The Feast of St. Bridget (Jones)

Happy Valentine's Day, my readers. I hope that you are staying warm and dry in the embrace of someone you love/like/paid for.

In case you were wondering, St. Valentine is indeed the patron saint of those in long-term relationships; however, if you are still looking for someone, you would do better to address your prayers to St. Raphael, according to this article from the BBC. The piece notes that

St Raphael is the patron saint for happy encounters

Which means that I unknowingly prayed to him a lot during my "bathhouse years" in the late 1990s...

And what about those of you who are looking for someone special this year? A spokesperson for the British Catholic Church has some advice:

"There is a lot of evidence to suggest that young people who have tapped into prayer groups have found partners," she said.

"Those who have exhausted traditional routes like online dating should try spiritual networks.

"Why not come along to a prayer group - it could be your lucky night."

Isn't it funny that online dating is now considered a "traditional route"? How things have changed in the last fifteen years!

As for meeting someone at a prayer meeting or church service, Fosco encourages it--especially if you're ugly. Interestingly, several of Fosco's homelier cousins met their mates that way. In fact, those types of gatherings may be some of the last situations in our society where physical attractiveness is irrelevant. After all, god loves your insides, right? The only problem is that most religions then encourage the production of numerous ugly children...

Saturday Story Hour: A.M. Homes

It's Saturday, the day of the week that we celebrate the art of the short story. We call it Saturday Story Hour.

Fosco is immoderately fond of American author A.M. Homes. She writes both novels and stories (and quite a bit of nonfiction). Her novels can be uneven, but her short fiction is excellent. She is willing to explore some of the darker areas of desire and is particularly good at evoking a skewed eroticism--an eroticism that speaks very directly to Fosco. (If you're interested in that part of her work, get a hold of her story "The Whiz Kids.") Her work occasionally makes it into anthologies of queer stories, but her interests are much broader.

She's always been interested in heterosexual marriage, but in recent years, her work has focused more on the ways in which loss and trauma intrude into that relationship. Fosco's favorite Homes story is the O. Henry award-winning "Do Not Disturb." That story is available in Homes's collection Things You Should Know, The O. Henry Prize Stories 2002, or McSweeney's 7. The story is about a doctor who finds that she has cancer and her cold antagonism toward her husband and friends.

For your Valentine's Day treat, Fosco has another Homes story about marriage and trauma: "May We Be Forgiven" (2007). There's more than marriage here, though--there's also adultery, sibling rivalry, and horrific violence. It's nastier than many of Homes's earlier stories; it's also sad and perceptive about the ways in which horrible things become everyday--the power that suburbia has to assimilate trauma. If there's a weakness in this story, it's probably the final bit of dialogue. I'll be interested to see what you think...

Read it, leave a comment, hug a loved one.

Famous Birthday Dinners

"Foodie Friday" concludes at Fosco Lives! Eat well this weekend.

As you may have noticed from yesterday's news, February 12 was a huge day for birthdays. Three of the greatest people in history were born yesterday. And because today is "Foodie Friday," it naturally occurred to Fosco to ask: "What did these great figures enjoy eating?" Here are the fruits of his research:

• We already have a good idea of Abraham Lincoln's favorite foods, thanks to the Obama Inaugural menu. But, according to this strange little article, there is more to know:
  

  Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's wife, knew that her husband liked fresh fruit, so she kept fresh fruit around all the time. Lincoln was especially fond of apples, which he ate fresh, but also loved in apple pies.
  
  One of Lincoln's favorite meals was a simple fruit salad with cheese and crackers.
  
  There were two known main dishes or entrees that Abraham Lincoln loved; the first was chicken fricassee with biscuits, and the second was an oyster and scallop stew.
  
  [...]
  
  Nuts were another favorite food of Abraham Lincoln's, and he ate them often.
  
  President Lincoln preferred to drink water above all other beverages, and seldom drank anything alcoholic.

  Well, that's all pretty straightforward. If you, like Fosco, don't know what chicken fricassee is, here is a a recipe that seems to give the general idea.
  
  
• You hopefully heard that yesterday was also the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Darwin, probably the most important scientist of the last two centuries. But what did he like to eat? Darwin's wife, Emma, actually wrote her own cookbook. Here is her recipe for "Beef Collops," whatever the hell that might be:
  

  Cut thin slices from the rump or rib. Spread them on a table, season with, black pepper and salt —Dash each side with flour, have ready some butter in the frying pan, boiling but not browned, put in the collops, fry them on each side a light brown, take then out of the pan without any of the butter that is left, and put them into a stew pan with some good beef gravy, plenty of sliced onion, some soy and walnut pickle, let all stew gently till the collops are quite tender and the sauce a proper thickness — This dish requires to be served up very hot. — N.B. The onions should be baked a little while before they are sliced.

