from Bruce
Anecdotes
Mishaps
• Some glamorous, rich, and famous people had to work their way up from the bottom. Pop artist Andy Warhol lived in a cockroach-infested apartment during his early days working as a commercial artist in New York City. He once delivered some drawings to Carmel Snow, art director of Harper’s Bazaar. As he pulled his drawings out of a paper bag in this very elegant setting, a cockroach crept out from between two of the pages.
• Ballet dancer Maria Tallchief spoke her mind at times. During a rehearsal, choreographer George Balanchine was changing steps, as he was wont to do. Of course, this can make knowing what to do next very confusing. André Eglevsky turned, which was the old step, instead of lifting, which was the new step — and Ms. Tallchief fell on her face. As Mr. Eglevsky put it later, “She got up and looked back at me and was blunt.”
• Courtland Byrd once made a mistake. A barber, he cut the hair of a longtime customer named Murphy, and then he held up a hand mirror for Murphy to take to look at his haircut. But Murphy did not take the hand mirror, and suddenly Courtland remembered that Murphy was blind. Of course, the other barbers and the customers laughed. Courtland says, “If you make a donkey of yourself in the barber shop, they’ll ride you.”
• Early in her career, Natalia Makarova had trouble dancing in Swan Lake. The character of Odile dances 32 fouettés in a row — a very difficult feat. The first time Ms. Makarova danced in Swan Lake she moved too much during the fouettés, finishing them in a rear wing, where the audience could not see her. According to Ms. Makarova, “It was as if I had been blown off-stage by the wind.”
• Dancing Giselle can be hazardous to your health. In Israel, at the end of Act 1 Alicia Markova performed a death fall that carried complete conviction — she knocked herself unconscious on the hard floor of the makeshift stage. Her fellow performers had to carry her offstage and pretend this was part of the ballet so the audience would not know what had happened.
• When Ted Shawn met Ruth St. Denis for the first time, he was in her home, waiting for her to appear. Suddenly, he heard a clomping on the stairs, and he thought to himself, “Not even a maid should be permitted to make such a racket in this temple, in this home of a goddess.” The clomper then walked up to Mr. Shawn and held out her hand — the clomper was Miss Ruth.
• One of Anna Russell’s aunts once gave her a hat. Ms. Russell didn’t much care for the hat, but she wore it a few times because, after all, it was a present from a loved one. However, when her aunt saw her wearing the hat, she had hysterics laughing. Finally, Ms. Russell’s aunt told her, “That’s not a hat — it’s a lavatory seat cover.”
• Ian Reid once conducted the opera Carmen at Heidelberg. Unfortunately, one night the singer playing Don José forgot his knife in the stabbing scene in which he murders Carmen, so he decided to strangle her instead. The singer playing Carmen didn’t know what he was doing, so she fiercely fought him.
• English entertainer Joyce Grenfell knew a man whom she described as being a “dangerous” smoker: Stephen Potter. His friends’ carpets were dotted with small burn marks. In his worst disaster, he accidentally set on fire and burned a sofa.
Money
• Andrew Tobias is a personal finance expert who spends a lot of time thinking about money. His significant other, Charles Nolan, was a fashion designer who spent a lot of time thinking about fashion. Charles was able to figure out the economics of fashion design — how to design something both fashionable and profitable. However, in his personal life, he made a lot of money, spent a lot of money, and wasted (chances are, this would be his choice of words) little time thinking about money. Each night, he would empty the money from his pockets into some handy place like a shopping bag. Whenever he returned home after visiting another country, he would do the same thing with the foreign money he had brought home with him. After Charles died, Andrew gathered up the foreign money — which made a 4-inch-high stack of paper bills. Andrew tells this anecdote about Charles’ relationship to money: “Charles once gave a friend a pile of old magazines. A few weeks later, the friend came by to return a forgotten $5,000 that he had found tucked into one of them.”
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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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
Track: "Wildchild"
Album: SECRET ADMIRER
Artist: Secret Admirer
Artist Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
Info:
“Well, we tried … First EP from Scottish surf instro [instrumental] sad sacks Secret Admirer. Songs about beauty, ugliness, bevvies and monster hooses! Jump aboard for a wee wild ride!”
“Your new bodies are growing in there. They're taking you over cell for cell, atom for atom. There is no pain. Suddenly, while you're asleep, they'll absorb your minds, your memories and you're reborn into an untroubled world. A world of Secret Admirer.”
Project Bat, a fan, wrote, “These guys somehow manage to channel everything you loved about bands like The Ghastly Ones and Man Or Astroman while still creating something that’s uniquely their own. Can’t recommend this album enough! Favorite track: ‘The Keeper.’”
Price: Name Your Price (Includes FREE) for seven-track EP (approx. 16 minutes)
Genre: Surf. Instrumental.
