from Bruce
Anecdotes
Mothers
• After Harry Houdini’s mother died in 1913, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Conan Doyle attempted to allow her spirit to communicate with Houdini through “automatic writing,” in which Mrs. Doyle would allow Houdini’s mother’s spirit to use her hand to write a message to her son. In fact, a message was written — but it was written in English, and Houdini’s mother knew only Yiddish. However, this didn’t bother Mr. Doyle when Houdini pointed it out. Mr. Doyle felt that Houdini’s mother had learned English in Heaven.
• When lesbian humorist Laura Jimenez left home to go to college, her mother went out and bought a number of novelty envelopes. For a while, Laura was receiving personal mail from her mother in envelopes stating that the senders were such entities as “Johnson and Johnson Venereal Disease Research Center, Test Results Enclosed” and “Los Angeles Breast Augmentation Clinic.” One envelope even bore this legend: “New, Color Illustrated Satanic Ritual Guide Enclosed.”
• When James McNeill Whistler wanted to paint his mother, it took him a while to find the right pose for her. For a few days she stood, but when she asked to sit down for a rest, Mr. Whistler realized that his mother, who was in her sixties, was too old to stand and pose for hours. He put her in a chair and gave her a footstool for her feet — this turned out to be the right pose. His Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother became his most famous painting.
• In Jackson, Mississippi, Eudora Welty’s mother got her a public library card when she was nine years old. The librarian — Mrs. Calloway — was strict, sometimes sending girls home to change their clothes if she thought they weren’t dressed properly. Because of the librarian’s strictness, Mrs. Welty let her know specially that 9-year-old Eudora was allowed to check out any book she wanted — whether it came from the children’s section or the adults’ section of the library.
• As a youngster, Buddy Holley (later, he became known as “Holly” because of a typo on a contract he signed) and Bob Montgomery played country music as a duo. Buddy and Bob once played at a seventh-grade dance, where they dedicated a song to the teachers: “Too Old to Cut the Mustard.” Buddy’s mother was present, and she was embarrassed. Later, she said that she wished the duo had picked a different song to dedicate to the teachers.
• Children’s book author Patricia MacLachlan loved to read when she was a little girl. She and her mother would walk to the library, and young Patricia would read the books as they walked home. Because Patricia was busy reading, her mother would put her hand on Patricia’s neck and guide her as they walked home. By the time they reached home, Patricia had read all the books and wanted to go to the library again.
• One of movie critic Roger Ebert’s friends once worked for a pest control company while attending college. One day, he crawled under a house, exterminating pests with a spray gun. When he had finished, he crawled out, dirty and covered with cobwebs. The woman of the house invited him to drink lemonade, and as he drank it, she told her son, “Study your lessons hard, Jimmy, or you’ll end up like him.”
• Lots of mothers watched the children’s show Captain Kangaroo with their children. One day, Bob Keeshan, who played Captain Kangaroo, was having a drink with a friend in Hollywood. No one recognized him because he wasn’t wearing the Captain’s grey wig, but a woman in the bar complained, “My kids are in college, and I still keep hearing Captain Kangaroo’s voice!”
• Joel Perry went through puberty at the same time his mother was going through menopause, which meant that they had some interesting arguments. Once, he got his mother so angry that she shouted at him, “You son of a bitch!” He laughed and pointed at her, then she started laughing, too.
• When Betty Friedan sold her house, her daughter, Emily, took prospective buyers through the house. Arriving at the third floor, where Ms. Friedan did her writing, Emily would proudly tell the prospective buyers, “And this is where my mother wrote The Feminine Mystique.”
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Bum Shakers [“I met a girl (R. Beibutov cover)]"
Album: Bandcamp One-Sided Single
Artist: Bum Shakers
Artist Location: Vladimir, Russia (East of Moscow)
Info: A Russian surf band.
“On the Wave” is available on the Bum Shakers’ Bandcamp web page
Price: FREE Download
Genre: Surf Instrumental
Links:
“Bum Shakers”
Bum Shakers on Bandcamp
Bum Shakers on YouTube
Other Links:
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David Bruce's Blog #1
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David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Suggestion
'Gray Divorce'
This is sad. I’m coming up on my 40th anniversary and I cannot imagine what splitting up would be.
Just like Bill and Melinda Gates, more older couples are getting divorced these days. It's no longer taboo to part ways when a couple isn't happy anymore, and as people live longer they are often choosing to not stay in unhappy marriages.
