00344.0000 MY DREAMS ARE GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME

Music: Vic Mizzy
Words: Manny Curtis

Link to Lyrics and Chords
Link to Les Brown Orchestra and Doris Day’s performance

Well what do you know, she smiled at me in my dreams last night,
My dreams are getting better all the time.
And what do you know, she looked at me in a different light,
My dreams are getting better all the time.
To think that we were strangers a couple of nights ago,
And though it’s a dream, I never dreamed she’d ever say hello.
Well maybe tonight I’ll hold her tight when the moonbeams shine,
My dreams are getting better all the time.

In honor of Rock Hudson’s birthday I wanted to write a piece on two of my favorite Rock Hudson films. Hudson partners with Doris Day and Tony Randall in these films.

Probably their most popular film together is Pillow Talk. In the plot, Jan (Day) and Brad (Hudson) share a party line. Jan is fed up with Brad typing up the line all day talking to his many girlfriends. They meet by chance and Brad figures out who she is when he overhears her talking about him. Since he knows that Jan only knows his voice, but not what he looks like, he uses a fake Texas drawl and tries to win her over like he has all the other women. Their mutual friend Jonathan (Randall) is caught in the middle of everything. Of course Jan is furious when she finds out his true identity but she has already fallen for him. But before she gives in to his charm, Jan, who is an interior decorator, gives Brad’s apartment a horrible makeover.

Hudson was hesitant to do this film at first because he had not done much comedy. But the script eventually won him over, and Pillow Talk went on to do very well with audiences.

Another film they made together is Lover Come Back. Hudson and Day play rival ad executives. Jerry Webster (Hudson) uses sex and alcohol to get accounts and Carol Templeton (Day) is tired of losing clients to him. She has heard about his exploits but never met him. She sets out get him disbanded in the ad world. Meanwhile, since Webster had promised a girlfriend of his a spot in a commercial, he casts her in a commercial for a fake product. The commercial accidentally gets released. To keep his job, Webster has to create the fake product to go along with the commercial. When Templeton hears about the top secret product, called VIP, she sets out to win over the product’s creator and the ad account for herself. Webster intercepts her when she comes to visit the creator’s lab and pretends to be him. He is able to keep her occupied while the real creator makes VIP.

Webster’s deadline approaches quickly and when VIP is finally ready, he does not even take the time to ask the scientist who created VIP to explain what it it. At the product presentation, everyone thinks it is just a mint, but VIP is really pure alcohol in candy form. Since VIP tastes so good, those at the meeting eat all they want and many wake up the next morning in places they do not recognize. Webster and Templeton wake up in Maryland and married. Templeton is furious once again and annuls the marriage. But as her housekeeper says as she calls to inform Webster he is about to become a father, “there was one thing she couldn’t annul.”

Most people think that Lover Come Back is the best of the Hudson/Day films and I would probably agree. Both of these films are full of witty humor that makes viewers laugh at every turn.

by Katie

How dare you accuse me of forgetting that Nellie McKay released an album in early October, or that it was a collection of Doris Day songs??? I never in all my life! Oh… fine. Here’s Nellie.

And because I called this a “tribute edition,” here’s Martha Wainwright singing Edith Piaf! Martha and Nellie are my favorite fellow bottle blondes. Or something.

I wanted to find video of Deer Tick playing as the Sex Pistols on Halloween, but there isn’t much on YouTube, plus then I would have had to post the Monsters of Folk dressed as Kiss, and that was just a slippery slope I didn’t want to venture down.

Em tempos de apagão… O título original é “Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?”, uma comédia de 1968 dirigida por Hy Averback com Doris Day no elenco. Sinopse:

Esta comédia romântica do diretor Hy Averback (que tem uma breve atuação no filme) transcorre durante o enorme blecaute ocorrido em 9 de novembro de 1965 que obscureceu toda Nova York e grande parte da Costa Leste. Margaret (Doris Day) é uma atriz de Broadway preocupada porque seu marido, o arquiteto Peter Garrison (Patrick O´Neal), passa tempo demais com uma bela jornalista que o entrevista.

Waldo Zane (Robert Morse) é um executivo que foge de sua empresa com dinheiro roubado e tem um problema com o carro perto da casa de Margaret. Zane se intromete na casa e depois de beber um drinque contendo um elixir adormece placidamente, por engano, ao lado de Margaret.

Onde estavas quando as luzes se apagaram ?

