MCA, a.k.a. Adam Yauch, will need surgery and radiation to attack the cancer, which is located in his parotid gland and lymph node. The good news: Yauch says the cancer is localized, and that treatments won't affect his voice. He describes the diagnosis as a "setback and a pain in the ass," but a treatable one.

According to the American Cancer Society, salivary gland cancer is rare: about 2 cases per 100,000 people per year in the United States, which is less than 1 percent of all cancer diagnoses. Says the ACS, "Two out of three salivary gland cancers are found in people who are 55 or older. The average age at the time of diagnosis is 64." Yauch is 45.

The American Cancer Society's Salivary Gland Cancer Facts 

Right now, in the Museum of Modern Art's second-floor auditorium, is a pile of junk: empty toothpaste tubes, bottle caps without bottles, used Styrofoam containers, slivers of soap. Thousands of items—piles of clothes, pots, pans, toys, books—overwhelm the 3,000-square foot display space. Collectively, these items are a new installation, called "Waste Not," by Chinese artist Song Dong. But before these items were art, they were all the contents of the house of his mother, Zhao Xiangyuan. Zhao grew up during the Chinese Revolution, a time when the government ran massive campaigns emphasizing the values of frugality and thrift. She took the maxims to the extreme, wasting nothing, even a tattered pair of work boots that her son tried to throw away. As her children grew, she saved their tiny shoes and jackets. She saved used tea leaves and shopping bags, soda bottles and toothbrushes. Over fifty years, their small house outside Beijing came to resemble "a landslide with a path through it," says the installation's co-curator, Sarah Suzuki. So Song, a conceptual artist, made a suggestion to his mother: turn the contents of her home into an art exhibition, a way to explore his mother's life and the larger cultural forces that shaped it. 

It's a pile of junk, but it's not. Take a step back and Song's installation is a complete life on display, no longer a landslide, but categorized and clean. It's an exploration of what happens when frugality goes extreme. And it's fascinating. On a recent Sunday afternoon, few would wander by the installation without stopping. Onlookers pointed out various items, constantly commenting the sheer volume of the installation. "Do you think you have this much stuff?" one teenager asked another. One woman videotaped the entire exhibit, with her own running commentary: "Here are the pots and pans. And here are all the shoes the family owned."

"I think a lot of people are fascinated and horrified by the level of stuff," says Suzuki. "It's just the sheer volume." 

Why humans are compelled to hoard, and why artists are drawn to the compulsion, after the jump. 

(ydhsu/Creative Commons)

This weekend, I made a cameo appearance in The Boston Globe Magazine's "Coupling" column. Written by the very funny Steve Calechman, the article examines the modern dilemma of texting while dating. Calecheman argues that:

A line needs to be drawn, because keypads have been showing up too often as a third wheel. By no means is this a gender issue, but since I go out with women, they’ve been the culprits. Women texting while walking into the restaurant. Women texting while I go to the bathroom and not stopping before I return. And women having their BlackBerrys on the table, checking mid-conversation.

I don’t think the stuff should be banned. There’s just a time and place when the outside world needs to be shut out, and a first date isn’t a bad place to start.

My take on this topic is that while mid-conversation texting is rude and tacky, I don't think a first date has to exist under some electronic cone of silence. It's nice to get so wrapped up in someone that you don't check the BlackBerry all weekend, but that's a privilege usually reserved for a few weeks after date one. In the meantime, why shouldn't I check my e-mail while you're off at the bar getting drinks?

You tell me why, after the jump