from Bruce
Anecdotes
Language
• Léonide Massine found it difficult to learn English; however, he was happy when he learned that in England it is possible to get almost anything you want by using the word “please.” By the way, Mr. Massine’s name was originally “Miassin,” but he changed it because Sergei Diaghilev felt that it was “too difficult” for audiences who spoke English. Also by the way, as a young man, Mr. Massine auditioned for Michel Fokine. Mr. Fokine asked him to study a mural on the wall, then imitate the poses of the characters on the mural. Mr. Massine did so, then Mr. Fokine asked him to jump over a chair that was three feet high to demonstrate his elevation. Mr. Massine did so easily—and passed the audition.
• Michael Stephenson and Diane Downes were dancing the Snow pas de deux from The Nutcracker. During several rehearsals, Mr. Stephenson had forgotten a certain step, so when they arrived at that step, Ms. Downes, trying to be helpful, whispered, “Effacé.” Unfortunately, Mr. Stephenson misheard the word and thought she was saying, “I feel sick,” so trying to be helpful, he whispered encouraging words such as “You’re doing fine” and “Hang in there.” After the dance was over and they were safely offstage, Ms. Downes asked him, “What the hell were you talking about?”
• Emmy Destinn was an opera singer from Czechoslovakia. During World War I, she suffered horribly while being interned in Austria, and after that experience, she vowed that never again would she speak German and she immediately dropped German operas from her repertoire. By the way, if you are in opera, you will mingle with many people from other countries, some of whom may not know English very well. Soprano Frances Alda was once toasted by her colleague De Segurola, who began by saying, “Alda, you permit? I speak on your behind ….”
• Thomas Beecham once conducted in a building in Lancaster, England, in which this sign was hung: “It is strictly forbidden to use in this building the words Hell, Damn, and other Biblical Expressions.” By the way, a sundial near Venice bears this Latin inscription: Horas non numero nisi serenas. (I count only the hours that are serene.) In other words, it counts only the hours that are sunny and pleasant.
• Sir Steven Runciman, a British historian, told ballerina Margot Fonteyn about a parrot that had been named a professor. An old lady who was one of the very few people left who could speak Cornish owned the parrot. After the old lady died, only the parrot was able to speak Cornish, so London University gave the parrot its Chair of Cornish Language.
• While in Germany, Percy Frosdick, a violinist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, tried to remain on his vegetarian diet. When a waiter tried to serve him a steak, Mr. Frosdick declined it, saying, “Nein, nein—ich bin Gemüse!” Unfortunately, that means, “No, no—I am a vegetable!”
• Irish playwright Brendan Behan often used the word “bejaysus” in conversation, causing many people to think he was being blasphemous. A man once asked Mr. Behan’s friend Liam Dwyer about this practice, and Mr. Dwyer replied, “It’s His friends who know Him by His first name.”
Media
• Fern Helsher worked as a press agent for Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers. As a former newspaper woman, she had many contacts and was able to get Mr. Shawn more and better publicity. Once, she went into the newspaper of a major midwestern city with publicity material, and the editor, who was a friend of hers, took her to lunch, where he asked, “What the hell are you representing a bunch of faeries for?” She replied, “They’re not faeries, but let’s not talk about them.” She and the editor gossiped over lunch, and when she left, she gave the editor a package of photos, saying, “If you can do anything with it, fine. If not, OK.” The next day photos of Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers were splashed all over the front page.
• Alexander Woolcott used to tell this story: A city editor once sent a reporter to interview a man, but the man refused to be interviewed and threatened to shoot any reporter who rang his doorbell again. The alarmed reporter called his editor with this news, but the editor gave him this order, “You go back and tell that fellow he can’t intimidate me.”
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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: “Il Cavaliere” [The Cavalier”]
Album: MAI TAI IN HI-FI
Artist: Shorty’s Swingin Coconuts
Artist Location: Long Beach, California
Record Company: Hi-Tide Recordings
Record Company Location: New Jersey
Info:
Hi-Tide presents “Mai Tai in Hi-Fi” — the debut EP from tiki supergroup led by Shorty Poole ft. members of The Hula Girls, Big Sandy & his Fly Rite Boys, and The Dave & Deke Combo
Releases April 15, 2022
Shorty Poole - Steel Guitar / Standard Guitar
Mike Sobieski - Standard Guitar
Wally Hersom - Electric & Upright Bass
Santos DeLeon - Drums & Percussion
Kahuna Cole, a fan, wrote, “Surf's up in Long Beach again!! Up early, rack the boards on the bus and head south in search of surf! Nice sound!”
“Hi-Tide Recordings is an international record label and lifestyle brand based in Freehold, New Jersey, USA. Partners Vincent Minervino and Magdalena O’Connell tour the world as vinyl DJs and event curators, and produce their very own Hi-Tide ‘Holiday’ series of music & cocktail weekenders.”
