• In addition to being an innovator in dance techniques, modern dance pioneer Martha Graham was a pioneer in costuming. In ballet, costumes reveal the legs; however, during Ms. Graham’s period of long woolens, she wore long woolen dresses that she would manipulate with her legs and body to stretch and create dramatic shapes. She took pains with her costumes, and if they weren’t right, she would tear them apart and work with them until they were right. Sometimes, her dancers would use safety pins to hold their costumes together because no time was left to sew them together again in a new pattern after Ms. Graham had ripped them to pieces.
• Ballet companies, not dancers, usually own the ballet costumes — although the dancers do supply their own leotards. This means that more than one dancer wears the costumes. Alicia Markova insisted that her costumes be cleaned each time she was to wear them. At a performance of Romeo and Juliet, Nora Kaye came backstage to change into her next costume — but she discovered that that costume and the others had been taken to the cleaners by an overeager dresser who was following Ms. Markova’s orders. No costume changes took place in that performance of Romeo and Juliet.
• Modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan was also a pioneer in dance costuming. She often wore little more than a short, filmy tunic and left her legs and arms bare. In fact, many women of the time wore more clothing while swimming than Ms. Duncan danced in. Early in her career, she danced for upper-class ladies at teas and garden parties. At least once, some ladies left during her performances because they were scandalized by her lack of clothing. Late in her career, evangelist Billy Sunday complained, “That Bolshevik hussy doesn’t wear enough clothes to pad a crutch!”
• Early in her dancing career, Martha Graham appeared in the Greenwich Village Follies, where she represented artistic dancing in a production otherwise filled with dancing chorus girls. Each day, a police officer arrived to look over the dancers’ costumes to make sure that they didn’t violate any public decency laws. One day, a dancer pointed to Ms. Graham and asked, “What about her?” Although Ms. Graham’s costume was the skimpiest one there, the police officer shrugged and said, “She’s all right — she’s art.”
• Choreographer Bronislava Nijinska danced the part of the hostess in her ballet Les Biches. As she was blocking out the pattern of the dance onstage, she held a cigarette holder as she always did, despite the regulations against smoking backstage. Sergei Diaghilev saw her with the cigarette holder, then insisted that it become part of the costume for her character. Often, Ms. Nijinska drank a glass of champagne just before going onstage because it helped put her in the mood of the character.
• In the musical One Touch of Venus, an ancient statue of the goddess of love comes to life. Nymphs are dancers in the play, and the costumer designed costumes that shocked choreographer Agnes de Mille, who pointed out, “There seem to be breasts under her arms and on her back, too.” The costumer replied, “You wouldn’t want ordinary anatomy on nymphs, surely!” (Fortunately, Ms. de Mille did want ordinary anatomy on the nymphs.)
• Costumes need not be expensive. Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis once went into a Woolworth’s, where they shocked the clerks by putting colanders on their heads and saying such things as, “Look, dear, this strainer fits perfectly.” After they had purchased a colander, they painted it gold and silver, added fake jewels and other gewgaws, and suddenly the colander had turned into an exotic Oriental headdress.
• Dance and dancers change over time. Alvin Ailey, Jr., has said that members of his original company would not have been able to dance his later works such as Streams or Choral Dances. In fact, one of his original dancers told him, “We couldn’t have got into these leotards, never mind cope with the technical challenges.”
• Ballerina Yvette Chauviré always took rehearsals seriously, regarding them as important as the actual performance. Once, at a rehearsal of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty at Covent Garden, she was the only dancer in costume.
The national language of the world's tenth smallest country, formerly known as Melita, is descended from Sicilian Arabic. What is the name of this island republic?
