from Bruce
Anecdotes
Children
• During a matinee performance of Macbeth at which few people were in the audience, Sir Laurence Olivier noticed a boy sitting in the balcony and decided to give a special performance just for him. Sir Laurence gave a wonderful performance and the entire company followed suit, so that during intermission Sir Laurence said, “That boy will never see anything like this as long as he lives; it’s an experience he’ll never forget.” Unfortunately, when Sir Laurence and the company went back on stage following the intermission, they discovered that the boy had left the theater and gone home.
• Carol Burnett’s career got a big boost when she appeared as Princess Winifred in the off-Broadway play Once upon a Mattress. However, the play was on the verge of closing after only six weeks. Therefore, Ms. Burnett and other cast members started to picket the theater, urging management to keep the play open. Joining the picket line were several children from the neighborhood. A Broadway columnist figured that Ms. Burnett was paying the children to picket, but after talking to them, he wrote, “I apologize. Carol Burnett is the best-loved girl on Second Avenue.”
• When 10-year-old Patricia Fosse started taking dance lessons in the Chicago Academy of Theatre Arts, she was shy and cried at the thought of taking dance lessons alone. Therefore, her parents sent her eight-year-old brother, Bob, along to keep her from feeling alone. Bob Fosse grew up to be a world-famous choreographer for such musicals as Damn Yankees, Sweet Charity, and All That Jazz. In 1973, Mr. Fosse won an Emmy (for Liza Minnelli’s Liza with a Z), an Oscar (for Cabaret), and two Tony Awards (for Pippin).
• At a dinner that Alexander Woollcott threw for Mrs. Minnie Fiske, four street urchins followed the proceedings as they looked through a window. They were delighted when Mr. Woollcott and his friends gave them some after-dinner mints, but when Mrs. Fiske offered them some red roses, their leader declined, explaining, “I work in a florist’s.” Following the dinner, the smallest of the street urchins said, “Thank you, one and all, gentlemen and -women of leisure.”
• When British character actress Patricia Routledge was a small child, whenever she would cry, her mother would say, “Have a toffee.” Sometimes young Patricia would say she wanted a different kind of candy, but her mother insisted, “Have a toffee.” Why? Because it’s impossible to both cry and chew a toffee. Young Patricia’s attempt to do both would make her mother laugh, and soon young Patricia would laugh.
• Playwright and screenwriter Charles MacArthur used vulgar language and slang around the house, even in front of his children. When Mary, his daughter, was in the fourth grade, she was invited by some other little girls to play a game of “Kick the Can.” Mary was “It,” and because she didn’t know how the game was played, she bent over and waited for the other little girls to kick her.
• When Groucho’s first child was born, the Marx Brothers were starring in vaudeville in a comic skit called “Home Again.” Upon hearing the news of the birth, Groucho told the audience, “I have just been informed that my wife, Ruth, has made me the father of a six-pound bouncing baby. When the baby stops bouncing, I’ll let you know whether it’s a boy or a girl.”
• Music Hall performer Marie Lloyd once gave money to her dresser to have the dresser’s child see her in performance. After all, Ms. Lloyd said, “She mustn’t ever say she has never seen Marie Lloyd.” After the performance, Ms. Lloyd asked the child what she had thought of the show. The child replied, “You can’t dance and you can’t sing, and I think you’re rotten.”
• When Sir Michael Redgrave’s daughter Vanessa was born, family friend Sir Laurence Olivier announced to a theatrical audience, “Today a lovely young actress was born.”
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
***
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. responded:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "In My Teens"
Album: COMPLETE RECORDINGS (2017-2020)
Artist: Heatwaves
Artist Location: VC, Spain
Record Company: Rum Bar Records
Record Company Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Record Company: Family Spree Recordings
Record Company Location: Spain
Info:
“All the songs included in their 3 EPs, the 2 of the EP shared with Freddie Dilevi, the Vampire song not yet released on vinyl as well as their 2 Christmas songs (the last one, with the collaboration of Freddie Dilevi) and the version that they included of the Lestrade's ‘Propos coquins’ on the double compilation Bigger Fuckin’ Family Party.”