  I was onboard the whole way--until the "walnut pickle."
  
  
• Last, but certainly not least among our February 12 bithdays, we have renowned author Judy Blume, who turned 71 yesterday. In a wide-ranging interview, Ms. Blume was once asked about her favorite food. Her response:
  

  Pasta, pasta, pasta! My all-time favorite.

  Clearly, she is one of the greatest living Americans. Let's hope she celebrated yesterday with a big plate of noodles.
  

"Wonder Years" Sex Scandal

From British tabloid The Sun, we have this creepy story:

Boy dad Alfie Patten yesterday admitted he does not know how much nappies cost — but said: “I think it’s a lot.”

Baby-faced Alfie, who is 13 but looks more like eight, became a father four days ago when his girlfriend Chantelle Steadman gave birth to 7lb 3oz Maisie Roxanne.

He told how he and Chantelle, 15, decided against an abortion after discovering she was pregnant.

Alfie, who looks like nothing so much as a very young Fred Savage, is four feet tall. Four feet tall.

Here is the picture of this nontraditional family:

I don't know about you, but for me there is absolutely no way to look at this picture and interpret it accurately: all I can see is a young woman with her two children. It's completely impossible for me to see those two crazy kids as a romantic couple.

In related news, the Octomom has offered to adopt all three of them.

[In less-related news, E! Online is actually running a poll as to who is the hotter MILF: Octomom or Angelina Jolie. Aside from the sheer stupidity of the question (Angelina Jolie is indisputably one of the hottest humans on earth), isn't it also in poor taste? I mean, for goodness sake, the Octomom is mentally ill! Should we really be calling her a MILF? Ugh.]

Rounding Up the Food

It's "Foodie Friday," so let's talk about food...

Fosco isn't really feeling ambitious on "Foodie Friday" this week, so he's just going with a post of food-related titbits:

• Times food critic Frank Bruni reviewed The John Dory this week. The John Dory calls itself a "British Seafood Restaurant," which should make one ignore the whole thing. However, it is also the creation of a very serious chef, April Bloomfield, so we must take notice of it. Bruni gives the place two stars (which means "very good") and is generally enthusiastic. Fosco was stopped in his tracks by this paragraph:
  

  There are nervy surprises. For a while Ms. Bloomfield served pan-fried milt, which is basically cod semen, its flavor and texture not unlike that of sweetbreads. She blasted it with capers and butter, which is also how she blasts its replacement for the time being, monkfish liver, served not in the pâté-esque way of many Japanese restaurants but as a hulking, meaty, pan-fried lobe. I admire her immensely.

  That's right, my friends: cod semen. See above right.
  
  
• You know what Fosco has been craving lately? A cocktail. Which is strange, because Fosco hasn't been drinking much the last few years (since his body got old). But, for some reason, Fosco has really been jonesing for a Pimm's Cup, like the one he enjoyed last summer at The Slanted Door. It's actually more of a summer drink, best enjoyed around Wimbledon-time (it's an English cocktail, of course), which may explain why it does not currently appear on Slanted Door's online bar menu right now.
  
  The thing about a Pimm's Cup is that it's difficult to make it correctly here in this country (as most bars lack Pimm's). However, as Camper English notes, the Slanted Door makes a very delicious approximation using gin &c. The other ingredient generally lacking around here is borage leaves; however, as English notes as well, cucumbers work almost as well.
  
  Now assume that Fosco doesn't want to try to make his own Pimm's Cup (authentic or approximated). Any ideas on where I could order one in the Bay Area?
  
  
• Speaking of cocktails, did you see that you can now get Sweet Tea-flavored vodka? Now Fosco has been getting tea-infused liquors (especially gin) in his cocktails for a number of years now at several local bars, so this doesn't seem like much of an innovation. But I'm sure that this wider exposure of tea-infused vodka will be greeted with much rejoicing at certain SEC football games.
  
  
• A couple new blogs (well, new to me) that I'm really digging! You may recall Fosco's extraordinary interest in the cuisine of Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Well, it turns out that Jean-Georges has his own blog and it has absolutely gorgeous food pix.
  
  Also, if you're a silly Top Chef aficionado (like Fosco and Oz), you should be reading Skillet Doux. The Top Chef power rankings on that blog are pretty helpful. And there are also useful reviews of various Top Chef contestant restaurants.
  

"Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious."

As Fosco has mentioned previously, Fosco Lives! gets a lot of traffic from the "playboy pubic shave"-loving perverts in Korea. But yesterday, he saw something in his Korea traffic he's never seen before:

That would be the "word" which follows the IP address. This is the place that, in Fosco's other traffic reports, the name of the Internet Service Provider (e.g., "comcast") appears. Apparently, that "word" is the name of an ISP.

Fosco's curiosity was piqued, so he had to do a Google search. Here's the result:

This isn't very illuminating. However, my favorite part is the "did you mean" recommendation here.

Any Fosco Lives! reader who can explain this "word" to Fosco (or who can pronounce it) will win a Fosco Lives! prize!

Will Fosco Become A Biker Chick?

Fosco tends to be a bit blasé about the world of wheeled things (which you would know if you've ever seen his completely uninteresting car). Oz has been working to change this and he's succeeding; and so are pieces like this one, describing one of the wheeled infatuations of Fosco's old friend Nick Goddard (of the remarkable Goddard Family). You should check out the brief article just to see the fun pictures...

Apparently, Nick has a thing for Honda Hobbits (a type of moped that Fosco didn't know existed). And you know, for a person like Fosco who is absolutely terrified of motorcycles, Nick actually makes the Hobbit sound pretty appealing:

A week after I bought them I was rubbing shoulders with my best friend as we raced each other down the road. She was grinning from ear to ear and laughing hysterically every time she'd lay on the pathetic duck quack horn. It's situational. When you want a simple roller skate to introduce people to motorcycling, old mopeds are perfect. You don't need a license to ride them, they don't need insurance, you don't need a helmet, there is no battery, there is no oil and no top end, they don't need to be inspected, registration is $5 per year and it's an absolute riot to ride around with someone who has never ridden before. Heck, my sister, who always tells me to ride safely and would never let her fiance get a bike, begs me to let her borrow them. You can even take them on the subway.

Which makes it all sound pretty fun, no? Although, of course, Fosco would still wear a helmet. And he would probably want to double check on that insurance thing. Let's not get too carried away...

New Yorker Roundup: Florida Ruins Everything.

The most recent New Yorker is not completely a John Updike tribute (although there is quite a bit of that). Yesterday, Fosco called your attention to the amazing Steven Millhauser story (that didn't seem a hit with the commenters...); today, he wants to share another titbit with you.

The best article in this current issue is George Packer's reporting on Florida as the ground zero of the mortgage crisis (unfortunately, you must be a subscriber to read the full text). The area around Tampa has been hit the hardest. Packer describes why Florida has been uniquely susceptible to this crunch:

The state's economy depends almost entirely on growth--that is, on new arrivals and the wealth they generate in construction and real estate. "Until two years ago, this was a growth machine that was the envy of the world," said Gary Mormino, a professor of history at the University of South Florida, in St. Petersburg, which is across the bay from Tampa. "Florida, in some ways, resembles a modern Ponzi scheme. Everything is fine for me if a thousand newcomers come tomorrow. The problem is, except for a few road bumps--'73, '90, and they were really minor--no one knew what would happen if they stopped coming."

Only Nevada has a lower population of native residents than Florida. The state's growth machine did not depend on higher education or high-paying professional jobs; it depended on real estate and sunshine. Tourism and migration allowed Florida to become a low-tax, low-wage state, where living was relatively cheap. "The Florida economy has been based on selling Florida," David Reed, who runs the Florida operation of an investment fund called CapitalSouth Partners said. "Our growth is all about population growth. When you take that away, what have you got?"

Apparently, pretty much everyone bought into this bubble of insanity:

By 2005, the housing market in Florida was hotter than it had ever been, and the frenzy spread across all levels of society. Migrant farmworkers took jobs as roofers and drywall hangers in the construction industry. Nearly everyone you met around Tampa had a Realtor's license or a broker's license or was a title agent. Alex Sink, the state's chief financial officer and a Democrat, said, "When the yardman comes and says he's not going to mow your lawn anymore because he's going to become a mortgage broker, that is a sure sign that something is wrong." Flipping houses and condominiums turned into an amateur middle-class pursuit. People who drew modest salaries at their jobs not only owned a house but bought other houses as speculators.

[...]

Jim Thorner, a real-estate reporter in the Tampa office of the St. Petersburg Times, said, "There were secretaries with five to ten investment homes--a thirty-five-thousand-dollar salary and a million dollars in investments. There's no industry here, only houses."

