from Bruce
Anecdotes
Sex
• During the “Popish terror” of 1681, English citizens were very angry at Catholics. Thinking that actress Nell Gwyn was King Charles II’s Catholic mistress, they surrounded her carriage, but she was able to save herself by pointing out, correctly, “Good people, let me pass. I am the Protestant whore.”
• British actor Pitt Wilkinson once walked into the kitchen of his boarding house, only to discover his landlady on top of the kitchen table having sex with the milkman. She looked at him and calmly said, “I bet you think I’m a right flirt, don’t you?”
• Comte Robert de Montesquiou, a cultured homosexual, fell so deeply in love with actress Sarah Bernhardt that he had sex with her. Big mistake. The only heterosexual sex that he had in his life made him feel ill for an entire day.
Shakespeare
• As a student at Eton, Patrick Macnee was cast as Macduff in a performance of Macbeth. Playing Lady Macbeth was a young boy named Simon Phipps. Unfortunately, the wardrobe woman made a mistake when she designed young Simon’s costume — she used a couple of pieces of metal to give Lady Macbeth a 38-inch bust. Young Simon’s appearance as Lady Macbeth was punctuated with wolf whistles from the all-male audience. Reviews of the play stated that Mr. Macnee didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, so a friend suggested that he should have grabbed Lady Macbeth.
• H. Chance Newton used to tell a story about a cousin of his who was suddenly called on to play the part of Osric in Hamlet. Being unfamiliar with the part, he put a copy of the play in Osric’s hat, planning to look up his dialogue as needed. Unfortunately, he came across a word he was unfamiliar with and hesitated during a speech. An audience member in the balcony, who had been observing the actor reading the copy of the play hidden in his hat, called out, “SPELL IT, OLD PAL! WE’LL TELL YOU WHAT IT IS!”
• In Macbeth, the character of Lady Macbeth disappears between the banquet scene in the middle of Act 3 and the sleepwalking scene at the beginning of act 5. Because of this long absence from the stage, some very good actresses have declined to play Lady Macbeth. For example, Edith Evans would not play Lady Macbeth because, she explained, the play has “a page missing.”
• Drama critic Sheridan Morley remembers overhearing an interesting conversation at a performance of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. At the end of the play, the stage was strewn with dead characters. As the curtain slowly dropped, hiding the corpses, Mr. Morley heard a woman telling her friend, “The very same thing, dear, happened to Maureen.”
• Sinead Cusack prepares physically for her roles in Shakespeare. Because she feels that Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing is graceful with “fluid” movements, she learned to dance before playing the role. And because she thinks Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew has “jagged” movements, she pumped iron before playing that role.
• After playing King Lear, Sir Henry Irving made his bows and spoke a few words to the audience. A member of the audience shouted, “Why didn’t you speak like that before?” Mystified, Sir Henry turned to actress Ellen Terry, who told him that all during the play she had not been able to understand anything he had said.
• While preparing a wall for his stage production of Romeo and Juliet, realist director Franco Zeffirelli flicked a brush soaked with dirty and watery paint about 18 inches from the bottom of the wall, explaining, “This is where the dogs pee.” He then flicked the brush higher on the wall, adding, “and this is where the men pee.”
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Bottom Shelf Blues"
Album: WHEEL SPINNING ’ROUND
Artist: Corbin Marsh Band
Artist Location: Athens, Ohio
Info: A concentrated serving of self-penned blues tunes that hails from a land far from the realms of beat-correction and auto-tuned robot vocals.
All songs written and performed by Corbin Marsh Band.
Mike Flynn - Lead Guitar
J.J. Reed - Bass
Chris Lee - Drums, Organ, Backing Vocals
Corbin Marsh - Rhythm Vocals, Lead Vocals
Also featuring:
Stephen “Tebbs” Karney - Pedal Steel Guitar on Tracks 1, 2, & 5
Laurel Buschle - Backing Vocals on Tracks 1, 2, & 5
“Corbin Marsh has been stomping out country blues across the United States for only the better half of a decade, but at just 26 years old, he has the voice and playing style one would expect from a seasoned veteran. Channeling legends like Son House, Lightnin’ Hopkins and contemporary inspirations like Justin Townes Earle and Lucinda Williams, Marsh pens timeless ballads of death, deception and barroom laments of love lost.
