• Openly gay writer Dan Woog receives his share of hate mail; however, he once received a letter that stated, in its entirety, “Dear Dan, I apologize.” He has no idea who wrote the letter or what they were apologizing for, but the letter got him thinking about apologies that he wishes other people would make. For example, he wishes that Dick Armey would apologize to fellow politician Barney Frank for calling him “Barney Fag.” Such apologies do not occur often in real life, so Mr. Woog decided to write them himself. They appear in his book, Dear Dan … Apologies From an Imperfect World.
• Maurice Sendak, author/illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, likes to receive letters from children because they are so honest. He says that when a child likes a book, the child will write something like, “I love your book. Thank you. I want to marry you when I grow up,” but if a child doesn’t like a book, the child will write something like, “Dear Mr. Sendak: I hate your book. Hope you die soon. Cordially.”
• Harold Ross received a letter from a writer who used very fancy stationery that included not only his name and address, but also quotations from critics. Before answering the letter, Mr. Ross had his own fancy stationery created which included this quotation by critic Franklin Pierce Adams: “Among those present was Harold Ross.”
• R.L. Stine, author of the Goosebumps and Fear Street series, receives many letters from his young fans. One of his favorite letters says, “Dear R.L. Stine, I’ve read forty of your books — and I think they’re really boring!”
Marriage
• Lesbian humorist Ellen Orleans has lots of gay men as friends. One day, she was having so much fun hanging out with a gay man that one of her friends said that they ought to get married. The thought occurred to Ms. Orleans that she and the gay man could legally get married — although she and her girlfriend couldn’t. “Whoa,” she said. “He and I actually could.” Her friend thought a moment, then said, “Yes, it’s legal. Perverse, but legal.”
• A little girl reading a Hans Christian Andersen storybook asked satirist George Ade, “Does m-i-r-a-g-e spell marriage?” Mr. Ade answered, “Yes.”
Media
• Gene Fowler was the first managing editor of the New York Mirror, which was owned by William Randolph Hearst. Before the newspaper began publication, Mr. Hearst ordered Mr. Fowler to create a dummy newspaper that could be run through the presses to make sure the presses were all right. Following orders, Mr. Fowler sat down and wrote an entire newspaper — but every article he wrote for the newspaper was about Mr. Hearst’s sex life, including “oddities.” When the newspaper had been printed, Mr. Fowler called up Mr. Hearst and reported that the presses were working fine, but after Mr. Fowler had departed for the day, Mr. Hearst decided that he would like to see a copy of the dummy newspaper for himself, so he called the newspaper office and ordered a copy sent to him. When Mr. Fowler returned and discovered that a copy of the newspaper had been sent to Mr. Hearst, he thought that he would very quickly be fired. However, Mr. Hearst merely sent him a telegram: “DEAR GENE FOWLER. FOUND YOUR FIRST ISSUE OF THE ‘MIRROR’ VERY LIVELY, VERY ENTERTAINING. HOPE SUCCEEDING ISSUES WILL BE A LITTLE MORE CAREFUL ABOUT LIBEL. GOOD LUCK, WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST.”
Invented in 1963 by British entrepreneur Edward Craven Walker, this item consists of colored wax and liquid in a glass vessel, and exploits surface tension with a light bulb. Available in a variety of styles and colors, what is the name of this lovely novelty in the US?
A lava lamp is a decorative lamp, invented in 1963 by British entrepreneur Edward Craven Walker, the founder of the lighting company Mathmos. The lamp consists of a bolus of a special coloured wax mixture inside a glass vessel, the remainder of which contains clear or translucent liquid; the vessel is then placed on a box containing an incandescent light bulb whose heat causes temporary reductions in the density of the wax and surface tension of the liquid. The warmed wax rises through the surrounding liquid, cools, loses its buoyancy, and falls back to the bottom of the vessel in a cycle that is visually suggestive of pahoehoe lava, hence the name. The lamps are designed in a variety of styles and colours.
A classic lava lamp contains a standard incandescent or halogen lamp which heats a tall (often tapered) glass bottle. A formula from a 1968 US patent consisted of water and a transparent, translucent, or opaque mix of mineral oil, paraffin wax, and carbon tetrachloride. The clear water or mineral oil can optionally be coloured with transparent dyes.
Source
Cal in Vermont was first, and correct, with:
Oooh! Lava Lamps! They were fun to watch especially in certain...um... modes of awareness!
