from Bruce
Anecdotes
Church
• A Vermonter was the only person to show up for early morning church services, so the minister asked the Vermonter what they should do. The Vermonter replied, “When I take a load of hay out into the field to feed the cows, and only one cow shows up, I don’t turn her away hungry.” Hearing this, the minister preached to his audience of one a sermon well over an hour long, and then he asked the Vermonter what he thought of the sermon. The Vermonter replied, “When I take a load of hay out into the field to feed the cows, and only one cow shows up, I don’t make her eat the whole load.”
• According to Quakers, speaking in unprogrammed meeting is not something that can be planned; instead, it is a matter of divine inspiration. John Warren attended a meeting in Maine, where people expected that he would speak. However, he didn’t feel the Holy Spirit calling him to say anything, so he remained silent. After an hour in which no one spoke, the meeting was over, and Mr. Warren started walking out of the meetingplace. He overheard one boy tell another, “Didn’t that beat the devil!” Mr. Warren turned around and told the boy, “That is what it is intended to do.”
• The Quakers, aka Friends, perform social (and religious) service as well as attend religious meetings. They often hold unprogrammed meetings in which people are silent unless someone feels moved to speak. A person who knew nothing about Quakers attended a meeting and waited and waited for something to happen, but everyone remained silent. Finally, he nudged a Quaker and asked, “When does the service begin?” The Quaker replied, “The service begins when the meeting ends.”
• Mark Twain attended the church of his friend, the Reverend Joseph Twichell, and he became very interested in the sermon. After the church service was over, Mr. Twain told Reverend Twichell, “Joe, this mustn’t happen again. When I go to church, I go for a good rest and quiet nap. Today I haven’t been able to get a single wink. I tell you it won’t do; and it must not happen again.”
• Ballerina Margot Fonteyn seldom attended church as a child, because her mother believed in letting children go to church only when they wanted. Why did Margot’s mother believe that? Because when she was a little girl, she had been forced each Sunday to attend church three times. As a grownup, she went to church only for weddings.
• A Sunday School teacher asked her class, “What do you think about when you see the church doors open to everyone who wants to worship God here?” An African-American student answered, “It’s like walking into the heart of God.”
• After first arriving in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin attended a silent Quaker meeting. He fell asleep and did not wake until someone roused him when the meeting was over.
Clothing
• Reb Simcha loved and admired his father, Reb Elchanan. When Reb Elchanan’s shoes wore out, he gave his young son money to buy a new pair. When his son returned with the shoes, Reb Elchanan put them on and walked about. Seeing that his father looked perturbed, young Simcha asked what was wrong. Reb Elchanan replied, “My son, the laces upset me. I usually don’t wear shoes with laces. Now I will have to spend time lacing my shoes, unlacing them when a lace breaks, tying them in the morning, untying them at night; they will require precious time that could be used instead for learning.”
• A very stupid man had trouble getting dressed every morning because he could not find his clothes. One day, he had the idea of writing down where he put his clothes when he went to bed. The next morning, he looked at the writing, found his pants and put them on, then he looked at the writing again, found his shirt and put it on, and so on. But when he was dressed, he said, “But where am I? Where in the World am I?” He looked and looked, but he could not find where he was in the World. According to Rabbi Hanokh, we are like this man: We cannot find ourselves and we do not know where we are in the World.
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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: "Cecilia"
Album: RECKLESS RIVER
Artist: Zoe Wren
Artist Location: London, UK
Info:
“Zoë has produced a mature, exquisitely well-crafted album of great beauty and listening pleasure, deserving of a wide audience. [RECKLESS RIVER] confirms her place at the high table of the current crop of the country’s young singer-songwriters.”
— Folk Radio UK
“Zoë is now standing shoulder to shoulder with the best singer songwriters around. This is a debut album of astonishing quality … Fantastic from start to finish, this is a record you’ll want to listen to again and again.”
— /b>FATEA
“Steeped in the very best of classic contemporary and traditional folk from both sides of the Atlantic, blessed with a pure, emotive voice that flows across her melodies like a clear stream.”
— Folking.com
“An acoustic rendition of my song ‘Cecilia,’ based on the life of my Slovene great-grandmother. I might never have been born if she had fulfilled her original plan of becoming a nun!”
Price: £1 (GBP) for track; £10 (GBP) for 10-track album
Genre: Folk. Folk Pop.
Links:
RECKLESS RIVER
Zoe Wren on Bandcamp
Zoe Wren on YouTube
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
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Bonus Links
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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 thick marine layer - sun never popped through.
Gives Rare Interview
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell gave a rare interview on Saturday evening at Clive Davis’ virtual Grammy party, where she spoke to the industry mogul about her early career, songwriting, and her legacy.
