awake unto me

I've started playing Dark Crusade again, which does a pretty decent job at capturing the fun of playing tabletop Warhammer 40k while eliminating the problematic aspect of having to deal with real-life fans of the wargame. Or the scandalous cash outlay required to field a respectable army.

(When I got into the hobby in the late 1980's, you could get a blister of four models for five dollars. These days, a single model can set one back in the neighborhood of ten bucks. And I though polo was the sport of the obscenely wealthy...)

Edwin Starr - War (from War & Peace, 1970) - Contrary to what the song tells us, war is good for many things -- boosting support for an inept president, lining the pockets of defense contractors, generating business for the manufacturers of body bags and prosthetic limbs, and generally promoting an environment of state control that would not be tolerated in other circumstances. It's important to keep a fair and balanced attitude about these things, after all.

John Leyton - Beautiful Dreamer (from The EP Collection, 1995) - Britain's answer to Edd "Kookie" Byrnes (and member of Joe Meek's stable of pop singers) does a swinging take on a Stephen Foster standard.

Tuesday Weld - Are You the Boy? (from a 1960 single; collected on Ultra Chicks, Vol. 3, 1998) - Not The Real Tuesday Weld, but the real Tuesday Weld, the starlet who played Thalia Menniger in Dobie Gillis and the object of one of my hopeless retro-crushes (along with Ann-Margret and Melody from Josie and the Pussycats), here doing her best Shelley Fabares impersonation.