This is more Tom’s bag than mine but I liked it.
Readership Capture
A true blue, a spectacle
I had an amazing experience today. I hadn’t actually bought my tickets west to visit my sister, just held them for 24 hours two months ago then forgot to finalize the transaction. I called up Delta and got the exact same flights with frequent fliers even though my departure is tomorrow. It’s a holiday miracle!
This put me in holiday mode (lamh35’s comment on Thanksgiving in NOLA already had me partway there), so I’m going to mostly do fun posts on stuff other than politics the next week.
Here’s one. I just heard Aretha Franklin’s cover of “You’re All I Need To Get By” on Pandora and I thought it would be fun to do a thread on people’s favorite covers of all time. I will define a cover as something someone recorded before but not a folk song or standard. How about a top 5 or 6 or 7 list with one additional restriction: no performer can appear more than once (otherwise you could do an all-Aretha list). Also, all other things being equal, not too obscurantist. I’ll go with
Love in Vain (Rolling Stones)
For the Good Times (Al Green)
I Say A Little Prayer For You (Aretha Franklin)
I’d Rather Go Blind (Koko Taylor)
Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain (Willie Nelson)
Sail Away (Etta James)
I Fought The Law (The Clash)
What’s your list?
Random movie thread
I really enjoyed our last movie thread, so I thought we’d try another. It comes to mind because there’s a documentary about Woody Allen on PBS tonight and because I read a great review of “Breathless” on Can’t Explain last night.
I know he’s an asshole but I loves me some Woodman. I grew up obsessively reading Pauline Kael and two of the first Pauline Kael-type movies I ever saw (I grew up in a town with one movie theater that only showed “Back to the Future” and stuff like that) were “Annie Hall” and “Broadway Danny Rose”. I loved them! I wanted to move to the Upper West Side and shop at Zabar’s and eat at the Carnegie Deli and talk to Diane Keaton-type women about literature. Of course, when I lived in New York, I learned that the Upper West Side was overrun with frat boy douches just like everywhere else and that Woody had never lived there at all anyway.
What are your favorite Woody Allen movies? I’ll go with Manhattan, then Crimes and Misdemeanors, then Take the Money and Run. Diane Keaton’s singing ruined Annie Hall a little bit for me in the end.
There are those who say we shouldn’t like Woody Allen because he married his step-daughter, so I’ll add some other topics into the mix. Apropos of “Breathless”, has any of you ever actually enjoyed a Godard movie? I have not. And finally: have you ever seen a truly obscure, only-in-a-film-festival type movie that you liked a lot but that most people here might not have heard of? I used to see a lot of those types of movies, and mostly I wasn’t that keen on them, but I once saw a Korean movie called “Murmur of Youth” that is one of my favorite movies ever.
BJ Pet Calendar 2013: First Call for Photos
Beth S. has graciously volunteered to assemble this year’s Balloon Juice Pet Calendar:
I’m looking for the highest resolution images possible. The photos themselves won’t be that large, but the largest and highest resolution images people can send the better. I have photoshop and can do some remediation on images as necessary.
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Depending on how many photos we get, it might be nice to feature a pet each month with a bit of its story – maybe as a pull out along the side…
Until Beth has a chance to set up a dedicated account, you can send your pics to me at [email protected] (or click on my name near the top of the right-hand column). Don’t be shy, you know we don’t measure love by the ‘professionalism’ of your pics, or the ‘show quality’ of your companion animals!
Any and all suggestions gratefully accepted… leave a comment below…
BJ Pet Calendar 2013: First Call for PhotosPost + Comments (30)
Song of the week
From Can’t Explain (who does all of these, not me)…..
Janet Jackson, “When I Think of You” (1986)
Given the long-simmering rivalry between Prince and Michael Jackson, I always used to wonder what it meant when producers/funk savants Terry Lewis & Jimmy Jam broke away from one of Prince’s biggest pet projects, the Time, and made their own project of turning Michael’s little sister into a superstar. Also too, given that rivalry, I wonder why Michael Jackson named not one but two of his kids “Prince.” Well, anyway, the good news is that whatever problems existed between those two never amounted to an “either/or” choice for the rest of us, but rather a “both/and”—nothing stopping anyone from loving both Control and Parade, both Sign O’ the Times and Rhythm Nation 1914. “When I Think of You,” a Flyte Tyme production, was Janet Jackson’s first #1, and still one of my favorites by her.
Can’t get enough of the Flyte Tyme sound:
SOS Band, “Tell Me If You Still Care”
Alexander O’Neal, “A Broken Heart Can Mend”
More at Can’t Explain.
Open thread
If it feels good, do it.
Save the rich
This isn’t that brilliant, but I like the idea for the song.
Also too…open thread.