• Movie director Billy Wilder was friends with chef Wolfgang Puck, and whenever Mr. Wilder went to Mr. Puck's restaurant, the two usually spoke German together. One day, as the two were talking, actor Tony Curtis came in with some of his paintings to hang in an exhibition at the restaurant. Mr. Wilder knew art, and his own collection included works by Picasso and Matisse. He looked at a few of Mr. Curtis' paintings, then said to Mr. Puck, "Lousy actor; lousy painter." Mr. Curtis looked shocked, and Mr. Wilder immediately apologized: "I'm sorry. I thought I was speaking German."
• The painter Chien-to brought a painting for Emperor Sun-si, Prince Wej, and the Buddhist priest Si-tien to examine. Both Emperor Sun-si and Prince Wej praised the painting's complete harmony, but then Chien-to picked up a piece of mud and threw it onto a corner of the painting. Emperor Sun-si asked Chien-to, "Why did you spoil the complete harmony of your painting?" However, Si-tien spoke up: "He has made the painting true to life, for always in life, when everything seems completely in harmony, there is somewhere hidden, not easily visible, a piece of mud."
• Many art critics respected the primitive art of Grandma Moses, but others did not. One critic remarked, "A primitive is an artist who doesn't know much about painting, but knows what people like." Other people thought that the popularity of Grandma Moses' art was merely a passing fad. When gallery director Otto Kallir wrote her a letter intended to comfort her because of the critical attacks on herself and her art, Grandma Moses wrote back, "This is a free country, and people will talk. Let them; if we do what is right, they can't hurt us."
• In the late 1950s, Robert Hughes wrote an occasional book review and created cartoons for the Australian newspaper Observer. One day, the editor announced, "I've just fired the art critic. Anyone here know anything about art?" He looked at Mr. Hughes and said, "You're the cartoonist. You ought to know something about art. Good. Well, now you're the f**king art critic." Good choice. Mr. Hughes became a renowned critic.
• After Punch published a parody of a conversation between Oscar Wilde and James McNeill Whistler, Mr. Wilde sent Mr. Whistler this telegram: "Punch too ridiculous. When you and I are together, we never talk about anything except ourselves." Mr. Whistler replied by telegram, "No, no, Oscar, you forget. When you and I are together, we never talk about anything except me."
• James McNeill Whistler wasn't afraid to use his devastating wit - even against the people who paid him to paint their portrait. One male patron complained, "Do you consider that a great work of art?" Mr. Whistler replied, "Do you consider yourself a great work of nature?"
• Not all great paintings are liked. After Paul Gauguin finished painting a portrait of Marie-Angélique Satre, wife of the mayor of Pont-Aven, she looked at it (its title is La Belle Angèle), called it a "horror," and would not keep it in her home.
• On a flight, Alfred E. Kahn showed Soviet ballerina Galina Ulanova a copy of Wilson's Dictionary of Ballet. She looked at the drawings of basic ballet positions, then shook her head and used a pencil to correct them.
The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, is a collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims on their way to a shrine. How many stories are told in The Canterbury Tales?
The Canterbury Tales (Middle English: Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of 24 stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. In 1386, Chaucer became Controller of Customs and Justice of Peace and, in 1389, Clerk of the King's work. It was during these years that Chaucer began working on his most famous text, The Canterbury Tales. The tales (mostly written in verse, although some are in prose) are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return.
Source
Dave responded:
24 stories. Of course I had to look it up.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, said:
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 stories
Deborah, the Master Gardener, wrote:
There are 24 stories in "The Canterbury Talees." I had to read it in my senior year of high school Advanced English class. Oy to the vey, it's really dense, and Middle English - woof. Full marks to anyone who reads it for fun; I'd read the Reader's Digest version, in modern English, please.
Joe ( -- Vote Blue, No Matter Who -- ) replied:
As a History Major I should have known that, but I didn't so I looked it up. It's 24, I know it now. 24.
(Trust me, I'm a History Major, it's 24)
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~~~~~
CBS starts the night as usual with '60 Minute', followed by a RERUN'Hard As Nails', then a RERUN'NCIS: The Expendable One', followed by a RERUN'NCIS: The 3rd One'.
NBC opens the night with a FRESH'Cannonball', followed by a RERUN'The Titan Games', then a RERUN'America's Got Talent'.