“In November of 2010, Corbin joined blues guitar veteran Mike Flynn and longtime collaborator Chris Lee on drums to form Corbin Marsh Band. Joined later by Jeff Stritholdt of Makebelieves’ fame on bass, the group brought explosive and dynamic energy to Marsh’s tunes. The group also breathes new life to century old traditionals and blues songs by Robert Johnson, Elizabeth Cotten and others. In July of 2012, they released their first official EP, ‘Wheel Spinning ‘Round.’” [From the year 2012]
— www.reggieslive.com/show/corbin-marsh/
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $5 (USD) for five-track EP
Genre: Americana, Blues
Links:
WHEEL SPINNING ’ROUND
Corbin Marsh Band on Bandcamp
Corbin Marsh Music on YouTube
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
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David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast and gray, but no rain.
Raises $ For Flood Victims
Dolly Parton
Country star Dolly Parton and her Smoky Mountain businesses have raised $700,000 to help residents impacted by the catastrophic flooding in Middle Tennessee.
According to a Wednesday news release, Parton chose United Way of Humphreys County to receive and distribute the donation at the suggestion of her friend and fellow country music legend Loretta Lynn. A foreman at Lynn’s ranch was among those who died in the flood.
Parton says she was compelled to help out after the support the Smokies received following the 2016 Sevier County wildfires.
“I hope that this money can be put to good use to help the people of Middle Tennessee with what they need during their recovery,” Parton said in a statement.
During the Aug. 21 flood, more than 500 homes and 50 businesses were damaged after up to 17 inches (43 centimeters) of rain fell in less than 24 hours over the weekend in the rural community.
Dolly Parton
Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize
Sonia Sanchez
Poet, educator and activist Sonia Sanchez is this year’s winner of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, a $250,000 lifetime achievement honor previously given to Chinua Achebe, Bob Dylan and Maya Lin among others.
Established in 1994 through the estate of Lillian Gish, the silent film star and sister of fellow actor Dorothy Gish, the prize is awarded to “a highly accomplished artist from any discipline who has pushed the boundaries of an art form, contributed to social change, and paved the way for the next generation.”
Sanchez, 87, first achieved prominence with the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and has been widely cited as an innovative poet who often draws upon street slang, a popular speaker and a pioneering teacher of Black studies. Her previous prizes include the Wallace Stevens Award and Robert Frost Medal, both given for lifetime achievement in poetry. Her collected poems came out this spring.
“What an honor it is to receive this award, most especially since we as a country are attempting to answer the most important question facing us: What does it mean to be human?” Sanchez said in a statement Thursday.
“I promise, as other artists do, that I will continue to write and talk about the importance of answering this question — the importance of celebrating the beauty of the world and its people.”
Sonia Sanchez
Cancels Virginia Beach Music Festival
Pharrell Williams
Pharrell Williams has cancelled a planned music festival in Virginia Beach, Virginia, after criticising the city’s leadership following the police-involved death of his cousin.
The 48-year-old rapper’s cousin Donovon Lynch died after being shot by an officer in Virginia Beach earlier this year. Several people were injured and two were killed during three separate shootings near the Virginia oceanfront on 26 March.
Williams had been set to curate the Something in the Water festival, but has now announced that the festival will not be held in the city in 2022.
In a letter to the city’s manager Patrick Duhaney, Williams expressed his love for the city but said Virginia Beach has been run by “toxic energy” for far too long.
“The toxic energy that changed the narrative several times around the homicide of my cousin, Donovon Lynch, a citizen of Virginia, is the same toxic energy that changed the narrative around the mass murder and senseless loss of life at Building Number 2,” Williams wrote.
Pharrell Williams
Nobel Prize For Literature
Abdulrazak Gurnah
U.K.-based Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose experience of crossing continents and cultures has nurtured his novels about the impact of migration on individuals and societies, won the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday.
The Swedish Academy said the award was in recognition of Gurnah’s “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee.”
Gurnah, who recently retired as a professor of English and post-colonial literatures at the University of Kent, got the call from the Swedish Academy in the kitchen of his home in Canterbury, in southeast England — and initially thought it was a prank.
Gurnah, 72, arrived in Britain as an 18-year-old refugee a half-century ago. He said the themes of migration and displacement explored in his novels are even more urgent now — amid mass movements of people displaced from Syria, Afghanistan and beyond — than when he began his writing career.
He said he hoped fiction could help people in wealthy nations understand the humanity of the migrants they see on their screens.
Abdulrazak Gurnah
Discrimination Fears
The Base
New polling released today by Project Home Fire in partnership with University of Virginia's Center for Politics has found that Trump voters are animated by concerns about anti-white discrimination and the fate of Christianity in America.
"American racial and ethnic politics have reached their breaking point," begins the report, contrasting Biden voters' views with those of Trump voters.
