Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Waldman: GOP senator: Voting should be 'a little more difficult' … if you're a Democrat (Washington Post)
Thirty years ago, Michael Kinsley wrote that "A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth - some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say." What came to be known as a "Kinsley gaffe" isn't merely the unintentional statement of a truth, but a truth that everyone knows but politicians aren't supposed to be foolish enough to say out loud. Which is what happened on Thursday to Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.).
Mark Joseph Stern: Democrats Are Poised to Wipe Out Republicans' North Carolina Gerrymander In Time for the 2020 Election (Slate)
North Carolina Republicans have spent the last eight years ruthlessly undermining democracy in their state. The key to their extraordinary success is a series of partisan gerrymanders that dilute the power of Democrats' vote, allowing the GOP to maintain a firm grasp on the state legislature. But Republicans failed to subvert the one institution capable of reversing this damage to fair representation: the state judiciary.
Alexandra Petri: I'm fine with women in power, just not this one specific woman currently in power (Washington Post Satire)
In general, I am excited to vote for a woman, maybe even in 2020, though I do, I have to say, worry that maybe other Americans are not so ready, and we wouldn't want to make that mistake in a year with such high stakes. Not me - I was born ready! I was given birth to by a woman. So it's clear where I stand.
Lucy Mangan: "Kindness might be all we have right now" (Stylist)
There has never been a more important time to be kind, says Stylist's Lucy Mangan
David L. Katz, MD, Author of "Truth About Food" Reveals 3 Truths to End All Confusion About a Healthy Diet( Blue Zones)
TRUTH #1: One thing I wanted to make clear is that there is no confusion among experts.
TRUTH #2: A diet high in plant foods (beans, vegetables, nuts, fruit, whole grains) and low in processed foods is best for health and longevity.
TRUTH #3: Over 80% of chronic disease and premature death could be prevented by following this healthy dietary pattern, getting regular physical activity, and not smoking.
Michael Tauberg: What Makes a Hit Film? (Medium)
It's not so easy to tell what will make a hit movie and what won't. Why did 'Gone Girl', a film starring Ben Affleck based on a bestselling novel succeed wildly, while 'Gone Baby Gone', a Ben Affleck directed movie based on a bestselling novel do only OK? Ultimately, studio executives put their careers and investor money on the line when they decide what to greenlight. It's not clear that you or I could do any better.
Inkoo Kang: Ralph Breaks the Internet Finally Gives Us the Disney Princesses We Need (Slate)
Sleeping Beauty, but woke.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• When Richard Burton was starring at the old Vic in Hamlet, John Gielgud stopped by his dressing room after a performance so that they could go out and have supper together. However, Mr. Burton took a long time changing out of his costume so Mr. Gielgud said, "I'll go on ahead. Come when you're better - I mean, when you're ready!" In his book Acting Shakespeare, Mr. Gielgud calls this one of his favorite theatrical gaffes.
• While singing Siegmund to Birgit Nilsson's Sieglinda in the first two performances of Die Walküre during the 1974-1975 season at the New York Metropolitan Opera, Jon Vickers withdrew the sword from the tree with such force that the sword flew from the handle and into the safety net protecting the orchestra. Afterward, Ms. Nilsson said that if she hadn't stepped back, she would have lost part of her nose.
• Bluesman Robert Lockwood once went into a town to look for himself. He played in Elaine, Arkansas, then went back home, where he heard that fellow bluesman Robert Johnson was in Elaine. Mr. Lockwood wanted to see Mr. Johnson, so he went back to Elaine, where he discovered that a mistake had been made. A man had seen Mr. Lockwood playing and had thought that Mr. Lockwood was Mr. Johnson.
• While singing in Tosca, Plácido Domingo has had bad luck crying out "Vittoria! Vittoria!" Once, he fell flat on his nose, creating a pool of blood; fortunately, he managed to finish the opera. On another occasion, he threw his head back as he cried "Vittoria! Vittoria!" - and broke the nose of the supernumerary standing behind him.
• Tenor Franco Corelli takes music seriously. At home, Mr. Corelli became so frustrated while trying unsuccessfully to play a certain phrase that he jumped up from the piano then smashed his fist through a closet door. He and his wife were unsuccessful at freeing his arm, so they were forced to call a carpenter for help.
• The Grant food chain once attempted to create a hot dog without cancer-causing nitrates. It sent a package of the healthy hot dogs to the United States Department of Agriculture so they could be tested, but an official there thought that they were a gift, so he took them home and had a weenie roast.
