Death Breath – "Death Breath" (2006)

I stink to high heaven

Bringing you closer to hell

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The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning is not exactly the feel-good book of the year.  After all, its  subject is how to divest yourself of all your unnecessary junk before you die so your kids or others won’t have to face that depressing task after you’re six feet under.

 On the bright side, it’s only 107 pages long – I’m talking small pages with a lot of space between the lines – and takes at most an hour to read.  (In other words, two or three bathroom visits for the average guy.)

*     *     *     *     *

Margareta Magnusson, the author of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, describes herself as being “somewhere between 80 and 100 years old.”

Ms. Magnusson (or her agent) must be a close friend or relative of someone high up at Simon and Schuster.  Otherwise, I can’t imagine how this book got published.

Much of The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning consists of advice that is so obvious that only a moron couldn’t figure it out for himself.  The rest of the book consists of irrelevant anecdotes and non sequiturs, a few examples of which I’ll provide below.

Margareta Magnusson

For example, here’s an excerpt from the book in which the author tells you how to death clean your clothes:

[S]ort all your clothes into two piles (on your bed or on a table).

Pile one is for clothes you want to keep.

Pile two is for clothes you want to get rid of.

Then look through pile one and pull out the items that require small adjustments or dry cleaning.  The rest you can put back in the closet.

Give or throw away the clothes in pile two.

Are you f*cking kidding me?  Do you really need to book to tell you to do that?

This woman needs to get serious
about death cleaning!

A little later in the book, the author describes what happened the last time she did a death cleaning of her own clothes: 

I managed to reduce my wardrobe by two dresses, five scarves, one jacket, and two pairs of shoes.  A grandchild took a pair of shoes and the rest I gave to the Red Cross.  Wonderful!

Sounds like Margareta Magnusson just saved her kids all of two minutes.  Gee, thanks mom!

*     *     *     *     *

Here are some examples of the irrelevant anecdotes and non sequiturs I promised you above:

Once, about ten years ago, I went on a sailing trip with a family for several days.  Whenever everybody on board was to leave the boat for an hour or more, the cabin door needed to be locked, but no one could ever find the key from when we had last unlocked the door. . . . Beautiful islands were around us, and yet every adventure off the boat began with a bad mood . . . caused by the hunt for the key!  Imagine how a little hook for the key on the inside of the cabin door could have brightened our lives on board. 

(She has a point, but what does it have to do with death cleaning?)

One of my daughters-in-law told me about a little girl in the nursery where she works.  She wanted to draw her best friend.  When the drawing was finished, the little girl turned over the paper to draw the back of her friend on the reverse side.  What a wonderful idea.

(A very cute story, but I must ask once again: what exactly does this have to do with death cleaning?)

Once I was invited to a tea party in Singapore.  Everyone had to wear a hat – it was compulsory!  I had not worn a hat in 20 years or so, and was not really well stocked in that area. . . . And then I saw my wok hanging on a nail above our gas stove.  I put it on my head, taped an orchid on the front brim as decoration, and tied it under my chin with coarse string.  Believe it or not, I won first prize and received a beautiful glass bottle of Schiaparelli’s perfume “Shocking!” for my efforts.  Wow!

(So did the wok survive the death cleaning or not?)

One of my daughters has a sign in her kitchen that reads, “I kiss better than I cook!”  It is an informative and fair warning to her guests – that they might well have an evening of all sorts of surprises . . . ahead of them.

(I wouldn’t mind getting a dinner invitation from this daughter . . . if you catch my drift.)

*     *     *     *     *

Given that the author of this book is a woman, it comes as no surprise that she has a low opinion of men – including her late husband:

In hindsight, I think that doing [death cleaning] on my own might have been a good thing. . . . Had I cleaned with my husband, it would have taken us years.  Men tend to save most things rather than throw them away.  That goes for even the smallest nuts and bolts.  They think . . . that every little thing will be useful at some later occasion.

More from the author about the uselessness of men:

I sometimes wonder how men cope when they become widowed.  Men of my generation often manage poorly . . . . They can barely boil an egg, let alone sew on a button. . . . For a long time, the best solution for widowers has been to get a new wife as quickly as possible – someone to do the laundry and ironing, and to save them from impending starvation.

