BEIRUT drops a retro video for "Vagabond."

ANDREW BIRD is advance streaming Break It Yourself.

MAGNETIC FIELDS are advance streaming Love at the Bottom of the Sea.

WHITE RABBITS are advance streaming Milk Famous.

THE CRANBERRIES played a Tiny Desk Concert at the offices of NPR.

DEATH drops "Relief," their first new song since 1976.

MASON WILLIAMS starts your week with "Classical Gas."

ST. VINCENT: Annie Clark explains her stage name to the New Zealand Herald and her musical inspirations to The Guardian. (Thx, LHB.)

SLEIGH BELLS are also profiled by The Guardian.

AMERICANA MAY BE COUNTRY... but country is rarely Americana.

JEFF MANGUM makes his fans delirious.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Act of Valor tops the box office with 24.7 million, a bit of a surprise to critics and pundits who continually seem surprised when a movie brings more conservatives to the cineplex.  The production budget was only 12 million, but the distribution and marketing pushes the total cost here to roghly 40 million, so the Navy SEALs will need another good weekend to ensure a profit.  Tyler Perry's Good Deeds places with 16 million, which follows the basic Perry pattern: those with Medea open above 20 million, those without open in the mid-teens.  Journey 2: The Mysterious Island shows with 13.5 million, a leggy performance as the family flick nears breaking even with its production budget domestically.  Safe House, alst week's topper, tumbles to fourth with 11.4 million, but has a 98.1 million total against an 85 million budget (Denzel's best showing since American Gangster, iirc).  The Vow rounds out the Top 5 with 10 million, dropping more than expected, but becoming Screen Gems' first 100 million movie in the process.  Below the fold, Wanderlust debuts at No. 8 with 6.6 million against a 32 million budget, which can't be good for Paul Rudd or Jennifer Ansiton, while Gone fared even worse in ninth with a 5 million debut against a 28 million budget.

WANDERLUST, directed by David Wain, is no Wet Hot American Summer, and not the Albert Brooks classic Lost In America, which mined similar themes.  But the script has plenty of funny moments, well executed by Jennifer Aniston, Justin Theroux and particularly Paul Rudd, making it the equal of Wain's Role Models.  Not essential, but I did not feel cheated, either.

THE OSCARS went to these folks. Congrats, although really... Meryl Streep? Again?

THE INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS went to these folks.  A big night for The Artist, another win for Christopher Lambert and a deserved screenplay award for 50/50's Will Reiser.

GERARD BULTLER left the Betty Ford clinic early Friday, after three weeks of treatment.

KATHY IRELAND is the world's richest supermodel.

STEPHEN HAWKING is somewhat of a regular at a Devore, California sex club, according to RadarOnline.

ISLAMISM in the USA: A Pennsylvania judge sided with the assailant and dismissed the harassment case of a parade marcher dressed as a "zombie Muhammad" who had been attacked by an irate Muslim.

YEMEN: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed credit for a suicide attack that killed 26 people, including 20 soldiers, at the presidential compound in Mukalla.

SYRIA: At least 31 Syrian civilians and soldiers were killed on Sunday in fighting over Syria's future that coincided with a vote on a new constitution that could keep President Bashar al-Assad in power until 2028.

EGYPT: The steady stream of delegations driving up the hill to the Muslim Brotherhood's new headquarters on a plateau overlooking central Cairo testifies to the fact that Western states, foreign businesses and international institutions are already courting the group as a government-in-waiting.

IRAN failed to co-operate with UN nuclear officials during two sets of talks in Tehran over the past month, the UN's watchdog has said in a report. The agency also said Iran had stepped up uranium enrichment in recent months.

THE GRASSHOPPER MOUSE: Howls like a wolf, bites like a tiger.

PUDDING the CAT saved his diabetic owner just hours after being adopted.

ARIZONA MAN arrested after rescuing and adopting drowning raccoon.

MAINE'S BIGGEST LOBSTER EVER, a 27-pounder with claws tough enough to snap a man's arm, was released back into the ocean on Thursday.