ABC begins the night with a RERUN'America's Funniest Home Videos', followed by a RERUN'Celebrity Family Feud', then a RERUN'Press Your Luck', followed by a RERUN'Match Game'.
The CW offers a RERUN'DC's Stargirl', followed by a RERUN'Penn & Teller: Fool Us'.
Faux has a RERUN'Last Man Standing', followed by a RERUN'Duncanville', then a RERUN'The Simpsons', followed by a RERUN'Bless The Harts', then a RERUN'Bob's Burgers', followed by a RERUN'Famiily Guy'.
MY recycles an old 'How I Met Your Mother', followed by another old 'How I Met Your Mother', then an old 'Big Bang Theory', followed by another old 'Big Bang Theory', then still another old 'Big Bang Theory', followed by yet another old 'Big Bang Theory'.
AMC offers the movie 'The Day After Tomorrow', followed by the movie 'I Am Legend', then a FRESH'NOS4A2'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE HUNT - Plains
[7:00AM] PLANET EARTH: THE HUNT - Coasts
[8:00AM] YOUNG GUNS
[10:30AM] YOUNG GUNS II
[1:00PM] A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES
[3:30PM] YOUNG GUNS
[6:00PM] FIRST BLOOD
[8:00PM] MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL
[10:00PM] NOS4A2 - The Hourglass
[11:05PM] FIRST BLOOD
[1:03AM] A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES
[3:32AM] MARAUDERS (ALL TIMES ET)
Bravo has 'Shahs Of Sunset', another 'Shahs Of Sunset', followed by a FRESH'Shahs Of Sunset', 'Real Housewives Of Potomac', then a FRESH'Watch What Happens Live'.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Grown Ups 2', followed by the movie 'Joe Dirt'.
FX has the movie 'Hotel Transylvania 2', followed by the movie 'Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation'.
History has 'American Pickers' and 'Buried: Knights Templar & The Holy Grail'.
IFC -
[6:00A] The Three Stooges - Three Missing Links
[6:15A] Semi-Pro
[8:15A] Lethal Weapon
[10:45A] Lethal Weapon 2
[1:15P] Crocodile Dundee II
[3:45P] Gladiator
[7:15P] The Wolf of Wall Street
[11:15P] Gladiator
[2:45A] Semi-Pro
[4:45A] The Three Stooges - Three Missing Links
[5:00A] The Three Stooges - If a Body Meets a Body
[5:30A] The Three Stooges - Men in Black (ALL TIMES ET)
Sundance -
[6:00am] an officer and a gentleman
[9:00am] tremors
[11:00am] tremors ii: aftershocks
[1:15pm] high plains drifter
[3:45pm] wrath of the titans
[6:00pm] gladiator
[9:30pm] gladiator
[1:00am] wrath of the titans
[3:15am] the andy griffith show
[3:50am] the andy griffith show
[4:25am] the andy griffith show
[5:00am] the andy griffith show
[5:30am] the andy griffith show (ALL TIMES ET)
SyFy has the movie 'Dr. Strange', followed by the movie 'Guardians Of The Galaxy, Vol. 2', then a FRESH'Wyonna Earp'.
Diehard Chicago Cubs fan Bill Murray, via video, serenaded an attendance-less Wrigley Field with a rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the team's home opener Friday.
Even with no fans in the stands, Murray's over-the-top, socially distanced performance was still shown on the jumbotron as the Cubs kept their "7th inning stretch" tradition alive for their strange, abbreviated 2020 season.
Murray, clutching a giant stuffed bear, yelled to the empty bleachers, "Alright everybody! We wanna hear you sing! We wanna hear you all the way out to the centerfield scoreboard!" He then launched into a comically enthusiastic rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."
In non-COVID times, Murray has been a frequent guest at Wrigley pressbox to sing the traditional baseball anthem to the crowd, including at the 2012 home opener and during the Cubs' first World Series home game since 1945 in October 2016. Following the team's World Series win, Murray joined some Cubs to celebrate on Saturday Night Live and jammed with fellow Cubs diehard Eddie Vedder at a post-World Series win house party.
A father whose devotion to music prevented his involvement in gun violence in his childhood is offering kids the same shot at success: Turn in your guns for a free trumpet.
