Recommended Reading
from Bruce
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Cheater-In-Chief
Medal of freedom for a golfer who Never used his fame or fortune to help anyone but himself.
and now this ...
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• In 1975, publishing company Alfred A. Knopf rejected A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman Maclean, although it had previously said that it would publish the book. University of Chicago Press published the book, which met with considerable critical praise and popular success. Much later, an Alfred A Knopf editor wrote Mr. Maclean to express interest in seeing the manuscript of his next book. However, Mr. Maclean was still sore - very sore - over being rejected by Alfred A Knopf in the past, and he still dreamed of telling off the publishing company, so for his reply letter he wrote a masterpiece of invective that ended with "if the situation ever arose when Alfred A. Knopf was the only publishing house remaining in the world and I was the sole remaining author, that would mark the end of the world of books." Mr. Maclean called his letter "one of the best things I ever wrote [...] I really told those bastards off. What a pleasure! What a pleasure! Right into my hands! Probably the only dream I ever had in life that came completely true."
• How nice it is that people sometimes write letters of appreciation. After Audrey Hepburn first heard the score for Breakfast at Tiffany's, in which she starred, she wrote Henry Mancini, who would later win an Oscar for his soundtrack, a very nice letter of appreciation: "Dear Henry, I have just seen our picture - BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S - this time with your score. A movie without music is a little bit like an aeroplane without fuel. However beautifully the job is done, we are still on the ground and in a world of reality. Your music has lifted us all up and sent us soaring. Everything we cannot say with words or show with action you have expressed for us. You have done this with so much imagination, fun and beauty. You are the hippest of cats - and the most sensitive of composers! Thank you, dear Hank. Lots of love Audrey"
• Some celebrities write compassionate letters to fans. For example, Paul Banks, lead singer of Interpol, wrote the following letter in 2010 to a downcast young woman following a concert in Boston: "Dear Hailey, No matter how sad you may get, it's always passing. You may wake up blue, and by the afternoon, everything will be rosey. Sadness is a strange companion. And a nuisance. So try not to pay it too much mind. And be present in your happy moments - and weigh them against the sad. It's all worth it. And you will arrive somewhere wonderful with peace in your heart. All my love and hope to you, young lady. PB"
• A person who posts online as Revstephmc tells about not living close to her only niece, Brooke, but sending her a letter each week, beginning when Brooke was two. The letters are known as "Thursday letters" because that is the day she writes them. When Brooke was two years old, she talked with Revstephmc's mother: "Auntie Steph writes me a letter every week." Revstephmc's mother asked, "That's a lot of letters. What does she write about?" Brooke replied, "She tells me that she loves me! Sometimes she says it long and sometimes she says it short!" Revstephmc says, "She was absolutely right!"
• Some cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny have such strong personalities that they take on a life of their own and sometimes people forget they are fictional. For example, children sometimes object to anyone saying that illustrators draw Bugs Bunny. The children say that the illustrators draw pictures of Bugs Bunny - an important distinction. Bill Scott, who later became the voice of Bullwinkle of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame, once wrote his grandmother a letter in which he said that he wrote scripts for Bugs Bunny. His grandmother wrote back, "I don't see why you have to write scripts for Bugs Bunny. He's funny enough just the way he is."
• Science fiction author Ray Bradbury has written and mailed many letters in his long life. After seeing the classic movie version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol that starred Alistair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge, Mr. Bradbury wrote the actor a fan letter: "Dear Mr. Sim, thank you for your Scrooge. You are the greatest. God bless you." For a long time, Mr. Bradbury did not hear from Mr. Sim, but eventually this letter arrived: "Dear Mr. Bradbury, Your letter reached me in hospital and made me well." Mr. Bradbury says, "Isn't that beautiful!"
