from Bruce
Anecdotes
Death
• According to etiquette expert Grace Fox, if you are choking, you should not leave the table. You may need someone to perform the Heimlich maneuver on you and save your life. (It’s impolite to choke to death at a dinner party or a restaurant.)
• While traveling abroad, Mark Twain read newspapers reports that he had died, so he sent this telegram to the Associated Press: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
Education
• On 26 February 1993, a terrorist bomb exploded in the underground parking garage beneath the World Trade Center in New York. Among the people on the 107th floor of the South Tower were nearly 100 children from the five kindergarten classes at Brooklyn’s Public School 95. Three classes of children made it down the elevator safely before the bomb exploded. Anna Marie Tesoriero and her class of children, as well as other passengers and a few parents, were in the elevator when the bomb exploded. The elevator stopped, and four hours later they were rescued. Still on the 107th floor was Rosemarie Russo with her class of kindergartners. Smoke began to fill the air, and Ms. Russo and her class and the other people on the 107th floor went to the roof, five floors higher, for fresh air. The children interlocked their arms and climbed the escalators, which of course were no longer running. A light snow was falling, and Ms. Russo kept the children close to a wall for shelter from the wind. Some people around them gave Ms. Russo some clothing — a coat, some gloves, and scarves — to help keep the children warm. Ms. Russo said, “One of my little girls was wearing patent leather shoes and anklets, and a man who worked in the building picked her up and put her on his shoulders so her feet wouldn’t get cold from the snow.” Ms. Russo was an experienced teacher, and she had brought a shopping bag filled with supplies, including lollipops, popcorn, pretzels, and raisins, because, she said, “You never know with kids.” She passed out the treats. She also had the children sing songs as they waited. Ms. Russo says about her students, “They were fine. They forgot about the emergency; they forgot about the cold.” Hours later, the smoke had cleared, and everyone on the roof was able to begin walking down the stairs to street level — over 100 stories. Two firefighters used their axes to break the glass door of a gift shop and take out boxes of small souvenir penlights. Each kindergartner got a penlight to help light the way down the dark stairs. Ms. Russo said that while the penlights were being passed out, “They [the kindergartners] played all kinds of games with them. They used them to play dentist and look in one another’s mouths. They looked in one another’s ears.” Then they started walking down the stairs. Once they reached the 95th floor, they stopped to eat a snack of cookies, milk, and juice at tables that emergency workers had set up. Then they started walking down the stairs again. Usually, the children counted each step on a flight of stairs — 20 stairs to each flight. Ms. Russo says about her students, “It was an adventure for them.” At the bottom of each flight, Ms. Russo, who led the way down, called to her educational assistant, Dorothy Byrd, who brought up the rear, “Everything OK, Dorothy?” She also checked with the parents who were present. In addition, firefighters and other emergency personnel often checked in with the group to see if everything was OK. The floors were numbered, and so Ms. Russo always knew how many floors were left to go down. She would tell the children things such as, “Just 67 more. Not far. Not far.” Finally, they reached the street level. The children shouted, “We made it! We made it!” Climbing down the stairs from the roof had taken two and one-half hours. Ms. Tesoriero and Ms. Russo and their classes took the same bus back to Public School 95, where the children were reunited with happy parents. One mother said, “My son can go to the Bronx Zoo or the Botanical Gardens, to concerts or shows, but nothing with an elevator.”
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Track: “Desde 1977” [“From 1977”]
EP: EFLUVIOS INSTRUMENTALES [INSTRUMENTAL EFFLUVIA]
Artist: Los Atascados
Artist Location: Mexico City, Mexico
Info: “Los Atascados is an instrumental Surf Music Band, based in Mexico City, with diverse harmonies and arrangements — from many musical references, making our own identity — matching with the classic 1960s reverb sound.”
Los Atascados are:
Le Gustave: Drums.
Omar “Kaliman” Trejo: Guitar
Bethronome: Guitar
Mike: Bass
Composition and arrangements: Los Atascados.
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $6 (USA) for six-track EP
Genre: Instrumental Surf.
Links:
EFLUVIOS INSTRUMENTALES
Los Atascados on Bandcamp
Other Links:
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Reader Suggestion
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New Venture
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Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Another extra hot day. Ack.