Shamarr Allen of New Orleans, La., has been playing the trumpet in the French Quarter since he was a teen, a passion his parents nurtured from the age of 7. His dedication paid off - not only has Allen performed twice at the White House for former President Obama, but he also tours with his band The Underdawgs and mentors children with musical aspirations.
Moved by the July shooting death of a 9-year-old boy in New Orleans, Allen, whose son is the same age, took to Instagram. "To all the youth in New Orleans," he wrote, "bring me a gun and I'll give you a trumpet, no questions asked. I'm doing this until I run out of trumpets."
Growing up in the city's Lower 9th Ward, Allen was affected by gun violence in his community, but playing the trumpet was an escape - it consumed his time and energy and became a tool for survival. "My parents were always on me to practice and I played in the street for quarters," he tells Yahoo Life. "The guys who played in bands would teach me songs on their breaks."
Through "The Trumpet is My Weapon Gun Exchange Program," Allen meets children at different locations throughout New Orleans and after the guns are placed in his car, he allows them to choose a trumpet from his trunk. "It's risky as hell but I am not coming with ill intentions, so the children's response to me is different," he tells Yahoo Life. Allen delivers the weapons to the police department's armory division, which runs background checks on the guns, either destroying or preserving them as evidence.
Good news for anyone who's ever wanted to see Tom Cruise just absolutely destroy his body while jumping onto a fjord: Norway has announced that the Mission: Impossible franchise has been given a special exemption to the country's normal coronavirus quarantine procedures. Specifically, the film's cast and crew won't have to undergo an extensive (and expensive) 10-day quarantine period before being allowed to film the 7th Mission: Impossible film in a couple of weeks.
Announcing the exemption, Norwegian officials stressed the importance of continuing to promote the country as a filming and tourism destination (once tourism is not quite such a virally dangerous concept, of course). Plus, hey: Free* phone call with Tom Cruise! "It's a gorgeous country, I can't wait to get back there," the actor said in his call with the country's Minister Of Culture, expressing the sort of boundless enthusiasm for the nation that Tom Cruise normally reserves for sunshine, tax returns, and everything, ever.
(*Except for the millions the country is distributing in filming subsidies, obviously.)
This will be the franchise's second trip to the Scandinavian nation; the Ways of Nor previously popped up in Mission: Impossible-Fallout, where their scenic cliffs stood in for some geography in the film's fictitious version of India. Of course, the intervening two years have added all sorts of complications for these kinds of international shoots, especially since Norway has had one of the more restrictive lockdowns in place to attempt to quell the spread of COVID-19. (With notable success, too; the country has logged only 25o or so deaths from the disease, total, and the rate of new cases has slowed to a crawl since May.)
As such, Cruise won't be allowed to just run around all over the place, jumping on their couches, etc. The entire M:I team will be separated from the Norweigian public entirely; they'll also have to undergo COVID-19 testing every 48 hours.
In a Friday monologue about "cancel culture," White House Press Secretary Kayleigh "Karen" McEnany (R-Rhymes With Bunt) falsely claimed that the cartoon show "Paw Patrol" was canceled and that Lego's City Police Set had been discontinued.
In a briefing, McEnany (R-Rhymes With Hunt) said the President was "appalled' by "cancel culture," specifically "cancel culture as it pertains to cops," per a video tweeted by The Hill, referring to the cultural phenomenon of swift pile-ons against various private and public figures.
As examples of "cancel culture" in action, she cited the recent literal cancelations of police-focused television shows like "Cops" and "Live PD," both of which were pulled by Paramount Network and A&E, respectively.
But along with the actual cancelations Press Secretary McEnany (R-Rhymes With Runt) referenced, she also claimed that Nickelodeon cartoon series "Paw Patrol," which she described as "a cartoon show about cops," had been canceled in a wave of anti-police sentiment. A Nickelodeon spokesperson confirmed to Insider that "Paw Patrol" had not been canceled.
Furthermore, "Paw Patrol" isn't a show exclusively about cops - as The New York Times' Amanda Hess wrote, it is essentially a "pretense for placing household pets in a variety of cool trucks." In addition to the police dog, there's also a firefighting dog and a construction worker dog.
Lawyers are offering free wills for teachers and educators are responding.
Charles Gallagher, a lawyer at Tampa Bay lawfirm Gallagher & Associates, told NBC News he decided to offer free wills for teachers after seeing one protesting with a sign that read, "Teacher supplies: books, crayons and wills."
