from Bruce
Anecdotes
Dance and Dancers
• American dance pioneer Ted Shawn once choreographed the bawdy ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, in which the Spartan and Athenian women decide to stop the Peloponnesian War by declining to have sex with their husbands until the war ends. His choreography for the dance was “hot,” and this upset some members of the audience, including one person who said, “A man and woman lying on the floor together have only one thing on their minds!” Mr. Shawn replied, “The man and woman do have just one thing on their minds, and the problem of the ballet was to show it beautifully, which I think I’ve done.” Unfortunately, the threat of being hurt at the box office led Mr. Shawn to tone down the sexuality of the dance, something he neglected to tell dancer Myrna Pace. While dancing the role, Ms. Pace of course noticed the changes in the way Mr. Shawn was dancing and joked, “Don’t you love me anymore?”
• Ballerina Tanaquil Le Clercq paid no attention to the superstition that it is bad luck to whistle in a dressing room, but she once shared a dressing room with a ballerina who did. Because the only way to get rid of the bad luck is to go outside the dressing room and twirl three times, Ms. Le Clercq says that “for one whole season I spent more time twirling off stage than on.”
• Dancer/comedian Norma Miller spent a busy life in show business, and she never married. Late in her life, men would occasionally ask her why she had never married, and she would tell them, “Because none of you bastards ever asked me!”
Death
• In 1728, Benjamin Franklin wrote this epitaph: “The Body of / B. Franklin Printer, / (Like the Cover of an old Book / Its Contents tore out / And stript of its Lettering & Gilding,) / Lies here, Food for Worms. / But the Work shall not be lost; / For it will, (as he believ’d) appear once more, / In a new and more elegant Edition / Revised and corrected, / By the Author.” Actually, this epitaph was created as a writing exercise. Mr. Franklin’s grave in Philadelphia has no epitaph; it bears only his name. By the way, the children of some of Mr. Franklin’s British friends owned a squirrel named Skugg. When Skugg died, Mr. Franklin composed this epitaph for him: “Here lies Skugg, as Snug as a Bug in a Rug.” Also by the way, Mr. Franklin was a master of the put-on. He once wrote this in a letter that was published in the London Public Advertiser: “Whales, when they have a Mind to eat Cod, pursue them wherever they fly; and the grand leap of the Whale in that Chace up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed by all who have seen it, as one of the finest Spectacles in Nature!”
• Even in death, people can be witty. The obituary for Michael ‘Flathead’ Blanchard (1944-2012) in the Denver Post on 12 April 2012 stated, “A Celebration of the life of Michael ‘Flathead’ Blanchard will be held on April 14th, 3 pm 8160 Rosemary St, Commerce City [Colorado]. Weary of reading obituaries noting someone’s courageous battle with death, Mike wanted it known that he died as a result of being stubborn, refusing to follow doctors’ orders and raising hell for more than six decades. He enjoyed booze, guns, cars and younger women until the day he died. […] Baba Yaga can kiss his butt. So many of his childhood friends that weren’t killed in Vietnam went on to become criminals, prostitutes and/or Democrats. He asks that you stop by and re-tell the stories he can no longer tell. As the Celebration will contain Adult material we respectfully ask that no children under 18 attend.”
• The book jacket of Graham Crackers, a compilation of humorous bits written by Monty Python’s Graham Chapman, shows photographs of how Mr. Chapman looked at age 12 and how he looks today. The “today” photograph shows a funerary urn — Mr. Chapman died on 4 October 1989, the day before Monty Python celebrated its 20th anniversary. According to fellow Python member Terry Jones, Mr. Chapman’s death was “the worst case of party-pooping I’ve ever seen.” Even after Mr. Chapman died, the other members of the comedy group did not forget him. At a Python meeting after his death, he was given a vote — his spirit was asked to rap once for yes, twice for no. (Mr. Graham abstained.)
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Boredom is Anti-Life: 250 Anecdotes and Stories — Buy
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Cast Out the Snake (Live)"
Album: WHEN WE WERE LIVE
Artist: Jenny Wren and Her Borrowed Wings
Artist Location: England, UK
Info:
“Jenny Wren and Her Borrowed Wings are most positively the Blues; playing the true facts of life with inspiration, feeling and understanding. In addition to this, the band delivers a jazzed-up bombardment of rootsy musicianship that effortlessly intertwines with their stripped back earthy core. The result; a unique and impassioned sound, laid bare and beautiful in its honesty.”