But the author thinks there is reason to be optimistic about younger males:

In Sweden, many young men enjoy both sewing and knitting; others are fantastic cooks and can combine flavors that make the mouth sing!  And they are not so stupid as to waste time ironing the entire shirt when they intend to wear a sweater on top; they know that only collar and cuffs count.  When these younger men get old, their skills will be of great benefit to them.

*     *     *     *     *

Ms. Magnusson doesn’t know everything there is to know about death cleaning.

For example, she asks this question – “Can I give an old samurai sword to my teenage grandson?” – but fails to answer it.

The most difficult conundrum presented by death cleaning – how to deal with embarrassing possessions – is addressed in a chapter titled “If It Was Your Secret, Then Keep It That Way (or How to Death Clean Hidden, Dangerous, and Secret Things)”:

Maybe Grandfather had ladies’ underwear in his drawer and maybe Grandma had a dildo in hers.  But what does that matter now? . . . Let us each have our small preferences, as long as nobody gets hurt.

But it is perhaps a nice gift to those loved ones who may be death cleaning for us later if we do a little bit of our own cleaning now – to reduce these types of belongings a bit before we leave our present life.

Save your favorite dildo – but throw away the other fifteen!

That is excellent advice – as far as it goes.  But Margaretta’s children will probably be somewhat dismayed to find even one dildo while cleaning up for her after she shuffles off this mortal coil.

What we naughty oldsters really need is a way to have our cake and eat it, too.  But how can we keep the embarrassing items we can’t live without for as long as we are alive, but make sure that they are never found by anyone after we die?

I’m still working on that one.

*     *     *     *     *

Click here to watch a video of Margareta Magnusson explaining death cleaning.  

I’d guess she’s closer to 80 than to 100.  What do you think?

*     *     *     *     *

Death Breath is an old-school Swedish death metal band that released today’s featured song on its 2006 debut album, Stinking Up the Night.

Margareta Magnusson is also an old-school type and Swedish.  I doubt that she’s a fan of death metal, but two out of three ain’t bad.

Click here to watch the official music video for “Death Breath,” which features a zombie, a hot Swedish blonde, and a Volvo.

And click on the link below to buy The Gentle Art of Death Cleaning from Amazon:

Migos – "M&M's" (2014)

M&M, M&M, M&M, M&M, M&M, M&M, M&M

M&M, M&M, M&M, M&M, M&M, M&M

There are many ways to eat M&M’s.  Here’s my way:

*     *     *     *     *

Migos, a hip hop group from Atlanta, released “M&M’s” on its No Label 2 mix tape in 2014:

You might think the song is about the candy, but it’s really about M-16s.

Click here to listen to today’s featured song.

Lil' Kim (ft. The Notorious B.I.G.) – "Queen Bitch" (1996)

I write a rhyme

Melt in your mouth like M&M’s

Everyone knows that M&M’s “melt in your mouth, not in your hand.”

Forrest Mars, Sr., got the idea for M&M’s in the 1930s when he saw Spanish Civil War combatants eating British-made Smarties, which were chocolate pellets with a shell of hardened sugar syrup that prevented the chocolate from melting.

Mars started producing M&M’s in 1941, and sold the candy exclusively to the U.S. armed forces during World War II.  (Chocolate was rationed during that war.)

There was no “m” printed on M&M’s until 1950.  That “m” was originally black, but was changed to white in 1954.

In 1976, red M&M’s were replaced with orange M&M’s after Red Dye #2 had been found to be carcinogenic by the FDA, which banned its use.  M&M’s had never used Red Dye #2 – they were made with Red Dye #40, which was safe – but the public was suspicious of red foods as a result of the banning of Red Dye #2.  Red M&M’s made a comeback in 1987.

In 1995, tan M&M’s were replaced by blue ones.  Today, plain M&M’s are a mix of blue, brown, green, orange, red, and yellow candies.

If it was up to me, I’d replace the brown M&M’s with purple ones.

*     *     *     *     *

When I was growing up, there were only two varieties of M&M’s candy: plain and peanut.  (I don’t know why the manufacturer of M&M’s added that apostrophe not the product’s name when that name is a plural noun, not a possessive noun – but they did.)

Today you can get not only plain and peanut M&M’s, but also peanut butter, almond, pretzel, puffed rice, dark chocolate, and caramel M&M’s.  

A couple of those varieties sound promising, but why gild the lily?  I’m sticking with plain M&M’s.

