Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Trade and Trust (NY Times)
All the bad arguments for the Trans-Pacific Partnership suggest that it isn't a deal we should support.
ALIZAH SALARIO: Finding Order, Out of Sequence (NY Times)
I needed a metric to measure the value of my loss because otherwise, I had no sense of order. Perhaps that's why, in the six years since my father's death, I've found myself choosing what's practical over seeking purpose, less concerned with exploration than with feeling anchored. I could not in good faith carry on as if the world would deliver on its promise. It never made a promise after all.
GRETCHEN REYNOLDS: Lack of Exercise Can Disrupt the Body's Rhythms (NY Times)
Exercise may affect how and when we move, even when we aren't exercising, according to a fascinating new study in mice. The findings suggest that, by influencing our built-in body clocks, exercise may help our bodies to recognize the optimal times we should be moving, and when we should be still.
Andrew Tobias: Private Wojtek
Memorial Day we remember the brave men - and now women - who've given their lives for our country. By that standard, Private Wojtek - neither a man nor a woman, and technically a private in the Polish army - does not qualify. (He was a bear.)
Steve Rose: "Tomorrowland: how Walt Disney's strange utopia shaped the world of tomorrow" (Guardian)
Disneyland is celebrating its 60th birthday with a movie version of one of its most famous attractions. But do we still need the theme park now that the rest of the world has been Disneyfied?
Dave Simpson: "Burt Bacharach: Marlene Dietrich's music sucked! But I liked her" (Guardian)
The veteran songwriter and singer talks about the perfectionism that created hits, driving singers crazy, working with Noel Gallagher - and not working with Sinatra.
Catherine Shoard: "Jane Fonda: 'Plastic surgery bought me a decade'" (Guardian)
The 77-year-old Youth star on her Hollywood comeback, bionic body, sex and casting.
Michael Hann: "The Replacements: 'God almighty, what were we trying to prove?'" (Guardian)
They wound up audiences, were often too drunk to play and got banned from late-night TV. Thirty years later, the rock'n'roll antagonists have, they say, finally learned to behave.
Peter Bradshaw: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night review - vampire in a veil stalks Iran (Guardian)
Ana Lily Amirpour's cool, comic film, in which a young female vampire roams the night-time streets, opens a new vein of undead horror.
Peter Bradshaw: Let the Right One In (Guardian)
Some movies, while never quite attaining masterpiece status, nonetheless have a monumental WTF-factor. This is one such: a vampire horror thriller from freezing-cold Sweden, trebling up unwholesomely as a teen love-story and a bully-victim revenge fantasy.
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog
David Bruce's Lulu Storefront
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
, wrote:
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Comment
He's Back
Marty,
I quit checking up with your page after Bart left. I'm so glad you are still doing your page. I am so sad Bart never got to smoke legally. I was at HP during Carly's reign, she was fired and rode off into the sun set with a bag of money and a jet. Any way...I'm back.
Steve Beaudreau
Thanks, and welcome back, Steve!
We left the light on. : )
from Marc Perkel
BartCop
Hello Bartcop fans,
As you all know the untimely passing of Terry was unexpected, even by
him. We all knew he had cancer but we all thought he had some years
left. So some of us who have worked closely with him over the years are
scrambling around trying to figure out what to do. My job, among other
things, is to establish communications with the Bartcop community and
provide email lists and groups for those who might put something
together. Those who want to play an active roll in something coming from
this, or if you are one of Bart's pillars, should send an email to
active@bartcop.com.
Bart's final wish was to pay off the house mortgage for Mrs. Bart who is
overwhelmed and so very grateful for the support she has received.
Anyone wanting to make a donation can click on this the yellow donate
button on bartcop.com
But - I need you all to help keep this going. This note
isn't going to directly reach all of Bart's fans. So if you can repost
it on blogs and discussion boards so people can sign up then when we
figure out what's next we can let more people know. This list is just
over 600 but like to get it up to at least 10,000 pretty quick. So
here's the signup link for this email list.
( mailman.bartcop.com/listinfo/bartnews )
Marc Perkel
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Got my first haircut in a little over 3 years - had about a foot and a half loped off.
Yes, I donated it. Unprocessed, undyed hair is hard to come by, and it'll make a nice wig.
My head feels pounds lighter. Probably is.
Ambassador of Conscience Award
Joan Baez
Human rights group Amnesty International on Thursday honoured Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei and US folk singer Joan Baez as joint winners of its Ambassador of Conscience Award.
