Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Frank Bowman: The Reason Prosecutors Hammered Michael Cohen Despite His Cooperation With Robert Mueller (Slate)
In short, the government has just put a ticking clock in front of Michael Cohen. He can't filibuster anymore. Either he spills his guts or he goes to prison. And the time to decide is right now.
Why Michael Cohen's cooperation with Robert Mueller hasn't satisfied prosecutors (Slate)
The special counsel's memo is fairly generous, suggesting that Cohen has provided some information valuable to that office's inquiries and that his cooperation should be considered in imposing ...
Hadley Freeman: So now George Bush Sr is celebrated as a titan of unity. How on earth did we get here? (The Guardian)
References to Bush's support for Hillary Clinton have been reverently repeated, as has his unlikely friendship with Barack Obama.
Michael V. Drake: The soundtrack of the Sixties demanded respect, justice and equality (The Conversation)
Sly and the Family Stone released "Everyday People" at the end of 1968, it was a rallying cry after a tumultuous year of assassinations, civil unrest and a seemingly interminable war. "We got to live together," he sang, "I am no better and neither are you." Throughout history, artists and songwriters have expressed a longing for equality and justice through their music.
Lucy Mangan on the gender pain gap (Stylist)
We're learning to stand up for ourselves in the workplace and in the home. Now we must take that confidence into the doctor's surgery too. Stand up for yourself. You shouldn't have to, of course, but here we are, and there you go, so DO. If something's wrong by your standards - it's wrong. Lumps need examining. Sex shouldn't hurt. Periods shouldn't cripple. Smears shouldn't hurt. If they do, find a doctor who helps instead of hinders. Asserting yourself might feel uncomfortable but in this case only, remember - no pain, no gain.
Arwa Mahdawi: "The war against female-presenting nipples: Social media sites should focus less on nipples and more on Nazis" (The Guardian)
Tumblr, long known as a safe space for sexual subcultures, has a new policy on 'female-presenting nipples'. Maybe it should rethink its priorities.
Jordan Weissman: Further Proof That Millennials Are, in Fact, The Brokest Generation (Slate)
For those interested in the details: Based on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Fed concludes that young male-headed households earn less on average than in past generations, while female-headed households and married couples earn more, likely due to rising education attainment among women and the rise of dual earner couples. At the median, however, both male- and female-headed households earn less than previous generations, and Millennial couples trail boomers. The difference between medians and averages reflects rising income inequality.
Alexis Petridis: "'I hate playing this song': when rock stars go disco" (The Guardian)
Even if you did get a hit out of it, your success would almost invariably be accompanied by mockery or even anger. "Rarely has anyone betrayed his talent so completely," thundered Rolling Stone, perhaps a trifle melodramatically, of Rod Stewart not long after Da Ya Think I'm Sexy? went to No 1.
Jeremy Allen: Did these pop stars actually change the course of history? (BBC)
From ABBA to Zappa, we all know about the mercurial musicians who changed musical history thanks to their uniqueness. But what about the artists who influenced world events and maybe changed the course of human history in the process? Wars, insurgency, revolution, riots - these are not phenomena one expects entertainers to have an influence on, but that doesn't mean bold claims haven't been made on their behalves.
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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 Emma Calvé first travelled to Paris to get singing lessons in preparation for an operatic career, she sat by an attentive elderly gentleman on top of a stagecoach. Unfortunately, the elderly gentleman was a little too attentive, for when she fell asleep, he put his arm around her waist. This awakened Ms. Calvé, who slapped the elderly gentleman with such force that everyone in the stage coach realized what had happened. The stagecoach stopped, voices were raised in discussion and argument, and a young man gave Ms. Calvé his seat inside the stage coach and took her seat by the elderly gentleman on top of the stage coach.
• Very early in his career, in the late 1920s in Italy, tenor Joseph Benton, aka Giuseppe Bentonelli, had costumes made up for the part of Faust. He had his housekeeper sew buttons on each pair of tights so he could use them for his suspenders. (He did notice that the housekeeper looked surprised at the request, but he didn't figure out why she looked surprised until he performed in the costume.) All went well during the performance - at first. Unfortunately, one suspender broke in two, and then the other suspender strap broke loose, too. Just as Faust took the lovely Marguerite in his arms at the conclusion of the opera, his tights fell down! The audience loved the mishap, and during the curtain calls the audience brought Mr. Benton back on stage for many bows. The headline in the local newspaper's review the next day stated, "FAUST TENOR LOSES PANTS ON STAGE." Following the debacle, Mr. Benton stopped using suspenders and learned how to tie his tights with bias tape so that they wouldn't fall down.