*     *     *     *     *

Did you know that M&M’s are the most-referenced candy in pop music?

According to LyricFind, M&M’s are mentioned in 122 songs.

Skittles are mentioned in 100 songs, while Hershey’s are referenced 92 times.  

The other types of candy that are most popular with songwriters include Kit Kat (which is mentioned in 60 songs), Jolly Rancher (39 songs), Tootsie Roll (38), Starburst (36), Twizzlers (16), and Lifesavers (9).

*     *     *     *     *

“Queen Bitch” was released in 1996 on Lil’ Kim’s debut album, Hard Core, which has sold over five million copies to date.

Rolling Stone said that Hard Core was a “landmark of bold, hilarious filth” that “single-handedly raised the bar for raunchy lyrics in hip-hop.”

Click here to listen to “Queen Bitch.”

Click on the link below to buy the track from Amazon:

Busy McCarroll – "O Fair New Mexico" (2015)

Land with its bright mañana

Coming through weal and woe

State of our esperanza is Nuevo México

One day shortly after I moved to Washington, DC, in 1977, I heard a story about a young medical school graduate who had a problem when he submitted his application for a license to practice medicine in the District of Columbia.  

After looking over his paperwork, the clerk on duty – who was filling in for a vacationing colleague – asked why he had not submitted documentation showing that he had passed the examination required of graduates of foreign medical schools.

“I didn’t go to a foreign medical school,” the puzzled young doctor said.  “I went to Georgetown.”  (Georgetown University, which has a well-known medical school, is located in DC.)

Georgetown University's Healy Hall

He flipped through the documents in his file and pulled one out.  “Here’s my Georgetown diploma,” he said, handing it to the clerk.

She examined it carefully, then shook her head.  “You can’t tell me this is a diploma from an American medical school,” she said.  “It’s not even in English.”

Georgetown University diplomas are written in Latin.

*     *     *     *     *

I always figured that story was apocryphal.  Back in the day, the District government had a well-deserved reputation for sloth and incompetence.  But surely the city’s employees weren’t that clueless.

Recently, a New Mexico newspaper had a story about a bureaucratic snafu that was most definitely not apocryphal.   

A couple of days before Thanksgiving, Gavin Clarkson – a resident of New Mexico – went to the DC Marriage Bureau to pick up a marriage license.  (Clarkson and his fiancee were planning to get hitched in Washington, which is where she lives – which is why he was applying for a DC wedding license.)

Mr. and Mrs. Gavin Clarkson

When Clarkson gave his New Mexico driver’s license to the clerk at the Marriage Bureau, she told him that an international driver’s license wasn’t an acceptable form of identification, and asked him for his “New Mexico passport.”

Clarkson told the clerk that New Mexico was, in fact, one of the 50 United States.  The clerk was skeptical, but accepted Clarkson’s New Mexico driver’s license after consulting with a supervisor.

“She thought New Mexico was a foreign country,” Clarkson told the Las Cruces Sun News.  “All the couples behind us waiting in line were laughing.”

*     *     *     *     *

The last year hasn’t been a good one for Clarkson – who like me is a graduate of Rice University and Harvard Law School.

He resigned his position as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior after the department’s inspector general issued a report critical of a program he had overseen.

He then sought the Republican nomination for New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District, but finished third in the June primary election.  (After announcing his candidacy, Clarkson was fired from his New Mexico State University associate professorship.  He promptly filed suit against NMSU, alleging that he had been wrongfully terminated because he is a pro-life Christian, a Choctaw Indian, and a Republican – not necessarily in that order.)

Clarkson on the campaign trail

When the Republican nominee for secretary of state dropped out of the race a week after winning the primary, party officials named Clarkson as her replacement.  Unfortunately, he lost that election as well.

Given that run of bad luck, what’s your over-under on how long before Clarkson’s wife dumps him?

*     *     *     *     *

New Mexico became the 47th state in 1912.  

Sheriff Pat Garrett

The New Mexico state song, “O Fair New Mexico,” was written a few years later by Elizabeth Garrett, the daughter of Sheriff Pat Garrett – the man who had shot and killed William “Billy the Kid” Bonney in 1881.

Click here to hear Busy McCarroll’s recording of “O Fair New Mexico."

Edie Brickell & New Bohemians – "What I Am" (1988)

I'm not aware of too many things

I know what I know 

If you know what I mean

Every American president since James Madison has attended services at St. John’s Episcopal Church, which is located just across Lafayette Park from the White House.

