Two girls, two cups

Just a little video post. This is an English folk outfit called Lulu and the Lampshades, and they do have access to guitars and a drummer. But can apparently make do without.

You're Gonna Miss Me, Lulu and the Lampshades... by FestaMesta

Valedictories

A couple of people who made the seventies that much more liveable passed on this past week. One of course is Peter Falk. 83 at the time of his passing, he'd reportedly been suffering from Alzheimer's. Still, he made his last film in 2009, titled American Cowslip. It's not well known, but sounds eccentric enough to be worth trying.

Falk made impressions as himself in Wings of Desire, as the storytelling grandfather in The Princess Bride, in several raw films directed by his friend John Cassavetes. And of course, the good lieutenant. This here is a nice message delivered by Lt Columbo, after his introduction by Ruth Gordon.


Also taking leave was Gene Colan, one of the best artists to ever work in mainstream comics. In some ways he was a late bloomer. While he started working for Timely (which later became Marvel) right after his service in World War II, it was in the sixties that his style started to gel, and the horror-infused wave a decade later when he really took off. The keywords for his art were "mystery" and "sensuality". His figures breathed heightened, soap opera emotion, and violence was beside the point.

Along with Daredevil, Batman, Doctor Strange, Dracula, and a brief and underrated stint on the Spectre, Colan was the artist for most of the late Steve Gerber's classic Howard the Duck comics. And in these panels, Howard's new friend Winda Wester drops some more wisdom.

Decent Friday Random Ten

No day when you can make two of your coworkers laugh on separate occasions can be all bad. (Well, provided it's not derisive laughter, which it wasn't in this case.)

1. Nancy Wilson--Welcome to My Love
2. Blossom Dearie--Everything I've Got
3. Talking Heads--The Big Country*
4. Ladytron--The Lovers
5. The New Pornographers--Bones of an Idol
6. The Beatles--Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
7. Fiona Apple--Parting Gift
8. Simon & Garfunkel--A Hazy Shade of Winter
9. Fol Chen--You and Your Sister In Jericho
10. Elton John--Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

*Rural and outer suburban living is not for everyone. That's the truth at the heart of this song. That Byrne sounds like such a dick while delivering it could be an error in tone, or could be a stroke of genius.

Don't try this at home

Who amongst us hasn't reassured a young boy that our clothes haven't disappeared, just become invisible? Hey, that's a lot of hands!

The above is from the MF Publications (yes, really) comic entitled Captain Marvel. It's been preserved for curious 'surfers at the Stupid Comics arcive. It's a fun site, thanks to the host's game sense of humor. And it's worthwhile for me, because I believe in stealing ideas from absolutely everywhere.

Sketchy premises

This is pretty exciting. Scientists have found evidence that North Americans of the Ice Age depicted mammoths and/or mastodons in art. First of all, if you live in Florida, close your eyes and picture an Ice Age. Weird yet refreshing, am I right? As they say:

"This is an incredibly exciting discovery," said Dennis Stanford, anthropologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and co-author of this research. "There are hundreds of depictions of proboscideans on cave walls and carved into bones in Europe, but none from America -- until now."

I'm also interested in this.

Believed to be genuine, this rare specimen provides evidence that people living in the Americas during the last Ice Age created artistic images of the animals they hunted. The engraving is at least 13,000 years old as this is the date for the last appearance of these animals in eastern North America, and more recent Pre-Columbian people would not have seen a mammoth or mastodon to draw.

Creating images of the animals was a form of idealization. If you prefer, prayer. So a lot of evidence shows that early human hunters regarded their prey with a kind of reverence. Once you lose that, things go downhill fast.

Masters of disguise

The next time you in da club and you meet some fine, fine lady, remember she could be a cuttlefish.

Lonesome Rhody Friday Random Ten

Posting today's Friday Random Ten after watching another old movie on DVD, this time A Face in the Crowd. Entertaining to say the least. In truth I think Elia Kazan and Budd Schullberg push their totalitarian allegory a little further than it wants to go, but it's fun gettng to that point. And it's a little shocking to see the raging hillbilly Brando that was Andy Griffith at the time. There must have been a time when he told Otis the Town Drunk, "Listen man, I've been drunker than you and I was still able to bed multiple groupies. Get it together!"

1. David Bowie--Boys Keep Swinging
2. Duke Ellington--Mood Indigo
3. Lambert, Hendricks & Ross--Moanin'
4. XTC--Senses Working Overtime
5. They Might Be Giants--Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes
6. Sufjan Stevens--Movement VI--Isorhythmic Night Dance With Interchanges (From The BOE)
7. Talking Heads--The Girls Want to Be With the Girls
8. Fol Chen--Cable TV
9. The New Pornographers--The Bleeding Heart Show
10. Blossom Dearie--A Fine Spring Morning