Category: All Posts

Ghost memory

Last night we did something we very rarely do on a weeknight, by firing up the video projector to watch a movie. Has it already been ten years since the excellent film adaptation of the Ghost World comic book? It was Scarlett Johansson’s breakthrough role, but I don’t understand why it seemed to put the brakes on Thora Birch’s career, because she’s outstanding as Enid.

Ghost World has one of the more memorable movie openers, by featuring this outrageous dance number from a 1965 Bollywood flick called Gumnaam.

Witches brew

One of the news feeds reported that Annette Funicello’s house caught fire last week. Annette has MS, and has been in a wheelchair for years, and although she suffered smoke inhalation, she got out in time and is recovering.

Annette always brings to mind my favorite Mousketeer, the late Cheryl Holdridge. After The Mickey Mouse Club, in her teens Cheryl had a recurring role on Leave It To Beaver, first as Gloria Cusick, then she was brought back as Julie Foster. After that, Cheryl appeared in various 60’s TV shows, including this memorable episode of Bewitched, where she tries to seduce Darren. The scene at the advertising agency isn’t exactly like Don Draper in action on Mad Men, but at least Darren kept liquor in his office. Make it a double, Samantha!

Musical Massachusetts

Tim Rice’s American Pie series on BBC Radio 2 has finally reached home, here in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts has Boston — the city and the 70’s supergroup — and Aerosmith, The Cars, and the J.Geils Band. On the softer side there’s James Taylor and Arlo Guthrie. Tim Rice covers all of them, but he makes no mention of Jonathan Richman, drivin’ past the Stop & Stop (a supermarket chain that’s still very much a presence here). This clip is from England’s Top of the Pops. That sounds like Steve Wright doing the voice over at the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_eLgvTDLIg

I’ve become something of a fan of the old Ames Brothers act, with Ed Ames singing lead. They’re from Mass., and Rice plays this fun 50’s tune by the bros.


The Ames Brothers – Rag Mop-1950 by CASVI_Factory

Atlas Shrugged

Japan moved about 8 feet, and the Earth’s axis has been tilted by about 6.5 inches, changing the speed of the planet’s rotation and shortening the day by 1.8 millionths of a second. But as horrible as this earthquake is, even upgraded to magnitude 9.0 it’s only the fourth most powerful in my lifetime.

We’ve been planning to buy a new Honda CRV sometime before September. Our ’02 CRV was made in Japan, and not to be petty in my concern about the earthquake, I was nevertheless worried that it would affect the supply. But according to Honda, CRV production is now done mostly in the U.S.

In the ink

Yesterday, there was ink all over the highway in Peabody, Massachusetts. A truck overturned on a highway ramp north of Boston, releasing hundreds of gallons of industrial ink. The spill was so bad the ink couldn’t be cleaned up, and 500 feet of the road had to be removed and paved over. Some of the ink even found its way here, to this blog post. Stay away from the white space below this text, or it may start to leak.

Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas