Spending his last three years impoverished and in exile, this Irish poet and playwright took the name "Sebastian Melmoth". By what name is he more famously known?
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 - 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, the early 1890s saw him become one of the most popular playwrights in London. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for "gross indecency", imprisonment, and early death at age 46.
He spent his last three years impoverished and in exile. He took the name "Sebastian Melmoth", after Saint Sebastian and the titular character of Melmoth the Wanderer (a Gothic novel by Charles Maturin, Wilde's great-uncle). Wilde wrote two long letters to the editor of the Daily Chronicle, describing the brutal conditions of English prisons and advocating penal reform. His discussion of the dismissal of Warder Martin for giving biscuits to an anaemic child prisoner repeated the themes of the corruption and degeneration of punishment that he had earlier outlined in The Soul of Man under Socialism.
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Randall was first, and correct, with:
Oscar Wilde
Mark. said:
Oscar Wilde.
Cal in Vermont wrote:
Oscar Wilde.
Alan J answered:
Oscar Wilde.
Dave responded:
Oscar Wilde. Another genius whose life was ruined by Britain's laws against gay men.
Micki replied:
Oscar Wilde.
mj wrote:
The man without whom
We would probably never know of Beardsley prints, Oscar Wilde.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, responded:
Oscar Wilde
zorch said:
Oscar Wilde.
Rosemary in Columbus wrote:
Oscar Wilde
DJ Useo answered:
The correct answer is Oscar Wilde, although I would also accept the names Wilfred Bugdoodle, & Tedward McSabotage. lol
Deborah responded:
Sebastion Melmoth is better known as Oscar Wilde. He was born 100 years and 5 days before I was. Now that's some trivia.
A hair salon and a barber opened up their shops here in my little 'burb on Friday, in defiance of Governor Goodhair's suggestion to stay closed. I knew about the salon but not the barber. My sister was walking the boardwalk - the beach is still closed (!!!) in New Jersey --yesterday and texted me that she heard I could get a trim at Primo's Barbershop. Cue the irony button, hehe.
Daniel in The City replied:
Oscar Wilde
Billy in Cypress U$A said:
Wiki says that Oscar Wilde is the answer today.
Barbara, of Peppy Tech fame wrote:
The answer is Oscar Wilde.
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• The world-famous tenor Leo Slezak was a stamp collector. He once met a man who told him that he too was a stamp collector and that he could show Mr. Slezak some interesting specimens. Intrigued, Mr. Slezak took the stranger's card and later visited him. Unfortunately, it turned out that the stranger wasn't a stamp collector at all, but had lied as a way to get a celebrity to visit him and his family. Having trapped Mr. Slezak into visiting him, the stranger asked for free tickets to a concert and then tried to sell him insurance. After that experience, Mr. Slezak kept his hobby a secret from the public.
• Joseph Burke played piano for Jenny Lind in the United Sates, and he loved her singing. Afterward, whenever he was asked to comment on the performance of another soprano, he would say, "Well, I once knew a lady and her name was Jane Lind and she used to sing to me very often; since then I have never really listened to anyone else, so my opinion of others would be biased and worthless."
• Fans treasure things that their heroes touch. Music producer Don Fleming, who worked with Alice Cooper, attended a Ramones concert where Johnny Ramone was playing so fast and furiously that he lost a couple of guitar picks. Mr. Fleming managed to get one, which he later gifted to fellow Ramones fan Joan Jett.
• Country music superstar Chet Atkins once quietly joined a group of musicians who didn't know who he was, and he played with them for an hour, then left. As he was leaving, one of the musicians called after him, "You ain't no Chet Atkins, but you're pretty d*mn good." Mr. Atkins smiled.
• Lesbians often act pretty much like heterosexual women. At a rock concert, heterosexual female fans sometimes throw underwear on stage. At concerts featuring The Indigo Girls, their lesbian fans sometimes throw underwear, flowers, and telephone numbers on stage.
• The Cliks are a queer band. At one time, it was an all-female band, but their guitarist/lead singer transitioned into a man named Lucas Silveira. How do you know when you're a rock star? Mr. Silveira knew after a fan asked him to autograph her breasts. He says, "It's a true sign of success."
Food
• Tito Gobbi made his debut in Parma, Italy, whose residents are opera knowledgeable, and whose approval means a great deal. Mr. Gobbi arrived in Parma in a new car, and immediately Parma's residents arrived - to look at him, not the car. The proprietor of a butcher shop even told him, "You should have come here with a special voice, not a special car." When Mr. Gobbi made his Parma debut, at first he thought that the audience was rejecting him, as he did not get applause in the usual places. However, the applause came in great waves at the end of his performance, and he learned later that the audience had refrained from applauding his very high-quality singing earlier simply because they were waiting to see if he could sustain the very high quality for the entire performance. The next day, Mr. Gobbi passed the butcher shop on his way to a restaurant, and soon after he entered the restaurant, the butcher also entered the restaurant, carrying a huge steak. The butcher yelled, "Where is the special baritone with the special car and the special voice? Here is a special sirloin for him!" The restaurant cooked the steak for him, and Mr. Gobbi enjoyed both the special steak and the special approval of the butcher and the other residents of Parma.
CBS opens the night with a FRESH'The Neighborhood', followed by another FRESH'The Neighborhood', then a FRESH'All Rise', followed by a FRESH'Bull'.
Scheduled on a FRESHStephen Colbert it's TBA.
Scheduled on a FRESHJames Corden, OBE, are Allison Janney and 5 Seconds of Summer.
NBC begins the night with a FRESH'The Voice', followed by a FRESH'Songland'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Fallon are Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, Evan Rachel Wood, and Annie Lennox.
Scheduled on a FRESHSeth Meyers is Ricky Gervais.
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ABC starts the night with a FRESH'The Bachelor', followed by a FRESH'The Baker & The Beauty'.
Scheduled on a FRESHJimmy Kimmel are Sandra Oh and Ellie Goulding.
The CW offers a FRESH'Whose Line Is It Anyway?', followed by a RERUN'Whose Line Is It Anyway?', then a FRESH'Roswell, New Mexico'.
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MY recycles an old 'L&O: SVU', followed by another old 'L&O: SVU'.
AMC offers the movie 'Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers', followed by the movie 'Halloween', then a FRESH'Creepshow'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - Call to Arms
[7:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - A Time to Stand
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[9:00AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - Rocks and Shoals
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[2:00PM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - Resurrection
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[5:00PM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - Waltz
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[7:00PM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - One Little Ship
[8:00PM] FANTASTIC FOUR
[10:30PM] FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER
[12:32AM] FANTASTIC FOUR
[3:01AM] FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER
[5:02AM] STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE - Honor Among Thieves (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Below Deck Sailing Yacht', followed by a FRESH'Below Deck Sailing Yacht', then another FRESH'Below Deck Sailing Yacht', followed by a FRESH'Camp Getaway', then a FRESH'Watch What Happens: Live'.
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[12:00A] Two and a Half Men
[12:30A] Two and a Half Men
[1:00A] That '70s Show
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[6:00am] Love Lust
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[5:00pm] The Dirty Dozen
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SyFy has the movie 'The Fifth Element', followed by the movie 'The Fast & The Furious', then the movie '2 Fast & 2 Furious'.
TBS:
Scheduled on a FRESHConan is Shailene Woodley.
Mere weeks after recovering from COVID-19, Tom Hanks has emerged as the busiest man in Hollywood. Fresh from hosting Saturday Night Live at Home from his kitchen and donating plasma, the Oscar winner has emerged as the commencement speaker for an Ohio university's graduating class.
On Saturday, Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio shared the video Hanks made for seniors graduating from its Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures. Local news station WDTN reports that professor and department artistic director W. Stuart McDowell is a longtime friend of the star, who visited the campus in 2016 to dedicate the Tom Hanks Center for Motion Pictures in addition to assisting in fundraising efforts.
Hanks agreed to submit a five-minute video, filmed at home, for the school's virtual graduation ceremony. Members of Wright's Class of 2020, meanwhile, have been posting photos of their graduation looks online.
