Author Archive: Guest Reviewer
Ooops!
"Er...did you say..."Moonlight" or "La La Land"?"
Ah. yes…the Oscars. The Dream Factory. The Virtue-Signalling Citadel. The Selfie Gang-Bang. Trump-Hate Central. But apparently, they screwed it up…called the wrong winner. I thought we were ALL winners? But nooooooooooooo….Not used to working live, we guess.
Continue Reading →Karen Carpenter – A Most Extraordinary Craft
Karen Carpenter (2 March 1950 to 4 February 1983), one of the few famous female pop drummers of all time (think Mo Tucker, Bobbye Hall, Cindy Blackman, who else?) elevated the essentially easy-listening elevator music of her family duo thanks to her matchless, honey-over pancakes voice. Carpenters’ song-list is a creamy, sugared, nutty sundae of schmaltz, but her smooth, effortless, mirific contralto took it to a much better place – fare such as We’ve Only Just Begun, Rainy Days and Mondays, Superstar, Yesterday Once More, Only Yesterday, Solitaire, and Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft. She died just shy of her 33rd birthday, from failure…
Continue Reading →Merry Christmas
When did they build this Sky-deck?
Xmas 2016: Celebrating the most famous surrogate birth in history… And a Happy New Year to you all.
Continue Reading →The Clown (by Heinrich Böll) – GUEST REVIEW
WE AT TVC ARE MOST PLEASED TO PRESENT A REVIEW BY OUR SENSATIONAL GUEST REVIEWER LYNETTE. Heinrich Böll’s The Clown jumped off the library shelf with its clown face cover. It was in synch with the contemporary news reports of creepy clowns that had been doing the rounds of e media. Having never heard of the writer, I was surprised at how popular and prolific he was as a novelist and poet, being well known as a best seller largely on the back of this 1963 classic, set in post-war Germany. Who other than children think that clowns are funny?…
Continue Reading →“Scratchy” Impasto
'Scratchy' Impasto on banjo, 'Rudy' Wiedoeft (clarinet), 'Marco' Woolf (violin), 'Buster' Johnson (trombone), 'Arnold' Johnson (piano), 'Keith' Moon (drums).
The Varnished Culture celebrates the life of obscure but influential Jazz Genius, Elroy “Scratchy” Impasto (15 January 1923 – 3 February 1966) Born Elroy Raymondo Fillibecker III, son of Myron Elroy Fillibecker II (a veteran’s disability pensioner) and his third wife, Mayvis Jo-Anne Minniver Fillibecker (cleaner) in either Hawaii or Kenya, he was raised in an atmosphere made for Jazz. Plagued with the childhood ailments eczema, asthma, scrofula and tinea, Scratchy grew up in the experimental ‘projects’ of Cleveland, Illinois, surrounded by the hydroponic vertical and roof-top gardens which enlivened the drab apartment buildings of ‘Hypo-land’, as his estate was known. Myron…
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