Of all those presidents, George H. W. Bush – who died last week – was almost certainly the most considerate.

St. John's Church in 1816 (with the partially
burned White House in the background)

Bush, who was raised in the Episcopal Church, attended St. John’s with his wife, Barbara, fairly regularly during his four years in office.  But the Bushes almost never attended the 9:00 am or 11:00 am Sunday services, which attracted large numbers of worshippers.  

That was because Bush appreciated how disruptive it was for a sitting president to show up at one of those services.  The Secret Service had to clear St. John’s and search it prior to the Bushes entering the church, and all those who came to worship had to go through a metal detector before going inside.

Rather than inconvenience hundreds of St. John’s parishioners, the Bushes got up early and came to the 8:00 am service, which attracted only a handful of people.

*     *     *     *     *

I know about all that because my late father-in-law was the rector of St. John’s during the Bush Administration.

He would get a call from the White House on Saturday night if the Bushes planned to come to St. John’s on Sunday.

Once he and my mother-in-law invited my oldest son – who was their oldest grandchild – to spend the night and go with them to the 8:00 am service, where he sat with his grandmother and the Bushes in the “president’s pew” that is reserved for the use of any U.S. president who worships at St. John’s.

Presidents often give small souvenirs to people they meet, and President Bush gave my son a tie clasp with the seal of the President of the United States on it.

The tie clasp was in a small cardboard box with a facsimile of Bush’s signature printed on its top, and was fitted into an indentation in a square piece of spongy plastic foam:

My son – who was seven or eight years old at the time – took the piece of foam out of the box for some reason and found that a folded five-dollar bill was hidden beneath it.

I have no idea if Bush routinely tucked a five-dollar bill beneath the Presidential tie clasps he gave away.  Maybe he did that only when a child was going to be the recipient.

Or maybe that five-dollar bill was President Bush’s emergency money.  You know, if he ever got separated from his Secret Service companions and had to take a taxi or bus back to the White House.

*     *     *     *     *

It’s customary for newly-elected presidents to have an Inauguration Day service at St. John’s before they are sworn in.

My father-in-law pulled a few strings so I got to be one of the ushers for President Bush’s 1989 inaugural service.

The Rev. John C. Harper leaving St. John's
with the Bushes and Quayles (1989)

The Bushes and their many family members sat on the right side of the church.  The left side was reserved for the family of Vice President-elect Dan Quayle and his wife, Marilyn.  

I was assigned to usher on the left side.  I may have escorted a Quayle brother-in-law, an aunt and uncle, and a couple of second cousins to their pews, but no one more glamorous than that.

*     *     *     *     *

George Herbert Walker Bush was the last World War II-era president.  He was a year older than my father, while the man who beat him in the 1992 election – Bill Clinton – was much closer to my age.

It was easy for me to respect Bush – his age and military service gave him a certain gravitas that was shared by other members of the “greatest generation.”

I couldn’t respect Bill Clinton in the same way.  After all, I had grown up with guys like Bill Clinton.  I knew what was going through his mind, because the same nonsense was going through my mind.  

George H. W. Bush taking
the oath of office in 1989

I looked at George Bush and saw my father.  I looked at Bill Clinton and saw myself and my high-school friends.  (You’re telling me that one of the guys I used to play spades and binge-drink cheap 3.2% beer with is going to be the president of the United States?  You must be kidding!)

George Bush getting oral sex from a 21-year-old intern in the Oval Office?  It was unthinkable.

But Bill Clinton doing that was no surprise.

*     *     *     *     *

The day George H. W. Bush was inaugurated, today’s featured song occupied the #24 spot on the Billboard “Hot 100.”  It eventually climbed to #7, and spent a total of 19 weeks on the “Hot 100” chart.  

“What I Am” is ranked #77 on VH1’s list of the greatest one-hit wonders.  It was featured in an episode of Miami Vice, an episode of Doogie Howser, M.D., and an episode of Beavis and Butt-head.  Name another song that can make that claim!

Our 41st president moved to Texas after college, but Edie Brickell was born there.  She married Paul Simon on my birthday in 1992.

Click here to listen to “What I Am.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Malcolm McLaren – "Madam Butterfly (Un bel di vedremo)" (1984)

Who on earth can it be

Coming up the path for me?