Como era de se esperar, aparece o marido e o filme deriva em divertidas confusões de identidades. Ainda que estreada alguns anos depois do grande blecaute, a comédia foi realmente baseada no filme “Monsieur Masure”, obra do francês Claude Magnier escrita nos anos 50.

A sinopse foi encontrada aqui:

http://tudonoar.uol.com.br/tudonoar/detalheFicha.aspx?fichaID=38142

… e a foto no site Cinema Clássico, clicando aqui.

Ficha no IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063801/

Update 13:41h – Mais um post interessante que cita o filme:
- E hoje? será que precisa mais vela? carregou o notebook?

The first time I heard of Nellie McKay, I was reading the New York Times at my parents’ house in Indiana. The top story of the Arts section was a breathless account of Nellie’s dismissal from Columbia Records on the day her second album was due to be released. I thought, who is this musician who I’ve never heard of who’s getting top-tier attention from the NYT?

I suppose many people have had the same thought in the ensuing years. When she first hit the scene as a precocious 19-year-old with arguably the first double-disc debut album from a female artist, music critics went nuts. The NYT magazine did an enormous and mostly smitten feature. The attention was deserved. “Get Away From Me” was an astonishing smorgasbord, a stylish mash-up of cabaret, classic pop and even hip-hop tethered by Nellie’s piano-playing and cotton-candy vocals. It was the arrival of a major new talent.

Things went mostly downhill from there. With the backing of her label, Nellie made baffling appearances on Letterman and (with delicious subversion) the View. The only unqualified success of her TV tour was her performance of the piano-rap “Sari” on the Late Late Show, which went on to become a minor YouTube sensation. She made her motion-picture debut as Hilary Swank’s sister in the clunker “PS, I Love You,” with a performance so puzzling that most of it was cut.

Nellie was hard to pin down, a fresh-faced blonde given to wearing vintage dresses and saying stunning things in concert that left audiences unsure if she hated them or not. She performed unrecorded songs in badly-pronounced Japanese or Spanish rather than her minor hits. She parried with journalists, never failing to give an unhelpful answer. After starring in “The Threepenny Opera” on Broadway and being tapped to score a musical version of the film “Election,” she told NPR’s Terry Gross that she just didn’t see the appeal of musical theater. She could be, in short, a pill.

Even now, almost four years later, no one can write about Nellie without mentioning her travails with and eventual release from Columbia Records in 2006, or the revelation that she wasn’t 19 at the time of her debut but rather a marginally less interesting 23. This guy does a pretty good job summarizing the trouble with Nellie: “[Her] commercial potential would almost certainly always be matched by her potential to be a total pain in the ass.”

Music critics love nothing more than to “get it,” and most of them feel like they’re “in” on Nellie’s joke – that she’s deliberately evasive and not nearly as daffy as she acts. (I should say that I met Nellie last year when she recorded some radio PSA’s for the nonprofit I work for. She waltzed in carrying a white umbrella on a slushy February day, and was both sincere and delightful and a little unnerving with her hummingbird focus; she said she preferred Hillary over Obama because too often the more attractive person won the prize. For the first time since hearing of her I thought maybe she wasn’t acting, after all.)

So I think everyone was a bit surprised when she released her latest piece of work. Rather than being political, or subversive, or rapping or recording nothing but flute solos or something ironic, Nellie produced an album of Doris Day covers.

That’s right, a sweet, unwinking tribute to that paragon of conformity, Doris Day.

That Nellie – she’d fooled us all again, zigging where she might have zagged. “Normal As Blueberry Pie: A Tribute to Doris Day” is her most cohesive, grown-up, listenable album yet. The critical response has been typically warm, with the Times to the NY Post to Vanity Fair all throwing sympathetic features Nellie’s way. Still a relative unknown, it’s Nellie’s intrinsic appeal to intellectual listeners of music that gets her this ink. Writers love her, love the challenge of trying to describe her. Editors know her.

Readers, however, don’t know her – and mostly don’t get her. This gap fascinates me. Nellie’s curious position is as a critical darling in a time where critics are less influential than ever. For the first time in her career, she’s more or less behaving herself in interviews, staying on task and producing mainstream music that has the potential to tap into the enthusiasm for anything early 1960s, thanks to the Mad Men-inspired zeitgeisty thing we have going on right now. I can practically hear the music-box waltz of “The Very Thought of You” over the trailer of a Christmas movie right now.

Most likely, though, the album will float away mostly unnoticed, and Nellie will continue to be music critics’ worst-kept secret. I suppose with the publishing industry in the toilet, it’s one thing they can keep for themselves.

