These guys played at my wedding:
They were fabulous. Open thread!
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
These guys played at my wedding:
They were fabulous. Open thread!
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
It’s not confined to the NFL, you know:
by DougJ| 151 Comments
This post is in: Music
With all the Mars and Pluto stuff recently….What are the best songs that mention planets? The moon doesn’t count, but “Fly Me To The Moon” does because it also mentions Jupiter and Mars. A dark horse here could be “It’s Getting Hot In Here”, which mentions Neptune.
What are the best songs that mention the possibility of life on other planets? The only one I can think of is “Life on Mars”, but there must be others.
Update. I’ll go with this, as my favorite planet-related lyric from Cole Porter’s “Well Did You Evah”
Have you heard? It’s in the stars. Next July we collide with Mars.
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
The Clark Institute is, as the expression goes, Worth the Trip. The “Arrangement in Grey & Black” was certainly more interesting in the original (and I’m not likely to be visiting Paris in the near future), but the Renoirs in the main gallery were infinitely more charming. (His talent for capturing light just can’t be reproduced… and it’s obvious he liked women, which is rarer than one would think.) Also, the grounds are gorgeous, even though the leaves haven’t started turning yet.
As a programming note, my laptop accesses Balloon Juice just fine here, and the hotel’s insecure wi-fi led Avast to (successfully) implore us to sign up for a personal VPN, so it might even work back on home turf, cross fingers. I didn’t bring my keyboard, and the wi-fi is as sluggish as it’s apparently insecure, so I can’t promise you much style for the next couple of days regardless…
This post is in: Music, Open Threads
This is the first Leonard Cohen song I can remember hearing, when it first came out, so I would’ve been 12 or 13. What’s a day late, after so many years?
From Songfacts ( http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=14129):
Cohen penned this song as a tribute to two girls that he shared a hotel room with during a snowstorm in Edmonton, Canada. In the April, 1993 issue of Song Talk, he explained: “That’s the only song I wrote in one sitting. The melody I had worked on for some time. I didn’t really know what the song was. I remember that my mother had liked it.
Then I was in Edmonton, which is one of our largest northern cities, and there was a snowstorm and I found myself in a vestibule with two young hitch-hiking women who didn’t have a place to stay. I invited them back to my little hotel room and there was a big double bed and they went to sleep in it immediately. They were exhausted by the storm and cold. And I sat in this stuffed chair inside the window beside the Saskatchewan River. And while they were sleeping I wrote the lyrics. And that never happened to me before. And I think it must be wonderful to be that kind of writer. It must be wonderful. Because I just wrote the lines with a few revisions and when they awakened I sang it to them. And it has never happened to me like that before. Or since.”…
Julia Felsenthal, at Vogue (http://www.vogue.com/13350897/leonard-cohen-birthday/):
… Last year, the week of his 80th birthday, Cohen released his 13th studio album, Popular Problems. The coincidence of dates “was a happy accident,” he said to journalists at a listening event, as reported by the Associated Press. “In my family, we have a very charitable approach to birthdays—we ignore them.” His only plan to celebrate the beginning of his ninth decade, he said, was to start smoking. “But quite seriously, does anyone know where you can buy a Turkish or Greek cigarette?” he asked the crowd. “I’m looking forward to that first smoke. I’ve been thinking about that for 30 years.”
Today Leonard Cohen turns 81. Wherever he is, we hope he’s found some European cigarettes and a light. And—uncharitable as it may be—we’d like to wish him a very happy birthday.
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Apart from remembering all the long years, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Happy (Belated) B’Day, Leonard CohenPost + Comments (168)
by Betty Cracker| 273 Comments
This post is in: Music, Open Threads, Sports
Went to a concert at a local venue last night and saw Eilen Jewell, who is fabulous: Check her out if you get a chance. The song “High Shelf Booze” is a good place to start. She also does excellent Loretta Lynn covers.
We’re lounging around half watching Iggles vs Cowboys and half reading books. What are you up to this evening?
PS: I’m not your mother, so I’m not going to tell you to quit leaving Troll Kibble out in a saucer by the door. We’re all grown-ups here. Supply and demand. Just saying!
This post is in: Music, Post-racial America
Here’s something to wash away the taste of last night’s DerpFest extraordinaire.
Kevin Sylvester says that when most people see a 6-foot-2-inch, 260-pound black man, they don’t expect him to also be a classically trained violinist. A recent exchange with a woman in an elevator, when he happened to have his instrument with him in its case, drove that point home.
“She’s like, ‘What do you play?’ ” he recalls. “I’m like, ‘I’m a violinist.’ And she was like, ‘Well, obviously you don’t play classical, so what kind of style do you play?’ ”
Sylvester says he explained that while he does have a degree in classical music, he plays all kinds of styles. “She didn’t mean it maliciously,” he says, “but I hope she gets to see us in concert and we can change her perception.”
A not altogether non sequitur. As I watched this video, I was reminded why I’m a member of the Democratic party. It’s got a lot of problems, lot of positions espoused by leaders at every level of government at which I wince. But the party that nominated and elected Barack Hussein Obama is one that can envision an America that looks like the country Sylvester and his co-conspirator in gut and horsehair, Wilner Baptiste, want to help create. I’ll leave the “and the other party….” half of the duology unmentioned…its would-be leaders said all that was necessary last night.
Plus, and for your early evening pleasure — these guys can play.