Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Max Boot: Vote against all Republicans. Every single one. (Washington Post)
If you're sick and tired, too, here is what you can do. Vote for Democrats on Tuesday. For every office. Regardless of who they are. And I say that as a former Republican. Some Republicans in suburban districts may claim they aren't for Trump. Don't believe them. Whatever their private qualms, no Republicans have consistently held Trump to account. They are too scared that doing so will hurt their chances of reelection. If you're as sick and tired as I am of being sick and tired about what's going on, vote against all Republicans. Every single one. That's the only message they will understand.
Paul Krugman: A Party Defined by Its Lies (NY Times Column)
At this point, good people can't be good Republicans.
Helaine Olen: A new lawsuit reveals how the predatory world of get-rich-quick scams explains Trump (Washington Post)
Reading through the 164-page legal filing, I am reminded that the all-too-often predatory world of multilevel marketing explains much about Trump, too. It's all there - the exaggerated claims of success for everyone and the nonstop need to make the sale, all carried out with a cultlike fervor.
Bhaskar Sunkara: Don't get rid of Apu. He's a hero to many of us (The Guardian)
As an Indian-American, I learned to embrace Apu. I hope he stays on The Simpsons.
Anne Billson: Why is Seven Samurai so good? (BBC)
Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) is a three-and-a half-hour-long black-and-white epic set in war-torn, 16th-Century Japan. As elevator pitches go, it's hardly ideal, yet not only did Seven Samurai take first place in BBC Culture's 100 greatest foreign-language film poll, with 41 critics (20 per cent of the total) voting for it, Kurosawa was one of the most popular directors overall, with three of his other films (Rashomon, Ikiru and Ran) all making the top 100.
Sloane Crosley: The Princess Bride: Let Me Sum Up (Criterion)
Zoe: I like the friendship between Inigo and Fezzik and kind of Westley. Especially at the end. But the stuff with those guys is the funniest. The stuff about friendship.
Me: Like what stuff?
Zoe: Like the stuff about them being a team.
Me: Is that what makes a good friend?
Zoe: I think so. Nursing your friend back to health. Or planning things with your friend. Or, like, breaking down a door for your friend so they can kill someone.
Jonathan Rosenbaum: Why Luis Buñuel's revolutionary spirit is relevant today (BBC)
Born in 1900, Luis Buñuel was truly a child of the 20th Century. But his radical films that negotiated class struggle and sexual politics are still relevant today.
BBC Culture polled 209 critics in 43 countries to find the best in world cinema - here's the top 100. (BBC)
10. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960)
9. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
8. The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959)
7. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963)
6. Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
5. The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
4. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
3. Tokyo Story (Yasujirô Ozu, 1953)
2. Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio de Sica, 1948)
1. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
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Presenting
Michael Egan
replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Suggestion
Now this election - Old People
I hope this video comes through, it not, it's in the Facebook search box as Now this election old people. It's a dark tongue-in-cheek political ad, funded by Acronym, a progressive nonprofit.
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• After woman jockey Mary Bacon got divorced, her former husband had nothing to do with their daughter. He didn't see her, didn't call her, didn't give her birthday presents. Just before her fourth birthday, his daughter used to think each day that the mail carrier was going to bring her a present from her father, but nothing ever came. Finally, the daughter told her mother, "Daddy doesn't love me anymore." Ms. Bacon ended up buying a present, signing her ex-husband's name on a card, and mailing the present and card to her daughter.
• Nicholas Waln (1742-1813) was both a Quaker and a wit. While living in Philadelphia, he became aware that someone was stealing wood from his woodpile. By keeping careful watch, he learned that his next-door neighbor was the culprit, so he arranged to have a load of wood delivered to the neighbor. Instead of being pleased with the gift, the neighbor felt insulted and angrily demanded of Mr. Waln what he meant. Mr. Waln replied, "Friend, I was afraid thee would hurt thyself falling off my woodpile."
• When King Charles II visited St. John's College, Oxford, he was much taken with a portrait of Charles I and asked that it be given to him. The Head of the College was unwilling to do so, so the King said, "I will grant you any favor in return." With this proviso, the Head of the College gave him the portrait. "Thank you," King Charles II said. "What now is your request?" The Head of the College replied, "Give it back." (The portrait can still be seen at the College.)
• During a literary discussion in which lesbian author Valerie Taylor was participating, this question came up: "What is the function of the novel?" Ms. Taylor's son Jim was listening, and he responded, "The function of the novel is to pay the rent." Later, Ms. Taylor discovered that Thomas Hardy had said the same thing in a preface to one of his novels, so she bought a copy of the novel as a gift for her son.
• The great dancer Bill Robinson, aka Mr. Bojangles, was much beloved by police officers - he often held benefits for the widows of police officers who had been killed in action. In 1928, the officers of the 132nd Precinct in Harlem gave him a gift: a gold-plated revolver with a pearl handle and a magazine that was filled with gold bullets.
• While serving as Patriarch of Venice, the future Pope John XXIII frequently saw an unshaved priest. The Patriarch felt that it is important to be well groomed, but he did not wish to embarrass the priest by pointing out the fault, so he sent the priest an electric razor as a present.
• Author Joel Perry once wrote an article that praised shopping at Bloomingdale's. The good people at Bloomingdale's liked the article so much they sent him a bag filled with free goodies. Mr. Perry's only regret is that he didn't write the article about Tiffany's.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
THE NAZIS.
TRUMP WILL SAVE US BY BUILDING A WALL!
"IF YOU ARE A BIGOT, YOU ARE A COWARD."
"OUMUNANUA."
A GAGGLE OF GEESE.
"THE EXERCISE OF RESTRAINT…"
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Yep - running late.
Monday Night
Election Telethon
Hollywood celebrities will make a push next week to urge young people to the polls in Tuesday's U.S. elections, when control of Congress and many state governorships are at stake.
In a first-of-its-kind event, more than 50 actors, comedians and YouTube stars will join a two-hour, live-streamed telethon on Monday night aimed at firing up younger voters, the age group least likely to cast a ballot.
Stars will not ask for money during the "Telethon for America." Instead, they will urge viewers to call in to a celebrity phone bank and pledge to vote the next day.
While the organizers of Monday's event say it is a nonpartisan effort, increased turnout among young voters could help Democrats. Forty percent of people in that age group identified as Democrats, while 22 percent called themselves Republicans.
The telethon is backed by When We All Vote, a nonpartisan campaign launched by former first lady Michelle Obama to encourage voting.
Election Telethon
Remake in the Works
'The Color Purple'
According to Collider, "The Color Purple" is making its way to the silver screen once again. Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, and Quincy Jonesare producing an adaptation of the Broadway musical, marking their second collaboration on the material; Spielberg directed the 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which marked Winfrey's film debut and which Jones also produced and composed the score for.
That film was hugely successful, earning $142 million against a budget of just $15 million and receiving 11 Academy Award nominations (though it won none) as well as four Golden Globe nods, with Whoopi Goldberg winning for her performance. Elizabeth Banks received pushback last year when she incorrectly called out Spielberg, overlooking "The Color Purple" when she said the director had "never made a movie with a female lead…sorry, Steven. I don't mean to call your ass out, but it's true."
The musical first premiered in 2005, running for three years and earning 11 Tony Award nominations in 2006; it was then revived at the end of 2015, winning the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. No word yet on casting decisions for the new version. Danny Glover, Adolph Caesar, Margaret Avery, and Rae Dawn Chong starred in the original film, while Jennifer Hudson, Danielle Brooks, and Cynthia Erivo starred in the most recent musical.
'The Color Purple'
Buys Out Detroit Theater
Eminem
Eminem fans who check Twitter daily now have two chances to catch Bodied for approximately $0.00
Thursday night, Em let fans know that the 6:40 screenings at the AMC 30 in Sterling Heights on Friday and Saturday had been bought out. Em co-produced the movie, so this makes sense.
Also on Friday, Bodied director Joseph Kahn (who's previously directed videos for Taylor Swift, Dr. Dre, and Em) was joined by stars Calum Worthy and Jackie Long for a 30-minute chat with The Breakfast Club. "The movie is about battle rap, it's a comedy," Kahn said Friday. "Eminem didn't come on, well, here's the thing. I knew Eminem was involved from the beginning but I didn't wanna say anything until he actually full signed on. The last thing Eminem wants is, like, a dude making a movie going around like, 'Yeah, Eminem is involved.'"
Kahn added that the film, which he's been wanting to make since before Em even released 8 Mile, was made "off the grid" intentionally. "It's a fun journey," Kahn said of the film's story, which centers on Worthy's character-a grad student-entering the battle rap world. "It looks like he's the hero, but by the end of it, I'll just let the audience decide."
Eminem
Developing Series
Rashida Jones
Kevin might be canceled, but apparently, he can f- himself too.
AMC has announced that it is developing a series from Rashida Jones and Will McCormack under the working title Kevin Can F- Himself. The title and logline is clearly inspired by the CBS comedy Kevin Can Wait (starring Kevin James), which killed off Erinn Hayes' wife character after season 1 and was canceled after season 2.
The project and another from the creators of AMC's Halt and Catch Fire haven't officially been ordered to series, instead they've opened up writers' rooms, a new development process that the network has begun using.
