Festive Left Friday Blogging: Happy Birthday, John Lennon!

This weekend, John Lennon turns 70. (“I never died,” says he.) Here’s a roundup of all the best bits…

Salon reviews the film “Nowhere Boy”, which sounds like it deserves a much wider distribution than it’s currently getting. (Shall I spring for the DVD? Decisions.)

NY Magazine reviews various John Lennon films as well, on the basis of “who nailed him and who failed him”. With clips.

Jon Friedman speculates that Lennon–an inveterate sloganeer and scribbler–would have loved social media such as Twitter. Well, we know that Yoko Ono does, she’s on it:

Incidentally, I recommend her for Follow Friday. That’s today. And if you’re not on the tweeter yet, get busy!

Can you believe that after all this time, the FBI is apparently still keeping a file on him? Or at least, they don’t want bits and pieces of it leaking out as memorabilia? He’d probably find that good for a laugh and a half. Especially since another fingerprint card of his was auctioned by Sotheby’s, no problem, back in 1991.

Here’s Ringo, who also turned 70 earlier this year, wishing John the same. With (short!) clip.

And finally, the Quarrymen, John’s first band, will be reuniting, and appearing with folk-rock legends such as Pete Seeger and Tom Paxton, to play a birthday gig in Manhattan, not far from John’s last home at the Dakota. Strawberry Fields forever!