• During a performance of Macbeth on a very hot evening, Sarah Siddons ordered a beer. A boy went out, bought the beer, and carried it back to the theater. However, Mrs. Siddons was not where she had been. Looking around, the boy saw her acting on stage, so he walked on stage and delivered the beer to her.
• During a performance of Electra with Birgit Nielsen at the Paris Opera, the lights went out due to a power failure. When the lights came on again, Richard Lewis picked up the performance where it had ended by singing his next lines: "Lights. Lights. Is there no one here to light them?"
• Filming The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was dangerous. In one scene, Gunnar Hansen (playing Leatherface) was running with a whirling chain saw when he slipped. The whirling chain saw flew in the air and landed a few inches from Ms. Hansen's body.
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Bonus Links
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Reader Comment
Current Events
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Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
THE MAN WITH A MISSION.
'HE CAN KISS MY RED ASS'
'IT'S ALMOST DONE'
R.I.P. WILLIAM GOLDMAN
FASCISM IS COMING TO CANADA.
"THE EGREGIOUS LIE AMERICANS TELL THEMSELVES.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and a bit cooler than seasonal.
Hollywood Revolt
Georgia
Georgia's top politicians tried to stem a revolt from some Hollywood executives who threatened to boycott the state's booming film industry after Brian Kemp won the race for governor, urging moviemakers not to take their frustration out on thousands of workers who depend on their investments.
And the governor-elect's campaign tried to tone down the rhetoric, with a statement Sunday reinforcing his support for the film tax credit and asserting that "it's time to move past divisive politics and work together toward a safer, stronger Georgia."
The threats came from a handful of prominent movie industry insiders after 10 days of post-election drama ended with final vote tallies showing Kemp edged out Abrams by roughly 55,000 votes. Abrams ended her campaign with a fiery speech in which she announced a new group to challenge Kemp's "gross mismanagement" of the election in court.
Several actors used a #BoycottGeorgia hashtag on Twitter, including actress Alyssa Milano - who shot Netflix's "Insatiable" in Atlanta, "West Wing" actor Bradley Whitford, actor Steven Pasquale and Ron Perlman.
The film industry has exploded in Georgia since the tax incentives were first signed into law in 2005, turning the state into one of the most popular filming locations in the world and spawning a string of studios, editing hubs and post-production businesses that cater to filmmakers.
Georgia
Stan Lee Fans Slam
Bill Maher
A day after Stan Lee was laid to rest in a private funeral service, Bill Maher took a shot at the Marvel Comics legend, and his grieving fans aren't happy.
In a post titled "Adulting" on the Real Time With Bill Maher host's blog, Maher linked comic books to the dumbing down of America - and Donald Trump's presidential victory - saying that in our country, "We're using our smarts on stupid stuff" like picture books about superheroes.
"The guy who created Spider-Man and the Hulk has died, and America is in mourning," Maher wrote. "Deep, deep mourning for a man who inspired millions to, I don't know, watch a movie, I guess. Someone on Reddit posted, 'I'm so incredibly grateful I lived in a world that included Stan Lee.' Personally, I'm grateful I lived in a world that included oxygen and trees, but to each his own."
Maher said he has nothing against comic books, but then he dissed them, saying he read them as a boy when he couldn't find a real book. He said he was raised to think that comics were for children, "and when you grew up you moved on to big-boy books without the pictures." However, he went on to say, 20 years ago, "something happened - adults decided they didn't have to give up kid stuff. And so they pretended comic books were actually sophisticated literature. And because America has over 4,500 colleges - which means we need more professors than we have smart people - some dumb people got to be professors by writing theses with titles like Otherness and Heterodoxy in the Silver Surfer. And now when adults are forced to do grown-up things like buy auto insurance, they call it 'adulting,' and act like it's some giant struggle."
Maher said that Americans aren't necessarily "stupider" today than we were then, but we're "using our smarts on stupid stuff." He ended with the Trump zinger, writing, "I don't think it's a huge stretch to suggest that Donald Trump could only get elected in a country that thinks comic books are important."
Bill Maher
World's Largest
Digital Camera
The devil's in the details when you head inside a cleanroom. Everything you plan on bringing inside, from your phone to your camera tripod, needs to be wiped down with lint-free wipes. You need to put on a special bunny suit. If you put the gloves on wrong, you need to throw them away and get a new pair. You absolutely cannot touch your bare skin with those gloves - they could pick up oils, dead skin cells, and who knows what else. It felt like I spent as much time getting ready to enter the room as I did inside the room itself - but that's probably because I had to change my gloves so many times.