What on earth will he say?

Shall I run to him or run away?

In 1964, American philosopher Abraham Kaplan formulated “the law of the instrument”:

Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow’s restatement of the law of the instrument is more familiar:

I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.

The point both men were trying to make is that we need to be careful when choosing a tool to use.  It’s tempting to pull out the tool that we are most comfortable using, regardless of whether it is the best one for the job.

If you ask a law professor for help in solving a problem, you’ll probably be told that a new law is needed.

New laws are to law professors what hammers are to small boys.  Law professors tend to pound every troublesome situation they encounter with legislation.

*     *     *     *     *

Irina Manta is a law professor at Hofstra University who believes that there ought to be a law that punishes anyone who uses Tinder or another dating app to fool someone into having sex with him or her.

Law professor Irina Manta

Here’s an excerpt from her soon-to-be-published law review article that describes the kind of harm her proposal would address:

A prototypical hypothetical case is a man whom we shall call Marvin Simmons who claims to be single but is actually married.  A woman named Leila is using dating apps to find someone single who is open to the possibility of a serious monogamous relationship.  She is 39 years old and would ideally like to have biological children if she finds the right partner.  Marvin and Leila both right-swipe and a match is created.  

Marvin is most definitely not what she is looking for, but his lie misleads her into thinking that he is in the pool of people worth exploring.  They spend some time chatting and decide to meet for drinks. A few dates later, they begin having sex.  

Marvin is a busy business executive, so he can only meet once or twice a week.  Furthermore, he tells Leila that it has been a rough year for him – he got divorced a year ago and his mother died recently, so he wants to get to know someone slowly and feels the need to spend much of his rare free time alone or with friends.  

Leila has googled Marvin and while he does not really use social media (“Facebook is such a waste of time!” he told her), she finds a LinkedIn page with the name that he gave her and the information checks out.  Leila has no reason to assume that Marvin Simmons is a fake name.

Leila’s feelings for Marvin grow over time and she hardly dates other men any more.  After a few months, however, she becomes increasingly concerned because not only has he not introduced her to any of his friends, but they have still not been to his apartment.  His explanation made sense at first – his apartment was under renovation and her apartment was close to his work, so it seemed logical to hang out there during intimate times.  When Leila demands to see Marvin’s apartment, regardless of the state of the renovations, he finally confesses that he is actually married and his wife does not know about his extracurricular activities.

Feeling violated (i.e., recognizing the dignitary harm she suffered) and heartbroken (i.e., experiencing emotional harm), Leila is left without meaningful recourse.  She could tell Marvin’s wife what happened, if Leila even figures out his true identity, but violence could erupt and the wife may not believe that Leila was in the dark about his marital status that whole time.  Leila has no useful way to leverage social sanctions.  She has wasted months on him, and several more months pass before she is able to trust enough again and recover from the depression into which this incident plunged her.  Meanwhile, Leila turns 40, and the passage of time has diminished her odds of being able to conceive a child.  Marvin’s deceit was directly responsible for her inability to pursue her best interest.

There may well be a good match for Leila out there, but in addition to bringing about dignitary and emotional harm, individuals like Marvin greatly increase Leila’s search costs.  There is never a guarantee that a dating relationship will work out, but the relationship with Marvin was essentially doomed to failure from the start.  Similar to the scenarios that arise in trademarks, Leila could not get the “product” she wanted due to its misleading branding.  Marvin was using the romance equivalent of a deceptive trademark or of false advertising, which are actions prohibited by the Lanham Act and other laws in the commercial context.

Professor Manta believes that there should be a law giving Leila a legal cause of action against Marvin because he lied about his marital status so that she would have sex with him.

Because lawsuits are expensive, she would allow Leila to file her case against Marvin in small-claims court – where procedures are simplified, and where plaintiffs can represent themselves instead of hiring lawyers.

Because it is hard to measure the harm that Leila suffered in dollars, Professor Manta thinks the law should specify how much Marvin would have to pay if he is found guilty of sexual fraud.  

She suggests that $5000 might be an appropriate damages award.  Such an amount would certainly be sufficient to deter most potential fraudsters – especially serial fraudsters.

*     *     *     *     *

Professor Manta’s Leila-Marvin hypothetical is unusually detailed.  Because Professor Manta is une femme d’un certain age who freely admits to have used dating apps – in fact, she met her husband on Bumble, a “Sadie Hawkins”-style app where only the woman can make the first online move – I asked her if she herself had been a victim of sexual fraud by a married man.

