Sandy's Book & CD Multimedia Platforms

You can order The Mystic Artist as a Nook book or on Kindle on Amazon.com.  And Resurrection is available on iTunes at the link below.

The Mystic Artist is an e-book available here.

Resurrection is now available on i-Tunes.

Never-before-seen photos from 100 years ago: NYC

New York City's Department of Records announced the release of a collection of more than 2.2 million images going back to the mid-1800s, the 870,000 photographs from the Municipal Archives featuring all kinds of photographs never seen before.  Thanks to the Internet, we can experience a spectacular, nostalgic look at New York City through the lenses of its various photographers, city workers, and others who documented life in New York at a time when photography was a very young medium. Four years in the making, the digitizing of photos taken mostly by anonymous municipal workers are now available here. The collection also features more than 800,000 color photographs taken with 35mm cameras of every city building in the mid-1980s.  Included are crime photos, Depression Era images and pictorials of daily life most of us have only seen depicted in movies.  This is reality. [more...]

Rock & Roll Heaven's New Angels

Yesterday we lost Dick Clark... today Levon Helm ... we can only pray that Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees survives pneumonia.  God speed to Robin!

With songs like "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," ''The Weight" and "Up on Cripple Creek," The Band fused rock, blues, folk and gospel to create a sound that seemed as authentically American as a Mathew Brady photograph or a Mark Twain short story. In truth, the group had only one American -- Levon Helm. [more...]

Did you know that The hero of Elton John's song "Levon" (co-written with Bernie Taupin) was named after Levon Helm? John much later named his son (born on December 25, 2010) "Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John.

Missing Cezanne Masterpiece Found

Police in Serbia believe they have recovered an Impressionist masterpiece by Paul Cezanne worth at least $109 million that was stolen at gunpoint in one of the world's biggest art heists four years ago, a police official said on Thursday. "We believe the painting is Cezanne's Boy in a Red Waistcoat and three suspects were detained in connection with that," the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. "Experts in Serbia and abroad are trying to ascertain whether the painting is an original. This painting is worth tens of millions of euros," the official added. [more...]

More on the great master...

Brooklyn Home Where Truman Capote Wrote His "Breakfast" Sold

The Brooklyn Heights home where Truman Capote wrote his novella Breakfast at Tiffany's sold for about $12 million, an amount that constitutes what the Daily News calls the "highest price for a single-family home in borough history." Holly Golightly must be impressed. That said, that $12 million was a steal compared to the original asking price of $18 million. The last time we at Runnin' Scared checked up on the property it was down to $14,995,000.  [more...]

More on Truman Capote:

• Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote
• In Cold Blood By Truman Capote
• Capote: A Biography By Gerald Clarke
• Capote (DVD)
• Infamous (DVD)

Picasso's "Guernica" Like We've Never Seen Before

Pablo Picasso's "Guernica," one of the world's most iconic paintings, is getting a full health check as it marks its 75th anniversary. A giant robotic machine is taking tens of thousands of microscopic shots of the black-and-white anti-war masterpiece to allow experts to penetrate the work like never before and see its real condition after a hectic life traveling the globe. [more...]

Excellent biography and DVDs on Picasso:

Life of Picasso – Vol. I

Life of Picasso – Vol. II

Life of Picasso – Vol. III

Magic, Sex, Death (DVD)

The Mystery of Picasso (DVD)

Lovin' That Bourdain!

I've been thoroughly enjoying watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations as well as his new program, The Layover.  Unlike some of the other programs on The Travel Channel and cable in general, Bourdain's is about quality AND quantity.  He embraces life... like his jingle goes, "I write, I travel, I eat, and I'm hungry for more."

He's a talented connoisseur of great cuisine worldwide AND an excellent writer.  He hates cliches, has a wry sense of humor and makes everything about life FUN.  It all began with an article in The New Yorker... and then his first book, Kitchen Confidential: "New York Chef Tony Bourdain gives away secrets of the trade in his wickedly funny, inspiring memoir/expose. 'Kitchen Confidential' reveals what Bourdain calls 'twenty-five years of sex, drugs, bad behavior and haute cuisine.'"

