OK, I blew it. I misread John Castellucci’s excellent piece, referenced below, entirely. Stupid! Mark Rudd is not hanging out in Villefranche-de-Panat. Orest Ranum is! Stupid! I’ve rewritten the piece, to conceal just how stupid I am! Sorry, but it’s my blog, and I have the right to make changes. John Castellucci, writing in the…
Author: Alan Vanneman
The strange case of Louie Freeh
I’ve been working on a novel set in Washington around the time of the 2008 primary season, and have come to do a little research on former FBI director Louis Freeh. Louie’s been back in the news, not that he wants to be, very much, representing one of his best buddies, Prince Bandar of Saudi…
Last night I had a dream
I was living with my parents on a sort of farm when a lion showed up. I ran into the house and found a .22 rifle which I loaded. Not much of a defense, but something. The lion disappeared, and then reappeared, jumping into the house through a window. As he did so, he turned…
New at Bright Lights: Fred, Charlie, Tina, Thelonious, Pannonica, Norman, and Neytiri!
In the new issue of Bright Lights Film Journal I have film reviews of Fred Astaire in Belle of New York, his not-that-good reunion with Vera-Ellen, as well as Tina Fey’s NBC mini-hit 30 Rock The Jazz Baroness, the story of jazz groupie Pannonica de Koenigswarter and her main man Thelonious Monk, book reviews of…
Juan Galiardo Quartet – Blues for Dave
https://youtu.be/NlvZ_gcbJ6o Joe Magnarelli, Trumpet, Dave Santoro, Bass, Andrea Michelutti, Drums, Juan Galiardo, Piano
Death of a Recluse
Poor J.D.! Did ever a man so outlive himself? It’s true that Holden Caulfield is, well, a little too Holden Caulfield, but if you haven’t got a little Holden in you, and a little time for that little, you ain’t got much heart. I used to feel sorry for J.D. when Joyce Maynard wrote her…
Madonna’s private parts highly amusing, IMHO
Just last week I was taking a whack at Conan O’Brien, sneeringly referring to the poor guy as a “Harvard Hustler with the wit of Marty Allen.” Well, now I’ve got to defend Conan, against the likes of New Yorker writer Nancy Franklin, who asserts that “he’ll soon be Fantastic Mr. Fox, his blend of…
Two ways of looking at “Goodbye Porkpie Hat”
Sometime ago I ran the (fairly) famous jazz clip “Jammin’ the Blues,” featuring Lester Young, and went so far as to include a poem I’d written about Lester, called “Goodbye Porkpie Hat,” in reference to a tune that Charlie Mingus had written to commemorate Lester’s death. Here are two recent versions of GPH, one a…
Because Rich Little was just too damn hip for the room
That’s why, apparently, the White House Correspondents Dinner will feature Jay Leno, giving the nation’s standups yet another opportunity to unload on the (sort of) hapless Jay. I was going to let this whole late night imbroglio pass me by, but this latest Leno pile-on has been too much for me to bear. Other comics…
The Sorrows, and Sins, of Obama
Oy, Obama, n’est-ce pas? Yeah, I voted for him, I even gave him money, and I thank God every day that Georgie Boy, and Dickie Boy, are out of the White House, but overall I’m hard pressed to give my man more than a B-. Of course, my low grade is the least of Barack’s…