Lock of Lennon's hair to go up for auction

Buy John Lennon's hair!




(Wednesday October 31, 2007 12:29 AM)

A lock of John Lennon's hair is to be sold at auction later this year, it has been announced.

The strands from the dead Beatle's head are being sold by the group's former hairdresser Betty Glasgow.

She worked as a stylist on the Fab Four films "Hard Day's Night" and "Help" and was given the lock along with hand-written note from Lennon.

Worthing auction house Gorringes will be putting the lot under the hammer as part of "The Betty Glasgow Collection of Beatles and Film Memorabilia" in December.

The hair sample is expected to reach between £2,000 and £3,000, although Glasgow admits she will be sorry to see the many items go.

"It was great fun working with the boys on the films. They were always together in a group and having a laugh.

"My job was to keep their hair in order as the film was made over three months, so their trademark, mop-top haircuts had to be regularly trimmed", she explained.

Watch John Lennon's music videos here...

Bring a Yoga Mat - Dress Like a Zombie

The invite said "Bring a Yoga Mat - Dress Like a Zombie." When filmmaker and Boing Boing pal Jason Wishnow set out to create a trailer for Scott Kenemore's new book "The Zen of Zombie : Better Living Through the Undead" (yes, people make video trailers for books!) a vision came to his brrraiiiiinns. Why not gather 100 people in a Brooklyn park, dress them as zombies, and film them all doing yoga? There's no inner peace like undead inner peace.

So today on Boing Boing tv, in honor of Halloween, we've produced a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Jason's Zombie Yoga trailer. Watch out for flying guts when they do "downward decapitated dog" or "corpse pose." (Music by T.bias.)

LINK: http://tv.boingboing.net/2007/10/30/zombie-yoga.html

It's a Small World

France Embraces Disney,

Thanks to a Rat

Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios

Remy in the hand of Linguini, characters in the animated film “Ratatouille.”

By Brooks Barnes

Published: October 22, 2007

It just might be a small world after all.

Although the Walt Disney Company has always had a bit of a translation problem in France — remember those pitchfork-wielding farmers who showed up in force to protest the 1992 opening of Euro Disney? — the company seems to have found a new ambassador in Remy the rat.

The animated film “Ratatouille,” about a rodent who dreams of becoming a French chef, has become the highest-grossing film of 2007 in France. The film sold more than $60 million in tickets, placing it No. 1 at the French box office for six weeks, beating the record set by “Titanic.”

The success of “Ratatouille” is not particularly surprising. It is set in Paris and celebrates French culture. (Narration early in the movie declares that “some of the best restaurants in the world are in Paris.”) Still, the fawning reviews for the film — Le Monde declared it “one of the greatest gastronomic films in the history of cinema” — suggest that Disney, at least for now, is no longer a public enemy.

More unexpected has been the healthy response to the Paris opening of the Broadway production of “The Lion King” on Oct. 4. The French have historically greeted Broadway-style productions, with the exception of “Les Miserables,” with upturned noses.

But ticket sales for “Le Roi Lion” have been brisk enough to support an open-ended run, according to a Disney spokesman. Even Disneyland Resort Paris is starting to sizzle: the park, celebrating its 15th anniversary, is achieving attendance records, with more than 6.1 million visitors in the first half of 2007, up 11 percent from the first half of 2006, according to regulatory filings.

Still, Disney’s French critics probably won’t put away their pitchforks yet. The resort’s movie-themed Walt Disney Studios Park, which opened in 2002, is struggling despite new attractions, including a “Finding Nemo” roller coaster. Perhaps the French know that “nemo” means nobody in Latin.

The New York Times