Davis’ annual pre-Grammy party was split into two virtual parts this year, with the first event taking place on January 30th. The second party was initially slated for March, but was postponed to May following Davis’ diagnosis with Bell’s Palsy. Proceeds from the January event went to MusiCares, while Saturday’s benefitted the Grammy Museum.
Mitchell has made a few public appearances following her 2015 brain aneurysm, from the premiere of Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous musical in 2019 to her 75th birthday tribute concert in 2018. She also spoke to Crowe for the liner notes to her recent archival box set, but the Grammy party marked her first public interview.
With a star-studded Zoom that had everyone from Elton John to Carly Simon to Dionne Warwick in attendance, Mitchell was seen in her Los Angeles home, sitting in a black-and-white gown. A glass of white wine sat beside her, while her new cat Bootsy made a few cameos.
Davis introduced Mitchell by showing a 2000 performance of her classic Both Sides Now, which she re-recorded that year backed by an orchestra. “When I first wrote that, I was very young and I took a lot of teasing,” she told Davis. “ ‘What do you know about life from both sides now?’ So I finally grew into it. The British performance — the one that’s on the record — was very exciting, because the orchestra was weeping. When you see Englishmen weeping while you’re performing, you know, it’s very moving. So there’s a lot of emotional charge to that performance.”
Joni Mitchell
Ratings Hit Lows
‘Saturday Night Live’
After Saturday Night Live‘s ratings rose sharply with host Elon Musk last week, they dropped to pre-Musk levels last night. The season’s penultimate episode, hosted by Keegan-Michael Key with Olivia Rodrigo as musical guest, drew a 3.5 household Live+Same Day rating in the 44 metered local markets and a 1.5 adults 18-49 rating in the 25 markets with local people meters.
That was down from the May 8 show, hosted by Musk with musical guest Miley Cyrus, which posted some of the season’s best numbers, averaging a 4.7 in overnight households and a 2.7 in adults 18-49. Last night’s telecast was in line with spring 2021 SNL episodes, most recently the April 10 original, the last before the highly rated Musk show, with host Carey Mulligan and musical guest Kid Cudi, which averaged a 3.6 in HH and a 1.5 in 18-49.
Last night’s results represent a new HH season low and match a 18-49 low in the metered markets.
SNL will wrap its 46th season next week with Anya Taylor-Joy as host and Lil Nas X as musical guest.
The late-night sketch program remains #1 among all comedies on broadcast and cable in 18-49 (L+7) this season for the first time in its history. It recently slipped to No.2 in total viewers after leading for most of the season.
‘Saturday Night Live’
Mississippi Country Music Trail Marker
Johnny Cash
The Man in Black is now being honored on the Mississippi Country Music Trail.
A new marker dedicated Friday memorializes a night Johnny Cash spent in the Oktibbeha County Jail.
In the early hours of May 11, 1965, Cash was arrested for public drunkenness after he was found picking flowers at a private home after a show at Mississippi State University. He spent the night locked up, and that served as inspiration for his song, “Starkville City Jail.”
He performed the song for inmates at San Quentin Jail in 1969, and it was included on the album, “Live at San Quentin.”
Cash was symbolically pardoned for his arrest in Starkville in 2007 at the inaugural Johnny Cash Flower Pickin’ Festival, the Commercial Dispatch reported.
Johnny Cash
'Spiral' Claims No. 1
Box Office
Angelina Jolie's survival action thriller "Those Who Wish Me Dead" didn't do much to revive the North American box office. The Warner Bros. film, which debuted simultaneously on the streaming service HBO Max, took in a paltry $2.8 million in its opening weekend.
The movie's hybrid release on HBO Max likely isn't the reason "Those Who Wish Me Dead" sold hardly any tickets; "Godzilla vs. Kong" and "Mortal Kombat" were both recent Warner Bros. films that were able to generate decent box office revenues despite being released concurrently on a streaming service.
As movie theaters attempt to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, family films and CGI spectacles have been popular options to see on the big screen. Gritty dramas geared toward adult audiences haven't been performing as well, and mediocre reviews for "Those Who Wish Me Dead" didn't help drum up interest.
"Saw" veteran Darren Lynn Bousman directed "Spiral," which stars Chris Rock, Max Minghella and Samuel L. Jackson and follows police efforts to stop a Jigsaw copycat killer. It got mixed reviews, with Variety's Owen Gleiberman saying for better or worse, the latest entry stays true to its graphic, stomach-churning roots. "No," Gleiberman wrote, "the 'Saw' series hasn't really changed. So depending on whether you're a fan or not, eat up...or throw up."
Ranking slightly below "Those Who Wish Me Dead," the anime film "Demon Slayer: Mugen Train" and Disney's "Raya and the Last Dragon" landed in fourth and fifth place, respectively.
