Do Re . . . Mia: The Subject I Can't Let Go Of

Re previous post: Actually, now that I think about it, given that she's ten years younger than Julie Andrews, I doubt Mia Farrow could have been up for the Maria role in The Sound of Music. It must have been Liesl. So I'm going to reverse my previous attitude and say she probably would have made a better Liesl than the actress they picked. Guess I will definitely have to get that DVD now to find out for sure.

I spent a good part of the afternoon at Union Station with my old friend Holly and her almost three-year-old daughter, Sophie. Ask Sophie what music she likes listening to: "Burt Bacharach." She's serious, too. She might then also like Neil Diamond's captivatingly grizzled and spare new CD, 12 Songs. I'm a longtime fan of Neil, from his very young '60s stuff through the early '70s, when he started to turn mawkish, nonsensical, and self-parodistic. He was once a great pop songwriter, and this new album contains some really simple -- almost Amish in their plainness -- but interesting songs that show he still has, at age 64, the talent for what he once did so well and hasn't done for a very long time. My favorite of the new songs: "Captain of a Shipwreck."