from Bruce
Anecdotes
Problem-Solving
• Early Shakespearean actress George Anne (not Georgiana) Bellamy knew how to correct an injustice. She had won the role of Cordelia, but suddenly the theatrical management changed its mind and gave another, younger actress the role and substituted her name over Ms. Bellamy’s on the playbills. Therefore, Ms. Bellamy secretly ordered some flyers printed up that pointed out that the role had been promised to her. Her servant gave a copy of the flyer to each person who bought a ticket for King Lear. When the younger actress walked on stage, the audience called out, “OFF! OFF! WE WANT BELLAMY.” Ms. Bellamy, of course, was dressed in the costume of Cordelia and waiting offstage. The audience got the actress it desired, and Ms. Bellamy got the role she desired.
• In 16th-century England, before the establishment of theaters such as the Globe, professional actors sometimes performed plays in such venues as the yard of an inn. However, getting the audience to pay for the performance was sometimes difficult, as people could quickly slip away without paying after the play was finished. Therefore, actors used to perform a play until an exciting point was reached, then stop. After collecting a fee from the members of the audience, the actors continued the performance until its conclusion. Later, after the Globe Theatre had been built, playgoers entered through narrow passageways, which ensured that they entered in single file so they could not avoid paying the entrance fee.
• Dramatic critic Alexander Woollcott owned an island. One day, a group of schoolteachers took a boat to the island and started to have a picnic. This annoyed Mr. Woollcott, so he went to the schoolteachers and denounced them, but they ignored him. Fortunately, one of Mr. Woollcott’s invited guests was Harpo Marx, who volunteered to get rid of the schoolteachers. Harpo sneaked down close to the schoolteachers, then suddenly appeared out of the bushes. He was completely naked except for a ribbon in his hair and a fife in his hand. Harpo pretended to be Pan (a god known for his randiness), and very quickly the schoolteachers jumped into their boat and went away.
• Even late in his career, Rudolf Nureyev demanded respect. At the end of a performance of The King and I in Cleveland, Ohio, Mr. Nureyev took a curtain call and bowed first to the audience, then to his fellow cast members. Not all of the cast members bowed back. Mr. Nureyev immediately brought his hand down to the level of his crotch — since his back was to the audience, they couldn’t see what he was doing — and darted a finger out like a penis for a moment. At the next curtain call, all of the cast members bowed back to him.
• American scoundrel and playwright Wilson Mizner once married a rich society lady; unfortunately, they were incompatible — Mr. Mizner enjoyed spending money, but his wife kept a tight hold on her money. Therefore, Mr. Mizner employed many stratagems to get money from his wife. Once, he convinced his wife that it was a custom to give diamond cuff links to ambassadors who dined at the homes of members of society, then he convinced a bartender-friend to dress up and pretend to be the ambassador from Spain.
• Police make a distinction between high art and low entertainment. In 1922, the New York Vice Police attempted to shut down the Ziegfeld Follies because the women in the entertainment didn’t wear enough clothing. Therefore, the Follies playbills were immediately altered to include a few blank pages — and small pencils — so that patrons could draw the models the same way that an artist would sketch a model in a studio. The Follies continued to be performed.
• While touring, Anna Pavlova danced on many stages that had broken boards and gaping holes. Her husband, Victor Dandré, began stretching a heavy carpet across such stages and nailing it down, then stagehands drew circles in chalk on the carpet to indicate holes in the stage. This carpet helped prevent many broken bones. A floorboard once broke under Ms. Pavlova as she danced — only the carpet kept her from falling through the stage floor.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Eres Idiota"
Two-Sided Single: “2 temas que no son nuestros pero también molan” [“2 songs that are not ours but are also cool.”
Artist: Lupers
Artist Location: Santander, Spain
Info:
“These two songs are two versions that we made from a distance, during the confinement period of the first wave of COVID19.”
“‘La bajada del Caleruco’ is a version of ‘The stairs’ by the group Asma.