"I'm here to say congratulations," the 63-year-old star began. "Congratulations to you chosen ones. And I am calling you 'the chosen ones' because you have been chosen in many ways. First, by the temperament and discipline you've lived by, by the creative fires that are inside of you and the distinctive lunges of your desires. There is something about you, all of you - in your upbringing and your background and your conscious memories and your ongoing mysteries - something that has driven you to complete your courses and achieve your selected challenges across the rubicon of your time there, your studies at Wright State. You succeeded because of the aid and the love of others that are in your lives, without a doubt. But you have succeeded mostly because you, and you alone, chose to do so. You are the chosen ones."
"You are the chosen ones because of a fate unimagined when you began your Wright State adventures," he noted. "You started in the olden times, in a world back before the Great Pandemic of 2020. You will talk of those earlier years in your lives in just that way: 'Well, that was back before the COVID-19. That was before the Great Pandemic.' Part of your lives will forever be identified as 'before,' in the same way other generations tell time like, 'Well, that was before the war,' or 'that was before the internet' or 'that was before Beyoncé.' The word 'before' is going to carry great weight with you."
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer watched last weekend's "Saturday Night Live at Home" and noticed one thing wrong about Cecily Strong's impression of her. She was drinking a Canadian Labatt beer - not a Michigan brew - so the governor mailed her a homemade care package.
Strong, one of the long-running "SNL" cast members, posted a photo of her gifts on Instagram. Whitmer mailed her mugs, drink sleeves, a t-shirt and several cases of beer from Bell's Brewery, one of the largest independent craft breweries in Michigan.
"Got a giant and gorgeous Michigan care package sent to New York courtesy of that super cool woman from Michigan," Strong wrote. "Honestly, this blew me away!"
Strong also thanked "SNL" writers Sudi Green and Fran Gillespie for writing the skit. "I'm sorry I can't share with you in person, so cheers to you from afar!" she wrote.
In an interview last week with local news station Fox 2 Detroit, Whitmer joked, "They got the beer wrong. It should've been a Michigan beer, not a Labatt. We love Canada, but we drink Michigan beer."
The FCC might not have much choice but to hand over data logs for fake net neutrality comments. A federal judge has ordered (via Gizmodo) the regulator to turn over server records to New York Times reporters that would reveal the IP addresses behind bogus comments supporting the net neutrality repeal. The FCC had contended that divulging the IP addresses would represent an "unwarranted invasion of personal privacy," but Judge Lorna Schofield said the agency didn't really explain how anyone would be hurt by transferring the data.
The judge argued that the benefits clearly outweighed the drawbacks, as fake comments threatened the very nature of the public input system. The "notice-and-comment process has failed" if there are more fraudulent comments than real ones," Schofield said.
The NYT reporters filed a Freedom of Information Request for the data after the FCC refused to show logs. In theory, they'll show both the extent of fake commenting and help trace it back to groups that may have been involved. Investigations have suggested that over half of the comments are fake, and some of the comments appear linked to dark money groups determined to skew the political discussion.
The FCC hasn't commented on the decision. However, it has a long history of fighting attempts to address the flawed net neutrality commenting process. In addition to trying to block log requests, it insisted its comment system had fallen prey to a cyberattack only to admit the attack never happened. It even rejected city governments' requests in recent weeks to extend a commenting window. It won't be surprising if the FCC contests this court ruling in a last-ditch bid to keep the comments' origins a secret.
Donald Trump (R-Failure)'s daughter-in-law Lara Trump (R-Eric's Wife) roused considerable consternation on social media Sunday after she went all-in on demanding Democrats turn over documents to prove that accusations of sexual assault against Joe Biden were false.
"I would think if you were being accused of something and you were totally innocent, you would go to any length possible, Judge, to try and clear your name, including allowing people to open up files like that and make sure you've turned over every single leaf to prove your innocence and make sure people understood that these charges were false and that you did nothing wrong," Eric Trump's wife told Fox News' Judge Jeanine Pirro (R-Hic) Saturday night.
Trump dragged Democrats for continuing to support the former vice president in his bid for commander-in-chief rather than taking the "believe all women" stance they maintained when Christine Blasey Ford claimed Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were in college.
Noting the irony in her request for total transparency - President Trump has refused to release his tax returns and dozens of women have accused of sexual misconduct - Twitter users piled on her for her hypocritical call to action.
New data from the University of Pennsylvania suggests that relaxing lockdowns across U.S. cities and states could have serious consequences for the country's battle to contain the coronavirus, which has infected over a million people while killing more than 66,000 people.
