I need to confess that I am very late to the audiobook thing. My first purchase was Elmore Leonard’s Freaky Deaky. Elmore Leonard has been one of my favorite fiction authors for decades. I’ve enjoyed the movies and TV series based on his work, from books like Get Shorty and Out of Sight to the TV series and movie sequel Justified, which was based on his book, Fire in the Hole.

That said, however, FD is basically a book being read aloud. It’s the digital equivalent of Books on Tape. It’s okay and Leonard’s prose is Leonard’s prose. Wonderful.

Recently, however, someone recommended an audiobook to me authored by that peripatetic observer of so many aspects of culture and trends, Malcolm Gladwell. The title: Miracle and Woder. This is an audiobook of a completely different type, one that truly takes advantage of the medium to give us an absorbing, almost addictive experience. It’s Gladwell’s interview of Paul Simon, complete with excerpts from Simon’s greatest hits and flops. In a word, it’s fascinating.

I cannot recommend this creation highly enough, and if you are a fan of either of these creative geniuses, you simply must get and play this piece.

I just found out that my Instagram account has been hacked.

Someone figured out my password (my bad for not making it hard enough) and now owns my Instagram account, with all emails from “my” account now going to that fraudster. And they are using Instagram as a sales portal, probably defrauding everyone that interacts with them.

I found out only because one of the people who was in the middle of a transaction felt things didn’t seem right and looked up my name and got my email address and sent me a message.

Unfortunately, THERE IS NO WAY FOR ME TO CORRECT THE PROBLEM. Instagram has no way for me to contact anyone and does not provide a workable solution on its “help” pages. Because the fraudster’s email now shows as owner, I cannot even log in to “my” account, delete it, or even create a second account.

Meta-Facebook-Instagram’s business model has no respect whatsoever for victims of fraudulent account hackers, and I think it should. I can only hope some legislation or regulatory procedure decides to take up the challenge of getting this totally disinterested company to task for its lack of helpfulness.