“‘Eres idiota’ is a version of the song with the homonymous name of ‘Los Retumbes.’”
We made this version for the compilation Bigger Fuckin' Family Party, in which the bands of the label Family Spree Recordings cover each other.
Price: Name Your Price (Includes FREE)
Genre: Rock. Punk.
Links:
“2 temas que no son nuestros pero también molan”
Lupers on Bandcamp
Lupers on YouTube
Family Spree Recordings
Family Spree Recordings 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
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
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Miami
New Venture
Michael Egan
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
Video
“The only guy who can play drums and fight off ninjas at the same time.” — Vasilias Kobliska
This is the best drummer in the world. He is a performance in himself. Fantastic.” — Fred Mead
“What makes this gold is that he's not even over-playing that much. He's just way over-performing. What a legend!” — Johnny BigMac
“I'm sure this drummer doesn't realize he's doing a spot-on Chris Farley impression. but he's a hoot to watch.” — Fred Brennion
“It’s incredible. Even with all those crazy moves, he’s still landing every beat.” — Thagiriion
For more information about The Mad Drummer (Steve Moore), please visit: www.themaddrummer.com
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.
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
There's another flood in the pantry and another hot water heater in my future - it'll be the third one in the last 7 years.
Hope we don't have to wait a couple of months like with the stove.
That might make me a bit crankier than usual.
Austin City Limits
Billie Eilish
As threats to abortion rights saw women — including celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence and Top Chef stars Padma Lakshmi and Gail Simmons — take part in nationwide rallies this weekend, Billie Eilish lodged her own protest while performing at the Austin City Limits Festival on Saturday, Oct. 2.
During her show the 19-year-old addressed Texas's restrictive new law banning abortions after a heartbeat is detected and allowing private citizens to sue providers or anyone helping a women get an abortion. Eilish admitted that she considered backing out of her Austin show over its state's stance.
The words "Bans Off Our Bodies" flashed on the screen behind her as the pop star took a moment to address the issue between sons.
"I'm sick and tired of old men," she said. "Shut the f*** up about our bodies."
She continued, "When they made that s*** a law, I almost didn't want to do the show, because I wanted to punish this f*****g place for allowing that to happen here. But then, I remembered that it's you guys that are the f*****g victims, and you deserve everything in the world."
Billie Eilish
Weekend Box Office
“Venom: Let There Be Carnage”
Pandemic moviegoing is finally starting to look like pre-pandemic moviegoing. Sony Pictures’ Marvel sequel “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” blew away expectations to debut with $90.1 million in ticket sales, making it easily the best opening of the pandemic, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The result — along with robust international sales for the James Bond film “No Time to Die” — constituted the best news for movie theaters in more than 18 months.
Both “Let There Be Carnage” and MGM’s “No Time to Die” had originally been set to open last year. Believing the best box-office return would happen with an exclusive release in theaters, both studios (neither of which has a major streaming platform) held out for better moviegoing conditions. Over the weekend, their wait was rewarded.
“The Addams Family 2,” an animated sequel from MGM and United Artists Releasing, opened with $18 million despite terrible reviews (27% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) from critics. The film, a sequel to the 2019 cartoon reboot, was launched simultaneously on video-on-demand.
“The Many Saints of Newark,” the long-in-coming prequel to “The Sopranos,” flopped. The film, co-written by “Sopranos” creator David Chase and set decades before the seminal HBO series, opened with $5 million. The film, like all Warner Bros. releases in 2021, was also streaming on HBO Max for subscribers — a practice some filmmakers, including Chase, have decried. The studio has pledged to return to exclusive theatrical windows in 2022.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. “Venom: Let There Be Carnage,” $90.1 million
2. “The Addams Family 2,” $18 million
3. “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” $6 million
4. “The Many Saints of Newark,” $5 million
5. “Dear Evan Hansen,” $2.5 million
6. “Free Guy,” $2.28 million
7. “Candyman,” $1.2 million
8. “Jungle Cruise,” $680,000
9. “The Jesus Music,” $560,000
10. “Titane,” $516,000
“Venom: Let There Be Carnage”
Meow
Joan Collins
Dynasty legend Joan Collins, 88, has no problem with sharing her opinions on Hollywood's plentiful amount of plastic surgery. In a new interview ahead of her new memoir, My Unapologetic Diaries, Collins discusses everyone from the Kardashian family to former co-star Linda Evans.