• Early in his career, tenor John L. Brecknock was determined to get himself out of his own jams - not always with good results. While singing a love duet on stage with Catherine Wilson, he had a mental blackout and could not remember the words. Ms. Wilson whispered the correct words to him, but he was so concentrating on getting himself out of the jam that he did not listen to her. She repeated the words, and this time he whispered back, "I know what I'm doing." After a few more seconds, he remembered the words and recovered. In his autobiography, Scaling the High Cs, Mr. Brecknock writes, "… if I had allowed myself to be guided by someone who knew better, the situation could have been resolved within a couple of bars of music, rather than a couple of pages - and without making the conductor pull his hair out in the pit."
• Sophie Arnould, who was noted for creating the roles of Eurydice in Christoph Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) and of Iphigenie in his Iphigenie en Aulide (1774), once hosted a dinner party for several guests. Apparently, some of the guests were controversial since following the dinner party a police lieutenant wanted the names of all who had attended. Ms. Arnould, however, claimed not to remember the names of any of her guests. The police lieutenant was not amused, saying, "But a woman like you ought to remember things like that." Ms. Arnould smiled and replied, "Of course, lieutenant, but with a man like you, I am not a woman like me."
• Opera fans really, really wanted to hear Enrico Caruso sing. On the days when he was scheduled to sing at the Metropolitan Opera, lines began to form very early, and no tickets would be left for those fans standing at the end of the line. Therefore, Mr. Caruso would often buy 100 tickets for standing admission, although these tickets were normally sold beginning at 30 minutes before the performance. (No one was going to say no to Mr. Caruso!) He would then take his 100 tickets, go to the end of the line, and start passing them out, saying, "Here - with Caruso's compliments. And I hope you enjoy!"
• Opera singer Helen Traubel suffered from stage fright, as did violinist Jascha Heifetz. Before performing at a New York concert, they compared notes. Mr. Heifetz asked Ms. Traubel to feel his hands. She did - they were like ice. She told him, "I can't have you feel the inside of my throat, but it's the same way." Ms. Traubel was relieved to learn about Mr. Heifetz' stage fright - she had thought that she was the only scaredy-cat in the music business.
• Nellie Melba appreciated applause. While touring in Otelloin the United States, her performance as Desdemona won her many ovations. When the applause was especially gratifying after her character was strangled, she would rise, motion for a piano to be wheeled onstage, then play and sing "Home Sweet Home." After the song, she would "die" again until the end of the opera.
• This anecdote may not be true, but it is a good one. One day, tenors John McCormack and Enrico Caruso met on the street. Mr. McCormack asked, "How is the world's greatest tenor?" Mr. Caruso answered, "And since when have you become a baritone?"
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD took the day off.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny and seasonal.
Auction Fetches $9.2M
Sinatra
It was definitely "All" rather than "Nothing at All" at a Frank Sinatra auction in New York, where items owned by the late icon and his fourth wife fetched $9.2 million, Sotheby's said Friday.
And 99 percent of the lots, spread out this week in the US financial and entertainment capital, and online, were snapped up, attracting 300 bidders from more than 30 countries, the auction house announced.
Up for grabs was furniture, art and personal effects dating back to the couple's 22-year marriage -- art and furniture from their homes in Palm Springs, Los Angeles and Malibu -- as well as scripts and screenplays.
The top lot was Barbara Sinatra's 20-carat diamond engagement ring, given to her in the bottom of a champagne glass, which went for $1.7 million.
They included a Norman Rockwell portrait of Sinatra, which the singer commissioned, sold for $687,000 and a script for "From Here to Eternity," the movie for which he won an Oscar, went for $35,000.
Sinatra
Sues Over Adaptation
Jon Krakauer
Author Jon Krakauer has filed suit over a musical adaptation of his 1996 book "Into the Wild."
The Boulder Daily Camera reported Friday Krakauer originally agreed to let playwrights Nikos Tsakalakos and Janet Allard use his name and the book title but changed his mind because he objected to their script.