Honorary Degree From UNLV
Ann-Margret
Famed entertainer Ann-Margret has been awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from UNLV..
She told the graduates at Saturday’s commencement ceremony inside a packed Thomas & Mack Center of her collegiate background, according to the Las Vegas-Review Journal.
“I did one year at Northwestern ... but I worked really hard that one year,” said Ann-Margret, who was born in Sweden in 1941.
The singer, dancer and actress joined the Suttletones music act at the Dunes Lounge in Nevada in 1960. Four years later, Ann-Margret co-starred in the hit movie “Viva Las Vegas” with Elvis Presley.
The two performed the wild “C’mon Everybody” number at UNLV’s gymnasium/dance studio set, with the “University of Nevada” sign in the background. That space is now UNLV’s Barrick Museum of Art.
Ann-Margret
Weekend Box Office
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” stayed on top of the box office charts during its second weekend in theaters, earning an additional $61 million from North American theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday.
With $688 million in global grosses, it’s already one of the highest grossing films of the pandemic and the second biggest of 2022. But a 67% fall is also a steep drop — even for reliably frontloaded superhero films. Still, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” slid 68% in weekend two.
Starring Zac Efron and Ryan Kiera Armstrong, “Firestarter” earned just $3.8 million from 3,412 North American theaters. Reviews for the film didn’t drop until the day of release, but critics have been less than impressed with this iteration of King’s story about a preteen with pyrokinetic powers. Audiences weren’t on board either, giving it a C- CinemaScore. As Dergarabedian noted, however, no film that opens “day and date” in theaters and on streaming is expecting to break any records.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” $61 million
2. “The Bad Guys,” $6.9 million.
3. “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” $4.6 million.
4. “Firestarter,” $3.8 million.
5. “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” $3.3 million.
6. “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” $2.4 million.
7. “The Lost City,” $1.7 million.
8. “The Northman,” $1.7 million.
9. “Family Camp,” $1.4 million.
10. “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” $1 million.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”
Eurovision Win
Kalush Orchestra
Ukrainian band Kalush Orchestra, fresh off its Eurovision victory, released a new music video Sunday of its winning hit “Stefania” that features scenes of war-ravaged Ukraine and women in combat gear, as the annual song contest took on ever more political tones given Russia’s war.
“This is how we see Ukrainian mothers today,” Kalush frontman Oleh Psiuk said of the video, which had already racked up millions of views within hours of its release. “We were trying to deliver the message of what Ukraine looks like today.”
Band members posed for photos and signed autographs outside their three-star Turin hotel Sunday, packing their own luggage into taxis en route to an interview with Italian host broadcaster RAI before heading home. They must return to Ukraine on Monday after being given special permission to leave the country to attend the competition; most Ukrainian men between age 18 and 60 are barred from leaving in case they are needed to fight.
“Stefania” was penned by lead singer Psiuk as a tribute to his mother, but since Russia’s invasion it has become an anthem to the motherland, with lyrics that pledge: “I’ll always find my way home, even if all roads are destroyed.”
Kalush Orchestra
60th Anniversary
Doctor Who
The BBC has confirmed that Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary celebration in 2023 will see David Tennant and Catherine Tate return as the 10th Doctor and Donna Noble.
Although Tennant and Tate have regularly teamed up for audio adventures with Big Finish since their exits from the series in 2010's “The End of Time”, the 2023 anniversary—the first episode also back for Russell T Davies as Doctor Who’s next showrunner—will see Tennant return as the Doctor on screen for the first time since 2013's 50th anniversary special, “The Day of the Doctor.” As for Tate, it’ll be her first re-appearance since her exit as a regular at the climax of the show’s fourth season in 2008 with “Journey’s End.”
Uncertain as to just might show up, given this curveball? Ncuti Gatwa’s newly-announced 14th Doctor, who is expected to be teased at the climax of outgoing star Jodie Whittaker’s final episode set to broadcast in late 2022. Announced as the latest Doctor on Sunday, May 8, Gatwa will presumably play some role in the 60th anniversary. Although, just how big that role is, given Tennant and Tate’s just announced return, remains to be seen.
Doctor Who returns to BBC One and BBC America later this year.
Doctor Who
Pro-Rape State
Nebraska
If Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court, Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts (R-Religiously Insane) wants to ban abortion in his state, and he wants that ban to apply to victims of rape.
