Early Morning Rain

This Gordon Lightfoot song blows me away. Simple strumming acoustic guitar and that soaring voice. Available here.

In the early morning rain
With a dollar in my hand
With an achin' in my heart
And my pockets full of sand
I'm a long way from home
And I miss my loved ones so
In the early morning rain
With no place to go

Out on runway number nine
Big 707 set to go
But I'm stuck here in the grass
Where the cold wind blows
Now the liquor tasted good
And the women all were fast
Well there she goes my friend
Well she's rollin' down at last

Hear the mighty engines roar
See the silver bird on high
She's away and westward bound
Far above the clouds she'll fly
Where the mornin' rain don't fall
And the sun always shines
She'll be flyin' o'er my home
In about three hours time

This old airport's got me down
It's no earthly good to me
'Cause I'm stuck here on the ground
As cold and drunk as I can be
You can't jump a jet plane
Like you can a freight train
So I'd best be on my way
In the early morning rain
You can't jump a jet plane
Like you can a freight train
So I'd best be on my way
In the early morning rain

Come January 4

Ian McCullough of Echo and the Bunnymen from Rolling Stone:

RS: How did it feel to turn 50 this year?
Ian: Being 50 means nothing to me. The idea of being dead, now that’ll be fucking weird.

500 Days of Summer

Romantic comedies are tricky. This film has all sorts of schemes to avoid the predictable.

For example, the 500 days are enumerated on screen as dividers to separate flashbacks and give chronological guidance. The art behind the numbers is even shaded to correspond to the mood of the romance at that point in time. There are lots of other gimmicks and plenty of pop musical soundtrack (and I mean plenty) to flesh out the ups and downs of the main character's infatuation with Summer (the girl).

I liked the film although it exploited one of my cinematic pet peeves: the precocious child who has unbelievable insight into adult relationships. This peeve is accompanied by an equally annoying corollary: the adult friend who is has an unbelievable lack of insight into adult relationships.

Nevertheless, see it. It's fun. The music is good, even if every nook and cranny is filled with it. The acting is good even though at times you just want to slap the characters out of their self-indulgence.