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Also, here’s my story from Nigeria that ran last week, on the day the Pope was picked. This story breaks my personal record for Most Nuns Quoted In A Single Story.

Several people have lambasted me for not posting here promptly upon my return to the states. They apparently fear my consumption by some rare Nigerian wildebeest, roaming the Biafran hillsides.
Well, I can report that I am back in the U.S. of A., no worse for the wear. May write about my Nigerian experiences here, but I may just wait until they appear in the paper — unlike many of my other jaunts, this was just work work work and there’s really not much to tell other than what’ll be committed to newsprint. A quick word of advice, though: Nigeria probably shouldn’t be in your honeymoon plans.
The other big news is that I have a new car, a replacement for the trusty Mitsubishi steed that a red-light runner totaled a couple weeks back. I bought a Mazda 3, the four-door model. It kinda rocks. If you’re in the market for a new small car, let me save you weeks of research: Buy the Mazda 3, probably the S version if you want a little more power. It’s by far the best-reviewed kinda-cheap small car on the road, and it’s a lot of fun to drive. After nearly a decade in the 92-horsepower Mirage, it’s such a change to be in a car where, when you press the accelerator, it actually speeds up.
And I can strongly recommend Town North Mazda in Richardson as a place to buy. As pain-free a buying process as you could hope for, and they gave me a good deal.
A movie of the first 343 days of the Mars rover Spirit.
So you’d like to… See the Mountain Goats’ list of Music You Should Hear. Head Goat John Darnielle‘s bizarro fixation on death metal — perhaps the single genre least like his own overenunciated grad-school folk — shines through his recommendations. Of the new album by someone called Buried Inside, he writes: “My favorite metal album so far this year. Sort of huge-canvas action-painting metal like Aeternus, but science fiction vs. Aeternus’s sword-and-sorcery stuff; it’s ‘metalcore,’ whatever that means, but it’s also really thoughtful and richly textured. Also has the most pretentious song-titles I’ve ever seen.” Those would include “Time as Ideology,” “Time as Surrogate Religion,” and “Time as Imperialism.”
(Today is release day for the Goats’ latest album, and yesterday was his wedding anniversary to Lalitree.)

FYI, I’m still alive. This is the first Internet computer I’ve sat at since Saturday morning, and the mouse appears to have been dipped in chunky molasses. But: I’m alive. Should have a pope-related story in tomorrow’s paper.

I’m safe and sound in Lagos. Journey was trouble free, although loooooong. My cell phone, no matter what Cingular promised, doesn’t work here, but hopefully that can be fixed in the coming days. More posts to come in the coming days, hopefully.
UPDATE: Just bought a Nigerian cell phone. My number is 0805 710 2977. If you’re dialing from the U.S., you’d dial 011 234 805 710 2977. (The 234 is Nigeria’s country code.)

Stupidest drug ever: Lettuce opium. Even “fresh lettuce juice” seems wrong.
One final travel note: Emails sent to 12149149998 -AT- mmode -DOT- com should (allegedly) reach my cell phone in Nigeria. (Actually, my cell phone is supposed to work as normal. We’ll see about that.)

Clips from something called the Lance Krall Show. Not stunningly original, but funny, particularly on Chu-Chi, Master of the Afterlife, To Kick Is To Kill, Smoke My Ashes, and the Germanic Scheisse Slide.

Nigeria update: It’s back on. The visa apparently came through today (although I won’t believe it until it’s in my hands, freshly FedExed, in the morning).
So: I leave for Lagos Wednesday afternoon. Get in Thursday late morning Dallas time. Will no doubt be dead tired since I have never in my life been able to sleep on a plane — no matter how many sleeping pills I take and how much NyQuil I swig. I *have* had some good hallucinations on long flights, though, thanks to that NyQuil.
Anyway, the plan is to leave Lagos on Friday, April 22, and get back to Dallas the next day. Wish me luck. Updates here will likely be sparse, since I doubt there’s much wifi in the sahel. But you never know. Best ways to reach me will be via email (jbenton at toast dot net) or via Skype (crabwalkjb or 214-556-2616 — voice mails are very welcome). May get a Nigerian cell phone while I’m there — not sure.