• In 1936, novelist William Saroyan wrote H.L. Mencken, editor of The American Mercury, a polite letter asking for advice about starting a magazine. Mr. Mencken wrote back with this reply: "Dear Saroyan, I note what you say about your aspiration to edit a magazine. I am sending you by this mail a six-chambered revolver. Load it and fire every one into your head. You will thank me after you get to hell and learn from other editors there how dreadful their job was on earth."
• Jane Austen, author of Pride and Prejudice, could be outspoken in her letters. She wrote a letter about "another stupid party last night," and in a letter she wrote, "I was as civil to them as their bad breath would allow." By the way, one of her nieces picked up a copy of Sense and Sensibility without knowing that Ms. Austen had written it. The niece immediately threw it down again. Why? She said that just by reading the title she knew that it was trash.
• M.E. Kerr, author of books for young adults, received many rejection letters when she was trying to be published. In fact, she once attended a sorority costume party dressed as a rejection slip. She wore a black slip on which she had attached many of the rejection letters she had received.
• Before Emmylou Harris became a famous country singer, she wrote Pete Seeger and said that she wanted to be a folk singer but she was afraid that she had not suffered enough. Ms. Harris said, "It's true. He wrote back to say life would come back and hit me hard soon enough."
• "Always write angry letters to your enemies. Never mail them." - James Fallows.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
skipper butterfly
Those types of butterfly don't show up untill the end of summer in Seattle, though That will probably change soon!!
Paul of Seattle
Thanks, Paul!
I didn't know what they were called - just that they like my backyard.
Skipper Butterfly
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Felt like rain. Looked like rain. Didn't rain.
Sues Colorado Brewery
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is showing an appetite for litigation over a beer.
The rock band has sued the Colorado brewery Oskar Blues, accusing it of trademark infringement for selling an ale named Guns 'N' Rosé without permission.
In a complaint filed on Thursday in Los Angeles federal court, Guns N' Roses accused Oskar Blues of intentionally trading off its goodwill, prestige and fame by selling Guns 'N' Rosé since early 2018, and confusing beer drinkers into thinking the band was connected with the ale.
Guns N' Roses, whose general partners include singer Axl Rose, guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan, also objected to sales of related goods including T-shirts, stickers, buttons and bandannas, "an item uniquely associated" with the band and Rose.
The band is seeking triple damages and a halt to sales of infringing products.
Guns N' Roses
Georgia
Lovecraft County
With their new HBO drama Lovecraft County set to shoot in Georgia in the coming weeks, J.J. Abrams and Jordan Peele are speaking out about the state's newly passed abortion bill.
"In a few weeks we start shooting our new show, Lovecraft Country and will do so standing shoulder to shoulder with the women of Georgia," they said in a joint statement. "Governor Kemp's 'Fetal Heartbeat' Abortion Law is an unconstitutional effort to further restrict women and their health providers from making private medical decisions on their terms. Make no mistake, this is an attack aimed squarely and purposely at women."
Abrams added that his production company Bad Robot and Peele's Monkeypaw Productions will donate funds to fight the legislation. "We stand with Stacey Abrams and the hardworking people of Georgia, and will donate 100 percent of our respective episodic fees for this season to two organizations leading the charge against this draconian law: the ACLU of Georgia and Fair Fight Georgia," he said. "We encourage those who are able to funnel any and all resources to these organizations."
The Wire and The Deuce creator David Simon, who runs Blown Deadline Productions, followed suit. "I can't ask any female member of any film production with which I am involved to so marginalize themselves or compromise their inalienable authority over their own bodies," he said, adding of his production outfit: "Our comparative assessments of locations for upcoming development will pull Georgia off the list until we can be assured the health options and civil liberties of our female colleagues are unimpaired."
Producer Nina Jacobson, whose company Colorforce is responsible for such hits as Crazy Rich Asians and American Crime Story, quoted Simon's tweet and wrote, "Ditto." Mark Duplass, whose production company Duplass Brothers Productions has a four-picture film deal with Netflix, also alluded to the abortion bill on Twitter on Thursday. "Don't give your business to Georgia," he wrote. "Will you pledge with me not to film anything in Georgia until they reverse this backwards legislation?" And CounterNarrative films, which produced Netflix's Triple Frontier, added its name to the list of companies that wouldn't shoot in Georgia while the abortion law existed. "No Georgia filming on any of our projects until this law is gone," wrote producer Neal Dodson on Twitter.
