Beat, Beatnik, Beatles

[Snowflake]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

My mother taught me how to ride a motorcycle and took me to see Blazing Saddles and Papillon.

Your mother is serious cool and from the pictures you have shown, she also has a nice a$$!

[Not Afraid]

Marianne Faithful is uber cool - still.

My parents also took me to see Louis Armstrong at Disneyland. They get cool points there.

[mousepod]

One day, remind me to tell you my Marianne Faithfull story. I think I got a "thank you" on one of her CDs...

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Snowflake

Your mother is serious cool and from the pictures you have shown, she also has a nice a$$!

Yes, and we are going to the LA County Fair again this weekend (Sunday) to see it.

[innerSpaceman]

I enjoyed every musical number in Across the Universe. Great covers of Beatles songs, with some of the numbers being quite cleverly presented and visually splendid.

It seemed so agreeable to me that the Beatles catalog is full of so many absolutely ubiquitous classics that you can pretty much write any story - - and find a way to tell it with 25 Beatles songs.


So why did they choose to tell this one?

The tale of the folks living communally in 60's NYC was beyond trite, and I didn't much care for the characters. Jude was a hottie, though.


But I was glad they didn't do the obligatory song for every Beatles-named character. When you meet in short order Maxell, Lucy, Prudence, Sadie, Dr. Robert, Jude and Jo-Jo ... you tend to assume a certain set list. But that was thankfully not the case.


All in all, a worthwhile experience for the musical elements.

[innerSpaceman]

Oh, and I loved Love.


I tried to find mousepod's old review of the show to no avail, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what he found embarrassing or an inappropriate use of Beatles music. It was a beautiful show, featuring one trippy visual conception after another. I plan on seeing it again.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Oh, and I loved Love.


I tried to find mousepod's old review of the show to no avail...

I think this was the thread you were looking for.

[innerSpaceman]

Thanks, Kevy.

Whoa what a different show I saw. Literally.


These two bits that mousepod complained of were nowhere to be found in the production I saw.

Originally Posted by mousepod

One "gag" featured three male characters entering the stage holding flowers. One woman comes out, walks up to the first man, takes his flowers and walks out on his arm. Then two women enter and both of them approach the second man, accept his flowers and walk out on his arms. The last man stands alone the stage with his bouquet when a muscular shirtless hunk enters opposite. The first man quickly hides his bouquet behind his back. Big laughs. Hi-friggin-larious.

One other bit worth spoiling is the vignette where four guys on wires enter the stage in black smoke-emitting costumes flapping broken umbrellas for wings. They thud onto the stage. A man in a lab coat comes out and yells at them: "Blackbird! Singing in the dead of night! Take these broken wings and learn to fly!" etc etc. as the birds attempt to fly. No cheap joke is omitted in this one, from the knee to the groin, to the finale, where the lab coated man snaps on a rubber glove and administers the punch line to one of the Blackbird's butts.

.


Seems they listen to the likes of mousepod. Those elements are gone from the show.

[katiesue]

Maddy's recent Beatles moment. "Mom there are only SEVEN days in a week".

[lindyhop]

(I never got around to posting in this thread when it was current so I thought I'd bump it up again for my own purposes...)

I ran across a discussion about the Beatles in the Stanford University section of iTunes U. It was titled “Beatles on Your Brain” and it was one of those panel discussions with audience questions that go both everywhere and nowhere. It centered on the White Album since it’s been 40 years since its release. I don’t really know what the title of the panel was supposed to mean but most of the discussion was about favorite tracks from the album and what they meant to the panelists. At the beginning of the discussion I could barely remember what songs were on the White Album (I only own it on vinyl so I haven’t been able to listen to it in years) but it started to come back to me as different songs were mentioned. I never thought the White Album was very cohesive, in fact I think it’s a mess, so it doesn't stick in my mind the way something like Abbey Road does. It was obvious the four Beatles weren’t working as closely together and it seemed like they just threw everything they had on that one album without trying to edit.

The panelists also spent a little time on the Beatles phenomenon and how it affected people personally. At one point they asked how many people in the audience had seen the Beatles live and I was in my car raising my hand high and wishing I’d been there to see how many other people responded.

Beatles music is always mixed up in my mind with the culture and the world as I was growing up. The Beatles have always represented more than music for me. They were the first big thing I became interested in that was outside my childhood world. In the beginning I was just part of the group because everyone (well, girls my age, that is) was in love with the Beatles. Later when the Beatles weren’t such a dominant force it was my first experience with being obsessed with something that was different from the norm. My best friend and I were the weird ones in high school because we were so devoted to the Beatles. Everyone else thought they were passe. So all these years later listening to this Stanford presentation I was delighted to hear other people talk so enthusiastically about this band that was so important to me.

(And for the same reason I was glad to see this thread even if it did take me six months to respond!)