[...]

Karen Johnson-Crowther, another real-estate agent in Fort Myers, showed me the sales history of a property in an upscale gated community which she had recently bought at a foreclosure auction. Building had begun in 2005. On December 29, 2005, the house sold for $399,600. On December 30, 2005, it sold for $589,900. On June 25, 2008, it was foreclosed on. Johnson-Crowther bought it in December for $325,000. I said that the one-day increase in value must have been some kind of record, and she looked at me pityingly: "No."

What we have here is an entire state that drove off the cliff of irrational exuberance--and took billions of dollars in "wealth" with them.

And you know the strangest part? I can't understand why anyone would want to live in Florida in the first place...

Buy Gay Stock

According to yesterday's Gawker, the New York gays aren't taking the recession too seriously:

"The gays love a recession!" trills the New York Observer this morning. Gay nightlife and shopping is in full swing, despite the ruined economy. Childless wonders are taking over Manhattan again. Isn't it fabulous?

I don't know. Is it fabulous? I think I'd like to know more. Gawker asks the right question, of course:

Are the gays powering through these very early stages of the Big R because they really aren't affected? Or is this a highly delicate balancing act of desperation, denial, and willful ignorance?

Sadly, I don't think you'll lose money betting on gay ignorance. And lo, we have a quote from one of the interviewed gays:

"Gays love a recession because we hate the capitalist economy that's found in the hetero-normative patriarchy anyways. I say burn the motherfucker down! Right? Fuck Prop 8! Who gives a fuck? We should burn down Wall Street and take over New York."

Ummm. Right. Sure thing.

You know, Fosco definitely has sympathy for criticism of Wall Street and capitalism. But it's usually more persuasive when the critic isn't wearing white leather chaps (and only white leather chaps).

As for this gay, Fosco cannot really say that the recession has been affecting his spending that much. But, I think that's mainly because Fosco is still poor--just like he was before the recession. Plus ça change...

Joke of the Overnight

Fosco isn't quite sure how to feel about comedian Demetri Martin. On the one hand, he's working partially in the cerebral tradition of Stephen Wright--a tradition that Fosco enjoys. On the other hand, he's sometimes too cutesy by half.

I guess he has a new show (premiering tonight) that I probably won't watch. However, I did catch part of an old standup special last night and he had several really great lines. My favorite:

"I went whale watching once, it was very similar to watching people on a boat become disappointed."

That's kind of a great joke. To me, at least.

The End of the World (As We Know It)

And how do you feel?

Last Saturday, Fosco offered you a short story by Steven Millhauser. Well, today is not Saturday, but Fosco thinks you should take a brief (less than ten minute) break from your Wednesday to read this recent Steven Millhauser story (from The New Yorker). In this very short story, he imagines what an invasion from outer space will actually look like (if it eventually does happen). It's purposefully lacking in drama, which makes it all the sadder.

Millhauser's whole point here is that, when we finally do encounter an alien life form, in all likelihood that life form will be completely uninterested in us. And yet, it may still kill us all.

We have been invaded by nothing, by emptiness, by animate dust. The invader appears to have no characteristic other than the ability to reproduce rapidly. It doesn’t hate us. It doesn’t seek our annihilation, our subjection and humiliation. Nor does it desire to protect us from danger, to save us, to teach us the secret of immortal life. What it wishes to do is replicate.

This is the problem with all of our "humanity under attack" movies, from Signs to Independence Day to The Happening: they are all about us. But, no matter what we'd like to think, the universe does not particularly care about humanity. If we ever encounter an alien life form, we are likely to register--if we register at all--as completely irrelevant. And that's actually really scary.

Once again, Steven Millhauser does something amazing.

Cleveland Rocks? Not So Much.

Fosco loves city rankings. He could look at a different list of city rankings every day (10 Pinkest Cities! 10 Worst Smelling Chinatowns! 10 Itchiest!). So naturally, he can't resist Forbes.com's ranking of the Ten Most Miserable Cities in the US.

But what do they mean by "miserable"? Here is the methodology:

We compiled our rankings by looking at the 150 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S., which meant those with a population of at least 378,000. We ranked those metros on nine factors: commute times, corruption, pro sports teams, Superfund sites, taxes (both income and sales), unemployment, violent crime and weather.

Of course, there are aspects of this method that we could disagree with (are income taxes really a good proxy for misery? Don't taxes often provide important, life-improving social services?). Even so, the resulting list does seem to be pretty face valid--after all, I think most people could name Detroit, Buffalo, Flint, and Cleveland as miserable, miserable places.

