Mark Morford: Louis C.K. and the bawdy mystic (SF Gate)
What's that you say? British sex god/ubercomic Russell Brand's wickedly insightful takedown of celebrity culture in last week's Guardian wasn't enough to make you cheer the fact that sly intelligence in popular culture isn't yet dead? No problem. Behold, here comes Louis C.K., this generation's bawdy philosopher/guru masquerading as curmudgeon jackass comic, throwing his particular brand of deadpan observational wisdom all over the digital zeitgeist, …
Paul Krugman: Default Notes (New York Times)
Add me to the chorus of those puzzled by the lack of market alarm over the possibility of U.S. default, induced by failure to raise the debt ceiling. The best story I've heard came from a government official who put it something like this: "Business types come to Washington, and they talk to Boehner, or Paul Ryan, or Eric Cantor - all of whom are very hard line, but not insane. So they go home reassured. What they don't realize is that those guys aren't in control, and that they're running scared of a large faction of the party that is indeed insane."
Paul Krugman: My Excellent Evening (New York Times)
Just came back from seeing Sarah Jarosz live - very intimate venue, mostly standing room only (and no, we didn't get seats). These days, thanks to YouTube and livestreaming, it's far easier than in the past to get *some* of the experience of live performance. But the real thing - watching the performers interact, watching the joy they obviously get from making music, and sharing the experience with an enthusiastic audience - is still something else.
Richie Ryan, Aaron Short: 5 Hilariously Bizarre Early Careers of Famous People (Cracked)
Unless they're lucky enough to tumble out of a Kardashian, most people aren't born celebrities. Before your favorite actors, musicians, and TV personalities got their big break, they had to work for a living just like the rest of us schlubs. And for the most part, these were not romantic careers: waiting tables, pumping gas, artisting sandwiches, taming lions ... Wait, what?
Melvin Howard Tormé (September 13, 1925 - June 5, 1999), nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, best known as a singer of jazz standards. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, drummer, pianist, and actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books. He composed the music for the classic holiday song "The Christmas Song" ("Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire") and co-wrote the lyrics with Bob Wells.
... in 1947, Tormé went solo. His singing at New York's Copacabana led a local disc jockey, Fred Robbins, to give him the nickname "The Velvet Fog," thinking to honor his high tenor and smooth vocal style, but Tormé detested the nickname. He self-deprecatingly referred to it as "this Velvet Frog voice".
Tormé made nine guest appearances as himself on the 1980s situation comedy Night Court whose main character, Judge Harry Stone (played by Harry Anderson), was depicted as an unabashed Tormé fan (an admiration that Anderson shared in real-life; Anderson would later deliver the eulogy at Tormé's funeral).
Source
Lois of Oregon was first, and correct, with:
Oh I know this one, I know, I know! I remember as a child
thinking he was called the "velvet FROG" because, well, LOOK
at him. Mel Torme did sort of look like a frog. Later found
out it was "velvet FOG" and figured it was because he was
fuzzy and damp. He and Kermit were both wonderful, though.
Leo in Maryland said:
Mel Torme was called The Velvet Fog.
Alan J answered:
Mel Torme
mj wrote:
A man whose voice was a musical instrument
Mel Torme. Also, Harry Stone's favorite vocalist.
Maurice replied:
Mel Torme!
Charlie responded:
Mel Tormé, who hated the nickname.
Carolyn G iPadded:
The Velvet Fog was the one and only Mel Torme. I can still hear him.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, wrote:
Mel Tormé
Adam answered:
Mel Torme.
Sally said:
Mel Torme` was nicknamed The Velvet Fog.
Because he looked like one?
Mel, takin' a load off after a show...
PS: "Back to school night" and I have the morning care kids tonight, so their parents can attend together. I am psyched because
we are having a pizza party! I made some chocolate chip cookies, and punch - and we shall picnic on the living room floor!
Gee, I sure hope I can get up off the floor afterwards...
Marian replied:
Mel Torme
MAM took the day off.
Dale of Autumn Diamond Springs, Norcali, said:
Mr. Mel Torme. Wrote one of my favourite holiday songs, "The Christmas Song". One of the ultimate jazz singers. He along with Ella had the rare quality of possessing "perfect pitch". He also wrote an unflattering bio of Judy Garland and one of longtime friend and fellow drummer Buddy Rich.
One of Mel's quotes about his art:
" One of the joys of a jazz singer is to try to keep a dimension of constant improvisation in relation to what he sings. But - and it's a big but - only if you never lose sight of the original musical value which the composer put in it. And above all, if you don't sacrifice the most important element of a popular song: the words."
