"Bob wrote 'Mr. Tambourine Man' one night in my house in Berkeley Heights, N.J., sitting with my portable typewriter at my white Formica breakfast bar..."

"... in a swirl of chain-lit Camels cigarette smoke, his bony, long-nailed fingers tapping the words out on my stolen canary-colored Saturday Evening Post copy paper... Marvin Gaye sang 'Can I Get A Witness'’ from the six-foot speakers of my hi-fi in the room next to where he was, with Bob getting up from the typewriter each time the record finished in order to put the needle back at the start.”

Said Al Aronowitz, quoted in "Bob Dylan’s Draft of Lyrics, Once Tossed in Trash, Sells for $500,000/Two pages of lyrics, written in the kitchen of a pioneering rock ‘n’ roll journalist, offer glimpses into the Nobel Prize-winning musician’s writing process" (NYT).

Imagine writing one song while listening to another song — quite intentionally and through 6-foot speakers.

"Most pop songs can fit over most pop songs … You could go from Let it Be to No Woman, No Cry and switch back."

Testified Ed Sheeran, quoted in "Ed Sheeran testifies in Marvin Gaye plagiarism case: ‘Most pop songs can fit over most pop songs’/Appearing in New York court, singer-songwriter defends his ballad Thinking Out Loud against similarities with Gaye’s song Let’s Get It On" (The Guardian).

A musicologist for Sheeran has said the chord sequence is not unique, and gave numerous other examples of its use in songs by artists such as Donovan and the Seekers.... 

Sheeran has been accused of plagiarism numerous times before. In April 2022 he won a UK court battle over biggest hit, Shape of You.... In 2017, he added writers of the TLC song No Scrubs to the credits of Shape of You, after similarities had been spotted by fans, though no legal case was brought against him. Also in 2017, he settled out of court after songwriters of the Matt Cardle song Amazing claimed it had been copied by Sheeran for his song Photograph. Sheeran later said he regretted the settlement, as “the floodgates opened” to further plagiarism claims....

He made a target out of himself. Avoiding 2 fights early on, he attracted these new disputes, and he must fight or continually pay out money for the routine privilege of singing simple pop songs, which, as he testified, all sound alike. 

Martha Stewart kept peacocks and there were also 6 "large and aggressive" coyotes. "Let's Get It On," indeed.

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This is a metaphor, but for what?

6 coyotes killed 6 peafowl, and there are still more peafowl chez Martha. 

Martha knows the Marvin Gaye anthem to sexuality pairs horribly with predation, but it's the video she has of the proud Blue Boy, who is no more.

Imagine the coyote: "We’re all sensitive people with so much to give/Understand me, sugar..."

IN THE COMMENTS: Wince quotes Martha's "RIP beautiful BlueBoy" and links to "Well, he made it. Blue Boy is dead":

"I stole it — I would have paid a lot more. For certain segments of America, it’s more famous than the 'Mona Lisa.'"

Said Bill Perkins, quoted in "Ernie Barnes’s ‘Sugar Shack’ Painting Brings Big Price at Auction/An iconic image sells for $15.3 million at Christie’s to Bill Perkins, an energy trader, who says he’s been waiting his whole life to buy that work of art" (NYT). 

Ernie Barnes’s most famous painting, “The Sugar Shack,” an exultant dancing scene that was featured on the cover of Marvin Gaye’s album “I Want You” and during the closing credits of the TV sitcom “Good Times,” sold for a whopping $15.3 million at Christie’s 20th Century auction on Thursday evening to the energy trader Bill Perkins. It was 76 times its high estimate of $200,000.... 

“What if Oprah shows up? What if P. Diddy shows up?” he recalled thinking. “I’m not going to be able to buy this piece.... I’ve been waiting like 40 years for this moment,” he said. “I’m not going to let it pass.”

 

ADDED: "Sugar Shack" is the dream of a great night out — everyone is dancing and transported by the music. When you go out at night, you can only hope to find a place like that, or, no, you probably cannot even hope!