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Woo hoo! Sumo returns!
Hypothetical Spaceship
Seth Rogen
Seth Rogen is pretty convinced George Lucas wasn't joking when the "Star Wars" creator denied the comedian access to his make believe space ship if the world was going to end.
During a conversation with Conan O'Brien on his podcast, "Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend," Rogen detailed how in 2012 he and his producing partner, Evan Goldberg, had a meeting with Steven Spielberg and surprisingly the filmmaker's longtime friend and collaborator, George Lucas, was also there.
Spielberg had to run and take a call, according to the "Knocked Up" star, leaving Rogen and Goldberg alone with Lucas.
"Very quickly the conversation turns to, 'How's it going?' [Lucas said,] 'Not great. We're nearing the end of 2012 and the world is going to end,'" Rogen recalled. "It did not appear that he was joking."
Rogen said that he and Goldberg began to delve deeper into why Lucas thought the world was going to end and found out the director was a believer that on or around December 21, 2012 a cataclysmic event would occur as it marked the end of the Mayan calendar.
Seth Rogen
FBI Releases Long-Withheld File
Kurt Cobain
In the past month, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana have snuck back into the headlines. April 5th marked the 27th anniversary of Cobain’s death, an NFT of Cobain’s last photo shoot was put on the market, and Nirvana as a group were hit with a copyright-infringement lawsuit for alleged unauthorized use of a 1949 illustration on their merch. As announced this week, six strands of Cobain’s hair, cut in 1989, will be part of a rock-memorabilia auction.
And now comes Cobain’s FBI file.
Periodically, the Federal Bureau of Investigation makes public some of its archives on politicians, entertainers, and other boldface names. And quietly last month — for reasons the Bureau has not commented on — the FBI plucked out its file on Cobain and made it available for the first time, shortly after it had done the same with paperwork on late mob boss Vito Genovese.
A mere 10 pages, the file is slim but intriguing. The centerpieces are two letters, sent from names that have been redacted, urging the Bureau to investigate Cobain’s 1994 death as a murder, rather than suicide. “Millions of fans around the world would like to see the inconsistencies surrounding his death cleared up once and for all,” reads one, typed-out, from September 2003. That letter also cites director Nick Broomfield’s Kurt & Courtney doc as an example of similar skepticism.
Also part of the file is a similar response to a letter sent to then–Attorney General Janet Reno in 2000, although in that case, the correspondence that triggered the response is not included.
Kurt Cobain
‘Deep’ Digital Live Archives
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam are offering fans an immersive plunge into the band’s live archives with their newly announced Deep, a digital collection of nearly 200 Pearl Jam concerts spanning from 2000 to 2013.
The just-launched Deep hub on Pearl Jam’s official site allows visitors to access 186 bootlegs and 5,404 tracks from the past two decades, with each gig accompanied by show descriptions written by members of the band’s Ten Club fan club.
In addition to the full concerts, Deep boasts fan-curated playlists like “Best of” Tours, “Covers”, the politically charged “Know Your Rights,” and more. Fans will also be able to create gigs via the Custom Setlist Generator — penned in Eddie Vedder’s unmistakable handwriting — with the dream setlist turned into a streamable playlist.
Since the early 2000s, Pearl Jam has released official bootlegs of nearly all of the band’s concerts, either on compact disc or digital download. The band will look to expand on the collection when they finally embark on the Covid-delayed European leg of their Gigaton tour starting this June.
Pearl Jam
Madonna Cameo
Snoop Dogg
Madonna in a Snoop Dogg music video? Yeah, that happened.
The famed singer made an unexpected appearance in the rapper's newest music video, delighting fans when she made a tweet revealing her cameo.
"Was so much fun to show up in @SnoopDogg video for his new song Gang Signs!" Madonna wrote, including a short clip of her appearance.
In the song "Gang Signs (feat. Mozzy)", the video — directed by 4rAx and shot by Thee Shooters — shows Snoop rapping in a music studio before leaving to go to work in front of a green screen. Snoop name drops Madonna during the song with the lyrics "Crip walking with my homegirl Martha/While I'm passing joints to Madonna/Who wants to smoke with snoop let's have a smoke or two/Puff puff pass that's what real smokers do."
During the line "passing joints to Madonna," the singer appears for a quick blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance with bright blonde hair, smoking what seems to be a cigar and dancing energetically.
Snoop Dogg
Lawyer Blames
‘Foxitus’
A Capitol riot suspect was persuaded to storm the building on Jan. 6 after spending hours watching Fox News and listening to former President Donald Trump's election fraud lies, his lawyer said.
