Peter and the Lupine-American.

Via the Corner: Bill Clinton violates the classics.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Sergei Prokofiev's musical fairy tale Peter and the Wolf is popular with children but not with wolf lovers, and two former world leaders -- Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev -- aim to put that right in a new recording.

They have teamed up in a new recording that couples the tale with a contemporary version featuring the same two protagonists but a very different ending.

Prokofiev's version ends with Peter capturing the wolf and leading a triumphant procession to the zoo, paining music-loving environmentalists with romantic visions of wolves in the wild.

In the new version, narrated by former U.S. president Clinton and called Wolf Tracks, Peter again captures the wolf, but this time repents of his act and releases the animal, who howls a grateful goodbye.

"Forgetting his triumph, Peter thought instead of fallen trees, parched meadows, choked streams, and of each and every wolf struggling for survival," Clinton narrates.

"The time has come to leave wolves in peace," he adds.

So now Peter's just going to abandon his erstwhile friend, the duck, and let the wolf eat him? What about the duck's struggle for existence?

French composer Jean-Pascal Beintus wrote the score for the new wolf-friendly version while former Soviet leader Gorbachev provides an introduction and epilogue.

Ok...so no Prokofiev, either. What about this piece is going to persuade me to buy it, if I don't agree with its obviously lupicentric appeasement politics?

"In Prokofiev's classic, man dominates, but Wolf Tracks expresses quite different values of balance and tolerance. All of us hope for a future where these values are lived every day," Gorbachev said.

Oh, fuck you. It's still a wolf, and it's still going to eat the duck. Is that the future you're looking forward to, you swine?

There are recorded versions by everyone (including Peter Ustinov, Patrick Stewart, Jose Ferrer, Jack Lemmon, Dudley Moore, John Gielgud, Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff, PDQ Bach, Captain Kangaroo, Dom Deluise, Sting, and David Bowie) already out there. My personal favorite version features Sean Connery. I can't imagine buying this.

Nice mental image.

The BBC’s credibility is floating in the Thames like a gangster’s corpse.

Geez, Tim, tell us what you really think.

Language peeve of the day.

Grizzly vs. grisly: the first is a bear, the second a synonym for "bloody" or "gruesome". Try not to confuse them.

Zevon on VH1 tonight.

Which is good, because I missed it Sunday. 8 Eastern.

Part of me is wondering if they're just going to run it in heavy rotation until he finally drops.

Two Towers comes out on DVD today.

And yet somehow I'm not moved to rush out and buy it. I guess the elf army showing up at Helm's Deep bothered me more than I thought it would.

And I don't think I need a statuette of Gollum. Bookended towers would have been nicer.