The Head Monkees

One of my most memorable movie-going experiences was in the early 80’s, when I saw “Head” for the first time. Denro and I were at a little art cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called Off The Wall, that later succumbed to the ascendancy of VHS. “Head” is the cult favorite with the pre-fab four, The Monkees, that picked up where their TV show left off. This clip from the movie has the superb “Porpoise Song”, by Goffin-King.


The Monkees – Porpoise Song (From Head)

Robbie Leff pointed out this 1968 interview with The Monkees talking about “Head”, in surprisingly good quality that looks as though it could have been recorded yesterday.

Annie Little’s Winter Wonderland

It’s already been a year since model/actress/singer-songwriter Annie Little created a sensation with her Amazon Kindle video, featuring her adorably fetching song, “Fly Me Away”. Since then, Annie and her partner Marcus Ashley have made more commercials and songs, she’s appeared on “Desperate Housewives”, and she’ll be on an upcoming episode of “The Mentalist”.

Annie’s back with a new Kindle holiday music video, this time for England. You can watch it, and most of her other commercials, at this link.

http://www.youtube.com/user/LittleandAshley

One video that’s missing is Annie in a commercial for T.J. Maxx and Marshalls. People were talking about it on Annie’s Facebook page, but it was nowhere to be found, so I uploaded it:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Annie-Little/173708637582

There’s speculation that one of the shoppers with Annie is Elliott Yamin, from “American Idol”, a series that I admit to never having seen. Maybe Annie will confirm. She says on Facebook that the commercial was shot at 4 in the morning, when the mall was deserted. She didn’t say what mall, but the closest one to the TJX headquarters, half a mile from where I work, is The Natick Collection.

Petulant Glenn Gould’s crush on Pet

Almost four years ago I posted Classical pianist Glenn Gould’s 1967 audio essay on Petula Clark. Today, the Wall Street Journal features a write-up on music-related TV documentaries, and in noting the upcoming PBS program “Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould”, Nancy deWolf Smith says, “… it is clear that his crush on Petula Clark and many other diversions made bearable the isolation his artistry demanded.” Gould’s love letter to Pet, in the form of a musician’s analytical critique, is in an MP3 that I’m happily hot-linking from WFMU. It takes a few minutes for Gould to get to the point, but he gets there.


[audio:http://ubu.wfmu.org/sound/gould_glenn/Gould-Glenn_The-Search-for-Petula-Clark_1967.mp3|titles=Glenn Gould: The Search for Petula Clark]

Fixing Mariah Carey’s thighs

I see that Mariah Carey has announced she’s going to have a baby. Last year I posted Carey’s delightfully retro video from 1994, of her modern classic, “All I Want for Christmas Is You”, which looks like this on YouTube…

… making Mariah at 24 look like she had the thighs she has now, pregnant at 40. But I can fix that. Hmm… It looks to me as if there may be three basketballs in this picture. 😉

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2010/DEC/MariahCareyChristmas.flv 480 370]

Prue Bury in Astrid’s new book

I have Astrid Kirchherr – a retrospective, a new book that’s a companion to Astrid’s exhibit at the Victoria Gallery and Museum in Liverpool, that runs through the end of January. I am very pleased to see that the book includes a photo with my dear friend, Prudence Bury.