Living in the Material World

9th November 1961

2008-11-10T16:08:42Z

Almost missed recognizing this important date. Here it is a day late:

Thursday, Nov. 9, 1961 marked Brian Epstein's first visit to the Cavern Club to check out the Beatles (with Alistair Taylor accompanying).

John Lennon Photo Gallery (Plus other NY 70s Photography)

2008-11-07T02:00:51Z

For all my friends who are totally into John Lennon, I thought I'd post this link that I happened across while looking for something non-Beatles-related:

http://www.sohoweeklynews.com/Book/LennonOno/index.htm

It could be that every John Lennon fan is already familiar, but ... if not, I think you'll like it. It's Allan Tannenbaum's photography of John, Yoko and the two of them together.

Check out the other galleries as well, such as Music: http://www.sohoweeklynews.com/Book/Music/index.htm Nice photos of Springsteen, Tom Petty, Dylan, the Stones and many others.

Awesome photo site.

Random Thoughts on Sex and God and Deepak Chopra and George Harrison

2008-10-21T12:58:48Z

gloigloi posted the following article on johnheartpaul about Dave Stewart opening a sex shop for the stars in West Hollywood http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedishrag/2006/12/dave-stewarts-p.html :

"Dave (Stewart) and I have been friends for 15 years, done many projects together and he has gotten me into many scrapes but this is definitely the biggest," admitted a smiling Chopra, who once wrote a piece for Playboy entitled "Does God have Orgasms?"

To a rapt audience, Chopra explained sexual pleasure as a creative, powerful force of nature and one that is essential to achieving spiritual enlightenment.

When he wasn't toying with the idea of being a renunciate, I imagine George adopted a very similar philosophy about sex. He had gotten to know Chopra before his death and the two seemed to have developed a somewhat close relationship -- visiting the Maharishi together so George could apologize for the goings-on at Rishikesh back in '68. Looking at the guest list (Ringo Starr, Olivia Harrison and Eric Idle), I couldn't help feeling that here was a party George would have enjoyed.

Book Meme

2008-10-08T13:05:38Z

Gacked from carrotcaper2007

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
6. Take it if you want it.

"I claim birth-right, and blood right -- and death right!" So saying, he pulled both the swords down from above the fireplace, and passed one, hilt first, to his younger brother. "Now, guard you, my brother -- and may the best man win."

Steel flashed in the firelight and kissed and clashed and kissed again in an intricate dance of thrust and parry. At times it seemed no more than a dainty minuet, or a courtly and deliberate ritual, while at other times it seemed pure savagery, a wildness that moved faster than the eye could easily follow. Around and around the room they went, and up the steps to the mezzanine, and down the steps to the main hall. They swung from drapes and from chandeliers.

"Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves," by Neil Gaiman in "Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders"

How Vincent Spinetti was recruited for "A Hard Day's Night"

2008-10-07T14:09:09Z

I loved this anecdote,which I found on an old entry in eppylover's blog: http://eppylover.livejournal.com/210033.html#cutid1

Great find, Christine!

Spinetti was discovered by the Beatles in 1963 when Lennon and Harrison saw him in Oh! What A Lovely War, for which he later won a Tony Award when the show hit Broadway.

It was when the pair visited him in his dressing room after the show that they seconded him to appear in their first movie.

After curtain down on Oh! What A Lovely War, Harrison and Lennon went backstage to persuade the actor to be in A Hard Day's Night.

"George said to me, 'Oh Vic, you've got to be in our film because if you're not in our film my mother won't come because she fancies you'. So I was cast in A Hard Day's Night, then later Help! and Magical Mystery Tour.

So rich was his association with the Fab Four that when his home was burgled in the '70s the thief took everything - save for four pens he'd had inscribed with the names John, Paul, George and Ringo.

"It was worth losing everything just for the laugh I got out of it," Spinetti muses

"This chap took it all and left the pens I'd put in the house ready to give the boys as presents as they were always borrowing my fountain pen to write autographs.

"And you know what? He left a note by the side of them saying that he didn't take them because he was a fan too.

