Beatles

After you read Michael Barclay on last night’s Juno show, here’s a brief look at a much weirder place where popular music and television intersect:

An enterprise that has the silliness baked right in

Colby Cosh on Mary-Lu Zahalan-Kennedy’s world-first “graduate degree in the Beatles”

Master’s program about more than just music

Philosophy of the fab four necessary for understanding 60s culture

Shania Twain’s big day, Pat Robertson’s surprise stand, and the next Siskel and Ebert

The documentary LENNONYC showcases the late John Lennon’s New York years and what his Dec. 8 assassination meant for his adopted city and fame at large

Apart from reminding us of the rule that one casual sexual encounter will inevitably lead to pregnancy (the rule that every action has the worst possible consequences is dubbed “Can’t Get Away With Nuthin’” by TVTropes.org, and that’s about right), last night’s Mad Men also reminded us that if you’re going to make the Beatles a plot point in your episode, you had better find a way to write around the actual Beatles music. Though Don got Sally tickets to the Beatles’ famous 1965 New York concert, the only bit of Beatles music heard in the episode was an instrumental cover of “Do You Want to Know a Secret” over the closing credits. (Song choices on TV are often like the song choices in old cartoons: if we know the title of the song being played, we realize it’s a reference to the theme of the scene or the episode.) Though Mad Men has been able to spring for most songs from the various time periods in which it takes place, up to and including the Rolling Stones, a real Beatles recording seemed to be off-limits this week.

How Stephen Harper ended up hobnobbing with the world’s megastars

Newsmakers of the week

Speaking of free speech, Steyn speculates about what the Liberal leader can’t say now

Stephen Harper talks with Maclean’s Editor-in-Chief Kenneth Whyte about the Beatles, stage fright and his musical debut