Roy, the Texas Snowflake, keeping his distance in Tyler replied:
I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that gadget was a Lava Lamp. I got one for my birthday in 1964.
mj replied:
The Lava Lamp was featured on the opening credits of Chiller Theater in Pittsburgh
The Cray super computer was once described as a regular computer with a
Lava Lamp on top. When one of our managers wanted to buy a Cray we
walked him into my spouses office and showed him his desk work station
with a Lava Lamp on top and told him we had just saved him a lot of
money. We still have that Lava Lamp at home since it was purchased with
our personal funds.
Randall wrote:
LAVA LAMP
zorch answered:
The lava lamp.
Dave responded:
Lava Lamp. I never owned one, but supposedly hippies looking at one while on acid or something enhanced the trip.
David of Moon Valley replied:
just for the hell of it...
…(and man oh manishewitz, is it hellish looking out there still)…i’m going with the Lava Lamp….
Kenn B said:
The Lava Lamp
Deborah, the Master Gardener wrote:
I’m going with lava lamp. I’m surprised I didn’t own one at one time. I also never owned a pet rock. I’m kind of a pop-culture snob.
RIP, Dame Diana Rigg. You inspired me when I was young and were delightful as Emma Peel.
The smoke situation hasn’t changed overnight, and likely won’t, for the next couple of days. The trade-off? Cool temps, no wind, some ash is good for the soil. Just…weird.
Daniel in The City answered:
Lava Lamp
John I from Hawai`i says,
Lava Lamp
Barbara, of Peppy Tech fame replied:
The answer is the lava lamp.
Dave in Tucson responded:
That sounds like a lava lamp.
DJ Useo wrote:
I call them "lava lamps", or "burnees". lol. Thanks to him for inventing them
Joe ( -- Vote Blue, No Matter Who -- ) said:
I'm just gonna throw this out there cuz I know what it is, and I missed a slow pitch last night becuz I was tired and didn't play. OK its a lava lamp, we used to have a couple of 'em. I'm tired tonight too but FOOTBALL! I'll probably fall asleep in my recliner but it's FOOTBALL!!
Kevin in Washington DC took the day off.
George M. took the day off.
Rosemary in Columbus took the day off.
Mac Mac took the day off.
Michelle in AZ took the day off.
Doug in Albuquerque, New Mexico, took the day off.
-pgw took the day off.
Gary K 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.
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.
~~~~~
An inversion layer has trapped smoke and made the air quite foul.
On the few occasions when the sun popped through, it looked like a bright, shiny, new penny.
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 8/26/20) are Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Lucinda Williams.
On a RERUNJames Corden, OBE, (from 8/13/20) are Jason Sudeikis and Tori Kelly.
NBC starts the night with a RERUN'America's Got Talent', followed by 'Dateline'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Fallon are Kelly Clarkson, Joy Reid, and the Flaming Lips.
On a RERUNSeth Meyers (from 7/21/20) are Chris Evans, Action Bronson, Elle King, and Nikki Glaspie.
On a RERUNLilly Singh (from 4/16/20) is Kevin Nealon.
ABC opens the night with the FRESH'9/11 Remembered: The Day We Came Together', followed by '20/20'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel, with guest host Samuel L. Jackson, are John David Washington and Snoh Aalegra.
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 'The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug', followed by the movie 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] DOCTOR WHO - DEEP BREATH
[7:30AM] ROCKY
[10:00AM] ROCKY II
[12:30PM] ROCKY V
[3:00PM] ROCKY
[5:30PM] ROCKY II
[8:00PM] ROCKY III
[10:15PM] ROCKY IV
[12:15AM] ROCKY V
[2:45AM] ROCKY III
[5:00AM] WEIRD WONDERS (ALL TIMES ET)
Bravo has 'Million Dollar Listing NY', followed by the movie 'Little Fockers', then the movie 'Little Fockers', again.
Comedy Central has 3 hours of old 'South Park', followed by hours of old 'Chappelle's Show'.
FX has the movie 'Bad Moms', followed by the movie 'The Proposal', then the movie 'The Proposal', again.
History has '102 Minutes That Changed America', followed by a FRESH'9/11: The Final Minutes Of Flight 93', then the FRESH'9/11: The Pentagon', and '9/11: Inside Air Force One'.
IFC -
[6:00am] The Three Stooges - Ants In The Pantry
[6:30am] The Three Stooges - Squareheads Of The Round Table
[7:00am] The Three Stooges - They Stooge To Conga
[7:15am] We Were Soldiers
[10:15am] Fargo
[12:15pm] The November Man
[2:45pm] Full Metal Jacket
[5:30pm] A Bronx Tale
[8:00pm] Casino
[12:00am] Public Enemies
[3:00am] A Bronx Tale
[5:30am] The Three Stooges - Crime On Their Hands (ALL TIMES ET)
Sundance -
[6:00am] perry mason
[7:00am] perry mason
[8:00am] perry mason
[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 preppy murder: death in central park - Parts 3 & 4: Who Is Robert Chambers?; Blame The Victim
[4:00am] the preppy murder: death in central park - Part 5: The Trial Of The Decade
[5:00am] the andy griffith show
[5:30am] the andy griffith show (ALL TIMES ET)
SyFy has the movie 'Tomb Raider', followed by the movie 'Constantine'.