Prefer your Beatles Fanfics Historically Accurate?

2008-10-06T18:03:21Z

A new comm has been created where know-it-all Beatles fans can provide answers to fic writers who actually care enough to ask questions:

http://community.livejournal.com/beatlesresearch/profile

It's just getting started so if you are a font of Beatles info., you should definitely friend the site. In addition to helping newer fans avoid egregious errors, perhaps we can get some good discussions going in the course of answering questions. Even those of us who are fairly well-read on the Beatles have our own questions and a community of people with whom to exchange information could be great fun.

Thanks for creating this, nemperor!

Thought for Today

2008-10-05T18:08:45Z

The comic answer to the toe-tapping crucifixion scene that ends "Life of Brian." I do think George would have loved this:

There are bad times just around the corner,
There are dark clouds traveling through the sky
And it's no good whining
About a silver lining
For we know from experience that they won't roll by,
With a scowl and a frown
We'll keep our peckers down
And prepare for depression and doom and dread,
We're going to unpack our troubles from our old kitbag
And wait until we drop down dead.

Noel Coward, 1953

Happy thoughts, happy thoughts! grins

From this week's episode of "House": Today's most perverse/off-beat/memorable Beatles allusion

2008-10-04T18:35:52Z

"Pete Best! [pause] Good God! Has none of you ever read a history book? The original Beatles drummer! A bunch of nerves controls the tempo of the heart. They're all playing in time except one dude who can't keep the beat, wrecks the whole thing. So, we hire Ringo."

"Pete Best was actually a great drummer but I assume you mean the patient needs a cardiac sympathectomy (sp?)?"

"Probably should have just said that."

Today's most perverse/off-beat/memorable Beatles allusion.

2008-10-02T23:30:57Z

In what I hope will be the first of many posts under this heading, I offer you the following:

"It might be nice if I could fellate myself while farting the White Album, but I haven't been able to quite master that yet."

- Hank Moody (David Duchovny), Season 1, Episode 2 of "Californication"

Meme

2008-09-30T21:51:36Z

01. Think of the first word that comes to mind when you think of me.
02. Go to Google Images and search for that word.
03. Reply to this post with one of the pictures on the first page of results (don't tell me the word).
04. Put this in your own journal so that I can do the same.
Tags: meme

Interview with Ringo Starr from January 1977

2008-09-12T22:38:36Z

I found this interview with Ringo and Nancy Andrews from People magazine, January 17, 1977 and I was startled to see a reference to Ringo being manic-depressive. Anybody ever heard that factoid before? Or is the term being thrown around as a rough equivalent to "normal" clinical depression?

In any case, enjoy!

Little Lee Starr may simply have heard it wrong: back then Daddy was into rings, not Wings. Of course, Lee's is not the first generation of Beatlemaniacs to patronize Pop. Ringo Starr, now 36, was often considered a journeyman amoung geniuses, "expected," he recalls, "to do my funny fills on the tom-toms" while Lennon and McCartney caught their breath between those ineffably wizard cadenzas. Even if Ringo was the most vulnerable, cuddly and riotously deadpan Beatle to his fans, he was to critics a Fab Fourth in musicianship.

"My 6-year-old daughter asked me once, 'Daddy, you asked to play in Paul McCartney's backup band, didn't you?'"

"I was always underrated," he grumbles today, but admits that "I was embarrassed by my little songs. I'd write tunes that were already written and just change the lyrics, and the other three would have hysterics tellin' me what I'd rewritten."

Ringo inadvertently summed up the postparting depression of his early solo career in the title of his own 1971 hit 'It Don't Come Easy.' Of late, to grind the Sgt. Pepper mill, things are gettin' better--with a little help from his friends like Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton and old partners George Harrison and John Lennon, who all joined Ringo in the studio for his latest and most accomplished solo LP, 'Ringo's Rotogravure.' For the first time Ringo is also considering a personal tour this year. "I'm lazy, but I'd like to try it three days a week for a month." Simultaneously he'll awaken his dormant film career with a cameo role in Mae Wests' 'Sextette.'

