Amazon's home page recently had this message:

Pre-order the DVD now and be one of the first to view a deleted scene from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone!

The obligatory question, of course, is why we should care to be among the first to see it, or why we should see it at all, if the scene was deemed so bad it couldn't be fit into a sprawling, often very mediocre movie.
posted by Arne at 8:11 PM

While doing some research for an article on Howard Schultz, creator of the Starbucks phenomenon as its CEO from the mid-80's to early this decade, I came across some interesting passages from his book/memoir, Pour Your Heart Into It:

To mean something to customers, you should assume intelligence and sophistication and inform those who are eager to learn. If you do, what may seem to be a niche market could very well appeal to far more people than you imagine.

Still, I was confident, as I talked, that I was impressing him. I kept glancing at Jerry, and I could see approval in his eyes. After four years of college in the Midwest, I knew how to tone down the New York in me, chatting easily about Italy and Sweden and San Francisco over appetizers and soup.

By the end of the meal, I could tell I had charmed them with my youthful enthusiasm and energy…
And Starbucks-even the name rang with magic. I was under its spell already...
Instead of charming them, I had spooked them. They feared that I would be disruptive. I wasn't going to fit. I felt like a bride, halfway down the aisle, watching her groom back out the side door.

A whole new world had just opened up in front of my eyes, like the scene in The Wizard of Oz when everything changes from black and white to color.

My mother had come to rely on my strength. How could she get through this period with me in Seattle?

I jumped over the counter and started running. Without stopping to wonder whether the guy had a gun, I chased him up a steep, cobblestone street, yelling "Drop that stuff! Drop it!"
The thief was so startled that he dropped both the pieces he had stolen and ran away. I picked them up and walked back into the store holding the coffeemakers up like trophies. Everybody applauded. That afternoon, I went back to the roasting plant, where my office was, and discovered that the staff had strung up a huge banner for me, which read: "Make my day..."

I identified so closely with Starbucks that any flaw in Starbucks felt like my own personal weakness.

posted by Arne at 10:48 AM

An excerpt from a review from the July-August 2001 edition of Sigma Xi, by Brian Hayes, of I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self, by Rodolfo Llinás:

If you look only at the wiring diagram of the nervous system-the geometric or topological network of connections between neurons-you can fail to notice the striking temporal organization of neural activity. But the temporal patterns actually predate the spatial ones: Rhythmic excitations are seen even in early embryonic muscle and nerve tissue, before the brain itself has begun to coalesce. In the mature brain, dispersed populations of cells organize themselves into vast phase-locked choirs that hum steady notes or chirp in unison when given the right stimuli. These consistent and carefully maintained rhythms surely mean something.

The full review can be read at the journal's website.
posted by Arne at 9:45 PM