Heatwaves Members:
Ana Beltrán: Vocals
Jose Dolz: Bass & Backing Vocals
Luis Sánchez: Guitar & Backing Vocals
Fernando Cabalo: Guitar & Backing Vocals
Tomás Escoin: Drums
Price: $1.50 (USD) for Track; $10 (USD) for 18-track album from Rum Bar Records
€1 (EURO) for track; €7 (EURO) for 18-track album from Family Spree Recordings
Genre: Bubblegum, Pop. Girl Group Sound.
Links:
COMPLETE RECORDINGS (2017?-?2020) (Rum Bar Records, USA)
COMPLETE RECORDINGS (2017-2020) (Family Spree Recordings, Spain)
Heatwaves on Bandcamp
Heatwaves on YouTube
Rum Bar Records
Family Spree Recordings
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
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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
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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
Had a bit of an earthquake - 4.3, centered about 4 miles from here.
Hit all the high notes - thuds, rolls, and shakes.
The shittens were not amused.
Special Adviser
Amal Clooney
British human rights lawyer Amal Clooney was named Friday as one of 17 special advisers to the new chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
Clooney was appointed as an adviser on the Darfur region of Sudan, where prosecutors allege that government forces and militias backed by Khartoum carried out a campaign of genocide.
Other advisers focus on topics including crimes against children, gender persecution, sexual violence and slavery.
“I am delighted to welcome such an outstanding group of experts and I am grateful for their willingness to serve as my Special Advisers," Prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement. “I have no doubt that with their enormous experience and hugely impressive credentials, they will significantly contribute to the work of the Office and the cause of international criminal justice.”
Clooney recently served as a legal representative for 126 survivors of crimes committed in Darfur, in a case against a leader of the government-backed Janjaweed militia.
Amal Clooney
Copy To Auction
U.S. Constitution
A very special document will be auctioned off later this year — a rare copy of the U.S. Constitution.
Sotheby’s announced Friday — appropriately on Constitution Day — that in November it will put up for auction one of just 11 surviving copies of the Constitution from the official first printing produced for the delegates to the Constitutional Convention and for the Continental Congress. It’s the only copy that remains in private hands and has an estimate of $15 million-$20 million.
“This is the final text. The debate on what the Constitution would say was over with this document. The debate about whether the Constitution was going to be adopted was just beginning,” Selby Kiffer, an international senior specialist in Sotheby’s Books and Manuscripts Department, told The Associated Press.
It will join about 80 constitutional and related documents up for auction by the venerable house. The copy of the Constitution is on public view at Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries until Sept. 19 and then travels to Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas, before returning to New York this fall.
It is Kiffer’s second time handling the rare document. He also spearheaded its auction in 1988. Back then, it went for just $165,000. “While it’s a lot of years later and I’ve handled a lot of great things and I’m more experienced, I have to say it’s just as exciting, if not a little bit more exciting, the second time around,” he said.
U.S. Constitution
Looking For “The Right Game Show”
LeVar Burton
LeVar Burton says he’s looking “for the right game show” to host after his interest was piqued – and his hopes dashed – by his recent guest stint on Jeopardy! and the social media support he received.
On The Daily Show With Trevor Noah last night, Burton expressed gratitude to his longtime fans who have supported him since his Reading Rainbow days and were vocal about their desire to see him replace the late Alex Trebek as host of Jeopardy! Despite the online support, Burton lost the gig to, at first, Mike Richards, and then to Mayim Bialik and Ken Jennings.
Burton said he first took notice of his fans’ devotion several years ago, with the launch of a Reading Rainbow Kickstarter drive. “I discovered then that the generation of adults now who grew up on Reading Rainbow, they were down with whatever it is I wanted to do,” Burton told Noah, “and the same was true with this Jeopardy! thing.”
