This may well be one of my top ten favorite songs, but I always seem to forget about it until it manifests itself in shuffle at an opportune time. Beauty and apocalypse mix with a Browne vocal so real you can hear him chuckle at the irony in one of the verses — and I generally find him stilted. I’d love for Ben Folds to cover this.

Although I’d heard it before, it first stuck with me when it popped into my shuffle as I was taking a long walk to clear my head during the confusion of September 12, 2001.

The Wiz

I’m usually leery when sales managers recommend reading — it’s typically brainless, feel-good plucky crap designed to motivate the unmotivated. So when our last sales manager pointed me at the Monday Morning Memo by Roy H. Williams, a self-styled “Wizard of Ads,” my eyes almost rolled out of my head.

But week in and week out, Williams’ missives are the most consistently insightful thing I read. He’s a master of human psychology and counter-intuitive wisdom. I generally find myself agreeing with him on some concept or other that hadn’t ocurred to me before: Take for example this week’s study of how most marketing is geared towards extraverts while alienating introverts.

If you become a regular reader, don’t miss the “rabbit hole,” which is an Easter Egg hidden in every issue. Click on the lead photo (and each subsequent one that appears) and you’ll be taken down some other, unrelated road. This week’s, for instance, is a series of thoughts, photos and videos on Audrey Hepburn.

I never thought I’d find a truly literate writer focused on sales, but Roy’s the real deal. You’re cheating yourself if your don’t sign up for his weekly email or subscribe to his podcast.

Mahalia Jackson: “If We Never Needed the Lord Before”
Rediscovered Mahalia via the closing credits of an exceptional episode of This American Life.  And we could all use a little help these days.Buy albums: Bob and Mahalia