President's Day

A little mnemonic sing-a-long to celebrate Washington's birthday


Jonathan Coulton Washy Ad Jeffy

Sunny Valentine

Guess what else I'm missing this month? The Valentine's Day coinciding Modernism Week in Palm Springs. We tried to go last year, and the year before. We promised ourselves we'd make it this year. As usual we left it too late. (Oh shut up moaning woman, you have a great life!). Yes but this year the architect William Krisel will be getting his star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars. Quatch. We will go one day. Until then there's always youtube

Dried Bull Penises Done Up In A Braid

I have to go see if they have Steer Pizzle at a Trader Joe's on Long Island.

The Future

Guess who is going to see Leonard Cohen in concert and whose tardiness meant they missed out on tickets? If I wasn't coughing so badly I'd be sobbing. Anyhow, here is the video that proved just how sexy the man is. From his awesome appearance on Later with Jules Holland in 1993. Enjoy.

Don't drink, Don't smoke, What do you do?

Get up and dance around - It's Friday afternoon after all.

Game Night: The 1984 version

It seems we needed the game table to motivate us to plow through the boxes of board games we've accumulated over the years.


In addition to four versions of Monopoly - London (twice), Paris and Belgium (in two languages), we also have Catopoly. Cats as real estate, who knew? The other evening we worked our way to Trivial Pursuit Young Player Edition, an old set of qustions from the days when Trivial Pursuit was the Wii of crazes. You could tell what era it came from by the questions: Which two countries are divided by the Berlin Wall? and What type of language is Fortran? and which country by the curious fact that every other question in the pink section was about Kajagoogoo and the rest had to do with characters in The Beano and The Dandy.


Most of us had never heard of Limahl and the biggest pop sensation of 1983, while one of us (ahem) had tried to block the oeuvre from her memory. But we hit on a brilliant solution to remedy this failing. Every time a song came up that we couldn't recall we played it on the youtubes. Oh youtube, how you have enhanced game night and our daily lives.

Singing until the end

The incomparable and inspirational Miriam Makeba, or Mama Afrika as she was also known, singing Pata Pata on tour in Brazil, 1968. Miriam Makeba died November 10 2008, after a performance in Castel Volturno, Italy.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

It's 60 years since the most vital, and the most translated, document in the world, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was signed. Human Rights Action Center puts the declaration into a memorable video format that can be easily understood by everyone. Spread the seeds of human rights by signing the petition to include The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in your passport and join the U.S. Campaign for Burma.
Pass it on.

The Voice of Reason

Amongst all the desperate pre-election name calling and innuendo, one person, who lived through some of this country's worst history, is telling it straight. Donna Brazile at the New Yorker Festival; rational, impassioned and honest.

Sometimes...

Ready for a little bit of Belgium? Come on, you know you are. It's a grainy video but the tune gets into your brain and before you know it you are singing
"Sometimes
We've got to sing this song
Sometimes
It takes us way too long
Sometimes
We've got to sing out of key"
Hooverphonic, 2002

Soko

OK, I tried to resist but this song is now firmly in my head. So I'm passing it on to you. Enjoy!

John Wesley Harding: Dirty Work

More than you ever wanted to know about Steely Dan - a band you either love or hate*, and I'm definitely with JWH on this one, I'm a true hater. Still, it's a great cover.
From the Stars in the Margins Show at The Zipper Theater in Manhattan on 8/11/08 that also featured Martha Plimpton, Rufus Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche amongst others. I missed the show but, happy, happy, joy, joy, I won tickets to the upcoming John Wesley Harding performance at Union Hall, Brooklyn on October 27. How cool is that?

*There are a bunch of mega-popular stadium-filling bands that I consider a complete waste of space. Of course they sell millions of records and have huge fame and wealth and I, em, don't. But that won't stop me telling the internets why I want to fall to the floor and pound it with my fists while screaming at the top of my lungs when I hear certain songs, will it? One day I'll do a post about them and you can hurl rotten eggs at me. Or perhaps you'll agree?

YRG and Emmy Award Winners in the House

The highlight of vacation week was definitely Friday when The Cool House provided the backdrop for a music video shoot. Emmy® Award Winners Richie Saccente, Cosmo Mallardi and Jake Gorst were all here filming part of a video for Young Rebel Goombas, a Tropical band that operates like a huge family. Vocalists Richie and Cosmo were joined by Richie's daughter and trainee sound engineer, Chelsea and Vinny, who proved invaluable as an expert cat wrangler. The Guy and I were listening and trying to stay out of the way while secretly being star-struck. Of course if they'd actually brought the Emmy, any Emmy, with them, we'd have been in the shot like an, umm, shot.
In lieu of that I got these stills:


This was parked on my driveway most of the afternoon. How cool is that?


