POPSTROLOGICALLY SPEAKING.(The Talk of the Town)(Popstrology)(Book Review)

What a week. Well, maybe not, but, still, the news of the world summoned up the usual apprehension and puzzlement. Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Iger, the brothers Giambi, Lil' Kim: how is a guy to make sense of it all?

A fresh approach is always welcome. A few months ago, a stay-at-home dad named Ian Van Tuyl introduced one, in a book called "Popstrology." Popstrology is a system for achieving self-awareness through the study of the pop-music charts--specifically, by determining which pop song was No. 1 on the day of your birth. If, for example, you happen to have been hatched during that brief, blissful period in October, 1976, when the airwaves were ruled by "Disco Duck," you may have inherited from its creators, the opportunistic d.j. Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots, an ability "to parlay simple needs and even modest gifts into the precise degree of greatness to which you aspire." (As it happens, 1976 was the Year of Rod Stewart.) Popstrology is no parlor game; its methodology is elaborate and broad--the book is almost four hundred pages long. Van Tuyl identifies forty-five constellations (Lite & White, Mustache Rock, Shaking Booty), and, for each No. 1 artist (or "birthstar"), he provides a chart, which maps the birthstar's signature qualities on a matrix of sexiness, soulfulness, and durability, among other variables. (Van Tuyl has no truck with coolness; popstrologically, there are no bad pop songs.) In the introduction, he writes, "Popstrology is a powerful and flexible science, and where its adherents take it in the years ahead is anyone's guess."

As of last week, however, popstrology's only adherent seemed to be Van Tuyl himself, so it was up to him to take it, with only a little prodding, into the uncharted realm of current events. Over a pint of Guinness in a bar on upper Broadway, Van Tuyl, who is thirty-eight years old and married to a sociology professor, considered a number of personages whose names had been in the papers. To do so, he had to expand the boundaries of the popstrological era, which, to orthodox practitioners, covers only the years from 1956 to 1989--Elvis Presley to Richard Marx. Apparently, many people over the age of forty-nine still hold positions of influence in the world.

First up, Michael Eisner and Robert Iger; Iger had just been named Eisner's successor as the C.E.O. of Disney. "Michael Eisner is a Glenn Miller," Van Tuyl said. "His birth song is 'Moonlight Cocktail.' Glenn Miller's a bandleader, he's an executive, but, more to the point, he died in an airplane over the English Channel. He didn't leave on his own terms is the point. I mean, the guy was the Elvis of 1941 to 1943. So there are unbelievably strong career implications for Michael Eisner. And Eisner's career accomplishments have been huge, but the fact is the children of Glenn Miller may not choose the way they go out."

"Iger," he continued. "Iger is a child of Patti Page. His birth song is 'Tennessee Waltz,' but she was also 'How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?' She was a bright, shining, thriving target for rock and roll to knock down. On the other hand, this woman sold records well into the ...