But that's a small price to pay to visit a 3.2 gigapixel digital camera, the largest one ever built. It's the size of a small car, with a table-sized focal plane. This digital camera will live inside the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, currently under construction, that will sit high in the dry air of the Andean foothills in Chile. The camera will allow the telescope to perform a task as monumental as its size: photographing the stars every night in order to create two full views of the entire southern hemisphere's sky per week. The scientists behind the project seek to understand the nature of dark matter, dark energy, and other astronomical mysteries.
The LSST will be the most advanced survey of the night sky yet. Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, which peers at individual objects or small patches of the sky, the LSST will create a movie of the entire night sky. Light that suddenly appears out of darkness could signal a supernova, and other changes could indicate the presence of the universe's mysterious gravitational scaffolding, called dark matter, or the force driving it apart, called dark energy.
You might wonder what makes this behemoth a "digital camera." It helps to break a digital camera into its component parts: a lens directs light onto a sensor, turning the light into an electrical signal and then into data stored on a computer. Your iPhone's camera sensor is somewhere around 7 or 12 mega, or million, pixels, while a DSLR can have somewhere from 18 to 50 megapixels. The LSST will have 189 16-megapixel chips, all aligned on a perfectly flat plane.
Digital Camera
Publicity Stunt?
Missing 'Picasso'
A writer who thought she had found a masterpiece by Pablo Picasso stolen in an infamous art heist six years ago said Sunday she was the victim of a "publicity stunt", the NOS Dutch public newscaster reported.
Picasso's "Harlequin Head" was one of seven celebrated paintings stolen from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in 2012 during a daring robbery local media dubbed "the theft of the century".
Around 10 days ago, Mira Feticu, a Dutch writer of Romanian origin who wrote a novel based on the heist, was sent an anonymous letter. The instructions led her to a forest in eastern Romania where she dug up an artwork.
However on Sunday night Feticu told NOS that she was the victim of a performance by two Belgian directors in Antwerp.
Feticu said she received an email from the Belgian duo explaining that the letter was part of a project called "True Copy" dedicated to the notorious Dutch forger Geert Jan Jansen, whose fakes flooded the art collections of Europe and beyond until he was caught in 1994.
Missing 'Picasso'
'How Awkward'
California
Offensive tweets behind him, Donald Trump (R-Knock-Kneed) made it to California on Saturday to survey the damage caused by the wildfires. He vowed to "take care of the people who have been so badly hurt."
The president toured the area with the state's outgoing governor, Jerry Brown - as well as Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, who has been trading barbs with Trump all year. But the fact that Newsom has called Trump a "joke and a racist" isn't what the internet was hung up on during their meeting. Twitter was teeming with comments about how "awkward" it was that Trump and Newsom were together when Trump's son Don Jr. is dating Newsom's ex-wife, Kimberly Guilfoyle. Yes, the infamous Donberly.
In addition to the "a" word, it was also called "messy," with another person saying Newsom was "almost a Trump family member." (Gasp!) Here are some of the comments:
Don Jr. has been dating Guilfoyle, a former Fox News personality now working for the pro-Trump PAC America First, since earlier this year - soon after he and his wife, Vanessa, split.
Guilfoyle was married to Newsom from 2001 to 2006. In September, he was asked about his former wife dating a Trump and he told the reporter that he found it to be an "awkward" question, but ultimately said, "No, it's fine. I wish her well, and them well. And we see the world, clearly, with a different set of eyes politically." Guilfoyle has said they are still friendly, despite their differing politics, and enjoy regular phone calls. She even made a comment about how Newsom and Trump Jr. both wear slicked-back hair.
California
According To The CDC
United States
Men who work in construction and extraction had the highest rates of suicide in the United States, according to a report published Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For women, suicide rates were highest among those who work in arts, design, entertainment, sports and media.
From 2000 to 2016, the suicide rate among the US working-age population -- people 16 to 64 -- increased 34%, the report says.
Using information from the 17 states that participated in the 2012 and 2015 National Violent Death Reporting System, the CDC analyzed the suicide deaths of 22,053 Americans of working age. Occupations were classified using the Standard Occupational Classifications from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Arts, design, entertainment, sports and media saw the largest increase in suicides among men: 47% from 2012 to 2015.
For women, the largest increase -- 54% from 2012 to 2015 -- was among food preparation and serving-related occupations, such as chefs, bar managers and baristas.
United States
Between Us And
Physiological Difference
Increasing blood pressure is a big problem among the ageing population, but you may be able to do something about it.