BttbBob responded:
I can answer this one easily during a break in the action here... Mel Tormé...
I can even give y'all a link, too, matter o' fact...
Mel Torme Scat - YouTube
A tribute to Ella...
~~~~~
"Hey! Wait a minute!" Moment - Didn't I ask a similar question about "Twiggy" in a Happy Birthday greeting a few days ago? I think I need to be callin' my agent 'bout this... Yeah, I'm thinkin' so... Thinkin'... Royalties...
~~~~~
Daughter's nuptials Friday @ 3pm... Gotta run... Things to do... Wait...
~~~~~
I'll be some kinda glad, I'm tellin' ya, when the whole dagnab thing is over...
~~~~~
But, she's marryin' a pretty darn good guy and they both have my Blessing...
Congratulations, Sarah and Andrew. May it last as long as your grand-parents has, Andrew (70 years celebrated just recently. Is that awesome, or what?)
~~~~~
Okay... Bye...
~~~~~
September 27 Birthdays - Celebrities Born September 27 | Famous Birthdays
DJ Useo answered:
Ahh, what a pleasurable trivia question today. It's funny, I grew up loving punk rock,
but somehow I got into lounge music later in life.
My fave lounge singer is Mel Torme, often known as the velvet fog.
He had a great voice, big creative talent, and could tame the unruliest crowd.
Here's a song he did with WAS (NOT WAS)
John I from Hawai`i says,
"Mel Torme."
litebug wrote:
The "Velvet Fog" was singer, Mel Torme, who also wrote the "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" Christmas song.
CBS begins the night with a FRESH'Undercover Boss', followed by the SEASON PREMIERE'Hawaii Five-0', then the SEASON PREMIERE'Blue Bloods'.
Scheduled on a FRESHDave are Steve Martin, Kathleen Madigan, and Kruger Brothers featuring Steve Martin.
Scheduled on a FRESHCraig are Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Phil Palisoul.
NBC starts the night with a RERUN'The Michael J. Fox Show', followed by another RERUN'The Michael J. Fox Show', then 'Dateline'.
Scheduled on a FRESHLeno are Sandra Bullock, Key & Peele, and Gregory Porter.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Fallon are Julianna Margulies, Michael Sheen, and Superchunk.
On a RERUNCarson 'The Scab' Daly (from 4/4/13) are Nikki Glaser & Sara Schaefer, "River Monsters", and Damien Jurado.
ABC opens the night with the FRESH'Last Man Standing', followed by the SEASON PREMIERE'The Neighbors', then a FRESH'Shark Tank', followed by '20/20'.
On a RERUNJimmy Kimmel (from 9/17/13) are Amy Poehler, Stephen Merchant, and Bastille.
The CW offers a FRESH'Perfect Score', followed by a RERUN'Perfect Score', then a FRESH'America's Next Top Model'.
Faux has a FRESH'MasterChef', followed by a RERUN'Sleepy Hollow'.
MY here fills the night with LIVE'NHL Hockey'.
A&E has the movie 'The Imposter', 'Storage Wars', another 'Storage Wars', still another 'Storage Wars', yet another 'Storage Wars', still another 'Storage Wars', and, yes, yet another 'Storage Wars'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] BBC WORLD NEWS
[7:00AM] BBC WORLD NEWS
[8:00AM] MASTERCHEF UK: THE PROFESSIONALS - Season 5 - Episode 5
[8:40AM] MASTERCHEF UK: THE PROFESSIONALS - Season 5 - Episode 6
[10:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 7 - Ep 5 - Gambit, Part 2
[11:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 7 - Ep 6 - Phantasms
[12:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 7 - Ep 7 - Dark Page
[1:00PM] RAMSAY'S KITCHEN NIGHTMARES REVISITED US - Season 2 - Ep 2 - Handlebar, Casa Roma, The Black Pearl
[2:00PM] RAMSAY'S KITCHEN NIGHTMARES US - Season 5 - Ep 5 - Burger Kitchen, Part 1
[3:00PM] RAMSAY'S KITCHEN NIGHTMARES US - Season 5 - Ep 6 - Burger Kitchen, Part 2
[4:00PM] TOP GEAR - Season 13 - Episode 3
[5:00PM] TOP GEAR - Season 13 - Episode 4
[6:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 6 - Ep 12 - Ship in a Bottle
[7:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 6 - Ep 13 - Aquiel
[8:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 6 - Ep 14 - Face of the Enemy
[9:00PM] ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS
[11:30PM] ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS
[2:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 6 - Ep 11 - Chain of Command, Part 2
[3:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 6 - Ep 12 - Ship in a Bottle
[4:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 6 - Ep 13 - Aquiel
[5:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - Season 6 - Ep 14 - Face of the Enemy (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'I Dream Of NeNe: The Wedding', another 'I Dream Of NeNe: The Wedding', followed by the movie '50 First Dates'.
