Charlie Jane Anders: Why is it so hard to write a decent ending? (io9)
Endings define stories. A great ending can make everything that's come before seem retroactively great. A weak ending can ruin everything. But why do they have to be so impossible to write? And is there any trick for crafting a strong ending that doesn't involve endless misery? OIn a word, no. Not really.
Eddie Deezen: "Oliver Hardy: The Fat One" (Neatorama)
Once, a wild bear got loose and chased him up a tree. Even in this terrifying situation, Norvell caused great laughter, as he shouted out from the tree top, "Lord, if you don't help me, please don't help the bear!!"
The Lennon Sisters are an American vocal group initially consisting of four of the six sisters from a family of 11 siblings- 6 girls, 5 boys: Dianne Barbara (a.k.a. DeeDee) (b. 1 December 1939), Peggy (Margaret Anne) (b. 8 April 1941), Kathy (Kathleen Mary) (b. 2 August 1943), and Janet (Janet Elizabeth) (b. 15 June 1946). All 11 Lennon children were born in Los Angeles, California. For thirteen years, from 1955 - 1968, the group appeared regularly on The Lawrence Welk Show, receiving union scale wages, which was $180 per week at that time.
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Lefty Lois Of Oregon was first, and correct, with:
Them there are the Lennon Sisters! I know this only because
at some time in the early sixties I had a bunch of their
paper dolls. Yes, they let me play with scissors. Had a hard
time of it, too. Kept trying to use 'em with my left hand.
We didn't have left-handed scissors in those days. Took a
lot of time to master cutting with my right hand. But I
showed them. I can use my right hand! Please, don't beat me
anymore! Sorry. Little flash back there. I tell ya, these
kids today. Spoiled rotten. Don't know what it is to adapt
to a cold unfeeling world of right-handed power tools just
waiting to lop off a lefty's right hand's finger or two. At
least I never developed a stutter like my uncle did, after
he wound all his toys backwards and busted the lot of 'em on
Christmas morning. Oh my god, the pain. Wait, what was I
talking about? Oh yeah, the Lennon Sisters. No relation to
John I don't think. They sang on Lawrence Welk or something.
We never watched that crap. Must have been on at the same
time as Gunsmoke, or Rawhide, or Paladin or something else
awesome. Anyway, here are some pictures of them strangling
small animals and looking perky and two dimensional and
stuff.
Alan J answered:
The Lennon Sisters
Sandra said:
the lennon sisters
Charlie wrote:
The Lennon Sisters. Not bad, but I always had an aversion to anything having to do with Lawrence Welk.
And the Andrews Sisters (who they admired, as I do), beat them to this routine:
kEN responded:
THE LENNON SISTERS ER UM...TURN OFF THE BUBBLE MACHINE
Roy in Tyler, TX replied:
I have finally recovered from almost two weeks of what I like to affectionately refer to as "Flumonia," and am able to recognize photos of people from a past age. So I can now say with some authority that that lovely girl group is The Lennon Sister, who famously graced the stage of that champagne music maker, Lawrence Welk. Whew! I feel better now.
BTW, I was always fondest of Janet.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, took the day off.
Adam answered:
Through the power of Google Picture Search: The Lennon Sisters.
Sally said:
Didn't even have to look up today's answer. It's the Lennon Sisters - made famous on the Lawrence Welk show, circa 1955.
Diane (top middle) Kathy, Peggy, and Janet on the bottom. Everyone around my age just loved them, wholesome little Catholic girls that they were!
Therefore, it was particularly shocking when in 1969, a fan of Peggy's shot their father because, in his mind, the dad was keeping them apart.
We just didn't have those things happening in our world back then...
PS: Beautiful weather here. Sunny, +4o, and snow on the ground! My kind of a day!!
Marian responded:
The Lennon Sisters, and a one and a two...my parents used to watch Lawrence Welk.
Deborah, currently in SoSunnyCali, from NorWhere'sMyWinterCali replied:
The Lennon Sisters?
Just guessing. And full disclosure: my mother dressed me like that when I was a little girl. Eek, I'm old!