Box Office
Adopted Under Federal Program Going to Slaughter
Wild Horses
In a lifetime of working with horses, Gary Kidd, 73, had never adopted an untrained wild mustang before. But when the federal government started paying people $1,000 a horse to adopt them, he signed up for as many as he could get. So did his wife, two grown daughters and a son-in-law.
Kidd, who owns a small farm near Hope, Arkansas, said in a recent telephone interview that he was using the mustangs, which are protected under federal law, to breed colts and that they were happily eating green grass in his pasture.
In fact, by the time he spoke on the phone, the animals were long gone. Records show that Kidd had sold them almost as soon as he legally could. He and his family received at least $20,000, and the mustangs ended up at a dusty Texas livestock auction frequented by slaughterhouse brokers known as kill buyers.
The Bureau of Land Management, which is in charge of caring for the nation’s wild horses, created the $1,000-a-head Adoption Incentive Program in 2019 because it wanted to move a huge surplus of mustangs and burros out of government corrals and find them “good homes.” Thousands of first-time adopters signed up, and the bureau hailed the program as a success.
But records show that instead of going to good homes, truckloads of horses were dumped at slaughter auctions as soon as their adopters got the federal money. A program intended to protect wild horses was instead subsidizing their path to destruction.
Wild Horses
Lieutenant Colonel Fired
Space Force
A lieutenant colonel in the newly formed US Space Force has reportedly been relieved from his post and will be investigated after claiming on a podcast that “Marxism” is infiltrating the military.
Last week Matthew Lohmeier appeared on the conservative podcast, The Steve Gruber show, to discuss the ‘Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military’, a book he had self published online, as reported by Military.com.
He told the show: “Since taking command as a [Space Force] commander about 10 months ago, I saw what I consider fundamentally incompatible and competing narratives of what America was, is and should be. That wasn’t just prolific in social media, or throughout the country during this past year, but it was spreading throughout the United States military. And I had recognized those narratives as being Marxist in nature.”
He also stated that The New York Times’ 1618 Project on slavery in the US was “anti-American.”
He said of the Pulitzer prize-winning project: “It teaches intensive teaching that I heard at my base -- that at the time the country ratified the United States Constitution, it codified White supremacy as the law of the land. If you want to disagree with that, then you start (being) labeled all manner of things including racist.”
Space Force
Former Navy Pilot Says
UFOs
A former Navy pilot says flight crews saw UFOs maneuvering in restricted airspace off Virginia every day for years.
Lieutenant Ryan Graves claims that he and other members of his F/A-18 fighter squadron all detected unidentified flying objects for two years, beginning in 2015.
The former serviceman called the objects a security threat in an interview with 60 Minutes, set to air on CBS on Sunday.
He is one of a number of former military personnel to talk publicly about the experiences with what the Pentagon now calls unidentified aerial phenomena or UAP.
Lt Graves told the TV show that the sightings were so common that crews eventually took them for granted.
UFOs
The Man Who Didn't Invent
Flamin' Hot Cheetos
For the last decade, Richard Montañez has been telling the story of how he invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. The world has been eating it up.
It goes like this: He was working as a janitor at Frito-Lay’s Rancho Cucamonga plant when he dreamed up a chile-covered Cheeto and believed in himself enough to call up the chief executive to pitch his spicy idea.
Corporate backstabbers tried to sabotage Montañez for stepping out of line, but he out-hustled them, driven by a hunger to succeed. Flamin’ Hots became a runaway hit, and Montañez rose through the ranks and became an icon.
Montañez has built a lucrative second career out of telling and selling this story, appearing at events for Target, Walmart, Harvard and USC, among others, and commanding fees of $10,000 to $50,000 per appearance.
There’s just one problem: Montañez didn’t invent Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, according to interviews with more than a dozen former Frito-Lay employees, the archival record and Frito-Lay itself.
Flamin' Hot Cheetos
AI-Inspired Theory
Weird Dreams
There you are, sitting front row of Miss Ryan's English class in your underwear, when in walks Chris Hemsworth holding a saxophone in one hand and a turtle in the other, asking you to play in his band.
"Why not?" you say, taking the turtle before snapping awake in a cold sweat, the darkness pressing in as you whisper to yourself, "…WTF?"
Decades – if not centuries – of psychological analysis have ventured to explain why it is our imaginations go on strange, unconstrained journeys while we sleep, with the general consensus being it has to do with processing experiences from our waking hours.
That's all well and good, but seriously, do they have to be so … well, bizarre?
Neuroscientist Erik Hoel from Tufts University has taken inspiration from the way we teach neural networks to recognize patterns, arguing the very experience of dreaming is its own purpose, and its weirdness might be a feature, not a bug.
Weird Dreams
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