CNN’s State of the Union host Dana Bash asked the governor about a recent effort he supported to pass a “trigger” abortion ban that would go into effect immediately if the Supreme Court rules to overturn abortion rights, which appears to be imminent considering the recently leaked Supreme Court draft opinion.
The host then asked, “Do you think that the state of Nebraska should require a young girl who was raped to carry that pregnancy to term?”
“Including in the case of rape or incest?” Bash clarified.
“They’re still babies too. Yes, they’re still babies,” the Republican replied.
Nebraska
Incites Violence At Rally
Nugent
Ted Nugent called on supporters of Donald Trump Individual #1 to go “berserk on the skulls of Democrats” during a performance on the former president’s “American Freedom Tour” in Austin, Texas, on Saturday.
Nugent has been an outspoken supporter of Trump the grifter, regularly perpetuating false claims about the 2020 presidential election and spreading conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic. During his latest public appearance, he called upon the estimated 8,000 attendees to assault those he deems “enemies of America.”
“They didn’t sneak into the White House — they lied, they cheated, they scammed, and every day the Democrats violate their sacred oath to the Constitution. And if you can’t impress your friends on that, they shouldn’t be your friends,” he said to cheers from the crowd.
“So I love you people madly,” he continued, “but I’d love you more if you went forward and just went berserk on the skulls of the Democrats and the Marxists and the Communists.”
Nugent’s violent rhetoric came just hours after a white supremacist murdered 10 people and injured three others in a deadly shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. In a manifesto found by law enforcement, the shooter cited Great Replacement Theory (CRT), a racist conspiracy theory perpetuated by major far-right figures like Fox News host Tucker Carlson and House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik‘s that claims that Democrats are attempting to replace the population of white Americans with people of color.
Nugent
Survives Column Clash, Going Nonprofit
The Chicago Reader
The Chicago Reader, the city’s famed alt-weekly, is expected to become a nonprofit this month after the sale was nearly derailed over a co-owner’s column opposing COVID-19 vaccine requirements for children.
The publication was on track to be sold to the new nonprofit last year until the November printing of defense attorney Leonard Goodman’s column headlined “Vaxxing our kids” prompted allegations of misinformation and censorship.
Goodman agreed to step aside in late April, allowing the sale to go through. Still, the standoff among the alt-weekly’s managers left staff members in limbo for months, wondering if the Reader would be shut down after surviving multiple previous sales and the coronavirus pandemic.
Publisher Tracy Baim said editors asked to hire an independent fact-checker to vet the column. Baim said she and her co-publisher then met with Goodman and discussed options, but “it was very clear he didn’t like any” of their proposals.
Goodman said the Reader should have stood by him once the piece was published, regardless of his argument.
The Chicago Reader
Volcanic Eruption
Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai
On January 15, 2022, an underwater volcano erupted near the small island of Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai. Not only did it send atmospheric shock waves, sonic booms and tsunami waves all around the world, but scientists say they just found that effects also reached space.
NASA researchers analyzed data and found that hurricane-speed winds and unusual electric currents formed in the ionosphere in the hours after the eruption.
"The volcano created one of the largest disturbances in space we've seen in the modern era," said Brian Harding, a physicist at the University of California, Berkeley. "It is allowing us to test the poorly understood connection between the lower atmosphere and space."
NASA says that the eruption created significant pressure disturbances in the atmosphere, leading to strong winds. As the winds expanded upwards into thinner atmospheric layers, they moved faster. Upon reaching the ionosphere and the edge of space, ICON clocked the windspeeds at up to 450 mph – making them the strongest winds below 120 miles altitude measured by the mission since its launch.
Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai
Leaking Mural
Johnny Cash
An Arkansas town is upset after someone shot a hole in their water tower in a very specific, and unfortunate location.
The water tower in Kingsland, the birthplace of Johnny Cash, bears a painted silhouette of the famous Man in Black — but an unknown person recently took careful aim at Cash’s crotch and pulled the trigger. Now the mural is perpetually leaking from that spot, video shared May 11 by the Cleveland County Herald shows.
Betty Graham, water office manager, told the Herald it could take as long as a week to fix the damage.
While not condoning vandalism, some felt that the perpetrator displayed a certain degree of panache.
Johnny Cash
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