Disney+ has given a 10-episode straight-to-series order to comedy Doogie Kamealoha, M.D. (working title), a re-imagining of the popular 1989 ABC series Doogie Howser, M.D.. The project (fka Doogie Kealoha, M.D.), which reboots the Neil Patrick Harris-starring half-hour medical dramedy with a female lead, comes from How I Met Your Mother and Fresh Off the Boat alumna Kourtney Kang and 20th Television, a part of Disney Television Studios.
Written by Kang and set in modern-day Hawaii, Doogie Kamealoha, M.D. follows Lahela “Doogie” Kamealoha, a mixed race 16-year-old girl, juggling a budding medical career and life as a teenager. Guiding Lahela (and also complicating things) is her family, including her spit-fire Irish mother who’s also her supervisor at the hospital, and her Hawaiian “Local Boy” father struggling to accept that his daughter is no longer his little girl.
The lead character’s ethnicity reflects Hawaii-born Kang’s own background — she previously tapped into her experiences growing up in a mixed-race family in a comedy pilot for NBC. Doogie Kamealoha, M.D., which had been in development for Disney+ since early 2020, is slated to go into production later this year for a 2021 premiere on the streamer. I hear casting is underway for the lead and the other major roles, with an intention to shoot the show in Hawaii.
The original series, which starred Harris as a teenage physician balancing the challenge of practicing medicine with the everyday problems of teenage life, was created by two of TV’s top showrunners of the past three decades, the late Steven Bochco and David E. Kelley, and produced by Steven Bochco Prods. and 20th Television predecessor 20th Century Fox TV.
Bochco’s widow, Dayna Bochco, and son, Jesse Bochco, serve as producers the reboot, executive produced by Kang, Jake Kasdan and Melvin Mar. 20th Television, where Kang, Kasdan and his producing partner Mar are overall deals, is the studio.
Saturday Night Live featured player Ego Nwodim has been upped to a repertory player ahead of NBC late-night program’s 46th season, I have learned. A rep for SNL did not respond to a request for comment.
It has become customary for SNL to promote the featured players who have made it to their third year on the show. Nwodim was the only second-year featured player last season. She was joined by new SNL cast additions Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman.
Nwodim has stood out in her first seasons on SNL with memorable characters, including L’evanka Trump on the Them Trumps parody. Her impersonations include Tiffany Haddish.
Until joining SNL, Nwodim was a regular cast member at UCB, where she also performed her one-woman show Great Black Women…and Then There’s Me. Nwodim was named one of the New Faces at the 2016 Just for Laughs festival.
A “living statue” of president Donald Trump (R-Nero) appeared in downtown Manhattan on Tuesday, depicting him driving a golf cart over the tombstones of coronavirus victims and war dead.
Placed in New York’s Battery Park and called The Final Push, the golden tableau has actors depicting Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham pushing the cart from behind. The actor playing Mr Trump is pointing a gold club ahead of him like a sword. A cameraman squats beside him filming the scene.
Inscriptions on the tombstones shown being knocked over by the cart read: “In Tragic Memory Of: ‘It Is What It Is’” referring to the president’s comments in August about the soaring death toll from coronavirus.
A fifth tombstone reads: “In Tragic Memory Of: ‘Loser’”, continuing: “Words uttered by president Trump regarding American soldiers lost in battle”.
The statue installation was set up by a collective of artists named The Trump Statue Initiative. Their website says the group serves as “a way for artists to share their point of view on our 45th President’s most notoriously self-serving, narcissistic, and racist moments”.
Donald Trump (R-Snake Oil) is making Ukraine great again with a new campaign ad featuring foreign stock footage of the former Soviet bloc country.
Titled “Great American Comeback”, the new television spot weaves in widely available footage of Ukrainian and Italian models, and a Ukraine warehouse, as representative of a United States in decline under Joe Biden, according to an ABC News report on Thursday.
The video, running in battleground states, highlights the August jobs report before weaving in the European footage of supposed Americans and business lights going out as Joe Biden says "I would shut it down" in the background.