As a study on two remote indigenous tribes in the Amazon rainforest has just revealed, it seems like diet could be playing a key role.
On the border between Venezuela and Brazil, the Yanomami people maintain the same blood pressure for their entire lives.
And there's evidence that the absence of Western influences in the community may have something to do with it. The nearby Ye'kuana people do eat a small amount of Western-style food - and they are showing rising blood pressure as they age.
"The idea that rising blood pressure is a result of ageing is a widely held belief in cardiology, but our findings add to evidence that rising blood pressure may be an avoidable consequence of Western diet and lifestyle rather than ageing itself," said epidemiologist Noel Mueller of Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Physiological Difference
Cubed Poo
Wombats
It is a biological curiosity that has perplexed scientists and fascinated the internet.
Now researchers believe they have solved one of the animal kingdom's smelliest mysteries: how wombats produce cuboid poo.
The podgy marsupials' six-sided portions of dung are unique in nature. And they produce them prolifically, depositing between 80 and 100 cubes each night.
Wombats' distinctive defecation has an important function, allowing the animals to pile their faeces high to mark their territory and communicate through scent.
But scientists have always been uncertain how wombats - which have circular anuses - fashion their faeces into their unusual shape. Now, a team of US mechanical engineers and Australian biologists believe they have flushed away any doubt.
Wombats
Weekend Box Office
"Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"
"Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald" crawled, slithered and flew its way to the top of the weekend box office with a $62.2 million opening in the U.S. and Canada, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The latest offering from the Harry Potter multiverse fell short of the opening of the first film in the Warner Bros. series, 2016's "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," which debuted with $74 million in a similar November release and went on to earn $234 million in the U.S. and Canada.
Last week's top film, "Dr. Seuss' The Grinch," was second with $38.1 million, bringing its domestic tally to $126 million for Universal Pictures after two weekends. It took in $9.4 million more internationally.
"Bohemian Rhapsody," 20th Century Fox's Freddie Mercury biopic, is still rocking, taking third place with $15.7 million for a total of $127 million. It remains a global hit, bringing in an additional $45.5 million internationally.
Here are estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for also are included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald," $62.2 million ($191 million international).
2. "Dr Seuss' The Grinch," $38.1 million ($9.4 million international).
3. "Bohemian Rhapsody," $15.7 million ($45.5 million international).
4. "Instant Family," $14.7 million.
5. "Widows," $12.3 million ($2.8 million international).
6. "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms," $4.7 million ($6.7 million international).
7. "A Star Is Born," $4.3 million ($5.5 million international).
8. "Overlord," $3.8 million ($2.6 million international).
9. "The Girl in the Spider's Web," $2.5 million ($2.8 million international).
10. "Burn The Stage: The Movie," $2.3 million ($5.2 million international).
"Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"
In Memory
Pablo Ferro
Pablo Ferro, who is known for his distinct title design and work in graphic design, died of complications from pneumonia Friday in Sedona, Arizona. The award-winning designer was 83.
Born on January 15, 1935 in Cuba, Ferro, a self-taught artist became known for eye-catching and stylized title design in film which included iconic films including Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and Dr. Strangelove as well as others such as Bullitt, Men In Black, and Married to the Mob. During the mid-'50s he worked in animation before working with Disney animator Tytla who would become his mentor. He also worked with the would-be legend Stan Lee on a series of sci-fi and adventure comics.
In 1961, Ferro and fellow artists Fred Mogubgub and Lew Schwartz partnered to create their own company. Ferro then went on to create Pablo Ferro Films.
Ferro became a trailblazer when it came to montage-like title sequences, creative stylistic typefaces and quick-cut editing. If you have ever seen a movie, chances are, you saw his work. His art can be seen in over 100 films including the original The Thomas Crown Affair, Philadelphia, To Live and Die in L.A., Beetlejuice, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Addams Family, Zardoz, Harold and Maude as well as Gus Van Sant's To Die For and Good Will Hunting.
He also worked on the first animated color version of the NBC Peacock and also produced and directed projects. He co-directed Hal Ashby's 1983 Rolling Stones concert film Let's Spend the Night Together. He also worked on Midnight Cowboy as a second-unit director and supervising editor of The Night They Raided Minsky's. In 1991, he directed his own feature Me, Myself & I starring George Segal and JoBeth Williams.
Ferro's work in title design has appeared in 12 Academy Award-winning films. He has also won numerous Clios and a DGA Excellence in Film Award.
He is survived by his former wife, Susan as well as his children Joy Ferro-Moore and Allen Ferro.
Pablo Ferro
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