2 Lady Gaga covers for Elle UK and China

It looks like these are from the same photo shoot.

ETA: also Elle Indonesia

Le Freak by Nile Rodgers

You can keep your Jeff Becks, Steve Vais and Jimmy Pages if I can keep Nile Rodgers. I enjoyed Nile's book about his trip life and music. There are three acts. Act 1 is his incredibly hardscrabble upbringing. Skip a paragraph and you'll miss Nile being shipped off to a different female relative on a different coast with a different unreliable male. Act 2 is success with Chic and later as a record producer for Diana Ross, David Bowie and Madonna. This part is the most fun with a few gossipy stories. If you skip the drug stories it all speeds along merrily. Act 3 is addiction and redemption. Nile is inspired to get clean when he hears that Keef has done it. Inevitably as soon as he gets out of rehab the first call he gets is from Keef looking for drugs.

We don't hear as much as I would like about Bernard Edwards. Nard is there at the beginning of the success story, and his death (almost) concludes the book but in between we don't really get to know him.

So this is pretty decent book by a great musician. The Red Hot Chili Peppers may be in in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while Chic are not, but I won't be reading any books by them.

We had a Ninja party once

It has been days since I posted a picture of an actress or model channeling David Bowie

Of course some say Tilda Swinton is always channeling David Bowie

Found Poetry in a Declassified Habeas Corpus Opinion concerning a Guantánamo Prisoner

Morrissey has Homeless Animals on his Mind

Computer Games

At ChessBase you can read about a Gross Miscarriage of Justice in Computer Chess (part 1, part 2, part 3)

The Return of the King

Eric Cantona for president? For several tantalizing hours, the former Manchester United striker fooled French voters into thinking he would run for the country’s top job before admitting that what he really wants is better housing for the needy.

Partial Justice for Stephen Lawrence