Magic Jewball

I tried to think of some context to frame this video and came up with a few possibilities. Maybe a follow-up to my “Brits eat less than us” post or tied together with a post about Sarpon taking me to a “fresh from the Old Vic” Broadway production of “Moon For the Misbegotten” (with Kevin Spacey! Right in front of us!). And then I decided that even if it comes from nowhere, it’s just fun and funny on its own. I realize I’m just shilling for Virgin Atlantic here (another possible tie-in, this time with the previous post) but who cares? Being that I love England, Tea & Sympathy, and really funny things, it seemed like a fine way to start out the week.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x96FrakUPfs[/youtube]

In my continuing (well now it is) series of “Cadillac commercials remind me of songs I adore, so much so that I can’t bring myself to hate the commercial” iPod Song of the Week posts, I present you with this week’s brilliant choice. This isn’t my favorite Jam song but it’s more representative of their style than my actual favorite (The Bitterest Pill… shut up!). I’m sure reams of blog pages have been written about the irony of a leftist band like The Jam shilling for Cadillac but I didn’t read them. This is so I can’t be accused of copying later.

Quite frankly, everyone knows my policy on selling out. Sometimes when you’re offered enough money, you just give in. But really, instead of getting disgusted, we the fans can just enjoy 30 seconds of this raw-edged, energetic (the exclamation point in the title is totally necessary, trust me), punky-catchy number which is based on the eternal sentiment that “what you give is what you get.” And surely, if you give us a great song that lasts years and years, you ought to get some financial reward to make your later life just that much more comfortable.

You can see the commercial here, it’s in the second row and is called “CTS Bose Edition.” (I looked for “Never respect The Fall the same way again” but that commercial is actually for Mitsubishi. It’s clear I don’t own a car, isn’t it?)

Related: iPod song of the week – The Stone Roses, iPod song of the week – Style Council

The Jam – Start!

Yes, according to this article, Pret a Manger, the fab British chain that has a few tasty outlets in Manhattan, had to make their sandwiches over 25% larger to sell any in the US.

The company ran into trouble in America, however, underestimating quite how large New Yorkers liked their sandwiches. After altering the sizes, and cutting back on the mayonnaise, it slowly turned the business around.

Fantastic! After all the talk about how McDonald’s (which owns a share of Pret, as it happens) pushes large sizes on the masses, it turns out that we actually can’t eat a simple 450 calorie sandwich for lunch (that’s before the chips and the soda, etc…. Pret has nice cake too, FYI). We don’t want to get hungry before the 4pm Starbucks run or anything!

But at least we don’t eat as much mayo as the Brits do. I’m going to try to find some comfort in that.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1JdNocbGAo[/youtube]

I wanted to write a post yesterday about Israeli Independence Day but both then and today I’m feeling under the weather and lacking in energy. Thus, please enjoy this post from last year or at least gaze at the picture a minute before moving onto some other blog with a fresher post.

As for me, I was forced to forgo my usual Yom Ha’atzma’ut felafel in order to have soup. You’re weeping for me, I know.

So, Becca, how’s the new language thing going? I’m sorry you asked because I haven’t really had time lately. Despite my feeling that there’s no rush or anything, it’s bothered me that I’m not accomplishing much, so I’ve found a method of achieving very little while feeling like I’m doing a lot. It’s the mark of the true lazy person! This method entails listening to the “French Scene” station on AOL Radio where I can do nothing actively and, magically through osmosis, learn French. But a funny thing happened on the way to Lazytown. I actually ended up liking a bunch of things! The problem is, very few of them are available on the US iTunes but, through means I won’t detail, I did finally get several of them. The important thing to remember is that I tried to pay for them but they wouldn’t take my money.

Anyhoo, even though most of my readers won’t be able to acquire this song I thought I’d put it out there for the 10% of my readership who don’t live in the fifty states. The fun thing about listening to songs in another language (or old Cocteau Twins songs) is that you concentrate on things you don’t usually, like the flow of the words and the catchy melody. I originally just liked the fun and bouncy nature of this number but I did eventually translate it (as much as is possible for me) because it’s got several different voices singing various parts and I wanted to see what was up with that. As far as I can tell, it’s the familiar story of getting drunk and finding out the next day all the crazy things you did (luckily your friends will always be around to tell you). The guy swears he’s going to stop drinking, you know, right after the next one. It’s a universal sentiment!

Speaking of International, it’s Memorial Day in Israel and election day in France, which through the miracle of science I’ll recognize with just this one picture.
(reading from right to left, France Votes 2007… and actually, so would be the candidates if they’d just switched the leftmost two there, but who cares, because two will be gone in about 15 minutes).

Tryo РDesol̩ Pour Hier Soir (not available on Napster)

Lyrics