Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Waldman: Trump's xenophobic fearmongering backfired in 2018. What will he do in 2020? (Washington Post)
If Trump has any bit of political genius, it's his ability to locate the worst in people - their fear, their envy, their resentments, their hatred - and stimulate it with a poisonous kind of adrenaline. This time, though, most voters recoiled in disgust at what he was doing. We'll see whether it happens again in two years.
Paul Waldman: The White House is in meltdown (Washington Post)
So you go to work every day wondering when the hammer is going to fall on you. Is one of your colleagues plotting against you? Are you going to get a congressional subpoena? Is today the day that the president turns his wrath on you in his endless search for others to blame for his problems and his mistakes? When everyone around you feels that way, too, things get a little uneasy. Describing the White House right now, one former Trump aide told Politico, "It's like an episode of 'Maury,'" referencing the daytime TV show famous for bitter family arguments. "The only thing that's missing is a paternity test."
Robert Evans: 5 Ways Normal People Allow Evil Rulers To Thrive (Cracked)
5. Above All Else, Citizens Just Want To Pay The Rent
Denmark withholds aid to Tanzania after anti-gay comments (BBC)
Homosexual acts are illegal in Tanzania and punishable by up to 30 years in prison. Correspondents say statements against gay people have increased since President John Magufuli's election in 2015. In 2017, the country's deputy health minister defended a threat to publish a list of gay people.
Nicolas Barber: The greatest foreign-language films of the 21st Century? (BBC)
In BBC Culture's list of the 100 best foreign-language films, there were 87 entries from the last century and 13 from this one. What makes them stand out as the greatest foreign-language films of the 21st Century?
The 21st Century's 100 greatest films (BBC)
5. Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
4. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
3. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
2. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
1. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
Bill Bradley: How Should We Remember Stan Lee? (Huffington Post)
Jack Kirby's former assistant discusses Lee's legacy and how tributes to the Marvel giant only get it half right.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
When Stan Lee, creator of Spider-man and the Fantastic Four, was a kid, he wrote his hero, Floyd Gibbons, who went on adventures and wrote a column for the Chicago Tribune. Mr. Gibbons wrote him back, something that truly impressed the young Stan Lee. Working at Marvel, he encouraged fan mail and he often wrote fans back, either in person or on the pages of the comic books he wrote. Mr. Lee says, "I wanted the fans to feel that they were part of the Marvel family. If I received a letter that started 'Dear Editor' and was signed, I don't know, 'Charles Smith,' I would write back, 'Hiya Charlie!' I wanted it to sound friendly and I signed all my replies 'Stan,' not 'the Editor.' I think it worked because when I met fans at conventions, they came up to me as though we were old friends. 'Hi, Stan, how are ya? I've always wanted to meet you.'" Actually, it was Mr. Lee's creations that got Marvel Comics fan mail. He says, "Before the Fantastic Four, we hardly ever got fan mail. Occasionally I might get a letter from somebody that said, 'I bought one of your comic books and one of the staples is missing. I'd like my ten cents back.' I would tack that letter up on the bulletin board and say, 'We've got a fan letter.' But after the Fantastic Four came out, we started to get genuine fan mail. At the start, a lot of the letters were written in pencil. After a few months, they were written in ink. A few months after that, we were getting typewritten letters and the return addresses were high schools and colleges."
Richard Barthelemy, the voice coach and accompanist of Enrico Caruso, was French, and the French have a reputation for having a certain regard for a good turn of praise. A high-society woman once sent opera singer Enrico Caruso a very nice gift, which pleased him. Mr. Caruso sent back a souvenir, and he asked Mr. Barthelemy to compose a nice letter to accompany the gift. Mr. Barthelemy did compose the letter, and soon afterward the high-society woman invited him to lunch and said to him, "I have a favor to ask you, for which I desire secrecy. I am going to have you read an extremely charming letter from Monsieur Caruso in which he begs me to accept the lovely souvenir here. I want to thank him, and I've thought of you for that. Would you do me the pleasure of composing an answer to his letter which would have a true French turn to it? I'll recopy it and send it to Monsieur Caruso." Mr. Barthelemy did compose the letter.
In 1980, Joan Jett received 23 rejection letters after sending out tapes that included "I Love Rock 'n' Rock," "Do You Want to Touch Me," and "Crimson and Clover"-three huge hits. The letters said, "No good songs here. You need a song search." Fortunately, Ms. Jett printed 5,000 copies of the record, sold them, printed 5,000 more copies and sold them, and eventually landed a recording deal. She wonders, "Do they just throw these tapes into a bin of music, 'cause they don't have time to listen? And if they do listen, it's kind of scary that someone could hear three top-ten hits and miss them."
While she was in high school, Tamora Pierce wrote a story about a kids' birthday party. She wrote the story out neatly on pencil on 3-ring binder paper and submitted it to Seventeen magazine. The magazine's editor, Babette Rosmund, wrote Tamora a nice letter telling her about how to submit manuscripts (typed, and in a professional format). She also encouraged Tamora to keep on writing. Tamora appreciated such a busy woman taking the time to write her a helpful letter. Later, Tamora became a very successful writer of young adult fantasy literature.
