Garth Brooks

The Los Angeles Marathon will be run in five weeks, but first, how about the Garth Brooks Marathon? From 6 p.m. Friday to 11:30 p.m. Saturday, the country star interrupted his retirement to play five concerts at Staples Center in front of nearly 100,000 people, and for a national TV audience in the first hour.

'Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go," was the daily thought printed at the bottom of December in the 2007-2008 academic monthly calendar I bought at my son's college. The apercu, written by T.S. Eliot, was appropriate for a collegiate calendar, not only because it was perspicacious but because its author was an academic himself.

For a country superstar who very publicly retired seven years ago, Garth Brooks has some funny ideas about what defines a hobby. He's holding a press conference Saturday in Nashville, and word around Music City is that he's going to announce that he'll be releasing new music this fall, most likely a new single in September to be followed in October by a multi-disc career retrospective box set.

The other boot has dropped: Garth Brooks will return to the concert stage on Nov. 14, though it's being billed as a one-night-only performance. The retired country superstar, who last toured in 1998, will play the Sprint Center arena in Kansas City, Mo., in what has been reported as a thank-you show for Wal-Mart's support of his music. "It's huge, and that's an understatement," Mike Kennedy, program director at Kansas City country station KBEQ-FM, told the Kansas City Star.

If anyone doubted the drawing power of retired country superstar Garth Brooks, he reaffirmed his position as a concert powerhouse over the weekend. Fans gobbled more than 159,000 tickets to nine performances in Kansas City, Mo., next month, his spokeswoman said Monday. After tickets quickly sold out for his Nov. 14 performance at the city's new Sprint Center sports arena, a second show was added, then a third, a fourth and on until nine shows were filled to capacity.

Country music superstar Garth Brooks' announcement Monday morning that he's releasing a special edition of his forthcoming three-disc "The Ultimate Hits" album to benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure overwhelmed the breast-cancer awareness organization's website, forcing volunteers to switch to phones to continue fielding preorder requests. The "pink edition" of Brooks' album will be available exclusively on www.komen.org starting Nov.

Garth Brooks officially is the bestselling solo act in U.S. music history. Again. Brooks collected his latest hunka-hunka precious metal Monday from the Recording Industry Assn. of America, certifying total album sales of 123 million copies, allowing him to surpass Elvis Presley to reclaim the No. 2 slot. The Beatles have long been No. 1 on the RIAA's ranking of U.S. album sales, currently showing sales of 170 million and counting, but the No. 2 position has shifted over time.

After prevailing upon an arena full of fans Tuesday to sing the chorus to his 1990 ballad "Unanswered Prayers" without accompaniment -- twice in a row -- Garth Brooks sat back against his drummer's kit and murmured into his signature headset microphone. "This is so cool," he said.