Anthony Antonio, 27, of Delaware, was arrested last month on five federal charges including knowingly entering or remaining on restricted grounds without lawful authority; violent entry and disorderly conduct; impeding law enforcement during civil disorder; disrupting Congress; and damaging government property.
According to the Huffington Post, Joseph Hurley, a Delaware-based lawyer, blamed Antonio's behavior on him watching Fox News too much.
“He became hooked with what I call ‘Foxitus’ or ‘Foxmania’ and became interested in the political aspect and started believing what was being fed to him," Hurley said Thursday during a virtual hearing on Zoom, the outlet reported.
Hurley told NBC News in a phone interview Friday that Antonio was very involved in his church and had "absolutely no political interest whatsoever." That changed when Antonio lost his job at the start of the pandemic. His lawyer said that Antonio would spend hours in a house he shared with three other people who watched Fox News.
‘Foxitus’
Secretly Obtained Reporters’ Records
DOJ
The Trump Justice Department secretly seized the phone records of three Washington Post reporters who covered the federal investigation into ties between Russia and Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up)’s 2016 presidential campaign, the newspaper said Friday.
The disclosure sets up a new clash between the federal government and news organizations and advocates for press freedom, who regard the seizures of reporters’ records as incursions into constitutionally protected newsgathering activity. Similar subpoenas have occurred only rarely over the past decade, including a seizure of phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors over a 2012 story that revealed a bomb plot.
In a statement published by the newspaper, Cameron Barr, the Post’s acting executive editor, said: “We are deeply troubled by this use of government power to seek access to the communications of journalists. The Department of Justice should immediately make clear its reasons for this intrusion into the activities of reporters doing their jobs, an activity protected under the First Amendment.”
The action is presumably aimed at identifying the reporters’ sources in national security stories published in the early months of President Trump’s administration, as federal investigators scrutinized whether the 2016 campaign had coordinated with the Kremlin to sway the election.
The subpoena was approved by Justice Department leadership last year. The reporters — Ellen Nakashima, Greg Miller and Adam Entous — were notified in letters dated May 3 that the Justice Department had obtained records for their home, work or cellphone numbers.
DOJ
Use Earth's Magnetic Field To Navigate
Sharks
Shark species have an uncanny ability to find their way back to the same feeding grounds every year - even areas thousands of miles away.
According to a study published Thursday, that's because sharks have a superior navigational tool at their disposal: They can orient themselves using Earth's magnetic field.
They're far from the only animals to do so. Birds, whales, and many other species use the same sixth sense to plot their migrations.
Bryan Keller, a biologist at Florida State University who co-authored the new study, likens this sense to "having an 'internal GPS.'"
Even though the new study was done on bonnetheads, Keller said the findings likely apply to other shark species as well.
Sharks
101 Carat Diamond
Alrosa Spectacle
The largest diamond ever cut in Russia - a 100.94 carat stone called the Alrosa Spectacle - will be auctioned in Geneva later this month.
The diamond could fetch between 12 and 18 million Swiss francs ($19.96 million) when it goes under the hammer at Christie's on May 12.
"This fantastic 100 carat D color diamond was cut from a rough stone that originally weighed more than 200 carats. It was called the Sergei Diaghilev rough diamond and it was mined in 2016," Marie-Cecile Cisamolo, a specialist in the auction house's jewellery department, said.
"Between the rough and diamond that we're offering today, it took one year and eight months to cut into this perfect stone."
Alrosa Spectacle
Racially Diverse Tudor England
King Henry VIII
Tudor England under King Henry VIII was more racially diverse than experts previously thought, according to a new study analyzing skeletal remains of a drowned maritime crew.
The "Mary Rose" was the favorite warship of Henry, the famed king who founded the Church of England and had six wives, some of whom met a grisly end.
The ship sank in 1545 but research published Wednesday by Cardiff University academics, the Mary Rose Trust and the British Geological Survey, used scientific techniques to analyze bones and teeth to reveal the diverse ancestry, childhood origins and diets of the perished mariners.
The study, published in the Royal Society Open Science journal, found at least three of the eight crew — among them a royal archer — may have come from warmer, more southerly climates than England, such as Iberia and North Africa.
Researchers also found that although the remaining five crew members were likely to have been brought up in western England, further analysis suggested that at least one of the men was of African ancestry.
King Henry VIII
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