Lovecraft County
Party At The Apollo
Mavis Staples
Her fans stood and cheered from the moment Mavis Staples appeared on stage and stayed on their feet until she left. They sang "Happy Birthday" and joined in the chorus of "I'll Take You There." Couples embraced and held hands as if caught up in the warmth and spirit of a singer who never failed to hug her many guest performers.
Staples, two months shy of turning 80, threw a party Thursday night at the Apollo Theater.
"All of my friends have come to help me," she called out as she welcomed David Byrne, Norah Jones and Maggie Rogers among others for a nearly 90-minute show. "You're talking about one happy girl."
With enthusiasm to be envied at any age, Staples told stories and pumped her fists and danced in place as she sang, shouted and sometimes roared through "I'll Take You There," ?The Weight" and a mix of rock and gospel songs. Staples had knee replacement surgery a few years ago, but only briefly did she sit down or even acknowledge the boundaries of age, joking "She wore me out" after a hot duet with Valerie June on "High Note." Byrne joined her for Talking Heads' "Slippery People," and Jones added keyboards and vocals for "You Are Not Alone." Stephen Colbert bandleader Jon Batiste took over on keyboards for "I'll Take You There."
Staples was first known as a member of the Chicago-based Staple Singers, featuring her father, Roebuck "Pops" Staples and siblings Cleotha, Yvonne and Pervis. They were deeply involved in the civil rights movement, starting from the time the family saw the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speak at a church in Birmingham, Alabama. Introducing their classic "Freedom Highway," Mavis told the Apollo crowd that back at their hotel, "Pops" told his children "If he can preach it, we can sing it."
Mavis Staples
'The Kenan Show' Ordered
Kenan Thompson
NBC is getting even more of Kenan Thompson, picking up the "Saturday Night Live" vet's comedy, "The Kenan Show" to series.
Here is the logline for the series, from NBC: In this family comedy, Kenan Thompson strives to be a super dad to his two adorable girls while simultaneously balancing his job and a father-in-law who "helps" in the most inappropriate ways. Thompson stars alongside Punam Patel, Dani and Dannah Lockett and Andy Garcia.
Despite the series pickup, Thompson is expected to remain on the long-running sketch comedy show when it returns in the fall for its 45th season. "SNL" has two episodes left in its current season.
Last week, Thompson told Ellen DeGeneres he wasn't leaving "SNL," which he has been with since 2003. "It's the best job in the world. I can't see myself just walking away from it like that, even with how busy I've been lately." Along with "The Kenan Show," Thompson is set to be a judge on NBC's reality competition series "Bring the Funny" with Chrissy Teigen and Jeff Foxworthy.
Jackie Clarke will write and executive produce, with Thompson, "SNL" creator Lorne Michaels and Andrew Singer executive producing as well. Chris Rock is also on board as a director and executive producer.
Kenan Thompson
Retired Supreme Court Justice
John Paul Stevens
Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens accused President Donald Trump (R-Crooked) of exceeding his presidential powers in an interview published Thursday, telling The Wall Street Journal that the President "has to comply with subpoenas."
Stevens' remarks come as the court battle over Trump's financial records ramps up, with Judge Amit Mehta overseeing the first hearing in the standoff between the Democrat-led House Oversight Committee and the President next week. The committee has subpoenaed Trump's long-standing accounting firm Mazars USA for several years' worth of the President's financial statements, and the President has sued the committee and Mazars to block the firm from complying.
Asked about the modern political landscape, Stevens told the Journal, "I think there are things we should be concerned about, there's no doubt about that."
"The President is exercising powers that do not really belong to him," Stevens added. "I mean, he has to comply with subpoenas and things like that."
