Happy news:

Twitters are less impressed with more Cars, but they're probably not the target market - i.e., boys who have Lightning McQueen bedsheets. Not to say the second one was bad; it was just . . . I don't know. The first was a rather sweet love letter to small-town America, and you wish they'd left it there.

Oh, by the way: if this doesn't say Easter, nothing does:

Elsewhere in entertainment:

Related: here's the trailer for "Fargo," the TV series. Can't hurt. I mean, if it's bad, it's not as if it makes the original movie evaporate. Still wish it was set in, you know, Fargo.

URBAN STUDIES This piece on the Nicollet Mall redesign starts thus:

I'm not sure "Depression-era" is the right way to characterize it; most of the buildings were put up long before the 30s. Which provides us with a good excuse to run some Library of Congress photos of the old Gateway. Such as:

Unrecognizable today. There's nothing in that picture that's left except the fountain, and it was moved to the Rose Garden. Another shot, this time of Washington Avenue:

It all looks careworn and dusty, but who wouldn't give anything to spend a day walking around the old Gateway?

Meanwhile, this piece is going around the web today, defending New York and mocking those who have a romantic notion of the place.

I'd like to read what he writes when he really starts to hate New York.

That's it; have to go interview some people about Beagles. See you around.