"On the one side, Joe Biden voters see systemic racism in America as a serious problem," the report says. "Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) voters are on the other side of Biden voters on each of these issues, and by large margins... they worry that discrimination against whites will increase significantly in the next few years."
The polling found that 52% of Trump voters said they strongly agreed with the statement, "I worry that discrimination against whites will increase significantly in the next few years," a figure that rises to 84% when including those that somewhat agree. An even higher percentage, 61%, strongly agreed with the notion that "Christianity is under attack in American today," which also rises to 84% when including people who somewhat agree.
Further polling conducted by the group revealed just how tied to immigration Trump voter's concerns were; upwards of 80% of them strongly or somewhat agreed that they were worried about paying higher taxes due to illegal immigrants using healthcare, welfare, and education resources. A similar percentage were strongly or somewhat in agreement with the notion that they would "suffer personally" from the US being more socialist as a result of immigration.
The Base
Seeks To 'Rescue'
Idaho
Idaho’s Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin (R-Nutjob) wants to be the state’s governor after next year's November elections. But when the man currently holding the job left town this week on official business, she decided not to wait.
McGeachin, a far-right Republican known for her opposition to COVID-19 restrictions and association with anti-government figures, declared herself acting governor and tried to deploy National Guard troops to the Mexican border. She was rebuffed by the guard’s commanding general. She also tried to issue an order blocking vaccine requirements. Gov. Brad Little, a fellow Republican, repealed the order the next day, from Texas.
While divisions within the Republican party - especially among those who look to former President Donald Trump for guidance - are common place everywhere, they are playing in high definition in one of the country’s most GOP-dominant states. The highly-publicized spat displayed how pitched - and to outsiders silly - the battle for control of the Republican Party has become in the Gem State.
And now some prominent mainstream Republicans, worried the state's hard-right drift could scuttle their efforts to grow Idaho's economy, are asking Democrats and Independents to register as Republicans to vote in the party’s May primary.
The mainstream Republicans who have controlled the state for decades worry that if far-right Republicans like McGeachin gain control it will be bad for business. Their fear is Idaho will be unable to attract high-paying tech jobs and that highly-skilled workers looking to flee pricey West Coast cities won't move to the state if it's run by extremists.
Idaho
Cafeteria Sheriff
Los Angeles
On the eve of an order from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors that all county employees get vaccinated against Covid-19, Los Angeles Sheriff Alex Villanueva (R-Bad Apple) said he would not enforce the rule in his department.
“This issue has become so politicized, there are entire groups of employees that are willing to be fired and laid off rather than get vaccinated,” said Villanueva in his weekly public Q&A, “so I don’t want to be in a position to lose 5-10% of my workforce overnight on a vaccine mandate while at the same time I’m bare-bones with the defunding effort.”
He said that, based on budget cuts and employee reluctance, “we have to pick and choose,” which mandates from the Board to enforce. It’s an interesting stance since the Board Of Supervisors is, effectively, oversees Villanueva’s department.
The resources argument is also baffling given that, of the 18,000 LASD employees, over 10,000 have either had Covid or been quarantined as a result of close contact with someone who was infected. That’s more than 55% of his department whose productivity has likely been impacted significantly by the virus. That’s hard to square with the 5-10% Villanueva guesses would have a problem with the vaccine which, the Sheriff says he personally has received.
In July, on the eve of an indoor mask mandate from his bosses, Villanueva said he would not enforce that rule, either.
Los Angeles
Trapped In 16-Million-Year-Old Amber
Tardigrade
A new species of tardigrade has been discovered fossilized in 16-million-year-old Dominican amber. As well as being only the fourth tardigrade fossil ever discovered and formally named, it is the first recovered from the Cenozoic – the current geological era.
The famously hardy beastie measures just over half a millimeter (0.02 inches) according to the study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B and is a member of the Isohypsibioidea superfamily.
Paradoryphoribius chronocaribbeus, as it has been named, is also the best-imaged tardigrade fossil to date, the researchers say – details of the creature’s mouthparts and teeny tiny claws are unrivaled in the fossil record.
“The discovery of a fossil tardigrade is truly a once-in-a-generation event,” Phil Barden, co-author of the study and assistant professor of biology at New Jersey Institute of Technology, said in a statement.
“What is so remarkable is that tardigrades are a ubiquitous ancient lineage that has seen it all on Earth, from the fall of the dinosaurs to the rise of terrestrial colonization of plants. Yet, they are like a ghost lineage for paleontologists with almost no fossil record. Finding any tardigrade fossil remains is an exciting moment where we can empirically see their progression through Earth history.”
Tardigrade
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