The lawsuit asks a judge to stop the playwrights from using his name and the title. His attorneys say the agreement allows him to withdraw permission.
"Into the Wild" recounts Christopher McCandless' death in the Alaska wilderness. Krakauer's lawsuit also names the Christopher Johnson McCandless Memorial Foundation, which had also agreed to the adaptation.
Jon Krakauer
Transgender Boxer Wins By Unanimous Decision
Pat Manuel
It's been years in the making, but Patricio Manuel finally made it back in the ring on Saturday night.
The 34-year-old and former U.S. Olympic boxing hopeful not only made his professional fighting debut and beat Hugo Aguilar by unanimous decision at Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, California, on Saturday, but he made history, becoming the first transgender male to fight professionally in the United States.
"I think if people knew what it took to get to this moment, it's been almost two years since I've been in a ring," Manuel said after the fight. "I just have to say my opponent, hats off to him. He came to fight. He was fighting me the whole time. He fought me as a man, and I have so much respect for him."
"I hear some fans aren't happy," Manuel added when hearing boos from the crowd. "It's OK, I'll be back. I'll make them happy then."
Manuel fought for the last time as a female in 2012 at the U.S. Olympic Trials, though had to withdraw after one fight due to a shoulder injury.
Pat Manuel
Splits From Ghost Pirate
Amanda Sparrow Large
An Irish Jack Sparrow impersonator who married the ghost of a pirate has revealed she has split from her 300-year-old hubby.
Earlier this year Amanda Sparrow Large, 46, said she'd found her "soulmate" in a Haitian pirate from the 1700s who was executed for thieving on the high seas.
The loved-up couple were legally married by a shaman priest in a boat off the Irish coast in international waters.
But now the mum from Drogheda, Co Louth, has revealed the unlikely union is over.
Posting on social media she said: "So I feel it's time to let everyone know that my marriage is over.
Amanda Sparrow Large
Chips Are Down For America's Casino Kings
Macau
If any worsening of the trade war leads China to call for a boycott of U.S. companies, America's casino kings will be sweating.
Three American companies - Las Vegas Sands Corp., founded by Republican Party donor Sheldon Adelson; Wynn Resorts Ltd.; and, to a lesser extent, MGM Resorts International - rely on their positions in the casino hub of Macau to thrive. With their two-decade-old licenses expiring in the next four years, they need Beijing and Washington to stay on good terms.
Combined, the three account for half the gaming revenue in Macau, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Margaret Huang. Given that Macau is the only part of China where gambling is allowed, the city's fortunes could collapse if Beijing were to limit the flow of mainlanders, who comprise 90 percent of the former Portuguese enclave's gamblers. That happened when China cracked down on corruption and extravagance four years ago. Alternatively, Beijing could bend the ear of Macau to increase the presence of Chinese operators - so that when the territory's six licenses come up for approval, it would allow a seventh player, insist on local partners, or even scrap the Americans' licenses.
That risks a shift of power in the territory back toward the family of Stanley Ho, for decades Macau's gambling kingpin. Three of the territory's licenses are controlled at least in part by his family: Ho's original company SJM Holdings Ltd.; Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd., with his son Lawrence Ho as chairman and chief executive officer; and MGM China Holdings Ltd., whose co-chairman and second-largest shareholder is Stanley's daughter Pansy Ho. A fourth, Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd., is run by Hong Kong's third-richest man, Liu Che-Woo.
Losing a hold over Macau is no small thing. Macau's gross gaming revenue at $33 billion last year is three times what it was in 2007 and five times that of the Las Vegas Strip. Wynn, whose founder Steve Wynn stepped down as chairman earlier this year after a sexual harassment scandal, makes as much as 70 percent of its Ebitda from Macau. Sands make about half and MGM around 17 percent from the semi-autonomous Chinese city.
Macau
Plundered Mosaics Back In Turkey
'Gypsy Girl'
Missing fragments from one of Turkey's most striking ancient treasures, the haunting, wide-eyed "Gypsy Girl" mosaic, have returned home more than half a century after they were plundered and smuggled to the United States.
On Saturday, the returned pieces went on display alongside the nearly 2,000-year-old mosaic of the girl, whose piercing gaze and dishevelled hair have become a symbol of Turkey's southeastern city of Gaziantep.
