Diana Krall - Quiet Nights

Diana reflects on the making of her new album:

A Night Out For The President

"Like basketball? There was Mr. Obama sitting courtside recently alongside astonished fans at the Verizon Center as he cheered on the Chicago Bulls in a losing battle against the Washington Wizards." (New York Times)

I'm trying really hard here not to make a lame mother-in-law joke, so let me just say that it's really nice to see President Obama out and about in the world:

Stevie Nicks - Gold Dust Woman

From her 2007 Tour.

Rock on, Ancient Queen...

Cougars

When I first started hearing about "cougars" in the context of older women dating younger men (as with Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, pictured), I wondered how this could be okay when I had understood that older men dating younger women was not. Was there a double standard being applied here?

Well, based on some really unscientific research reported in today's Boston Globe, it looks like it may all be a moot point:

"If I do the age-appropriate [events,] I get tons of women," Trickett said. "When I do younger men and older women, I get tons of women. When I do younger women older men, I get tons of older men and I struggle to get the women."

"Sure, Demi Moore broke a mold, and I know a few couples - family members and friends of friends - who represent the highly publicized demographic of older women and younger men, but the dating industry will tell you that for the most part that demographic is a myth. Men still seek younger women, especially as those men get older themselves.

"It's the general rules, what happens when people hook up and go into a relationship," said Mark Brooks, an online dating industry consultant who runs Online Personals Watch. "With men dating women, it tends to be up to six years younger but it will only be up to two years older."

Tidy Up!

Tom And Gisele Marry - Again!

Following up on a recent post, Tom and Gisele are getting married again:

"Word on the wedding front is that a number of Tom Brady’s teammates and some New England Patriot brass will be heading to Costa Rica next month to watch No. 12 and Gisele Bundchen tie the knot - again!

"Our locker room spies confirm that invites have gone out for an April wedding at Gisele’s getaway on the beach in Malpais on Costa Rica’s South Pacific Coast."
(Source: Boston Herald)

Sara Jane Olson

"The first time I encountered the word 'kleptomaniac,' I asked my mother what it meant.

"She said, 'That’s what they call it when a rich person steals something.'” (Caitlin Flanagan, in today's New York Times.)

For those of us who lived through the scattered debris of the 1960s, the story of a radical extremist from that time who managed to evade authorities for decades still has a lot of resonance, and the issues of punishment and redemption are quite complicated:

"We should review, very briefly: Sara Jane Olson, née Kathleen Soliah, was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the ’70s militant group most notorious for both kidnapping the newspaper heiress Patty Hearst and espousing a philosophy at one with the age: “Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the people.”

"Ms. Soliah robbed a bank in Carmichael, Calif., during which a mother of four was murdered, and a young pregnant bank teller was kicked in the belly and later had a miscarriage. According to Ms. Hearst, who has proved to be a reliable informant on the actions of the S.L.A. (and who was driving the getaway car), it was Ms. Soliah who did the kicking. Furthermore, bullets found in the dead woman’s body and scattered on the floor of the bank matched a gun found in a dresser drawer in Ms. Soliah’s room in the S.L.A. safehouse. Ms. Soliah was also part of a plot to murder Los Angeles police officers by placing pipe bombs packed with nails under two squad cars.

"Ms. Soliah was indicted, but then fled to Zimbabwe. Eventually, she returned under her new alias and married a well-to-do and highly respected doctor in St. Paul, where she became a pillar of the community and a mom of three straight-arrow children, and where she confined her terrorist activities to dinner theater. (She became an amateur actress, with a specialty in — God help us all — Shakespeare.)"

I recommend reading Caitlin Flanagan's entire Op-Ed.

The New Fireside Chat

Franklin Roosevelt used radio, the prevailing medium of the day, to communicate directly with the American people and to reassure them during the dark days of the Great Depression.

President Obama, appearing on Jay Leno's show this week, is attempting to do the same kind of thing, using the prevailing medium of this day (if in fact there is only one).

Time will tell if this approach will be effective, but a whole lot more people were watching and responding to his engaging style than had it been a "Presidential Address."

"Town hall meetings and West Wing news conferences do not convey the notion that the president is one of us. Making jokes on a talk show and drawing simple analogies for complicated issues -- which he did with great skill as a candidate – were a way to reassure and befriend viewers. The White House tapped Mr. Leno because he is viewed as the voice of the average Joe. At times, Mr. Obama managed to out-everyman Mr. Leno. “I do think in Washington it’s a little bit like `American Idol," Mr. Obama said with a grin. “Except everybody is Simon Cowell.” (New York Times)

Natasha Richardson 1963-2009

I was fortunate to have seen Natasha Richardson's performance as Sally Bowles in the Broadway revival of "Cabaret:"

"Ms. Richardson’s Tony Award came in 1998, for best actress in a musical, for her performance as Sally Bowles, the gifted but desperately needy singer in decadent Weimar Berlin who is at the center of “Cabaret.”

"It was a remarkable award: Ms. Richardson’s strengths did not include singing. But her reinvention of a role that was created by Liza Minnelli proved that a performer could act a song as well as sing it and make it equally affecting.

“Ms. Richardson, you see, isn’t selling the song; she’s selling the character,” Ben Brantley, writing in The Times, said of her delivery of the title song. “And as she forges ahead with the number, in a defiant, metallic voice, you can hear the promise of the lyrics tarnishing in Sally’s mouth. She’s willing herself to believe in them, and all too clearly losing the battle.” (From today's New York Times.)

She was mesmerizing; I will never forget her.

My Back Pages

From 1993; lots of talent in the room that night:

The Website Is Down

Much of the dialog on this video will sound painfully familiar to anyone who provides IT help as part of his or her job.

It's about 10 minutes long, but worth it in spite of the hyper-voices.

(Source: www.thewebsiteisdown.com)

America's Next Top Model

In a weak moment one night last week, I watched the conclusion of last season's "America's Next Top Model."

This is the kind of thing that happens to a guy caught in that dreadful lull between football and baseball seasons, especially if he doesn't care about college basketball.

So having watched the show, I wasn't at all surprised to read the following in today's New York Times:

"An open casting call for the reality television program “America’s Next Top Model” turned into mayhem on Saturday afternoon in Midtown Manhattan. Fights broke out, three people were arrested and at least six others suffered minor injuries after they were pushed down in a crush of thousands of aspiring models waiting in line to be discovered."

What did surprise me as I watched the video, was how many of the hopefuls and their entourages continued to push forward in order to improve their place in line, instead of getting the frack out of there: