• At Columbia University, author Corey Ford was so busy that he didn’t have time to read any books for his course in 18th-century literature with Professor Harrison Ross Steeves. Mr. Ford skipped the final examination, then arranged for an oral examination, at which he appeared totally unread and unprepared. After Mr. Ford answered the first question — and got the sex wrong of a major literary character — Professor Steeves handed him a contemporary book to read, then gave him a gentleman’s C for the course.
• In his book A Tramp Abroad, Mark Twain wrote about the lecture system at Heidelberg, where attendance was not mandatory. Often, only a few students showed up for especially arcane lectures. Mr. Twain told of a lecturer who spoke day after day to an audience consisting of three students. One day, two of the students were away, and only one student showed up for the lecture. The lecturer began his remarks as usual by saying, “Gentlemen,” corrected himself and said, “Sir,” then went on with his lecture.
• E.B. White is the famous author of Charlotte’s Web and many books of essays, and he learned about writing wherever he could, including from his English professor at Cornell, William Strunk, author of a small book titled Elements of Style. Another helpful advisor was a Mr. Johns, city editor at the Seattle Times. Mr. White was seeking the best way to phrase something, and he asked Mr. Johns for help. Mr. Johns gave him this very good advice: “Just say the words.”
• Humorist Robert Benchley attended Harvard, where he became editor of the Lampoon. Just before finals, he became very ill. Unable to get out of bed for his International Law final, he had a proctor give him the exam in his bedroom. An essay question on the final concerned the Newfoundland Fisheries case, and he wrote about the case using the point of view of a fish. (Mr. Benchley’s professor gave him an F, which kept him from getting a degree at Harvard until later.)
• Show the haters that they are wrong. Robert DeMott and Dave Smith became friends in the early 1970s. They had a number of things in common that facilitated their friendship: they were or would become editors, scholars, teachers, and writers, plus both had been told as undergraduates by professors that they “were not smart enough or able enough to amount to much in the ‘real’ world” — predictions that they ignored. Mr. DeMott became a noted John Steinbeck scholar, and Mr. Smith became a noted poet.
• When Michael Moore, author of Stupid White Men, was in his sophomore year in college, he tried for an hour to find a parking space so he could get out of his car and go to class. After an hour, he gave up and shouted, “That’s it — I’m dropping out!” Then he went home and told his parents that he was dropping out of school. When they asked him why, he explained, “I couldn’t find a parking space.” He never attended class again.
• When Peg Bracken, author of I Hate to Cook Book, started writing, she would often type the first page of a famous short story for inspiration. Often, she discovered that the page did not look as impressive typed on a sheet of paper as it did printed on a page in a book, so sometimes she would imitate her English professor and write on the sheet of paper: “You can do better than this, Mr. Faulkner.”
• While living in Burr Oak, Iowa, Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of Little House on the Prairie, used to live above a grocery store. In the afternoons, she and her sister practiced elocution — reading out loud with feeling — for school. They didn’t know it, but grocery store customers used to come by regularly and stand where they could hear the girls read exciting stories and poems.
Oktoberfest, the world's largest Volksfest (beer festival and travelling funfair) is held annually in Munich and runs from 16-to-18 days (except this year). Excluding this year, in what month does Oktoberfest begin?
In the 1970s and 1980s, Geoffrey Holder appeared in commercials with a lemon & lime in his hand and describes them as "Uncola nuts." What product was he selling?
7 Up (stylized as 7up outside the U.S.) is a brand of lemon-lime-flavored non-caffeinated soft drink. The rights to the brand are held by Keurig Dr Pepper in the United States and by 7 Up international in the rest of the world. The U.S. version of the 7 Up logo includes a red circle between the "7" and "Up"; this red circle has been animated and used as a mascot for the brand as Cool Spot. Before that, the mascot was a fictional character named Fido Dido created by Joanna Ferrone and Sue Rose. He is still used outside the U.S. for the limited time only 7 Up retro cups.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Geoffrey Holder appeared in television ads as part of 7 Up's "Uncola" ad campaign, designed to highlight differences between 7 Up and other soft drinks on the market with cola flavoring. In the ads, Geoffrey holds a pair of cola nuts in one hand and a lemon & lime (used to flavor 7 Up) in the other hand and describes them as "Uncola nuts."
Source
Doug in Albuquerque, New Mexico, replied:
Uncola Nuts were referred to in 7-Up commercials.
Randall wrote:
7up
mj said:
He shared a recipe with a magazine once
It used rum to marinate chicken, not 7-Up, the product he sold with
uncola nuts.
zorch answered:
7/UP is made from uncola nuts.
Stephen F responded:
7 Up
Jim from CA, retired to ID, replied:
7 Up
Cal in Vermont wrote:
The late Geoffrey Holder was selling "7-Up: The Uncola!" (Cue rich rolling laughter)
Dave said:
7 up brand soda pop. Actor Geoffrey Holder was most famous for playing the main villain in Donald Trump’s favorite James Bond film, the racially offensive Live and Let Die (1973). One thing I didn’t know is that until 1948, 7 up was marketed as a patent medicine because it contained the mood stabilizer lithium citrate. It is unknown how much of 7 up production goes for the making of the mixed drink, 7&7. 7&7 is a mixture of 7 up and cheap rot gut whiskey (traditionally Seagram’s 7) so the booze is more palatable and you can get drunk.
Deborah, the Master Gardener responded:
I’m going with 7-Up.
The skies have sufficiently cleared enough to run the house fan last night, and it was glorious to breath clean air. Now we’re looking at triple digits for the holiday weekend. Sure, why not.
Dave in Tucson said:
He was selling 7UP, The Uncola!
Not to be confused with that great Roy Scheider movie The 7-Ups.
Rosemary in Columbus wrote:
7UP
Daniel in The City answered:
Geoffrey Holder was selling 7-Up. He was also in Live and Let Die. I was introduced to him in the early 80s by Maya Angelou.
-pgw replied:
7up.
Joe ( -- Vote Blue, No Matter Who -- ) responded:
I do believe it was 7Up. I love 7Up.
John I from Hawai`i says,
Seven Up
Mac Mac took the day off.
Gary K took the day off.
David of Moon Valley took the day off.
Barbara, of Peppy Tech fame took the day off.
DJ Useo took the day off.
Kevin in Washington DC took the day off.
Michelle in AZ took the day off.
Leo in Boise took the day off.
Roy, still a Libtard Snowflake, still isolated in Tyler, TX took the day off.
Harry M. took the day off.
Roy the (now retired) hoghead (aka 'hoghed') ( Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid. ~Frank Zappa ) took the day off.
Ed K took the day off.
DAngelo took the day off.
Jon L took the day off.
Saskplanner took the day off.
Gateway Mike took the day off.
Steve in Wonderful Sacramento, CA, took the day off.
MarilynofTC took the day off.
George M. took the day off.
Paul of Seattle took the day off.
Brian S. took the day off.
Gene took the day off.
Tony K. took the day off.
Noel S. took the day off.
James of Alhambra took the day off.
BttbBob has returned to semi-retired status.
~~~~~
Sure are prepping us for a heat wave this weekend. Ack.
Tonight, Friday:
CBS begins the night with a RERUN'MacGyver', followed by a FRESH'Love Island', then a RERUN'Blue Bloods'.
On a RERUNStephen Colbert (from 3/30/20) is John Oliver.
On a RERUNJames Corden, OBE, (from 10/24/19) are Edward Norton, Leslie Odom Jr., and Zazie Beetz.
NBC starts the night with a RERUN'America's Got Talent', followed by 'Dateline'.
On a RERUNJimmy Fallon (from 8/13/20) are Seth Meyers, David Blaine, and Burna Boy.
On a RERUNSeth Meyers (from 8/19/20) are Sandra Oh, Gayle King, and Thomas Lang.
On a RERUNLilly Singh (from 5/4/20) is Dr. Phil McGraw.
ABC opens the night with a RERUN'Shark Tank', followed by '20/20'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel it's TBA.
The CW offers a RERUN'Masters Of Illusion', followed by another RERUN'Masters Of Illusion', then a FRESH'Being Reuben', followed by another FRESH'Being Reuben'.
Faux fills the night with FRESH'WWE Friday Night SmackDown'.
MY recycles an old 'CSI: Miami', followed by another old 'CSI: Miami'.
A&E has 'Live Rescue', followed by a FRESH'Live Rescue: Rewind', then a FRESH'Live Rescue'.
AMC offers the movie 'Tremors', followed by the movie 'Tremors 2: Aftershocks', then the movie 'Tremors 3: Back To Perfection'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - Favor the Bold
[7:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - The Sacrifice of Angels
[8:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - You Are Cordially Invited ...
[9:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - Resurrection
[10:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - When the Bough Breaks
[11:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Home Soil
[12:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Coming of Age
[1:00PM] SPACEBALLS
[3:00PM] PITCH BLACK
[5:30PM] X-MEN: THE LAST STAND
[8:00PM] X-MEN 2
[11:00PM] X-MEN: THE LAST STAND
[1:30AM] X-MEN 2
[4:30AM] DOCTOR WHO - The Woman Who Fell to Earth (ALL TIMES ET)
Bravo has 'Southern Charm', followed by the movie 'Legally Blonde', then the movie 'Legally Blonde', again.
Comedy Central has 3 hours of old 'South Park', followed by 'Kevin Hart: Laugh At My Pain'.
FX has the movie 'The Equalizer', followed by the movie 'Deadpool 2', then the FRESH'The NY Times Presents'.
History has 'MonsterQuest: Chasing Bigfoot', MonsterQuest: Serpentine Creatures', followed by a FRESH'MonsterQuest: Feline Beasts', and 'Ancient Aliens'.
IFC -
[6:15A] The Three Stooges - Crash Goes the Hash
[6:45A] The Three Stooges - Slippery Silks
[7:00A] Rudy
[9:30A] Zookeeper
[11:45A] The Blues Brothers
[2:45P] Envy
[5:00P] Grandma's Boy
[7:00P] The Goonies
[9:30P] The Goonies
[12:00A] Grandma's Boy
[2:00A] The Blues Brothers
[5:00A] The Three Stooges
[5:15A] Saved by the Bell
[5:45A] Saved by the Bell (ALL TIMES ET)
Sundance -
[6:00am] perry mason - The Case Of The Wayward Wife
[7:00am] perry mason - The Case Of The Prudent Prosecutor
[8:00am] perry mason - The Case Of The Gallant Grafter
[9:00am] the andy griffith show
[9:30am] the andy griffith show
[10:00am] the andy griffith show
[10:30am] the andy griffith show
[11:00am] the andy griffith show
[11:30am] the andy griffith show
[12:00pm] the andy griffith show
[12:30pm] the andy griffith show
[1:00pm] law & order
[2:00pm] law & order
[3:00pm] law & order
[4:00pm] law & order
[5:00pm] law & order
[6:00pm] law & order
[7:00pm] law & order
[8:00pm] law & order
[9:00pm] law & order
[10:00pm] law & order
[11:00pm] law & order
[12:00am] law & order
[1:00am] law & order
[2:00am] the age of adaline
[4:30am] the andy griffith show
[5:00am] the andy griffith show
[5:30am] the andy griffith show (ALL TIMES ET)
SyFy has the movie 'John Wick: Chapter 2', followed by the movie 'Zombieland'.
Like many a retired sports star, Ken Jennings is taking on a new behind-the-scenes role in the game that made him famous.
The recently-crowned greatest Jeopardy! contestant of all time is joining the show as a consulting producer, beginning with the upcoming 37th season, which will premiere in syndication Sept. 14. Jennings, who still holds the record for the show's longest winning streak, will work behind the scenes and serve as the show's "general ambassador," as well as present his own special video categories in upcoming episodes.
“Though I’ve played my last round of Jeopardy! as a contestant, I’m delighted to have the opportunity to remain involved with my favorite show,” Jennings said in a statement. “I'm still in on all the action, but I don’t have to worry about phrasing things in the form of a question anymore.”
Jeopardy! recently resumed production after halting in March, along with the rest of Hollywood, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The show's set has been redesigned to comply with health and safety regulations, with extra space between the contestants' podiums and between the contestants and host Alex Trebek's lectern.
Full Frontal With Samantha Bee took on the $4 trillion global wellness industry on Wednesday. She primarily focused on Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle and wellness company, Goop.
“What can seem like innocuous woo from charging your crystals in the moon lighting to lighting a candle to ward off Mondays can quickly change into pseudoscience that at best is a waste of money and at worst is dangerous,” said Bee.
Bee pointed out a few Goop products that have no scientific data to support their claims. “Things like vitamins that claim to help someone function at an intense pace, ripoff Lisa Frank stickers that boost cell turnover, psychic vampire repellent,” said Bee.
Some of the unfounded health claims have come back to haunt Goop. In 2018, Goop had to settle lawsuits in California over false advertising. This was particularly surprising given how lenient the Food and Drug Administration is towards pseudoscience remedies.
“As long as the product doesn't claim to mitigate, treat, or cure anything, companies don't have to prove it actually does what it's advertising,” said Bee. She went on to say that by promoting wellness remedies with little to no scientific evidence backing them, companies like Goop are promoting anti-science.
Jane Fonda is revealing new details about her early experiences in the entertainment industry.
In a new interview with The New York Times, the Grace and Frankie star played a quick round of "Confirm or Deny," in which she opened up about her time with various stars including Marlon Brando and Marvin Gaye.
Asked about her experience with Brando, whom she starred alongside in the 1966 drama The Chase, Fonda didn't seem to be wooed by the late actor. He was "disappointing," Fonda admitted.
"Your greatest regret is that you never had sex with Che Guevara," Times reporter Maureen Dowd asked Fonda to confirm, which the actress quickly shut down.
"No, I don't think about him," Fonda explained. "Who I do think about, and what is a great regret is Marvin Gaye."
Just when he thought he was out, they pull him back in. Francis Ford Coppola is recutting The Godfather: Part III for its 30th anniversary, Paramount announced on Thursday.
The new cut of the third and final film and the iconic mafia series — which achieves Coppola and the late screenwriter Mario Puzo’s original vision for the finale — will be titled: The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. The film will have a limited theatrical release in December, followed by digital and Blu-ray, according to the studio.
“‘Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone is an acknowledgment of Mario’s and my preferred title and our original intentions for what became The Godfather: Part III," Coppola said in a statement. “For this version of the finale, I created a new beginning and ending, and rearranged some scenes, shots, and music cues. With these changes and the restored footage and sound, to me, it is a more appropriate conclusion to The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II and I’m thankful to Jim Gianopulos and Paramount for allowing me to revisit it.”
Like the previous two film in the series, Godfather: Part III was a box office hit and nominated for seven Academy Awards. However, unlike the others, it did not win any.
A former high-ranking official within the National Rifle Association is breaking ranks with the powerful gun lobby, publishing a book that accuses its leaders of decades worth of mismanagement and fraud that he says has left the organization in a state of financial and moral disarray.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas, Joshua Powell, who formerly served as chief of staff to longtime NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, said the lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James seeking to dissolve the NRA for an array of “illegal conduct” merely scratches the surface of a much deeper culture of corruption.
Powell, one of four top NRA executives named in the lawsuit, is now seeking to distance himself from the organization he once helped lead. He not only decried the alleged mismanagement of millions of dollars in charitable donations for the personal use of the organization’s top executives but also denounced the organization’s posture on the issue of gun violence, particularly in the wake of school shootings, as self-serving and dangerous.
“Gun owners across America,” Powell said, “should be horrified by what I saw inside of the NRA.”
The huge standing stones in the outer circle of Stonehenge acted as an amplifier and gave reverberation to enhance speech and music in ceremonies held thousands of years before modern acoustics emerged, according to new research.
The dramatic sound effects — including the repeating echo of reverberation — would have been unfamiliar to most of the people who gathered there, the researchers said, although a few might have experienced similar effects inside caves and in canyons.
In the case of Stonehenge, which was first built around 5,000 years ago on Salisbury Plain in southwestern England, "the amplification could have aided speech communication, and the reverberation improved musical sounds," wrote the researchers in a study published in the October issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Their research is based on detailed examinations of a geometrically-accurate scale model one-twelfth the size of Stonehenge, as it probably looked and sounded during its prime, about 4,200 years ago.
By a curious coincidence, the model is exactly the same size as the miniature Stonehenge arch that appeared on stage in the 1984 movie "This Is Spinal Tap." Film buffs may recall that it came about after a confused member of the eponymous rock band specified the stones should be 18 inches (45 centimeters) tall, instead of 18 feet (5.5 meters), which is about the height of one of the real Stonehenge arches.
A drone dropped packets of what looked like cannabis over a main square in Tel Aviv on Thursday after activists seeking to legalize the drug in Israel promised free weed from the air on social media.
Police said they arrested two men who operated the quadcopter that flew over Rabin Square, a site often used for street protests and political rallies.
"The time has come," the Green Drone pro-legalization group said on its Telegram web messaging channel. "Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the Green Drone sending you free cannabis from the skies."
In a statement, police said they suspected the baggies were filled with "a dangerous drug" and that officers managed to recover dozens of them. Photos distributed by the police showed what appeared to be cannabis inside.
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