Musicians
Ben Gallon - Acoustic Guitar/Vocals
Jenny Trilsbach - Vocals/Double Bass
Ben Fisher - Resophonic Guitar/Vocals
Recorded LIVE at MusicStar, Norderstedt, Germany
by Wolfgang Sedlatschek & team on 17th October 2019.
Mixed and Mastered by Ed Rome at Slam Door Studios, Essex.
Price: Name Your Price (Includes FREE)
“Available for free but if you would like to support live, original music, you can choose to pay as much as you want. All donations very welcome.”
Genre: Blues
Links:
WHEN WE WERE LIVE
Jenny Wren and Her Borrowed Wings
Jenny Wren and Her Borrowed Wings Official Website
Jenny Wren and Her Borrowed Wings on YouTube
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Two-Fer
New Venture
Michael Egan
Part 1
Bruce’s Stories
I have been single all my life so far, and I expect to be single for the rest of my life. I like being alone. I know men who go hunting not because they like to hunt, but because it is the only time all year they can be alone for more than a few minutes. I am the type of person who likes to be alone for most of each day. I can visit family on vacation and be around people for most of a few days, but then I need to get back home so I can be alone.
Quite simply, I am the type of man who finds the life led by Jack Nicholson’s character in As Good as It Gets to be quite attractive, except for the misogyny, and the racism, and the cowardice, and the obsessive-compulsive disorder, and probably a few other things. Still, he makes a good living by writing novels and he spends much of each day alone. Then he had to go and ruin it all by falling in love. (It’s hard to believe that I have a sister — Brenda Kennedy — who writes romance books.)
To any women who write complaining posts on Reddit’s Forever Alone thread, I apologize. I also give you permission to say that you and I used to be engaged to be married, but we called off the wedding due to a matter of life and death — we would have killed each other. You might be able to use this story to answer prying questions about why you haven’t married or remarried yet. Add all the gruesome details you want. Be sure to blame me.
But I do have children, just not biological children. As a teacher at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, which is commonly confused with Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, I taught 60 or more adult children — usually from age 18 to 22 (Yay! No poopy diapers!) — each quarter, back when Ohio University was on the quarter system.
Most of my students were angels, but some were not. Unfortunately, I found plagiarism in student papers and in some cases I sent the student to University Judiciaries, where the most common punishment dealt to guilty students was being put on Academic Probation. Even more unfortunately, I am positive that I did not discover all the plagiarism that occurred. Most students, of course, worked hard and did not plagiarize.
Here’s an example of academic dishonesty that was not committed by one of my students, but that one of my students told me about. My student and her acquaintance were taking a class in computer programming, but both were having a hard time learning the subject. When the final computer-programming project was due, neither had been able to complete it, but another student gave copies of his work to everyone who wanted it. My student was honest and did not pass off work as her own that she had not done. Her acquaintance, however, accepted a copy of the other student’s work and handed it in as her own work. Result: My student failed with an F, and her acquaintance passed with an A. My student retook the class, learned how to program, put the class on her resume, and got a job as a computer programmer. Her acquaintance did not retake the class, did not learn how to program, put the class on her resume, and got a job as a computer programmer. My student was a good programmer and kept her job, while her acquaintance was not a good programmer and got fired. My student then made a Xerox copy of her paycheck and mailed it to her acquaintance with this note: “Ha! Ha!”
Kids Are Not Always Angels — Buy
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David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Gag me
This item from Axios were almost enough to make me lose my breakfast. No one I know can expect a copy of said book in their Christmas stockings from me! And I'll be noting never to buy anything from Winning Team Publishing EVER.
From "Our Journey Together," by former President Donald J. Trump.
Former President Trump plans his first post-presidency book — "Our Journey Together," featuring 300+ official White House photographs.
* Don Jr. tells Axios: "My father picked every single photo in this book, wrote all the captions, including some by hand."
Glad to know there was taunting as McCarthy pulled his stunt. What a perfect ass. And this pathetic loser wants to be Speaker.
Jackass McCarthy
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Since nobody here really likes turkey, bought a Thanksgiving chicken.
Stuffing, however, is mandatory.
Sells For $43M
US Constitution
A rare first printing of the U.S. Constitution sold at Sotheby’s in New York for $43.2 million, a record price for a document or book sold at auction.
The buyer, hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin, will loan the document to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, for public exhibition, Sotheby’s announced Friday.
Griffin, the founder and CEO of multinational hedge fund Citadel, outbid a group of 17,000 cryptocurrency enthusiasts from around the world who crowdfunded to buy it over the last week.
The document that Griffin purchased at Thursday night’s auction was one of 13 known copies of the first printing of the Constitution and one of only two in private hands.