Dale of Drymondy Springy, Norainorsnowcali, answered:
Oh my god, it's the Fucking Lennon Sisters. From the WORST MUSICAL SHIT SHOW - the Lawrence Welk Show. He was one of the tightest assholes in show business. Paid them all union scale. My parents hated that show - all umpah, umpah, umpah and milquetoast arrangements and that bubble machine. Ahhhh turn off that bubble machine. PBS shows it now and I'll tune in occasionally for a few laughs! And after a few minutes it gets offed. And of course they play in the mecca of Branson, the place where all of the lame mid-western minders go to moult.
MAM wrote:
Lennon Sisters cica 1955 ~ Debut on The Lawrence Welk Show on Christmas Eve , 1955. Mimi replaced Peggy upon her retirement. Dianne has also since retired. The current line-up
of the Lennon Sisters is a trio.
Dianne Lennon (1955-1960, 1964-2001)
Peggy Lennon (1955-1999)
Kathy Lennon (1955-Present)
Janet Lennon (1955-Present)
Mimi Lennon (1992-present)
The Lennon Sisters 2103
DJ Useo took the day off.
BttbBob said:
"Pussy Riot" before they turned 'Punk'? (snork!) Pretty good, eh? Hey, y'all know about them, but have ya ever heard them?
Pussy Riot / Like a Red Prison - YouTube
Um... Whadda ya think? I think they sound like... um... cats freakin' an' tweakin' (and mebbee twerkin') on some really mean bad-azz meth... Seriously... (that's how my semi-twisted mind works, sometimes)
~~~~~
That said... I will also say, cat tweakin' aside, I hold those ladies in very high esteem, indeed... Seriously (again)... They stood up to 'Pootie' and his 'Rodina' cabal and basically told them all to fuck off... and after suffering sorely for a time (one went into the gulag for a spell) they are free now and coming to the good Ol' U.S of A ... Pussy Riot Coming to Brooklyn - NYTimes.com
CBS begins the night with a RERUN'Undercover Boss', followed by a RERUN'Hawaii Five-0', then a RERUN'Blue Bloods'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Kevin Bacon, Pat McGann, and Devon Avenue.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Christina Ricci and Ian Rankin.
NBC starts the night with 'Dateline', followed by a FRESH'Grimm', then a FRESH'Dracula'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Terry Bradshaw, Heidi Klum, and Darius Rucker.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Fallon are Mitt Romney, James Purefoy, Schoolboy Q, and Mark Rivera.
On a RERUNCarson 'The Scab' Daly (from 1/7/14) are Matt Piedmont, Matthew Broussard, and White Denim.
ABC opens the night with a FRESH'Last Man Standing', followed by a FRESH'The Neighbors', then a FRESH'Shark Tank', followed by '20/20'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel (from 1/15/14) are Meryl Streep, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Jonny Lang.
The CW offers a FRESH'The Carrie Diaries', followed by a RERUN'Supernatural'.
Scheduled on a FRESHArsenio Hall are Chuck D, Luther Campbell, Jason Brown, Rapper's Delight, and Spinderella.
Faux has a FRESH'Bones', followed by a FRESH'Raising Hope', then a FRESH'Enlisted'.
MY has an old 'Monk', followed by another old 'Monk'.
AMC offers the movie 'Shooter', followed by the movie 'Blazing Saddles', then the movie 'Bruce Almighty'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] BBC WORLD NEWS
[7:00AM] BBC WORLD NEWS
[8:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - Season 5 - Ep 13 - The Big Bang
[9:00AM] TORCHWOOD - Season 1 - Ep 6 - Countrycide
[10:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 5 - Ep 10 - New Ground
[11:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 5 - Ep 11 - Hero Worship
[12:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 5 - Ep 12 - Violations
[1:00PM] RAMSAY'S KITCHEN NIGHTMARES REVISITED US - Season 2 - Ep 2 - Revisited: Handlebar, Casa Roma, The Black Pearl
[2:00PM] RAMSAY'S KITCHEN NIGHTMARES US - Season 3 - Ep 1 - Mojito's
[3:00PM] RAMSAY'S KITCHEN NIGHTMARES US - Season 3 - Ep 2 - PJ's Steakhouse
[4:00PM] TOP GEAR - Season 17 - Episode 5
[5:00PM] TOP GEAR - Season 17 - Episode 6
[6:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 7 - Ep 18 - Eye of the Beholder
[7:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 7 - Ep 19 - Genesis
[8:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 7 - Ep 20 - Journey's End
[9:00PM] EVERYTHING OR NOTHING: THE UNTOLD STORY OF 007
[11:00PM] EVERYTHING OR NOTHING: THE UNTOLD STORY OF 007
[1:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 7 - Ep 16 - Thine Own Self
[2:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 7 - Ep 17 - Masks
[3:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 7 - Ep 18 - Eye of the Beholder
[4:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 7 - Ep 19 - Genesis
[5:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 7 - Ep 20 - Journey's End (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Millionaire Matchmaker', another 'Millionaire Matchmaker', followed by the movie 'Sex & The City'.
