And not just on the calendar. The first MLB game of the year airs tomorrow on ESPN2 at 6 a.m. Eastern. The reason? It takes place in Tokyo, with Red Sox pitcher (and Japan native) Daisuke Matsuzaka, pictured, taking the mound against the Oakland A's. The homecoming should be one of those times when you feel the transcendent power of sports and all that good stuff—and we'll probably need it, given we also plan to tune into the Frontline special, "Bush's War," airing tonight on PBS.

Well, probably not, but it looks so good on the Web site of Objects With Light that we'd understand if they did. Run by London artist Georgiosi Ignatiou, the outfit sells lamps made from everyday objects like saw blades, rubber balls, and, of course, Slinkys (pictured), all of which create bizarre shadows worthy of film noir. Consider it a less complicated way of adding intrigue to your home life.

[Josh Spear]

Accelerate officially comes out next Tuesday, but you can hear it today thanks to iLike. Good news: The rumors of a comeback are well-founded—the trio actually sounds like a band again, complete with noisy guitars, soaring backup harmonies, and Michael Stipe's most engaged and pissed-off lyrics since the eighties. It's not a classic, but at least it's not Around the Sun.

It's comforting to know that certain products actually sell better during an economic downturn—for instance, books about economic downturns. For an excellent (and timely) primer, check out Slate Moneybox columnist Daniel Gross' list of reading material for these troubled times, including Dan Ariely's exhaustive Predictably Irrational (pictured) and a few blogs—though if you want to keep your job, you might want to skip the latter in favor of doing some work.

Five months ago, our friends at GQ could legitimately call L.L. Bean's hand-sewn Blucher Moccasin "untrendy." But since then, I've noticed more and more guys wearing the 72-year-old classics on the streets. Not only that, LLBean.com is sold out of them until mid-April. Of course, by that time they might be untrendy again.
Hand-sewn moccasin, $69, available (soon) at Llbean.com

The stylish French actor has made some great movies in his time—Le Samouraï, The Leopard, and L'Eclisse, to name a few—but sadly, none is included in the new five-DVD set that bears his name. But it's still worth buying. Sure, the plot of, say, Diabolically Yours is ludicrous—something about an amnesiac who suspects he's being conned—but each movie has more than its fair share of great-looking chicks (Jane Birkin, the curvy Senta Berger), cool cars, and of course, the ever-dapper star (pictured here in 1969's La Piscine). In short, it's the perfect thing to put on mute the next time your Francophile friends come over.

Anton Corbijn's tragically cool biopic of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis, Control, is due out on DVD tomorrow. But the true beauty of Corbijn's imagery is perhaps best appreciated in stills—he is, after all, a world-famous photographer. His new book, Anton Corbijn: In Control, is a rich visual diary of the self-financed flick, with handwritten notations, drawings, and the odd bit of Curtis ephemera. The Holland-born Corbijn's connection to Curtis and the band runs deep; he moved to England after hearing their "life-changing" 1979 album Unknown Pleasures, and took some of their earliest and most iconic photos. No, there's not much "Hollywood magic" in these pages, just an awful lot of intimate, behind-the-scenes authenticity.