Turkish archaeologists discovered the mosaic 20 years ago during an excavation of the old city of Zeugma, founded by one of Alexander the Great's generals, near the modern city of Gaziantep.
Those pieces had been smuggled out of the country in the 1960s and bought by Bowling Green State University in Ohio in the United States, which displayed them until 2012 when their true provenance was established and Turkey asked for their return.
The university initially asked Turkey to buy them back, a request which Ankara rejected, according to Sedat Gulluoglu, Turkey's tourism ministry attache in the United States.
'Gypsy Girl'
Squeezing Cute Babies and Animals
'Cute Aggression'
You've probably heard the term "cuteness aggression" thrown around over the years. It describes the odd but seemingly common compulsion to smoosh, bite, or pinch -but not hurt-adorable things like babies and animals.
Researchers have for years been looking into why some people report feeling this way. Katherine Stavropoulos is an assistant professor of special education at the University of California, Riverside and the co-author of a new study on cute aggression. She told Gizmodo by phone she became interested in the phenomenon after her friend sent her an article about it citing Yale University research on the topic.
While previous research focused on the behavioural side of cute aggression, Stavropoulos' research aimed to show that there was a neural element involved as well. She hypothesised that either the reward or emotion systems were involved, and her research seems to show it's both.
Stavropoulos' research focuses on how the reward system can inform our understanding and help us answer questions. For her cuteness aggression study, published this week in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, Stavropoulos examined the neural element of cuteness aggression using EEG caps, which use electrodes to pick up electrical activity on the top of the scalp.
Fifty-four people between the ages of 18 and 40 participated in the study. All of them were shown four blocks of 32 images: "more cute" animals (or smol baby animals), "less cute" animals (which here meant adult animals), and two types of images of human babies.
'Cute Aggression'
Salamander Breathes Through 'Christmas Trees'
Siren reticulata
A sinuous swamp salamander with spots like a leopard and Christmas-tree-shaped fronds growing from its head hid from scientists for decades. But researchers have finally described this elusive and two-legged aquatic oddity.
Dubbed Siren reticulata - reticulated siren - the animal bears a closer resemblance to an eel than a salamander, with a long body and no hind limbs. In fact, its body shape and spotted pattern previously earned it the name "leopard eel," scientists reported in a new study.
Only recently did researchers confirm that the slippery salamander is a new species. Like other sirens (a group of aquatic salamanders) the newfound species is huge - it measures up to 2 feet (60 centimeters) in length, and is one of the largest animals with backbones described in the U.S. in more than a century, according to the study.
Unlike many other types of salamanders, sirens have extremely elongated bodies, are entirely aquatic and only have front legs. Their heads are crowned with branching external gills - structures that help them extract oxygen from the water, study co-author David Steen, a research ecologist with the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, told Live Science.
To determine if the spotted siren was indeed a new species, the researchers needed specimens. Steen caught one in 2009, and it wasn't until 2014 when scientists captured three more.
Siren reticulata
Weekend Box Office
"Ralph Breaks the Internet"
In the calm before the Christmas storm at the box office, "Ralph Breaks the Internet" remained No. 1 for the third straight week, while the upcoming DC Comics superhero film "Aquaman" arrived with a cannonball-sized splash in Chinese theaters.
For the second week in a row, no new wide releases opened in North American theaters, allowing Disney's animated sequel to again lead domestic ticket sales with $16.1 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The top six films at the box office were all unchanged. Universal's "The Grinch," still a major draw in its fifth weekend, trailed in second with $15.2 million.
Next weekend, the box office is expected to be significantly busier with the release of "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse," ''Once Upon a Deadpool" and Clint Eastwood's "The Mule" and "Mortal Engines."
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included.
1. "Ralph Breaks the Internet," $16.1 million.
2. "The Grinch," $15.2 million ($25.9 million international).
3. "Creed II," $10.3 million ($5.2 million international).
4. "Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald," $6.8 million ($22 million international).
5. "Bohemian Rhapsody," $6 million ($29.2 million international).
6. "Instant Family," $5.6 million ($1.7 million international).
7. "Green Book," $3.9 million.
8. "Robin Hood," $3.6 million ($7.5 million international).
9. "Possession of Hannah Grace," $3.2 million ($4.8 million international).
10. "Widows," $3.1 million ($4.5 million international).
"Ralph Breaks the Internet"
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