Incredibly dated and oddly creepy, Pillow Talk is a vehicle for Rock Hudson’s good looks and Doris Day’s charm. Directed by Michael Gordon, the picture floats a truly weird story along with some outdated concepts about sex, women and relationships. It also features one of the most invasive and obnoxious soundtracks I’ve come across in quite some time.

This is 1950s gloss working its magic, attempting to convince us that there’s a reason for the attraction between the characters and that the good looks and charm of even the most obnoxious, creepy, sexist individuals should be enough for love. We’re supposed to fall in love with the coupling of Day and Hudson because the music says so, not because it actually makes any sense. In reality, what happens in Pillow Talk is quite sickening.

Day stars as Jan Morrow, a successful interior decorator. There’s a problem with her, though, as she lives alone and goes out and has fun. See, she’s much too old to be an independent woman with a good job and a nice apartment, so something’s gotta give. Her alcoholic maid (Thelma Ritter) makes sure that Jan knows her life is incomplete, too, which is always helpful advice when coming from someone whose drinking problem is played up for shiny chuckles.

Hudson is Brad Allen, a Broadway composer and “playboy.” He and Jan share a party line (Google it) and they don’t like each other much because Jan keeps wanting to make calls while Hudson is courting various women via telephone. One day, Brad sees Jan dancing and falls in love with her. He does what any normal person would do and invents a personality to court her so that she won’t know he’s the guy on the party line. Oh, and he also dupes a friend (Tony Randall) in the process while taking advantage of pretty much everyone who crosses his path. What a charming man!

That Brad completely fakes his way into Jan’s life is treated with the utmost respect. His square jaw and broad shoulders and good looks tell us that he’s doing the right thing, after all, and the annoying music reinforces the point. To make matters worse, Brad’s interest in Jan seems slightly predicated on the fact that his friend is in love with her. That piques his interest to discover who this delicate little flower might be and, before you can say “split screen,” we’re off on a road to romantic entanglement.

All of this might actually be hilarious were it not so creepy to think about. Jan has a streak of rebellion and independence that must be dealt with, which is, at least in part, why Rock Hudson’s character has to enter into the fray of fakery. When he essentially kicks her door down and abducts her towards the end of the picture, he’s doing the poor clueless dame a favour, after all, and she’s more than happy to oblige even if he has a creepy switch in his pad that locks the door. Try not to put too much thought into the fact that a policeman simply chuckles as Rock passes carrying a screaming Day, too. It’s the 50s.

The conception that draws this film to a close is downright disgusting. Day’s character is being “dealt with” because she had the audacity to right the wrongs against her in the way she knew how. Hudson’s Brad essentially gets everything in the end, while Day’s Jan is barefoot, pregnant and loving it. It is the ultimate reflection of vile, puritanical 1950s values and reeks of sexism and cruelty.

On top of all that, it’s actually a pretty horrible picture for other reasons. The Frank De Vol score is absolutely terrible, for one thing, and dominates each scene with its invasive need to pile instruments on top of other instruments. It’s one of the most obnoxious displays of music in a picture I’ve heard in quite some time. And the use of split screen and fade shots is just cheesy and tacky, too.

Overall, there’s really no good reason to see Pillow Talk. It only reinforces why progress is so important in today’s world and remains an example of a time and an attitude that keeps women in their places. It calls on a time when men were men, even if they were gay men pretending to be straight men mocking gay men, and has little to no redeeming value either as a film or as a piece of art.

0.7/10

Trailer:

We’re still having fun FUN-raising!  Get used to it.  We’re doing it until the 15th.  Tonight, though we don’t have anyone in the studio with us,

Amalia Goros and I will be featuring the music of Tereza.  The big song from this disk is “Fly me to the Moon”.  Written by Bart Howard in 1954 the song was first recorded by Kaye Ballard then covered by many other great artists including Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole, Julie London, Patti Page, Doris Day.  In 1969 (forgive me–a pun this good just can’t be ignored) it reached dizzying heights when astronaut Buzz Aldrin of Apollo 11 played the Frank Sinatra version as he walked on the moon.  On July 20th of this year the 40th anniversary of the moon walk was celebrated at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and to commemorate this historic event Diana Krall serenaded the three Apollo 11 astronauts with her version of the song.

In May 2003 Tereza released her version of this classic on the aptly titled Double cd: Fly Me To The Moon.  It was catapulted into the public arena when Cutty Sark picked it for their TV ad campaign that year.

The disk we’re offering at the $100.00 pledge level has this and many other great songs by Tereza in both Greek and English.  Though she grew up in New York her roots are Greek.

