Mowing for Gold: How about making lawn mowing an Olympic sport? That way I could at least imagine myself training for a grander goal, of patriotic service to the nation, rather than just keeping the quack grass in check. And what a summer it’s been for that weed—our backyard is now a sea of the stiff green stuff, worse than ever. It’s looking distinctly like a Florida lawn, that indestructible St. Augustine Grass that has all the tactile appeal of porcupine quills. On one hand, who cares—it’s green, and still technically grass—on the other, man does it grow fast. With the rain we’ve been having, I’ve been out mow-training for L.A. 2028 every four days. Enough! (Does quack grass help breed mosquitoes? Also a lot worse than usual this year. PharmaChoice, in the Food Basics plaza, has a particularly effective bug repellent called Skeeter Spray, in small spray bottles, and it's made in Canada.) Watching the Olympics, by the way, has proved to be its own endurance contest. Not only do the commercials seem to come every five minutes—even on CBC Gem, where subscribers pay for the privilege not to see them—but they are the same commercials, over and bloody over. We're going out of our way never to buy gas at Petro-Canada again. Make it stop, judges.
Still have your eclipse glasses? There’s still time to donate them to a worthy cause, namely Astronomers Without Borders. The best drop-off spots at this point are either the MCC or Town Hall. The library recently dropped off two large bags full at Town Hall, which was pretty impressive...The sound of silence: A couple of weeks back we told you about a book of letters written by an early settler in Pelham, Henry Giles, who arrived around 1840. Printed by the Pelham Historical Society, the book is available at various retail spots around town. Tucked into the story was this remarkable aside: "In Henry’s time, you could hear Niagara Falls from Pelham." Let that sink in. No industrial noise, and most importantly no traffic noise—no QEW or Highways 20 or 406—to get in the way. Wow.
Cue the music: We seem to be ending recently with surprising takes on old tunes—well, surprising to me, anyway. This week it’s one of the finest pop songs of all time, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, the 1966 Dusty Springfield number that was to be her biggest hit, reaching #1 in the UK, and #4 in the US. Elvis recorded a version in 1970. But here’s the thing. Both versions were covers of the original song, which was….Italian!
Io che non vivo (senza te) was introduced at the Sanremo Music Festival—still the world’s longest running annual TV music competition—and by March of that year, 1965, had gone to #1 in Italy. Who happened to be in the festival audience? One Miss Dusty Springfield, who, according to lore, even without understanding the Italian lyrics, was moved to tears. (The title in English: I, who can't live (without you).)
A year later she asked some friends to write a version in English —friends who were not songwriters, incidentally, and who, in a rush to get out to a nightclub, spent all of a single hour on the lyrics, including in the taxi on the way to the club (they didn’t understand the original Italian either).
Springfield recorded her version the next day. According to lore once again, she was unhappy with the sound booth and moved out into a stairwell for better acoustics. (Simon and Garfunkel used an elevator shaft for The Boxer’s distinctive drum reverb). Forty-seven takes later, a masterpiece.
But that’s the masterpiece you know. Here’s the Italian original that inspired it. It's quite the tuxedoed trip back in time. Enjoy. (If the video below doesn’t size correctly, click here.) See you next time.
