Super Mina!

I've been obsessed with Volume 1 of her greatest hits album for the past year. Don't let her pop-singer, variety show veneer fool you. Mina Mazzini was kind of a badass; the closest thing to a female rock star Italy had in the 60s.



Of course she was a badass! What else can you do with a bit of a hatchet face, a soprano voice, and a proclivity for screaming?

Watch her essentially kill it during her very first television appearance. You can see her hairy armpits at the very end.



And here's one of her catchiest hits, "Tintarella Di Luna." It's about a girl who moonbathes on her roof at night, instead of joining all the other girls at the beach and taking the sun. In other words, the girl would prowl around at night with "all the other cats." That must be 60s-speak for slut.



Below is my favorite Mina song from that era, "Rosetto Sul Coletto." It's about finding another woman's lipstick on her boyfriend's collar, but instead of freaking-the-fuck out, she's just like, "So, how was it?" and then she's all, "Maybe you forgot, but I'm the only one that's supposed be kissing you, okay?" And the discussion is over.

Kissing in this case is clearly a 1959 euphemism for boning. I just love the song for the chipper organ solo. I can't find Mina performing this one, so here is a clip that uses pictures based on the lyrics. Like a YouTube version of karaoke videos.



When Mina got knocked up by a then-famous and very married actor, she was banned from Italian television. Kind of a cultural exile since in Italy, still to this day, you're nothing if you're not a cheesy variety show staple.

She had a comeback in the 70s after RAI finally pulled the furniture out of its butt and let her back on TV, and she made records all through the 80s. I can't vouch for any of those yet because I'm still enamored with this mid-century pop. But I'll keep you posted!

Newness

Happy New Year! Happy New Puppy!



This is Bailey, and he is actually unhappy here. We stayed out late and then I made him wear his Elizabethan, don't-lick-your-stitches collar this morning. We'll get past this.

He's a bit of a brat sometimes, but he makes me so happy.

Trailer Trash

That's actually a bad pun because none of these movies look like anything you would throw in a garbage bag:

Let's start with NINE. Not too big on musicals, or Fergie, and kind of bummed they don't have any actual Italians playing Italians (Sofia Loren being the obvious exception)--but this still looks-a-very-good-a!



How will we be able to handle Penelope Cruz and Marion Cotillard in the same movie? I'm worried the whole world will look so ugly after watching their perfect mugs for two hours.

There are no words for Iron Man 2:



And The Runaways, finally! This is sure to be in the canon of great movies about a rag-tag group of girls with big dreams who refuse to listen to mean guys who say things like, "Go shopping!" Or, "Go do your nails!" or, in this case, "Go sell Girl Scout cookies!" (Though the only other one that comes to mind at the moment is Whip It!)



Dakota Fanning, a current valley girl, is playing Cherie Currie, a born-and-raised valley girl (now valley woman). Kristen Stewart is also in this movie and she and I are practically the same person because we both eat Spicy Tuna Rolls with our dads at the Kabuki on Ventura and DeSoto when we're home. Look:

The untrained eye can't tell, but they are indeed outside Kabuki

And look:

This actually isn't inside Kabuki, it's some Chinese buffet on Victory and DeSoto that my dad's obsessed with. Close enough.

Loafing

I've been on a loaf-making kick: banana-walnut, and hazelnut, specifically. I don't share these loafs with anyone, and eat an entire pan over the course of a week's breakfasts.

To feel like less of a land mammal, I've replaced white flour with whole wheat flour, and white sugar with organic evaporated cane sugar. Throw in organic butter for good measure. It still tastes amazing, but the calories and fat don't count, because they are organic calories and fat. (And everyone knows that being an organic-few pounds overweight is way sexier than like, Popeye's fat.)

And in burger news: Shake Shack is coming to Nolita! This spring, corner of Mulberry and Prince. I keep walking past the tiny vacant lot and picturing what's to come, my eyes turning to giant, flashing cartoon hamburgers.

Shake Shack: The Accidental Empire of Fast Food on NYTimes

Easy-peezy banana walnut bread from Food Network

Hazelnut loaf cake from Kirbie's Cravings

*Photo of loaf is not my own, it's also from Kirbie's Cravings.

2 Songs for the Week

Someone played this song on vinyl Saturday night at a house party I crashed in Cobble Hill. (Sometimes I get to say things like that and sound like a 15-year old Ohio girl's idea of cool. {Or my idea of her idea of cool--she's probably way cooler than me.})

The band is called Still Flyin', and the song is Good Thing It's a Ghost Town Around Here. I'm still figuring out if their other songs are any good, but this one is fun: It has a disco bass line, a saxophone , and a chorus!

Still Flyin' Good Thing it's a Ghost Town Around Here

Of course there is a chorus, look how many people are in this band! It looks like a Brooklyn Organic Cheese Co-Op Coalition. And what's a baby doing in this band, anyway?



I am very late on Deerhunter. It's sad. Katie put this song on my birthday mix a few weeks ago and my face exploded. I love songs that start out super-catchy and then spin off into something completely different, keeping you totally attached through all the changes, until it ends and you're like, "Wait, what just happened?"

If you haven't listened to Nothing Ever Happened by Deerhunter, do yourself a favor now, and thank me when you're done listening for the hundredth time!


Deerhunter Nothing Ever Happened

A Statue Flies in the Face of Corruption

After the retarded, ridiculous, generally dumb-ass conviction of Amanda Knox, I am so mad at Italy.

But Berlusconi's broken nose proves that the Italian justice system does work sometimes.

Snicker-inspiring attack on Berlusconi.

Just the tip of the why-he's-an-asshole iceberg.

An infuriating symptom of judicial backwardness in Italy.

A tiny ray of hope in the intelligence of masses.

Holidays and Hideaways

Marisa posted this video on her Facebook, and since I'm a sucker for super-group collaborations, heartwarming sentiment, 80s nostalgia, and transcendent choruses, I'm re-posting Do They Know it's Christmas?.



Still festive after all these years, but knowing what we do about the 80s, I can't help distracting myself by thinking, "Which one of them was coked-up at that very moment in filming?" The Bananarama girls look particularly hungover.

The following isn't holiday music, just some songs from the Where The Wild Things Are score (I'm embarrassingly late on seeing the movie and discovering the soundtrack's brilliance), by Karen O. I love her.

Hideaway - Karen O. and the Kids

Worried Shoes - Karen O. and the Kids