Comedy Central has last night's 'Colbert Report', last night's 'Jon Stewart', 'Futurama', another 'Futurama', 'Tosh.0', another 'Tosh.0', 'Key & Peele', and another 'Key & Peele'.
FX has 'How I Met Your Mother', another 'How I Met Your Mother', followed by the movie 'Real Steel'.
IFC -
[6:00AM] The Spoils of Babylon-Kicking the Habit
[6:30AM] The Spoils of Babylon-The Rise of the Empire
[7:00AM] Anaconda
[9:00AM] Game of Death
[11:15AM] DeepStar Six
[1:30PM] Suicide Kings
[3:45PM] Game of Death
[6:00PM] I Think I Love My Wife
[8:00PM] Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
[10:00PM] Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
[12:30AM] Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
[3:00AM] Bangkok Dangerous
[5:15AM] The Spoils of Babylon-The Rise of the Empire
[5:30AM] Whitest Kids U'Know (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[6:00AM] Lipsett Diaries
[6:15AM] The New World
[9:15AM] Mortified Nation
[11:00AM] The Darjeeling Limited
[1:00PM] Carnage
[2:45PM] Brothers
[5:00PM] Brokeback Mountain
[8:00PM] Law & Order-Extended Family
[9:00PM] Kingpin
[11:30PM] Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
[1:45AM] Diva
[4:15AM] Carnage (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has 'Helix', followed by a FRESH'WWE Steroid SmackDown!', then a FRESH'Helix'.
This image released by Starpix shows musician-artist Herb Alpert standing next to one of three black bronze totem sculptures on display at Dante Park on West 64th Street and Broadway, Thursday, Jan 23, 2014 in New York. The sculptures will be on display until April 15.
Photo by Dave Allocca
Mark Ruffalo came out swinging for a woman's right to choose on Wednesday by recounting his mother's struggle to obtain an abortion when the procedure was still illegal.
"The Avengers" star released a video tied to the 41th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that recognized a constitutional right to abortion, in which he admits that he was initially hesitant about getting involved in something that he believed was a woman's issue.
That changed after he remembered his mother telling him about her difficulties finding medical aid to end an unwanted pregnancy when she was younger.
Last summer, the actor shared his mother's experience in a speech he sent to an abortion rights rally in Mississippi to protest attempts by its legislature to close abortion clinics, according to Jezebel. The Center for Reproductive Rights enlisted Ruffalo as part of a new series of public service announcements to raise awareness about the hundreds of state-level attempts to limit access through legislation to abortion and other reproductive services.
Singer and songwriter Jimmy Webb performs at "Gibson Celebrates The Beatles in Art and Song" in Beverly Hills, California January 22, 2014.
Photo by Fred Prouser
It's well-established that Alan Smithee has been the go-to pseudonym for film directors wishing to disown stinkers they'd rather not be associated with.
But fake credits abound among beloved movies, too - an admittedly rare phenomenon in which filmmakers willingly give up credit out of modesty, politics or just plain mischief.
It's all well and good until awards season rolls around, when venerable institutions including the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are put in the strange position of announcing nominations for contenders who may not even exist.
Skeptics suspect that may be the case with this year's best film editing category, which includes a nod for someone named John Mac McMurphy for "Dallas Buyers Club."
Within hours of the nomination, speculation ran rampant online that McMurphy was actually "Dallas Buyers Club" director Jean-Marc Vallee, although McMurphy's co-nominee - Montrealer Martin Pensa - would reveal nothing about his partner's identity.
