TAYLOR SWIFT HAS AFFECTION FOR JONI MITCHELL

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THE GLORIOUS CORNER

Story By: G. H. HARDING
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Taylor Swift



MITCHELL'S GIRLS --- At the moment, the music world is all about the female vocalists and there is none bigger than Taylor Swift; she’s literally everywhere. It's almost like she could do anything but there is one thing that won't be on her list, playing Joni Mitchell.



Swift has admitted having affection for Mitchell's music but Joni doesn't seem to return the feelings. When word broke earlier this year that Swift was up for the role of Mitchell in the adaptation of the book Girls Like Us, Mitchell (Sheila Weller, 2009) quickly quashed the entire project.



The terrific book looks at music through the careers of Mitchell, Carole King and Carly Simon and plans were to bring it to the big screen. In an article in the London Sunday Times, Mitchell said "I squelched that! I said to the producer, 'All you've got is a girl with high cheekbones'. It's just a lot of gossip, you don't have the great scenes. There's a lot of nonsense about me in books: assumptions, assumptions, assum­p­tions."



She also said in the interview that she sees herself now as a painter now and not a musician. "Music is over for me, pretty much. I can't sing: I don't want to. I want to paint, and I want to write. I can't tour, I can't travel, I'm sick; I can fly two flights a year. I'm old. You have to know when to give up."



Mitchell released a new four-CD compendium of her music this week, Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, A Ballet, Waiting To Be Danced.



I'm saddened that Mitchell won't be making any new music but her catalog stands heads-and-tails above almost everything else. A true artist indeed.



THE FLASH --- As we noted Monday, one of the other DC-comics shows adaptations this year has been the CW 11’s The Flash; and, it’s been rather brilliant. From the casting to the writing and the special effects; for a change, it’s all top notch.



The episodes thus far have sort of followed the comic-story line, although this being the CW, it’s been imbued with an almost abnormal amount of youth. The great Jesse L. Martin, from Law & Order, shines as Detective Joe West, and Grant Gustin, late of Glee, shines as The Flash himself (aka Barry Allen). Tom Cavanagh, as the mysterious Harrison Wells, is just stellar.



Each episode so far has ended with a proper tease, or two, of upcoming shows and while it’s an innovative notion, it’s actually worked terrifically well.



Well’s particular accelerator has created several meta-humans (love that term!) and seemingly crippled him to a wheelchair. However, at the close of each episode he rises, walking, and activates an AI-machine called Gideon, which can seemingly predict the future.



Crazy I know, but I am enjoying this as much as anything on TV this season.



LEON DOWN BUT NOT OUT --- Leon Russell's band has had several of their instruments stolen from their bus while they slept just feet away.



The bus was parked in front of the Aztec Theatre in San Antonio Sunday night with the band asleep on the vehicle. A security camera captured the image of a man with graying hair and goatee wearing a San Antonio Spurs jersey picking the lock on the storage compartment on the side of the bus and making off with three guitars and a mandolin.



The equipment was valued at about $3,000 and included a Fender Stratocaster owned by guitarist Beau Charron. He told media that he had been playing the instrument for twenty years and had sentimental value as the first guitar he ever bought.



The show went on Sunday night with borrowed instruments in place of those taken.



Leon is out supporting his most recent, and final, album Life Journey.



CLOSING NOTES --- I woke up today thinking about Turkeys and boy, here’s one for sure: There’s this writer who has just released a book on an American icon, a true titan if you will, and he was approached by an indie-PR guy to do an quick holiday-oriented campaign for the book. Asked for his plan, he proffered a scenario whereby several online outlets would be approached as well as several traditional brick-and-mortar outlets. The writer nixed the plan as he felt his audience wasn't online. Not online … ever hear of cyber seniors? Poor choice. My own father before he passed was on that computer like a jackrabbit on lettuce. Needless to say, he missed a big op. His book last year on another Hollywood-Lothario came and went with a flash too. Too bad, nice guy but blinded by the light ...



Growing up in 1950’s California, young Anson William Heimlich showed very little promise. Clumsy, unsure of himself, and made to feel like a failure by his disappointed artist of a dad, Anson started working odd jobs as a teenager to help support his family. His boss at one of these jobs, an aging janitor named Willie, unexpectedly became a mentor—and the lessons he taught young Anson proved to be invaluable throughout his subsequent career as an actor, director, and entrepreneur.



In Singing to a Bulldog, Anson Williams (as he came to be known) relates both these lessons and the never-before-revealed stories of the many seminal TV series he has worked on and the famous (and not-so-famous) folks he’s encountered during his 40 years in Hollywood, including: being directed by Steven Spielberg in his first dramatic role ; getting kidnapped by Gerald Ford’s daughter at the White House ; being humbled by Sunny, a young volunteer for the Cerebral Palsy National Organization; mentoring Shailene Woodley on the set of The Secret Life of the American Teenager and many more. I loved this one …



 Have a safe Turkey Day... 



 

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