The Rock Laureate: PWP

Bruce Springsteen performs a 12-minute set during the Super Bowl half-time show tomorrow, releases an album entitled "Working on a Dream" on Tuesday and kicks off a world-wide tour in April.

59 and rockin' - pretty well perfect.

(Photo credit: Tony Cenicola)

PWP: And the Pursuit of Happiness: At Last.

Maira Kalman, an American illustrator, author, artist and designer, published this drawing today. The drawing is part of a series inspired by her trip to Washington DC to attend the Presidential Inauguration.


To view Maira's entire "The Inauguration. At Last" series, go to her "And the Pursuit of Happiness" blog:

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/the-inauguration-at-last/

Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black & White Night

On September 30, 1987 a black-and-white television special was recorded at the Ambassador Hotel's Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles featuring Roy Orbison and his friends Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Tom Waite, James Burton....the pwp list goes on and on.

The television special consisted of many of Orbison's hits. The dueling guitar solos in "Oh Pretty Woman" performed by Bruce Springsteen and James Burton are pretty well perfect. Re-released as part of a CD bearing the same title, the song won the 1991 Grammy award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

Roy Orbison and Friends, Black & White Night has been used by PBS to assist in fundraising and has proved to be the single most successful fundraiser in PBS history.

An HD DVD of Roy Orbison and Friends, Black & White Night is now available.

PWP: Winter Sunrise from Vancouver's Cypress Mountain

This PWP photograph of downtown Vancouver Canada was taken from Cypress Mountain at 6:30 am yesterday. Vancouver will host the 2010 Winter Olympics and we can now imagine visitors' joy while taking in its many beautiful vistas.

Dining at Le Cinq - PWP

Dining at Le Cinq, located at Paris's historic Four Seasons George V Hotel, is a pretty well perfect culinary experience.

PWP: The Presidential Shaka

President Obama greeted members of the marching band from his alma mater, Punohou School, Honolulu, with a smile and a shaka as they passed his inaugural parade reviewing stand yesterday.

Happy man. Happy day. PWP.
(Photo credit: Jack Gruber)

The Audacity of Hope - PWP

"I am because of love and education and lots of hope."

Barack Obama

(Photo credit: Damon Winter)

The first time I ever heard of who Martin Luther King was, was from Mom

I remember walking home from school when I was about 10 or 11 years old and I walked in the front door of our Front Street home (orange shag carpet and all). Mom was sitting in a chair pulled right up to the front of the black and white tv which was in a beige box with upholstery fabric on the bottom in a chris-cross pattern, quite the "modern" television.

She was crying her eyes out.

I ran to her and asked her what was the matter and she could barely get the words out. She was watching the assassination of Martin Luther King. I sat down on the floor in front of her and she told me who he was, in child terms. "He was a good man trying to do good things for the world and he stood up for what he believed in (mom was very big on that) and because of that, some bad person had killed him."
I asked all sorts of questions, what were the good things and why would somebody shoot him?

This was my first lesson in inequality I believe. It was the first time I can remember being exposed to prejudice. I remember feeling in awe of my mother, thinking of how she wanted everything to always be fair. Now as a mother of four, I get the fairness part, but at the time was realizing that the world was a much bigger place and fairness had to exist outside our home as well. I was amazed that she had this real emotion for someone who was on "tv", and I understood that this was "real", not just a tv show. (Remember I am old, and tv was still very new to us.)

Every Martin Luther King day, I think of that time with her and the lessons she taught me, and not only on that one day. (photo courtesy of www.clipartguide.com)

Janet Harvey
January 19, 2009, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

A Natural Local Boy: Barack Obama - PWP

"I define locals, for the record, as those of us who have been here for a few generations and plan to stay. So my definition does not include Barack Obama. He was not local. At least to me he wasn’t.

He wasn’t until I saw that photograph of him body surfing a break-neck barrel from last August. He had that local-boy reach of the arm as he glided down a huge summer swell, the grace of his relaxed face, proud, turned into the tidal force of current, the way only a local boy can take a real wave and make it his very own ride, sleek and easy. A natural local boy. "

Lois-Ann Yamanaka is the author of, most recently, “Behold the Many.”

(Photo credit: Alex Brandon)

PWP Lumahai Beach Kauai

Lumahai Beach is where Mitzi Gaynor washed that man right out of her hair in "South Pacific" and where Barb Remmen ditched her flip flops last week.

We often find Lumahai Beach deserted because of its unmarked access path down through a cliffside lauhala grove. That first glimpse through lauhala branches of the sea at Lumahai Beach takes our breath away - every time: PWP.

(Photo credit: Lori Decker)

Mind, Body and Organic Martinis in Miami - PWP

I can avoid everything except temptation.
Oscar Wilde

Hilarious PWP piece by Maureen Dowd:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/travel/18canyon.html?hp

(Photo credit: Alex Quesada for the New York Times)

Romantic Paris for a PWP Valentine's anyone?

Webster's Dictionary:
ro-mance' n. 1, a tale or novel of extraordinary, not real or familiar life 2, a fiction or falsehood. 3, a love affair
ro-man'tic adj. 1, fanciful; fabulous; pert. to romance. 2, given to sentimental or amorous feelings. 3, in art and literature, imaginative and free from classical rule.


Why does Paris have such a reputation for romance? This photo might provide a real clue.

Cunningham's Keepers - PWP

Bill Cunningham is a keeper:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/04/fashion/20090104-street-feature/index.html

PWP