“The Mad Men collection at Banana Republic is okay,” joked a comedy-writer friend of mine, “but the Breaking Bad collection at TJ Maxx is to die for.

On Friday we featured a 1973 video of Marianne Faithfull and David Bowie dressed as a nun and a transvestite, making a burlesque of Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe.” Today we thought we’d roll back the clock a bit further, to when Faithfull was a bright-eyed 18-year-old singing her debut single, “As Tears Go By.

Here’s a wonderfully weird performance by David Bowie, dressed in drag for his last appearance as Ziggy Stardust, and Marianne Faithfull as a wayward nun, singing the mawkish Sonny & Cher tune, “I Got You Babe.”
The duet was recorded for American television on October 19, 1973 at the Marquee Club in London.

“It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.” Words of writerly wisdom from the late Roger Ebert, whom several generations of Americans came to recognize not just as a film critic, but as the very personification of film criticism.

“Al otro, a Borges, es a quien le ocurren las cosas,” begins the very short story “Borges y yo”. That translates to “It’s to the other man, to Borges, that things happen” in English.

Musically, Tom Waits has come a long way since the 1970s. Absorbing a range of influences, Waits has reinvented himself several times over to become one of the most influential writers and performers of our time.
Along the way he has also made his mark as a character actor.

In March 1988, the BBC’s Arena turned its lens toward photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The television documentary series had already spent well over a decade cultivating a reputation for covering everything—Superman, Philip K.

We appreciate creators dedicated to their visions here at Open Culture. If you read Mark Bowden’s Atlantic profile of The Wire creator David Simon—or read our other Wire-centric posts—you’ll know he counts as one such creator.

Here’s a historic TV broadcast of the founding fathers of bebop, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, playing together in 1952. It’s one of only two known sound films of Parker playing–and the only one of him playing live, rather than synching to a prerecorded track.

Name the three figures, living or dead, with whom you would most like to sit down to dinner. Though perhaps a little tired, the challenge still reveals something worth knowing about the respondent’s personality.