Links:
SECRET ADMIRER
Secret Admirer on Bandcamp
Secret Admirer on YouTube
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Stephen Suggests
Bishop Flores
Catholic bishop slams 'sacralizing' gun ownership while children die
New Venture
Michael Egan
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
Betty Bowers
CHURCH S_X SCANDALS!
Ukraine
Uvalde
Other Links:
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Reader Question
Again
Why in God's name do I have to post this again?
Reader Contribution
Found Poetry
RD
Thanks, RD!
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
Marine layer so thick the sun never broke through. Very nice.
Pandemic Has Lingering Toll
National Spelling Bee
Dev Shah’s dream of returning to the Scripps National Spelling Bee ended in a soccer stadium, of all places.
On a cool, windy February day with occasional rain showers, Dev spent five miserable hours spelling outdoors at Exploria Stadium, the home of Major League Soccer’s Orlando City club, ultimately finishing fourth in a regional bee that he was forced to compete in for the first time.
While the National Spelling Bee is back — fully in person at its usual venue outside Washington for the first time since 2019 — Dev’s experiences illustrate how the pandemic continues to affect kids who’ve spent years preparing to compete for spelling’s top prize. Schools and sponsors have dropped out of the bee pipeline, regions have been consolidated and the bee has fewer than half the spellers it had three years ago.
Another huge change: Cincinnati-based Scripps broke with longtime partner ESPN and will broadcast the competition on its own networks, ION and Bounce. Actor and literacy advocate LeVar Burton was hired as host and will interview spellers and their families backstage, and last year’s champion, Zaila Avant-garde, will be part of the broadcast as an analyst.
National Spelling Bee
Admits Fainting
Snoop Dogg
Snoop Dogg wasn’t expecting to see Tupac Shakur in such terrible shape when his fellow rapper was in the hospital after his 1996 shooting in Las Vegas.
Speaking on Logan Paul’s “Impaulsive” podcast, Snoop Dogg recounted what he saw in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
“We just talking to Suge, and he got the head wrapped up and he telling us what happened and [saying] ‘Pac gonna be alright, he going to pull through he got shot nine times before, he going to be alright.’”
“We feeling like it’s gonna be alright until we go to the hospital and see that it ain’t alright. He got tubes in him,” Snoop Dogg said. “When I walked in, I could just feel like he wasn’t even there and I fainted.”
Shakur’s mother Afeni Shakur, however, was there. She told him to get it together and talk to her son.
Snoop Dogg
Lido Cabaret
France
It’s the end of an era for the famed Lido cabaret on Paris’ Champs-Elysees.
Amid financial troubles and changing times, the venue’s new corporate owner is ditching most of the Lido’s staff and its high-kicking, high-glamour dance shows — which date back decades and inspired copycats from Las Vegas to Beirut — in favor of more modest musical revues.
Dressed all in black, dancers staged a protest Saturday on the broad sidewalk in front of the Lido — and then performed a dance routine to a cheering crowd, kicking their long legs high to a traditional cabaret song.
With onstage waterfalls, an ice rink and a pool, the Lido started wowing audiences before World War II and became an institution of Paris nightlife. It drew in performers from Josephine Baker to Marlene Dietrich to Elton John to Laurel and Hardy, and famous spectators, too.
French hotels giants Accor recently bought the club and says it plans to lay off 157 of the 184 permanent employees. Artists and technicians will be the most affected. Accor said it wants to get rid of the costly dinner shows and revue because they “don’t attract the public anymore.” The group aims to “redesign” the shows, and plans restoration works on the building.
France
Capsules To Sit In Museums
Japan
Nakagin Capsule Tower, a building tucked away in a corner of downtown Tokyo that is made up of boxes stacked on top of each other, is an avant-garde honeycomb of science-fiction-era housing long admired as a masterpiece.
It’s now being demolished in a careful process that includes preserving some of its 140 capsules, to be shipped to museums around the world.
Preparations have been going on for months to clear the surrounding areas, for safely dismantling the landmark near Ginza. The first capsule will be removed in the next few weeks.
Built in 1972, the 13-floor building embodies the so-called “metabolism” vision of its architect Kisho Kurokawa: The idea that cities and buildings are always changing, reflecting life, in rhythm with the human body.
Although striking in appearance and concept, the building outlived modern construction guidelines and needed to be torn down.
Japan
FBI Records Raise More Questions
Dent’s Run
A scientific analysis commissioned by the FBI shortly before agents went digging for buried treasure suggested that a huge quantity of gold could be below the surface, according to newly released government documents and photos that deepen the mystery of the 2018 excavation in remote western Pennsylvania.
The report, by a geophysicist who performed microgravity testing at the site, hinted at an underground object with a mass of up to 9 tons and a density consistent with gold. The FBI used the consultant’s work to obtain a warrant to seize the gold — if there was any to be found.
The government has long claimed its dig was a bust. But a father-son pair of treasure hunters who spent years hunting for the fabled Civil War-era gold — and who led agents to the woodland site, hoping for a finder’s fee — suspect the FBI double-crossed them and made off with a cache that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The newly revealed geophysical survey was part of a court-ordered release of government records on the FBI’s treasure hunt at Dent’s Run, about 135 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh, where legend says an 1863 shipment of Union gold was either lost or stolen on its way to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia.
