Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Adam Beam: Democrat Wins By A Single Vote In This Kentucky House Race (TPM)
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Mary Beverly Goetz is 76, uses a walker and recently had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. Worried her health issues would prevent her from voting for Democrat Jim Glenn in her western Kentucky state House district, she requested an absentee ballot by mail and sent it in weeks ahead of the election to make sure her vote was counted. Glenn won by one vote.
Paul Krugman: Why Was Trump's Tax Cut a Fizzle? (NY Times)
The G.O.P.'s only legislative achievement has been a big disappointment. … And with the Trump tax cut, the doctrine has failed again. Unfortunately, it's difficult to get politicians to understand something when their campaign contributions depend on their not understanding it.
Paul Waldman: The rebellion against Nancy Pelosi is absurd (Washington Post)
At least some of them want to say to Pelosi, "Sorry, we know you're obviously the most capable person for the job and you just led us to a historic victory, but since the other side says nasty things about you, even though they don't seem to work we're going to pick someone else - anybody else, it doesn't really matter who." No member of Congress has a divine right to a position of leadership. But if the anti-Pelosi side wants to force out one of the most successful leaders in their party's history, they really ought to come up with a better argument than that.
Paul Waldman: Trump can't stop blurting out his desire to obstruct justice (Washington Post)
It has been clear all along that Trump has desperately wanted to mount a frontal attack on Mueller, but he's too impulsive to do it without telling everyone exactly what he's up to, which then makes it harder to carry out his plan. He can't even obstruct justice properly.
Mary Beard: Talking Books (TLS)
In the updated Afterword I discuss a little my own story of being raped on an Italian train in 1978 (it is centrally relevant to new considerations in the book about how people, both harrassed and harrassers, narrativise harrassment to themselves). I have written about this on several occasions before, and to be honest have zero embarrassment and zero shame in describing it. I was struck, though, by how different that particular section of the book seemed when spoken out loud.
Mary Beard: Westminster Abbey did well (TLS)
For a start it wasn't just an old white occasion, there were loads of young people, black, white and brown, able and disabled. It wasn't just the C of E at prayer (I talked to the representative of the Humanists as I came out, not to mention all the other religious leaders there). It wasn't remotely triumphalist. And there was an occasional sense of risk taking.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Resin
David
Thanks, Dave!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Alice Cooper frequently gets "killed" by zombies as part of his act. He also uses a lot of stage props-something that sometimes results in accidents. For example, he used to "hang" himself on stage-a wire kept him from actually breaking his neck in the noose. Alice remembers, "We'd made the thing ourselves, and used piano wire as the support cable. But what we didn't figure is that if we used it 300 times, the wire would eventually lose its strength. Then one night in London it snapped. Fortunately, I instinctively put my neck up and slipped right through the noose. I fell six feet, hit my jaw. Man, was I lucky!" A live prop was a boa constrictor that once suffered from onstage diarrhea-something that made his stage crew, who were onstage dressed as clowns, vomit. (After the concert, Johnny Rotten said, "Alice, that was the most magnificent thing I've ever seen in my entire life.") Alice also stabbed himself in the leg with a sword-accidentally. He remembers, "I looked down and thought, 'Well, it's already in there, so I might as well carry on.'" Alice realized the importance of stage props from his days as a high-school student: "One of my teachers had a guillotine, and if you were late, he'd put your head in it. I was late all the time."
• Being one of the Three Stooges-Moe, Larry, and Curly-sometimes involved sacrifice. In 1936, the Stooge made the comedy short Ants in the Pantry. In it, the boys are pest exterminators, but business is slow, so their boss finds a way to get more customers, "If they don't have any bugs, give them some!" Therefore, the Three Stooges start putting mice, ants, and moths in future customers' houses. During filming, a container of red ants broke in Moe's pocket, and they started swarming inside his clothing, leading to a lot of squirming by Moe. The director, Preston Black, loved it, saying, "Great, Moe! Keep up that squirming!" Moe remembers, "It was very funny-to everyone but me." Also in 1936, the Stooges made Slippery Silks. In this short, over 150 pies were thrown, and Moe ended up with a sore arm and a sore face because the pies that he did not throw were thrown at him. The other Stooges also suffered injuries: Curly lost a tooth in one short, and Larry once got hit in the head and had to be attended to by a doctor. The doctor cut away some of Larry's hair so he could attend to his wound, and then he glued back the hair so Larry could resume shooting the short.
