STORM THE REALITY STUDIOS!

Françoise Hardy - Comment te dire adieu. Paris, 1968. While students and workers were pulling up paving stones to lob at riot police, I guess this little song was on the radio. Tear gas and plastic macs, helmets and mini-skirts. The ye ye girls.

Tell me. What is the deal with 1960s French pop music? It's horrible. Or is it? There's something about it. Like any hook-laden pop, it's catchy, and now it's cool to collect these swinging mademoiselles, the ye ye girls. People like Francoise Hardy. The girls are pretty -- sure, I get that. Photogenic pop girls like Hardy, Zouzou, Chantal Goya (who starred in Godard's Masculin Feminin, 1966), Jane Birkin (who married Serge Gainesbourg), Sylvie Vartan (who married "ye-ye king" Johnny Hallyday). What is it about these ye ye girls? Is it just that post-modern, ironic cool thing? Retro cool, like wink wink, watching The Avengers? Or what? Here's Françoise Hardy with Salvador Dali. Explain.


Meanwhile, in the streets, a revolution in Paris, May, 1968.

THE GREATEST

CASSIUS CLAY CROWNED WORLD CHAMPION, 1964

STARGAZING TOM THUMB

Arthur Rimbaud (French poet, 1854-91) dazzled the Paris literary world as a boy, yet quit writing poems when he was still a teenager. He has been idolized in dozens of biographies as a poet, surrealist, symbolist, criminal, prophet, and gun runner, and has the unique distinction of both being played by Leonardo DiCaprio in a Hollywood film, and being written into a song by Bob Dylan. Victor Hugo championed him ("Enfant Shakespeare!") and Paul Verlaine shot him. Rimbaud was the essential rebel, the poete maudite, an anarchist who smoked hashish, drank absinthe, and shocked the local bourgeoisie with his shabby dress and long hair. More important, he wrote such masterpieces as Illuminations and Une Saison en Enfer -- "A Season in Hell" -- and influenced the course of modern literature, music, and art.
He died November 10th, so raise a glass for him. Something strong.













My Bohemian Life (Fantasy)

I went off with my hands in my torn coat pockets;
My overcoat too was becoming ideal;
I traveled beneath the sky, Muse! and I was your vassal;
Oh dear me! what marvelous loves I dreamed of!

My only pair of breeches had a big hole in them.
– Stargazing Tom Thumb, I sowed rhymes along my way.
My tavern was at the Sign of the Great Bear.
– My stars in the sky rustled softly.

And I listened to them, sitting on the road-sides
On those pleasant September evenings while I felt drops
Of dew on my forehead like vigorous wine;

And while, rhyming among the fantastical shadows,
I plucked like the strings of a lyre the elastics
Of my tattered boots, one foot close to my heart!

Arthur Rimbaud

THE GREATEST

CAT POWER
Once I wanted to be the greatest
No wind of waterfall could stall me
And then came the rush of the flood
Stars of night turned deep to dust
Melt me down
Into big black armor
Leave no trace of grace
Just in your honor
Lower me down
To culprit south
Make 'em wash a space in town
For the lead
And the dregs of my bed
I've been sleepin'
Lower me down
Pin me in
Secure the grounds
For the later parade

Once I wanted to be the greatest
Two fists of solid rock
With brains that could explain
Any feeling

FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

Senate Joint Resolution 8212 was approved yesterday by Washington state voters, allowing private companies to hire inmate labor. These arrangements were banned in 2004 by the Washington Supreme Court, which ruled they violated the state constitution, and so SJR 8212 amends the constitution. Privatizing prison labor goes along with privatizing everything else, and part of the big push by corporations. FOR PROFIT. Iraq and New Orleans are being rebuilt by private companies for profit, and mercenaries are fighting the war, for profit. What next? Ethical and moral questions aside, do we really want the dollar sign to be the ultimate criteria for social decisions? Suggested reading: Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine." And any Charles Dickens. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/books/review/Stiglitz-t.html?ref=review

ALL THAT JAZZ

David Stone Martin (American artist, 1913-92) illustrated many jazz classics. He created virtually hundreds of album covers in the 1940's and 1950's. His style owes something to the great Ben Shahn, with whom he worked as an assistant.

Charlie "Bird" Parker (American musician, 1920-55) was a jazz genius, and possibly the greatest sax player of all time. Here he's seen playing with another great sax man, Coleman Hawkins (1904-69), also known as "Bean". Watch their expressions as Bird and Bean play a ballad. Then the whole band kicks in with some bebop. In the second clip, they are joined by other luminaries. This is jazz history.

THE OLD NEGRO SPACE PROGRAM

This spoof is amazing. And NOT by Ken Burns.