Click here to check out her video for “Akouse Me”.

So, while they last, call (718.204.8900) and pledge $100.00.  Not only will you get this great disk you will also be supporting HPR (Hellenic Public Radio).

Doris Day sings The Party’s Over

Mark Levin on “Hannity” – President Obama “Lied”

Mark Levin vs Glenn Beck

SA@Takimag – Why Mark Levin Hates Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck Show – Nov 2, 2009 – Pt 1 of 5

Glenn Beck Show – Nov 2, 2009 – Pt 2 of 5

Glenn Beck Show – Nov 2, 2009 – Pt 3 of 5

Glenn Beck Show – Nov 2, 2009 – Pt 4 of 5

Glenn Beck Show – Nov 2, 2009 – Pt 5 of 5

Doris Day – Que Sera Sera

Background Articles and Videos

Progressive Party (United States, 1912)

“…In the United States, the Progressive Party of 1912 was a political party created by a split in the Republican Party in the presidential election of 1912. It was formed by Theodore Roosevelt when he lost the Republican nomination to William Howard Taft and pulled his delegates out of the convention. The party is colloquially also known as the Bull Moose Party, after the party’s emblem and after Roosevelt’s boast that he was “as strong as a bull moose”.

To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.” – 1912 Progressive Party Platform, attributed to Theodore Roosevelt^[1] and quoted again in his autobiography^[2] where he connects Trusts and monopolies (sugar interests, Standard Oil, etc.) to Woodrow Wilson and William Howard Taft, and consequently both major political parties.

16-page campaign booklet with party platform

The great majority of Republican governors, congressmen, editors and local leaders refused to join the new party, even if they had supported Roosevelt before. Johnson, the Vice-Presidential nominee, who had been elected Governor in California in 1910, remained a member of the Republican Party (GOP) because his supporters took control of the GOP in California. However, many independent reformers signed up. Two important activists were Gifford Pinchot and his brother Amos Pinchot. The Progressive Party also endorsed a number of sympathetic candidates from the Republican and Democratic parties in state and federal elections from 1912 to 1916.

Only five of the 15 most prominent progressive Republicans in the Senate endorsed the new party and Roosevelt’s candidacy for President; three came out for Wilson. Many of Roosevelt’s closest political allies supported Taft, including his son-in-law, Nicholas Longworth. Roosevelt’s daughter Alice Roosevelt Longworth stuck with her father, causing a permanent chill in her marriage. For men like Longworth, expecting a future in politics, bolting the Republican party ticket was simply too radical a step. Progressives who did not aspire to elective office often went with Woodrow Wilson.

…”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_(United_States,_1912)

Woodrow Wilson

“…Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856–February 3, 1924)^[1] was the 28th President of the United States. A leading intellectual of the Progressive Era, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913. With Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft dividing the Republican Party vote, Wilson was elected President as a Democrat in 1912. To date he is the only President to hold a doctorate of philosophy (PhD) degree and the only President to serve in a political office in New Jersey before election to the Presidency.

In his first term, Wilson persuaded a Democratic Congress to pass the Federal Reserve Act,^[2] Federal Trade Commission, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the Federal Farm Loan Act and America’s first-ever federal progressive income tax in the Revenue Act of 1913. In a move that garnered a backlash from civil rights groups, and is still criticized today, Wilson allowed segregation in many federal agencies,^[3][4] which involved firing black workers from numerous posts.^[5]

Narrowly re-elected in 1916, Wilson’s second term centered on World War I. He based his re-election campaign around the slogan “he kept us out of the war,” but U.S. neutrality would be short-lived. When the German government proposed to Mexico in the Zimmermann Telegram a military alliance in a war against the U.S. (promising the return of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas), and began unrestricted submarine warfare, Wilson in April 1917 asked Congress to declare war. He focused on diplomacy and financial considerations, leaving the waging of the war primarily in the hands of the Army. On the home front, he began the United States’ first effective draft in 1917, raised billions in war funding through Liberty Bonds, set up the War Industries Board, promoted labor union growth, supervised agriculture and food production through the Lever Act, took over control of the railroads, enacted the first federal drug prohibition, and suppressed anti-war movements. National women’s suffrage was also achieved under Wilson’s presidency.