It made think of the Edward Hopper painting, "Nighthawks," which is also like a dream, but of an iconically bad night out — nowhere to go, no one to relate to at all: 

Who, when asked what religion are you now, said: "Now? Nothing. I'm a writer. I like doing things alone"?

Answer: James Baldwin.

I'm reading about James Baldwin as a consequence of reading something in the current news — Vulture — which is almost too scurrilous to mention. Quote from The Vulture (to go from the highest quality to the lowest quality remark): "Brando used to go cha-cha dancing with us. He could dance his ass off. He was the most charming motherfucker you ever met. He’d fuck anything. Anything! He’d fuck a mailbox. James Baldwin. Richard Pryor. Marvin Gaye." That's Quincy Jones, who also said: "Trump is just telling [people] what they want to hear. I used to hang out with him. He’s a crazy motherfucker. Limited mentally — a megalomaniac, narcissistic. I can’t stand him. I used to date Ivanka, you know.... Yes, sir. Twelve years ago. Tommy Hilfiger, who was working with my daughter Kidada, said, 'Ivanka wants to have dinner with you.' I said, 'No problem. She’s a fine motherfucker.' She had the most beautiful legs I ever saw in my life. Wrong father, though."

Sorry to burden you with all that, but I was interested in the idea that to be a writer means doing things alone — and that means not wanting it in your head that God is with you (which is a different  issue from whether there really is a God).

Kevin Bacon is everywhere.

(Via The Telegraph, whither I sojourned to read "Marvin Gaye's daughter says court ruling 'is a miracle,'" because of The Volokh Conspiracy's "Blurred lines and copyright infringement.")

"Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams owe Marvin Gaye’s family $7.4 million for ‘Blurred Lines,’ jury decides."

"The trial was notable primarily because it’s unusual that these battles to go to public.... But this case was messy from the beginning. In August 2013, Thicke, Williams and T.I. filed a preemptive suit claiming no infringement."

Then, after Gaye’s family sued them, Thicke made headlines last year when his deposition leaked with his shocking, embarrassing defense: The singer claimed he was “high on Vicodin and alcohol” during the writing process.

As for all those interviews where he boasted about helping write it and how he was specifically inspired by Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up”? Well, he was lying, Thicke said, and just envious that Williams, also the producer of the song, would get all the glory.

"Remember that copyright litigation between Marvin Gaye and the folks behind Blurred Lines?"

"Well, Pharrell and Robin Thicke's depositions have now been made public, and let's just say that they perhaps didn't go so well...."

Sotomayor's "race-sensitive admissions policies" is not just a euphemism for "affirmative action."

James Taranto notes. It's a euphemism for a euphemism. Which puts Sotomayor on "what cognitive scientist Steven Pinker calls the euphemism treadmill."

A new euphemism is needed because the old one has lost its power to obscure: Its real meaning is too obvious, even though it is unrelated to the literal meanings of either "affirmative" or "action."

Ironically, Sotomayor's new euphemism comes considerably closer than "affirmative action" to being a literal description of the underlying reality. "Admissions policies" is far clearer than "action," and "race-sensitive," unlike "affirmative," at least acknowledges that what's going on has something to do with race.

The word "sensitive" does all the euphemizing work. But it cuts both ways. Defenders of segregation were, in their own way, "sensitive" when it came to race.

"We're all sensitive people," as Marvin Gaye sang in the begging-you-to-do-what-I-want song "Let's Get It On." You're sensitive? Well, I'm sensitive too. He's arguing his case to some woman, whom we can only imagine, a woman who's been resisting his sexual action. She's presumably claimed to be very sensitive. That's why there's that line "We're all sensitive people."

That song is about sex, not race, but you see my point about one side to an argument/conversation making a claim to sensitivity. There's sensitivity all around. We're all sensitive people, with so much to give....

A more common expression than "race-sensitive admissions policies" — and it must be somewhere on that treadmill journey — is "race-conscious admissions policies." Why "sensitive" instead of "conscious"? "Sensitive" connotes feelings of warmth (and irritability), and "conscious" connotes mental clarity and perception. If they're going to talk about when government may take race into account, judges should be speaking about sharply observed and understood facts about the real world. It's called "strict scrutiny" for a reason. "Sensitivity" suggests a more vaguely sourced intuition about how things ought to be, the very stereotypes and prejudicial impulses that strict scrutiny is supposed to preclude.

