• Petula’s interviews on radio and TV tend to be diplomatic about personal matters, but in print she can be quite frank and open about herself. What she reveals at this link is one such example.
• Coming up on September 13 on PBS is “The 60’s Live!” Petula’s appearance can’t be truly live, as she will be performing in Manila that day.
• On September 22 Pet will be back in New York, for the delayed appearance with Harry Belafonte at the Paley Center at the Museum of Television and Radio. Click here for more background about that.

For complete up-to-date information, check the American site PetulaClark.net, and in the UK, the Petula Blog.

“Shout!” is also the name of a song by the Isley Brothers that the Beatles performed once on the English TV show Ready, Steady, Go!. With all of the Beatles-related sites, and the many videos posted on YouTube, I’m surprised that I can’t find a good transfer of that appearance. So I’ll provide one here, taken from an 8-inch Laserdisc.

Another Beatles bit of information is that they had some of the first Philips-Norelco Compact Cassette decks in England. Fifteen years later, John Lennon was holding cassettes when he was shot.

And oh, by the way, we still don’t have our replacement Bose Wave. It’s in transit from Arizona, and according to the UPS tracking number will be here mid-week.

[See post to listen to audio]

A few miles up the road, at the Norman Rockwell Museum, there’s an exhibit of political cartoons by leftist artist Stephen Brodner. I like Brodner’s work a lot. His style seems to show the influence of Al Hirschfeld, as well as Ralph Steadman’s earlier drawings, with perhaps a dash of Arnold Roth tossed in here and there.

And in North Adams, MA, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, aka Mass MoCA, Eric really enjoyed Jenny Holzer’s PROJECTIONS. It’s hard to say what it is. Here, watch and decide for yourself.

A kid happened to be screaming, and his echo gives you an idea of how big the room is. The museum is in the former Sprague Electric factory, and that hall is the same one I mentioned last September, about a failed exhibit. However you want to describe PROJECTIONS, Holzer took good advantage of the space. This is the view from the other end of the room.

There are huge bean bags on the floor, so you can lie back and look up at the projected poetry. A fascinating side effect of the exhibition were all of the sleeping children, totally zonked in the bean bags. Walking through the cavernous hall, with its weird lighting and echoes, it was as if the kids had become part of the exhibit.

Happy birthday to Amy Schulz Johnson, back on August 5. And speaking of the Schulz family, in this photo there’s an extra swimmer in the pool with the Schulz kids. Who is that?

(That’s a $400 haircut?)

Here is the ultimate 8-Track cartridge listening experience. Lou Reed’s “Metal Machine Music” is ideally suited to this particular electronic audio medium. 8-Track tapes were notorious for leakage between channels, but in this case, if that were happening who could tell?

I suspect the tracks are identical, but again, who can tell? Nevertheless, here are all four of them, with the “click” between tracks left intact to simulate the 8-Track listening experience. (Four tracks in stereo, for a total of eight.)

Track A-1
[See post to listen to audio]

Track A-2
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Track A-3
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Track A-4
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Before getting that TV I listened to the radio all day, but as much as I love radio, doing that didn’t lift my spirits. Reading was impractical, but I could put that portable TV on the tray of the chair and watch it out of my “good” eye, which later had problems of its own.

There was a UHF station in Boston that showed a lot of old Bonanza episodes, and those became the highlight of my day. I was amazed by how adult the show was, and by how much innuendo there was in the writing.

Besides the TV, something else Carol did that was helpful was she read out loud from Thomas Hardy’s tragic book “The Mayor of Casterbridge.” It’s not a very cheerful story, but I really got into it, and enjoyed discussing its characters and themes with Carol. Since then we’ve watched several different adaptations of “The Mayor of Casterbridge.” The recent A&E production is very good, but Dennis Potter’s version with Alan Bates is probably our favorite.

And I must also say thank you to D.F. Rogers, who played Dragnet radio shows from the 50’s for me, that we listened to on Eric’s toy R2-D2 cassette player. When I was down and out, doing that was a lot of fun. Hard to believe that was almost nine years ago.

From this sort of incident, I guess I’d have to say that Vista is the right version of Windows for most people, because it intercepts every attempt to install anything. It’s just too dangerous to be collecting mail and browsing the Web when logged on as an administrator.

My recommendation is that if you’re a typical Windows XP Home user, create a restricted user account and use that for mail and browsing. The only time you should be in as an administrator is if something won’t install in the restricted account and you are sure you want to install it.

P.S. OK, a day later they *seem* to be working again.

[See post to listen to audio]

The motto of the USS New York is “Never Forget,” as seen in this decoration for its christening, on March 1.

Who was responsible for 9/11? Osama bin Laden. Never forget? A mere six months after September 11, 2001, on March 13, 2002, this is what President George W. Bush said about Osama bin Laden. Note: The link for this quote goes to the White House Web site.

“So I don’t know where he is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you.”
- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

Oh, by the way. Today is the seventh anniversary of the daily briefing that Bush was given, saying that Bin Laden was determined to strike within the United States.

Prudence Bury-Fuchs

That photo is from a French article, and if you click here you can read a Google translation of it. And there’s another item about Pru, also translated, at this link.

Here’s something in English, about a fund-raiser that Pru organized. From postings such as this one, I would conclude that Pru is a real estate agent.

This is great! I’ve wondered for decades about the mystery girl on the train with Les Beatles, and now I know. Thanks again, Janis!

[See post to listen to audio]

Darlene’s friend, the late Jo Stafford, can be seen with Frank Sinatra in this old film clip, performing “I’ll Never Smile Again,” a song I featured at this link.