As many can tell from 3 months past, I’ve been mourning my morning coffee/late night bourbon sessions with my best friend, Scott. As bff’s do, we covered life, love, goals and failures, etc, but what I really loved was the Music/Film/Lit 101 that always seemed to take over. And as much as I want to say it was equally sided, it wasn’t. I’d put on a song I liked and he would grab his hard-drive and play me the song it sampled from. Nick Hornby turned to Norman Mailer. And so on.
So, when I happened to meet Celine in Mandalay and we both agreed to meet rooftop and trade tracks over a bottle of rum, I was, once again – schooled. We were more-or-less on the same path around SE Asia and got to meet up both in Cambodia and Laos; all the while, she introducing me to things I previously didn’t know.
So, every once and a while, I shall title a post with the letter of the person who taught me, and then a number indicating the ‘lesson’.
This has actually I’ve been something I have constantly been thinking about lately, how we, when introducing others to new music/writers/art/et al, rarely credit the person we learned from, which is a tragedy…nay, an insult.
I’m going to try and start that more – instead of graciously accepting the compliment that ‘Oh! I love that video about ‘Charlie The Unicorn’, I can say ‘Great, right? My friend Jenni turned me onto it’. Something you should be doing to others and them to you, no? Yes. Thank you.
Anyway, not many people know I grew up in a strict religious household – no television, no secular music, and very few books. Making me late to the game of it all. Very. Can I tell you I just read Orwell’s ’1984′ 2 months ago? I’m ashamed to even admit that. Thankfully, I had Scott to suggest it.
Needless to say, I don’t know a whole lot about…well, anything. Including anything now considered vintage. This I had never seen before and after my friend Celine (see how easy that is!) told me about it, I looked it up.
Wow. Take that, CGI. This was done in ’51, same year ‘A Streetcar Named Desire‘ hit the big sreens. Think about that while watching this.
Thank you Fred. Thank you Celine. Thank you Scott. Thank you Jenni.
Great scene! A couple of interesting tidbits about this movie… Fred and Adele Astaire were the toast of both Broadway and London’s West End from the time they were teens with Adele considered the more talented, and the act broke up when she married into the royal family, so this was sorta biographical. Astaire’s love interest in the movie is played by Sarah Churchill, who was Winston Churchill’s daughter. But the most amazing thing to me was that at the time, Astaire was 52 years old!!
A few years ago, there was a commercial on American TV (I forget which product) that used his dance with a hat rack from this same movie.
Oh friend…you are so welcome. Charlie is one amazing cat (er….unicorn). And you….YOU have taught me a thing or two. Lesson A1: wear a helmet. Lesson A2: gowling is the best drinking sport ever. So thank you – and we shall continue our exchange of lessons in mexico…where I am sure there are many lessons to be learned. OLE.