My favorite episode EVER was Cleveland - where he met and ate with the great Harvey Pekar from American Splendor.  When Pekar died last year, Bourdain posted a truly touching tribute to him.

This is one of the rare shows on TV that show you how to discover new and exciting things about life on this planet all the while being entertained and inspired to really go out there and live your life to its fullest.  It's unpredictable, hilarious and deliciously delectable to the last bite!

The Great Dobie Gray Has Passed On

Singer-songwriter Dobie Gray has died in Nashville from complications of cancer surgery, a friend told The New York Times. He was 71. Best known for his hit songs "Look at Me," "The 'In' Crowd" and "Drift Away," the Texas native died Tuesday, friend and fellow songwriter George Reneau told the newspaper.

Gray also penned numerous songs for other famous artists, such as "Got My Heart Set on You" for John Conlee, "Over and Over, Again" for Ray Charles, "If I Ever Needed You" for Julio Iglesias and "Come Home to Me" for George Jones.

Reneau told the Times Gray, who never married, is survived by a sister and a brother. Read more

In 2009, I sent an e-mail to Dobie:

Thank heavens for the Internet... it's the one and only way I could tell you how much I love your music and your voice and how much it has meant to me all these years!  Thank you so much, Dobie, for being so brilliantly talented and making my life so much richer.

To which he replied in August:

Dear Sandy,

Many thanks for taking the time to write to me with your kind words. It's always nice to know that you've had a hand, however small, in someone else's happiness.

Blessings,
Dobie

I told him his music is timeless and great!  R.I.P., Dobie!

Doris Day Resurfaces with New Record

Doris Day, America's sweetheart of the '50s and '60s, beguiled audiences with her on-screen romances opposite top Hollywood leading men Cary Grant, Rock Hudson and Jack Lemmon. She adored and misses them all, says the 88-year-old Day. But her deepest yearning is reserved for her late son Terry Melcher, a record producer whose touch and voice are part of Day's first album in nearly two decades.

"Oh, I wish he could be here and be a part of it. I would just love that. But it didn't work out that way," Day said, her voice subdued. It's a voice rarely heard since she withdrew from Hollywood in the early 1980s to the haven she made for herself in the Northern California town of Carmel, where Clint Eastwood was once mayor.

"My Heart," set for a Dec. 2 U.S. release, has induced Day to edge back to public attention. The CD includes 13 previously unreleased tracks recorded over a 40-year span, including covers of Joe Cocker's "You Are So Beautiful," the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream" and a handful of standards. All proceeds go to Day's longtime cause, animal welfare.

Doris has devoted herself to promoting the well-being of animals with the Doris Day Animal Foundation, which she created in 1978 and which is the new album's beneficiary. Her own pets, including some half-dozen cats, have it good: She built a glass-ceiling extension off her house so the felines can enjoy the view without the risks of going outside.

Why the attention to animals? "They're the most perfect things on Earth," Day replied. "They're loyal. They love you. And they'll never forget you. ... I think they're put here for us to learn what love is all about." [more...]

American Masters: Profiles Woody Allen

An "American Masters" presentation, "Woody Allen: A Documentary" is a two-part, three-and-a-half-hour feast for all Woody fans and anyone else who is interested in a prolific, persistent artist's creative world. It airs Sunday and Monday at 9 p.m. EST on PBS.

The film revisits Allen's childhood in the Midwood section of Brooklyn and his first venture as a professional writer: supplying jokes to columnists and comics while still in high school. It covers his growing success in the 1950s and 1960s as a comedy writer for TV, then as a rising standup comic in his own right.

You will see his typewriter, the Olympia portable Woody Allen has used for pounding out everything he's written since his teens. [more...]