"Oh, let me think, let me think, what can I do? Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no no no no no."

Remember... loving the Shangri-Las? The lead singer -- the coolest girl group singer ever -- is back. Good luck to Mary Weiss on her new album. But let's talk about the Shangri-Las:

The Shangri-Las stood out from their contemporaries. The melodrama and desperation in their voices — not to mention their tight leather pants and leather boots, a drastic departure from the formal gowns favored by groups like the Supremes and the Chiffons — defied the girl-group category in which they’re often thrown “for lack of imagination,” as the music writer Greil Marcus put it.

“This was storytelling, this was creating characters,” Mr. Marcus said from his home in Berkeley, Calif. “There was a cinematic sense to the songs where you could visualize them as you listened to them. Their records left wounds in their listeners.”

Whenever the song "I Can Never Go Home Anymore" comes on the 60s channel, I get caught up in the words, and even though I know it's utterly cheesy and manipulative, it makes me cry (while driving!). Here, check it out, someone made a YouTube video that just shows the single playing on a record player. That's really sweet.

Here's Mary Weiss's MySpace page. Here's a nice interview thing. Here's a cute tribute video with lots of pictures. Here's an album (click on it and buy it):



Look at the way Mary looked then! Good Lord, she was only 15! She had the perfect tough girl image. Hers was a look that in those days -- where I was anyway, in northern New Jersey -- we called "hoody." It was the alternative to the mod look, which I personally favored. I knew one girl, a friend of my sister's, who had the Mary Weiss look. It was sort of the dark side to the candy-colored mod/psychedelic style that I believed would conquer all. But this other thing! It came from the wrong side of town. My sister's friend scared me a little. She didn't live with her parents. She was from over in Boonton. She wore Tabu perfume. Really, I would never wear Tabu perfume. It's unbelievably sweet and strong. But I'd love to have some to dump into a handkerchief to inhale while listening to old Shangri-Las records.



"Oh, let me think, let me think, what can I do? Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no no no no no."

Weeps uncontrollably into Tabu-soaked hankerchief.

"Giuliani Has No Real Chance With GOP Voters . . . or Does He?"

Dan Balz on Rudy Giuliani. I don't know if we'll see Balz on the other candidates. But here we have Balz on Giuliani:

A veteran Republican strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly assess the situation, said he is among those who long believed that a Republican with Giuliani's profile would have no chance. He still believes the former mayor faces significant obstacles but said the odds of Giuliani winning the nomination are not as remote as they once seemed.

He gave three reasons: the absence of a strong, traditional conservative in the GOP field; continuing antipathy among many social and religious conservatives toward McCain; and the prospect of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) becoming the next president.

Giuliani "looks like he can beat Hillary, make the party competitive again in the Northeast, competitive again in California and allow us to keep our strong electoral advantage in the South and Rocky Mountain states," the strategist said.

The former mayor's campaign team believes it has found a credible path to the nomination. Its foundation is a conclusion that while the overwhelming majority of Republicans differ with Giuliani on abortion, gay rights and gun control, a much smaller percentage of GOP primary voters -- perhaps no more than a quarter -- are single-issue voters who would never vote for him because of his views on those issues, a percentage borne out by the latest Post-ABC News poll...

"I think that people like him, and likeability is a big, big factor in presidential politics," a senior Republican strategist said. "Right now, I think his numbers reflect that. As you get closer to the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, likeability may give way to vote-determinative issues, like abortion."

A few crisp words from Justice Thomas.

Businessweek has a big interview with Justice Clarence Thomas about his time at college. Here he talks about what he wishes he'd done differently:

There were things that I would enjoy, that I would take in, things that I rejected....

Simple things, like different classes. Maybe I would have taken classes like Russian history or more science, maybe, more math courses. I would have taken more history courses, more philosophy courses. Maybe I would have gone to more events, some plays. I rejected all that. I would have been more open to some of the offerings that were different from the life I had become accustomed to. If you're intellectually alive—which you are at that time—you want to explore.

