When speaking of the comedy troupe Stella (Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, and David Wain), and its one season long TV series on Comedy Central, you must mention "Wet, Hot, American Summer", directed by Stella's David Wain. And you must mention the State, a sketch comedy series on MTV, in the mid 90s. When you add up these movies and TV shows, you see a pattern.

Silly, smart, absurd Stella, as most reviewers will tell you, is not for everyone. True, but neither is SNL, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, I Love Lucy, or Charlie Chaplin. What is more true to say is that each is in a league of their own. The same goes for Stella.

Storyline begins episode one with the three suit-clad gentlemen, crashing their car because the driver said so. They bother the three "auld" maids below their apartment, who call the landlord. He throws them out, so that same day they look like bums, naturally. And naturally that same day they must rummage through trash cans, find one bean, slice it for each, yet use grey poupon, ketchup, and other condiments on each slice of bean.

In turn, they seek another apartment. The real estate agent and David fall in love and break up in a matter seconds, while she shows them the apartment. At the co-op meeting, they have skunk tails. Michael Ian Black makes it clear, they are skunk people, not people dressed as skunks. In order to secure the apartment, they dance, which winds up winning the hearts of the co-op board. Once told they must put three million dollars down, Michael Showalter responds, "We don't have this money."

To get back their old apartment, they wear fake mustaches and call themselves business tycoons. None's the wiser, until their mustaches fall off. The landlord can't take it, has a heart attack, whereupon there is no time to call a doctor. Stella troupe must perform surgery with butter knives and potato chip bag clips.

The pattern to Stella lies, not in its contemporary sense of events, but in a sensibility that uses every comedic element at their disposal at any time. They are walking virtuosos, mimicking the trivial you see in shows ranging from cartoons, Seinfeld, and Charlie Chaplin. The pattern to Stella is also a history of bad breaks. If they have not received their recognition beyond nominal success and cult following, it is because they are premature. What their genius now entails is potential that will be actualized, and that day will come when it will actualize, and, in retrospect, Stella's original work will be prized. Stella's starlight will then shine for all.

When the best of music comes into your life, it can define you, define moments as time moves in synchronicity. And when you feel the essence of one band, if that band hones in on that essence you feel, nothing short of a real relationship begins, just as real as the friend who drinks with you at the bar, works with you on creative endeavors; just as life-like as the person sitting in the passenger side of your car. Spiritualized is one such band, relationship to be explored.

With all bands, not every utterance of lyric, guitar chord, horn timbre, or back beat, is an experience to be repeated until death. Not even the Beatles have a vocabulary on which every alphabetic movement reads perfectly from start to finish. However, the book can be solid, near perfect. Spiritualized's alphabetic range is narrower, but, at times, their letters spell words better than the Beatles, and words the Beatles never could have dreamed of. Here's why:

The format of Spiritualized is simple, blues. But add jazz, gospel choirs, synthesizers, full orchestral ensembles, distortion, cacophonous streaks, live jam, and you have possibilities. You also need to add story. While Spiritualized's name may sound like Christian Rock, it has a different take. Throughout the lyrics, several themes run. Jason Pierce (J. Spaceman) is a heroin addict who is caught in his addiction and loves being addicted. He sings love songs to women. He rocks heavy, ready to die, ready to live life to the fullest, even if it kills him. He is also caught in the Christ and faith drama. This means, he is in doubt, has trouble with his faith. Unlike preaching, he claims no answers. His vulnerability, weakness, and charm are his humanness.

Just as Spiritualized is limited in vocabulary, so to is their speech in albums. In other words, not all their albums are great. As always, that is for you to decide, because what is considered Spiritualized's finest work may leave you wanting what is not considered their finest work. Reviewers and most Spiritualized fans believe "Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space" is their best album. They are wrong. Repeat: They are wrong. "Live at the Royal Albert Hall" is their best album. If the true test of a band is their live work, Spiritualized aces that test. Now, most of the songs from "Ladies and Gentlemen..." are on the live album, but not all of them. There are also songs that are better, such as "Walk with Jesus". That said, "Ladies and Gentlemen..." is near flawless, from first to last song. Its production quality could be as evolved as the human species at the time it was created, circa 1996.