The other departure in Starr's life is to "leave England forever"--fleeing an 83 percent tax stranglehold by shuttling between two sunny tax shelters. As a resident of income-tax-free Monte Carlo, he lives in a 30th-floor two-bedroom apartment high over the Mediterranean; and, as a legal 'nonresident' in the U.S., he can spend as much as half a year in his rented cottage nestled in the Hollywood Hills without obligation to the IRS for his international earnings.

Ringo's self-exile was complicated by his 1975 divorce from Maureen, his ex-hairdresser wife of 10 years and mother of their three children, sons Zak, 11, and Jason, 9, plus Lee, who all stayed in England. The anguish of the breakup has been greatly soothed by Ringo's live-in love of the past two years, Nancy Andrews, 29, a striking Alabama-born former Vogue, Mademoiselle and TV commercials model. "She flashed her eyes once," he says, recalling their first date, when he invited her to a studio session, "and I've been in love with her ever since."

There was a time, Ringo remembers, when he and the boys joked that "'you couldn't rock after 30,' but then you get there and you stop laughing." Hair and beard streaked with gray, he strides heavily in riding boots around house and pool like a brooding baron, hands clasped behind his back. His eyes, like two unevenly set azure stones, angle downward, giving off a still-warm but weary glow even when his own offhand wit extracts a smile from his somber face. "I'm bound to get a bit weird at 40," he predicts.

For now, he and Nancy stay young by indulging Ringo's fancy at the blackjack tables in Monte Carlo and by living in a leisurely flow of days into nights and back into days in California. "L.A. shuts down at 2 a.m.," he says, "and this place opens up. It's like open house at Ringo's." On any given night Clapton and his lady, Harrison's estranged wife Patti, might show up, and the men will sing pub ditties till 9 a.m. "I had been coming to California for seven years," says Ringo, "and didn't know where the ocean was in relation to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. That's heavy." L.A. fans are gentler now, he notes. "They say, 'Hey, Ring,' but they don't hassle or run after me."

Most nights Starr stays home, with Nancy as the cook of the house. "I'm easy to please," Ringo explains. "Fish, meat, nothin' fancy. I don't need your curries and chop sueys. Sometimes Nancy and her friends go on a rampage to a Mexican restaurant on girls' night out. I don't go. Garlic and onions kill me. I prefer cognac." Afterward, she says, "We just curl up on the couch and watch TV or read--I'm into really cheap Gothic novels and Richard [the Christian name still employed by Ringo's intimates] reads sci-fi." They own some 200 hours of TV and feature-film cassettes--like "Creature from the Black Lagoon"--which reflect Ringo's escapist passions. "I don't like to sit there and worry if I'm gettin' the story right. I want to be totally absorbed and taken away."

Their L.A. home and most furnishings are rented--except for the stereo and video gear and two Gene Autry posters. Ringo laughs off reports that he's broke--and therefore plumping for the overhyped $50 million Beatle resurrection. "I'm no billionaire--Rockefeller, he's really loaded--but if you think the Beatles didn't save any money, you're insane. Broke is relative. I'm just the biggest spender. I'm 30 companies, you know, multinational. We're in everything from dentist chairs to vending machines, but I don't talk about it." His business managers confiscated all his credit cards but one "because I used them like water. I used to spend them on jewelry, cars and my toys" "And me," Nancy adds.

"My divorce had been happening for years," he says. "It can break your brain. I overreacted to the responsibility of marriage and kids for a long time, but now I've adjusted. I'd like to have children with Nancy." As for Ringo's appeal, she exclaims, "I am so attracted to his mind that he just takes my heart away. He's fast, sharp, physically the most aware man I've ever met."

Nancy, who had herself been married for four years, says when they first met he'd just sit in his hotel room with the remote-control TV. "He told me, 'I'm a manic-depressive.' So I became a clown and wouldn't let him stay that way too long. It took him a long time to come out of it." Even now, she adds, he's "moody and supersensitive"--like last July when, "feeling vaguely insane and drinking some new drink," he shaved his head bald. "It was a time when you either cut your wrists or your hair," he explains, "and I'm a coward."