Gallagher told NBC News he received inquiries from around 600 teachers and school staff.
Jen Englert, a managing partner of an Orlando law firm, told NBC News that they were offering discounted wills to teachers, just as they had done for first responders and medical teachers.
"We decided to offer these services because teachers were actually coming to us asking for our help," Englert told NBC News.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency faced tough questions Friday by lawmakers who said Vieques still doesn't have a functioning hospital while thousands of other Puerto Ricans continue to wait for their homes to be rebuilt almost three years after Hurricane Maria.
Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y., questioned FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor on both matters as the agency prepares for a hectic hurricane season amid the coronavirus pandemic.
"Puerto Rico has a surge in infections that is one of the highest, if not the highest, on the mainland," Velázquez said during a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing. "But my question is why is it that thousands of families in Puerto Rico still do not have a home, especially during this hurricane season?"
Maria damaged roughly 800,000 homes on Sept. 20, 2017, causing minor damage to some and sweeping many others from their foundations. A federally funded program administered by local officials carried out relatively small repairs to about 108,000 homes in 2018, while churches and nonprofits patched up thousands with private funds.
Puerto Rico's first major program to rebuild houses hasn't completed a single one even though tens of thousands of homes still have damaged roofs nearly three years after Maria. Miguel Soto-Class, founder and president of the Center for a New Economy, a nonpartisan think tank, estimates that about 20,000 people in Puerto Rico are still living under blue tarps.
The U.N. weather agency warned Friday that average temperatures in Siberia were 10 degrees Celsius (18 Fahrenheit) above average last month, a spate of exceptional heat that has fanned devastating fires in the Arctic Circle and contributed to a rapid depletion in ice sea off Russia's Arctic coast.
"The Arctic is heating more than twice as fast as the global average, impacting local populations and ecosystems and with global repercussions," World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement Friday.
WMO previously cited a reading of 38 Celsius in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk on June 20, which the agency has been seeking to verify as a possible record-high temperature in the Arctic Circle. It comes as fires have swept through the region, with satellite imagery showing the breadth of the area surface.
The agency says the extended heat is linked to a large "blocking pressure system" and northward swing of the jet stream that has injected warm air into the region. But WMO also pointed to a recent study by top climate scientists who found that such a rise in heat would have been nearly impossible without human-caused climate change.
WMO said information collected by the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center and the U.S. National Ice Center showed the Siberian heat wave had "accelerated the ice retreat along the Arctic Russian coast, in particular since late June, leading to very low sea ice extent in the Laptev and Barents Seas."
A prominent group of Republicans opposing Donald Trump have released a new advertisement attacking the US president for his support of Ghislaine Maxwell, after the alleged "madam" for paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein was arrested earlier this month.
The Lincoln Project, which was founded by current and former high-profile conservatives such as George Conway, husband of White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, posted the ad to Twitter on Friday with the caption: "What does Ghislaine Maxwell have on @realDonaldTrump?"
It shows Mr Trump berating a number of female journalists - with the ad saying at one point, "This is how Donald Trump speaks to accomplished women" - before flashing to a recent White House press briefing in which the president spoke about his relationship with Ms Maxwell over the years.
"I just wish her well, frankly," Mr Trump is heard saying in the briefing.
A woman narrating the advertisement then says: "Just what does Maxwell have on Donald Trump? Why does he demean other women but treat the head of an alleged sex slave ring with respect? Does Donald Trump want Maxwell to keep quiet? America needs to know."
Peru's former Inca citadel Machu Picchu on Friday marked 109 years since it was rediscovered by US explorer Hiram Bingham -- but the iconic site stood empty of tourists after plans to reopen for the anniversary had to be scrapped.
The jewel of Peruvian tourism closed to visitors in mid-March as the country locked down to combat the coronavirus pandemic -- and a recent surge in infections led authorities to shelve its reopening plans, indefinitely for now.
"Last year many people came for the anniversary, but unfortunately this time we won't have any visitors because we still don't have a reopening date for Machu Picchu," Darwin Baca, mayor of the nearby Machu Picchu settlement, told AFP.
"It might be in August because cases are still increasing in Cusco."
When the site does eventually open it will be restricted to 675 visitors a day, Baca said -- compared to up to 5,000 during a normal peak season.
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