from Bruce
Anecdotes
Dance
• Early in his career, ballet master George Balanchine was a dancer, although he preferred choreographing. Nevertheless, as a young dancer he showed great stamina. Once, he missed a train, chased after it, failed to catch up with it, and so was forced to bicycle 16 miles to his next performance, where he danced a pas de deux. By the way, Mr. Balanchine’s “Stars and Stripes” was so popular with audiences that he called it an “applause machine.” Also by the way, when the American — but internationally famous — Mr. Balanchine learned that President Ronald Reagan had chosen him to be the recipient of the highest award an American citizen can receive—the Medal of Freedom, he joked, “Of what country?”
• George Balanchine used real life when he choreographed his “Serenade” to Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade in C for String Orchestra.” A ballerina once arrived late for rehearsal, so “Serenade” includes a ballerina entering the dance late. A male dancer became available suddenly, so Mr. Balanchine included a male dancer in “Serenade.” During rehearsal, an exhausted and overwhelmed dancer collapsed to the floor, so in “Serenade” the ballerina falls to the floor.
• Ballerina Margot Fonteyn’s husband was involved in planning a political coup in Panama. Once, Ms. Fonteyn found a box of grenades in her basement—she was not surprised. Ms. Fonteyn often danced witrh Rudolf Nureyev, At the Kirov School for Ballet, a very young Rudolf was told by a teacher, “Young man, you will either become a brilliant dancer or a total failure—and most likely you will be a failure.”
• Sallie Wilson used to be a principal dancer for American Ballet Theatre. She began to study dance through an accident. A musician, she was playing in a school orchestra during a ballet performance when the lights in the orchestra pit went out. This meant she had to play from memory, and instead of looking at the music, she was able to watch the ballet performance. She liked what she saw, so she began to study ballet.
• When Ted Shawn was attending college in Denver in the early part of the 20th century, dancing was not permitted; however, Mr. Shawn and his fraternity brothers wanted to hold dances. Therefore, they sent out invitations that said, “You’re invited to come and play folk games with us to music on a slick floor.”
• Dancing in South America has its advantages, as flowers are inexpensive and plentiful. After a performance of Giselle, ballerina Alicia Markova was presented with a giant basket of white camellias. She and the corps de ballet were so astonished by its size that they counted the blooms—500!
• Dancers Irina Baronova and George Skibine used to play a childish (and for dancers, dangerous) game while waiting to go on stage to perform—they would have a contest to see who could stamp on the other’s foot first.
Death
• The elderly actor A.E. Matthews once took a nap in his dressing room while sitting on a chair. During his nap, he fell off the chair, landed on the floor, and continued his nap there. The call boy found him on the floor, was frightened, and told the stage manager, “Mr. Matthews is dead.” Before anything could be done, Mr. Matthews woke up and went out on stage and performed very well as usual. Later, he told the call boy, “Next time you find me dead on the floor I suggest you tell them, ‘I think Mr. Matthews is dead.’”
• Theatrical director Tyrone Guthrie had a heart attack and was in an oxygen tent. One of his aunts thought that he was dead and opened the oxygen tent to look in. Mr. Guthrie opened one eye and said, “Not dead yet, fiddle dee-dee.” By the way, despite being very busy, Mr. Guthrie was very willing to give his time to others. His wife, Judy, once said that if the Timbuctoo Ladies Guild ever wanted him to give them a talk, Mr. Guthrie would write them: “Delighted! Can fit you in nicely on Thursday, on my way from Minneapolis to Belfast.”
• The great dancer Bill Robinson, aka Mr. Bojangles, was afraid to fly. People told him that when it was his day to die, it wouldn’t matter whether he was up in the air or down on the ground, but he responded, “I don’t plan to be up there on the pilot’s day.” By the way, at one time Mr. Bojangles wasn’t getting along with Ethel Waters, so he taught his dog to perform a trick. Whenever anyone said “Ethel Waters” to the dog, the dog growled.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Henry Chinaski"
Album: ARE YOU NOT BLUE?
Artist: Macatier
Artist Location: Bristol, UK
Record Company: Aldora Britain Records
Record Company Location: Rothley, UK
Info:
“Macatier is Dan-Dudek Brown, an indie acoustic punk musician based in Bristol, UK.”
“Henry Charles ‘Hank’ Chinaski is the literary alter ego of the American writer Charles Bukowski, appearing in five of Bukowski's novels, a number of his short stories and poems, and the films Barfly and Factotum.” — Wikipedia
“Aldora Britain Records is an e-zine and record label that promotes the music and work of authentic independent or underground artists from all around the world. Originally established in 2013, they revamped themselves in 2018 with a brand-new approach. Their first weekly compilation, aptly titled THE SECOND COMING, was released in late 2019. They now also release original singles, EPs and charity projects.”
