I don’t put a lot of attention into year-end best-of lists, but one I’m sure to check out is Marco Werman’s Best of the Global Hit on PRI’s The World. Santa could bring me any music on the 2008 list and I’d be thrilled (although I already have Natacha Atlas’s Ana Hina.) The final entry on Marco’s list isn’t a look-back but a preview of good things to come. Fire on the Mountain by Asa (pronounced Asha) is a hit now in Paris. It’s U.S. release comes sometime next year.
Encore: Learn more and hear more music on Asa’s MySpace page. Then see if you agree with the cold shower she gets in this BBC review. Here are several other YouTube clips: So Beautiful; Subway; and Jailer.
Café Mouffe opens evry Friday ’round 3 p.m. Please drop by for a listen and a chat. Sometimes the embedded videos don’t work here due to bandwidth constraints, but you’ll always find links to video sources in the notes. Try them. If you’re curious about the Mouffe, here’s the original idea behind it’s creation.
![Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street, Rainy Day (La Place de l’Europe, temps de pluie). 1877. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]](http://blindflaneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day_1877_wiki.jpg "gustave_caillebotte_paris_street_rainy_day")
The legendary Kiki of Montparnasse posed for Man Ray’s 
![Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]](http://blindflaneur.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/isle_royale_fog.jpg "Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]")
If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in ![Shepard Fairey’s “Barack Obama/Hope” image went viral during the 2008 election. Then controversy about the image’s source transformed it into the poster child for fair use in the public debate over copyright and free culture. Now FULAB takes “Hope” as its icon [Image source: Wikipedia]](http://fairuselab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/shepard_fairey_hope_2008.jpg "shepard_fairey_hope_2008")