In the late stages of the war, Wilson took personal control of negotiations with Germany, including the armistice. He issued his Fourteen Points, his view of a post-war world that could avoid another terrible conflict. He went to Paris in 1919 to create the League of Nations and shape the Treaty of Versailles, with special attention on creating new nations out of defunct empires. Largely for his efforts to form the League, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1919, during the bitter fight with the Republican-controlled Senate over the U.S. joining the League of Nations, Wilson collapsed with a debilitating stroke. He refused to compromise, effectively destroying any chance for ratification. The League of Nations was established anyway, but the United States never joined. Wilson’s idealistic internationalism, now referred to as “Wilsonianism“, which calls for the United States to enter the world arena to fight for democracy, has been a contentious position in American foreign policy, serving as a model for “idealists” to emulate and “realists” to reject ever since. …”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson

Doris Day 

“…Doris Mary Anne von Kappelhoff (born April 3, 1922),^[1] known by her stage name Doris Day, is an American singer and actress.

Singing and dancing and playing both comedic and dramatic roles, she became one of America’s biggest box-office stars, making 39 movies before retiring from films in 1968. She has also recorded more than 650 songs. She is an Academy Award nominee, as well as a Golden Globe and Grammy Award winner. In 1989, Day received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures.

She is currently the top-ranking female box-office star of all time, ranked 6th in the top ten of mostly male stars (the only other female on the list is Shirley Temple).^[2]

…”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Day

Biography of Doris Day

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000013/bio

THE DEADWOOD STAGE “DORIS DAY”

The Windy City from Calamity Jane (1953)

Doris Day & Friends talk about the real Doris Day

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The next jazz singer in my brief series is Canadian Holly Cole and her interpretation of ‘Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)’.

The first to sing this song was Doris Day in the 1956 film ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much‘.

Of course Doris Day’s just great. But I like Holly Cole’s version much better.

And because I’m so fond of her performance, I’ll put a second song on display. Holly Cole’s ‘I Can See Clearly Now’ is in my opinion one of the most heartfelt songs I’ve listened to in a while.

Holly Cole’s website is at www.hollycole.com.

This is the piece that has been my wrestling partner for some time now. I wanted to use very simple shapes, and employ two layers. I also gave myself the challenge of trying to represent trees absorbing light, a concept that fascinates me and stands for the human yearning for “light” or insight.

The piece is not finished yet. The lettering, which I just painted last night, will become something other than white. I’m not sure if I will add anything to the plain “borders” of the background layer. I also have to connect the two layers together.

This has been a deliberate experiment with different techniques, rather than an effortless, joy filled flash after flash of inspiration. I did get a wonderful idea about how to connect and edge my cracked paper quilts, which I am grateful for. It is one of those ideas that seems obvious, bit only after you realize it.

I actually uploaded the photo of this piece to Flickr right after I arrived home from work, and went off to eat supper, spend some time with my husband and relax. I came back to my studio to remove the photo, and write a post about how I am constitutionally unable to share a piece that is unfinished. It’s not in me, I was going to protest. But there were comments by two people whose work I admire, positive comments, so I just have to laugh and say “Que Sera, Sera.”

A Feast of Photons ~ by Carol Wiebe

My mother used to a sing  “Que Sera, Sera” to me when I was a small girl:

Que Sera, Sera, whatever will be, will be

The future’s not ours to see,

Que Sera, Sera.

I can hear and see Doris Day, in my head, as I hum the melody. Wow, what a walk down Memory Lane. I wonder if that vivid vision is made of photons?

Buongiorno a tutti miei cari radio-lettori. Stamattina sono a lezione in facoltà, perciò vi proporrò in unica soluzione 4 canzoni per questo programma mattutino. Sono:

Doris Day con “Que Sera Sera”,
Israel Kamakawiwo’Ole con “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”,
Jimmy Fontana con “Il Mondo” e
Lamb con “Gabriel”.

Noi ci ritroviamo qui per il programma pomeridiano. Siete in ascolto su RadioBlog 235!

When I posted the Video of the Week last week, I did not expect any other reaction besides for “lol, the past is crazy!” Instead I got this:  “A cute video, but Doris Day rarely portrayed women who sought marriage and marriage alone. That’s a misconception by many. She loved to be loved, like most of us, but she was an independent, forward-looking career woman in many of her films, and many consider her portrayals to have led the way in film for the liberation of the “modern” day woman.” My reply was that despite the fact that her roles included many career women, the films she starred in usually implied that she wasn’t complete until she was married. While I see an anti-feminist message in Doris Day, this guy does not. This leads me to the question, “What makes a feminist?”