Malta, officially known as the Republic of Malta (Maltese: Repubblika ta' Malta) and formerly Melita, is a Southern European island country consisting of an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. It lies 80 km (50 mi) south of Italy, 284 km (176 mi) east of Tunisia, and 333 km (207 mi) north of Libya. With a population of about 515,000 over an area of 316 km2 (122 sq mi), Malta is the world's tenth smallest country in area and fourth most densely populated sovereign country. Its capital is Valletta, which is the smallest national capital in the European Union by area at 0.8 km2 (0.31 sq mi). The official and national language is Maltese, which is descended from Sicilian Arabic that developed during the Emirate of Sicily, while English serves as the second official language. Italian and Sicilian also previously served as official and cultural languages on the island for centuries, with Italian being an official language in Malta until 1934 and a majority of the current Maltese population being at least conversational in the Italian language.
Malta has been inhabited since approximately 5900 BC. Its location in the centre of the Mediterranean has historically given it great strategic importance as a naval base, with a succession of powers having contested and ruled the islands, including the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Knights of St. John, French, and British. Most of these foreign influences have left some sort of mark on the country's ancient culture.
Malta has had Christians since the time of Early Christianity, though was predominantly Muslim while under Arab rule, at which time Christians were tolerated. Muslim rule ended with the Norman invasion of Malta by Roger I in 1091. Today, Catholicism is the state religion, but the Constitution of Malta guarantees freedom of conscience and religious worship.
Source
Mark. was first, and correct, with:
Malta.
Billy in Cypress said:
Malta
Cal in Vermont wrote:
Malta. They had a Falcon that got a lot of people killed. They invented Malta Milk. I am partial to vanilla. Chocolate is good too.
Alan J answered:
Malta.
Randall replied:
Malta
Mac Mac responded:
Malta
mj wrote:
Ducky's mum had an
Ill-fated romance there. Malta.
Kevin K. in Washington DC, In Washington DC at the moment but by Friday evening I’ll be at an undisclosed location in West Virginia until Joe is President and the Orange Menace is gone said:
It’s Malta! Make mine chocolate!
David of Moon Valley wrote:
….well, from my research i come up with Malta…maybe?…maybe not? we’ll find out tomorrow so tune in then kiddies….same Firetime, same Firestation…...
Jim from CA, retired to ID, said:
Malta
Deborah, the Master Gardener answered:
Malta, I think.
Definitely not winter weather; I’m not ready to put away my sweaters yet.
Daniel in The City replied:
Malta
Rosemary in Columbus responded:
Malta
Dave in Tucson wrote:
Just another non-educated guess. The island nation is Malta?
Jacqueline said:
I think it's Malta.
Joe S (We resisted, we voted, we won. Get over it) answered:
The Republic of Malta. I'll admit it, I didn't know that. Ya learn something every day.
Stephen F took the day off.
Gary K took the day off.
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DJ Useo took the day off.
Jon L took the day off.
Barbara, of Peppy Tech fame took the day off.
Ed K took the day off.
Roy, still Antifa, still in Tyler, TX took the day off.
Doug in Albuquerque, New Mexico, took the day off.
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Bob from Mechanicsburg, Pa took the day off.
-pgw took the day off.
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Angelo D took the day off.
Harry M. took the day off.
George M. took the day off.
Roy the (now retired) hoghead (aka 'hoghed') ( Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid. ~Frank Zappa ) took the day off.
Saskplanner took the day off.
Gateway Mike took the day off.
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Gene took the day off.
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James of Alhambra took the day off.
BttbBob has returned to semi-retired status.
~~~~~
"...this pathetic little excuse of a man doesn't have the balls to negotiate a handoff of Air Force One with Biden, so the eight political appointees left in the White House have to throw him a breakfast celebration to get him wheels-down at Mar-a-Lardo before noon. Whoopeeee, Egg McMuffins for everybody!"
"Vice President Mike Pence has been tasked with the farewell activities that would normally fall to the president, such as thanking White House staff and National Guard troops, since Trump isn't so much about grace or gratitude or manners or basic human decency. So it fell to the State Department to invite the Bidens to stay the night before inauguration at Blair House, since neither the president nor Melania has deigned to acknowledge them."
"Wednesday will still be a glorious, wonderful day. The first day of the rest of America's life. And we are bloody grateful."
