Under the Covers

By Michael Stevenson

Occasionally an artist remakes a classic film or an iconic song, and the effort makes me wonder, “why bother in the first place?” I’ve always felt that it makes more sense to remake lousy movies or records, and try to make these into something halfway decent.

Why remake a masterpiece such as Hitchcock’s Psycho, or James Ivory’s A Room With a View? Wouldn’t it be better to remake Cameron Crowe’s recent films  – Elizabethtown, We Bought a Zoo, and Aloha – and make these something watchable?  And why would a singer make a record titled “[insert name here] Sings Frank Sinatra” or “[insert name here] Sings Patsy Cline”?

Sometimes the Cover or Remake Works

Philip Kaufman’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was superior to the 1956 original, as was Coen Brothers’ version of True Grit. The Wizard of Oz that we all know and love (1939) was actually a remake of a 1925 bomb. As for music, the late Joe Cocker recorded a song off the Beatles’ Sgt. Peppers, and made it his own. The Beatles themselves forever swiped “Twist and Shout” from the Isley Bothers.

Forgive my Rachel Maddow-like preamble, but I now present Rodolphe Burger’s cover of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” – a ballsy and brilliant remake of one of the most iconic songs belonging to a true American music legend.

Give it a listen and tell me – what do you think

In France, a Farmer Turned Migrant Smuggler Has Become a Popular Hero

VENTIMIGLIA, Italy—Welcome to the sunny but chilly last stop on the Italian Riviera before you reach France. Rich tourists from across the border, who’ve been hanging out in Nice or Cannes or Monaco flock to the big street market here every Friday looking for cheap but chic Chinese-made jeans, leather goods and designer knockoffs.In the afternoon, they take the train or drive back with their treasures to glittering Monte Carlo or the Côte d’Azur resorts just 30 or 40 minutes away. Mostly they are oblivious to the so-called “mini Calais” of Syrian, Afghan and sub-Saharan African migrants that surrounded them here—not to mention an intricate underground network of smugglers, some working for free, some for profit between the borders. And they’re more apt to keep up with Monaco’s Prince Albert, Princess Charlene and their toddler twins than France’s new folk hero, a humble 37-year-old farmer named Cédric Herrou who lives in the rocky French hinterlands above Ventimiglia.But it’s Herrou who’s become a symbol of a new kind of anti-government resistance in France as the third year of mass migration across the Mediterranean to Europe begins.

Read Full Story: In France, a Farmer Turned Migrant Smuggler Has Become a Popular Hero – The Daily Beast

My Paris: Seduced by the Past 

“Paris is an ocean. Explore it, and you still won’t know its depths.” –  Honoré de Balzac

The streets of the Marais are narrow enough in some places that sunlight pierces the shadowy canyons between its soaring Renaissance-era buildings for just a few hours a day. At night the lanes take on a mysterious, medieval air when streetlamps sputter to life, casting a sheen on timeworn turrets, carved doors and stone mansions.

Slip into a cobbled alley off the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, a main artery, and you’ll find yourself standing where the Duke of Orleans was assassinated in 1407 by a power-hungry rival’s henchmen. Around the corner, the magnificent 18th-century Hôtel de Soubise palace, home to France’s national archives, showcases the last, anguished letter written by Marie Antoinette, bidding “adieu” to her sister before heading to the guillotine.

Strolling amid the steep walls and angular slate roofs always transports me back to a bygone era — a storied past that vibrates beneath the ferment of the chic international crowds, designer boutiques, neo-bistrots, kosher delis and L.G.B.T. clubs.

Fifteen years ago, I was lucky enough to find a quaint apartment on a small rue in the central Marais. I’d just moved from Washington, D.C., to be the bureau chief for a financial news agency covering the birth of Europe’s new currency, the euro, which I would go on to write about for the former International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. In short order, that historic project burst into a Continentwide financial, social and political crisis, the aftershocks of which I continue to report about today. [ . . . ] Full Story