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $6 (USD) for 4 tracks
Genre: Surf Instrumental
Links:
MAI TAI IN HI-FI on Bandcamp
Hi-Tide Recordings on Bandcamp
Hi-Tide Recordings on YouTube
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
Ukraine
Other Links:
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Air Force offers medical, reaching out to military health clinics who help transgender children take steps to affirm their gender, ...
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Chamber of Commerce weather.
'It's Groundhog Day. I Feel Like Bill Murray.'
Zelenskyy
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he is tired of Western leaders repeatedly asking him for a wishlist of weapons for Ukraine.
In an interview published Friday with The Atlantic, Zelenskyy said he is often frustrated by repetitive questions asked of him by Western leaders.
"It's not interesting to answer the questions you already heard," Zelenskyy said, according to The Atlantic.
"When some leaders ask me what weapons I need, I need a moment to calm myself, because I already told them the week before," he continued. "It's 'Groundhog Day.' I feel like Bill Murray."
Nevertheless, Zelenskyy repeats his wishlist, hoping to receive support in the form of weaponry from Western allies, The Atlantic reported. He said that he has even offered to fly up to three Ukrainian cargo planes to pick up weapons from other countries.
Zelenskyy
Important Lesson About the F-Word
Sesame Street
Brett Goldstein is teaching a very valuable lesson during his visit to Sesame Street.
In a video on Thursday, the 41-year-old Ted Lasso star broke down the Word of the Day with Sesame Street's Tamir.
"Today's word begins with the letter F," Tamir announces to the camera.
"Oh, I love the letter F," responds Goldstein, whose Ted Lasso character Roy Kent takes a liking to that f-word.
Though viewers may expect to hear a curse word, Tamir soon puts any suspicions to rest when he exclaims, "Today's word is... Fairness!"
Sesame Street
TV Theme Song
Cockatiel
A Pennsylvania family's pet cockatiel was identified after three years on the loose thanks to the bird's love for a classic TV theme song.
Louise Duncan said she knew the bird she found on the front porch of Christ United Methodist Church in Lancaster County was not a native species.
Duncan and Pastor Roseann Goldberg-Taylor wrangled the bird into a box and contacted local animal rescue group ORCA.
ORCA posted photos of the bird on Facebook, and soon received a message from a family in Ephrata who reported their cockatiel, named Lucky, had escaped from their home three years earlier.
Libby Rannels of ORCA said rescue workers and the family compared the bird to photos of Lucky and were pretty sure of the bird's identity, but a family member suggested another test: seeing if the cockatiel would react to the theme song from The Andy Griffith Show.
Cockatiel
For Invisible Artwork
Receipt
A receipt for a piece of "invisible art" by French artist Yves Klein surpassed expectations by selling for nearly $1.2 million at an auction.
Sotheby's said the receipt, part of Klein's imaginary art series Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility, had been expected to fetch up to $551,000, but surpassed expectations by fetching a top bid of $1,151,467.40.
The receipt was dated Dec. 7, 1959, just a few years before the artist's death in 1963.
The auction house said the receipts are rare today because Klein invited buyers to participate in a ritual that involved burning the receipt and throwing half of the gold into the Seine River in order to make the buyer the "definitive owner" of the conceptual artwork.
The receipt, originally issued to antiques dealer Jacques Kugel, was one of 100 items being auctioned by Sotheby's on behalf of art advisor and former gallery owner Loic Malle.
Receipt
‘We Need Ammo. We Need Fraud Examples’
New Texts
The House Jan. 6 committee possesses nearly 100 text messages from two Republican lawmakers urging then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to overturn the 2020 presidential election, CNN reported on Friday.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Texas Congressman Chip Roy supported (the) former President Trump’s decision to not concede the election once it was called on Nov. 7, with Lee offering Meadows “unequivocal support for you to exhaust every legal and constitutional remedy at your disposal to restore Americans faith in our elections.”
“This fight is about the fundamental fairness and integrity of our election system,” Lee added. “The nation is depending upon your continued resolve. Stay strong and keep fighting Mr. President.”
Lee, who prides himself as a legal scholar (cough, cough), also asked Meadows if he would facilitate getting conspiracy theorist and quack attorney Sidney Powell in front of Trump the unindicted conspirator. “Apparently she has a strategy to keep things alive and put several states back in play,” Lee wrote. “Can you help get her in?”
Roy, meanwhile, urged Meadows to prepare for battle. “We need ammo. We need fraud examples. We need it this weekend,” he wrote.
New Texts
First Interstellar Meteor
Earth
The U.S. Space Command announced this week that it determined a 2014 meteor hit that hit Earth was from outside the solar system. The meteor streaked across the sky off the coast of Manus Island, Papua New Guinea three years earlier than what was believed to be the first confirmed interstellar object detected entering our solar system.
Dr. Amir Siraj and Dr. Abraham Loeb of the Department of Astronomy of Harvard University wrote a paper about the meteor, U.S. Space Command says. However, the scientists had trouble getting paper published, because they used classified information from the government.
A classified U.S. government satellite designed to detect foreign missiles witnessed the fireball, Siraj writes in Scientific American Magazine. The meteor was unusual because of its very high speed and unusual direction – which suggested it came from interstellar space.
