Hooray! At long last the entire Beatles studio album catalog is available on iTunes. Could we have picked a cooler week to get iPhones than the first week that the Fab Four become totally downloadable? I think not!
And could those rad-ass print ads and commercials be any more awesome? I’m sorry, but, wow…that shit is gorgeous! Long live Los Beatles!
Filed under Hear
Had he not been so suddenly and violently taken from us at the age of 40, the late, great John Lennon would have turned seventy years old last month. That’s right, seven-zero. Crazy, huh?
In honor of John’s 70th, Christine and I wanted to post some pics we took last summer during our visit to Strawberry Fields, the Lennon memorial in New York City’s Central Park. Located on 2.5 acres of sprawling parkland just across the street from the legendary Dakota apartment building where Lennon lived, and died, Strawberry Fields can only be described as peaceful.
I’m not saying the rest of the park isn’t peaceful, because…wow…Central Park in August is all kinds of breathtakingly peaceful, but, Strawberry Fields just felt almost magical in its stillness.
A designated quiet zone — Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono still lives in the Dakota and apparently grew weary of the singing of the fans in the park — Strawberry Fields has a serenity that truly sets it apart from the rest of the park.
Sure, there were tons of fans milling about, and the crowd taking pictures around the stunning “Imagine” mosaic that serves as the areas centerpiece was pretty intense, but, despite the sheer volume of people there, Strawberry Fields was a very chill place to spend the afternoon.
And though I was a bit disappointed to discover that there were no actual strawberry plants in Strawberry Fields (I know, I’m lame, but, it would have been nice) I gotta tell ya, I haven’t been that moved by a memorial since our 2007 visit to Graceland.
It’s like John’s aura was all around you, and though there was none of his actual music playing anywhere (designated quiet zone, remember?) you didn’t need to hear it to know that it was there, in our hearts. I know that sounds hopelessly cheesy, but, it’s how we felt.
So, happy birthday, John. Seventy years on, you continue to rock the world…
Filed under Do
Last week, Greta’s gigantic lower molars came in with a vengeance and lemme tell ya, it was not pretty. Non-stop crying, bleeding gums, no eating, no sleeping, urgh…it was hellish. And that was just us! You can imagine how bad the week was for poor little Greta!
Seriously though, whether you’re the one growing the new teeth or not, teething totally f-ing sucks. There was, however, one bright spot last week and that was the fact that we scored some swinging new Rockabye Baby music to help all of us through those long, sleepless nights. Hooray!
Of course, we already had a pretty rocking collection of Rockabye’s lullaby jams on hand — Coldplay, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins and The Beatles Vol. I — but, trust me, even The Beatles get old after the thousandth late-night listen.
Thankfully for us, Rockabye has s-loads of other bands on tap. So, first we checked out Björk, which, as you can see, has the coolest cover of the bunch. The lullaby versions of her songs were good, but since her music is kinda trippy and lullaby-ish already, it didn’t really sound that different.
Metallica, on the other hand, was capital-A awesome! Rocking Greta to sleep to a lullaby version of “Enter Sandman” made me wanna bang my head like a madman. Um…you know, a very sleepy madman. Anyway, it rocked.
Green Day was also excellent, but a few of the songs were so rocking that Greta started dancing in my arms. Not the best trait in sleepy-time music…but we will definitely listen to this one in the car on road trips. Awesome stuff, guys!
Surprisingly, our favorite of the latest bunch of Rockabye Baby CD’s was No Doubt. Crazy, huh? I mean, we have a few of the band’s regular CD’s and some of Gwen’s solo stuff, but have never been hard core fans…until now!
Seriously, the lullaby versions of No Doubt’s songs are absolutely gorgeous. I defy you not to shed a tear while listening to that lilting lullaby version of “Simple kind of life”. And when you think about what she’s singing about in the real song and how your new life with this amazing baby is anything but simple…wow, it kills me every time.
And best of all, the No Doubt Rockabye Baby is just great music. Period. Seriously, this album is so good that even people without babies would dig it. So, if you only have the cash for one Rockabye Baby CD this summer, No Doubt’s is the one I’d buy. Actually, I’d still probably get the Beatles one too…Rockabye’s soaring version of “Across The Universe” makes me cry my ass off. Beautiful!!
We’re currently on a waiting list (!) at the library for a couple more Rockabye Baby CD’s (Rolling Stones, anyone?) so, we’ll let you know what we think of those when they come in. But for now, thank you Rockabye Baby, for saving our butts last week…you guys rock!
Filed under Hear
Christine has always favored Ben & Jerry’s over all other ice creams, and even though I must admit to being much more of a Baskin Robbins man myself, I do love me some sweet, socially-conscious Ben & Jerry’s sometimes too.
Their Chunky Monkey kind of slays me…it’s amazing. And Christine actually fought a woman to the death for the last pint of Cherry Garcia at Vons one time. Yeah, um…we don’t talk about that much…
The thing I dig most about Ben & Jerry’s is that they make great gourmet ice cream for a cause, several of them in fact, and yet despite the often serious nature of the causes they morph into flavors, the company maintains a cool, cheeky sense of humor. Who else but those crazy hippies from Vermont could take a cause as noble as ONE.org’s campaign to “make poverty history” and make it into ONE Cheesecake Brownie?
Haven’t tried that one yet, but man, that is just hilarious. So when we heard that Ben & Jerry’s were creating a new flavor to honor John Lennon’s lifelong commitment to the peace movement, we were all over that shit!
Launched in Times Square on May 27th, Imagine Whirled Peace is caramel and sweet cream ice cream swirled with fudge peace signs and toffee cookie pieces. And, man alive, is it delicious!
Even cooler than the ice cream is the way it was introduced to the world. Staging a recreation of Lennon and Yoko Ono’s famous “bed-ins for Peace” with super cool actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, B&J’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield and Jeremy Gilley, founder of Peace One Day, Imagine Whirled Peace was literally launched from bed. How cool is that?
As always, a portion of the profits go towards the Peace One Day foundation, which was started by Gilley to keep the peace movement alive in today’s crazy world. Peace One Day events are celebrated annually on September 21st.
And while she wasn’t there in person to launch the flavor, Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono did provide a statement for the event that supposedly brought down the house…er, bedroom. “Make peace — a dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.” Wow, almost me wanna run out and buy more some ice cream…nicely put Yoko!
And while I gotta admit that I was not initially turned on by the actual ingredients in the flavor, one bite of that toffee cookie dough goodness changed my mind immediately. Imagine Whirled Peace is straight-up fantastic! And though I usually find large chunks of chocolate in ice cream to be too hard, those tasty little peace signs literally melt in your mouth. Must be the fudge factor.
So even if you don’t eat it in bed, I urge you to check out the links above, help make a difference and most of all, as Lennon famously encouraged us to do with peace, give this flavor a change, baby. You’ll love it!
Filed under Eat
make. see. eat. do. 