He’s at it again
This month, I wrote two introductory essays—one for Harold Lloyd's 1923 film Safety Last! (see here), the other for Russell Hoban's 1975 novel Turtle Diary. I give a nod to the Beatles in each. In Bookforum, Brian Gittis takes up the book-compared-to-music thread that I put in my Hoban intro. In his introduction to the New York Review's reissue of Russell [...]
Double Fantasy Live: Follow-Up
Yoko Ono and Siouxsie wrap up Meltdown with Walking On Thin Ice. Since I posted about the prospect of Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon doing Double Fantasy live, I wanted to post this link to a review of the performance. Sounds like Sean was just in the band. Carry on --
Movie Poster of the Week: NVUJ!
Help poster from Japan! Apparently that genial hot mess Help! is coming out on Blu-Ray next week. While looking for illustrators this evening I found a nice round-up of the various posters for the film. These two are just a sample if the many HELP posters; if you like graphic design, it's definitely worth a look. Help poster from France! Really, guys, [...]
I’ve just seen (part of) a face: McCartney on the Colbert Report
Paul McCartney on The Colbert Report, 6/12/13. NANCY CARR • Paul McCartney's hour-long June 12 appearance on The Colbert Report was great fun -- if you missed it, you can watch it all here. Colbert's introduction was characteristically hilarious and pointed. McCartney plays so many instruments he's "a one-man karoke bar without the weird videos," and Colbert is hosting a [...]
Which Beatles album is actually their last?
Bare feet, ouch! Paul suffers for his art. Rob Sheffield in Rolling Stone: So let's argue: Which album truly counts as the grand finale? The case for Let It Be: It came out in 1970, which was after 1969. The case for Abbey Road: (1) virtually all of Let It Be was in the can before the Abbey Road sessions even began; (2) Abbey Road feels more like [...]
Climax filled with climaxes
The film wrings dozens of gags from the chaos that is Harold’s workday behind the fabric counter—as when, attempting to hand off a parcel to a little old lady amid the throng, he shouts, “Who dropped that fifty-dollar bill?” and the mass of matrons subsides like the Red Sea getting the Moses treatment—but it’s in the final half hour, when Lloyd reluctantly [...]
Wings Over an Alternate Universe
The first sign that this bootleg is a bit weirder than usual is the cover—not the straightforward band photo used on many bootlegs of this show, which features Paul in a remarkably hideous pink shirt. That whoever put together this cover thought it would be cool to paste a square-shaped snapshot of Linda's head over that of a painted angel who is [...]
From Dangerous Minds: The Beatles’ In-House Astrologer
Did Harrod's Food Court have an in-house astrologer, I wonder? Since the period of late-1967 to late-1968 has come up in several comment threads of late, I wanted to pass along this post from Richard Metzger's site Dangerous Minds. I'd never heard of The Beatles' astrologer Caleb Ashburton-Dunning before...I'd just sort of assumed the existence of someone like him. Or a whole [...]
My Beatle, My Gastroenterologist
Author Mark Leyner. From an amazing interview with one of my favorite authors, Mark Leyner (conducted by Sam Lipsyte, another terrific fictioneer). This comes at the very end—well worth reading the whole thing (plus Leyner's original piece that follows, which forms a crazy Mobius strip with the interview itself, it seems to me). Here's something funny, though. Last night, I [...]