• Monty Python's Terry Jones was friends with Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe books. One story that Mr. Adams used to tell was of being at a train station with a Guardian newspaper and a package of biscuits (British for cookies). He sat down with a cup of coffee and put down the newspaper. In the middle of the table was a packet of biscuits. Another man was already at the table, and he very calmly opened the packet of biscuits and ate one. Mr. Adams was annoyed but remained silent, and he ate a biscuit. The other man then ate a biscuit, followed by Mr. Adams eating another biscuit. Mr. Adams was still annoyed, but he made an effort not to glare at the other man. When it was time to leave, Mr. Adams stood up, picked up his newspaper-and discovered his packet of biscuits underneath the newspaper.
• Terri Elders once enjoyed a delicious blue raspberry treat before teaching, and she was happy that her students were paying very close attention to her as she spoke. Unfortunately, after the class was over, one of her female students handed her a compact and said, "You might want to have a look." She looked, and she saw that her raspberry treat had turned her lips, tongue, and teeth blue.
• Dancing in an open-air theater has its challenges-bats, for example. Another danger is picnickers. Tanaquil Le Clercq once danced an adagio in an open-air theater in Colorado with a hot-dog wrapper made sticky with mustard clinging to her tights.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Reader Comment
Current Events
Air Quality Emergency
I mean, looking straight overhead, the sky is blue. Looking toward any horizon, however, you'd think it was a light fog, or thick mist. If it wasn't for how awful it smells, or how it burns the eyes and throat, you'd not know this is smoke.
And #45 is coming to CA tomorrow. Lucky me, I won't be anywhere near him. I can't shower enough to wash off the stain of what his "presidency" has done to our country.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
"OOPS, HE DID IT AGAIN."
"LOCK IT UP!"
"BURN BABY, BURN"!
WAKE UP AND PEE, THE WORLD'S ON FIRE!
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Yep. Running even later.
Launching Own Streaming Service
Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection is officially launching its own independent streaming platform, named The Criterion Channel. The company, in a special arrangement with WarnerMedia, will have a "free-standing streaming service" that is set to launch in Spring 2019. The fate of Criterion has been a burning question for cinephiles since WarnerMedia announced the end of FilmStruck last month. FilmStruck has been the exclusive streaming home for Criterion since its launch in October 2016.
"Today's announcement ensures that fans will have access to these films from the Criterion Collection as well as films from WarnerMedia's deep and extensive library in what will be a rich and curated experience, which will further expand the audience footprint for these classic and acclaimed movies," Criterion said in a statement.
The company added, "The Criterion Channel will be picking up where FilmStruck left off, with thematic programming, regular filmmaker spotlights, and actor retrospectives, featuring major classics and hard-to-find discoveries from Hollywood and around the world, complete with special features like commentaries, behind-the-scenes footage and original documentaries."
As part of the deal between Criterion and WarnerMedia, the company will continue to produce its guest programmer series "Adventures in Moviegoing," which recently featured Barry Jenkins, Guillermo del Toro, Bill Hader, and Mira Nair. Criterion programming "Observations on Film Art" and "Short + Feature" will continue as well, this time as a double-bill on Fridays.
The Criterion Channel announcement follows news that FilmStruck could continue in a different version as part of WarnerMedia's new streaming service in the fourth quarter of 2019. Filmmakers Martin Scorsese, Christopher Nolan, Guillermo del Toro, Sean Baker, and Paul Thomas Anderson, among many others, sent letters to Warner Bros. championing FilmStruck and pleading for the service to continue. An online petition fighting to save FilmStruck has earned over 50,000 signatures and counting.
Criterion Collection
Sets Record
David Hockney
An iconic swimming pool picture painted by British legend David Hockney sold for $90.3 million in New York on Thursday, setting a new auction record for a living artist, Christie's said.
"Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)" was snapped up after more than nine minutes of bidding, dominated by two rival telephone bidders. The previous record was held by Jeff Koons and his "Balloon Dog (Orange)," which sold for $58.4 million at Christie's in 2013.
It was standing room only in the packed sales room at Christie's in New York, where a smattering of applause broke out when the sale concluded, the painting hammering for $80 million.
The buyer's premium took the final price to $90,312,500, the auction house announced.
Christie's had estimated the 1972 oil painting at $80 million and called the Hockney "one of the great masterpieces of the modern era."
David Hockney
Changed Definition
Kilogram
Scientists have unanimously voted to change the way a kilogram is defined.
A cylinder of polished platinum-iridium alloy known as "Le Grand K", which is locked away safe in a Paris vault, it to be retired from its role as the true kilogram.
