: The HBO Weltanschauung – or – Why we love The Sopranos There’s a reason the return of The Sopranos is getting so …

This Tuesday on live TV, a small robot will explore a shaft first discovered by explorers in the 19th century.

I haven’t talked about my excellent pal Tony Pierce for a while – bad move me. Today Tony has two wildly divergent pieces showing why he is a complex, unique guy. He reminds me of me in that regard, as I have mentioned before. First, he answers a reader email …

There’s a “quirky” new mag started by recent Duke graduates called mental_floss. One reviewer called it a “liberal arts education in installments.” Available only in print, check out their site for more info. Here’s a rundown of their latest issue: The SAINTS & SINNERS Issue The best pairs are always …

Media geeks head to Amsterdam for confab and hash bars: The annual International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) brought few breakthroughs or major partnerships, because this year key players are trying to do less rather than more. U.S.-based Microsoft, which last year boasted its first customer for its interactive TV middleware software …

Spanish porn company Private Media Group offers to buy Napster for stock valued at about $2.4 million: In a statement issued from Barcelona, Private Media said that it had offered to acquire the Napster trademark and napster.com Internet address for one million shares of Private Media common stock. Private Media …

An interview with, and profile of Springsteen guitarist, solo artist, producer, activist, and Sopranos star Steven Van Zandt.

The Sopranos returns after 15 months.

One of the complaints about the conflict between the baseball owners and players was that it was very difficult to sympathize with the millionaires against the billionaires, or vice versa. Well, this list takes it to another level: Bill Gates lost almost 20% of his fortune this last year, but …