Video Video
Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin comes up with an amazing roundup of "YouTubes to make your Mexican grandmother cry." It's both a terrific musical roundup and a history lesson, as informed commenters explain, for example, how the Toña La Negra's bolero "Alma de Veracruz" relates to Cuban music. In addition to other clips by Toña, Xeni points to Lucha Reyes singing "Que Lindo Es Mi Gringo" (How Handsome Is My Gringo) in 1939, moody ranchera singer Lola Beltran's dreamy "La Cigarra," Costa Rican-born (and openly lesbian) ranchera singer Chavela Vargas performing in Madrid at age 81. Deeply emotional stuff.
One of the increasingly popular forms of YouTube amusement is to create videos out of re-edited movies. One user created a disturbingly perfect music video of the Arcade Fire's "My Body Is a Cage" using images borrowed from Sergio Leone's spaghetti-Western masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in the West. Rated V for violence involving harmonicas.
James Brown, Little Richard, and Weird Al Yancovic play "Wheel of Fortune" for charity in 1994. James and Richard, oddly, are playing as a team. [via Bedazzled]
Paul McCartney has a new album and David Frost has a weekly show on Al Jazeera English, as I learned last week in my Morocco hotel room. Enjoy younger versions of both of them in this 1964 interview, where a top-of-the-world McCartney discusses maybe retiring in a couple of years. And here's Macca three years later, when everything is completely different.