This printing of the Constitution was last sold in 1988, when real estate developer and collector S. Howard Goldman bought it at auction for $165,000.
US Constitution
Helps Raise Funds
Jason Sudeikis
With an Emmy win and a hit Apple TV+ series under his belt, Jason Sudeikis is having one big year.
The show, of course, is “Ted Lasso,” where Sudeikis plays an upbeat and good-natured American football coach who takes charge of a professional British soccer team despite knowing little about the game.
The fish-out-of-water comedy has been a welcome escape for many fans dealing with pandemic blues and other stressful events marking the past 15 months. The second season of the series explored the mental health struggles of Sudeikis’ character. And its anyone’s guess what the third — reportedly set to begin filming in January — will bring.
Amid the success, Sudeikis recently returned to his hometown of Kansas City to host Thundergong!, an annual benefit concert for a charity that helps amputees who lack proper health coverage pay for prosthetic limbs.
The event, which will stream Saturday, will raise money for Steps of Faith Foundation. The Kansas City-based organization is headed Billy Brimblecom Jr, a drummer and longtime friend. Sudeikis fundraised to get Brimblecom a prosthetic leg after he was diagnosed by a form of cancer that required him to undergo a leg amputation.
Jason Sudeikis
Diff'rent Strokes and Facts of Life
Live in Front of a Studio Audience
ABC announced late Thursday night that Live in Front of a Studio Audience will return for a third installment on Tuesday, Dec. 7 (at 8/7c), recreating episodes of Diff’rent Strokes and its spinoff, The Facts of Life.
The cast of Diff’rent Strokes will feature Kevin Hart as Arnold, succeeding Gary Coleman; John Lithgow (3rd Rock From the Sun) as Phillip Drummond, succeeding Conrad Bain; Damon Wayans (My Wife and Kids) as Willis, succeeding Todd Bridges; and Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale) as Mrs. Garrett, succeeding Charlotte Rae. No word yet on who might play Arnold and Willis’ sister Kimberly, originally portrayed by Dana Plato.
The cast of Facts of Life will be announced at a later date.
The legendary Norman Lear — whose Embassy Television produced both Diff’rent Strokes and Facts of Life — will return as an executive producer, alongside Jimmy Kimmel, Brent Miller, Kerry Washington, Will Ferrell, Justin Theroux and Jim Burrows.
The first Live in Front of a Studio Audience special aired May 2019, and recreated episodes of All in the Family and The Jeffersons. That was followed by a second installment in December 2019, featuring a new reenactment of All in the Family and a classic episode of Good Times.
Live in Front of a Studio Audience
Weasels
OAN
The far-right media organization One America News (OAN) asked a judge to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems over election conspiracy theories — or, failing that, to at least let the company's executives off the hook.
"The allegations related to OAN, Charles Herring, and Robert Herring, Sr. demonstrate that they have insufficient contacts with this jurisdiction to hale them into court here," Blaine C. Kimrey, an attorney representing all the defendants in the lawsuit, wrote in a motion filed to court Thursday night.
But the judge can leave two the OAN employees named in the lawsuit as defendants, Kimrey wrote. On-air talent Chanel Rion is already embroiled in a similar lawsuit in Colorado, he argued. Correspondent Christina Bobb would benefit from moving it to Colorado as well, Kimrey wrote, because courts there move faster than the ones in Washington, DC.
Dominion filed the lawsuit against OAN in August, demanding $1.6 billion in damages and accusing the company of pushing damaging, false conspiracy theories about the election technology company's role in the 2020 presidential election. The lawsuit named Rion and Bobb as defendants; it also named Robert Herring, Sr. and Charles Herring, the father-son duo who founded OAN and serve as CEO and president, respectively.
Unlike Fox News and Newsmax, which Dominion later sued, OAN doubled down on election conspiracy theories in its programming in the wake of lawsuit threats — even as it quietly deleted stories from its website.
OAN
‘You Were a Pawn in a Game’
Judge
A judge in a Jan. 6 case laid the blame for the insurrection at the feet of former President Trump (R-Lock Him Up). Judge Amit Mehta at a sentencing hearing on Friday said that the people who stormed the Capitol are paying the price while Trump and others who “created the conditions” causing the riot haven’t been “held to account for their actions and their word.”
Mehta made the remarks while sentencing John Lolos, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of illegally parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the U.S. Capitol. Although Mehta did not mention Trump or anyone else by name, it’s clear who he meant.