Let me go back a little bit further to about a year ago. I was in a writing class, and somehow the conversation turned to women who choose to get married and become housewives instead of doing the whole career thing. Someone, a female,  said something like, “when I hear women say, ‘Oh, I just want to stay home and raise my kids,’ I find it really sad.” I thought, “it’s not sad to want to stay at home and raise your children. It’s sad to get a career because of people pressuring you into one because you’d be a ‘bad feminist’ if you didn’t.” Here lies the dilemma of modern feminism: are some choices more “feminist” than others? Is feminism something quantitative? Can you get Feminist Points for doing feminist things and lose them for doing non-feminist things? Let’s find out:

Sarah Palin
Pros: First Female Governor of Alaska, both mother and career woman, does traditionally masculine things (hunting, sports, etc.).
Cons: Does not believe in the right to choose, made women pay for rape kits, was in beauty paegants in her twenties, looks kind of like what you would imagine a Republican Barbie would look like.
Feminist Points: -1

Barbie
Pros: Has had a huge range of careers including teacher, doctor, Nascar driver and astronaut, doesn’t feel need to be married.
Cons: Based on a German sex doll, thinks that math is hard and loves shopping (see Teen Talk Barbie), loves pink, conforms to beauty standards to an extreme degree.
Feminist Points: -2

Martha Stewart
Pros: Successful business woman, has probably shived someone at some point in her life.
Cons: Capitalizes on outdated gender roles.
Feminist Points: 1

Holly Madison
Pros: Owns her sexuality, did real work at Playboy when she lived at the Mansion, appears to be business savvy.
Cons: Has had a lot of cosmetic surgery, was one of Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends, dated Cris Angel (which I’m sure is anti-Feminist in some way).
Feminist Points: 0

Of course, who’s to say that these “cons” are actually anti-feminist? Are beauty pageants really a tool of the patriarchy? Was pink designed by the man to keep the ladies down? Are big, fake breasts really horrible in terms of women’s rights? If you were to go into the comments and say, “hey, these lists are arbitrary and don’t make any sense at all,” you’d be right! If someone wants to wear pink, or stay home and make a cake, why is that any less feminist than going to work or never getting married? Seriously, I’m asking. I expect answers in the comments.

My trotters are cold…Boat Iife. I think we must have forgotton just how nippy it was this time last year, or maybe it was because I worked an 11 hour day outside that entering any indoor space would feel like St Tropez…but jeeps, now it’s October it’s getting really cold on the boat. Goodbye chilled wine, hello hot brews.

No more dashing about in frocks and bare feet making feasts to eat outside, this is the time we have layering competitons, shovel naughtie comfort food, stock up on mittens, whack the heating on for quarter of an hour stints (it’s run on diesel) and put the electric blanket on a romantic pillowtalking ten mins before dodo.

For these occasions I own more pairs of velour pantaloons than a girl with a smidgen of fashion style should admit to. You see me walking the croisette now do you? The glamour has gone…and will not be returning to the boat until late march.

All may not be lost I tell myself as I pour in to another knitted affair and arrange my winter hyacinths. There is a garment that has not yet entered the fray. I bid a fashionista sigh as I introduce the lovely cozy looking union suit.

‘A close-fitting, knitted undergarment combining shirt and drawers in one piece and often having a drop seat.’ They even come with feet.

I’m ordering a winter version of these in red and will let you know how the Hudson Day romance pans out…surely better than playing hopskotch across an icerink every morning?

xx

Nellie McKay
Normal As Blueberry Pie: A Tribute To Doris Day ••••
Verve Forecast

An album of Doris Day covers may sound like a puzzling prospect in 2009, but it makes perfect sense when the tribute comes from someone as oblivious to the demands of modern pop conventions as singer-songwriter and pianist Nellie McKay. A long-time champion of the underrated icon, London-born but American-based McKay wrote of Day in the New York Times in 2007, “What she possessed – beyond her beauty, physical grace, and natural acting ability – was a resplendent voice that conveyed enormous warmth and feeling.” Fortunately, a resplendent voice is exactly what McKay shares with Day, and it is that which steals the show throughout the staggeringly accomplished Normal As Blueberry Pie, the fourth album in an increasingly interesting career. McKay may only be 27 but her voice is mature and rich beyond her years, with just the warmth and feeling she so admired in Day, gliding effortlessly between notes with impeccable phrasing that perfectly conveys the mood of the lyrics.