According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM), reopening states will result in an additional 233,000 deaths from the virus - even if states don't reopen at all and with social distancing rules in place. This means that if the states were to reopen, 350,000 people in total would die from coronavirus by the end of June, the study found.
Kent Smetters, the PWBM's director, said the decision to reopen states is ultimately a "normative judgement that comes down to the statistical value of life."
He explained: "That's not a crude way of saying we put a dollar value on life, but it's the idea that people will take risks all the time for economic reward."
That figure far surpasses estimates and models that the White House has cited from the University of Washington, which put the death toll at roughly 73,000 by the start of August.
The National Rifle Association has laid off dozens of employees, canceled its national convention and scuttled fundraising, membership and shooting events that normally would be key to rallying its base in an election year.
The coronavirus pandemic has upended the gun-rights organization during what should be heady times for the group, in the middle of presidential election and with gun owners riled up over what they see as an effort by authorities to trample on their Second Amendment rights.
The NRA, which boasts about 5 million members, in recent weeks laid off or furloughed dozens of employees, imposed a four-day workweek for some employees and cut salaries across the board, including for CEO Wayne LaPierre. The financial issues, combined with the cancellation of fundraisers and the national convention, which would have surely drawn a visit from President Donald Trump, have complicated its ability to influence the 2020 election.
In a memo to staff, LaPierre said 20% salary cuts were across the board while some senior staffers "voluntarily" reduced their wages even more. He said the staffing reductions and other changes were intended to be temporary.
The plan was simple but perilous. Some 300 heavily armed volunteers planned to sneak into Venezuela from the northern tip of South America and ignite a popular rebellion that would end in President Nicolas Maduro's arrest.
Instead, the ringleader of the plot is now jailed in the U.S. on narcotics charges. Authorities in Colombia are asking questions about the role of his former U.S. Green Beret adviser. And dozens of combatants who flocked to secret training camps in Colombia have been left to fend for themselves amid a global pandemic.
This bizarre, never-told story of a call to arms that crashed before it launched is drawn from interviews with more than 30 Maduro opponents and aspiring freedom fighters directly involved in or familiar with its planning. Most spoke on condition of anonymity fearing retaliation.
The poorly-planned operation stood little chance of beating the Venezuelan army, said Ephraim Mattos, a former U.S. Navy SEAL who trained some of the would-be combatants in basic first aid.
When hints of the conspiracy surfaced last month, the Maduro-controlled state media portrayed it as a CIA plot. An Associated Press investigation found no evidence of U.S. government involvement in the plot. Nevertheless, interviews revealed that leaders of Venezuela's U.S.-backed opposition knew of the covert force, even if they dismissed its prospects.
Tel Aviv's Pussycat used to bill itself as the premier strip club in the Middle East, allegedly popular among Israeli TV stars and military brass for its notorious private lounge.
Before its closure last year, the Pussycat was a magnet for hedonists in the Mediterranean commercial hub sometimes dubbed Israel's "Sin City" and known for beachside cocktails and hipster bars.
Now, the eye-catching round mirrored building near the beach that hosted the club since it was founded in 2000 has been converted into a centre for social activism, opening its doors to community programmes.
The club's demise was partly sealed by legal changes cracking down on alleged prostitution, developments which forced the closure of all of Tel Aviv's strip joints.
That was a victory for some anti-prostitution campaigners, while others insisted that properly managed strip clubs allowed women to make good money in a safe environment.
A rare snow leopard captured as it savaged livestock in a remote village in the Indian Himalaya will be sent to a zoo instead of being released, officials said Sunday, triggering outrage from activists.
The endangered creature was found on Saturday after it became trapped inside a pen containing sheep and goats in Giu village near the Tibetan border in India's Himachal Pradesh state.
The state's chief wildlife official Savita Sharma told AFP the snow leopard was not being released since the incident involved "wild animal-human conflict," adding it would be transferred to a zoo in the foothills outside the state capital Shimla.
Officials estimated that the juvenile animal killed 43 sheep and goats in the pen over four days.
There are only 44 snow leopards living in the high passes and rugged valleys of Himachal Pradesh, according to Sharma.
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