Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 17

Love, The One You're With

Darlene Love did her Christmas spectacular for last time with Letterman last night and NYT covers her saying she will not do for any other talk show host in the future.

Colbert Finale

Full version of surprising song he closed with, from Neutral Milk Hotel.  Recall that he lost two brothers and Dad in plane crash.

Ol' Jew Eyes

Pretty funny--we have covered the upcoming Dylan cover album of Sinatra tunes but here's a real tribute:  well-known illustrator Drew Friedman mashing them up.  And he's selling prints.  Heeb magazine covers here.

Update: Conviction of Youngest Executed Tossed Out

Dec. 17, 2914 update:  Conviction thrown out.  

June 2014 update:  70th anniversary of the execution, and NYT with another piece.   Lynching-in-slow-motion.

JANUARY UPDATE:  NYT with major piece on this today. 

Earlier:  But 70 years too late.  Because, you see, we executed him in 1944. At 14 he remains the youngest prisoner put to death in this country in many decades.   George Stinney, Jr. was (you won't be shocked) charged with killing two white girls in S. Carolina.  His execution was well-publicized and brutal (as I cover in my e-book on capital punishment in the USA, Dead Reckoning ).  Stinney weighed just 90 pounds and the Bible he carried had to be used for him to sit on so the electric chair could do its work.  Now lawyers seek a new trial.

Burgess said a member of the search party that found the girls' bodies has offered new testimony that raises questions about where the crime was carried out and whether Stinney was capable of doing it.

Stinney's sister, Amie Ruffner, now in her 70s and living in New Jersey, will testify that Stinney was with her the entire day of the murders and could not have killed the girls, Burgess said.

She was never asked to speak on her brother's behalf at the original trial.

--G.M.

Movie of the Year

Got to go with David Denby for once, re: Ida.   And it's now on Netflix.   The haunted aunt should (but won't) get Best Supporting Actress nods. Not sure where they will fall in my top ten, but I will mention sleepers Locke and Calvary and The Drop.

Album of the Year

From Lucinda Williams, full return to form, Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone--rare case where a double-lp could have been--but glad it wasn't--cut to a single.  From Dad's poem that opens to J.J. Cale at the close.   Especially notable for her own lyrics, from devotion to (many) fuck-offs.  When I was at Crawdaddy throughout 1970s she was just getting started in the blues/folk realm.   At bottom below, from 1989, when I discovered her.

Song of the Year

As he turned 80.  NOLA contender.

Waitin' for the Mow Down

Monterey Bay Aquarium fun folks have named this big-mouthed snail with a mohawk after Joe Strummer of the Clash.

Great Defense

The Browns' Andrew Hawkins defends wearing that "justice" t-shirt.  Tremendous.

John Glenn Meets Beethoven

Yes, Ed did play my man Beethoven--our birthday boy--not too far back--helping to spark my own LvB obsession.  Here he does The Ninth.