The song choices mostly steer clear of Day’s more recognisable hits, with the languorous ‘Sentimental Journey’ perhaps the best known, but all play to McKay’s strengths and showcase her diversity as a vocalist and song interpreter. Opener ‘The Very Thought Of You’ is a gorgeous, jazzy ode to an object of affection and gets a sparse but effective arrangement with McKay taking sole duties on piano, organ and bells, her classic voice sitting smoothly on top. Her take on the Gershwin standard ‘Do Do Do’ is similarly classic sounding, studded with pianos and horns, while the Rodgers & Hammerstein number ‘Wonderful Guy’ benefits from a slightly darker mood and an understated vocal. The ukulele-dominated ‘Meditation’ is four minutes of hushed reverie, McKay’s breathy vocal accentuated by the languid horns that enter around the two-minute mark and quickly followed by woodwinds. The Bacharach & David standard ‘Send Me No Flowers’ also boasts some sublime horns, alternately mournful and optimistic alongside the main ukulele melody.

A perhaps unexpected jewel of the album is McKay’s own ‘If I Ever Had A Dream’, the sole original here. Brilliantly imaginative yet with a timeless quality, it could easily pass for one of the standards McKay sings elsewhere. The frenetic piano jazz of ‘Close Your Eyes’ is another triumph with a sultry, lazy vocal from McKay, and then there’s the haunting ‘Black Hills Of Dakota’, which exudes sheer class with an exotic opening and slow, atmospheric arrangement as McKay sings of “the beautiful Indian country that I love”. Not all the material is quite as elegant; ‘Crazy Rhythm’ and ‘Dig It’ are two of the album’s most upbeat numbers but also two of the corniest. They’re silly, but they’re fun. And if we’re being honest, it wouldn’t be true to Day if there wasn’t a little corniness at work.

Few artists could spin Doris Day’s whiter than white image into an album as intriguing, diverse and wonderfully rich as Normal As Blueberry Pie (and fewer would even attempt it), so it’s a mark of McKay’s imagination and skill that this album is every bit as appetising as its titular dessert. It’s a tribute not only to Doris Day, whose handsome vocals have long been underrated by the music press at large, but also to the writers of these standards. The songs sound rejuvenated and alive without attempting to be especially modern – both normal and exceptional – and it really works.

Matt Barton
UK release date: 19/10/09; www.myspace.com/nelliemckay

FYI… PHOTOS of the SHOW at the BOTTOM

So, I had tickets to see Ben Folds with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra at Benaroya Hall last night.  I hemmed and hawed and finally decided to sell my ticket on craigslist to go see Nellie McKay instead.  I dig both of them as artists, and the main reason for the hemming and hawing was the whole symphony aspect (I mean, I’ve seen Ben Folds Five or solo a half dozen times already… so the symphony take on it was my main draw).  Ah, but… Nellie totally has my heart when in a piano/vocalist celebrity deathmatch with Mr. Folds.  She’s quirky, cute, writes and sings both silly and political songs, has a passionate love for animals (she’s a vegetarian with a stance on animal cruelty that makes me proud), and… you rarely know what to expect from her musically on any given night.  I’ve seen her twice prior, and both times were fantastical suprises.

Sorry, Ben.  Next time?

As a consolation for the Ben Folds fans, there’s a free mp3 stream (or download if you do some research, i.e.- “view source”) from the Huffington Post of the Ben Folds collaboration with author Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, etc).  It’s a jab song at the ex-fiance of ex-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol… from the HuffPo, I present you ”Levi Johnston’s Blues.”

Speaking of the HuffPo… here’s a recent article / interview with Nellie McKay by Michael Giltz.

Oh, so Nellie’s latest album, Normal As Blueberry Pie, is all about Doris Day (a total of 14 Doris Day tracks in the recording session, and one Nellie original).  Two of the 15 session tracks are more difficult to get ahold of, unless you want to buy both the “exclusive” Barnes & Noble bonus track version and the iTunes bonus track version.  Have I mentioned that Universal Music Group’s tactics suck!? Anyway, the album is great (special track tactics notwithstanding).  The album lacks some of the bite and wit of Nellie’s prior 3 (and a half) solo albums.  But, I love it all the same.  It’s got Nellie trademark nostalgia / campiness, as evidenced by the photos surrounding the release (see to the right).

OK… on to the review of the show…

I really dig Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley.  It’s small and intimate (but large enough for the room to breathe).  Also I like the idea of making an experience out of the show – a fantastic meal, great atmosphere, and an attentive audience makes for a wonderful evening.  Oh, and free parking in downtown Seattle is like the cherry on top.  This was only my second time here (Hiromi in June was my first), but it is quickly becoming one of my favorite venues in the PacNW, if not ever.  I just wish it wasn’t so far away from me in Eugene all the time.

