Lia Pamina and Robbie Leff have new songs! First, Amanecer, a 60’s song by Spanish star Jeanette, who is Belgian on her father’s side (like Prue Bury!)…
Amanecer by Lia & Robbie – The most popular videos are here
… and Sunday Mondays, a cover of a song by Vanessa Paradis. I love this one!
I hereby declare Chuck to be one of the three most enjoyable TV shows I’ve ever watched. Is the series ridiculous? Of course it is. But is it excellent? Funny? And very smart? Absolutely.
(Sheesh. Look at that. The episode was available when I embedded it Friday night, and it’s already gone.)
(No! Wait! It’s back!)
(No! It’s gone again!)
Ya know, despite the appallingly stupid fight at the drunk party (are there any other kinds of fights at drunk parties?), I think I’m going to see Iron Man 2 again, especially because at the last minute Eric couldn’t go, due to something going on at school. I wouldn’t have gone at all, but I’d already bought tickets and Bismo was there with his son. This is the opening scene and, trust me, it’s much more impressive in IMAX than it is here, with 640×272 pixels. If you click the full screen button the player should hold the correct shape of the image.
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P.S. For the record, I have not been in a fight since last August, and the last time before that was 1977.
Today’s tech trap: Anybody who tells you that older slimline (laptop-style) CD-ROM drives have trouble reading CD-R’s, even the ones installed in servers, is correct.
The giant of fantasy illustration is gone. Frank Frazetta, one of the most influential and imitated commercial artists of the 20th century, a singular and unique force in his craft, died Monday.
From comic book stories, to ghosting L’il Abner Sunday strips, to magnificent paintings for paperback book covers, Frazetta set a standard of such high caliber that, although he may have had contemporaries, he had no peers.
Figure drawing. For Frazetta, that was the thing. He loved drawing men and women. The human form, imbued with an innate fierceness, and an undeniable animal sexuality. Sometimes he drew the inhumanly human form!
Let the work speak for itself. First, some pencil drawings. A quick sketch done for a friend, using a pencil stub on cheap paper…
… and a couple of tightly-rendered samples for Flash Gordon.
Next, here are some works in pen and ink. A sketch for a John Carter of Mars book cover…
… and a Johnny Comet Sunday comic strip.
Finally, what Frazetta is known for best. His oil paintings. Two Conan the Barbarian paperback book covers…
…and higher-quality scans of the paintings. You’ll definitely want to click these to enlarge. Note the changes that Frazetta made to the original version of Conan the Buccaneer.
The original for the painting on the left, for Conan the Conquerer, sold last year for $1 million.
K3 — Kristel Verbeke, Kathleen Aerts, Karen Damen
Having just posted an ABBA video, I can’t resist saying something about K3. Karen Damen gave birth to a son, named Sky, on February 17, and she’s already returned to work. Former K3 member Kathleen Aerts is getting married in June, and her replacement, Josje, seems to be working out well.
It’s been almost two years since I first caught onto K3, and it’s been over a year since Kathleen quit. If anyone doubts these women have given everything to their craft, and if you think Kathleen’s departure from the group didn’t matter to them personally, take a look at these pictures of Kristel and Karen from Kathleen’s farewell performance last year — two uncommonly beautiful women, only 33 and 34 years old, respectively, at the time. Obviously, losing Kathleen meant everything to them.
Here’s the K3 original lineup, with one of the finest Pop songs I have ever heard, Hart Verloren (Lost Heart).
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