Lana Del Rey - Chelsea Hotel No.2, Black Beauty and random thoughts

For anyone who has any doubts about Lana Del Rey's hauntingly broad range of talents, here are two songs and videos that capture the beauty of her voice and presence at its most vulnerable and simply moving.

Chelsea Hotel #2 is a Leonard Cohen song that Lana Del Rey sings even more beautifully than Cohen (and I love Cohen), bringing to it the strange kind of frailty that Lou Reed brought to songs like Perfect Day (both Cohen and Reed videos are below.)

The second Del Rey song is Black Beauty, from her album Ultraviolence, made all the more beautiful here by the "fanmade" music video by Peter Tatsis, which features vintage footage of female dancers (along with footage of Del Rey herself, from other videos) which in its own way is as haunting as Lana Del Rey's tender song and voice.

Lana Del Rey's music now strikes me as comparable in a sense to early Bowie: enormously varied, hugely accomplished and at the same time the beginning of a long wonderful road trip to new musical landscapes, most likely as unexpected as, in Bowie's case, the transition from Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane to Station To Station, Low, Heroes and beyond.

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The High Tower Apartments and The Long Goodbye

Photograph by Dwayne Moser. This beautiful apartment complex in Los Angeles is called the Hightower or High Tower Complex (the High Tower name refers to the central elevator, I believe), and was designed in 1935-1936 by architect Carl Kay - and made famous in 1973 by my favorite film, Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (see Why I Love Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye ). Although Altman used the building as Philip Marlowe's apartment in his somewhat post-modern Long Goodbye (the film plays with references to Old Hollywood and opens and closes with the song, Hooray For Hollywood ), the building has another direct connection to Raymond Chandler. It was apparently the inspiration for Chandler in his book, The High Window (the first Chandler novel I ever read), in which Chandler describes the residence of Philip Marlowe as being on the cliffs above High Tower Drive in a building with a fancy elevator tower. (Thanks to the Society of Architectural Historians Southern

Thank You Sonora ER, Dr Trujillo and Dr Johnson.

Microphone stand designed by Hudson. Our eight year old son, Hudson, has been having severe abdominal pain over the past week to ten days, and this week we took him to see Dr Jennifer Neufeld-Trujillo , one of our regular pediatricians at the Forest Road Pediatric Clinic in Sonora, and also to ER at Sonora Regional Medical Center. We just want to say a big thank you to everyone - including all the very friendly and helpful staff at ER - for their care of and concern for Hudson, who is gradually starting to feel better. We would also like to make a special mention of Dr Lisa Johnson , who was on call tonight for Forest Road Pediatrics, and who had a long telephone conversation with me, in which she answered many questions with a depth of knowledge and experience that was both highly reassuring and informative, and who left us feeling confident that we are on the right path for the weekend - always a difficult time when your child is not feeling well. Hopefully, Hudson will cont

Please Sign Up For Email Updates To This Blog And My Writing Workshops

The Malteste Falcon, 1941. For those of you wishing to keep up to date on my writing workshops at the Central Sierra Arts Council , the most efficient way is to sign up in the "Follow This Blog By Email" box in the right sidebar beneath the Buddha. You will then receive an email update every time I post to the blog, including any changes in times or dates or other details of the workshops (although I shall try not to mix things around). I would also greatly appreciate it if you would "Like" this blog on Facebook , by clicking on the "Like" button also beneath the Buddha. This lets you follow the Facebook page associated with this wesbite, AlexanderStuart.com , which frequently has additional content not included in the blog. Blade Runner, 1982, courtesy of artist Gavin J Rothery. In the meantime, the first Writing Workshop of the New Year will be on Saturday January 21st 2012 , at the Central Sierra Arts Council, 193 S. Washington Str

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