Short Takes

Don't ask why but today I learned to pick out the "Barney" theme. And by Barney, I don't mean Kessell. I'm talking about the big purple dinosaur and his sappy, once unavoidable "I love you, you love me" song. Learning this was not a major accomplishment; I just did it as a inside family joke. But if I had learned this little ditty 12 or 13 years ago, I would have been considered demi-god in our house. Now my 16-year-old daughter just says it's creepy.

And while Barney's song is pretty annoying, I'm surprised his signature guitar never caught on ...

David Sedaris is not only a very amusing writer, he's also a failed guitarist, which makes me like him even more. He chronicled his six weeks as an unwilling 12-year-old guitar student (his father pushed him into it) in "Giant Dreams, Midget Abilities," one of the tales in his book "Me Talk Pretty One Day." His instructor was "a perfectly formed midget named Mr. Mancini."

At their first lesson Mr. Mancini urged young Sedaris to name his guitar so he called it Oliver. He had to change it to Joan, however, because Mr. Mancini said a guitar had to have a woman's name and then revealed himself to be a musical misogynist. "You need to believe you're playing an actual woman," he said. "Just grab her by the neck and make her holler" ...

Guitar Center is trying to convert heathen video gamers, as well as crack open a big new market. It's set up www.arealguitar.com so that Guitar Hero and Rock Band addicts can make e-cards to tell their parents that what they really want for a Christmas is a real guitar.