Collins admitted she frequently gossips about the extensive plastic surgery in Hollywood.
"We all talk about it. Have you ever been in a hairdressers? The Kardashians, for instance," Collins told the Daily Mail. "Kris Jenner, their mother, is a good friend of mine and I don't want to be rude about her children, but there's an awful lot of surgery there and I've talked to my friends about it, as I'm sure you have, the bottoms, the tiny waists."
Collins also had plenty to say about Sophia Loren's teeth, which she said "look like they have been carved out of ivory."
"She's still alive. But it's not as if we're bosom buddies and she's never going to speak to me again," said Collins. "And it's true!"
Joan Collins
Seabed Museum
Shipwrecks of World War I
Turkey's newest park is an underwater museum of fourteen shipwrecks that lie beneath the waves of the Dardanelles Strait, a glimpse into the fierce battles between Ottoman and Allied forces in World War I.
Turkish photographer Savas Karakas was one of the first to board a motor boat and then dive to the seabed grave when the park opened on Saturday. There, he says, he was able to reconnect with his grandfather who fought in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915.
The Gallipoli Historic Underwater Park opened 106 years after Ottoman and allied German forces halted an invasion by British, French, Australian and New Zealand troops.
The Ottoman resistance remains a point of deep pride in modern Turkey. At the time, it thwarted the Allies' plan to control the straits connecting the Aegean to the Black Sea, where their Russian naval allies were penned in.
Heavy British losses included the 120-meter HMS Majestic battleship, which is the first stop for divers at a depth of 24 meters off the coast of Seddulbahir.
Shipwrecks of World War I
Massive Document Leak
Pandora Papers
The same journalism organization that leaked the Panama Papers has uncovered a new trove of 11.9 million documents, dubbed the Pandora Papers, that contain explosive details about how global elites and billionaires hide their assets. Revelations from the leak included that a woman who gave birth to a child reportedly fathered by Russian President Vladimir Putin came to own a $4.1 million Monaco apartment and that Jordan’s King Abdullah II has bought $106 million worth of luxury properties around the world held by shell companies.
The document leak contains confidential memos, emails, stock certificates, compliance reports and more. It was obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, and the organization described the leak as “unprecedented.” The trove of documents was so large that ICIJ partnered with media outlets — The Washington Post, BBC, and The Guardian — to help comb through it all. The leak contained confidential information on more than 100 billionaires in addition to celebrities, 35 current and former world leaders and 300 public officials.
According to the Post, Svetlana Krivonogikh, who was reported at the time to be in a secret long-term relationship with Putin according to Russian media outlet Proekt, was named as the “beneficial owner” of a luxury apartment in Monaco worth millions via an offshore company. That company was formed soon after she gave birth to a girl. The Kremlin denied the relationship when Proekt reported it, and the media outlet is now banned in Russia, but the documents raise questions about how Krivonogikh became the property’s “beneficial owner,” meaning even if her name is not on official registration documents, she controls or benefits from the asset. The documents further reveal how Russian oligarchs fuel corruption and hide their assets in offshore accounts.
The papers also included offshore dealings by the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In addition to politicians and global leaders, some celebrities were caught up in the leak, including pop star Shakira and supermodel Claudia Schiffer. In statements their representatives sent to ICIJ, both denied any wrongdoing.
Pandora Papers
‘Bulls–‘ Headline
Tammy Duckworth
Fox News has received backlash for a headline that falsely suggested Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) shirked on paying property tax on her Illinois home.