Instead, attendees at the General Conference on Weights and Measures have opted to use a measurement based on electric currents to define this unit of weight.
Representatives from 60 countries around the world gathered in Versailles, France, to witness the moment, with some scientists sporting tattoos on their arms to mark the occasion.
The decision was greeted by rapturous applause, after the policy makers and scientists one by one signalled their approval of the new system.
Kilogram
Flat-Earthers
Denver
It's one of the first things you learn in school, from the moment you spin that globe at the front of the classroom. The Earth is a sphere rotating on an axis and revolving around the sun.
But if you ask a self-described "flat-Earther," everything about that statement is false, or at the very least, it's never been proven.
"Most of us would say the same thing, that we laughed at this, we thought this was ridiculous, we believed in the globe," said Robbie Davidson, founder and organizer of the Flat Earth International Conference in Denver this week.
But he said his views changed about three years ago, when he started questioning and investigating for himself.
"When it comes down to it we're finding out that a lot of what we're being taught these days is more theoretical science," he said. "You can't apply it under the scientific method."
Denver
'You Have to Look at the Way She Was Dressed.'
Ireland
Scores of demonstrators have taken to the streets across Ireland this week to protest after a defense lawyer held up a teenager's lacy thong in a rape trial to indicate consent, the Guardian reports.
In her closing argument, lawyer Elizabeth O'Connell asked the jury to consider a 17-year-old's underwear as an indication that she was "open to meeting someone." Prosecutors said the teen was raped in a muddy ally by a 27-year-old man.
"Does the evidence out-rule the possibility that she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone? You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front," O'Connell said.
The defendant was unanimously acquitted by a jury of eight men and four women at Cork's Central Criminal Court on November 6.
But the lawyer's remarks sparked outrage far beyond the trial. Women's rights activists and others took to social media to protest victim blaming, and posted photos of underwear on Twitter with the hashtags #IBelieveHer and #ThisIsNotConsent. Protests also erupted in Belfast, Cork, Dublin and Limerick with hundreds of women and men calling for a national reckoning over how sexual assault cases are handled.
Ireland
Interstellar Radio
Arecibo Message
November 16 2018 marks 44 years since researchers sent humankind's first interstellar radio message - an achievement Google is celebrating with a Google Doodle.
The Arecibo Message, sent from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Ricoin 1974, is a three-minute message of exactly 1,679 binary digits - which, if arranged in a specific way, can explain basic information about humanity and earth to extraterrestrial beings.
Scientists sent the message via frequency modulated radio waves to a cluster of stars 25,000 light years away to demonstrate the power of the Arecibo radio telescope, which was the largest and most powerful in the world at the time.
The actual message was devised by a team of researchers from Cornell University led by astronomer and astrophysicist Dr Frank Drake.
When received, the message could be arranged in a grid 73 rows by 23 columns to form a pictograph that represents facts about mathematics, human DNA, planet earth, and humans.
Arecibo Message
New 'Major Branch'
Hemimastigotes
A scientist on a hike in the Canadian woods has discovered an organism that appears to sit on a new "major branch" of the evolutionary tree of life.
Two species of the microscopic creatures, called hemimastigotes, were found in earth collected in Nova Scotia by Dalhousie University graduate student Yana Eglit.
Unlike anything found in the animal or plant world, single-celled hemimastigotes are about two-hundredths of a millimetre in length, and scuttle around using a dozen or more hairs - known as flagellas - that stick out either side of it.
They were first described in the 19th century, but have remained, until now, a "tantalizing mystery" due to the inability of scientists to figure out which kingdom the creatures belong to, Ms Eglit told CBC News.
Like animals, plants, funghi and amoeba, hemimastigotes belong to a domain of organisms called eukaryotes, which all consist of cells in which DNA in the form of chromosomes is contained within a distinct nucleus.
Hemimastigotes
Upsettingly Large Fungus
Michigan
It's nicknamed the "humongous fungus"-an unusually large fungal growth belonging to a single genetic individual. An updated analysis of this gigantic fungal beast shows it's substantially larger and older than scientists initially thought.
This single genetic individual, known as C1, belongs to a species of fungus called Armillaria gallica, otherwise known as the honey mushroom. When University of Toronto biologist James B. Anderson first studied this large growth in 1992, he was astounded by its sheer size. Anderson and his colleagues estimated that it was 1,500 years old, weighed 100,000 kilograms (110 tons) and covered around 37 acres (15 hectares) of forest floor in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The C1 specimen, which has latched onto hundreds, if not thousands, of tree roots, was declared to be among the largest and oldest organisms on Earth.