Ringo grew up a lonely, sickly only child, and he has always had a deep personal stake in successful fathering. "My father [a house painter] left when I was 3, my mom [a barmaid] worked and my grandma looked after me. I've always had that I'll be the father' thing, and the main brain damage of divorce has been the kids," he frets. "They freaked out at first," he goes on, "but they got over it quicker than I did. Maureen and I are still friendly and I see the kids whenever I want." Ringo bought them all a home minutes away from his 80-acre Tittenhurst Park mansion, picked them up from school and had them weekends. Now they can visit weekends only when he's in Monte Carlo. "The school is very understanding and lets them out Fridays."

All three children spent last summer in L.A. with Ringo and Nancy, and they returned for the Christmas holiday in Lake Tahoe. "Nancy is great with them," says Ringo, "and they think the world of her." (Maureen, he cheerfully reports, is "involved with someone.") On parenting, Ringo sounds like rock's Dr. Spock--dispensing theories but no advice. Like Paul McCartney, he's firm about discipline. "I've beaten my kids and made them learn to say "excuse me,'" he says. "But as for TV violence affecting them, bull. We only want what we're denied. I bought my kids all the guns, cowboy outfits and rifles I could when they were small, and they're over it. I hate suppression. If my kids grow up killers or priests, that's that."

Ringo scrupulously avoids dictating musical taste at home. As a result, eldest son Zak "likes some Beatles tracks he's heard," sighs his father, "but he prefers Alice Cooper and Kiss." Indeed, Daddy resists any temptation to reminisce about the Beatles and be engulfed by the memories of his gloriously prolific younger days. Even when the McCartneys visited last June during the Wings tour, and when Harrison and the Lennons were in town for the Rotogravure recording sessions, says Ringo, "only 2 percent of our time was spent in nostalgia. We don't back off from it, but it's not like those were the only days of our lives." He does have a Ringo-esque theory of it all, though: "I always thought we were five. Us four--and we weren't the greatest players--and something else: Magic!"

As for a second coming, "We did talk about it," Ringo levels, "but theres' no interest now. If anything, we'd do an album first, then prepare for a tour for six months, and we don't have that kind of time. And we wouldn't do it for the money. We were never into that." What were they into? "We never wanted to be dictators, presidents or kings," Ringo says. "But we did what we wanted to do--we revolutioned the world of music."

George would have been 50 Years a Beatle....

2008-09-02T01:33:10Z

50-year anniversary of Harrison's career with Beatles

3 comments by Ed Masley - Aug. 29, 2008 03:43 PM
The Arizona Republic

It was 50 years ago this very weekend -- Friday, Aug. 29, to be exact -- that a no-account skiffle group from Liverpool, the Quarry Men, took what, in retrospect, would be one giant step toward world domination with the acquisition of a baby-faced guitarist Paul McCartney had met on the bus home from Liverpool Institute.

As John Lennon would later recall his decision to welcome George Harrison into the fold, "We asked George to join because he knew more chords, a lot more than we knew. We got a lot from him."

To say the Beatles got a lot from George would be, if anything, an understatement. Often overshadowed by the untouchable songwriting prowess of Lennon-McCartney, George's contributions to the Beatles legacy were actually quite huge, from his guitar work to the original songs he was able to carve out a space for in the Beatles' catalog.

Here's a look at some of George's most enduring contributions to the Beatles' legend.

1962 - At the Beatles' audition for Parlophone Records, producer George Martin asks the band, "Is there anything that you're not happy about?" As George Harrison later recalls in The Beatles Anthology, "We shuffled about silently, then I said, 'Well . . . I don't like your tie!" The rest is only history because, as fate would have it, Martin shares the youngest Beatle's sense of humor.

1963 - Having taken ill in a hotel room, George makes the most of a bad situation, penning his first Beatles song, Don't Bother Me. Appearing on the Beatles second album, With the Beatles, it's much darker and surlier - some would say more Lennonesque - than anything Lennon-McCartney had written at that point. George's girl has left him and he's gone all emo (years ahead of schedule), warning visitors, "Don't come around, leave me alone, don't bother me." Years later, George himself dismisses his first effort as a "fairly crappy song," but what does he know? Don't Bother Me is also featured in the Beatles' film debut, A Hard Day's Night, in 1964.

1964 - George gets off the opening shot of the coming folk-rock revolution with that freaky 12-string Rickenbacker chord that ushers in A Hard Day's Night. Rolling Stone magazine later declares it "the most famous chord in all of rock and roll," while Guitarist Magazine chimes in with the following bit of rock-crit poesy: "A hijacked church bell announcing the party of the year." Even Joey Ramone recalls that first chord as a "wake-up call," which doesn't necessarily mean we have to credit George with having sown the seeds of punk that day, but someone somewhere more than likely has.

1965 - George adds a sitar to Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown), the first Western musician to play the traditional Indian instrument on a pop song. Although he'll later study sitar with the legendary Ravi Shankar, at this point, he's pretty much feeling his way around an instrument he'd picked up on the cheap after being intrigued by the sound it made while filming Help! As he'll later recall in The Beatles Anthology, "I hadn't really figured out what to do with it. But when we were working on Norweigan Wood, it just needed something. It was quite spontaneous. . . . I just picked it up and found the notes . . . and it just seemed to hit the spot." That same year, George contributes two amazing songs to Rubber Soul - the folk-rock classic If I Needed Someone and Think For Yourself, a tough-love self-help anthem fueled by fuzz-bass, psychedelic harmonies and self-righteous contempt for someone "telling all those lies about the good things that we can have if we close our eyes."

1966 - In a clear sign that George has come into his own as a writer, he opens Revolver with a jagged blast of stinging social commentary, Taxman. Bizarrely, the blistering backwards guitar lead turns out to be Paul. But the lyrics couldn't be more George: "Now my advice for those who die/Declare the pennies on your eyes," goes one memorable dig at The Man. Revolver also finds George coming into his own on the sitar with a song he's written on the instrument, the mesmerizing Love You To, while reinventing rubber soul with a distinctly Eastern feel on the surprisingly McCartneyesque I Want To Tell You.

1967 - After the strides he'd made at infiltrating his own band on the Revolver sessions, it has to be a bit disheartening for George to place only one song on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the year's most celebrated album. But at least he gets a long one - Within You Without You, which charts George's further foray into the world of Indian classic music, written on harmonium this time instead of sitar. He's the only Beatle featured on the track, joined by Indian session players. That same year brings George's Blue Jay Way, a spooky psychedelic classic written on a Hammond organ, to the Beatles' only underrated album, the soundtrack to Magical Mystery Tour. He sings about a fog upon LA and sounds as though he's lost in one. But that just makes it feel more psychedelic.

1968 - After being held in check on Paul McCartney's special project, Sgt. Pepper, George is free to flex his writing muscles on the band's self-titled double album, which everyone soon takes to calling The White Album. While My Guitar Gently Weeps is the one people gravitate to, even more so today. But George gets four songs, one per album side, and clearly makes the most of it, abandoning the Eastern flavor of his recent output in the process. Piggies is a darkly comic slice of social commentary from the Taxman school, a baroque-flavored gem that spoofs the upper crust in lines like, "In their sties with all their backing, they don't care what goes on around. In their eyes, there's something lacking. What they need's a damn good whacking." That last line was written by his mum, but still, it's funny. So is Savoy Truffle, his tribute to sweets and the damage they do to your teeth ("You'll have them all pulled out after the Savory truffle"). Long Long Long isn't nearly as funny, a haunting meditation on his reconnection with a great lost love, which may or may not be the sweet lord he would sing about on My Sweet Lord.

