The best back to school song ever, by Gorky’s Zygotic Minci. Click on the image for the (animated! and therefore a propos) music video on YouTube. Enjoy!

UPDATE:
Best back to school story I have:
Monsieur Charpin was my antiquities teacher in Paris. Often a student from our class had to be expedited to the main tower of the university where he was to be found getting on with his life, completely liberated from the reality that he had a class waiting for him. He arrived one day, escorted by one of us, and simply said: What are you doing here, anyway? When I was in university, I showed up for the first class, found out when the finals were, and didn’t show up again till the last class. Why aren’t you in the library or in a café, instead of sitting here waiting for an old man to come feed you knowledge? I don’t understand!”

I’d have quit that very year if it weren’t for that little speech.

I’ve been neglecting my music! I even bought my iPod a few months ago just for the photo and video components rather than to listen to music. Shame on me! I’m a sound engineer’s daughter and can spot a blip a mile away: I really should be using my ears. Well, that all changed when I bought new earphones! Dump your crappy little Mac earbuds, and get something decent for the same price (no need to go crazy and buy the Bose—I have it on good authority they are useless). I went to Tekserve (which I think of as my veterinarian, all my gadgets being my little pets), and got the Sony in-ear ones, which sound just as good, if not better.

NJS is back, because I’m back, and you’re back. We’re all back! Yay!

Just a short one today. The sun won’t be out long, apparently—clouds and rain predicted for later. But no matter, these versions of “On the Sunny Side of the Street” will brighten your living room (or bed, if you’ve decided to stay there)!

Other “njs” mixes: here.

Click on the image or playlist above for the iMix.

I’m moving, little by little, this week, to a new apartment. Of course packing brings up old memories, both of places I’ve been and many, many, many other moves across towns and borders!

For the entire list of NJS mixes, click here.

Here’s the second installation in my NJS (Not Jonathan Schwartz) series of mixes, including oldies, semi-oldies, and what I call “future nostalgia”: Jet-M

If you speak any French, and even if you don’t, you probably know that “jet-m” is the homonym of the words “je t’aime,” which means, “I love you.” The theme is love, or as some put it, “luv,” or even “wuv.” All the different kinds. Inspired by last week’s song by Nat King Cole, “Love,” sung in Japanese by the ever-internationally inclined Cole.

I made up the name “Jet-M” as an idea for a great name for a French “Jet Blue” type of airline. I don’t have the wherewithal to start an airline, however, so I’ll just stick to NJS till I do. Can you imagine calling up the airline to reserve a ticket, and hear someone say, “Jet-M!” I’d be calling every five minutes! To say, “Really? Really, truly?”

Here’s the playlist:

*Again, let me remind you, there’s nothing in it for me, except the feedback. I don’t make any money if you download the songs from iTunes.
Also, it’s iTunes who has mispelled Bette’s last name as “Davies”, not me! It’s really spelled like that in their database.

Okay, here’s the story behind this experiment. I like the idea of Jonathan Schwartz. But I reach convulsively for the radio dial whenever I hear that spooky (to me) introductory music (you know, the “deda deDA-dee DAAAAAA”). I know that their voices are the voices of the Erynies that I’m going to hear as I die in my sleep. Even if it means hearing Car Talk twice, I immediately switch to NPR’s A.M. frequency in a a gesture that cries, “I’m not dead yet!” (And actually, I don’t mind hearing Car Talk twice at all! I’ve just sent Click and Clack this cartoon, as a thanks-for-the-memories. And I don’t even own a car. Or a driver’s license, for that matter.)

Sure, I like to hear certain oldies. It’s not an anti-oldies bias driving me. It’s just that I want to hear my oldies. Are my oldies your oldies? Have you been around but don’t feel that old yet? Do you have slightly edgier taste in oldies?

I figure if I do enough of these hour-long mixes, and then place them on shuffle, I’ll always have something besides a second helping of Car Talk to listen to whenever Jonathan Schwartz comes on. Also, I welcome suggestions.

Obviously I have no right to distribute this music, but iTunes allows me to do a remix that I can share with you in all legality. You are free to buy (from iTunes, not me) all or whatever songs on my iMix that you like, and rearrange them as you like, too. But there’s nothing in it for me!

Here’s the playlist:

(Click on the “album cover” at the top of the post for the downloadable iMix link).