The meter-sized rock streaked through the sky and rained debris into the depths of the Pacific Ocean, and the Department of Defense and NASA added the meteor to a public database. Siraj said the database, which holds information for more than 900 other fireballs recorded between 1988 and the present, caught his attention.
Earth
Infected With Rabies
Anteater
An anteater at a Tennessee zoo potentially exposed more than a dozen people to the deadly virus, according to a new report.
The unusual case marks the first time that rabies has been reported in this species, a type of anteater from South America known as the southern tamandua or lesser anteater (Tamandua tetradactyla), according to the report, published Thursday (April 14) in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a journal from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
What's more, the anteater in question had recently been transferred from a zoo in Virginia and was infected with a variant of rabies not typically seen in Tennessee, meaning the animal likely caught the virus before its transfer, the report said. This case highlights the potential for "rabies translocation" from one geographic area to another through the movement of captive animals, the authors said.
The case began in early May 2021, when the anteater was transferred from the Virginia zoo to a zoo in Washington County, Tennessee, where it was housed with one other anteater. In late June 2021, the transferred anteater started showing signs of illness, including lethargy, loss of appetite and diarrhea, the report said. At first, veterinarians presumed the anteater had a bacterial infection and prescribed antibiotics.
When the animal's symptoms continued to get worse, veterinarians at a nearby college examined the animal. But at first, staff at the college did not consider rabies as a possible diagnosis because the animal wasn't known to have any bites (which can spread rabies) and rabies had never been reported in this type of anteater (tamanduas) before.
Anteater
New Pentagon Report
UFOs
Encounters with UFOs have reportedly left Americans suffering from radiation burns, brain and nervous system damage, and even "unaccounted for pregnancy," according to a massive database of U.S. government reports recently made public through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The database of documents includes more than 1,500 pages of UFO-related material from the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) — a secretive U.S Department of Defense program that ran from 2007 to 2012. Despite never being classified as secret or top secret, the AATIP only became known to the public in 2017, when former program director Luis Elizondo resigned from the Pentagon and released several now-infamous videos of an unidentified aircraft moving in seemingly impossible ways to the media.
Shortly after the AATIP's existence was revealed, the U.S. outpost of the British Tabloid The Sun filed a FOIA request for any and all documents related to the program. Four years later — on April 5, 2022 — the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) honored the request by releasing more 1,574 pages of material to The Sun.
According to The Sun, the cache of documents includes reports on the biological effects of UFO sightings on humans, studies on advanced technologies such as invisibility cloaks, and plans for deep space exploration and colonization. Some portions of the documents were "withheld in part" for privacy and confidentiality concerns, the AATIP told The Sun.
The report describes 42 cases from medical files and 300 "unpublished" cases where humans sustained injuries after alleged encounters with "anomalous vehicles," which include UFOs. In some cases, humans showed burn injuries or other conditions related to electromagnetic radiation, the report said — some of them appearing to have been inflicted by "energy related propulsion systems." The report also noted cases of brain damage, nerve damage, heart palpitations and headaches related to anomalous vehicle encounters.
UFOs
Hitchhike On Snails
Tardigrades
Traveling by snail may not sound like the quickest way to get around, but it's faster than walking ... if you're a tardigrade.
Eight-legged, endearingly tubby tardigrades — near-microscopic organisms that are also known as water bears or moss piglets — can hitch rides on land snails to journey farther than they could under their own power, new research finds. But while snail-surfing helped tardigrades disperse into new locations, a coating of the snails' slimy mucus often proved fatal to tardigrade riders.
Tardigrades measure from 0.002 to 0.05 inches (0.05 to 1.2 millimeters) long and can live nearly anyplace on Earth where there's liquid water: in oceans, in rivers and lakes, and in soggy clumps of lichen and mosses that grow on rocks and trees. Wee water bears can also endure circumstances that would be fatal to most forms of life, such as extreme temperatures, crushing pressure, ultraviolet (UV) radiation, the vacuum of space and even being shot out of a high-speed gun, by exercising a superpower known as anhydrobiosis — expelling nearly all the water in their bodies.
In this desiccated and scrunched-up form, called a tun state, tardigrades can survive punishing conditions and can persist for years; some tardigrade tuns that were frozen for 30 years were successfully resuscitated in 2016 and immediately began reproducing, Live Science previously reported. And researchers recently found that active and tun-state tardigrades alike could be picked up and carried by land snails that share their habitats.
Though tardigrades can swim and walk, their tiny legs don't carry them very far. A tardigrade in search of a new neighborhood therefore needs outside assistance, such as wind, flowing water or an obliging host animal that's damp enough to keep the traveler alive. Little is known about how tardigrades interact with snails in their natural habitats, but because water bears often live side by side with land snails (which are famously moist), the researchers suspected that snails could potentially be "perfect vehicles for tardigrades" to travel from place to place, according to a study published April 14 in the journal Scientific Reports.
Tardigrades
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