“[Lolos] didn’t purposely come to Washington, D.C., to storm the Capitol,” Mehta said, according to Politico. “The fact remains that he and others were called to Washington, D.C., by an elected official, prompted to walk to the Capitol by an elected official.”
Mehta lamented that those in power who spread election disinformation have largely escaped accountability. “People like Mr. Lolos were told lies, told falsehoods, told our election was stolen when it clearly was not,” Mehta added. “We’re here today deciding whether Mr. Lolos should spend 30 days in jail when those who created the conditions that led to Mr. Lolos’ conduct, led to the events of Jan. 6 [haven’t been] held to account for their actions and their word.”
Mehta went on to say that Lolos was a mere pawn, pushed by more powerful players. “You were a pawn in a game directed and played by people who should know better,” Mehta told Lolos. “I think that mitigates your conduct.”
Judge
Derogatory Place Names
Deb Haaland
U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Friday formally declared “squaw” a derogatory term and said she is taking steps to remove it from federal government use and to replace other derogatory place names.
Haaland is ordering a federal panel tasked with naming geographic places to implement procedures to eliminate what she called racist terms from federal use. The decision provides momentum to a movement that has included the dismantling of other historical markers and monuments considered offensive across the country.
The first Native American to lead a Cabinet agency, Haaland is from Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico.
Under Haaland’s order, a federal task force will find replacement names for geographic features on federal lands bearing the term “squaw,” which has been used as a slur, particularly for Indigenous women. A database maintained by the Board on Geographic Names shows there are more than 650 federal sites with names that contain the term.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Board on Geographic Names took action to eliminate the use of derogatory terms for Black and Japanese people.
Deb Haaland
Search Leads To Jersey City Landfill
Jimmy Hoffa
The nearly half-century search for the remains of union boss Jimmy Hoffa has led the FBI to a former New Jersey landfill.
As the traffic roared above them on the Pulaski Skyway, a team of FBI forensic investigators from Detroit and Newark collected evidence on Oct. 25 and 26 from a plot of land in Jersey City and are now analyzing it, the FBI confirmed Friday.
“Last month, the FBI obtained a search warrant to conduct a site survey underneath the Pulaski Skyway," Special Agent Mara Schneider of the FBI's Detroit field office said. "That data is currently being analyzed. Because the affidavit in support of the search warrant was sealed by the court, we are unable to provide any additional information.”
Schneider also didn't explicitly name Hoffa in her statement. But NBC News has confirmed that the FBI is, in fact, looking for the body of the former Teamsters president who vanished in 1975 in Michigan and has long been rumored to be buried in New Jersey.
Jimmy Hoffa
Mushroom Heritage
Paris
Two centuries ago, French farmers revolutionised mushroom production by moving into the maze of limestone quarries underneath Paris, but today only a handful still cultivate a heritage at risk of fading away for good.
The bitter irony is that demand for traditionally grown white button mushrooms, and their more flavourful brown-capped cousins, is as high as ever.
"It's not a question of finding clients, I sell everything I can produce," said Shoua-moua Vang at Les Alouettes in Carrieres-sur-Seine, a short drive from the bustling La Defence business district west of the capital.
Vang runs the largest underground mushroom cave in the Paris region, spread across one and a half hectares (3.7 acres) of tunnels in a hill overlooking the Seine river.
He counts Michelin-starred chefs as well as supermarket chains and local markets among his customers, even though he deems his mushrooms "expensive" at 3.20 euros a kilo wholesale ($1.65 a pound).
Paris
Disappearing Crust
Earth
Like a giant broken-up cookie whose pieces float atop a sea of scalding milk, Earth's outer shell is made of (less-tasty) rocky rafts that constantly bump into and dive beneath each other in a process called plate tectonics.
So what happens to those hunks of disappearing crust as they dive into Earth's milky interior?
It turns out that they get weak and bendy, like a slinky snake toy, but they don't disintegrate completely, new modeling shows. The models also suggested that plate tectonics, at least in its modern form, likely only got going in the past billion years.
Plate tectonics drives earthquakes and volcanoes, creates mountain ranges and islands, and is the reason Earth's continents, once a supercontinent, are now oceans apart. But there's still much unknown about how plate tectonics works, such as what happens when a plate slides beneath another (in an area called a subduction zone) and disappears into the mantle, the middle layer of the planet, which is, perhaps sadly, not composed of milk but rather of sizzling solid rock.
To figure this out, the researchers used 2D computer models of subduction zones and programmed them using known physics of how materials behave, such as how rocks deform under certain forces. Then, they observed the model to see what happened at the subduction zone and compared their findings to real-life observations.
Earth
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