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Archive for September, 2009

R.I.P. – Lucy O’Donnell, aka “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (1963-2009)

Posted in Counter Culture, Obituaries, Popular Culture, Popular Music, Rock 'n' Roll on September 28, 2009| Leave a Comment »

SgtPepperLucy O'Donnell“Lucy O’Donnell, the woman who inspired the classic Beatles song Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, has died aged 46.

“The song [was] featured on the ground-breaking 1967 album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

“John Lennon’s elder son Julian said it was inspired by a picture he drew of his classmate Lucy O’Donnell when they were at a nursery school in Weybridge, Surrey, in 1966.

“Julian said he took the picture home and showed it to his father, explaining, ‘It’s Lucy in the sky with diamonds.'” (more @ Daily Telegraph)

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What’s a Culture Snob to Do?: The Future Aesthetic of Snobbery in a Digitized World

Posted in Books, Human Behavior, Literature, Popular Culture, Popular Music, Science & Technology on September 14, 2009| Leave a Comment »

wolcott-0908-01“Pity the culture snob, as Kindles, iPods, and flash drives swallow up the visible markers of superior taste and intelligence. With the digitization of books, music, and movies, how will the highbrow distinguish him- or herself from the masses?” (James Wolcott, via Vanity Fair)

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R.I.P. – Jim Carroll (1950-2009)

Posted in Books, Counter Culture, Obituaries, Poets & Poetry, Popular Culture, Rock 'n' Roll, Writers & Writing on September 13, 2009| Leave a Comment »

jim_carroll“Jim Carroll, the poet and punk rocker in the outlaw tradition of Rimbaud and Burroughs who chronicled his wild youth in ‘The Basketball Diaries,’ died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 60. . . .

“As a teenage basketball star in the 1960s at Trinity, an elite private school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Mr. Carroll led a chaotic life that combined sports, drugs and poetry. This highly unusual combination lent a lurid appeal to ‘The Basketball Diaries’ the journal he kept during high school and published in 1978, by which time his poetry had already won him a cult reputation as the new, Bob Dylan.

“‘I met him in 1970, and already he was pretty much universally recognized as the best poet of his generation,’ the singer Patti Smith said in a telephone interview on Sunday. ‘The work was sophisticated and elegant. He had beauty.'” (more @ NY Times)

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Travel Photo of the Day: Tarnow, Poland (9/11-Related Graffiti)

Posted in American History, Europe, Foreign Travel, New York City, Photography on September 11, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Stencilled graffiti on wall in Tarnow, Poland “celebrating” anniversary of destruction of World Trade Center towers on 9/11 (May, 2008). [Click image to enlarge]

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