Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Read a nice piece about rockabilly royalty Wanda Jackson apprehension about working with Jack White on a new album. Hopefully you heard Jack's terrific work with Loretta Lynn on
"Van Lear Rose" -- one of my favorite albums of the last decade. Hope to see this duo in person, until then here's
the clip from Letterman. God bless you, Jack.
The reason most recent offerings from the literary elite leave me cold is that the authors have little say. How much experience can a writer have from college into an MFA program and then onto the NYC cocktail party scene? But the real ones, the great ones, had personal stories to tell -- even if they didn't flaunt them. I was unaware of
J.D. Salinger's WWII experience until
I read about the latest bio -- which sounds fascinating. I've always thought of Holden Caulfield as a kind of kid gumshoe and
Catcher in the Rye being a great noir -- no wonder.
Great piece on German noir genius Fritz Lang
today in the New York Times. Fritz directed a couple of my all-time favorite films:
The Blue Gardenia and
The Big Heat. It seems getting good movies made was even a pain in the ass for Fritz. A new retrospective of his work opens this weekend in NYC.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
One of the my favorite mod girls of the Sixties has died.
Susannah York is best known for her work in
Tom Jones. But I first fell in love with her in the James Coburn vehicle,
Duffy. She was absolutely the coolest chick in the world in '68. She'll be missed. Read the
Associated Press obit.
Friday, January 14, 2011
It only took 17 years to be featured on SI again. This time as a writer. Check out the Back Page/Final Say column of SI's special National Championship issue for Auburn. The issue just hits newsstands today.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Regular readers of this blog know what I fan I am of
Ian Fleming and the James Bond films. So I was pretty pleased to see this item move across the wire today. MGM finally announced Bond 23 with not only Daniel Craig returning but
Sam Mendes directing. This is going to be great.
Read the entire piece here.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
The first Elvis song that Chilean miner Edison Peña heard was "Heartbreak Hotel." Peña was in high school at the time, and it was the start of a lasting devotion to Elvis that will bring him to Graceland next week as part of the late singer's birthday celebration.
"Muchas gracias," said Peña, a national hero of Chile who will get a chauffeured ride in a 1956 pink Cadillac to Elvis' birthplace in Tupelo, Miss., as part of his visit.
Peña was among the miners who survived 69 days this year buried in a caved-in gold and copper mine almost a half-mile below ground. When Graceland learned that he is what he calls an "Elvis fanatic," it arranged to send an MP3 player filled with Elvis music into the mine shaft for him.
READ ENTIRE STORY HERE
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