NPR News

In 2001, I had the next couple of decades of my life mapped out. I'd be teaching law, visiting my children, and attending Buddhist meditation retreats.

Suddenly, everything changed. I got sick with flu-like symptoms. A doctor said it appeared to be an acute viral infection.

I have yet to recover. The infection has left me mostly house-bound and often bed-bound.

A Hong Kong-based brokerage has been trying to use traditional Chinese beliefs in its economic forecast as the Year of the Tiger gives way to the Year of the Golden Rabbit on Thursday.

The Year of the Rabbit promises to be a "hoppy new year." That's according to the brokerage CLSA. Its annual forecast based on the traditional Chinese beliefs of feng shui warns of volatility ahead for Hong Kong markets.

The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., just might be America's least known great museum. It houses a vast collection of works — from South Asian sculptures to works by Europe's Old Masters, Impressionists, and contemporary Americans — yet even Californians who live nearby say they've "always meant to go but ..." The museum tends to attract more European than American visitors.

I won't mince words: This is the best record Bright Eyes has ever made. In fact, it's the best record the band's frontman, Conor Oberst, has ever been a part of. Publicists like to say as much any time an artist releases a new album, but in this case, it's actually true. The People's Key is a career-defining work of art.

I've always admired artists who can make darkness feel like sunshine, and Telekinesis does it better than most. The group's only permanent member, Michael Benjamin Lerner, writes songs that exude loneliness, heartache and the dizzying grief of dysfunctional relationships. But his agony is packaged in tightly wound, unabashedly upbeat pop songs. Misery has never sounded so worthy of company.