Quoting video production company PromZone Media Group, ABC News confirmed one of the buildings used in the footage, at about 20 seconds in, is a Ukrainian wallpaper warehouse.
A woman at the 15-second mark looking concerned, meanwhile, was confirmed by the outlet as being a Ukrainian model from production studio Stockbusters. A man looking upset while using a computer (18 second mark) is credited on a stock footage website as being Italian.
As part of its plan to send the first woman and next man to the Moon by 2024, NASA is looking to acquire some dirt. Today, the agency confirmed that it will pay private companies to “collect a small amount of Moon ‘dirt’ or rocks from the lunar surface.”
NASA put out a call asking companies to submit their proposals and says it’s open to working with companies outside of the US. NASA will require that they provide imagery of the collection and collected materials, plus location data. The collected material will become the sole property of NASA, and the agency is hoping to secure samples by 2024.
“We are putting our policies into practice to fuel a new era of exploration and discovery that will benefit all of humanity,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote in a blog post.
NASA has a dozen other projects in the works that will help it prepare for a 2024 Moon mission. It’s also working with the European Space Agency to bring soil samples from Mars back to Earth, and NASA’s OSIRIS-REx team is attempting the agency’s first asteroid sample return mission. As a meteorite discovered in Antarctica recently proved, even a small amount of space rock can lead to big discoveries.
Apocalypse has arrived on the western landscape. The Bay Area is shrouded in a layer of smoke so thick, it broke everything from camera sensors to weather models.
The situation has sparked comparisons to the future, real and imagined. Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 have both been touchpoints for the scenes of a futuristic city bogged down in haze. Others referenced The Martian, a science fiction movie set in the future on another planet entirely (though astronomers pointed out that Venus and Titan are also perfectly acceptable analogs). And the situation in the West has, in part, been painted as a glimpse of the climate future we may all soon face.
The 2020 wildfire season has made time and space feel elastic, the present and future, Earth and space colliding like a snap of a rubber band. But I can’t help feeling the elasticity link the present and the past and the fate of those choking under a blood-red sky with decisions made in board rooms around slick mahogany tables. Our atmosphere and forests are haunted by those decisions, and we forget them at our own risk.
Let’s start with the forest side of the equation. Indigenous groups managed lands using fire as an integral part of the landscape long before there was a National Forest Service. But after the U.S. government extirpated them from their lands, things started to go haywire. Then, the catastrophic firestorm in the Northern Rockies in 1910 dubbed the Big Burn changed everything.
Then there’s the climate side of the equation. This one you might know a little better. But let’s recap to really get the blood flowing and because frankly, feeling rage is a lot more fun than the numb feeling I’ve had lately.
For tens of thousands of years, a Neanderthal molar rested in a shallow grave on the floor of the Stajnia Cave in what is now Poland. For all that time, viable mitochondrial DNA remained locked inside - and now, finally, scientists are discovering its secrets.
Labelled Stajnia S5000, the tooth belonged to a Neanderthal who lived at least 80,000 years ago, according to the new analysis. Which means the individual was alive during a pivotal time of environmental upheaval in Neanderthal history.
The world was in the grip of an ice age known as the Last Glacial Period, and the Neanderthal habitats of northwestern and central Europe changed from rich forests to frigid taigas and steppes. These were more welcoming to the woolly mammoths, woolly rhinos, and reindeer adapted to chilly Arctic conditions - but much more challenging for the Neanderthals.
As regions froze, Neanderthal populations shrank, only to return again as temperatures fluctuated back towards warmer, in a temporary amelioration of the glaciation (the actual ice age wouldn't end until about 11,700 years ago), characterised by extreme seasonal changes and low biomass. In other words, the seasons were wild, and food was scarce.
It was during one of these periods - known as Marine Isotope Stage 5a (MIS 5a) that began about 82,000 years ago - that the Altai Neanderthals in Central Asia were replaced by populations of western European Neanderthals.
When a woman entered a New Hampshire gym serving as a polling place Tuesday afternoon wearing a “McCain Hero, Trump Zero” T-shirt, Paul Scafidi knew he had to step in.
Election laws prohibit campaigning in polling places, which includes shirts promoting or denigrating a candidate on the ballot, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported.
Scafidi, a town moderator in Exeter, told the woman she couldn’t vote while wearing the T-shirt, Seacoast Online reported. The woman asked if Scafidi wanted her to take off the shirt.
“Boom! The shirt’s off, and she’s standing there saying, ‘How’s this?’” Scafidi said, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported.
The woman proceeded to cast her ballot while topless, then put the shirt back on and left, Seacoast Online reported. Scafidi said few other voters were present, and there were no children.
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has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
