Saturday Odds & Sods is Watching the Fireworks

Happy Independence Day to all my American readers, a belated Happy Canada Day to our neighbors north of the border, and a pleasant Saturday to everyone else. It is starting off as a bit cloudy and cool here in the Metropolis for the Fourth, an unexpected but certainly not unwelcome meteorological development. Having spent the past week engaged in the sort of strenuous white-collar labor to which one should definitely not become accustomed, I'm looking forward to the opportunity to engage in the patriotic pastime of drinking, eating, and losing some extra digits in loud explosions. In any case, I hope your Fourth of July gets off to a bang with this week's Odds & Sods!

• To begin things off on a light note, an examination of Taylor Swift as apotheosis of artistic passive-aggression.  
• If you're still looking for something to read at the beach, and really summer is a third over so get on that, 10 neglected authors that deserve some love.
• In a more serious vein, two more articles for the Future is Terrifying department: the sad end of Japan's lonely elderly (and those who clean it up) and how to get by in a world with no work.
• Finally, the most American song I know, in honor of the holiday