Stevens, who served on the Supreme Court from his appointment by President Gerald Ford in 1975 until his retirement in 2010, is a lifelong Republican whose rulings often leaned left. He wrote the dissenting opinion in Bush v. Gore in 2000 and the majority opinion in Rasul et al v. Bush in 2010 deciding that detainees at Guantanamo must have a court-martial.
John Paul Stevens
Blaze Engulfs HBO Miniseries Set
"I Know This Much Is True"
A used car dealership and more than 20 cars were destroyed after an "inferno" tore through an HBO set in Ulster County, officials and the owner said.
The fire broke out at 613 Automotive Group on Main Street in Ellenville around 2 a.m. on Thursday, officials said.
HBO had been using the space to shoot a miniseries called "I Know This Much Is True," starring Mark Ruffalo and Melissa Leo.
"The first thing I said was, 'Holy cow,' you know? This is big. I mean, this was an inferno," Ellenville Police Department Chief Philip Mattracion told News 4.
No one was hurt, but the fire reduced the dealership to rubble and destroyed millions of dollars worth of equipment, including more than 20 vehicles - some of which were classic cars.
"I Know This Much Is True"
Lays Off 150 Workers
MyPillow
MyPillow, one of the few remaining advertisers frequently featured on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show, is laying off more than 100 employees not even a year after the company's founder praised President Donald Trump (R-Grifter) for creating a "booming economy."
In a statement to HuffPost, Mike Lindell, inventor and CEO of MyPillow, told us via email that he's in the process of launching an "online store for entrepreneurs and inventors to sell their products."
"As we prepare for the launch of MyStore.com, we are changing the layout of our Shakopee [Minnesota] factories so the fulfillment and shipping of all MyStore products can happen here," he says, before adding that the "new direction" means layoffs for about 150 employees.
Lindell said that while he values "each and every one of my employees," "this is what is best right now for the future of MyPillow and to prepare for the launch of MyStore.com."
This move from Lindell comes less than a year after a June 2018 op-ed he penned for the Duluth News-Tribune where he celebrated Trump's economic policies in a piece titled, "Rest easy, Minnesota; Trump is winning for us."
MyPillow
Hurricane Michael Unearthed
Fort Gadsden
Tangled up in the root balls of enormous trees toppled by Hurricane Michael, which ripped through Florida last October, was an archaeological treasure: ammunition and artifacts from Fort Gadsden, a site occupied by one of the largest communities of freed slaves in the early 1800s.
On July 27, 1816, the U.S. Navy was firing shots at the fort (then called the "Negro Fort"), when one shot hit a storage unit filled with ammunition, leading to an explosion that killed hundreds of African Americans.
Some of that ammunition, along with a number of other 19th-century artifacts from the fort, recently came to the surface when the Category-5 hurricane ripped up trees in the area.
The fort, part of the Prospect Bluff Historic Sites in Florida, was built by the British during the War of 1812. Occupying the site were former slaves called Maroons, freed by their pledge of allegiance to the British military. But they lived alongside a mix of different cultures, including Red Stick Creeks (the anti-U.S. faction of a Native American tribe that had fled to the site after the Creek War of 1813-1814), a faction of Choctaw and other tribes, and, of course, the British.
For the next couple of years, at any given day, as many as 3,500 to 5,000 people were living there, Kimbrough told Live Science. But when the War of 1812 ended, the British left the fort at the helm of a former African American slave and left the area. Without the British settlers, the fort's population fell significantly.
Fort Gadsden
150th Birthday
Transcontinental Railroad
As train bells clanged and steam whistles tooted, thousands of people on Friday witnessed the re-enactment of a ceremony in Utah's high desert that marked the completion of the first railroad to span the North American continent 150 years ago.
The spectacle - recreating a historical moment that took place on May 10, 1869 - featured the driving of a golden spike into a replica of the final railroad tie that joined the Union Pacific Railroad with the Central Pacific Railroad.
