Radiohead’s "Harry Patch"

(Harry Patch at the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day in London in 2008. Photograph: Alessia Pierdomenico/PA)

I first saw that Radiohead had a new song in a Wall Street Journal article by Jim Fusilli. “Harry Patch (In Memory Of)” (5:33) is a tribute to the last British veteran of World War I who died on July 25 at age 111. I am now on my tenth (and counting) listen. Not rock but slow with big strings — elegiac.

Harry Patch (In Memory Of) lyrics:
I am the only one that got through
The others died where ever they fell
It was an ambush
They came up from all sides
Give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves
I've seen devils coming up from the ground
I've seen hell upon this earth
The next will be chemical but they will never learn

I am always interested in what inspires. Thom Yorke used some of Patch’s own words from a 2005 BBC interview (9:57), so I went there, and quickly understood. Even though Harry Patch is only one of the veterans interviewed, his whispery voice is scratchy, lyrical, and incredibly haunting. (Perhaps even more so after the hassle of making RealPlayer work, what with the “invalid socket errors,” two upgrades, and multiple restarts.) Picture Clint Eastwood in thirty years being asked if the First World War was worth it. “No, they never learn. They had two world wars. The Third World War will be chemical. I don’t want to say it.” (4:06)

New York* staffers test drive Fall 09 runway shoes

This is the kind of thing I love – an attempt to mix real women with unreal fashion. In this short video (1:51), New York Magazine staffers try on the craziest of the Fall 09 runway shoes, the ones that models apparently fell in. After a quick walk up and back on a sidewalk that seems to be just outside the magazine’s building, they gave their opinions. Three testers admitted their shoes were uncomfortable, and three testers expressed mild surprise (perhaps a touch of condescension?) that a model could fall in such comfortable shoes. What these women were testing was really not comfort. They were testing basic walkability. See Nina Ricci's 8.5" platform heelless shoes that make you walk on tiptoe. A truer test would be walking the same course that the models walked on the runway. Or wearing the shoes for several hours. And was it just me, or did the staffer testing the "comfortable" Manolo Blahniks have a bit of a wobbly ankle situation?

*I have to say that I love New York Magazine’s fashion blog The Cut for its insidery tone (which is not too too) and its inevitable New York sass, sometimes reflected in comments that are shocking and priceless.