“I made it public that I wanted it for myself,” he continued, “that it made sense to me, and they were all about it. It made as much sense to them as it did to me. They wanted it for me as much as I wanted it.”
“They say be careful of what you wish for because what I found out is that it wasn’t the thing that I wanted after all,” he said. “What I wanted was to compete. I mean I wanted the job, but then when I didn’t get it, it was, like, well, okay, what’s next?” He added that he “couldn’t have dreamt” the opportunities – which he didn’t specify – that have come his way since the Jeopardy! experience.
LeVar Burton
NBC Tried
Conan
Being fired from “Weekend Update” was not the only fallout from Norm Macdonald’s relentless fixation on making jokes about O.J. Simpson, the late comedian’s longtime friend Conan O’Brien said during a special episode of his podcast this week.
O’Brien, in conversation with Andy Richter and “Late Night” and “Conan” producer Frank Smiley, said NBC once tried to bar Macdonald from appearing on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.” The host said the directive came from former NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer, whose friendship with Simpson was said to be the reason for Macdonald’s earlier removal as “Weekend Update” anchor.
“The word came down. ‘You can’t book Norm Macdonald,'” O’Brien said. “It came from the top, from Don Ohlmeyer.”
“I wrote a letter to Don that said, you know, I got this directive. You’ve hired me to do the best show I can do, and this is my best guest,” O’Brien recalled, citing a sense of “loyalty” to Ohlmeyer, who hired him to host “Late Night” for the network. “I need to do my job, which is the best show I can do,” he said in the letter.
O’Brien received the letter back with a response from Ohlmeyer written in the margin, saying something akin to, “I expected better from you.”
Conan
Interference
Election
Donald Trump (R-Lock Him Up) just can’t quit trying to interfere in the 2020 election.
As a criminal investigation moves forward in Georgia into his attempts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, the former president sent a letter Friday to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that calls the election “illegitimate” and asks him to “start the process of decertifying the election… and announce the true winner.”
In the letter, Trump claims — as usual without evidence — that some 43,000 absentee ballot votes from DeKalb County “violated chain of custody rules, making them invalid.” The Washington Post’s Phillip Bump points out, this bogus chain of custody story originated on a pro-Trump, misinformation-spreading website called The Georgia Star News, which Bump says is “part of a group of sites established to mimic local news coverage but which largely promotes stories friendly to the right.”
Trump continued his missive, writing, “People do not understand why you and Governor Brian Kemp adamantly refuse to acknowledge the now proven facts, and fight so hard that the election truth not be told.”
Trump’s letter comes at the same time Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s investigation into his election interference is progressing. According to a Daily Beast report, Willis and her investigators have interviewed at least four staff members from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office and obtained documents. But the investigation is still in its beginning stages, and key witnesses, including Kemp and Raffensperger, have not yet been interviewed.
Election
Fluffing Vlad
Google and Apple
Google and Apple have removed an app developed by Russian activists supporting jailed Kremlin critic and opposition leader Alexei Navalny from the Russian versions of their app stores, his team said Friday, after Russia accused the American technology companies of election interference.
The tactical voting app allows voters who do not want President Vladamir Putin’s ruling political party, United Russia, to win the election to organize around a single opposition candidate in each of the 225 electoral districts in an effort to boost the number of non-Kremlin-approved politicians in power.
“Removing the Navalny app from stores is a shameful act of political censorship,” said Ivan Zhdanov, a Navalny ally, in a statement on Twitter. “Russia’s authoritarian government and propaganda will be thrilled.”
Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation nonprofit, along with his movement’s headquarters, were categorized by the Russian government as extremist organizations since May, as previously reported by the Russian news agency TASS.
Navalny was arrested and jailed in February after returning to Russia from Germany, where he spent months recovering from a poisoning that he, the United States and the European Union have attributed to the ruling Russian party. The Kremlin has denied any role in his illness.
