The Worst Beatle Waxworks Ever
Being immortalized in wax is a particularly harsh price of fame, don't you think? Even the dummies reproduced on the cover of Sgt. Pepper (surely the best of a bad lot) seem to have at best a distant relationship to their human counterparts. But this one, provided by friend and fellow Beatlefan Stephen Kroninger, takes the cake. If you have better (or [...]
Johnandyoko Open Thread
My Dear Dullblogisti, Yesterday I wrote a post about Yoko Ono's relationship to The Beatles, and how strange it seems to me—not only her needless antipathy, but also John Lennon's—and how their marriage seemed to be founded on a mutual dismissal of/antagonism towards the idea of The Beatles. I mentioned how this puts any Beatles fan in a weird, yet seldom examined [...]
Mob Psycho 100 and the Beatles’ Mop Tops
A few days ago Eric Trump inadvertently sent the anime series Mob Psycho 100 to the toppermost of the Twitterverse when he Googled "mob." He signally failed to grasp why the popularity/relevance algorithm Google uses put images of the show early in the search results. Fans of the show reacted with predictable glee, and the Mob Psycho 100 Twitter account posted this, [...]
Rob Sheffield on the Beatles’ breakup and Peter Jackson’s upcoming film
This piece by Rob Sheffield (whose most recent book is Dreaming The Beatles) just came out in Rolling Stone. Sheffield uses the lens of the new Peter Jackson documentary due out next August and put together from the same sessions that yielded Let It Be to consider, again, just why the Beatles came apart as and when they did. There's nothing especially [...]
Craig Brown’s “One Two Three Four”
Is it possible to write anything fresh and interesting about the Beatles in 2020? Improbably, Craig Brown has managed to pull off this feat in One Two Three Four: The Beatles In Time. It helps enormously that Brown departs from the marching-in-strict-chronological order structure used, understandably enough, in many accounts of the band. Brown is the author of 99 Glimpses of Princess [...]
The Beatles and Jeffrey Epstein
Knowing the internet, SEO alone will probably make this the most popular post in the history of Dullblog (hello Were John and Paul Lovers). But my thoughts are philosophical, not evidentiary. Spare your revulsion for a moment while I share some thoughts which may explain a lot of what I've written on this blog since 2010. Fact: there is a level of [...]
Emitt Rhodes, 1950-2020
Singer-songwriter Emitt Rhodes, the ill-starred talent once called "The One-Man Beatles" (also the title of a 2009 documentary, pasted below), has died. The New York Times obituary is here. I wrote about him previously on Dullblog, and those thoughts revisited me today. Nothing more to say but: good luck to you, Emitt, and thanks for the music. https://vimeo.com/266426996
F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Lennon
I’ve been on something of a Jazz Age kick recently, and you can’t be on one of those without running into my second-favorite American author of all time, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Somehow the thought occurred to me: F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Lennon have a lot in common. The original John and Yoko? Fitzgerald said that all his works were imprinted with [...]
Cirque de Soleil’s “Love” at the Mirage
Back on March 7, my husband and I saw Cirque de Soleil's Beatles-themed show Love at the Mirage hotel and casino in Las Vegas. I've been meaning to write this post for a while now, but the way things snapped shut right after that trip due to covid-19 has made it hard to figure out what to say about the experience. Please [...]