Like a nuclear missile silo, my agency's Vatican file had its own doomsday file - a hardbound manila folder on which a typewritten stickylabel had emblazoned in telex font capitals: WHAT TO DO IN CASE THE POPE DIES. While many of the instructions dated back to 1961 and could be safely ignored, it was still an interesting study in panic.
Animal Collective's latest CD, on the Domino label, is the appropriately named Strawberry Jam: a sticky-sweet mixture of mashed-up musical elements, from noise pop and fringe folk to ambient drones and psychedelia, with crunchy seeds of noise rock.