An ad for the dating app Bumble

“No, that story is made up for hypothetical purposes,” she told me, “although I know people who have encountered elements that make up parts of the scenario.” 

A significant component of the damages Leila has suffered at the hands of Marvin relates to the time she has wasted in a relationship with a man who is not what he claims to be – and not what she is looking for.  According to Professor Manta, those wasted months are particularly precious to Leila – a 39-year-old women who wants to have children – because “women lose their fertility in a much more dramatic way than men” and because “their appeal to the male dating pool drops over time as well; women in their early to mid-20s are highly prized, after which there is a steady decline.”  

What if instead of swiping right on Marvin, Leila swiped right on Oliver – who was single, but who deceived Leila by claiming to be open to marriage, fatherhood, etc., when he was really only interested in a short-term sexual relationship?  

Or maybe Leila hooks up with Theodore, who admits from the beginning that he is married but claims that he is about to leave his wife when that’s not true?

Professor Manta’s proposal would not provide a legal remedy for Leila in such a case, even though Oliver’s or Theodore’s lies result in exactly the same harm to Leila as Marvin’s.

“We cannot and should not have the law intervene for this type of scenario,” she told me.  “I am interested in fairly binary pieces of information – whether the man is married but says that he isn’t, etc. – and not these kinds of things.”

Professor Manta’s proposal is also limited to cases where the woman had intercourse with the fraudster.  The value of Leila’s wasted time is the same whether she has had intercourse with Marvin during the course of their relationship or not.  So why would Professor Manta allow Leila to recover only if Marvin has persuaded her to sleep with him?

“We have to draw the line somewhere,” she explained, “and sexual intercourse seems like one logical point.  But I don't see a huge problem with using sexual penetration of any sort instead.  Ultimately, we are trying to estimate at what point significant dignitary and emotional harms are likely to kick in, and for most people that won't be at the stage of just kissing.”

In other words, the harm Leila suffers by wasting time with a married man is the same whether she has sex with Marvin or not.  But the emotional distress that results from Marvin’s lies is likely to be greater if she has had intercourse than if she and Marvin simply held hands or kissed. 

*     *     *     *     *

If you’re not a lawyer, you’ll might find the language Professor Manta uses to be rather odd.  Marvin increased Leila’s “search costs,” and caused her to suffer “dignitary harm”?  Leila has “no useful way to leverage social sanctions” against Marvin?  Marvin has engaged in “misleading branding” that’s akin to a marketer’s deceptive trademark?

This isn’t the way normal people look at the world, is it?

No, it’s not.  But it is the way that law students and law professors view life.

*     *     *     *     *

I enjoyed reading Professor Manta’s thoughtful article – for one thing, the topic is certainly a lot more juicy than that of the typical law review article – and I found it an interesting intellectual exercise to work my way through the specifics of her proposal.

While I can’t argue with Professor Manta’s conclusion that Leila has been harmed by Marvin’s deception, I doubt that her legislative proposal will be enacted into law.  Even if it does become law, I question how many Leilas would choose to pursue their Marvin in court.

I can live with that outcome because I think there are probably way too many laws and lawsuits in this country already.  It doesn’t really bother me that there’s not a legal remedy for every wrong that people encounter in everyday life.  Not all of our problems are nails that need to be pounded by a legal hammer.

*     *     *     *     *

So what do you do if  you’re Leila, and you want to put the hurt on Marvin – but there’s no law that allows you drag his sorry ass into court.

The answer should be obvious: You let your inner Glenn Close loose on that bastard!

*     *     *     *     *

“Un bel di vedremo” is an aria sung by the title character of Giacomo Puccini’s 1904 opera, Madam Butterfly.

At the end of that opera, Madame Butterfly commits suicide by cutting her throat. 

In the original version of the 1987 movie, Fatal Attraction, Glenn Close’s character cuts her throat as “Un bel di vedremo” plays on the soundtrack.  

A few years before Fatal Attraction was released, the late Malcolm McLaren – the impresario behind the Sex Pistols – released Fans, an album that combined opera and R&B.

Click here to listen to McLaren’s adaptation of “Un bel di vedremo,” which made it all the way to #13 on the UK singles chart.

Click on the link below to buy that song from Amazon: