Blake effect

(Via Jeff)

Thunderbolts of Joy

Interesting Jonathan Richman tape. (Better title: Fire Walk With Me?)

Dizzies Newsfeeds for November 21

What's the "best remunerated poem in history"? Dizzyhead Rachel sifts through the competing author theories for the Christian verselet "Footprints," with some fascinating excursions into the realm of cryptomnesia...Termite Artist Matt on Lust, Caution (smartly comparing it to Black Book) and...Ruthless People?! (invoking Roger Ebert's definition of "idiots")...Isn't it time you enjoyed an episode of Cavemen?...Best line in a recent e-mail: "I'm on my third Sam Adams in the Pittsburgh airport..."...Josh Glenn has a great slideshow on the possible cinematic influence of Winsor McCay's Dream of the Rarebit Fiend...(For one more film reference and some literary ones, check out this piece by Parkus Grammaticus)...Look at how I persist in neither italicizing nor enquoting names of comic strips...J.G. also takes aim at a very specific fetish found in the oeuvre of certain Boston-based rock legends—including my beloved Modern Lovers:

(Bonus trivia: Did you know that David Lee Roth was from the Beantown area?)

Alien art — JR/ML — Dear Diary

"This must be the longest verse anybody's ever written!"

Click to watch Team Dizzies Member Matt's fascinating interview with R. Kelly, on the genesis of Trapped in the Closet, a piece of musical/visual "alien" art.

"I definitely can't call it a song anymore—it's too long!"

* * *

Jumping off the previous post on Jonathan Richman (and Lefty's note): What are the best Jonathan Richman/Modern Lovers albums? My list looks something like this:

1. Rockin' and Romance
2. The Modern Lovers
3. Jonathan Sings
4. Modern Lovers 'Live' ("My Little Kookenhaken"!)
5. Modern Lovers 88

After being very immersed in Richmania, I stopped keeping up c. I, Jonathan (1992!). Are there good latter-day JR/ML albums I should know about?

* * *

Dear Diary:
The other day I listened to Marshall Crenshaw's first album and that same day, at the grocery store, I heard...a rebroadcast of an old Casey Kasem show (why would they be playing such a thing?) and right after "Eye of the Tiger" came "Someday, Some Way." [Insert boinggg sound.]

She understood European things

1. Dizzyhead Kosiya sends us to this treasury of Vulgarity—the Vulgar Boatmen, recorded live at a bunch of different shows. And proving that anything mentioned on The Dizzies inevitably intersects with anything else mentioned here, the VB cover Jonathan Richman's "She Cracked."

2. From Dizzyhead Sarah, this beautiful "Gallery of Book Trade Labels." (Idea for new contest?)

3. More on Bill Fox, including a couple of mp3s. (Joe Hagan wrote about him in this year's Believer music issue.)

That Summer Feeling

"Turns out I bought a lot of bad records this summer—why on earth I bought that Dr. Hook album I'll never know—but it didn't matter..."
—Lefty, Driftwood Singers Present

Click through for three classic Jonathan Richman tunes...Lefty says Jonathan Sings! and Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers are the two must-have JR albums. I'd concur with the first, and sub Rockin' and Romance for the second! (And I'm assuming The Modern Lovers is a given.)

I'm too lazy to take out the camera, so here's the Photo Booth version: