Tag: questions

Macca is 69, and soon Brian will be

“Dennis is clapping like his life depended on it.”


Paul McCartney formerly of the Beatles turns 69 today. Brian Wilson, formerly of the Beach Boys, will be 69 on June 20. The southpaws, labelmates in the US on Capitol Records, inspired each other musically.

NEXT year, I’ll post my favorite songs by McCartney (solo/with Wings) and the Beach Boys. But these are the songs that have caught my attention recently:

Heather from McCartney’s Driving Rain album; I hadn’t listened to it very much, and the song is a new discovery. It’s about Paul’s daughter, BTW, not his now ex-wife.
You Won’t See Me, one of my favorite Macca Beatles songs.

And a couple of versions of the Beach Boys I Get Around. In the first one, as a commenter noted, “Dennis is clapping like his life depended on it.” It has some brief ads at the end. Here’s a clean version

What McCartney and Wilson songs, solo or in their groups, have struck your fancy lately?

The McCartney and McCartney II albums have been re-released, as a pair of double albums.

Paul McCartney Joined By Family, Celebrities At Linda McCartney Photo Launch this month.
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Since it’s also Roger Ebert’s 69th birthday, here is his TED Talk: Remaking My Voice.

Gay rights QUESTION

Winning the Future: President Obama and LGBT Americans

It’s Gay Pride Month. Here is the schedule of events in Albany [PDF]. Also, check out Libby Post’s blog. And I’ve been encouraged by several things:

ITEM: Home Depot to American Family Association: take a hike, we support gay causes. It wasn’t that long ago that corporate America would cower under threat of a boycott by anti-gay forces.

ITEM: A prominent billboard urging a local politician to vote for same-sex marriage has a restaurant source: Bombers Burrito Bar. Bombers owner Matt Baumgartner owns Bombers in Albany and Schenectady, Wolff’s Biergarten in Albany, and a forthcoming Albany pub called The Olde English. He’s trying to sway state senator Roy McDonald, who voted no in 2009, but is perceived to be persuadable.

ITEM: Kicking off Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month, the Office of Public Engagement has launched a new webpage, Winning the Future: President Obama and LGBT Americans. People complain, not entirely without merit, that the Obama administration has been cautious about gay rights. But you would not see this type of initiative from President McCain or either President Bush.

So I’m feeling encouraged that, in the cliched language of the pollsters, the country is “moving in the right direction” on gay rights. What says you?

I Can’t SAY That Word QUESTION

There are a number of words I could say, but never having seen them in print, I was shocked to find that they were spelled THAT way.


There was a 1980 hit song by a group called the Barracudas called Summer Fun, from an album I happen to own; in fact, a mail-order customer at FantaCo sent it to me in gratitude. The introduction to the song comes from an ad c. 1967; the storyline was that a Plymouth car dealer couldn’t say the word Barracuda, problematic because the hot Plymouth car that year was supposedly the Barracuda. (The whole ad can be heard, after the 27-second mark, here.

What reminded me of this was the fact that I was working on a reference question last month and realized I could not say the word ‘aesthetician’, though I can say the root word ‘aesthetic’; it’s the two middle syllables. Arthur noted on a podcast that he cannot say ‘vitiligo’, a condition I have.

On the other hand, some words that I just LOVE to say. They tend to be French or Italian, and often end in a vowel, such as Rigoletto or Giovanni. But last month at work, I was really getting off saying the Japanese word ‘yakitori’, which means skewered chicken.

Also, there are a number of words I could say, but never having seen them in print, I was shocked to find that they were spelled THAT way. Two that come to mind are ‘epitome’ or ‘facetious’.

What words do you have difficulty pronouncing?
What words do you love pronouncing?
What words surprised you by how they were spelled?

 

Robert Johnson QUESTION

Eric Clapton, formerly of the aforementioned Cream, recorded a whole 2004 album of Robert Johnson songs.


I recently noticed that tomorrow would have been the 100th birthday of Robert Johnson. Don’t think you know him? I suspect that, if you listen to music, you probably do. He’s the guy who over a reasonably short period wrote and recorded a number of songs that became staples of rock and blues artists.

Probably the first Johnson song I heard was Crossroads by Cream a song a/k/a Crossroads Blues.

There’s also The Rolling Stones’ Love in Vain and Travelling Riverside Blues by Led Zeppelin. One standard is Sweet Home Chicago, here performed by Robert Lockwood Jr. Here’s a list of Johnson songs. My favorite may be Walkin’ Blues by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band; unfortunately, I can’t find a direct link, though if you follow this link, you can join some website for free for a week, which will let you hear it.

Eric Clapton, formerly of the aforementioned Cream, recorded a whole 2004 album of Robert Johnson songs called Me and Mr. Johnson. A version of a song from that album, They’re Red Hot.

This week’s cover story edition on Coverville features the songs of Robert Johnson, including a couple I’ve mentioned.

What are your favorite Robert Johnson recordings or covers?

Spoilers QUESTION

read movie reviewers relish not knowing about the films they are going to critique; optimally, the movie trailer will not make actually seeing the film redundant.


There is a tradition among many not to reveal surprise endings of movies and even TV shows until enough people have had a chance to see them, which is quite honorable.

But what I’ve noticed lately is that the TV shows themselves are at least leaking possible story bits to the media. The very first Law & Order: LA this spring notes that someone will die. Other shows, such as those alphabet soup programs (CSI, NCIS) tease that “a hero will fall.” Is it that we should watch because someone will die? What happened to the element of surprise. See, e.g., the death of Colonel Blake at the end of the third season of the TV show MAS*H.

I contrast this with The Good Wife on CBS. A big reveal a few weeks ago was that the lead character’s husband had slept with her work friend. But ah, it was a couple of weeks later before the GW herself finds out the news, and it is devastating for her, and for the viewer. The surprise maximized the impact.

I read movie reviewers relish not knowing about the films they are going to critique; optimally, the movie trailer will not make actually seeing the film redundant.

So how do you like to see TV and movies? Does knowing too much wreck the experience?

 

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