“Wtf is wrong with you guys?!?” tennis legend Martina Navratilova wrote, noting that the story itself explains that Duckworth took advantage of a tax credit available to all disabled U.S. veterans, regardless of income. “You mean our war hero Senator Duckworth should pay taxes when she is not required to do so?”
“FOX News, are you seriously now going to attack our veterans in your assault on our Democracy?” Fred Guttenberg, father of Parkland, Florida, shooting victim Jaime Guttenberg, tweeted in outrage.
“What a bulls— headline, Fox News,” Guttenberg wrote. “In your own report, you stake the reason why. As a disabled veteran, she is exempt.
A group called VoteVets added: “@TammyDuckworth proudly served our country, lost her legs, and EARNED that benefit. We’d say FOX News is a cancer on our national discourse but that would be an insult to cancer.”
Tammy Duckworth
Done More
Religion
Former President Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) claimed that he did more for religion than anybody else while he was president.
"Nobody has done more for Christianity or for evangelicals or for religion itself than I have," Trump said in an interview on the show FlashPoint on The Victory Channel, a Christian TV network.
He referenced "getting rid of the Johnson Amendment" which he said was a "very bad thing."
Trump also mentioned the Mexico City policy, which blocks federal funding for foreign non-governmental organizations that make referrals for abortion or discuss abortion as an option.
In the interview on FlashPoint, Trump also claimed that Biden and the Democrats had done "destructive" things to religion.
Religion
Bunch of Tiny Eyes Inside Its Eyes
Trilobite
A fossilized trilobite first studied by an amateur paleontologist half a century ago has provided researchers with a whole new way of seeing the world, in a very literal sense.
X-rays taken of the ancient arthropod back in the early 1970s have been given a second look, revealing a structure of an eye that is unlike any seen on any animal before or since.
As head of Siemens radiology department, Wilhelm Stürmer knew a thing or two about using X-rays to reveal hidden secrets. This was especially true when it came to studying fossils, a passion he fueled by fitting out a minibus with X-ray equipment to take out to paleontology sites.
In spite of his expertise in radiology, Stürmer wasn't a paleontologist, so few took his claim of discovering optic nerves inside a 390-million-year-old Phacops geesops fossil seriously.
"At that time, the consensus was that only bones and teeth, the hard parts of living things, could be seen in the fossils, but not the soft parts, such as intestines or nerves," says University of Cologne paleontologist Brigitte Schoenemann.
Trilobite
International Survey Finds
Everyone's Gassy
New research released this weekend might comfort or unnerve you, depending on your perspective. An international survey of thousands suggests that just about everyone often feels gassy, with farting being the most common symptom experienced daily. The findings also indicate that these symptoms can affect people’s quality of life the more frequently they happen.
The survey was conducted by researchers from the Rome Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit research organization focused on gastrointestinal health, as well as France’s Danone Nutricia Research, an offshoot of the Danone food company (in the U.S., they sell yogurt and other dairy products under the Dannon brand).
Nearly 6,000 adults in the U.S., UK, and Mexico were recruited online to answer various questions about their health, including whether they had experienced up to seven gas-related symptoms recently. These symptoms included bloating, abdominal distention (a swollen belly), flatulence, and bad breath. Those surveyed were meant to be representative of the general population.
Eighty-one percent said they had experienced flatulence in the past 24 hours, while 60% said they had a rumbling stomach, and 58% had belched. The least common symptom—bloating—was still reported by 38% of participants. Ultimately, only 11% reported not experiencing any gas-related symptoms the day before. The findings were presented Saturday at the annual conference of the United European Gastroenterology.
Interestingly enough, those under the age of 50 reported higher amounts of gas-related symptoms than did older people. Those in Mexico similarly had higher gas scores than those in the UK and U.S. But there was no significant difference in how gassy people felt when it came to their body mass index or weight. Meanwhile, those who reported exercising regularly were slightly less likely to experience gassiness.
Everyone's Gassy
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