To better get acquainted with your new relationship with Spiritualized, should you want to, you would want to follow their key albums. Think of their album wingspan, like Kid Icarus flying to the sun. In chronological order: "Laser Guided Melodies", "Pure Phase", "Ladies and Gentlemen...", "Live at the Royal Albert Hall", "Let It Come Down", "and "Amazing Grace". Don't worry about buying their last album "Amazing Grace". That's where the arc drops off. "Let It Come Down" is a tricky album. It turned off hardcore fans. While all the other ones are more synthesizer based, "Let It Come Down" replaces the synthesizers with orchestras. It is as ambitious as "Ladies and Gentlemen...". An indication, sadly enough, of the album's appeal is J. Spaceman's lack of playing its songs live. In the arc, however, it falls below "Ladies and Gentlemen...", right around his earlier work. Most Spiritualized fans who don't like the album are, more than likely, unwilling to move beyond their old feelings for the live album, "Ladies and Gentlemen...", and their earlier work.

J. Spaceman had a near death experience in 2006. He seemed undaunted by it, and did not fail to see the irony that his lyrics spoke of death more often than not. He has healed, thankfully to the powers that be. He has been working on more songs and other stuff, unrelated to Spiritualized. So if you don't like "Amazing Grace", which is understandable, we'll wait and see what the composer comes up with next. Oh, one more thing, when you really give Spiritualized a chance, and let it spiritualize you, just know that J. Spaceman is the sole writer, producer, and owner of his label. His vocabulary, you see, is beyond scope.

If the link for this book does not take you to or describe to you about Max Ernst's "A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil", translated from French by Dorothea Tanning, it is because it is extremely rare and obscure. If you don't know who Max Ernst is, or what his collage work is, research yields true account; if you don't know what his work signifies or means, understand that, once you do try to find the answers, you probably won't come up with complete explanations.

Max Ernst was a 20th century Surrealist artist. The book, "A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil", is a collage work, set with storyline captions. When you open the book to any random page, it looks like a comic book, without easy connections between the words and collage images. In fact, to gain pleasure of its aesthetic value, much like you would a simple painting, you may never need thematic connections. Mystery breeds gratification, on many levels.

The anachronistic story, if you desire plot, is this: a young girl is raped the day before her first holy communion. Afterwards, her psychological make-up and actions are bizarre, to say the least. Devout, she plans to take the veil. However, that night she dreams, which is really the entire collage/novella.

With "A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil", plot is not the point. Carefully designed, it is stream-of-conscious. One thing to know about Surrealism is: what exploration finds in the Unconscious is what you feel, see, experience. Like Salvador Dali, Max Ernst does not need to explain. The work stands for itself, a "Thing-in-Itself", as the philosophers say. Now, you may rightfully ask, what is the point of reading something that makes little sense, does not compute or equate with anything involved with true, real life? That question sheds light on the beauty of "A Little Girl Dreams...". When you return repeatedly to this collage/novella, like you would to the reality, or the thought of reality, we as humans share, you see more details of the mystery. If you enter that mystery, especially a mystery conceived by the aesthetics of one man-and if that aesthetics pleases you-explanation won't be needed. Details, abstract notions, annihilation of reason and deductions and inductions, will leave you open to a greater force at work, a Tao of sorts.

Why does the girl split into two? Why do the images mix soldier heads with bird heads? Why is the girl sometimes human, other times insect? Why does her hair become a human in itself? Why, in the church, is there a book with the cover title "The 20th Century"? Why, in seemingly modern or ancient situations, are there random animals? There can be no plot to explain, no themes to connect, no epiphanies to reveal these images. What seems is what is.

And what seems like the answer, the overarching principle staring you in the face, is not true: that is, dreams are like this, like "A Little Girl Dreams...". The book may seem like lucid dreaming, a dreamlike sequence, but dreams are not enough to give the effect Max Ernst is going for. This is a precarious distinction. The effect is real, not dreamlike. The effect is in the Surreal evidence in the book before you, not a call to dreams you've had, or the experience of being in a dream.

"A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil" by Max Ernst is artwork for artists, poetry for poets, philosophy for philosophers. It's for those who read into things too much and not enough. Once you pick up on the language on its own terms, appreciate its curious, Surrealistic images, you'll have a collage/novella to return to repeatedly. Who knows? You may be able to figure it all out.