Robin Thicke, getting the jump on copyright claims that "Blurred Lines" ripped off Marvin Gaye and Funkadelic.

After the owners of the rights to Gaye's "Got to Give It Up" and Funkadelic's "Sexy Ways" threatened to sue Thicke, Thicke filed a preemptive lawsuit.

The lawsuit says Thicke [and others] have "the utmost respect for and admiration of Marvin Gaye, Funkadelic and their musical legacies," but must "reluctantly file this action in the face of multiple adverse claims from alleged successors in interest to those artists."

You can listen to all 3 songs at the link. I like this lawsuit, because "Blurred Lines" isn't copying those other 2 songs. It's a tribute to that old style, not a copying. Naturally, the Gaye and Funkadelic property owners feel the normal human greed and would like some "Blurred Lines" cash thrown their way, but these threats of lawsuits deserve legal pushback, and I like seeing the new artist doing something that will deter that tactic. I'm not an intellectual property expert, so I'll let others weigh in on the likelihood that Thicke will get the judicial remedy he seeks.

"Barry, baby, you see what I got here... Why, this is a box of pudding, Barry."

"It says 'cook and chill' and, baby, that's what I do every night. I cook and then I chill."

$240 Worth of Pudding - watch more funny videos

That's Thomas Lennon and Michael Ian Black playing Barry and Levon on the early 90s MTV show "The State." The music was originally Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing," but the DVD of the series did not get the rights to the music. Unfortunately, that means the voices had to be overdubbed too. So this should actually be much funnier. But anyway, I was just thinking about this clip this morning. You don't have to worry your pretty little head about why.

Now why is it that I can't just enjoy my pudding?

Absurd hyperventilating about Romney's not completely quick journey toward the GOP nomination.

I'm talking about stuff like this:

A Super Tuesday Nailbiter Puts Romney on His Heels

With a shockingly thin margin in Ohio, Mitt Romney has a shaky Super Tuesday and Rick Santorum claims a moral victory.

But then... that's the one I linked to. You can see why they do it. Sensationalism. It's embarrassing, but it's a way of life in the media.

IN THE COMMENTS: chickenlittle said:

I don't quite fathom the "put on his heels" idiom. Does it mean like making a dog heel? Does mean put on woman's heels? Or it is a "round heels" reference?

Romney said he wasn't going to set his hair on fire, and I don't think he's going to don stilettos. "Round heels" is an old-fashioned expression signifying women who are easy to tip over. Rush Limbaugh resurrected it in one of his Sandra Fluke rants last week. ("OK, so, she’s not a slut. She’s round-heeled.")

I don't think Romney is cooling his heels or taking to his heels or showing a clean pair of heels. He's certainly not hairy at the heel. ("The Colonel delivered himself of the opinion that Godfrey Burrows was slightly hairy at the heel, a pronouncement which baffled Poirot completely.")

And it's got nothing to do with that Marvin Gaye song "Sexual Heeling." (Arf!)

I think the relevant idiom the headline writer intended to approximate is: rock back on one's heels. I'm visualizing a comics version of Mitt Romney, dramatically angled backwards. Aw! In my mind's eye, he looks just like Dagwood. And Ann is Blondie. 

ADDED: For Dylan fans:

Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship
My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip
My toes too numb to step
Wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin’
 
Seen you turn the corner, seen your boot heels spark
Seen you in the daylight, and watched you in the dark

Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you
And then he kneels
He crosses himself
And then he clicks his high heels

You have slayed me, you have made me
I got to laugh halfways off my heels
I got to know, babe, will you surround me?
So I can tell if I’m really real

"Marvin Gaye would not have had a hit with 'Why Don’t We Venture to Consummate Our Relationship?' or even 'Let’s Have Sex' instead of 'Let’s Get It On.'"

A not-random sentence from John McWhorter's fascinating and elaborate defense of Harry Reid.

(Via Jaltcoh.)