The linking of East and West was the culmination of a 6-1/2-year feat of 19th-century engineering that transformed the American frontier as the nation was emerging from a bloody civil war. The site at Promontory Summit, 66 miles (106 km) northwest of Salt Lake City, is now preserved as a national historic park, named Golden Spike.
Addressing Friday's crowd as keynote speaker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Jon Meacham said that the achievement at a time of unprecedented national upheaval offered a lesson in political perspective.
Friday's festivities featured full-size working reproductions of the two steam engines nosing up to each other, cowcatcher to cowcatcher, in a re-creation of an iconic photo from the day the first Transcontinental Railroad was completed a century and a half ago.
In Memory
Alvin Sargent
Alvin Sargent, who won Oscars for writing Ordinary People and Julia and was nominated for Paper Moon, has died of natural causes in Seattle. He was 92. Sargent also won WGA Awards for all three of those films and received the guild's career honor, the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement, in 1991.
Sargent penned more than two dozen feature screenplays from the 1960s into the 2010s, most recently The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), Spider-Man 3 (2007) and Spider-Man 2 (2004). His feature credits also include What About Bob? (1991), Other People's Money (1991) and Unfaithful (2002).
He began his screenwriting career in television, penning episodes of such 1960s drama series Ben Casey, Route 66, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Run for Your Life. He also wrote episodes of ABC's short-lived Paper Moon spinoff series in which Jodie Foster played the role that won Tatum O'Neal a Supporting Actress Oscar.
Born on April 12, 1927, in Philadelphia, Sargent had been working as an ad salesman at Variety in the early 1950s while aspiring to act. He'd been on the job for three weeks when he was offered a non-speaking role in a little film called From Here to Eternity. The trade pub granted him a leave of absence to shoot the movie, and when director Fred Zinnemann was unhappy with another actor's line reading, Sargent was ordered to replace him. His character would announce the beginning of World War II and its first American casualty.
Zinnemann would win the Best Director Oscar for that classic film, which also scored Best Picture and six other Academy Awards. Nearly a quarter-century later, Sargent penned Julia (1977), which won him his first Oscar and earned Zinnemann a seventh nom for Best Director. It starred Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave and Hal Holbrook and introduced Meryl Streep to movie audiences.
After his stint on From Here to Eternity, Sargent returned to Variety but proved rather lousy as selling ads. In his off hours, he wrote stories in his basement - one of which a friend sent to lit agent Sam Adams. He got the young scribe a TV writing job, and Sargent wrote the script. Then he didn't hear from Adams - or anyone else in Hollywood - for more than a year.
On Christmas Eve 1961, Sargent got an unexpected call. It was Adams asking if the scribe could do an emergency rewrite for one of the vacationing writers of CBS' long-running series General Electric Theater. Sargent delivered the rewrite four days later and never went another day as an unemployed writer. His final script was for The Amazing Spider Man, which he finished at age 85.
Sargent won his second Oscar for Ordinary People, ensemble drama about a family's grief over the death of a son that puts their relationships to the test. Starring Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore and Timothy Hutton, it also would win Best Picture and Best Director for Robert Redford.
In between he also penned features including Gambit (1966), The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972), Bobby Deerfield (1974), Straight Time (1978), Dominick and Eugene (1988), Bogus (1996) and Anywhere but Here (1999), among others.
Ever the scribe, Sargent was quoted as saying, "When I die, I'm going to have written on my tombstone, 'Finally a plot.'"
His older brother was the prolific comedy writer Herb Sargent, an original member of the Saturday Night Live staff who co-created "Weekend Update" with Chevy Chase, won several Emmys and also wrote for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Herb Sargent died in 2005.
Alvin Sargent was married to Joan Camden from 1953-75, and he later was married to producer and Stand Up to Cancer co-founder Laura Ziskin until her death in 2011. Survivors include daughters Jennifer Sargent and Amanda Sargent, several grandchildren and a great-grandchild, as well as Ziskin's daughter Julia Barry.
Alvin Sargent
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