Back when she was a nobody, long before she blasted to stardom on "American Idol" and "Dreamgirls," Jennifer Hudson sang on a cruise ship. And on Wednesday, the singer said she would do it again - this time as the headliner for a new concert series on Carnival Cruise Lines called Carnival Live.
Her stint aboard a Disney cruise ship was "my test," she said. "Two days later, I went in and auditioned for 'American Idol.'"
Hudson is scheduled to perform June 18 on Carnival Ecstasy and June 19 on Carnival Breeze, both in Cozumel, Mexico.
Other performers and bands scheduled to perform are Chicago, Daughtry, Foreigner, Gavin DeGraw, Jewel, Kansas, Lady Antebellum, LeAnn Rimes, Martina McBride, Olivia Newton-John, REO Speedwagon, STYX and Trace Adkins.
Actor Christopher Lloyd listens to performances at "Gibson Celebrates The Beatles in Art and Song" in Beverly Hills, California January 22, 2014.
Photo by Fred Prouser
The New Madrid fault zone in the nation's midsection is active and could spawn future large earthquakes, scientists reported Thursday.
It's "not dead yet," said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Susan Hough, who was part of the study published online by the journal Science.
Researchers have long debated just how much of a hazard New Madrid (MAD'-rihd) poses. The zone stretches 150 miles, crossing parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.
In 1811 and 1812, it unleashed a trio of powerful jolts - measuring magnitudes 7.5 to 7.7 - that rattled the central Mississippi River valley. Chimneys fell and boats capsized. Farmland sank and turned into swamps. The death toll is unknown, but experts don't believe there were mass casualties because the region was sparsely populated then.
Unlike California's San Andreas and other faults that occur along boundaries of shifting tectonic plates, New Madrid is less understood since it's in the middle of the continent, far from plate boundaries.
Courtney Love broke down in tears yesterday in the Los Angeles Superior Court, where she is being tried for libel. She began sobbing, according to Spin, during the testimony of Canadian businessman Phillip Gross, who detailed how he purchased a guitar from one of Kurt Cobain's former guitar techs that was said to have belonged to the Nirvana leader. However, Gross later learned it was a fake. At that, the sometime-Hole frontwoman reportedly shielded her face, gasped and began bawling, ostensibly aghast at how her husband's memory has been treated in recent years.
Love is currently the subject of the first-ever trial for libelous tweets. Testimony began last Wednesday. In 2010, the Twitter account @CourtneyLoveUK posted a tweet alleging that Love's then-lawyer, Rhonda Holmes, had been "bought off" when Holmes chose not to help the singer in a lawsuit against the managers of Cobain's estate, according to ABC News . Gross testified yesterday because he said he had reached out to Holmes about the matter but she never got back to him, corroborating Love's claim that Holmes had "vanished," as Spin reported.
Love's is the only Twitter libel case to make it to trial - three years ago, Love paid a $430,000 settlement to a fashion designer with whom she was feuding on Twitter, Bloomberg Businessweek reports. Its outcome could set the precedent for similar cases in the future.
When Love took the stand on Wednesday, she said that her tweet was merely opinion. She also thought she was tweeting at two people only. Holmes's lawyer, Mitchell Langberg, told the TV station KABC-TV, however, that it was a damaging statement regardless who read it. "'Bought off' means somebody got to [Holmes], somebody paid her a bribe," he said.
British actress and singer Dame Angela Lansbury is photographed on stage at the Gielgud Theatre in central London, as she returns to the West End this spring for the first time in nearly 40 years, with the play, Blithe Spirit, by Noel Coward, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2014. Lansbury reunites with director Michael Blakemore to reprise her role as Madame Arcati.
Photo by Joel Ryan
The Associated Press has severed ties with a freelance photographer who it says violated its ethical standards by altering a photo he took while covering the war in Syria in 2013.
The news service said Wednesday that Narciso Contreras recently told its editors that he manipulated a digital picture of a Syrian rebel fighter taken last September, using software to remove a colleague's video camera from the lower left corner of the frame. That led AP to review all of the nearly 500 photos Contreras has filed since he began working for the news service in 2012. No other instances of alteration were uncovered, said Santiago Lyon, the news service's vice president and director of photography.
Contreras was one of a team of photographers working for the AP who shared in a Pulitzer last year for images of the Syrian war. None of the images in that package were found to be compromised, according to the AP.
