"It was kind of sad because she was lonesome. Judy would come out wearing her one little black cocktail dress and a pair of little earrings with pearls..."

"... and she would make shepherd’s pie because she liked it. It was comforting. We would have dinner and then we would watch 'The Ed Sullivan Show,' which was on before her show. And if she didn’t like the way someone performed, she didn’t mind telling you!"

Said Bob Mackie about Judy Garland, quoted in "Bob Mackie notoriously created Cher’s look— but he didn’t always like it: 'Don’t tell anyone'" (NY Post).

Mackie also designed for Tina Turner "She was just amazing and funny and if she hated something she told you immediately."

Is this typical of great singers, that they blurt it right out what they don't like? Judy "didn’t mind telling you" and Tina "told you immediately."

Goodbye to Tina Turner.

"Tina Turner, the earthshaking soul singer whose rasping vocals, sexual magnetism and explosive energy made her an unforgettable live performer and one of the most successful recording artists of all time, died on Wednesday at her home in Küsnacht, Switzerland, near Zurich. She was 83."

The NYT reports.

AND: I'm a new pair of eyes every time I am born/An original mind because I just died:

Justice Breyer on "the tweeter": "I get requests. Can we follow you... That's very nice. Somebody would like to follow me. It's quite flattering."

He doesn't think it's a good idea. But he doesn't know how to turn it off... the "tweeter." (The tweeter? Cue Tina Turner.)



"Judges wear black robes so that they will resist the temptation to publicize themselves, because we really speak for the law. And that is to be anonymous."

This is why I wouldn't want to be a judge. They're supposed to submerge their individuality and self-expression. They're supposed to become neutral expositors of The Law.  Of course, they don't, not entirely, and everyone wants to figure out what they really are like, underneath that judge costume. But we only want to know because we need to understand and predict their opinions, and not because we'd be interested in their opinions if they didn't have the judicial power.

Oh, maybe for some of them we would, but as long as they are judges, engaged in the pretense of anonymity, they don't display much or any interestingness apart from the wielding of power.

Would you want to be interesting largely or solely because of the power you wield? It's nothing you've created, and if you weren't sitting there, in that seat of power, someone else would be, and then they would be all that you now are. What difference then does it make whether it's you or someone else?

"Wilson hires professional Tweeter."

Headline.

So there's a whole profession now. Professional tweeter. Put that on your resume.

But you know, tweeters have been around for a long time. And they are funky.

Maybe Urban Dictionary can help.... Ooh! Maybe you don't want to be a professional tweeter.... Is that something ACORN can help with?

"Be My Baby," "Leader of the Pack," "Then He Kissed Me," "Da Doo Ron Ron," "Chapel of Love," "Doo Wah Diddy"...

Songwriter Ellie Greenwich has died.

Here's the whole musicography. There are so many great songs here, but.... let's listen to "Hanky Panky":



The lyrics are minimal yet incoherent — I saw her... I saw her... I never saw her, never, ever saw her — yet fabulous.

And here's "River Deep, Mountain High":



I'll love you just the way I loved that rag doll....

Me and Phil Specter on Twitter.

I just did 2 Instapundit posts about Twitter:

I TWEETED TWEETING. Twitter gets to your brain. In think it’s made me more Instapundit-y this go-round subbing for Glenn. Lord knows how he got so concise and spontaneous, pre-Twitter, but we’re all catching up.

Posted at 6:46 am by Ann Althouse

“MUSICALLY, IKE WAS BY FAR THE GREATER OF THE TURNERS.” Tweeted, by Phil Spector. Response #1: Nervy to say that — given Tina’s story of domestic abuse — when you’re in prison for shooting a woman to death. Response #2: If I knew I’d get a laptop and WiFi in prison, my calculation about whether to commit crimes would change radically.

Posted at 6:45 am by Ann Althouse

Copied here to get things started and so you can comment.

ADDED: Phil Spector tweets here. You can see he's only following one person. It's Yoko Ono. Think about it.

AND: "Finished reading The Book Of The Damned. About to write an angry letter to the governer demanding that they return my wig."

UPDATE: The clever Tweeter confesses he's an impostor — and adds that Twitter should learn a lesson from this. Well, you can't expect Twitter to catch impostors the instant they start, and obviously, people are going to pose as various celebrities and near-celebrities. I've had impostors myself. The important thing is to react when it is called to their attention. For example, I've complained about impostors twice. Facebook responded. Sadly, No (a blog) insisted on keeping the impostors.

"You women have heard of jalopies/You heard the noise they make/Let me introduce you to my Rocket '88."

Ike Turner — one of the originators of rock and roll — has died.

"Rocket 88" — according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — "is widely considered the first rock and roll record."

ADDED: Jon Pareles writes a nice, full-scale obituary for the NYT. One issue, but only one issue, is the way he treated Tina Turner:

Ms. Turner’s [autobiography, “I, Tina”] describes domestic violence, infidelity and drug use; his [autobiography, “Takin’ Back My Name: The Confessions of Ike Turner”] does not deny that, although he wrote... “Tina and me, we had our fights, but we ain’t had no more fights than anybody else.”

Tina walked out on him in 1975. Mr. Turner, already abusing cocaine and alcohol, spiraled further downward during the 1980s while Ms. Turner became a multimillion-selling star on her own. A recording studio he had built in Los Angeles burned down in 1982, and he was arrested repeatedly on drug charges. In 1989 he went to prison for various cocaine-possession offenses and was in jail when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Very sad. A flawed man. But he's just died, and he was a great musician.