The London-based group said its highest prize, to be presented at a Berlin ceremony from 1800 GMT, recognises "those who have shown exceptional leadership in the fight for human rights, through their life and work".
Amnesty's secretary general Salil Shetty called Ai and Baez "an inspiration to thousands more human rights activists, from across Asia to America and beyond".
The group wanted to "pay tribute to Joan Baez who is with us ... and to Ai Weiwei who's not, and who can't be with us," Bill Shipsey, founder and chair of the Art for Amnesty programme, told a Berlin press conference.
Joan Baez
Unpublished Draft Obtained By University of Michigan
Orson Welles
The University of Michigan says a "very raw draft" of an unpublished Orson Welles memoir has joined its archives on the trailblazing filmmaker.
The typewritten memoir was in eight boxes of materials from Croatian filmmaker Oja Kodar that the Ann Arbor school purchased. Kodar was Welles' partner and collaborator for 24 years before his death in 1985 at age 70.
The university says the 80-page typed memoir has handwritten notes and edits throughout. It includes passages about Welles' parents, second wife Rita Hayworth, Ernest Hemingway and D.W. Griffith.
Kodar is to attend the university's June 7-9 symposium on Welles, marking the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Orson Welles
No Charges Against Widow
Casey Kasem
Los Angeles prosecutors said Friday that they won't file elder abuse charges against Casey Kasem's widow despite efforts by three of the radio personality's children to have her prosecuted.
A charge evaluation sheet released by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said Casey Kasem had received consistent medical care in his final days and that it wouldn't be appropriate to charge Jean Kasem.
Jean Kasem was married to the celebrity announcer for more than 30 years but was stripped of control over his medical care in the final days of his life.
Casey Kasem died in June 2014 in Washington state, where Jean Kasem had taken him after checking him out of a Los Angeles-area medical facility where he was receiving around-the-clock care.
Shortly before his death, Casey Kasem's daughter Kerri Kasem was appointed as his conservator. She and his two other children from a previous marriage called for elder abuse charges against their stepmother at a news conference in January.
Casey Kasem
Another English King Buried Under A Parking Lot?
Henry I
Just three years after the extraordinary discovery of King Richard III under a car park, researchers think another medieval English monarch might be found buried beneath a parking lot and are hoping to find him.
Philippa Langley, the inspiration behind the successful hunt for Richard III's remains, is now on the trail of his forebear Henry I, one of the first rulers of England following the Norman conquest in the 11th Century.
She is part of a team seeking backing to search for the ruins of Reading Abbey, founded by Henry in 1121 and where he was buried after his death 14 years later, allegedly brought about by eating too many lampreys, a type of fish.
Like Richard, the exact whereabouts of Henry's final resting place is unknown after the abbey, including his tomb, was mostly destroyed some 400 years later.
"The thinking in Reading, using current estimates of the size of the abbey, is that this burial spot is located beneath a school," Langley told BBC History Magazine. "If the abbey is larger, it could be situated underneath either what is today a playground or a car park."
Henry I
Promises Pre-Emptive Strikes
Scott Walker
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R-College Drop-Out) is doubling down on his promises of pre-emptive strikes to prevent what he says are certain future attacks on American soil.
As he prepares for a likely 2016 presidential run, Walker told a multistate Republican gathering in Oklahoma on Thursday that he's convinced "radical Islamic terrorists" are planning to attack the U.S.
Walker offered no evidence for his claims at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. He also didn't say who most threatens the United States or what military actions he'd authorize in response.
The sentiments aren't new for Walker but he is speaking in more hawkish terms after his recent visit to Israel, as he tries to stand out among several governors and former governors running for the Republican nomination without tangible foreign policy experience.
Scott Walker
The War On Women
Sofia Vergara
Sofia Vergara's ex-fiance will be allowed to file an amended lawsuit seeking custody of two embryos he created with the "Modern Family" star, a judge ruled Friday.
Superior Court Judge Lawrence Cho ruled that Nicholas Loeb can file the revised complaint, which for the first time will seek custody of the embryos. Loeb, who dated Vergara for several years before breaking up last year, sued the actress in August seeking a ruling that the embryos could not be destroyed.
Vergara's attorney opposed allowing the amended lawsuit, arguing during a hearing that Loeb has failed to state a viable legal claim to the embryos. Attorney Fred Silberberg noted that Loeb signed an agreement that both parties needed to consent to what happened to the embryos.