Here's the top ten:

10. St Louis
9. Miami
8. Buffalo
7. Detroit
6. Flint, MI
5. Modesto, CA
4. Cleveland
3. Chicago
2. Memphis
1. Stockton, CA

Fosco has visited seven of these cities and he can heartily agree with all of them, except Chicago. Chicago is something of a surprise, because it's actually a pretty great city. However, the weather is cold. And most Chicagoans have a punishing commute. And the Cubs suck SO MUCH ALWAYS. And corruption... well, we know a little more about that than we might like.

If you're not a Californian, you might be surprised to see two CA cities on the list. But here's what you need to understand: just as California is divided along a horizontal axis into NorCal (good) and SoCal (bad), the state can also be divided vertically into the Coast (good) and the Central Valley (bad). The Coast contains places like San Francisco, San Diego, and Santa Barbara. It's people are well-educated, attractive, and tolerant (for the most part). The Central Valley is like a little taste of Oklahoma. It contains cities like Stockton and Modesto. There is no reason to ever venture into the Central Valley. Ever.

You know what makes me sad? I'm sad that South Bend, Indiana is too small to be eligible for the list. Because, well, I think I know where it would place...

The Surreal Life

I don't watch the Grammys. I don't know who MIA is and I don't care. I've already read plenty of criticism of her pregnancy costume. And I have no intention of reading anything more about her, even this article in the NY Times.

But I do have a well-attuned antenna for the absurd and I think you just have to appreciate the breathtaking strangeness of our world when you see a story teaser like this one (from the Times online front page):

There's just something deliciously bizarre about a rapper named MIA, wearing a polka dot pregnancy panel, being accused of promoting a violent guerrilla faction in a tiny Asian nation. There is something very surreal about globalization, no?

Jonathan Turley Says Smart Things

With a couple of exceptions, Fosco doesn't care much for lawyers. But he is having an intellectual love affair with Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University School of Law. This guy is one of the smarter talking heads that Fosco has ever seen on television. Here he is on last night's Countdown, talking about Bush's war crimes:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

You know why I like him? Because he says stuff like this:

We need to be honest. There is great love for President Obama and I have great respect for him. But you cannot say that you believe that no one is above the law and block the investigation of the war crimes by your predecessor. It is a position without principle; it is because you believe it's politically inconvenient. And by simply saying that you will do a special commission--it's like you have special justice. But at the end of the day, no one believes that people will be prosecuted for a known war crime. And what do we do when we do that? When we do that, then we will become accessories. Those crimes by President Bush will become our crimes; his shame will become our collective shame. That's what happens when you protect someone accused of war crimes from even an investigation.

He says lots of other good stuff in the clip above--this is just the highlight. I think he's exactly right: we cannot let Bush/Cheney go uninvestigated. Sorry, Obama: "looking forward" just isn't an option here.

Hey, I just learned that Jonathan Turley has a blog! Bonus!

I'll spend my Christmas with you

I know that Christmas is the last thing you want to be thinking of in the middle of February, but stay with me here. You may remember Fosco's hoot-out in favor of Owl City yesterday. Well, today he has one more titbit of Owlish pop goodness to offer you. This is Owl City's Christmas song (do yourself a favor and listen to it):



Fosco doesn't quite know what to make of the strange Jesus reference--is Adam Young a crypto-Christian? (The answer is yes, apparently. When did Christians start making listenable music?). Even so, Fosco is willing to overlook it (as he overlooks the Christianity of his beloved Sufjan). You may remember Fosco's pre-Christmas list of great Christmas songs--well, this one just went to the top of it.

Reformation Bait

Catholicism just keeps getting weirder (well, not special underwear weird, but close). It seems that the Pope has revived that old medieval curio, Madonna the Papal Indulgence. If the term sounds vaguely familiar and slightly sketchy, you might be remembering your Lutheranism. Apparently, opposition to the sale of Papal Indulgences was one of the sticking points for Martin Louis the King Jr. Martin Luther in that whole Reformation thing. Well, now indulgences are back--and just as powerful as ever!

According to this article in the Times, the Catholic Church has quietly begun to offer indulgences to its congregation. Essentially, an indulgence offers a reduction of punishment in Purgatory. As the Times notes:

According to church teaching, even after sinners are absolved in the confessional and say their Our Fathers or Hail Marys as penance, they still face punishment after death, in Purgatory, before they can enter heaven. In exchange for certain prayers, devotions or pilgrimages in special years, a Catholic can receive an indulgence, which reduces or erases that punishment instantly, with no formal ceremony or sacrament.