1969 - George contributes two songs to the soundtrack for the animated feature Yellow Submarine. On It's Only a Northern Song, he paints a bitter psychedelic portrait of the way his songs are treated in the Beatles universe ("It doesn't really matter what chords I play, what words I say or time of day it is"). The punch line is the seemingly disoriented orchestration. But It's All Too Much is the revelation. Recorded before Sgt. Pepper and held back from Magical Mystery Tour, its utter brilliance only underscores the exact point It's Only a Northern Song was striving to address. Who lets a song like that sit on a shelf for two turbulent years until the psychedelic majesty, ushered in on a wave of Hendrixian feedback, that would have seemed so cutting edge in 1967 feels like what it is - an outtake? Fortunately, George's contributions to the Beatles' other, more important 1969 release, Abbey Road, are shown the respect they deserve. The heartfelt ballad Something marks the first time any George song had been chosen as an A-side for a Beatles single (even if it is a "double A-side," backed with Come Together). Either way, it soars to No. 3 here in the States and tops the U.K. charts while Lennon hails it as his favorite song on Abbey Road. And while it isn't chosen as a single, the gorgeous, acoustic guitar-driven Here Comes the Sun would emerge as a radio staple.

1970 - There's one classic moment in the documentary Let It Be where George responds to Paul's "suggestions" about how to play his guitar with a withering, "I'll play whatever you want me to play, or I won't play at all if you don't want me to play. Whatever it is that'll please you, I'll do it." George contributes two song to the soundtrack - I Me Mine, an impassioned attack on the ego that would have been easy to read as a swipe at McCartney, and the lighter-hearted For You Blue, a playful blues romp best remembered for him egging Lennon on during a lap steel guitar solo with "Elmore James got nothing on this baby."

Books!

2008-07-07T19:32:47Z

I'm always the last to do these! The origin of the whole thing is unknown to me but, really, does it matter?

Book discussion, anyone?

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've only read 6 and force books upon them ;-)

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien   Loved The Hobbit. Bored with The Rings books.   Skimmed the third book
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - J. K. Rowling     Read a couple.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible ...I've read a lot. Not all the way through if that's what's meant.
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte Loved it when I read it as a kid. Rolled my eyes as a 22 year old
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman.
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller   Loved it as a teen. Don't know if I still would.
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare. No, but I've read a number of the plays and some of the sonnets
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien   A perfect little gem.
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks.
18. Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger.
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger.
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald   Loved it as a teenager
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens.
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
28. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll   Love it every time I read it.
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame I think so, when I was a kid.

31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy   I adore Tolstoy. This book could change your life if you don't read it as a piece of romantic claptrap. Try hard.
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens Some of it. Don't think I ever finished. Not sure why.
33. The Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis. All except "A Horse and His Boy." I think that book sucks.
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - A. A. Milne I liked it when I was a kid...

41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving. Read several of his books, not this one.
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins.
46. Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy I think I read it but I can't remember a thing about it.
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding.
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan.

51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert.
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons   Loved this. Thought I'd die laughing.
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen   I'm a Jane Austen fanatic. Once I got her (which didn't happen until adulthood), I was in love.
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon.
60. Love In the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov.
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt.
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold.
65. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding   Is it this one or the follow-up that has the interview with Colin Firth? I laughed til I cried.
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie. I'd like to read something by Rushdie. Not sure that this is the one I want to read.
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson.
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath Loved this in college.
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome. Isn't this a children's book from the 1950s?
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray     I LOVE Thackeray. Thackeray and Trollope
80. Possession - AS Byatt.

81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell.
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert Why do French novels leave me saying, "God I hate the French" even though I don't really. (Zola is worse.)
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry.
87. Charlotte's Web - E. B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom.
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton.

91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks. Never heard of it.
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole.   What a wonderful book. Love it!
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute.
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare.
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Road Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Stolen from Carrotcaper2007

2008-06-26T16:49:35Z

- Go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday.
- Copy and paste three events, births and deaths into your journal.
- Pass these instructions on to all your friends!

Events

1780 - American Revolutionary War: Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point.
1827 - According to Joseph Smith, Jr., the angel Moroni gave him a record of gold plates, one-third of which Joseph translated into The Book of Mormon.
1937 - J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is published.

