Birthday Girl: The Queen of Cartoons

The work of Roz Chast is one of the things that makes me very, very happy. Her scratchy little people, with their hopeless clothes, questionable posture, and ongoing existential dilemmas, are reminders to me that a certain strain of America continues, one nearly subsumed by mass media and Walmart. Bright, puzzled, well-intended, of a kind likely to subscribe to The New Yorker but not to show up at the more experimental first nights or daunting restaurants profiled therein, they are in some ways the stateside cartoon counterparts of the characters who populate the world of Alan Bennett. Let's just say I identify with their constant surprise at what the universe throws at them.

Roz aside (and why aren't there more Rozes in the world, and what can we do to encourage them?), it's a fierce, fierce birthday day, kids - she shares her celebrations with an intimidating array that runs from Her Imperial Majesty Maria Feodorovna, last Dowager Empress of all the Russias (and her niece, the signficantly mousier Maud of Norway) to Her Imperial Majesty, Miss Tina Turner. Also in the running: Supreme fifth wheel Jean Terrell, delightfully oleaginous belter Robert Goulet, and Lindbergh-baby ultrabaddy Bruno Hauptmann.

Did We Love Her? My O My...

This really does seem to be just about the dyingest summer I can recall. Now we have to say goodbye to yet another link to great things past, singer/songwriter Ellie Greenwich. She was an artist whose work ran the gamut from the ridiculous ("Do Wah Diddy" comes to mind) to the sublime: "Chapel of Love," "Leader of the Pack," and the song heard here, "River Deep, Mountain High."

For reasons unknown, this 1966 video looks like nothing so much as the musical number dropped from Night of the Living Dead, and, as always, the Ikettes frighten me deeply. Still, even lip-synching (sometimes) to the Invisible Orchestra of Ike, Tina sings the hell of out it (also as always), and its one of those songs that just always makes you feel better - it's that rare thing, an enthusiastic take on romantic obsession, on love as a force of nature, unstoppable. As, I think, the best work of Ellie Greenwich will prove to be.

Mutual Admiration Society

Well, mutual at least in their shared, sincere, and wholehearted admiration of Grace. I'm going to hope this was a backstage, post-concert shot for Tina, 'cause otherwise she's a mess.