There are partial indulgences, which reduce purgatorial time by a certain number of days or years, and plenary indulgences, which eliminate all of it, until another sin is committed. You can get one for yourself, or for someone who is dead. You cannot buy one — the church outlawed the sale of indulgences in 1567 — but charitable contributions, combined with other acts, can help you earn one. There is a limit of one plenary indulgence per sinner per day.

It has no currency in the bad place.

Before we talk more about the theology here, I have to think about that last sentence. What an amazingly cryptic statement! I can't believe the Times editors let that line stay in the final copy. What could it mean? Is "the bad place" hell? (And lest you think that the sentence is merely the topic sentence of a longer, more explanatory paragraph, allow me to assure you that the final sentence stands alone in the article as its own complete paragraph. How odd!)

So let's get the theology straight here: even if you confess a sin and are absolved, you will still be punished for that sin in Purgatory. Unless you manage to gain a plenary indulgence, which buys you out of that purgatory time. And the person who decides if you get to skip purgatory is some creepy geriatric like Pope Cowboy XVI here? Hmmm. Who comes up with this stuff?

Not to mention that there appears to be fine print:

• offer only good until next sin.
  
• limit one coupon per customer per day.
  

And people wonder why Fosco is an atheist. Does any of this actually sound like the will of a supernatural being? Or does it sound more like the cheap thrills of an authoritarian bureaucratic apparatus?

From the Annals of Insult Journalism

Yesterday's online Santa Cruz Sentinel contained this article about a local show of wild cats (like tigers, cheetahs, mountain lions, &c.). This was the first sentence:

Covered with almost as many spots as some of the wildcats she'd come to see, Abby Smith walked right up and asked her question?

Let's just ignore entirely the misplaced question mark at the end and ask this question: did reporter Isaiah Guzman just rip on this poor girl? Is he making fun of her acne? Does she have a lot of moles? Birthmarks? Chicken pox? Is she dating Chris Brown?

Alas, no. Later we learn that she's just wearing a lot of leopard print. But the sentence is funnier without that knowledge.

Two Great Tastes...

On "Music Monday," it's all about the music. Kind of like MTV. Oh wait.

If you don't visit Mashuptown.com, you probably should--especially if you like the collision of two (or more) songs to create something that Larry Lessig would approve of.

Here are some recent highlights:

• Fosco loves both MGMT's "Kids" and David Bowie, so there is obviously no way this mashup could go wrong.
  
• Somehow, this mashup of Fragma vs. Elvis turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous song in its own right.
  
• Have you ever wondered if Bon Jovi would be even better if it sounded more like Depeche Mode? Well, this should answer your question.

Fosco wishes he had any talent for music-mixing, because he has this great idea for a Henryk Górecki vs. Ministry vs. Liza Minelli mix.

RIP Blossom Dearie

It's "Breaking News" on Music Monday.

Fosco is sad to note the passing of adorable jazz singer and pianist Blossom Dearie (incredibly, that was her real name). You can read the Times obit here. Dearie was known for her "sly, kittenish voice" and the way she

confided song lyrics in a playful style below whose surface layers of insinuation lurked.

There is something very pure about her voice, which can become surprisingly suggestive with the right song (like "Teach Me Tonight" for example). To Fosco, she sounds like the 1950s bottled. And that's not a bad thing.

Even if you think you aren't familiar with Blossom Dearie, you may be wrong--especially if you were a kid during the reign of Schoolhouse Rock. Dearie lent her voice to several of the musical PSAs, including "Unpack Your Adjectives" (below):



"You can even make adjectives out of the other parts of speech, like verbs or nouns." Word.

Coveting: Concert Tix

"Music Monday" is all about... MUSIC! (and Monday)

How much does Fosco want to go to this concert?

Los Angeles Philharmonic
Opening Night Gala
Thursday, October 8, 2009

The answer is "SOOOO MUCH."

Not only is it the debut of El Dudamel as Music Director, and not only will he be conducting Fosco's beloved Mahler 1, but it's also the premiere of a John Adams commission called "City Noir." And as we all know, John Adams is Fosco's favorite composer (and Fosco has already managed to see two previous Adams premieres in the US, so why stop now?). Tix aren't on sale yet for nonsubscribers, but there is no way that Fosco is going to miss this--no matter how he has to beg, borrow or steal. Dear Reader: how can you help Fosco's dream come true?