New fascinations:

• The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, Naomi Wallace. The kids in this play took my breath away. The adults are endearing and worry me slightly. I'm making moves to direct it.
• A Night at Birdland, Vol. 2, Art Blakey Quintet. Old-skool and worth it. This disc really hops without having that caterwauling 12-tone-row sort of feel that I associate with hard bop.
• The usability disaster heralded by academic web sites, and the usability armageddon represented by their attempts at online applications.
• Time's Arrow, Martin Amis. This is the most technically impressive writing effort I've seen in years, and it's chock full of brilliant human observation. Everything commonplace looks new.
• Not drinking eight beers on top of a heavy Thai peanut sauce.