Nearly 30 years later, and as a final scientific act before his retirement, Anderson decided to return to the Michigan forest to take more precise measurements of C1 and to see if its cells had changed over the decades.
Looking at hundreds of samples taken from 2015 to 2017, Anderson had to revise his earlier estimates. As he points out in his updated study, the gigantic fungus is actually closer to 2,500 years old and it weighs around 400,000 kilograms, or 440 tons. The growth covers about 173 acres (70 hectares), which is roughly the same size as the total floor area of the Pentagon building.
Like other fungi, A. gallica sprouts mushrooms on the forest floor, but this species also utilizes a subterranean network of mycelium-underground tendrils that sustain the oversized organism by searching and latching onto sources of food.
Michigan
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 November 14, 2018:
1. Taylor Swift; $9,756,530; $124.26.
2. Jay-Z / Beyoncé; $6,612,663; $122.51.
3. Ed Sheeran; $6,023,219; $91.89.
4. U2; $4,676,648; $133.07.
5. Celine Dion; $4,641,885; $235.77.
6. Drake; $4,236,951; $116.29.
7. Eagles ; $4,080,199; $148.92.
8. Bruno Mars; $3,557,078; $146.44.
9. Billy Joel; $3,542,531; $119.54.
10. Helene Fischer; $3,435,219; $82.36.
11. Kenny Chesney; $3,432,546; $92.84.
12. Roger Waters; $2,557,778; $69.51.
13. Justin Timberlake; $2,095,071; $108.69.
14. Phil Collins; $2,092,876; $150.65.
15. "Springsteen On Broadway"; $2,027,717; $509.37.
16. Journey / Def Leppard; $1,810,296; $97.89.
17. Iron Maiden; $1,616,893; $78.93.
18. Britney Spears; $1,466,402; $139.41.
19. Luke Bryan; $1,460,535; $71.03.
20. Paul Simon; $1,432,930; $112.08.
Global Concert Tours
In Memory
William Goldman
William Goldman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter and Hollywood wise man who won Academy Awards for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "All the President's Men" and summed up the mystery of making a box office hit by declaring "Nobody knows anything," has died. He was 87.
Goldman, who also converted his novels "Marathon Man," ''Magic," ''The Princess Bride" and "Heat" into screenplays, clearly knew more than most about what the audience wanted. He was not only a successful film writer but a top script doctor, the industry title for an uncredited writer brought in to improve or "punch up" weak screenplays.
Goldman also made political history by coining the phrase "follow the money" in his script for "All the President's Men," adapted from the book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the Watergate political scandal. The film starred Robert Redford as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein. Standing in the shadows, Hal Holbrook was the mystery man code-named Deep Throat who helped the reporters pursue the evidence. His advice, "Follow the money," became so widely quoted that few people realized it was never said during the actual scandal.
Goldman launched his writing career after receiving a master's degree in English from Columbia University in 1956. Weary of academia, he declined the chance to earn a Ph.D., choosing instead to write the novel "The Temple of Gold" in 10 days. Knopf agreed to publish it.
He wrote other novels, including "Soldier in the Rain," which became a movie starring Steve McQueen. Goldman also co-authored a play and a musical with his older brother, James, but both failed on Broadway.
William Goldman had come to screenwriting by accident after actor Cliff Robertson read one of his books, "No Way to Treat a Lady," and thought it was a film treatment. After he hired the young writer to fashion a script from a short story, Goldman rushed out to buy a book on screen writing. Robertson rejected the script but found Goldman a job working on a screenplay for a British thriller. After that he adapted his novel "Harper" for a 1966 film starring Paul Newman as a private eye.
He broke through in 1969 with the blockbuster "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," starring Newman and Redford. Based on the exploits of the real-life "Hole in the Wall" gang of bank robbers, the movie began a long association with Redford, who also appeared in "The Hot Rock," ''The Great Waldo Pepper" and "Indecent Proposal."
Other notable Goldman films included "The Stepford Wives," ''A Bridge Too Far" and "Misery." The latter, adapted from a Stephen King suspense novel, won the 1990 Oscar for Kathy Bates as lead actress.
In 1961 Goldman married Ilene Jones, a photographer, and they had two daughters, Jenny and Susanna. The couple divorced in 1991.
Born in Chicago on Aug. 12, 1931, Goldman grew up in the suburb of Highland Park. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1952 and served two years in the Army.
"A screenplay is a piece of carpentry," he once said. "And except in the case of Ingmar Bergman, it's not an art, it's a craft."
William Goldman
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