He accused Loeb, who wrote about the dispute over the embryos in the New York Times, of using the lawsuit to raise his own profile. "It is almost a sham pleading under the law," Silberberg told Cho.
Sofia Vergara
Arrested In Vegas
Flavor Flav
Flavor Flav was arrested in Las Vegas early Thursday morning for… well, a lot of things.
Nevada Highway Patrol public information officer Chelsea Stuenkel told The Insider With Yahoo that they pulled the 56-year-old entertainer over in his 2005 black BMW over for going 73 mph in a 45 mph zone. He was arrested on six charges.
The misdemeanors are suspicion of driving under the influence, speeding, possessing less than an ounce of marijuana, having an open container of alcohol, false registration, and driving with a suspended license. The total bail for Flav - whose real name is William Jonathan Drayton Jr. - was $7,000.
Last year, the Public Enemy hype man was pulled over for speeding on his way to his mother's funeral in New York. When police ran his license, they found out it had been suspended 16 times.
Flavor Flav
Nazi-Looted Art
Cornelius Gurlitt
A painting that was seized by the Nazis and only recently returned to the Jewish owner's heirs is going on auction.
Max Liebermann's "Two Riders on a Beach" was discovered in 2012 in the long-hidden art trove hoarded by German collector Cornelius Gurlitt.
Gurlitt died last year and the painting was one of the first from his trove to be released back to the heirs of their rightful owners.
The oil painting will go on auction in London on June 24, when it is estimated to sell for up to $850,000, Sotheby's said Friday.
David Toren, the great-nephew of the painting's original owner, businessman David Friedmann, said he and other heirs have decided to sell the painting so it can "pass into a new phase of its story."
Cornelius Gurlitt
Estate Sues Miramax Over 'Mr. Holmes'
Arthur Conan Doyle
The estate of Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle has sued Miramax, Roadside Attractions and director Bill Condon, claiming that the upcoming movie starring Ian McKellen in the story of the later life of the famous sleuth, "Mr. Holmes," infringes on stories that still remain under copyright.
The lawsuit also names writer Mitch Cullin and Penguin Random House, publisher of Cullin's "A Slight Trick of the Mind" - a new Holmes tale on which the movie "Mr. Holmes" is based.
The movie, set to open on July 17, depicts an aged, retired Holmes looking back on his life and getting involved in an unsolved case.
The estate notes in its lawsuit that although many of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes works are in the public domain, 10 works published between 1923 and 1927 remain under copyright. Those works develop details of Holmes' retirement and later life, the estate claims.
Arthur Conan Doyle
In Memory
Marty Pasetta
Marty Pasetta, who directed every Academy Awards telecast from 1972 through 1988 and helped transform the way awards shows were staged and directed , has died at the age of 82.
According to the Riverside County Sheriff's office: "On Thursday, May 21, at 9:22 P.M. the La Quinta Police Department responded to the 49000 block of Via Conquistador, in the city of La Quinta regarding a fatal traffic collision. The driver, Keith Stewart, age 75 of La Quinta, was stopped on Via Conquistador allowing passengers to exit his vehicle. Stewart exited his vehicle, with the transmission still engaged, and collided with two passengers who had already exited the vehicle. One passenger succumbed to his injuries at the scene and the other injured passenger was transported to Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs."
The Riverside County Coroner's office confirmed to TheWrap that Pasetta was the passenger killed in the incident. Stewart was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence.
Pasetta's career as a director began with episodes of "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" in the late 1960s, but he may be best known for the 17 consecutive Academy Awards telecasts he directed between 1972 and 1988. "He invented stuff that had not been done in television before," said producer Michael Seligman, who worked on many of Pasetta's Oscar shows.
"Seat-fillers, stand-ins, picture cards, camera techniques - a lot of the ways awards shows are now done started with Marty," longtime Oscar talent executive Danette Herman said.
In addition to the Academy Awards, Pasetta also directed the Grammy telecast six times, from 1972-1975 and again in 1977 and 1978. He also directed the groundbreaking Elvis Presley concert special "Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite" in 1973, which aired in over 40 countries. It was the first time a concert was beamed live around the world via satellite.
Three of Pasetta's children - Martin Pasetta Jr., Debbie Pasetta Palacio and Greg Pasetta - are members of the Directors Guild and have worked in live television.
Marty Pasetta
| CURRENT MOON lunar phases |
