The other day, James Corden and Harry Styles set out on the streets of Brooklyn. They were searching apartments for a location to shoot a music video Styles’ new album. They had just 3 hours to do it.
Luckily, they found Hadley Ward, Isabel Perry and Caroline McKenchnie. All are 2015 Staples High School grads, living together. (Katie Settos — another roommate — was away.)
The British duo sure found the right people. The apartment was decorated with photos of both Styles and Corden, to their delight (and the young women’s slight embarrassment).
It’s a great video — even without the Westport connection. With it, this becomes an instant classic.
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The great vibe from yesterday’s Memorial Day parade still lingers.
The winners of the float contest are feeling particularly good. Congratulations to:
- Best Youth Organization Float: Suzuki Music School
- Best Community Organization Float: Westport Old Fire Truck
- Most Colorful Float: VFW Auxiliary #399
- Special Pep Award: Junior Colonial Fife & Drum Corps.
And the winner for Best Overall Float is …
… I can’t believe there’s even any suspense …
… the Y’s Men of Westport/Weston.
Their float honored Mary Pickersgill, Francis Scott Key and the national anthem.
I’ll have to check the records, but I think the Y’s Men have won Best Overall Float every year since Francis Scott Key was hanging out at Fort McHenry.
The Y’s Men’s float. You can’t see it in the photo, but there was “smoke,” reminiscent of the 1814 battle that inspired Francis Scott Key to write our national anthem. (photo/Dan Woog)
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Not to raise a big stink, but an “06880” reader sent this photo:
The reader sent a note, too: “I would like to acknowledge the anonymous donor/s who selflessly, when no one was looking, left the precious doggie gift, wrapped by the side of Valley Road.”
Another photo — not suitable for a public blog — was left “unwrapped” at the end of the reader’s driveway.
“But really,” the reader adds, “you shouldn’t have.”
The reader added this suggestion: a database of each dog’s DNA, included as part of the dog license. “The mere existence of such a database would immediately put an end to this behavior,” the reader says.
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Carl Addison Swanson’s latest book, “Ipso Facto” — another in his Ian Fletcher legal thriller series — has just been published.
There’s another Westport angle, besides the author being a Staples High School graduate: It’s based on a notorious murder case here, from the 1960s.
The Amazon listing says: “When a hedge fund billionaire is murdered in a tony suburb of Connecticut, the handyman Black is the first to be arrested. Blue blood attorney Ian Fletcher to the rescue?”
Swanson has written over 50 books. In addition to the Fletcher novels, they include the Hush McCormick series, Tug Christian thrillers, Scooter mysteries and Justin Carmichael nostalgic memoirs. Click here for his website.
Click here to order “Ipso Facto” from Amazon.
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Aspetuck Land Trust daisies provide a pop of color for today’s “Westport … Naturally” feature.
(Photo/Wendy Levy)
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And finally … I first heard of Ronnie Hawkins when I saw “The Last Waltz.”
But the Arkansas-born rockabilly artist — who spent most of his life in Canada, and influenced generations of musicians with his outsized, energetic music and performing style, and was a friend of Bill Cliinton’s — led quite a life beyond The Band.
He died Sunday, at 87. Click here for a full obituary.
I second the request for doggie DNA. I see those bags all the time on Hillspoint, as well as the unbagged variety.
I can’t recall the interview i saw with Ronnie Hawkins, but how i cracked with this line of his..
“if you think all men are created equal, you haven’t seen Bo Diddley in the shower”😂👏🏻
Rest in peace Hawk!
The Cordon/Styles video shoot sequence was hilarious. Congrats to our Westport ladies for being there and knowing how to roll with the moment. Maybe it’s true that everybody in this world gets 15 minutes of fame!
Dan, fortunately I made it all the way to the end of your message, as Ronnie and I were both at the University of Arkansas in the ‘50s, and he was definitely “Romping Ronnie”. Decades later Sandie, I, and the kids were traveling up into Canada and Ronnie was putting on a show. Before it started I found him backstage and we relived some memories. More importantly, during the show when he shouted my name the kids were impressed!
That Harry Styles video is a riot! Nice work, all.
Doggie DNA? What about the obnoxious humans responsible for the dirty deed. Were there no cameras to record the offense?
Westport residents do a reasonably good job in not generating trash along our pathways, roads and parks. However, there are shortcomings, bottles, cups, paper and plastic trash, masks, clothing and doggy poop bags. Let’s not focus only on dogs. The DNA analysis is of course only a joke and, if applied, would probably generate requests for finger print checks of cups, bottles and other trash that people allow to spoil the beauty of our town. Let’s all clean up.