AP said it has severed its relationship with Contreras and will remove all of his images from its publicly available photo archive. The alteration breached AP's requirements for truth and accuracy even though it involved a corner of the image with little news importance, Lyon said.
Singer Kris Krisstofferson (L) and guitarist Earl Slick perform at "Gibson Celebrates The Beatles in Art and Song" in Beverly Hills, California January 22, 2014.
Photo by Fred Prouser
A federal judge on Wednesday allowed a Virginia man's challenge to his placement on the no-fly list to go forward, three years after he was stranded in Kuwait.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga issued a 32-page written ruling rejecting arguments of government lawyers who wanted the case dismissed. Trenga said that Gulet Mohamed suffers significant harm from his apparent placement on the list and the Constitution gives him the right to challenge his no-fly status.
Trenga acknowledged that Mohamed's travel rights must be balanced against the government's duty to protect its citizens from terrorism, but wrote that "the No Fly List implicates some of our basic freedoms and liberties as well as the question of whether we will embrace those basic freedoms when it is most difficult."
The government has refused to say why it would have placed Mohamed on the no-fly list; in fact, the government won't even confirm that Mohamed, or anyone else, is on the list at all. The government says only that people are placed on the list when it has "reasonable suspicion to believe that a person is a known or suspected terrorist."
Trenga wrote that a citizen's right to due process should provide a meaningful opportunity to challenge the government's rationale for placement on the list.
Micky Dolenz, lead vocalist of the 1960's pop group The Monkees, performs at "Gibson Celebrates The Beatles in Art and Song" in Beverly Hills, California January 22, 2014.
Photo by Fred Prouser
A robot surveying the underside of Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf has made a startling discovery: Clinging upside-down from crannies in the ice shelf with their tentacles dangling into the icy water were thousands and thousands of tiny sea anemones.
The creatures are a new species dubbed Edwardsiella andrillae. Other anemones have been found in Antarctica, but these are the first reported to live in the ice. The tiny, white invertebrates reside in burrows in the ice and extend their tentacles to filter-feed from the water below.
The finding, detailed in the December 2013 issue of the journal PLOS ONE, was a complete surprise.
"When the robot got down, the engineers noticed the ice looked kind of fuzzy, and when it drifted up to take a look they saw anemones, and knew it was really something special," said Frank Rack, science leader of the Antarctic Geological Drilling Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Other groups have drilled through Antarctic ice shelves before, he said, "but nobody looked up."
Singer Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys performs at "Gibson Celebrates The Beatles in Art and Song" in Beverly Hills, California January 22, 2014.
Photo by Fred Prouser
The Top 20 Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows in North America. The previous week's ranking is in parentheses. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers.
Ed Hookstratten, an attorney who represented a galaxy of entertainment and sports stars including Johnny Carson and Vin Scully during a career of more than 50 years, has died at 83.
Hookstratten was a powerful and iconic force in sports, entertainment and broadcast news while representing Carson, Elvis Presley, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin of "Laugh-In" fame.
His news clients included Tom Brokaw, Bryant Gumbel, Jessica Savitch, and Tom Snyder.
Among his sportscaster clients were Scully, Dick Enberg, Merlin Olsen, Dick Stockton, Don Meredith, current Miami Heat President Pat Riley, Marcus Allen, and current University of Southern California athletic director Pat Haden. He served for several years as general counsel for the NFL's Los Angeles Rams.
Hookstratten had a reputation for getting his star clients innovative, lucrative and unprecedented deals.
Hookstratten is mentioned in movie producer Robert Evans' book "The Kid Stays In the Picture," and in "Those Guys Have All The Fun," a book about the origin of ESPN. Hookstratten was also the namesake of the "Lt. Bob Hookstratten" character in Rob Reiner's rock music mockumentary "This Is Spinal Tap."
Born Edward Gregory Hookstratten on June 12, 1930, in Whittier, Calif., he earned a business degree from the University of Southern California, where he attended on a baseball scholarship, and earned a degree from Southwestern School of Law in 1957.
Hookstratten is survived by his wife, Aimee; his former wife, actress Patricia Crowley Friendly; his brother, Jim; son Jon; and daughters Ann Osher, Eve Hookstratten and Mae Hookstratten; and five grandchildren.
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