songs.

Anna Westhoff Each week, Ben Westhoff shares the ups and downs of owning Pippi, the dalmatian mix he and his wife, Anna, adopted as a puppy in late 2009. After we initially considered names like "Pickle" and "Popcorn," Anna came up with the idea of calling our pup "Pippi," after her girlhood idol, Pippi Longstocking. Sure beats the name they had given her at the shelter: "Jamaica." Though I'm a big fan of "Pippi," it wasn't long before I began riffing on it. Almost immediately I began calling her "Pipsqueak." And then, before long, simply, "Squeak." Following that, for a very long time I called her "Squeakers" or "Squeaky." In fact, for the first year we had her, I probably addressed her ...

Photo: Paulo Pinto A Brazilian man named Jarbas Agnelli was perusing the newspaper when he noticed the above picture of birds on electric wires (shot by photographer Paulo Pinto). Suddenly inspired, he didn't let an especially creative opportunity pass him by. Using xylophone, bassoon, oboe and clarinet, Agnelli composed a song using the silhouettes of the birds as notes on a staff. With the assistance of Apple Logic Studio and Adobe Photoshop, the 46-year-old turned the endeavor into a video, which he then uploaded to Vimeo, where it naturally caught attention on the world wide web. Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo. ...