I’ve always admired, in a strange way, ifo Apple Store. It’s a site almost manically devoted to a single niche — namely, tracking the expansion of Apple’s retail stores across the globe’s malls and downtowns. (The about page is almost charming in its devotion: “This personal, non-commercial, not-for-profit Web site was originally posted to support the ‘Overnighters,’ a group of people who camp in front of (ifo) Apple Stores the night before their grand opening.” I mean, I love me some Apple, but the camping-out people always seemed a bit much.)
Anyway, the site is concrete proof of one of my core Internet beliefs: If you pick a niche small enough, you can in short order become the absolute king of that niche. Start a site for toothpick-holder collectors, and you can own toothpick-holder collecting.
(Aside: that last link is to what is, by far, the snarkiest story I’ve ever snuck into an American newspaper. It’s also the one story that got me into the most trouble with my bosses, who mistook my quirky affection for offense. Also, the mortuary quote may be the best I’ve ever typed.)
But back to ifo Apple Store. Notice, in the April 10 entry, a bit of news relevant to Dallasites: the impending arrival of a third Apple store in DFW. This one is coming to NorthPark, which certainly would have been a better spot for the first store than the ever-vacant Willow Bend. Considering the big crowds I always run into at the Knox-Henderson store, I can imagine there’s enough market to support it.
(NorthPark is, of course, the retail temple built by Raymond Nasher, now known as the man behind the excellent Nasher Sculpture Center, where I was this a.m. I can also verify that Nasher’s also a very courtly, kind interview subject.)
(Addendum: West siders, don’t feel left out. Apparently Southlake is getting an Apple store, too.)

I write to you from sunny Nigeria!
Er, wait a sec. Actually, I write to you from overcast Dallas.
Slight snafu has delayed my departure for the eastern hemisphere by a few days, at least. More updates as warranted.

Limosaurus.
The track listing for the new Sufjan Stevens Illinois-themed album is awesome. So awesome that it makes one wonder if it’s not a belated April Fool’s gag — they all have the same tone as his Michigan album, but each about three steps further. Among the songs: “A Short Reprise for Mary Todd, Who Went Insane, But for Very Good Reasons”; “Out of Egypt, into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I Shake the Dirt From My Sandals As I Run”; and “To the Workers of the Rockford River Valley Region, I Have an Idea Concerning Your Predicament, and It Involves Shoe String, a Lavender Garland, and Twelve Strong Women.” And, perhaps best of all: “Come on! Feel the Illinoise! Part I: The World’s Columbian Exposition; Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream.”
Paul Shirley — 12th man on the Phoenix Suns — has an entertaining blog about his life as an NBA benchwarmer. “At any rate, everyone was relatively happy in the locker room after the game. We had put together a solid road trip and were excited to go home. (I really felt like I had a stellar set of games. Minutes: 0, total points: 0, field goal percentage: Undefined. Bravo.)” And: “I would, if there were such an option, fill in ‘Professional Basketball Player’ on my insurance forms (as it is, I usually have to go with either ‘Self-Employed’ or ‘Other,’ which must raise eyebrows somewhere in the back room: ‘This guy must be either a drug-dealer or in the CIA.’)”
Make your plans now for the fifth-annual Texas Bigfoot Conference this October. Hang out with Rick Noll, who is more than just another pretty mullet: he’s “been researching the sasquatch phenomenon since 1969” and has “has worked with all of the major sasquatch researchers.” Best line in his bio: “[He has] connected with many highly noted anthropologists such as Dr. George Schaller and Dr. Jane Goodall.” Connected with. Which no doubt means “has sent an email to.”
33.33, a blog about the 33 1/3 series of short books, each of which is dedicated to one life-changing album in the writer’s life. (Titles include Franklin Bruno on Elvis Costello’s “Armed Forces,” Warren Zanes on Dusty Springfield’s “Dusty in Memphis,” Colin Meloy on the Replacements’ “Let It Be,” and Joe Pernice on The Smiths’ “Meat is Murder.”) Currently on the site: DJ Shadow talking about his first turntable and his pushback against overintellectualizing music:
“Turntablism is the description of scratching that’s supposed to make people who don’t listen to hip-hop, sit up and go ‘Hmm, maybe it is real music.’ Scratching, to me, is just what it is. Turntablism has this virtuosic aspect to it, and to me, that’s when things start to turn jazzy. And I’m not a huge fan of when things turn jazzy. Because when I think of jazzy, I think of Wynton Marsalis. He came to speak at my African-American Studies class at U.C. Davis when I was a freshman. I remember him just standing up there, and just dissing rap for 20 minutes straight, and just loving the response he was getting from the lily-white audience. As if they were so thrilled that finally a black guy was speaking out against rap. I remember just sitting there thinking, Oh this sucks. I was venting about it afterward in class. Ever since then I’ve had this thing against people who over-intellectualize everything and make it an in-crowd-only thing. So, any time anything starts getting jazzy