Emeritus Laureate Emeritus

Lorin Maazel is stepping down as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic soon; cutting through the resulting complications, New Yorker music critic Alex Ross has an interesting idea for his successor – the sooner he can take over, the better.

Jimmy Scott

In a recent debate elsewhere on the mopiest songs ever, I was gobsmacked that no-one else mentioned “Little” Jimmy Scott. So, a primer: born 1927 in Cleveland, Ohio; suffered rare genetic condition which meant his voice didn’t break; started singing in the 1940s; signed by Ray Charles in the early 60s; suffered career decline and spent decades doing menial jobs; rediscovered in the early 90s by Lou Reed and David Lynch among others . He scared the crap out of lots of us in the last episode of Twin Peaks; but he’s mainly a jazz torch singer: “Slave to Love“; “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child“; “Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word“.

How To Talk To Girls On Buses

Tonight, saw Ian McDonald used as a pick-up.

Night. The bus. Enter the quiet, bookish boy with the soft skin, neat hair and trimmed beard. Brown. Head down, he stalks the bus aisle, coming to a stop at the very last standing position at the very back of the bus. Near me.

I’m sitting so that his book is in line with my hair line, I guess, but it’s thick enough I can’t see the cover. What I do is catch a glimpse of the name Ian McDonald on the top of a page. I crane my neck entirely, I realise later, unselfconsciously, trying to see *which* Ian McDonald he has. It’s a pretty thick book, & I’ve got a hunch –

Want to know how it ends? Here’s the rest.

My kind of film

Nature reports on the Tribeca Film Festival. They liked Black Sheep. Well, sort of:

Scientific realism 0. Nothing in peer-reviewed literature yet about mutant vampire were-sheep.

Entertainment 10. Did I mention the mutant vampire were-sheep?

Also reviewed: Eye of the Dolphin, Vitus, and Nobel Son (“…the plot is clotted with malice, manipulation, brutal violence and themes of cannibalism and scatology”. But it does star Alan Rickman).

Alas, it is only temporary

They are growing grass on the side of the National Theatre. Really.

Good morning, sir/madam…

Free Creative Commons wake-up calls from Stephen Fry.

A matter of Ping and Pong

Folk who’ve been to see The National Theatre / Kneehigh Theatre’s adaptation of A Matter Of Life And Death may find this clip from Japanese talent show Mascarade strangely familiar.

Everyone else can merely find it cool.

Unless they saw it last time it tripped around the internet.

This Review Made Me Cry

“Michael Chabon has spent considerable energy trying to drag the decaying corpse of genre fiction out of the shallow grave where writers of serious literature abandoned it.” (via Graham)

The 19th Floor -

- is BBOC’s Cool Geekblog Of The Day.

Naff music, functional commentary -

- and the most stunning photos I’ve seen in ages: an Atlantic slideshow of Namibia’s “Skeleton Coast”.