“Everybody is wondering what and where they all came from,” rang out Iris DeMent’s jubilant voice every week during the opening credits of HBO’s second season of The Leftovers. She continued: “Everybody is worrying about where they’re gonna go when the whole thing’s done / But no one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me / Think I’ll just let the mystery be.” DeMent’s voice—a happy medium between a screech and a honk—and the words it carried over her bluegrass ditty were inevitably the most joyous part of every episode. Hers was a point of view almost entirely missing from a show obsessed with people’s points of view: blissful willful ignorance.

Meryl Streep celebrates her 60th birthday today. Cyndi Lauper is turning 56. Rob Wiesenthal, Sony's No. 2 exec, is 43. Legendary M&A attorney Marty Lipton is turning 78. Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for NYC, is 63. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California turns 76. Carson Daly is turning 36. Author Dan Brown is 45. Tracy Pollan, the actress and wife of Michael J. Fox, is turning 49. Actress Amy Brenneman is 45. TV personality Jai Rodriguez turns 30. Erin Brockovich is 49. Donald Faison of Scrubs is 35. Kurt Warner, the former Giants quarterback, is turning 38. Singer and drag queen Kevin Aviance is 41. And Lindsay Wagner of Bionic Woman fame is 60 today.

In a savage coup of upstart infidels, the Unite for Strength ticket outlasted incumbent Alan Rosenberg's MembershipFirst slate in Thursday's SAG board election, thus opening a new era of moderation, peace and progress in Hollywood's rancorous labor wars. Or... not. Maybe? It's too soon to tell, frankly, with new leadership including Amy Brenneman, Scott Bakula, Adam Arkin, '05 loser Morgan Fairchild and Assaf "Brother of Sacha Baron" Cohen making up only a theoretical majority at best; studio-friendly Variety says the SAG/AMPTP squabble's days are numbered, union flunky Nikki Finke says that's "simpleton" piffle, and here in the middle, we can't help but notice that SAG's contract-negotiating team isn't changing at all. Still, we look to the future with cautious optimism perhaps best evoked by Rosenberg's concession on Thursday: