A literal worship of false idols: Recent "auto industry revival" at a Pentecostal church in Detroit, collective intense prayer that the bailout plan by Congress will be approved. Originally spotted at the blog of Jon Taplin, from an original article from the New York Times.

Below are simple links to other interesting stuff I've come across on the web in the last day or two; they may or may not concern literature or photography, or indeed the arts at all. You can click here to learn more about how I compile this list and what software I use, if you're interested.

del.icio.us is now turning all MP3 bookmarks into streaming playable files
Actually, I have a dim memory of del.icio.us being able to do this for awhile, although in a more complicated form; but even if that's the case, now it's insanely easier, with all a member having to do now is add the tag "system:filetype:mp3" to any MP3 file online they link to (or "bookmark") there. It essentially gives a person a chance to do a decentralized version of what the old beloved service Muxtape.com used to do; a chance to build a customized mixtape out of songs that already exist online in other places, with a person being able to listen to them that moment at your del.icio.us page and then download them by right-clicking on the title. Interesting; I wonder if anyone at del.icio.us will actually use it that way.

Netflix now an automatic option on all TiVos
Movie rental service Netflix has been really smart and very dedicated to its new streaming-video service; not only have they now digitized 15,000 movies and 35,000 TV episodes (with hundreds more coming every week), but have partnered with a whole series of existing national digital-signal providers, to actually get these giant-sized files into people's homes -- options now include PCs (Windows and Mac), AppleTV, Windows Media Center, certain DVD players, certain videogame consoles, and this week now even all TiVo owners, who should be seeing an option for their Netflix "instant queue" these days if they happen to be members. (How it works is that Netflix lets you maintain two queue lists there, one for DVDs and one for digital movies; these devices then access only that list, which keeps things nice and simple and easily multi-platform.) And unlike Blockbuster Streaming, members can watch as many movies as they want, anytime they want, as many times as they want.