Births

1934 - Leonard Cohen, Canadian singer and songwriter
1947 - Stephen King, American author
1950 - Bill Murray, American actor

Deaths

19 BC - Virgil, Roman poet (b. 70 BC)
1832 - Sir Walter Scott, Scottish writer (b. 1771)
1974 - Jacqueline Susann, American novelist (b. 1918

Slightly warped doesn't cover it

2008-06-23T00:29:47Z

This is disturbing and demented. Let's hope that even anti-gay people stop short of actually giving this one to kids:

http://www.slightlywarped.com/crapfactory/curiosities/disturbingkidsbook.htm

For those who like to refer to Paul McCartney as a "Hot Dog"

2008-05-17T13:12:27Z

Yes, he's a musical genius, but still...

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/people/news/article_1404557.php/Irritating_Paul_McCartney

If you love Paul McCartney to death and can't understand how anybody could find him the least bit irritating ....

just remember that the other Beatles love(d) him to death but would almost certainly have voted him #1 on this list, too.

Crazy in the Beatles spirit

2008-04-26T11:31:07Z

Yes, I am still alive and my big event is tonight. Wish me luck.

This tickled me more than I can say so I must share this tidbit. (From the Rutles-like account of Beatles history from the Uncyclopedia):

In the middle of taking carrots one day it was George's idea to visit the Maharishi Chicken Korma Yogurt Man in India and the rest of them agreed. The Maharishi was the head leader of a Indian tea/curry mediation association of hypnosis. However, it was here where they learned the tragic news: Gertrude Einstein had succumbed to relativity. The Beatles were crushed. The good news is that the tea wasn't that bad, and the curry was absolutely fantastic.

Read the rest here: http://mirror.uncyc.org/wiki/Beatles

(I just clicked on this link from some post somewhere in the last week. If someone on my friends list posted it, I apologize for not crediting you for putting me on to it. I just have no memory.)

I Love "The Onion"

2008-03-17T20:00:18Z

Novelists Strike Fails To Affect Nation Whatsoever

LOS ANGELES—The economy has seen no adverse effects, as American consumers easily adjust to the sudden cessation of any bold new sprawling works of fiction.

Dezo Hoffmann home movie

2008-03-12T22:49:12Z

It's great to hear the photographer who was present talking about what they were like the day they shot this film. Enjoy!

749_penny_lane @ 2008-03-04T21:19:00

2008-03-05T04:55:24Z

Leave a comment and I'll give you a letter.
Then you have to list 10 things you love that begin with that letter.
Afterwards, post this in your journal and give out some letters of your own.

My letter is "H", given to me by carrotcaper2007.

1.      Harrison, George

2.    Hephaistion (as played by Jared Leto)

3.      "Here Comes the Sun"

4.       Hummus

5.      Halloumi cheese (cheese that doesn't melt when you fry it is awesome)

6.      "Hallelujah" sung by Rufus Wainwright

7.      Hyacinths

8.      Heliotrope: the word and the flowers

9.      Hall & Oates

10.    "House of the Seven Gables" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Eric Clapton's white-trash Mississippi childhood (village of Ripley)

2008-02-27T04:43:44Z

From Terry Gross' book, "All I Did Was Ask," we get a wonderfully asinine quote that reveals something of the true Eric Clapton. The interview was conducted in 1989. For those not familiar, Terry Gross is host of the show "Fresh Air" on Public Radio.

TG: Was there an element of romance in your mind about a blues musician's life?

CLAPTON: Yes, it was incredibly romantic. I could identify with some aspects in that I came from a very poor, country background. Except it wasn't a racial situation. But we were very poor and I can imagine it would be similar to somewhere in Mississippi. At a very early age, I dreamt of myself as being this lonesome blues singer.

Post-war Britain did suffer from shortages and rationing -- but this assessment of his family's background seems a little self-pitying even for Eric Clapton. Was growing up in Surrey without much money really like growing up disadvantaged in Mississippi?