We're having a heat wave - way too warm for this time of year.
Tonight, Saturday:
CBS fills the night with LIVE'NFL Playoffs'.
NBC fills the night with LIVE'NFL Playoffs', then pads the left coast with local crap, and maybe an old 'Dateline'.
'SNL' is a RERUN (from 12/05/20) with Jason Bateman hosting, music by Morgan Wallen.
ABC starts the night with a RERUN'Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune', followed by a RERUN'The Chase', then a RERUN'For Life'.
The CW offers a couple of old 'Friends', followed by a couple of old '2½ Men'.
Faux has a RERUN'The Masked Dancer', followed by a RERUN'Name That Tune'.
MY recycles an old 'Weather Gone Viral', followed by an old 'Storm Of Suspicion'.
A&E has all old 'The First 48 Presesnts: Homicide Squad Atlanta' all night.
AMC offers the movie 'The Karate Kid, Part II', followed by the movie 'Caddyshack', then the movie 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off'.
BBC -
[6:00AM - 9:00AM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC
[10:00AM - 12:00PM] WILD SINGAPORE
[1:00PM - 3:00PM] PLANET EARTH: WILD WEST
[4:00PM - 6:00PM] WILD ALASKA
[7:00PM] WILD INDIA
[8:00PM - 10:00PM] YELLOWSTONE
[11:00PM] WILD INDIA
[12:00AM - 2:00AM] WILD ALASKA
[3:00AM - 5:00AM] PLANET EARTH: SOUTH PACIFIC (ALL TIMES ET)
Bravo has the movie 'Friday After Next', followed by the movie 'Friday', then the movie 'Next Friday'.
Comedy Central has an old 'The Office', another old 'The Office', followed by the movie 'The Wolf Of Wall Street'.
FX has the movie 'The Equalizer 2', followed by the movie 'Venom', then the movie 'Widows'.
History has the movie 'American Sniper', followed by the movie 'Saving Private Ryan'.
IFC -
[6:00am - 12:00pm] Saved By The Bell: The College Years
[12:30pm] Saved By The Bell
[1:00pm] Saved By The Bell
[1:30pm] Casino Royale
[5:00pm] Quantum Of Solace
[7:30pm] Skyfall
[10:30pm] Inglourious Basterds
[2:00am] The Hunt For Red October
[5:00am] Saved By The Bell
[5:30am] Saved By The Bell (ALL TIMES ET)
Sundance -
[6:00am - 10:30am] the andy griffith show
[11:00am - 5:30pm] hogan's heroes
[6:00pm] cliffhanger
[8:00pm] air force one
[11:00pm] cliffhanger
[1:00am] air force one
[4:00am] monk - Mr. Monk And The Secret Santa
[5:00am] monk - Mr. Monk Goes To A Fashion Show (ALL TIMES ET)
SyFy has the movie 'Death Wish', followed by the movie 'Gone In 60 Seconds'.
Bruce Springsteen will perform on Joe Biden’s inauguration TV special.
The “Born in the USA” singer will appear on Celebrating America, a televised event taking place after Biden is sworn into office next Wednesday (20 January).
The event will be hosted by Tom Hanks, with John Legend and Foo Fighters also due to perform.
They join previously announced musical guests Justin Timberlake, Jon Bon Jovi, Demi Lovato and Ant Clemons.
The Biden/Harris Presidential Inaugural Committee announced additional programming in advance of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on January 20. The theme of the now five consecutive nights of events is “America United.”
On Saturday, January 16 is America United: An Inauguration Welcome Event Celebrating America’s Changemakers. The event will “celebrate America, reflect and honor our history, and highlight the incredible diversity of the nation” and kick off the five days of programming.
Whoopi Goldberg, actor Nik Dodani, comedienne and actress Cristela Alonzo, musician Darren Criss, Representative Grace Meng, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Resistance Revival Choir will participate. The Welcome Event will feature a special performance by the Grammy-nominated Black Pumas. It will stream live from 7:00-8:30 PM ET at bideninaugural.org and on Presidential Inaugural Committee social media pages.