"These are two genuinely inventive pieces of material from terrific creative teams whom we've had great experiences with," said David Madden, AMC's president of programming. "We like writers' rooms. We like the opportunity to write multiple scripts, to explore the dynamics of how a season will work, to really figure out who the characters are and how their behavior guides story. We're very much looking forward to opening these rooms and seeing what these talented creators produce."
Rashida Jones
2016 Campaign
Michael Cohen
Michael Cohen said that President Donald Trump used racist language towards black people during the 2016 election cycle.
In an interview with Vanity Fair published Friday, Cohen said that after a campaign rally, he told the then-candidate Trump that his crowd "looked vanilla" on TV, pointing out that his audience was largely Caucasian. He said that Trump's response was: "That's because black people are too stupid to vote for me."
In another instance, after Nelsen Mandela's death, Cohen told Vanity Fair that Trump said to him: "Name one country run by a black person that's not a s-hole," adding, "Name one city."
And to Cohen, Trump's racially-charged rhetoric goes back even further. In the late 2000s, while traveling to Chicago for a Trump International Hotel board meeting, Cohen recalled: "We were going from the airport to the hotel, and we drove through what looked like a rougher neighborhood. Trump made a comment to me, saying that only the blacks could live like this."
Cohen also told the magazine of a conversation regarding the first season of "The Apprentice." That season ended with a head-to-head between Bill Rancic and Kwame Jackson, an African-American investment manager and Harvard Business School graduate. "Trump was explaining his back-and-forth about not picking Jackson," Cohen said. "He said, 'There's no way I can let this black f-ing win.'"
Michael Cohen
Apologizes For Document
U.S. Military
The U.S. military says it has updated a "welcome booklet" meant to introduce servicemembers to the culture and customs of Saudi Arabia, days after comedian Hasan Minhaj highlighted some racist language it contained.
"The population of the (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) is mainly composed of descendants of indigenous tribes that have inhabited the peninsula since prehistoric times with some later mixture of Negro blood from slaves imported from Africa," read the manual, which was updated in June.
That phrase has been removed from the document and is being revised, United States Central Command spokesman Capt. Bill Urban said Thursday in a statement.
He said the military has conducted an internal review of its "posting processes" and is currently conducting a survey to "ensure there are no further instances of inappropriate material on our website."
Minhaj drew attention to the document's language in an episode of his show, "Patriot Act," that aired Sunday and addressed the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as the relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
U.S. Military
Plan To Sequence 66,000 Species
Eukaryotic Life
In the first attempt of its kind, researchers plan to sequence all known species of eukaryotic life-66,000 species of animals, plants, fungi, and protozoa-in a single country, the United Kingdom. The announcement was made here today at the official launch of an even grander $4.7 billion global effort, called the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP), to sequence the genomes of all of Earth's known 1.5 million species of eukaryotes within a decade.
"We feel it is the next moonshot for biology," says EBP project chair Harris Lewin, a genomicist at the University of California, Davis. Researchers say the genomes will provide multiple benefits, including new insights into the evolution, assisting in biodiversity conservation, and benefiting agriculture and medicine.
In terms of genomes sequenced, the eukaryotes-the branch of complex life consisting of organisms with cells that have a nucleus inside a membrane-lag far behind the bacteria and archaea. Researchers have sequenced just about 3500 eukaryotic genomes, and only 100 at high quality. In 2015, EBP's founders hatched the idea to massively expand these numbers. "This was an effort that bubbled up from scientists wanting to know more about how the world works," says John Kress of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., a co-chair of the project's working group.
This group, which includes about 25 scientists, has developed a strategy for coordinating the many efforts around the world that are sequencing the genomes of various taxonomic groups, such as vertebrates or plants, and geographically focused efforts tackling the genomes of key or iconic species found within a single nation's borders. The project will set standards for genome quality, data curations, and other aspects.
The U.K. sequencing effort-dubbed The Darwin Tree of Life project-will now become part of the EBP mix. The Wellcome Sanger Institute in Hinxton, U.K., says it plans to sequence all known 66,000 species of eukaryotes found within the United Kingdom, except for its overseas territories. Collaborators will include the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Hinxton, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the United Kingdom, and the Natural History Museum in London. Sanger will spend up to £50 million over 8 years, about 4% of its annual budget, on the first phase of the project, which will focus on developing the processes for sample collection, R&D on sequencing, and computational methods for assembling the genomes. Sanger director Mike Stratton said he expects another £100 million will be needed over the next 5 to 7 years for the bulk of sample collections and sequencing.
Eukaryotic Life
Geologic Poltergeist
Southern California
A mysterious, bubbling mud geyser is on the move in Southern California, flitting dangerously close to railroad tracks, Highway 111 and some very expensive optic cables, like a geologic poltergeist, according to news sources.