Price: £0.50 for 19-track album
Genre: Indie Acoustic Punk. Various.
Links:
ARE YOU NOT BLUE?
Macatier on YouTube
Aldora Britain Records on Bandcamp
Aldora Britain Records on YouTube
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Reader Suggestion
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New Venture
Michael Egan
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
Recommended
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Sky's Deborah Haynes returns to the town of Bucha near Kyiv, where they are still trying to identify the dead.
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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
Way, way, way too effing hot.
American Sign Language
'The Simpsons'
Springfield is continuing to diversify its population of animated characters. The April 10 episode of The Simpsons, "The Sound of Bleeding Gums," features the long-running show's first-ever deaf voice actor, John Autry II. The young performer — whose past credits include appearances on Glee and I Hear You — plays Monk, the long-lost son of Lisa Simpson's favorite jazzman, "Bleeding Gums" Murphy, who died way back in the show's sixth season.
And in another first, Monk communicates via American Sign Language, and entire sequences of the episode will feature ASL. In an interview with Variety, Autry described the groundbreaking guest appearance as "incredible" and "life-changing."
"The Sound of Bleeding Gums" was written by Loni Steele Sosthand, who has a brother that was born deaf. "When we were talking about this Bleeding Gums character in our initial brainstorms, we thought, 'Wouldn’t it be cool if Lisa discovers this whole other side of his life,''" she told Variety. "That led to him having a son, and then we based that character at least somewhat on my brother. And the story grew from there."
'The Simpsons'
Thanks Hospital
David Letterman
If David Letterman put together a Top Ten list of hospitals, Rhode Island Hospital would probably be No. 1.
The longtime host of “The Late Show with David Letterman,” who stepped down in 2015, thanked the staff of the hospital’s emergency department in a video Thursday in which he disclosed that he was visiting Providence with his son last August when he fell on the sidewalk, struck his head, and fell unconscious.
“The ambulance comes and picks me up. They take me and my son in the ambulance to the emergency room and they stitch me up, they X-rayed my head, they gave me a CT scan, they scrubbed me up,” Letterman, 74, says in the roughly one-minute long video posted to YouTube by Lifespan, the hospital’s parent company.
He says the experience was scary at the time, but the staff put him at ease.
“So I can’t thank you enough for making time for me,” he concluded. “So I have nothing but lovely things to say and think about with regard to the Rhode Island Hospital and the emergency department.”
David Letterman
Moves To Di$ney+
‘Dancing With the Stars’
“Dancing With the Stars” will waltz away from its longtime ABC home and over to streaming service Disney+, the network’s corporate sibling.
The competition series, which debuted on the broadcast network in 2005, will be on Disney+ starting this fall in the U.S. and Canada, the company announced Friday.
It will be the first live series on Disney+, said Kareem Daniel, chairman of Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution. The program received a two-season order from Disney+.
The platform switch comes as ABC looks ahead to NFL games next season that will air on Monday night, the time period that’s belonged to “Dancing With the Stars.”
‘Dancing With the Stars’
10-Year Ban
Oscars
The motion picture academy on Friday banned Will Smith from attending the Oscars or any other academy event for 10 years following his slap of Chris Rock at the Academy Awards.
The move comes after a meeting of the academy’s Board of Governors to discuss a response to Smith’s actions.
Smith will keep the Oscar he won after the slap, and he will remain eligible to be nominated for and to win more of them in the 10-year period, though he can’t show up to accept them.
The academy also apologized for its handling of the situation and allowing Smith to stay and accept his best actor award for “King Richard.”
Oscars
Legal Effort Expands
'Insurrectionists'
A legal effort to disqualify from reelection lawmakers who participated in events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol expanded Thursday, when a cluster of voters and a progressive group filed suit against three elected officials in Arizona to bar them under the 14th Amendment from running again.
In three separate candidacy challenges filed in Superior Court in Maricopa County, Arizona, voters and the progressive group, Free Speech for People, targeted Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs and state Rep. Mark Finchem, who is running for Arizona secretary of state with former President Donald Trump’s endorsement.
It was unclear whether the challenges would go anywhere; an initial skirmish, also led by Free Speech for People, failed to block Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s candidacy in North Carolina. But they were the latest bids to find a way to punish members of Congress who have encouraged or made common cause with those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
In all three suits, the plaintiffs claim that the politicians are disqualified from seeking office because their support for rioters who attacked the Capitol made them “insurrectionists” under the Constitution and therefore barred them under the little-known third section of the 14th Amendment, adopted during Reconstruction to punish members of the Confederacy.