Jerry Spinelli, the author of Crash and Wringer, got many, many rejection letters when he was a young author, but he did not give up. Every time he finished a novel that no publisher would publish, he wrote another novel. Mr. Spinelli once noted that during his first 15 years of writing, he made only $200 from his writing. He also recommended that publishers send rejection bricks instead of rejection letters, noting, "Decades of work should not be able to fit into an envelope. You should be able to build a house with them."
Young people's author Richard Peck has received many letters from the readers of his books. Some are funny, as when someone wrote, "Our teacher told us to write to our favorite author. Could you please get me the address of Danielle Steele?" Other letters are serious; for example, someone wrote to him about Remembering the Good Times, a novel that recounted a suicide and educated the readers about the warning signs of suicides. The person wrote, "The only trouble with your book is that I didn't find it in time."
Karyn McLaughlin Frist edited a book titled "Love you, Daddy Boy": Daughters Honor the Fathers They Love. Just as the title suggests, the book is a collection of reminiscences of loving fathers by loving daughters. The title comes from the way Ms. Frist's father signed his letters that each Monday he wrote to her when she was in college: "Love you, Daddy boy." Her friends used to ask her, "So what did Daddy-boy have to say today?"
Playwright and actor Peter Ustinov had many occupations, including at one time being Rector of Dundee University. Unfortunately, he once received a letter addressed to "The Lord Rectum of Dundee University." Such an error gives one pause, and Sir Peter later said, "And that is how I have seen myself ever since in moments of self-doubt."
Early in her career, Audrey Hepburn attended a Screen Actors Guild at which Marlon Brando was present. She was in awe of him and said hello, but after that they did not speak to each other. Forty years later, Mr. Brando wrote a letter in which he explained why he had not spoken to her. He had been unable to speak because he held her in such awe.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
THE CRIMINALS.
"TOTAL PLANETARY DYSTOPIA UNLESS
"
"SOMEBODY GET THE NET."
"JUST LIKE THE WITCH HUNT, THE MUELLER WITCH HUNT,
"
'THE BEGINNING OF THE END.'
'DARING DONALD.'
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
The weather has finally changed - the last couple of days the airport was "reversed", and when you live on a take-off path, seeing and/or hearing something in-coming really gets your attention the first couple of times.
Lost Disney Film
"Neck 'n' Neck"
When Yasushi Watanabe bought a cartoon film decades ago as a high school student in the Japanese city of Osaka, he had no idea he was purchasing animation history.
But the modest reel he bought for just 500 yen ($4.40 in today's money) has been revealed as a rare lost cartoon produced by Walt Disney featuring a character that led to the creation of Mickey Mouse.
The discovery was reported by Japan's Asahi Shimbun daily, which Watanabe contacted after reading a book about the history of "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit", the character Disney created in the 1920s.
The book said seven of the 26 short films featuring Oswald that Walt Disney produced were missing, and Watanabe remembered his childhood reel.
The newspaper contacted the author of the book and the Walt Disney Archives and confirmed that the reel was indeed one of the missing films, originally titled "Neck 'n' Neck."
"Neck 'n' Neck"
2-Word Message In Binary
Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey is back on the attack against Facebook with his art.
The actor-artist sent the social media giant's CEO Mark Zuckerberg a message in binary code in his new cartoon shared on Twitter Wednesday:
Hey #Zuckerborg. We know who you are. And we saw what you did.
Here's a little message from me in your native language: 01000110 01110101 01100011 01101011 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110 00100000 00001101 00001010
It translates to: "Fuck You."
Jim Carrey
Oxford Dictionaries' Word Of The Year
Toxic
There is a noxious air about Oxford Dictionaries' Word of the Year 2018 - "toxic."
The British publisher, in announcing the choice, revealed "a 45 percent rise in the number of times" the word - which it defines as "poisonous" - was searched for in "an array" of literal and metaphorical contexts on its websites this year.
"In 2018, toxic added many strings to its poisoned bow becoming an intoxicating descriptor for the year's most talked about topics," the publisher said in a statement online Thursday. "It is the sheer scope of its application, as found by our research, that made toxic the stand-out choice for the Word of the Year title."
Eight other words made Oxford's shortlist.
Toxic
Only Surviving Bronzes
Michelangelo
A team of leading art researchers has revealed that two bronze sculptures of nude men riding panther-like creatures are the work of Michelangelo, bearing hallmarks of the Renaissance artist's oeuvre including distinctive toes and his signature "eight-pack" stomach muscles.
The team, led by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, conducted close to four years of research to confirm a claim from February 2015 that the sculptures were Michelangelo's only surviving bronzes.
The museum released extensive evidence Wednesday confirming the attribution of the sculptures, known as the Rothschild bronzes, highlighting their unique anatomical features.
Researchers employed the expertise of scientists -- including Peter Abrahams, professor of clinical anatomy at Warwick Medical School -- to decipher key characteristics of the master's works.