Story: "Love You To"

2008-02-13T22:44:36Z

Crosspost with lennonharrison

"Love You To"

TITLE: Love You To (Response to Writing Prompt #3 on lennonharrison)

PAIRING: George/John

RATING: PG (sorry, nothing explicit here)

DISCLAIMER: This is fiction. None of this really happened.

http://community.livejournal.com/lennonharrison/41300.html

749_penny_lane @ 2008-02-13T08:31:00

2008-02-13T14:48:36Z

Is this a well-known quirk that I discovered this morning while reading the lyrics for "The Art of Dying" written in George Harrison's own hand and reproduced in his book, "I, Me, Mine" ?

There'll come a time when all of us must leave here
Then nothing Mr. Epstein can do
Will keep me here with you

Mr. Epstein? His name shows up three times in the handwritten lyrics.

The lyric as recorded:

There'll come a time when all of us must leave here
Then nothing Sister Mary can do
Will keep me here with you

Kind of sweet that Brian shows up as the ultimate fixer in this song. And it's Mr. Epstein, of course, formality, sarcasm and affection all rolled into one.

Excerpts from Cynthia's book re: George

2008-01-28T15:44:17Z

I found these excerpts from “A Twist of Lennon” by Cynthia Lennon interesting (Avon Books, 1978).

Page 167: (February 1968, trip to India)
Our small party consisted of George, Patti, Jenny, Patti’s younger sister, John and myself. Magic Alex also accompanied us...Previous to George’s experiences with LSD and the subsequent flower power explosion, he had been the most tactless, blunt and often pig-headed of the four Beatles. George was of course the youngest and least mature, but to me he was the one Beatle who altered most in character and temperament over the years. He grew up very quickly, changing from a tactless youth into a sensitive, thinking individual. The rough edges were smoothed down and self-discipline became the cornerstone of his character. This was never more evident than in India.

Page 171-172: (In India)
Our very happy group seemed to be expanding by the minute. Patti and George were very happy in learning the sitar...Donovan composed Jennifer Juniper for Patti’s sister Jenny...Letting off steam entailed smoking, playing cards and on one occasion drinking. Drinking alcohol was strictly forbidden in Rishikesh...But being human and a little rebellious, a bottle of Indian wine was smuggled into our quarters. God only knows how we got it past our lips. If we had put a naked flame to it, I’m sure it would have exploded. Nevertheless we all had a swig, shrieked, groaned and giggled at our madness. It was only a few days later that we were informed that a newspaper had printed an article about a sale of Indian alcohol which had poisoned hundreds of Indians in our area. That was the last time we indulged in Indian alcohol. Luckily none of us were sick, only sick with ourselves due to our lack self-discipline. John and George did not imbibe. They did not feel the need to let off steam, only Patti, myself, Alexis and two American mediators. Alexis smuggled it in.

Page 135-139:
Tahiti was our next memorable holiday, with Patti and George. It had to be somewhere where no one could reach us... A yacht was the answer. ...George was still in the early stages of his romance with Patti and secrecy was still of prime importance.
Patti and George were still trying to impress each other in their new found love. George would take John to one side enthusing over Patti and the way she looked. ‘Hey, John, don’t you think she’s fantastic, just look at her, now, John, doesn’t she look like Brigette (Bardot)?’John found the whole situation highly amusing, love’s young dream was beyond redemption and if George mentioned Patti’s resemblance to Brigette once he mentioned it a thousand times until he bored the pants off John, being an old married man in comparison to George. Nevertheless...the holiday...proved to be the most relaxing and happy holiday that we ever had.
(Sketch by Cyn of Skinny George in a swim suit ,Sexy Patti in bikini, John with his arm around Cyn who’s wearing a bathing suit. Captioned: George saying to John, “Hey, John, Patti doesn’t half look like Brigitte, doesn’t she?”)

Fic Cross-Posted to lennonharrison

2008-01-24T13:41:38Z

For those who don't visit there as a matter of course, here's a link to a little drabble I posted for the slashy "That Boy" prompt on lennonharrison:

http://community.livejournal.com/lennonharrison/39802.html