A separate action is being pursued by a Democratic-aligned super PAC against Sen. Ron Johnson and Reps. Tom Tiffany and Scott Fitzgerald, all Wisconsin Republicans.
'Insurrectionists'
Oddly Heavy Particle
W Boson
An ultraprecise measurement of the mass of a subatomic particle called the W boson may diverge from the Standard Model, a long-reigning framework that governs the strange world of quantum physics.
After 10 years of collaboration using an atom smasher at Fermilab in Illinois, scientists announced this new measurement, which is so precise that they likened it to finding the weight of an 800-pound (363 kilograms) gorilla to a precision of 1.5 ounces (42.5 grams). Their result puts the W boson, a carrier of the weak nuclear force, at a mass seven standard deviations higher than the Standard Model predicts. That's a very high level of certainty, representing only an incredibly small probability that this result occurred by pure chance.
"While this is an intriguing result, the measurement needs to be confirmed by another experiment before it can be interpreted fully," Joe Lykken, Fermilab's deputy director of research, said in a statement.
The new result also disagrees with older experimental measurements of the W boson's mass. It remains to be seen if this measurement is an experimental fluke or the first opening of a crack in the Standard Model. If the result does stand up to scrutiny and can be replicated, it could mean that we need to revise or extend the Standard Model with possibly new particles and forces.
W boson
Shards Found in Fossil Site
Asteroid
Pristine slivers of the impactor that killed the dinosaurs have been discovered, said scientists studying a North Dakota site that is a time capsule of that calamitous day 66 million years ago.
The object that slammed off the Yucatán Peninsula of what is today Mexico was about 6 miles wide, scientists estimate, but the identification of the object has remained a subject of debate. Was it an asteroid or a comet? If it was an asteroid, what kind was it — a solid metallic one or a rubble pile of rocks and dust held together by gravity?
“If you’re able to actually identify it, and we’re on the road to doing that, then you can actually say, ‘Amazing, we know what it was,’” Robert DePalma, a paleontologist spearheading the excavation of the site, said Wednesday during a talk at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.
A video of the talk and a subsequent discussion between DePalma and prominent NASA scientists will be released online in a week or two, a Goddard spokesperson said. Many of the same discoveries will be discussed in “Dinosaurs: The Final Day,” a BBC documentary narrated by David Attenborough, which will air in Britain this month. In the United States, the PBS program “Nova” will broadcast a version of the documentary next month.
A New Yorker article in 2019 described the site in southwestern North Dakota, named Tanis, as a wonderland of fossils buried in the aftermath of the impact some 2,000 miles away. Many paleontologists were intrigued but uncertain about the scope of DePalma’s claims; a research paper published that year by DePalma and his collaborators mostly described the geological setting of the site, which once lay along the banks of a river.
Asteroid
Not Hallucinations
“Near-Death Experiences”
A blinding light. Angelic choruses. Your whole life flashing before your eyes. We all know the kinds of things we mean when we talk about someone having a “near-death experience.”
Scientifically, though, the concept is pretty ill-defined. Ask a neuroscientist, or a critical care physician, for example, what a near-death experience is, or what it means, and you’ll leave them fairly stumped (or fighting amongst themselves). Further research is needed, as they say.
That’s why now, scientists from a wide range of disciplines have published a new consensus statement regarding the study of death. Published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, the paper is the first-ever peer-reviewed statement on the scientific study of death, and is designed to “provide insights into potential mechanisms, ethical implications, and methodologic considerations for systematic investigation” and “identify issues and controversies” in the research area.
The statement comes at a critical (no pun intended) time, as “death” in the 21st century isn’t the same as death even a hundred years ago.
“Near-Death Experiences”
'Hot Commodity'
Manure
For nearly two decades, Abe Sandquist has used every marketing tool he can think of to sell the back end of a cow. Poop, after all, needs to go somewhere. The Midwestern entrepreneur has worked hard to woo farmers on its benefits for their crops.
Now, facing a global shortage of commercial fertilizers made worse by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, more U.S. growers are knocking on his door. Sandquist says they're clamoring to get their hands on something Old MacDonald would swear by: old-fashioned animal manure.
"I wish we had more to sell," said Sandquist, founder of Natural Fertilizer Services Inc, a nutrient management firm based in the U.S. state of Iowa. "But there's not enough to meet the demand."
Some livestock and dairy farmers, including those who previously paid to have their animals' waste removed, have found a fertile side business selling it to grain growers. Equipment firms that make manure spreading equipment known as "honeywagons" are also benefiting.
Manure
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