Sleeping Muse and Falling Rocket

      Marianne Faithfull gave Mick Jagger a copy of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, inspiring Sympathy for the Devil. Barbara Hershey gave Martin Scorsese a copy of Kazantzakis' The Last Temptation of Christ.

John Boorman cast Helen Mirren and Nicol Williamson opposite each other as Morgana and Merlin in Excalibur knowing that they despised each other, exploiting the tension.

     "I never knew a man who played  Hamlet  who didn't die broke." -- Humphrey Bogart

I'm very confused. Years ago, reading Ray Monk's biography of Wittgenstein I learned that LW carried a copy of Tolstoy's Hadji Murat in his pocket while serving in the first World War. I just now read that in fact the Tolstoy that he  carried was The Gospel in Brief. I don't know what to believe anymore.

After the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, their sons Michael and Robert were adopted by Abel and Anne Meeropol.  Abel Meeropol wrote the song Strange Fruit.

Louvre. L'œuvre. A coïncidence I enjoy.

Willy : Saul Burton the songwriter. Eighty-nine years old. He went just like that from nothing. You know what kind of songs he wrote? Shit. (sings) “Lady, lady, be my baby.” Lady rhymes with baby. Oy. No wonder he’s dead.