"I then went and had a look at all the toes that I could find anywhere in Michelangelo's oeuvre. Out of 40 toes, all except for two fitted this brief: they had a short big toe and a long second toe, and the big toe goes outwards -- it looks like someone is wearing a flip-flop in between the toes."
Michelangelo
First Major Rain in Centuries
Atacama Desert
After not experiencing any meaningful amounts of precipitation for at least 500 years, Chile's Atacama Desert is finally getting some rain. Quite unexpectedly, however, these rains-instead of fostering life-are doing the exact opposite.
Life on Earth cannot exist without water, but for microbes highly adapted to arid conditions, the sudden introduction of excess water can be utterly devastating. Such is the conclusion of a new paper published this week in Scientific Reports. Fascinatingly, these findings, while applicable to life on Earth, may also apply to ancient Mars-a planet possibly capable of fostering microbial life during its ancient past, but at the same time susceptible to catastrophic flooding.
Located in northern Chile, the 105,000-square-kilometer (40,540-square-mile) Atacama Desert is one of the oldest and driest deserts on Earth, and it's been this way for 150 million years. This desert features a hyperarid core, with climate models predicting major rainfall events at a paltry rate of once per century. That said, no significant rainfall had been recorded in this region for the past 500 years.
Since 2015, this desert has experienced three significant rainfall events-two in 2015 and one in 2017. Water from these rains collected in super-salty lagoons, which lingered for several months before dissipating. In light of these unprecedented meteorological events, a team of astrobiologists from Cornell University and Spain's Center for Astrobiology (CAB) visited Atacama to see how the rains and these hypersaline lagoons may have affected microbial life in this exceptionally arid place.
The unprecedented rains, the authors say, are the result of changing climatic conditions over the Pacific Ocean. An extensive "mass of clouds" came to the desert from the Pacific Ocean-an "unprecedented phenomenon," the researchers say, that occurred twice in three years.
Atacama Desert
Uh-Oh
SpaghettiOs
Police are investigating an assault involving several cans of SpaghettiOs in Pittsburgh.
WTAE-TV reports a woman told police she was meeting someone in the city's Terrace Village neighborhood last month when another woman approached her and began throwing the canned spaghetti at her vehicle.
The victim says the suspect tried stabbing her with a knife, and she was sliced in the finger.
Police say the victim got away, and also managed to take the attacker's purse with her. Items in the purse helped authorities identify the suspect as 59-year-old Eileen Gettleman.
Police say the victim's car was left with a broken back window and a splattering of red sauce and pasta.
SpaghettiOs
Christie's Auction
Pink Diamond
A rare pink diamond has sold for a world record price, British auction house Christie's has said.
The "Pink Legacy", weighing in at just under 19 carats, is the largest vivid pink diamond to have ever been put under the hammer.
Dubbed the "Leonardo da Vinci of diamonds", the jewel was purchased by renowned jeweller brand Harry Winston for more than $50m (£39m) in Geneva.
The auction house said it is among one of the most chemically pure gems in the world.
It once belonged to the Oppenheimer diamond family and has been graded as "fancy vivid" - the highest level of colour intensity for a diamond.
Pink Diamond
In Memory
Roy Clark
Country star Roy Clark, the guitar virtuoso and singer who headlined the cornpone TV show "Hee Haw" for nearly a quarter century and was known for such hits as "Yesterday When I was Young" and "Honeymoon Feeling," has died. He was 85.
Clark was "Hee Haw" host or co-host for its entire 24-year run, with Buck Owens his best known co-host. Started in 1969, the show featured the top stars in country music, including Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Charley Pride, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, as well as other musical greats including Ray Charles, Chet Atkins and Boots Randolph. The country music and comedy show's last episode aired in 1993, though reruns continued for a few years thereafter.
Clark played the guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, harmonica and other instruments. His skills brought him gigs as guest performer with many top orchestras, including the Boston Pops. In 1976 he headlined a tour of the Soviet Union, breaking boundaries that were usually closed to Americans.
His hits included "The Tips of My Fingers" (1963), "Yesterday When I Was Young" (1969), "Come Live With Me" (1973) and "Honeymoon Feeling" (1974). He was also known for his instrumental versions of "Malaguena," on 12-string guitar, and "Ghost Riders in the Sky."
Clark was guest host on "The Tonight Show" several times in the 1960s and 1970s when it was rare for a country performer to land such a role. His fans included not just musicians, but baseball great Mickey Mantle. The Yankees outfielder was moved to tears by "Yesterday When I Was Young" and for years made Clark promise to sing it at his memorial - a request granted after Mantle died in 1995.
Beginning in 1983, Clark operated the Roy Clark Celebrity Theatre in Branson, Missouri, and was one of the first country entertainers to open a theater there. Dozens followed him.
Clark was born in Meherrin, Virginia, and received his first guitar on his 14th Christmas. He was playing in his father's square dance band at age 15.
Clark and Owens worked together for years, but they had very different feelings about "Hee Haw." Owens, who left the show in 1986, later referred to it as a "cartoon donkey," one he endured for "that big paycheck." Clark told The Associated Press in 2004 that "Hee Haw" was like a family reunion.
Roy Clark
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