John & Yoko End Our Holiday Countdown

All good things must come to an end. I truly hope you enjoyed the journey since Thanksgiving!

I wish we'd all wake up this morning and discover that war, indeed, is over. Peace is a real possibility.

Diplomacy ~ NOT bombs!

On John Lennon's 73rd Birthday

Music can influence us and help change the world through lyrics that send us positive messages of hope, love and peace, just as the music itself can lift the human spirit. As William Congreve wrote, in The Mourning Bride, 1697:

Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
I've read, that things inanimate have mov'd,
And, as with living Souls, have been inform'd,
By Magick Numbers and persuasive Sound.

No more persuasive Sound, perhaps, than the songs of John Lennon who sang songs of peace and who, tragically, came to a violent end. I sometimes wonder if the world would be better off today were he still alive. John would have been 73 today.

Rosemary's Baby's Lullaby on My Halloween Countdown

Approaching the bassinet with a butcher knife. Now that's a lovely image for starters, no? "Pray for Rosemary's Baby" read the ads at the time of the film's release. See why?

1968. Mia Farrow was best known prior to that time for her role as Allison MacKenzie on ABC-tv's Peyton Place. There was much publicity surrounding the shearing of her famously long, hippie-like locks in favor of a Carnaby Street/Twiggy-like 'do for the Roman Polanski film, Rosemary's Baby. On tonight's Halloween Countdown, listen to Mia guilelessly sing the theme song. It's a lullaby; an eerie, effectively creepy little lullaby, very appropriate to sing to your demon spawn should you have one. It was written by Krzysztof Komeda, the brilliant composer who frequently scored films by fellow Pole, Polanski.

Produced by William Castle ("Strait-jacket"), adapted from a novel by Ira Levin ("The Stepford Wives") and shot at Manhattan's The Dakota apartment building. Farrow received divorce papers from Frank Sinatra while filming there. Polanski's pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, would be murdered the following year by Charles Manson and his followers, who titled their death spree "Helter Skelter" after the 1968 song by The Beatles, one of whose members, John Lennon, would one day live (and in 1980 be murdered) in The Dakota, where Rosemary's Baby had been filmed. In December 1968, in Los Angeles, composer Komeda had a tragic car accident which led to a haematoma of the brain that caused his death. He was 35.

Now, is this song going to lull you off to sleep? You will have pleasant dreams, I hope. Our madonna, Rosemary, wouldn't want it any other way,... babies!