Monty Python Returns

Sort of. With qualifications. Variety says:

You can tell it's "Variety," because it assumes you care about the producer. Anyway, sounds great, doesn't it? More:

I wish I knew what "Dennis" meant to those fellows. There's got to be a reason they find it funny.

Anyway, sounds great, doesn't it? What could possibly spoil this glorious opportunity?

As the article says:

Oh. Well. Then.

MUSIC Apparently this incredibly long piece is the 4th most read thing EVER on Gawker. It's about Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show band's awful German-TV performance. It's a great piece. You really get the sense of things gone horribly wrong, how the worst of the 60s came to define the culture of the early 70s. It's also completely overstated. Read it - it's fun - then watch the clips. It's just an average band doing their goofy, messy, bleeped-up stage schtick while under the influence of a wide variety of compounds, that's all. But this is what happens when you watch something 30 times.

ART Font fans will enjoy this, and not get bent out of shape because I said said "font" instead of "typeface." Let's just call that battle lost. Anyway:

Page after page of this stuff. A reminder that all the great ads of the day were hand-drawn.

HOORAH FOR CANINES Yes, your dog is a genius. Scientific American says so!

I was always pleased that I could point at something, and my dog would look at what I was pointing. That's quite a conceptual leap.

He doesn't do that any more, his eyes being what they are. Or aren't. He's old. But he can still detect the smell of a meatball from the other end of the house, and for dogs that's the important stuff.

WEB Don't you wish you'd thought of Pinterest? It's valued at over two billion dollars now.

Let me note: now.

HISTORY Remember last week when you were advised to visit Naples before it completely falls apart? You might want to add Rome to the itinerary. They found an incredible tomb for the general on whom Russell Crowe's gladiator was based, but there's not enough money to explore. So they have to bury it again. Time says:

Pompeii is a marvel, an international treasure, but you can tell that everything around it is designed to funnel you into the store and buy limoncello, or go outside for a sausage. It's a clumsy, disorganized mess.

As for the tomb, there's hope: