from Bruce
Anecdotes
Author
• In 1837, two law professors at the University of Paris waged a duel over punctuation. The disagreement was over the ending of a passage; one professor thought it should end with a semicolon, while the other professor thought it should end with a colon. According to the Times of London, “The one who contended that the passage in question ought to be concluded by a semicolon was wounded in the arm. His adversary maintained that it should be a colon.”
• Sholom Aleichem (1859-1916) was a Yiddish humorist. Among the characters he created in his stories were those that became the basis of Fiddler on the Roof. In 1906, he came to the United States, where he met Mark Twain, to whom he was introduced as the “Jewish Mark Twain.” Mr. Twain then said that he would like to be introduced in Yiddish to Mr. Aleichem as the “American Sholom Aleichem.”
• A friend of science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick once read out loud a one-paragraph synopsis of Mr. Dick’s novel that was the basis of the movie Blade Runner, then asked, “That the end of it?” Mr. Dick confirmed that it was, then joked, “Book is longer.”
• People identify themselves with varying degrees of honesty. One very honest person is writer Carol Schwalberg, who says that her hobbies include traveling, “visiting art galleries, and spreading malicious gossip.”
Autographs and Inscriptions
• J.K. Rowling sent some sample chapters of her children’s book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone to the Christopher Little Agency, which did not handle children’s books. Her manuscript was rejected immediately and almost did not get read. Fortunately, a 25-year-old manuscript screener named Bryony Evens looked over the sample chapters instead of mailing them back to Ms. Rowling. She was enthusiastic about what she read, and she impressed Mr. Little with her enthusiasm, and so he asked to read the entire manuscript. The rest, as they say, is history. Ms. Evens met Ms. Rowling later, in 1998, when she waited in line for Ms. Rowling to sign a Harry Potter book. Ms. Rowling was very happy to meet her, and she signed the book in this way: “To Bryony — who is the most important person I’ve ever met in a signing queue & the first person ever to see merit in Harry Potter. With huge thanks. J.K. Rowling.”
• Sid Fleischman started out writing books for adults, but he changed the audience he wrote for because of something his older daughter, Jane, said after she had gotten an autograph by children’s book author Leo Politi at the Santa Monica Public Library. Jane’s mother said, “Daddy writes books, too,” and Jane replied, “Yes, but no one reads his books.” Very quickly, he became very successful as a writer of books for children. In his first children’s book, Mr. Mysterious and Company, he named the child characters after his own children: Jane, Paul, and Anne. Like Mr. Politi, Mr. Fleischman signed autographs at the Santa Monica Public Library. Standing in line to get his autograph was his seven-year-old daughter, Anne. Mr. Fleischman says, “I knew I had arrived.”
• Ernest Hemingway once visited Robert Benchley and discovered that Mr. Benchley had a first edition of every book that Hemingway had published, including his first book, In Our Time. He said, “So you were going to save this, and then sell it when it got to be worth a lot of money — all right, I’ll fix you.” He then wrote a filthy inscription in the book. Next he took Mr. Benchley’s copy of A Farewell to Arms and filled in the original dirty dialogue that the publisher had not seen fit to print and had represented by blanks. On its flyleaf, he wrote, “Corrected edition with filled-in blanks. Very valuable — sell quick.”
• William Faulkner once stayed for a few days at the New York apartment of writers Frank Sullivan and Corey Ford. When he left, he took a copy of The Sound and the Fury from Mr. Ford’s bookshelf, then inscribed it, “Corey Ford’s book is hereby presented to Frank Sullivan with the regards of Wm. Faulkner.” Mr. Sullivan declined to return the book to Mr. Ford.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "It’s Been a Long Time"
Album: 20/20 HINDSIGHT
Artist: Snakebite
Artist Location: New York, New York
Record Company: Aldora Britain Records
Record Company Location: Rothley, UK
Info:
“Aldora Britain Records is an e-zine and record label that promotes the music and work of authentic independent or underground artists from all around the world. Originally established in 2013, they revamped themselves in 2018 with a brand-new approach. Their first weekly compilation, aptly titled THE SECOND COMING, was released in late 2019. They now also release original singles, EPs and charity projects.”
Price: £0.50 (GBP) for 13 tracks by Various Artists
Genre: Rockabilly. Various.
Links:
20/20 HINDSIGHT
Snakebite (Topic) on YouTube
Snakebite on Amazon
Aldora Britain Records on Bandcamp
Aldora Britain Records on YouTube
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Very interesting 3-way tie on day 12 of Grand Sumo.
Sequel In The Works
‘A Christmas Story’
A sequel to the holiday classic “A Christmas Story” is in the works for Warner Bros. and Legendary, and the film’s original child star Peter Billingsley is set to reprise his role as Ralphie in the film, two individuals with knowledge of the project told TheWrap.
The new film intended for HBO Max is titled “A Christmas Story Christmas” and will take place in the 1970s, 30 years removed from the original film set in the 1940s. It will see an adult Ralphie bringing his own kids to his home on Cleveland Street to give them the same Christmas he had growing up. The film will aim to have the same period attention to detail in re-creating the ’70s as the original film did with the 1940s, and it will show Ralphie reconnecting with childhood friends and reconciling the passing of his Old Man.
Clay Kaytis, who directed “The Christmas Chronicles” for Netflix, will direct the “Christmas Story” sequel, and Nick Schenk (“The Mule,” “Cry Macho”) will write the script.
Billingsley in addition to starring will also produce alongside Vince Vaughn for their Wild West Picture Show Productions. Together the two have produced films such as “The Break-Up,” “Four Christmases,” “Couples Retreat” and “F Is For Family,” and Billingsley has also produced the Broadway production “A Christmas Story the Musical,” which was nominated for three Tony Awards.
Production on the film will begin in February in Hungary.
‘A Christmas Story’
Space Prank
Gorilla
Every now and then, and for obvious reasons, some footage of a man in a gorilla suit chasing fellow astronauts around the International Space Station (ISS) goes viral.
In the latest retelling of events, Spence Todd on Twitter wrote that "astronaut Mark Kelly once smuggled a full gorilla suit on board the International Space Station. He didn't tell anyone about it. One day, without anyone knowing, he put it on."
First up, the footage is 100 percent real, and was tweeted out by Scott Kelly in 2016.
However, the facts have been muddled a little over the years. The prank was the idea of Scott's brother Mark, who in 2015 rang Scott and told him he was sending a gorilla suit, as there had never been a gorilla in space before.
The first suit blew up on a SpaceX mission in 2015, but by now he was committed to the bit, and vacuum-packed a second gorilla suit the following year. This one made it, and Scott shot the video with Tim Peake, who was in on the idea.
Gorilla
Family Can Seek Punitive Damages
Bill Paxton
Relatives of the late actor Bill Paxton, who sued Cedars-Sinai Medical Center regarding his 2017 death, can seek punitive damages at trial, a judge ruled today.
On Wednesday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Steven J. Kleifield denied a defense motion to dismiss the punitive damages claim dealing with the disposition of the actor’s body that is part of the lawsuit brought in February 2018 by the actor’s widow, Louise Paxton, and the couple’s children, James and Lydia Paxton.
Family members allege that Cedars-Sinai and Dr. Ali Khoynezhad intentionally interfered with and thwarted their request for an autopsy to cover up the cause of Paxton’s death.
The actor’s death certificate states he died of a stroke on Feb. 25, 2017, 11 days after surgery to replace a heart valve and repair aorta damage. He was 61.
“The heart surgery recommended to Bill Paxton was not indicated,” the suit states. “Mr. Paxton did not meet even Khoynezhad’s own criteria for such a surgery.”
Bill Paxton
No Reporters To Beijing Olympics
ESPN
ESPN has joined the increasing number of media companies that will not be sending reporters to next month’s Beijing Olympics due to continued concerns about rising COVID-19 cases worldwide and China’s strict policy about those who test positive.
Executive Vice President Norby Williamson, who is in charge of ESPN’s event and studio productions, said in a statement that the network had planned to send four reporters to China but they will now join a larger group covering the Olympics remotely.
ESPN will report Olympics results as well as airing features, but the network is under video usage restrictions since NBC holds the rights. ESPN can’t air highlights until after NBC’s live coverage ends, which most days will be at 3 a.m. EST. ESPN news programs may only use up to six minutes of highlights and can’t air any that have been available for more than 72 hours.
ESPN
Secret Meetings
Stephanie Grisham
The former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack that Donald Trump hosted secret meetings in the White House residence in days before 6 January, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The former senior Trump aide also told House investigators that the details of whether Trump the unindicted conspirator actually intended to march to the Capitol after his speech at the Ellipse rally would be memorialized in documents provided to the US Secret Service, the sources said.
The select committee’s interview with Grisham, who was Melania Trump’s chief of staff when she resigned on 6 January, was more significant than expected, the sources said, giving the panel new details about the Trump White House and what the former US president was doing before the Capitol attack.
Grisham gave House investigators an overview of the chaotic final weeks in the Trump White House in the days leading up to the Capitol attack, recalling how the former president held off-the-books meetings in the White House residence, the sources said.
The secret meetings were apparently known by only a small number of aides, the sources said. Grisham recounted that they were mostly scheduled by Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and that the former chief usher, Timothy Harleth, would wave participants upstairs, the sources said.
Stephanie Grisham
Seeks Return Of Murder Weapon
Rittenhouse
Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois man acquitted of fatally shooting two men and wounding a third during street protests in Kenosha in 2020, is seeking the return of the gun and other property that police seized after his arrest.
Rittenhouse’s attorney Mark Richards filed paperwork with the Kenosha County Circuit Court on Wednesday seeking the return of the items, explaining that Rittenhouse wants the AR-15-style rifle back so that it can be destroyed, the Kenosha News reported. He also wants the clothing he was wearing the night of the shootings returned.
Law enforcement has had the gun since the day after Rittenhouse shot three men, two of them fatally, on Aug. 25, 2020, during a night of protests and unrest in the southeastern Wisconsin city of Kenosha over the shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer.
Rittenhouse family spokesman David Hancock said Thursday that Rittenhouse wants to destroy the rifle and plans to throw out his clothing so that no one can use any of it to “celebrate” the shootings.
Rittenhouse
Facing An 'Epidemic'
Myopia
Scientists are warning of an emerging 'epidemic' of myopia or near-sightedness, having observed sharp increases in the adult onset of myopia among late baby boomers.
Based on data collected from 107,442 participants in the extensive Biobank program in the UK, people born in the late 1960s are 10 percent more likely to be near-sighted than people born three decades earlier.
The biggest leap was in individuals who experienced their vision changes later in life, although among those with child-onset myopia, the number of severe cases doubled over the same period.
The condition is thought to be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, including increased screen time – though the study also finds evidence that these are trends that can be changed with the right public health initiatives.
Overall, the proportion of those with myopia in the oldest and youngest cohorts increased from 20 percent to 29.2 percent, though most of the additional adult cases were mild. While that doesn't tell the whole story – the highest percentage, 30.9 percent, was recorded for those born between 1955 and 1959 – it shows a worrying trend.
Myopia
Pristine Coral Reef Found
Tahiti
Deep in the South Pacific, scientists have explored a rare stretch of pristine corals shaped like roses off the coast of Tahiti. The reef is thought to be one of the largest found at such depths and seems untouched by climate change or human activities.
Laetitia Hédouin said she first saw the corals during a recreational dive with a local diving club months earlier.
“When I went there for the first time, I thought, ’Wow — we need to study that reef. There’s something special about that reef,” said Hédouin, a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Moorea, French Polynesia.
What struck Hédouin was that the corals looked healthy and weren’t affected by a bleaching event in 2019. Corals are tiny animals that grow and form reefs in oceans around the world.
The newfound reef, stretching 2 miles (3 kilometers), was studied late last year during a dive expedition supported by UNESCO. Unlike most of the world’s mapped corals, which are found in relatively shallow waters, this one was deeper — between 115 feet (35 meters) to 230 feet (70 meters).
Tahiti
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