Nellie went on around 7:40pm with her backing band, The Aristocrats.  This was my first time seeing Nellie with a band.  They were excellent.  They were all younger than I was expecting.  I mean, this wasn’t her studio backing band… but as hired guns solely for touring, they really worked well with Nellie in a fun & playful way.  The band was Nellie McKay (piano and ukulele), Howard Fishman (guitar), Charles Schiermeyer (sax), Ben Bynum (drums), Scott Litroff (violin and flute), and Daniel Policar (keys).

Setlist: just shy of 90 minutes

• If I Ever Had a Dream
• Close Your Eyes (Doris Day cover)
• Sentimental Journey (Doris Day cover)
• Send Me No Flowers (Doris Day & Burt Bacharach cover, Nellie on Uke)
• Do Do Do (Doris Day cover) *a fave of the night*
• Mean To Me (Doris Day cover)
• Dig It (Doris Day cover, Nellie dance-off) *a fave of the night*
• The Very Thought of You (Doris Day cover)
• A Wonderful Guy (Doris Day cover)
• I Remember You (Doris Day cover)
• “I Killed Larry David and I Liked It” / Grunge Song *a fave of the night*
• Crazy Rhythm (Doris Day cover) *a fave of the night*
• Black Hills of Dakota (Doris Day cover)
• A-Tisket, A-Tasket (Ella Fitzgerald cover)
• The Dog Song *a fave of the night*
• Encore: Zombie (with Gary Danielson on sax)
• I Wanna Get Married (Doo Wop Version, with Gary Danielson on sax) *a fave of the night*

So, yeah, holy crap… Nellie just keeps on getting better each time I see her.  I thought I’d be slightly bummed by a mostly Doris Day set (as I really like Nellie’s original songs a lot), but the Doris Day material was really fantastic in a live band setting.  The addition of a jazz combo behind her really made the songs gel, and her interaction with the others was really fun.  She’s kinda of a nutty person (or maybe as corny as Kansas in August)… but I wouldn’t want her to be any other way.  I didn’t get a chance to meet her after the show, but I had a fun night regardless.  Nellie and the Aristocrats are playing a second night (Wednesday, October 21st) at the Jazz Alley.  If you go, drop me a line with your thoughts on Night 2.

Some of the best lines of the night by Nellie…

“I still can’t go back to Olympia, because I have overdue library books.”

“There’s hashish in that music… that was a score!” (really funny in context)

The Jazz Alley’s description of Nellie as a “martini cool chanteuse” was kinda of spot on.   If you don’t have her newest one, get it… it’s fun (and out on vinyl, too):

The Appropriate Linkage:

• Nellie McKay’s Official Site
• The Fan Site with Forum
• Nellie McKay on MySpace
• Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley

~Dan – np: Erik Friedlander – Topaz

NELLIE McKAY PHOTOS
all pictures (cc) 2009 Daniel Temmesfeld,
you may use freely under a creative commons attribution

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I was all set to do a post on Salma Hayek today and then I got sidetracked by some absolutely fabulous (pun completely intended) cardigans. Cardigans are boring, you say? Uh-uh, sister, these are some fun, cute and completely full of personality cardigans. They are perfect to dress up a professional closet or throw on for a girls night out…and yes, they are date appropriate too. And, they are at every price point. Really, you can’t go wrong. Let’s start, shall we?

I found this Michael Simon Lace Print Cardigan from Neiman Marcus to be absolutely divine:

Michael Simon Lace-Print Cardigan from Neiman Marcus

Then, I found myself drawn to this Autumn Cashmere Striped Cashmere Cardigan from Bergdorf Goodman.

Autumn Cashmere Striped Cashmere Cardigan from Bergdorf Goodman

Always wanted some fur glamour but hate the idea of real fur (or simply can’t afford it?) Look no further. This Semantiks Cardigan with Faux Fur from Nordstrom is for you:

Semantiks Cardigan with Faux Fur from Nordstrom

And while I hate to give credit to them, this Pocket Front Cardigan from Forever 21 is pretty darn cute too:

Pocket Front Cardigan from Forever 21

Tomorrow, more petite and more belle!

A Plus,
Petite et Belle

Here comes another weekly Lady Business segement, Video of the Week. This week, our video comes from the third season of French and Saunders, one of the few comedy shows helmed by women, in this case Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.

In this video Jennifer Saunders parodies basically any movie with Doris Day in it, and sings about what women really want from life: a husband.