Here he talks about affirmative action:

Why do you think some people are so eager to cast you as a beneficiary of affirmative action?

That was the creation of the politicians, the people with a lot of mouth and nothing to say and your industry. They had a story and everything had to fit into their story. It discounts other people's achievements. Ask Ted how many all-nighters he pulled. It discounts those. It's so discouraging to see the fraudulent renditions of very complicated and different lives of people who were struggling in a new world for them. Everything becomes affirmative action. There wasn't some grand plan. I just showed up.

He says that his college, Holy Cross, "never once required us to be anything other than ourselves and good people," and in answer to the question, "Doesn't every college want that?" he says:

Oh no. I think there are different points of views that are not acceptable. I go around this country and the poor kids who want to dissent from a prevailing point of view have no room. There's no room for them.

Because of political correctness?

Oh yeah. Come on, that's obvious. You don't even have to ask. That's obvious. Otherwise, there are people who have set notions of what blacks should think. But I rejected that years ago. I rejected that back when I was considered radical.

Is it harder to be an African American heading to college these days?

I don't know. I'm not going to dissect these schools now. I'm just glad I went when I went, before everybody had all the answers and theories about blacks. I'm sure it was hard to make your own way but maybe it worked better that way. Maybe it made us better, stronger people.

He has this to say about why he is controversial:

People have a model of what they think a black person should think. A white person is free to think whatever they want to think. But a black person has to think a certain way. Holy Cross has never ever done that. We did it to each other but we were just kids.

Interesting interview. I like his crisp form of speech.

A free permalink for today's NYT column.

I don't know why, but the NYT now has my column for today on the free side of the TimesSelect wall. Here's the permalink for it. The subject is the difficulty of teaching about race when law schools are too eager to respond to students who feel offended.

Futurism, intentional and found.

Here we are in the Futurism room of the Museum of Modern Art:



I love that there's a woman in a yellow coat here, and I love her spatial relationshiop to the man and to the Futurist painting and sculpture. (The sculpture is Umberto Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913).)

Then there's this, a woman in big polka dots hustles past a Leger painting:



Fernand Leger is not a Futurist, but my Sony camera is futuristic enough to correct for motion, and in grabbing and stilling the moving image of the woman, it gave a speeding forward look to the Leger painting, "Three Women," in the background. Found Futurism!

"Clowns in dreadlocks escorting the casket draped in rhinestone-studded satin."

Losers in gaudy, ragamuffin clothes, camera hogs and hangers-on.

Poor Anna Nicole, a trashy life, and a sleazy death, and in the end a horrible, tasteless funeral. All of it awful, but somehow fitting.

Is the commentary on bad taste in bad taste?

The casket remained closed - draped with a satin, feather-fringed quilt.

Rhinestones spelled out her signature and the trademark smiley face she used when giving autographs.

Even though the coffin was closed, no one was left in any doubt what Anna Nicole was wearing - what would have been an eye-catching, Oscar-worthy gown: pink and white, embroidered with a heart across the bodice - and revealed in all its glory on "Entertainment Tonight." And a tiara.

Are they just making stuff up?

"Is it necessary for the government to present evidence that it is not humanly possible for someone not to recall an event?"

So asked the jury in the Libby case, seeking a clarification from the judge about the meaning of reasonable doubt. They've been deliberating since February 22. Can anyone pick apart that question and tell what it means?

The question suggests that the jurors might be stumped about whether than can convict even though a juror keeps saying something like: But, of course, it's possible to forget anything. This would be an argument against convicting based on the evidence that demonstrated the importance of what Libby contends he forgot.

This question might mean that they are arguing about how high the standard of reasonable doubt really is. But there is also concern about the kind of proof that is required. Is it enough to simply show that the thing allegedly forgotten was extremely memorable, so that the jurors have to make an inference that he is therefore lying? Someone may be demanding that there should be evidence about the mechanism of forgetting.

I would think that the correct answer about the quantity and quality of the evidence needed would tend to make a jury that would ask the question that way likely to convict. Do you agree?