Faire la moue

I am trying decide how/when to return here. Meanwhile, I pout (faire le moue) which is exceedingly unattractive. I do update Giulia Geranium most days. You can also find me on Twitter (follow button to the right) & Pinterest. I have made more Facebook friends lately. So if you're a blogger or a regular commenter who would like to be in contact that way, definitely send me a message. If for some reason you've been put on a Pinterest wait list, send me a tweet or an email & I'll send you an invitation.

For your Friday/Saturday: I love Françoise Hardy's rendition of Fais moi une place but listen to it on YouTube only (for now). It's not available for downloads. Dumb. I think my regular blog friends will love it, too (although you probably know it already, you sophisticates). If you've never made a YouTube playlist, I encourage you to do it. You can keep it private (well, not from Google Overlords but from regular ppl:). It's fun to try out music you're not sure you want to buy. Honestly, YouTube has driven more of my music purchases via iTunes than anything else the last year.

I'll try to have something new up soon & leave comments open. Ta for now. I miss everyone very much.

(photograph by Jean-Marie Périer via La Lettre de Photographie)

Brando's Beat

Brando is even cooler than I thought - if that's possible. Thanks to Lori for highlighting a recent NPR piece on Brando's conga drumming. I knew that he loved drums but I did not know he was an inventor. There's a terrific video clip of an interview he did with Edward R. Murrow. Brando plays congas with Jack Costanzo. (The photograph the article uses is wonderful, too.)

(photograph of Brando with his grandma's dachshund by Edward Clark for TIME/LIFE)

Don't Wait Up

I've been left for dead before/but I still fight on./Don't wait up, leave the light on/I'll be home soon.--Leave the Light On

It's raining cats & dogs. Severe weather on the way. Rats, double rats. Plans for today - virtual & real - on hold. (You really should click on the video or the link. Chris is not employing hyperbole in the lyric - straight from his life.)

Thanks so much for all the best wishes, cards, & gifts, too. Cheers.

PS: On Julie's blog - "cat macros." Seriously.

(Umbrella by SaikoroKitty via deviantArt)

Mary Had a Little Lamb

This photograph + playing Jimi Hendrix + (thought of Stevie Ray Vaughn) + (SRV version of the nursery rhyme)=Goofing Off Post. And I miss him. How can it possibly be 20 years since he died & what--40 years for Jimi. (Also, more than one person wrote to say, egad, that photo of Natalie Portman. Yikes. And now it's making me think twice.) Cheers.

What I'd Be

without you. Racing over here to see "who"? Not yet. On a summer (it still is) play-list, blaring out of a teensy speaker is God Only Knows. Trust me, it's very cool in a mix. Julie swoons every time that song, Bus Stop or Try & Catch the Wind play. She's such a flower child-cat. At the same time, she enjoys the remastered Exile on Main Street. She's super cool in a friendly way & I wish I were more like her.

No, the subject is - what would I be without having flown many years ago, 16 September, at age 17* to Strasbourg, France. (via Luxembourg. Alone, baby, alone.) It's not that I regret our fast communication & info tech. It would have made a huge difference in my life some years later in the Middle East--for the better, possibly saved some lives. I don't pine for the good old days; they weren't always so good upon further examination. Anyway, as nervous as I was, I had to make the decisions on my own. That made me more confident, or at least damn nervier, than most 17-18 year old people today. Listen, I was never going to have much support no matter where I went or lived. (Material support? None. So before I receive more messages of "you had money, you grew up with..." No I did not. (This part is To Be Continued.)

I knew there weren't too many chances in life. If you think that's pessimistic, I would say it's realistic. You get a chance, you damn well better take it. Sometimes you can create an opportunity--but it's not all you, a lot depends on fate (or whatever you want to call it), other people, world events. (BTW, I'm not a fan of taking advantage of another person & calling that an opportunity.) That's why I went to Strasbourg & not to Paris.

Honestly, this whole enterprise is beyond ridiculous without a camera. These because the girl has a tripod & she's dressed in a manner similar to 1970s non-awfulness. (It wasn't all bad.) I wore hats & still do, but I don't think I had one this floppy. The rest are for-real Strasbourg photographs. The second one, it's the real place & it's a pigeonnier, close to the Rhine where I used to walk (approaching it through the other shot, which is a wheat field surrounded by the Strasbourg forest).

I have to break this up into parts. And then fix them. Bear with me. There are lots of great links here & on Julie's blog, Giulia Geranium. The Clever Pup is pondering Paris & has some current, good information on hotels. She researches this stuff to a fare-thee-well...so take advantage of it. Also, Liberty of London Girl's London Fashion Week Survival Kit giveaway is on until Thursday, 23 September. I still don't know if it's only for UK visitors, so enter anyway. It's fun to read the posts in between hideous world news bulletins. For those worried about Tea Party Poopers & assorted lunatics (if not, wow, wake up), The Political Carnival is my favorite place to check in. I rely on Laffy & Paddy to keep my spirits up, too. They are stylish, tweeting troublemakers.

(*soon to be 18 but I still love that I turned 18 in France. I'm hopeless about it, just let me have that, OK? Merci.)