Also announced today is United We Serve: A Celebration of the National MLK Day of Service on Monday, January 18. According to the release, thousands of volunteers across the country will participate in the National Day of Service, which will then be celebrated by entertainers and inspiring speakers such as Aloe Blacc, Rev. Dr. Bernice King, Martin Luther King III, Chesca, Rep. Sharice Davids, Rosario Dawson, Andra Day, Yo-Yo Ma, Rev. Al Sharpton, Sean Patrick Thomas, Diane Warren, Lynn Whitfield and Bebe Winans. The event will stream live from 8:00-9:00 PM ET at bideninaugural.org and on the inaugural committee’s social media pages.
The first night that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert beat The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in total viewers after his opening night, the bespectacled host sprung for pizza for his crew.
That was the first week of February 2017, not long after Donald Trump was sworn in as President of the United States of America.
However, with Joe Biden’s inauguration next week, late-night observers question whether there will be another shift in the long-running ratings battle between The Late Show and The Tonight Show. There is also the question of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which is now in the middle of its competitors.
Last Friday, The Late Show was watched by 3.8M viewers – its largest three-day audience since November 2019 — and it will be interesting to see whether this continues over the next 12 months, or whether late-night viewers will look to The Tonight Show for laughs. It may depend on whether political tensions in the U.S. die down over the coming months.
The ratings battle between The Late Show and The Tonight Show extends back to 1993 and there were fluctuations before Jay Leno ultimately sailed past David Letterman. Back in 2003, NBC boss Jeff Zucker said “There is no more late-night war,” but that’s evidently not been the case over the last four years. We’ll see if it continues.
Elvis Presley’s Graceland is now offering live online tours for fans around the world, including those who can’t travel to the Tennessee tourist attraction during the coronavirus pandemic.
Graceland said the two-hour guided tours will take virtual visitors into Presley’s former Memphis home, which has been turned into a museum, and through the Meditation Garden, where he is buried. The singer and actor died in Memphis on Aug. 16, 1977.
Also included in the $100 ticket is a tour of Presley’s jet and a walk through the entertainment complex, which houses exhibits and artifacts related to Presley. Viewers will be able to ask questions during the tours.
Graceland typically hosts hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. But the tourist attraction has seen a drop in visitors during the virus outbreak. Graceland was closed for several weeks last year and is now open for limited-capacity, in-person tours.
Virtual tours are scheduled for Jan. 27, Feb. 25, and March 25, with more dates expected.
President Trump (R-Lock Him Up) appears to be out of options in his quest to con his way into a second term in office. The court challenges didn’t work. Pressuring Republican politicians to hold up the certification of the election results didn’t work. Inciting a mob of thousands of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol building didn’t work. As things stand currently, Joe Biden is still scheduled to be sworn in as president on January 20th.
But Donald J. Trump isn’t one to give up. No, he’s going to “fight like hell,” just like he told his supporters before they attacked the Capitol last week. He’s still got a solid five days to drum up another ill-fated scheme to stay in office, and he’s calling in the big guns. Mike Lindell, the MAGA-friendly affordable bedding entrepreneur also known as the MyPillow guy, was seen entering the White House on Friday.
So just to reset where we’re at here: As states are struggling to inoculate their citizens against a relentless pandemic that has killed nearly 400,000 Americans, and as the nation continues to reckon with how a violent mob of extremists was able to infiltrate the Capitol and kill five people in an attempt to overthrow the government, the president of the United States is meeting with a pillow salesman to discuss the possibility of instituting martial law. Sounds about right.
