Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Michael Gerson: The return of America's cruelest passion (Muskogee Phoenix)
According to one source, Mary Turner was "stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground and was stomped to death." [Michael Gerson was George W. Bush's Chief Speechwriter.]
Liz Specht: WE DON'T HAVE TO GIVE UP BURGERS TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE. WE JUST HAVE TO GIVE UP THE COWS (Newsweek)
In addition to contributing many fewer carbon emissions, plant-based and clean meat use vastly less land than current meat production-approximately an order of magnitude less. By shifting meat production to these more efficient methods, we free up most of the land currently used to grow feed crops. Some of this land can be used for growing more food, along with a greater diversity of crops, for the world's growing population. But much of this land can and should be allowed to return to carbon-storing forests.
Helaine Olen: Medicare-for-all would help pay for long-term care. Why don't more people know that? (Washington Post)
Sanders should make long-term care the first thing he mentions when talking about how Medicare-for-all would help seniors.
Tom Danehy: It's Time for Trump To Stop Demonizing People with Dark Skin for Political Benefit (Tucson Weekly)
… here in their own country, America has become a vile garden of calculated bigotry and innate racism, irrigated by the spittle that leaks from Donald Trump's twisted mouth and tended to by his sycophants on the radio and TV and the internet. If my kids [same parents, but one kid has dark skin and the other has light skin] walked down the street in many parts of this country, Trump followers would say, "Oh look, there's a good American...and he's walking with an invader."
Dana Stevens: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Feels Like the Culmination of Tarantino's Obsessions (Slate)
It's jam-packed with winking homages, revisionist history, and lingering shots of feet.
Dana Stevens: In Richard Linklater's New Movie, the Boyhood Director Takes on Motherhood (Slate)
His adaptation of Where'd You Go Bernadette bungles the novel's mystery but finds its heart.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Movie Homes
David
Thanks, Dave!
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• An organ grinder once played music from Gioachino Rossini's Barber of Seville under the window of rival composer Fromental Halévy, who told him, "I will give you a Louis d'or if you go and play music from one of my operas under Rossini's windows." The organ grinder replied, "I cannot do that. Rossini has paid me two Louis d'or to play his music under your windows." By the way, some of Mr. Rossini's friends wanted to erect a statue of him. Told that the statue would cost approximately 20,000 lire, Mr. Rossini proposed, "Why don't you give me 10,000 lire, and I will stand on the pedestal myself?"
• Vencenzo Lombardi greatly admired the tenor Enrico Caruso and early in Mr. Caruso's career told conductor Leopoldo Mugnone that soon the tenor would be making 1,000 lire a night. Mr. Mugnone disagreed: "Nonsense! When Enrico Caruso makes 1,000 lire a night, I'll be the pope!" Soon afterward, Mr. Caruso was making 1,000 lire a night, and Mr. Lombardi sought Mr. Mugnone. When he found him, Mr. Lombardi pretended to kneel and kiss the conductor's feet. Mr. Mugnone exclaimed, "What the h*ll!" Mr. Lombardi said to him, "Haven't you heard? Caruso is making 1,000 lire a night. You're the pope!
• Soprano Adelina Patti once lost her voice after two acts and was unable to finish the opera Don Pasquale. The director of the opera house was frantic, and having noticed another soprano, Madame Volpini, in the audience, he asked her to take over for Ms. Patti. Madame Volpini was no fool - she did take over, but at considerable advantage to herself. Her contract had not been renewed for the following year, but she managed to negotiate both a one-year contract and a raise of 5,000 francs before taking over for Ms. Patti.
• Getting paid for your work can be quite a challenge. Impresario Alfredo Salmaggi once stepped in front of a curtain to announce to the audience that the scheduled performance of Aida had been cancelled because the tenor was indisposed. However, the tenor, Bernardo de Muro, immediately came in front of the curtain to make his own announcement: "I'm not indisposed! This b*stard won't pay me!" Lots of shouting ensued, but eventually Mr. de Muro got paid, and the performance went on as scheduled.
• Opera singer Mary Garden was getting ready to sail to France when a young woman met her on the dock and asked, "Wouldn't you like a perfume called after your name?" Ms. Garden would, and she signed a paper the young woman gave her to sign. When she returned to the United States, she saw her name and face plastered everywhere advertising a perfume called "Mary Garden," and because of the paper she had signed, she never received a cent from the sales of the perfume.
• At a Verdi festival, both Arturo Toscanini and a rival conductor were asked to conduct. The rival conductor was jealous of Maestro Toscanini's abilities, so he asked the organizers of the festival to pay him one lira more than Maestro Toscanini received. The organizers agreed, and after the festival was over, they gave the rival conductor a check for one lira. (Maestro Toscanini had donated his services.)
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Selected Readings
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The defective rooster is working on his delivery, but is still short a couple of syllables.
Hit With $395,000 Fine
'Jimmy Kimmel Live'
Simulated wireless alert tones used in a "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" skit making fun of a presidential alert test have cost Walt Disney Co's ABC $395,000 in civil fines with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.
AMC Networks separately on Thursday agreed to pay a $104,000 fine for using an alert tone in a February 2019 episode of the "The Walking Dead." The commission handed down smaller fines to Discovery's Animal Planet and Meruelo Radio Holdings for other violations.
The use of emergency alert system or wireless emergency alert tones are barred by FCC rules "to avoid confusion when the tones are used, alert fatigue among listeners, and false activation of the system by the operative data elements contained in the alert tones," the agency said.
Discovery agreed to pay a $68,000 civil penalty because during an episode of Animal Planet's "Lone Star Law" contained an actual wireless emergency alert tone. The crew was filming Texas Game Wardens following Hurricane Harvey and caught the tone of a real wireless alert received by phones during filming.
Meruelo paid $67,000 for broadcasting a simulated signal in a promotion for its morning show on southern California-based radio stations KDAY and KDEY-FM.
'Jimmy Kimmel Live'
'Leah Remini: Scientology And The Aftermath' Ending
A&E
Leah Remini's groundbreaking Scientology series is coming to an end after three seasons. Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath will conclude with a two-hour series finale special airing Monday, August 26 at 9 PM ET/PT, A&E said Thursday.
In the finale, which will be filmed for the first time in front of a live studio audience, Remini and Mike Rinder will "explore stories of how Church of Scientology policies have hindered members from reporting instances of abuse and sexual assault to the authorities," according to the official description. They will speak to ex-Scientologists who share their stories of abuse at the hands of other Scientologists, and describe how the policies are aimed at preventing the alleged crimes from becoming public. A panel of legal, psychological and law-enforcement experts also will provide insight into the impact Scientology's practices have had on its former parishioners and advise how they can seek justice and effect change in the future.
"Mike and I will always be grateful to A&E for giving us a platform to expose Scientology and give the victims a chance to be heard. Without the A&E team's support 'The Aftermath' wouldn't be what we intended. We recognized it was time to move on to the next chapter and help people in new ways," said Remini. "We thank our viewers for caring in the way that you do. It means everything to us. There is not a day that goes by that we don't have people stop us with a 'thank you for doing what you guys are doing' and it's your support that gives us our strength to carry on. And carry on, we will."
Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series or Special in 2017, received a nomination in the same category in 2018, and was recently nominated again for Outstanding Informational Series or Special for 2019. The series also was honored with PGA, NAPTE and a Gracie Award, and Remini received the inaugural Critics' Choice Real TV Impact Award.
A&E
Recalls Woodstock
Melanie
Melanie, known as the First Lady of Woodstock, remembers having a supernatural experience as she walked on the rainy stage in 1969 to perform at one of the most iconic events of all-time, though iconic isn't how anyone would have described the day back then.
"I had an out-of-body experience and I wasn't altered by drugs," she recalled.
She was just 22 when she performed at the historic concert that also included Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead and Joan Baez. Melanie had been waiting for hours and hours to perform, sitting on the side of the stage as she watched Richie Havens and others complete their sets.
"The terror kept building in me. The thought of me performing in front of all of those people and that huge stage - I was all by myself," she said. "Then it started to rain and I truly believed that everyone was going to get up and go home. It's raining, I'm free, I'll go back to life as it was. Maybe I will be an archaeologist; maybe I will join the Peace Corps. That's when they said, 'You're next.'"
The Incredible String Band was supposed to go onstage, but "they had concerns about electrocution," Melanie recalled.
Melanie
'Apocalypse Now: Final Cut'
Francis Ford Coppola
About a mile out, the man says, they'll put on the music. The kid looks confused: music? Just a classical piece - the boys love it. "Put on 'PSYWAR OP,' " he barks into his headset. "Make it loud."
The reel-to-reel starts up. Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries," from the German composer's Ring of the Nibelung opera, begins playing over loudspeakers. The soldiers look around, confused and bemused. The camera keeps shooting a group of helicopters, already in attack formation, from below - you'd think they were prehistoric birds of prey. The troops staring out from these metal beasts are in profile, stoic and larger-than-life, pure Riefenstahl 101. And from where you're sitting, the command to "make it loud" seems redundant. It feels deafening, overwhelming. It feels like you're on the whirlybird when that first missile launches, the bobbleheaded co-pilot bouncing in his seat, guns firing, people on the ground falling, explosions everywhere. Noise seems to be swirling around you, from static-y voices on intercoms to heavy artillery blasts. You're in the middle of pure chaos.
