Friday Cat Blogging Returns In Full

A new month, a new cache of space on flickr.com, a few new photos of the beasts.


First, Hooker naps cute:





Moni gets a hug from Berit:





And someone wants to play (and I don't think it's Moni):

Friday Annotated Random Ten

More instant hits, from the only station that matters:


1. "Feel Like a Natural Woman" - Carole King - Tapestry

Something interesting in hearing a songwriter perform her/his own material, when there is a much better known, and yes BETTER, version out there. Worthwhile. Not Aretha, no, but I different take - Aretha makes all the metaphors seem more general, metaphysical; with King it's much more directly a sexual thing. Interesting, the difference between intent and interpretation.

I've got 8 versions of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," and the one I've been enjoying most recently is a live, stripped-down version by writer Barrett Strong (with Shawn Colvin and Richard Thompson on backing vocals/guitar). He ain't Marvin Gaye, or Gladys Knight, or The Temptations, or The Slits, or Creedence, or whoever, but he's got the most quietly, ruefully bitter and sad take on the song I've heard.

(Adding this later -- I just went and listed to The Temptations' version again, which is just plain WEIRD -- this extremely "first-person" song is song mostly in unison by four men, which makes lines about "I" or "me" or "the two of us" just sound odd)

2. "Viens Danser le Twist" - Johnny Hallyday - Souvenirs Souvenirs

French-pop version of "Let's Twist Again." I love French Pop. Not sure they quite "get" rock and roll, but it gets transformed into something new and usually interesting. Here especially when taking up a corporate-created/promoted American "dance craze" and adding more sincerity and exuberance to the original (granted, "Let's Twist Again" was better than the dopey Chubby Checker original, "The Twist" which Hank Ballard did a lot better, and first).

3. "Her Father Didn't Like Me Anyway" - Shane MacGowan & the Popes - The Snake

Not The Pogues, but a good song from a good album. Still, not quite The Pogues. Can't help but feel a bit . . . warmed-over. On the other hand, everything else The Pogues did, no matter how much I liked it, never came close to Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash.

4. "9 of Disks" - Camper Van Beethoven - Telephone Free Landslide Victory

Great pretty creepy instrumental. Something I'd like to use in a show, but it's a bit too alt-rock, not "library-music" enough yet.

5. "You Lied Just to Save Your Name" - The Equals - First Among Equals - The Greatest Hits

Greatest hits? Which? From who? Don't know them, just found the album. Pop-garage. Catchy, competent, and fun. Perfect 45 rpm singles. Bitter teenage breakup song. You'll be sorry, girl. Don't go runnin' my name all over this town. Get outta my life. Sneer, spit, guitar break.

6. "Boom Boom" - The Animals - The Best of The Animals

Lovely British 60s electric blues-pop, marred only by the fact that it's not John Lee Hooker. If the comparison is put out of mind, then just shake it baby.

7. "Feminine SDH" - Z - Music for Pets

Frank Zappa's sons start a band with some great sidemen (and they're damned good on vocals/guitar, respectively) and make some okay music. Not their dad, but christ, who is? Some of this album is pretty good, some is just okay, some is embarrassing, and one good one is difficult to listen to (it's about watching their dad die).

8. "Sugar Town" - Lara and the Trailers - Girls in the Garage vol. 9 - Oriental Special"

Southeast Asian pop cover (it is a cover, right?). In an Asian language (don't know which) except the title. Great organ break: One chord, followed by two notes, repeated, and clumsily played (the organ is out of tune, too, I think), but it works. Cute cute cute.

9. "Nothing Takes the Place of You" - William Bell - Soul of a Bell

I love this song. The original version, by its composer Toussant McCall (as seen performed in John Waters' Hairspray), is better, but this one, here done by the writer of many great songs himself ("You Don't Miss Your Water," "Everybody Loves a Winner") on an album spotlighting him as a performer (a soul Tapestry?). He's not the singer most of his interpreters are, but he does a nice job here, on a song that, unlike most of the album, he didn't write.

10. "Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin" - The Mothers of Invention - Absolutely Free

Papa Frank enters to show how a big rock instrumental is done, with self-conscious, "we're serious musicians here," references to Holst (in the musical intro) and Stravinsky (in the title). Makes me wanna get up and get down. In too much pain to dance, and its a quiet morning. I'm dancing in MY MIND!

More rest, more computer, more music. Now.

Passings

Two people gone, both talented. One I somewhat knew, not well, but well enough to like and like a lot, one I didn't know but loved onscreen.


Stephanie Mnookin was talented as an actress, amazing as a comedian, and lovely as a human being. I knew her from around Nada on Ludlow Street back in the day, and recently got to see her again when we performed as husband and wife in Theatre Askew's I, Claudius Live!. Soon after, I saw her perform at The Brick at the Brick-a-Brac variety show in her comedy duo, Guile, which was one of the damned funniest things I'd seen in a long time. This Summer, I saw Guile on TV on a new show on FUSE, and was really glad to see them moving up to the attention they deserved. I had been hoping to see Guile again live sometime soon, both to laugh a lot and to congratulate Stephanie on her career advances (she had been having some success as a writer as well).

I'm somewhat embarassed to admit that for a long time, Stephanie always had to remind me every time we met (years apart, usually, granted) of the various places we knew each other from -- I always knew that I KNEW her when I saw her, you couldn't forget her face, but I could never remember from WHERE. After seeing Guile, she finally stuck permanently in my head, name face, where I knew her from.

Michael Gardner told me of her death (from a sudden heart attack) a few days ago. Everyone I've talked to who knew her is simply stunned and upset. Here's a brief, lovely tribute from some people who knew her much better than I.

I'll miss Stephanie.


"Adrienne Shelly was best known and loved for her work in the films of Hal Hartley. She did many other things (including a nice turn on an episode of Homicide), but many of us will always love her for being Maria Coughlin in Trust.

The final shot of that film is probably my favorite closing image of any film ever -- Maria, standing under a traffic light in the wind, watching Matthew, the man she loves (or at least "respects, admires, and trusts"), being taken away by the cops, having put on her glasses (which she hates and he loves) to see him clearly as he vanishes in the distance, wearing her old boyfriend's varsity jacket over a dress of Matthew's late mother. Watching. With a great music cue composed and performed by Hartley himself. Garbo at the end of Queen Christina comes to Long Island.


This isn't that last long shot -- no one seems to have a capture of it online -- but a publicity photo from around that moment:





Adrienne Shelly (who I discovered shares my birthday, and was two years older than me; I would have thought her younger) died two days ago, and the cause is still being investigated. She will always be a beloved part of film history for me, at least for being part of one perfect shot.