Comedy Central has last night's 'Colbert Report', last night's 'Jon Stewart', 'Tosh.0', another 'Tosh.0', 'Community', another 'Community', still another 'Community', and yet another 'Community'.
Jon Stewart Colbert Report
FX has fills the night with the movie 'Moneyball'.
IFC -
[6:00AM] Bunk
[6:30AM] Whitest Kids U'Know
[6:45AM] Joy Ride
[8:45AM] Hannibal Rising
[11:15AM] Maximum Overdrive
[1:15PM] Joy Ride
[3:15PM] Hannibal Rising
[5:45PM] Blade Runner
[8:15PM] Cloverfield
[10:00PM] Comedy Bang! Bang!-Andy Samberg Wears a Plaid Shirt and Glasses
[10:30PM] Whitest Kids U'Know
[11:00PM] Arrested Development-Pier Pressure
[11:30PM] Arrested Development-Public Relations
[12:00AM] Arrested Development-Marta Complex
[12:30AM] Arrested Development-Beef Consomme
[1:00AM] Comedy Bang! Bang!-Andy Samberg Wears a Plaid Shirt and Glasses
[1:30AM] Whitest Kids U'Know
[2:00AM] My Bloody Valentine
[4:15AM] The Children (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[6:00AM] How to Be
[7:30AM] Animal Kingdom
[9:30AM] The City of Your Final Destination
[12:00PM] The Bridge on the River Kwai
[3:30PM] Animal Kingdom
[5:30PM] The City of Your Final Destination
[8:00PM] Serial Mom
[10:00PM] Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
[12:30AM] District 9
[2:45AM] Serial Mom
[4:45AM] Uncle Kent (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has 'Fangasm', followed by a FRESH'WWE Steroid SmackDown', then a FRESH'Haven'.
Singer Elvis Costello (L) and Questlove (R) of the Roots, perform during the awards dinner at the Clinton Global Initiative 2013 (CGI) in New York, September 25, 2013.
Photo by Carlo Allegri
President Barack Obama is appointing the woman behind the television series "Scandal," ''Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice" to the Kennedy Center's board of trustees.
Shonda Rhimes is a Golden Globe winner and three-time Emmy nominee. Her show "Scandal" stars actress Kerry Washington, a major Obama supporter.
The White House says Obama is also tapping financier David Rubenstein and executive Alexandra Stanton to the Kennedy Center's board. Stanton hosted a fundraiser that Obama headlined earlier this year.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton embraces actor Ben Affleck at the Clinton Global Initiative's Citizen Awards Dinner, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2013, in New York.
Photo by Craig Ruttle
Alex Gibney, Laura Poitras and Geralyn Dreyfous will receive awards at the International Documentary Association's 2013 IDA Awards, the organization announced on Wednesday.
Gibney, whose work includes the Oscar-winning "Taxi to the Dark Side" as well as "Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer," "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," the recent Emmy-winner "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God" and this year's "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks" and "The Armstrong Lie," will receive the IDA's Career Achievement Award.
Dreyfous will receive the Amicus Award, which goes to friends of the documentary community who have made significant contributions. Dreyfous is only the fourth recipient in the last 29 years; she is the founder of the Utah Film Center and the co-founder of the Impact Partners Film Fund, which helps find financiers for documentaries devoted to achieving social change.
Dreyfous' production and executive production credits include "The Invisible War," "The Crash Reel" and the Oscar-winning "Born Into Brothels."
Poitras will receive the Courage Under Fire Award, which is given to filmmakers who exhibit "conspicuous bravery in the pursuit of truth." Poitras helped break the story of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, and is currently working on the third film in a trilogy of movies about the United States post-9/11; the first two were the award-winning "My Country, My Country" and "The Oath."
Minnesota native and actress Jessica Lange is urging Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton to suspend the state's wolf hunt.
The two-time Academy Award winner wrote a letter to Dayton, dated Wednesday, on behalf of anti-hunt group Howling for Wolves.
Lange, a Cloquet-area resident, writes that methods used to trap and kill wolves are cruel. She notes that Minnesota's wolf population declined about 25 per cent in the last five years, the lowest since 1988.
The letter is posted on Howling for Wolves' website. The group is leading the effort to collect more than 50,000 signatures to present to Dayton.
Musician Paul McCartney (L-R), and actors Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks attend The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles 23rd Annual Simply Shakespeare benefit reading of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" in Santa Monica, California September 25, 2013.
