Stacks Cred

Ooh, I forgot to do my Word World homework! Don't worry, I'll make it up.

In the meantime, spending a week with Republicans and cheese curd has left Wende with a case of the giggles. Though I can't much comment on librarian centerfolds, the topic of literati as rabid fan holds promise (confession: though I've never written a fan letter, sent or otherwise, I have left a comment on a band fan forum that included three tiers of properly nested parentheses).

Whether Chris Cornell reads Salman Rushdie, I truly cannot say - and when I think about it, Mr. Cornell may well be more the John Irving type. To my knowledge, however, Soundgarden never played Tehran, so perhaps that's something.

On the other hand, there's evidence enough that the rocker gene can coexist with literary taste. Depeche Mode's Martin Gore has self-identified as a bookworm, as has Ghosts' pianist Mark Treasure (the only rock musician I know of who, when asked to name his most serious vice, replied that he spends too much time with books instead of people). Mark Stroemer, 12-foot-tall bass player for The Killers, somehow managed to overcome his Las Vegas upbringing to become a Henry Miller aficionado.

It would be hard to call Art Garfunkle rock, exactly, but his bibliophilia, like his music, is a phenomenon all its own.

One of my favorite current pop bands has a lead songwriter with a classics degree and a frontman who studied art history (the drummer was once a substitute teacher). Fed up with being pinned as too Oxbridge for rock'n'roll, they responded, somewhat counterintuitively, by inviting Irvine Welsh to direct one of their videos.

The intellectual pursuits don't stop at bookishness. Brian May did, ultimately, return to complete the doctoral work in astrophysics that he had once abandoned in favor of a homemade guitar. And, speaking of Queen, Freddie himself was a renowned philatelist - a fact that, in my mind, unequivocally proves that, no matter how weird someone seems, it's always possible that he is, in fact, much, much weirder. (He also collected cats). Also, much like a retiree in Boca, Paul Stanley took up painting in middle age, and some of his output isn't half bad (no word on whether he wears silver platform boots in the studio).

And that's just what I can think of off the top of my head.

The real question, now: Does Itzhak Perlman read Marvel Comics?