This is far from the first time Trump has turned to Lindell, maybe the president’s most ardent supporter from the business world. The MyPillow guy has appeared at several of the president’s rallies, and even after last week’s insurrection maintained that Trump would remain president for another four years. (Lindell described the riot at the Capitol as “very peaceful,” which will be great news for the five people who died.) He’s also advised the president on Covid-19, and reportedly helped inspire Trump’s promotion of an exotic plant extract as a cure. (Lindell acquired a financial stake in the company that produces the product shortly before pushing it to the president.) Trump even invited Lindell to speak during a coronavirus task force briefing from the White House Rose Garden. “Boy, do you sell those pillows,’ Trump said as he introduced him.
President Trump (R-Lock Him Up)'s approval rating has fallen to the lowest level of his presidency, with a significant drop among Republicans.
In the latest Pew Research Center poll released Friday, Trump received a job approval rating of 29 percent, which is his lowest-ever number in this poll and a decline of nine percentage points from August. Additionally, Pew notes that "much of the decline has come among Republicans and GOP leaners," 60 percent of whom approve of Trump's job performance compared to 77 percent in August.
Additionally, Pew found that Trump voters "have grown more critical of their candidate's post-election conduct," as the "share of his supporters who describe his conduct as poor has doubled over the past two months, from 10 percent to 20 percent." The poll also found that only 29 percent of respondents said Trump should remain a major figure in U.S. politics in the years to come, while 68 percent said he shouldn't be.
The poll was conducted in the wake of last week's deadly attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, which led to Trump becoming the first president in American history to be impeached twice. In the poll, three-quarters of respondents said Trump bears either a lot or some responsibility for the riot, while only 24 percent said he isn't responsible at all. Ahead of his upcoming Senate impeachment trial, 54 percent of respondents also said it would be better for Trump to be removed from office than finish his term, a possibility that has been ruled out due to the trial not being expected to begin until President-elect Joe Biden is in office.
Pew Research Center conducted its poll by surveying 5,360 U.S. adults from Jan. 8-12. The margin of error is 1.9 percentage points.
Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) has reportedly told his advisers to never bring up former President Richard Nixon’s name again, as he faces calls to resign before his presidency ends on 20 January.
CNN reported on Thursday that some of President Trump’s advisers had a casual discussion recently about whether he should resign before the end of his presidency.
President Trump reportedly shut down the idea immediately, telling several of his aides that mentioning Nixon’s name is banned, while warning in a separate expletive-filled rant to never bring up the former president in conversation again.
Nixon was the last US president to resign when he left office in 1974, as the House voted to start impeachment proceedings on him after he refused to hand over taped calls that prosecutors believed tied him to a break-in at the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters.
A pigeon that Australia declared a biosecurity risk has received a reprieve after a U.S. bird organization declared its identifying leg band was fake.
The band suggested the bird found in a Melbourne backyard on Dec. 26 was a racing pigeon that had left the U.S. state of Oregon, 13,000 kilometers (8,000 miles) away, two months earlier.
On that basis, Australian authorities on Thursday said they considered the bird a disease risk and planned to kill it.
But Deone Roberts, sport development manager for the Oklahoma-based American Racing Pigeon Union, said on Friday the band was fake.
“The bird band in Australia is counterfeit and not traceable,” Roberts said. “They do not need to kill him.”
NASA’s images of the Sun’s dynamic and dazzling beauty have captivated the attention of millions. In 2021, the US Postal Service is showcasing the Sun’s many faces with a series of Sun Science forever stamps that show images of solar activity captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO.
“I have been a stamp collector all my life and I can’t wait to see NASA science highlighted in this way,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) in Washington. “I feel that the natural world around us is as beautiful as art, and it’s inspiring to be able to share the import and excitement of studying the Sun with people around the country.”
The 20-stamp set features ten images that celebrate the science behind NASA’s ongoing exploration of our nearest star. The images display common events on the Sun, such as solar flares, sunspots and coronal loops. SDO has kept a constant eye on the Sun for over a decade. Outfitted with equipment to capture images of the Sun in multiple wavelengths of visible, ultraviolet, and extreme ultraviolet light, SDO has gathered hundreds of millions of images during its tenure to help scientists learn about how our star works and how its constantly churning magnetic fields create the solar activity we see.
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said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