Photo by Phil McCarten
New York City Opera could be sounding its final note this weekend - at least for a while.
The 70-year-old company says it plans to file for bankruptcy and scrap the bulk of its 2013-14 season unless it somehow manages to reach its fundraising goal, which it admitted is not likely.
"The board has voted to start bankruptcy proceedings next week if we do not raise the $7 million by the end of Monday," spokesman Risa Heller said, adding that commitments had been made for just $1.5 million.
A collapse would leave the 130-year-old Metropolitan Opera as the city's only major opera company.
Having presented 12 to 16 operas with a peak of about 130 performances in a season, the company has shrunk to four stagings and 16 performances in each of the past two seasons. Its endowment has dwindled from $48 million in 2008 to $5.07 million at the end of June 2012, according to tax records, and its staff has been pared to 25.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington is returning one of its most powerful artifacts to Poland: a wooden barracks that housed prisoners at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.
The Washington Post reports the barracks are being returned after the end of a long-term loan from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
The barracks have been at the museum since its opening in 1993 and are a centerpiece of the museum. The museum has obtained a similar barracks that will replace the ones that are leaving. And the new barracks will belong to the museum.
The barracks' removal comes after years of negotiations between the Polish government and the Holocaust Museum. In 2003, Poland passed a law that says no historical artifact can remain on loan abroad for more than five years without being returned for inspection.
Actor Martin Short attends The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles 23rd Annual Simply Shakespeare benefit reading of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" in Santa Monica, California September 25, 2013.
Photo by Phil McCarten
Guido Barilla, chairman of the world's leading pasta manufacturer, prompted calls for a consumer boycott on Thursday after telling Italian radio his company would never use a gay family in its advertising.
"I would never do (a commercial) with a homosexual family, not for lack of respect but because we don't agree with them. Ours is a classic family where the woman plays a fundamental role," Barilla, 55, said in an interview with Radio 24 on Wednesday.
In the interview, Barilla said he opposed adoption by gay parents, but was in favor of allowing gay marriage, which is not legal in Italy. His comment about advertising was in response to a direct question about whether he would ever feature a gay family in his company's commercials.
If gays "like our pasta and our advertising, they'll eat our pasta, if they don't like it then they will not eat it and they will eat another brand," he said.
Actor Jason Alexander attends The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles 23rd Annual Simply Shakespeare benefit reading of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" in Santa Monica, California September 25, 2013.
Photo by Phil McCarten
A Pennsylvania mining company sued by the federal government on behalf of a worker who refused a biometric handscan because he believes in the Bible's mark of the beast prophecy, said on Thursday that it supports religious freedom.
The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission filed a lawsuit against Consul Energy Inc, stating that Beverly Butcher Jr. had worked at the company's coal mine in Mannington, West Virginia, for more than 35 years, until he was required to use a biometric hand scanner to track his hours.
Consul, with headquarters in Western Pennsylvania, was accused of discriminating against Butcher, who repeatedly told mining officials that using the scanner violated his Evangelical Christian beliefs, given his view of the relationship between hand-scanning technology and the mark of the beast in the New Testament's Book of Revelation, the lawsuit said.
According to the Christian Bible, the mark is implanted on the forehead or right hand and symbolizes allegiance to the antichrist.
Though alternatives to hand scans were found for two employees with missing fingers, the EEOC claims Butcher was forced into early retirement because no provision was made for him.
Actor Val Kilmer attends The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles 23rd Annual Simply Shakespeare benefit reading of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" in Santa Monica, California September 25, 2013.
Photo by Phil McCarten
Ireland's love affair with pub and pint is sparking national soul-searching as never before because of an unofficial holiday dreamed up by Guinness.
Thursday's celebrations of Arthur's Day, honoring the 18th-century founder of Ireland's quintessential drink, feature surprise musical performances in 815 pubs and clubs across Ireland as well as concerts worldwide from Malaysia to Jamaica.
Launched in 2009, Guinness says the annual festivities provide a needed tonic for a 7,500-strong Irish pub network struggling to maintain profits in the face of a five-year debt crisis that has ravaged employment and incomes.
But this year, Guinness has been put on the defensive amid surging protests that Arthur's Day is compounding an alcoholic culture that costs Ireland 3.7 billion euros ($5 billion) annually in hung-over workers, a Europe-leading rate of liver disease, late-night vandalism and violence in hospital emergency rooms.
Two performers who definitely aren't playing are Irish folk singer Christy Moore and the Celtic rock band The Waterboys. Both have penned anti-Arthur's Day songs that harness an Irish sense of unease of being played for fools by a brewing behemoth.
