my father was a prescient man. he bought me an edith piaf album years before I was smart enough to realize that I was going to be a fan of edith piaf. how did he know? perhaps he knew me better than I knew… he did bring in a lot of those albums that went on to form my wimpy musical taste (roberta flack, barbra streisand, the fifth dimension, don mclean). anyway, it took a while, but now who reading this site does not like mlle edith? (okay, some of you…) the ladies and I went to see the new film la môme at the barbican the other night and what a sad tale! I would not have constructed it in that way if I had been the filmmaker, but it held our interest and made us weep. she sang so hard her eyebrows popped out! she could put some serious lungpower into any room. she looked so damn old at the end and she was only supposed to be 47! hard living lady, she was. anyway, the guardian went and got an interview with ginou richer, the woman who hung out with the little sparrow back in the day, in case you are interested. we are going to try to sing “non, je ne regrette rien” the next time we do karaoke (ah, but we won’t be able to do it as convincingly as she, because we do have regrets!), meanwhile, head to youtube and watch some lovely old footage of the voice of paris. 