Google and Apple
Study Rewrites Modern Genetic Ancestry
Japan
An analysis of ancient DNA is transforming the understanding of the genetic ancestry of Japan's modern-day population, identifying a crucial contribution from people who arrived about 1,700 years ago and helped revolutionize Japanese culture.
Research published on Friday showed that the people of Japan bear genetic signatures from three ancient populations rather than just two as previously thought - a more complex ancestry for the archipelago nation of roughly 125 million.
The researchers analyzed genetic information from 17 ancient Japanese people - DNA extracted from the bones of 12 specifically for this study and five done previously - and compared it to genomic data for modern Japanese people.
Previously documented genetic contributions were confirmed from two ancient groups. The first was Japan's indigenous culture of hunter-gatherers dating to roughly 15,000 years ago, the start of what is called the Jomon period. The second was a population of Northeast Asian origins who arrived at about 900 BC, bringing wet-rice farming during the subsequent Yayoi period.
But 71% of their ancestry was found to come from a third ancient population with East Asian origins that arrived at roughly 300 AD to launch what is called the Kofun period, bringing various cultural advances and developing centralized leadership. These migrants appear to have had ancestry mainly resembling the Han people who make up most of China's population.
Japan
Mass Grave Discovered In Lebanon
Crusaders
Archaeologists digging near a Middle Eastern castle have unearthed two mass graves containing the grisly remains of Christian soldiers vanquished during the medieval Crusades — and some of them could have even been personally buried by a king.
The chipped and charred bones of at least 25 young men and teenage boys were found inside the dry moat of the ruins of St. Louis Castle in Sidon, Lebanon. Radiocarbon dating suggests they were among the many Europeans who, between the 11th and the 13th centuries, were spurred by priests and rulers to take up arms in a doomed effort to reconquer the Holy Land.
Much like many who came to fight and plunder before them, the soldiers’ long and arduous journeys ended with their deaths — all as a result of wounds they received in battle. But despite the widespread casualties, mass graves from this bloody period of history are incredibly difficult to find.
The archaeologists analyzed DNA alongside naturally occurring radioactive isotopes in the men’s teeth to confirm that some were born in Europe, and an analysis of different versions, or isotopes, of carbon in their bones suggests that they died sometime during the 13th century. Crusaders first captured St. Louis Castle just after the First Crusade in 1110. The invaders held onto Sidon, a key strategic port, for more than a century, but historical records show that the castle fell after it was attacked and destroyed twice — at first partially by the Mamluks in 1253 and later by the Mongols in 1260.
The researchers said it is "highly likely" that the soldiers perished during one of these battles, and by brutal means: The bones all bear stab and slice wounds from swords and axes, as well as evidence of blunt-force trauma. The soldiers had more wounds on their backs than on their fronts, suggesting that many were attacked from behind, possibly as they fled during a rout, and the distribution of these blows implies that their attackers charged them down on horseback. A number of the men’s remains also have blade wounds to the back of their necks — a sign that they may have been captured alive before being beheaded.
Crusaders
120,000 Years Ago
Clothes
Scientists have found what may be the earliest evidence of clothing manufacture in a cave in Morocco, dating back 120,000 years.
It can be easy to take clothing and their origins for granted, as putting on an outfit at the start of the day is such an ingrained part of what it means to be a human being in the modern world.
Someone who doesn't take this for granted is anthropologist Emily Hallett from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, who recently published a paper outlining the Moroccan discovery.
Hallett, along with a team of researchers, had been investigating a number of bone fragments found at the Contrebandiers Cave, an important archaeological site on the Atlantic coast of Morocco.
Of the roughly 12,000 bone fragments found at the site, Hallett identified more than 60 animal bones that had been shaped by humans for use as tools. Patterns of cut marks on the bones matched with tools found at other archaeological sites that had been used to process leather.
Clothes
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