In this Sept. 24, 2013 photo, artist Robert Indiana, known world over for his LOVE image, is interviewed in front of that painting at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art. Surrounded by 95 works he created over the past five decades, Indiana, who turned 85 this month, calls the retrospective "a dream come true, a little late."
Photo by Lauren Casselberry
You might not have heard of David Gilmour, once a familiar face to Canadians as prominent arts commentator on CBC Television. But I bet you will now, after he disparaged the value of female writers in a blog, causing an explosion on social media.
Gilmour gave up his gig as a TV talking head in the mid-1980s to concentrate on writing. He's produced a string of novels including A Perfect Night to Go to China, which won a Governor-General's Award for fiction in 2005. He also teaches literature at the University of Toronto's Victoria College, and that's what's landed him in hot water.
Gilmour gave an interview recently to the online magazine for publisher Random House of Canada, Hazlitt, for a regular column on what writers have on their own bookshelves.
Not surprisingly, there was no mention of Stephen King or Tom Clancy. Gilmour's personal taste runs to Proust, Tolstoy and Chekov, Philip Roth, Henry Miller and F. Scott Fitzgerald. And he told interviewer Emily Keeler that what he likes, he teaches to his first- and third-year students.
"I'm not interested in teaching books by women. Virginia Woolf is the only writer that interests me as a woman writer, so I do teach one of her short stories. But once again, when I was given this job I said I would only teach the people that I truly, truly love.
"What I teach is guys. Serious heterosexual guys. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chekhov, Tolstoy. Real guy-guys. Henry Miller. Philip Roth."
Models present creations by Kenje Couture design house during a special guest show in the National Contest of Young Designers OPEN WAY in Almaty September 26, 2013.
Photo by Shamil Zhumatov
Yielding to the hypnotic beat of drums and the intoxicating scent of incense, the woman danced herself into a state of trance, laughing and shaking uncontrollably alongside hundreds of others at Pakistan's most revered Sufi shrine.
Swathed in red, the Sufi color of passion, she shouted invocations to the shrine's patron saint in an ecstatic ritual repeated daily in the dusty town of Sehwan Sharif on the banks of the river Indus.
With its hypnotic rituals, ancient mysticism and a touch of intoxicated madness, Sufism is a non-violent form of Islam which has been practiced in Pakistan for centuries - a powerful antidote to extremism in places such as the province of Sindh.
It is scenes like this, where men and women dance together in a fervent celebration of their faith, that make Sufis an increasingly obvious target in the conservative Muslim country where sectarian violence is on the rise.
At a crossroads of historic trade routes, religions and cultures, Sindh has always been a poor but religiously tolerant place, shielded by its embrace of Sufism from Islamist militancy sweeping other parts of Pakistan.
An activist of Femen, a feminist Ukrainian protest group, leaves the Tuileries Gardens after two of them were removed by security staff while disturbing the presentation of Nina Ricci's ready-to-wear Spring/Summer 2014 fashion collection Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013 in Paris.
Photo by Thibault Camus
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.
1. (1) Taylor Swift; $2,808,561; $85.43.
2. (2) Kenny Chesney; $2,539,528; $75.74.
3. (4) Beyonce; $1,697,832; $115.14.
4. (5) Phish; $1,590,139; $50.54.
5. (6) Justin Bieber; $1,225,230; $80.77.
6. (7) Dave Matthews Band; $1,180,931; $56.95.
7. (New) Jason Aldean; $1,068,667; $46.54.
8. (8) Bruno Mars; $1,028,831; $69.92.
9. (New) Michael Buble; $851,557; $79.04.
10. (10) Rush; $698,523; $73.48.
11. (9) New Kids On The Block; $676,113; $61.83.
12. (11) Blake Shelton; $654,783; $34.67.
13. (12) Rascal Flatts; $592,046; $38.49.
14. (13) Brad Paisley; $565,212; $38.35.
15. (New) Miranda Lambert; $486,872; $34.94.
16. (14) Widespread Panic; $381,761; $48.14.
17. (15) Bad Company / Lynyrd Skynyrd; $299,835; $31.76.
18. (New) Steely Dan; $269,640; $78.48.
19. (16) Steve Miller Band; $235,028; $59.65.
20. (17) The Postal Service; $220,379; $41.17
An inflated Rubber Duck by Dutch conceptual artist Florentijn Hofman floats on the Kunming Lake at the Summer Palace in Beijing September 26, 2013. The 18-metre-high (59 ft.) inflatable sculpture will be displayed at the historic tourist attraction for a month, local media reported.
Photo by Jason Lee
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