It's one of the most famous extended sequences in American filmmaking. John Milius wrote it, based on experiences he'd heard from folks who'd come back from 'Nam after being in the shit. Gerald B. Greenberg edited it. The legendary Walter Murch designed the soundscapes. Akira Kurosawa allegedly loved it. Francis Ford Coppola says he's watched it many, many times over the past 40 years, "in various states of dread and fear." You may have seen these moments on a plane, in a train, on a boat, with a goat. (Just, please, do not say "on your phone.")
But sitting in a cavernous theater in downtown San Francisco and viewing Apocalypse Now: Final Cut, a 4K restoration-cum-remix of Coppola's 1979 Vietnam War magnum opus, it almost feels as if you are experiencing this attack for the very first time. It goes without saying that most movies are best seen on a big screen, with an audience and in the dark. When you're talking about this surreal, psychedelic vision of life during wartime, however - a phantasmagoria of gung-ho surfing obsessives, gyrating Playboy bunnies, ghostly French colonialists, and Marlon Brando in greenface - you're talking about a whole other mind-fuck when its madness is presented in IMAX. Which is all the more reason to catch this rejiggered masterpiece when it gets a brief run in select theaters starting August 15th. (A Blu-Ray release hits shelves, virtual or otherwise, on August 27th.) It is, in terms of storytelling and scope, a completely different trip up the river, through your acid-fried skull, and into the heart of darkness.
Francis Ford Coppola
New Deal
Greenland
President Don-Old Trump (R-Fish Lips) has on multiple occasions discussed trying to buy the country of Greenland, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
Trump has with "varying degrees of seriousness" expressed an interest in trying to purchase the icy 811,000-square-mile island in the North Atlantic, according to the Journal, citing unnamed sources familiar with the deliberations.
Greenland is an autonomous Danish territory. Trump reportedly told advisers in one exchange last spring he'd heard that Denmark was having financial problems because of the subsidies it pays to Greenland, and wondered if he should buy it. "What do you guys think about?" Trump asked the room, a source told the Journal. "Do you think it would work?"
It's unclear what the price tag for the country would be, or whether Denmark would consider selling it.
Technically a part of North America, Greenland is between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, and between Canada and Europe. The U.S. has an airbase there, which is part of the country's state-of-the-art ballistic missile early warning system and satellite tracking system.
Greenland
Not Rosaries
Bibles
In a move likely to appeal to his Christian supporters, U.S. President Don-Old Trump (R-Churl)'s administration has permanently spared bibles printed in China from his tariff plans.
The U.S. Trade Representative's office said on Wednesday that bibles were among about 25 product categories that were removed from 10% tariffs due to take effect on Sept. 1 and Dec. 15. Other products removed, because of their importance, included child safety seats, cranes used in ports and construction, shipping containers and certain types of fish.
But rosaries and other personal religious items that are imported from China will still be hit by a 10 percent tariff on Sept. 1, according to a USTR tariff list released on Tuesday.
Around 60 percent of these imported religious items come from China - about $11 million worth last year, according to a Reuters analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
In May, bibles and other religious texts printed in China, which totaled $91.7 million or 65 percent of the total 2018 U.S. imports in the category, were placed on a list of items for tariffs of up to 25 percent, as part of a broader, $794 million category of printed books, brochures and leaflets.
Bibles
Top 20
Global Concert Tours
The Top 20 Global Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows Worldwide. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers. Week of August 14, 2019:
1. The Rolling Stones; $13,544,597; $228.41.
2. BTS; $12,386,483; $121.57.
3. Spice Girls; $9,750,671; $112.13.
4. Ed Sheeran; $7,079,337; $82.94.
5. Paul McCartney; $4,330,870; $157.40.
6. Dead & Company; $2,725,223; $88.69.
7. Jennifer Lopez; $2,159,753; $137.94.
8. Phish; $2,053,497; $65.24.
9. Ariana Grande; $1,935,691; $119.03.
10. Michael Bublé; $1,773,829; $113.75.
11. John Mayer; $1,700,636; $105.16.
12. André Rieu; $1,480,762; $90.69.
13. Rod Stewart; $1,427,661; $106.50.
14. Cher; $1,338,225; $108.88.
15. Florida Georgia Line; $1,335,082; $70.92.
16. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band; $1,293,302; $109.15.
17. Elton John; $1,286,929; $114.26.
18. Dave Matthews Band; $1,228,105; $69.35.
19. Hugh Jackman; $1,208,115; $91.64.
20. Backstreet Boys; $1,095,839; $81.46.
Global Concert Tours
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