• The first few grafs of this review from Corey S. Powell in Discover Magazine REALLY make me want to see “The Theory of Everything.” In a way that the trailer, with its reductive tendencies, never did.
• Via brainpickings, Bruce Springsteen's favorite 28 books. I've read about 10 of them. He's big on Richard Ford but that makes sense. To be honest, it all makes sense.
• Joe Posnanski compares and contrasts this year's Gold Glove and Fielding Bible award winners, and he has two main disagreements with the GG winners: Nick Markakis in right and (sorry, Seattle) Kyle Seager at third.
• Over at Just a Bit Outside, M's fan Jeff Sullivan declares that the Seattle Mariners will be the best A.L. team in 2015. Whatever, right? Except he did it by crunching WAR numbers. It's based on head, not heart. Even so, I'm not holding my breath. 
• Riddle me this, Readerman: Why has it taken so long for the William Dozier-created, 1960s “Batman” TV series, starring Adam West and Burt Ward, to make it to DVD and Blu-Ray? Was it copyright issues? Were people embarrassed by it? Did they think it belittled the “Dark Knight” legend? Either way, it's here now. For more on this incarnation of Batman, here's my review of the 1966 movie, along with my “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” entry from same. I think I might just get the Blu-Ray just for Julie Newmar. Rahr.
• Have you seen the parody opening credits to the nonexistent 1980s sitcom “Too Many Cooks”? You should. Talk about commitment to the bit. Warning: It gets a little creepy and NSFW halfway through. 
• Why do I care that Taylor Swift (an artist I don't listen to) pulled out of Spotify (a streaming service I don't use)? Because I think she's right. 
• When my colleague Ross Pfund was 5 in 1989, he and his cousin watched Wrestlemania for the first time and taped themselves afterwards doing the moves. He recently visited his cousin again and recreated it all. Very cool. 
• If you're in Minnesota you know all about “Pointergate.” If you're not, and haven't heard of it, get ready to slap your forehead like the young Alvy Singer. Brian Lambert reports. 
• More fun in conservative news: the Breitbart site declares that “few are talking about” how Obama's nominee for U.S. attorney general, Loretta Lynch, represented the Clintons during the Whitewater investigation. Media Matters: Because that's a different Lynch. For a time, Wikipedia had it wrong, too, citing the Breitbart article. In the digital age, wrong news travels fast.
• The most unsettling thing about Theo Padnos' first-person account of his capture and subsequent months-long torture and humiliation by Syrian terrorists, from 2012 to this year, is that the captors, the Nusra Front, were the guys that lost to the more barbaric ISIS. But you can't get a more front-line perspective on the war on terror than this. 

Obama's AG nominee (right) is not your Clinton's Loretta Lynch (left).