The Idler's Academy in Port Eliot, Cornwall

They’re singing sea shanties. I’m at a festival where the lineup includes Jarvis Cocker, Luella Bartley, and Diana Athill and here is a Cornish men’s vocal group singing a capella sea shanties. The crowd— a mix of people my age, my parents’ age, and children— lap it up. This is either the weirdest or most brilliantly eclectic festival out there. I have fallen down some kind of rabbit hole into an alternate British universe without irony or hipsters. I am so confused.-Lauren Elkin

I've been musing with a friend about a Bath-Wales-Cornwall trip when I'm feeling better & have the wherewithal. When I saw Lauren Elkin's Maîtresse post, You haven't lived until you've seen an English field full of teepees at twilight, I thought, aha Port Eliot. Yep. You can read Lauren's Letter from Cornwall: the Port Eliot Festival on Bomb . It's pretty inclusive. (I would've loved the Persephone tent arranged as Vanessa Bells's Bloomsbury sitting room. I don't see any photographs but I shall pursue. Here's the Persephone blog.)

Teepees are OK but I'm the Gypsy Bowtop Caravan type. Enough tents in my lifetime, thanks. The kids atop a bovine is not from the festival. I'm looking for decently priced rainboots. (To everyone who will email: Hunters, yes I know. The prices are out of the question presently & for the abstract future. Update--I forgot to say that they're now made in China. So, ugh.) I had wet feet most of last winter. Plus, it's so hot out, that I need to look at something green. My paternal grandparents had a cow* that I don't remember riding but I choose to believe that I did. And if I'm not mistaken, some time ago my father either bought a cow-out-to-pasture for hanging out or he meant to. Anyway, I've done this, yes.

From the website: This year the Idler’s Academy of Philosophy, Husbandry and Merriment opens its doors for the first time. Tom Hodgkinson, editor of cult magazine The Idler, has established the Academy as a resource for these three valuable but generally neglected disciplines. This year’s curriculum includes Latin grammar, scything, woodwork, education theory, poetry and, of course, lashings and lashings of fun...

Bring on the rest of the weirdness.

[photograph of teepees by Bill Bradshaw; Gypsy Caravan via Port Eliot site; *bulls & asst. cattle are still bovine]

Can't Find My Way Home

Steve Winwood. Someone asked me yesterday who I'd seen in concert the most times. I answered quickly, Bruce Springsteen. The first time in a union hall (yes) when I was very young. On my way home today, arriving here only due to an end-of-the-line train & muscle memory, I realized the borrowed-indefinitely-iPod (but the music is mine) was playing over & over & over Blind Faith's original version of above. SW's membership in several groups at such an early age & the fact that I went to concerts (alone if necessary) when I was quite a baby face, too, means it was Steve I saw in concert more than any other person. (Well, it matters to me. I don't know why.)

I decided to see what Steve was up to. Well, well. A new BBC Documentary & Concert was announced recently & it will be on tomorrow night. Jealous North Americans have been assured that a video stream is in the works. The excellent SW official site, & a bit blurry but good video shot by a guy at the Academy of Music in Milan in 2008. It was meant to be.

[images via www.stevewinwood.com]

Week's End - See You in September

One Christmas morning, a parental nod, go ahead. The only walking child, three to follow. A record player & a few 45s under the tree. It had to be for me. For me? For me? Really? It remains a highlight, that day. Music. On demand. My own. I can't play music, of any kind, in the background...or I stop listening to anyone, everything.

It's (way) past time to take a break, make & keep appointments/lunch/dinner/drinks, gather photographs for Giulia Geranium, cause a little (well-meaning) trouble. What else. Oh, yes, finish up some projects, send the little darlings out into the world. Waiting is the hardest part...'tis true.

Have a great couple of weeks; I hope you get up to no end of (harmless) nonsense. I'll be stopping by the links on this page & those on GG, too. xo

[top photograph by Nick Bartoletti/used by permission/Clise Mansion shoot set on flickr, here. Thanks, Nick! /Child enraptured by what she is hearing at Mountain Music Festival, 1947, by W. Eugene Smith, LIFE archives]

Too Darn Hot

Oh. My. God. Turned on the a/c (guilt) last night when the apartment thermostat ventured past the 95F mark, into the unknown. As in 100F. Playing Ella singing Too Darn Hot. More of same today. Will post photos to publish but probably not much more. [photograph, Ella sings at Mr. Kelly's nightclub, Chicago, 1958, by Yale Joel/LIFE archives]

Bob in Black & White

Just felt like it. Visions of Johanna earlier & it's full of keys & locks & cages...(photo credit) New album late this month.

Joni in Black & White, this flight tonight

The English Muse wants a getaway & asked where she (we) should go. Her post, I'll book the flight instantly brought This Flight Tonight to mind. Except that song is an "oh what did I just do, getting on this plane." Yes, but no, but yes. Get on the plane & visit (move here), someone told me once. Get on the damn plane, he said. Upon landing, all I could think was: turn this crazy bird around...

The photo above is pre-Blue but JM wrote an astonishing number of well-known songs early in her life, recording them much later. I liked happening upon the early photo while looking for something else. But of course.

Update: Word from la Muse is that Paris is the consensus, BTW. Free man in Paris...la la la.

Artful Annie

Ever-so-cool & arty Annie Lennox. There are many great black & white pix of her but I love the color here. I've been listening to her cover album, Medusa, a lot lately. And then playing songs by the original writers/singers. Particularly Don't Let it Bring You Down by Neil Young (whom I love despite his crankiness & often reflexive sexist statements...he's mellowed somewhat in that respect). Here's a September post, Scots We Like, from the other blog, early on with another photo & credits & more reasons to like Annie.