Chelsea and Richie seated, Cosmo standing. YRG method acting.


Jake Gorst directs: More coffee and this time with feeling, please. Vinny looks on, ready to pluck stray cats out of shot.


Jake Gorst shooting. Got it!
The Young Rebel Goombas' eponymous debut album is available here and here. Rock on Cool House!

Where there's life there's....

... a Belgian takeover of one of the icons of American popular culture. Allez les belges!

Not really staunch

Jean over at Renovation Therapy has an enormous Grey Gardens obsession and is feeding it with a competition to find the best Big or Little Edie Bouvier Beale letting their inner staunch rip. The contest is inspired by Little Edie's quote: But you see in dealing with me, the relatives didn't know that they were dealing with a staunch character and I tell you if there's anything worse than dealing with a staunch woman... S-T-A-U-N-C-H. There's nothing worse, I'm telling you. They don't weaken, no matter what.
I can't do dress-up crazy (it's not different enough from my normal crazy) so I'm giving you Rufus Wainwright (with Isaac Mizrahi making his second appearance on this blog) singing Grey Gardens. Not staunch but there are elements of craziness nevertheless.

Jo Co @ The Highline

Fantastic start to summmer. Jonathan Coulton at The Highline Ballroom with Paul & Storm. Geeks and nerds abounded. We got to play pirates and zombies, laugh at Mandelbrot jokes



and sing along to Code Monkey

Monkey phone home

For some reason the Monkey got to hang out at our table. Maybe because there was plenty of beer. Or maybe he just liked girls from Huntington.


Bonus: The food at The Highline is unbelievably good. So are the Chelsea Martinis. That sure kicks the butt of Madison Square Gardens where overpriced nachos and warm beer are the culinary high points and tickets cost a whole bunch more! The Highline is my new favourite NY concert venue. I wonder if I can persuade The Guy to go to Tragedy! the tri-state area's #1 metal tribute to the Bee Gees?

Kicking Off Summer

We're off to the City tomorrow night to celebrate the start of summer with a Jonathan Coulton concert. As recent events and other expenses are taking their toll on our wallets, we'll be taking a home-ation this year. That doesn't mean we'll be sitting in the dark like sad cases, though. There's a bunch of must-see events going on in NY, including the Buckminster Fuller retrospective at The Whitney and The New York City Waterfalls, and I still haven't seen Jeff Koons on the Met roof. Oh, and next Saturday evening there'll be more of this going on.

Celebrate The Irony

To counteract the blues from this week's posts and to celebrate Friday evening let's pogo around a little to The Wombats a band from the UK (not to be confused with The Wombles a fictional band of ecologically savvy furry creatures).
I missed these guys when the played New York last week, mainly because I DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE PLAYING. Memo to their tour manager/press agent: You might get more than 30 people at a gig if you ADVERTISE. But, hey, there's always youTube...

Nul points*

Even united by a made-up language Belgium can't win. Last night was the first semi-final of The Eurovision Song Contest and Belgium failed to qualify for Saturday's final. So sad, so cruel.
Don't despair, through the power of the internets I bring you Ishtar with O julisi na jalini, the official entry of my adopted country. It sounds like a mash-up of Steeleye Span (Gaudete, anyone?) and The Smurfs. No really.
Click if you dare and remember Belgium is the home of the surreal.



Special bonus video: Father Abraham and The Smurfs


I always thought he said "Fruit Smurf begins" now I realise it's "Flute Smurf". Oh the power of youtube!

*translation here

Stuck on TuneGlue

I don't know how I've managed to live without the extremely cool TuneGlue all my life.
It's an interactive "relationship explorer" and with just a few clicks you can see how bands and artists relate to one another musically. Take for example the artist featured in my last post Grandmaster Flash. Enter his name in the search box, click expand and similar artists will appear, click on one of those to see more relationships or on releases to check out their discography.
I'm totally addicted to it, firstly because it is so beautifully designed, second you can point, click and purchase music (from amazon.co.uk, though) and thirdly it totally appeals to the geek in me. I can play six degrees of musical separation to my heart's content. Deeply sad but at the same time deeply satisfying.

via Very Short List

P.S. There's another set of relationships in the music player at the bottom of the page....