28 Saturday Mar 2020
Mark Blum was born in Newark and raised in Maplewood, New Jersey. As a teenager, trips to Broadway shows taught him to love the theatre, though he never considered acting as a career. “I was raised in one of those basic middle-class Jewish families in the suburbs,” he told the New York Times, “and that just wasn’t something somebody thought about.” Continue reading
31 Tuesday Dec 2019
Posted in Books, Film, Lana Del Rey, Music, Poetry, Politics, Television, Updates, Writing
≈ Comments Off on My Hopes and Fears for 2020
Tags
1st September 1939, A Year in Books, A Year in Films and TV, A Year in Music, Art Decades, David Lynch, Dear Christine, Donna Tartt, ES Updates, Everlasting Star, Fan Phenomena, James Gray, Jeremy Corbyn, Lana Del Rey, Marilyn Monroe, Marion Cotillard, Poetry, Socialism, Soledad, The Goldfinch, The Immigrant, Twin Peaks, Ultraviolence, Video Games, W.H. Auden
As a new decade beckons, I’m deeply worried about the way our world seems to be heading. As W.H. Auden wrote on ‘September 1, 1939‘ (a poem deemed so prescient he tried to bury it …) Continue reading
26 Thursday Dec 2019
Posted in Lana Del Rey, Music, Profumo Affair, Television, Updates
≈ Comments Off on Merry Christmas To All My Readers
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BBC, Christine Keeler, Christmas, Dear Christine, I'll Be Home For Christmas, Kacey Musgraves, Lana Del Rey, Marilyn Monroe, Profumo Affair, Scandal, The Trial Of Christine Keeler
Just a little note from me to wish you all a merry Christmas. If you thought you’d seen off my lists for another year, make room for one more as in a few days, I’ll be looking back at the end of this decade in music, books and film. But first, let’s enjoy this nostalgic carol from Lana Del Rey and friends.
As some of you may know, The Trial of Christine Keeler is coming to BBC1. First announced here, the six-part drama starts at 9 pm this Sunday, December 29th. With the exhibition Dear Christine heading to London in February, and Scandal set for reissue by the BFI, the women of the Profumo Affair may finally get their due in 2020.
15 Sunday Dec 2019
Posted in Books, Lana Del Rey, Madonna, Music, Non-Fiction
≈ Comments Off on 2019: A Year In Music
Tags
A Year in Music, All Mirrors, Andrew Ridgeley, Angel Olsen, Billie Holiday, Debbie Harry, Downhill Lullaby, George Michael, Lana Del Rey, Madame X, Madonna, Marina and the Diamonds, Mirwais Ahmadzai, Norman Fucking Rockwell, Odetta, Prince, Remind Me Tomorrow, Seventeen, Sharon Van Etten, Sky Ferreira, The Shangri-Las, To Be Human, Tricky, Wham!
This year brought defiant statements from masters old and new: the iconoclastic Madame X, reuniting Madonna with ‘disco god’ Mirwais; and the epochal Norman Fucking Rockwell from Lana Del Rey. Continue reading
14 Friday Jun 2019
Posted in Books, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, Music, Updates
≈ Comments Off on ‘Madame X’ is a Birthday Girl
In my 35+ years of fandom, this is the first time a Madonna album has dropped on my birthday – and it’s a masterpiece! As well as the delectable Madame X, I also got a copy of Marilyn Monroe In Spain, a wonderful book by the artist, author and museum owner, Frederic Cabanas … “Saludos a todos mis amigos!”
Tara Hanks 
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