Even stranger, this puzzling geyser - dubbed the "Slow One" - is in the same neighborhood as the source of the so-called "Big One," the giant earthquake that is expected to shake things up where the North American and Pacific tectonic plates rub together to form the San Andreas Fault.
But despite the Slow One's unprecedented movement as of late, there's no evidence that this muddy geyser is an imminent precursor to an earthquake, geophysicist Ken Hudnut, with the U.S. Geological Survey, told the Los Angeles Times. In fact, the region has experienced less seismic activity in recent months than average, he said.
Researchers have known about the Slow One, also called the Niland Geyser, since 1953. It formed when historic earthquakes caused deep cracks underground that allowed gases to move upward and escape at the surface, causing the bubbling mud pools, the Los Angeles Times reported. Unlike Yellowstone's Old Faithful, which has molten rock that superheats the circulating hot-spring water, the Niland Geyser is heated by bubbling carbon dioxide and registers at about 80 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly 27 degrees Celsius).
After not moving for decades, the geyser caught the attention of scientists when it began moving around over the past few years, David Lynch, a geophysicist, told the Los Angeles Times. Then, over the past six months, the geyser went on an erratic tour, first moving 60 feet (18 meters) over a few months and then a whopping 60 feet in one day, officials reported in Imperial County, where the muddy spring is located.
Southern California
Top 20
Global Concert Tours
The Top 20 Global Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows Worldwide. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers. Week of October 31, 2018:
1. Taylor Swift; $9,803,400; $120.82.
2. Ed Sheeran; $7,187,761; $91.02.
3. Jay-Z / Beyoncé; $6,541,495; $119.26.
4. U2; $5,009,545; $137.69.
5. Celine Dion; $4,782,217; $221.19.
6. Drake; $4,438,222; $119.08.
7. Billy Joel; $3,898,617; $121.56.
8. Helene Fischer; $3,671,517; $81.71.
9. Kenny Chesney; $3,098,845; $87.93.
10. Justin Timberlake; $2,157,345; $104.84.
11. "Springsteen On Broadway"; $2,003,314; $508.85.
12. Dead & Company; $1,996,411; $69.81.
13. Def Leppard / Journey; $1,840,876; $97.66.
14. Iron Maiden; $1,668,830; $78.82.
15. André Rieu; $1,630,373; $91.79.
16. Britney Spears; $1,552,978; $129.29.
17. Paul Simon; $1,521,540; $112.21.
18. Harry Styles; $1,477,976; $79.49.
19. Luke Bryan; $1,463,387; $68.42.
20. Shakira; $1,409,153; $98.38.
Global Concert Tours
In Memory
Mario Segale
Mario Segale, the Seattle real estate and construction business owner who inspired the name for Nintendo's famous mascot, passed away on October 27 according to reports from The Seattle Times and The Auburn Reporter. He was 84 years old.
Segale owned the business park housing Nintendo's American arcade operation in the early '80s, when the company was busy converting thousands of disused Radarscope cabinets to play Donkey Kong. At the time, Nintendo of America President Minoru Arakawa and other executives were trying to come up with an Americanized name for the game's player avatar, who was still referred to as "Jumpman" at that point (a name that appears on early Donkey Kong cabinet art).
As the story goes, when Segale came to Arakawa to demand payment for a late rent bill, inspiration struck.
While the broad strokes of Segale's role in Mario's naming remain consistent, the particulars can change with the retelling. David Sheff's seminal Nintendo history Game Over suggests the executives exclaimed "Super Mario!" after Segale's visit in 1981 (though the book misspells his name "Segali"). As Benj Edwards notes in an in-depth 2010 exploration of the tale, though, the "Super" descriptor for the character wouldn't become common until the release of Super Mario Bros. in 1985. Other retellings over the years go so far as to suggest that the "Super" came from Segale's role as "superintendent" of the building, but these stories offer little in the way of direct evidence.
In a 2005 MTV interview, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto misremembered the American warehouse being in New York. Miyamoto also mistakenly suggested Segale "had a striking resemblance to the character that we had designed in Japan for the game," showing how much the story can become mangled with the passage of time even among some of the game's principal players.
In any case, as The Seattle Times obituary notes, Segale "always ducked the notoriety [for being Mario's namesake] and wanted to be known instead for what he accomplished in his life," such as building a successful construction business from a single dump truck bought after high school in 1952. A 1993 Seattle Times article quotes him as joking, "You might say I'm still waiting for my royalty checks," seemingly the only on-the-record comment on his ancillary role in Nintendo's history.
Segale is survived by his wife Donna, four children, and nine grandchildren.
Mario Segale
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