Dennis and Kem Parada, who co-own the treasure-hunting outfit Finders Keepers, successfully sued the Justice Department for the records after being stonewalled by the FBI. Finders Keepers provided the FBI records to The Associated Press. The FBI subsequently posted them on its website.
Dent’s Run
Does a Little Dance
Gun Celebration
Donald Trump A twice-impeached loser kicked off his appearance at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention on Friday by awkwardly reading the names of the 21 people slaughtered with an AR-15-style rifle in Uvalde a few days earlier. The NRA played a recording of a bell clanging as the former president strained to pronounce the names of the victims.
The speech didn’t get any less offensive from there.
Trump echoed Republican lawmakers and conservative pundits by bashing Democrats for “virtue cycling” in the wake the massacre, blaming the shooting on everything but guns, and proposing a series of impractical solutions to the epidemic of mass shootings in America. The list of solutions did not include gun reform, of course, which Trump claimed would have done nothing to stop the shooter in Uvalde — despite the shooter having bought two assault rifles just after his 18th birthday earlier this month.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that despite the enormity of what happened in Uvalde on Tuesday, Trump’s speech at the NRA’s annual convention was not much different than any of his other speeches. He spent a few minutes waxing idiotic on the news of the week — in this case 21 people including 19 children being slaughtered — before fuming about the 2020 election.
Gun Celebration
Pulls Fresh Water Out of Thin Air
Super-Absorbent Gel
As the world becomes increasingly hot, fresh and clean water is an increasingly hot commodity. Agricultural demand, climate change, pollution, and other factors are converging to make water scarcity a problem in the present, and it’s likely to get worse in the future.
So, how do we manage it? One group of scientists has a suggestion: pull water out of the air.
Researchers have developed a super-absorbent gel, made from affordable materials, that can suck moisture out of low-humidity air. When heated, the gel releases that moisture as fresh water. One kilogram of gel can theoretically produce nearly 6 liters of water at 15% relative humidity and more than 13 liters of water at 30% humidity, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications. For reference, the Southwest’s Mojave desert generally ranges between 10% and 30% humidity.
The researchers made the gel from a derivative of the compound cellulose (which is found in all plant cells), a specific fiber extracted from an edible tuber known as konjac, and absorbent lithium chloride salt. The liquid materials were mixed, poured into a mold, left to set for 2 minutes, and then freeze-dried into a thin sheet. All the materials needed to make 1 kilogram of the dried gel would cost under $2, according to the study.
Once set and dried, the thin gel sheets became saturated with moisture in about 20 minutes. To extract that water as actual, drinkable liquid, the researchers then heated the gel in a closed chamber and collected the condensation. They found that about 70% of the captured water was released within 10 minutes of heating the gel at 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
Super-Absorbent Gel
When We 'Hear' Our Own Thoughts
Inner Monologues
If you've ever had an imaginary argument in your head, you may have "heard" two voices at once. Your own inner voice and that of the other person in the quarrel. You may even "hear" the other person's accent, or the timbre of their voice.
So what's happening in the brain when that inner monologue is running? How is it that you can "hear" your thoughts?
As it turns out, the brain undergoes similar processes when you're thinking words as when you're speaking out loud.
Inner monologues are thought to be a simulation of overt speech, said Hélène Loevenbruck, a senior neurolinguistics researcher and head of the language team in the Psychology and NeuroCognition Laboratory at CNRS, the national French research institute. When we're children, we're virtual sponges, soaking up new information from every angle. Children playing alone will often speak dialogue aloud, for instance between a toy truck and a stuffed animal. At around 5 to 7 years old(opens in new tab), that verbalization moves inward, Loevenbruck said.
Earlier studies have shown that the brain exhibits similar activity with inner speech as it does with verbalized speech. When study participants are asked to deliberately "speak" inside their heads while lying in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, scientists can see parts of the brain that process auditory information activate as if the participant were actually hearing the words.
Inner Monologues
Archaeologists Discover Ancient Mayan City
Xiol
Archaeologists have uncovered the ruins of an ancient Mayan city filled with palaces, pyramids and plazas on a construction site of what will become an industrial park near Merida, on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
The site, called Xiol, has features of the Mayan Puuc style of architecture, archaeologists said, which is common in the southern Yucatan Peninsula but rare near Merida.
"We think more than 4,000 people lived around here," said Carlos Peraza, one of the archaeologists who led the excavation of the city, estimated to have been occupied from 600-900 A.D.
Researchers also located nearby burial grounds of adults and children, who were interred with obsidian and flint tools, offerings and other belongings.
Remains of marine life were also discovered in the area, suggesting the city's inhabitants complemented their agricultural-based diets by fishing along the nearby coast.
Xiol
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