Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Republicans Really Hate Health Care (NY Times Column)
They've gone beyond cynicism to pathology.
Garrison Keillor: So that's over, and what's next? (New Hampshire Union Leader)
FINALLY, IT'S coming to an end, two years of speculation, more than what's been written about the future of American higher education, the American novel, and the planet Earth combined, thanks to that long angular face with the sharp Puritan nose and the stone jaw, a man famous for his silence, and why is the name pronounced MULL-er and not MYOO-ler like all the Muellers I know - what's going on here? Why the secrecy?
Arwa Mahdawi : The furore over the fish-eating vegan influencer is a warning to us all (The Guardian)
It's easy to see why the story about the YouTuber Yovana Mendoza went viral. But 'Fishgate' highlights the dangers of looking to online personalities for dietary advice.
Sam Jordison: "'Screw the snobbish literati': was Kurt Vonnegut a science-fiction writer?" (The Guardian)
In a new essay, comedian Richard Herring claims Vonnegut was the victim of snobbery. But does anyone still believe sci-fi is a lesser genre?
Leo Benedictus: Top 10 evil narrators (The Guardian)
Lolita, A Clockwork Orange, American Psycho… many of these books were originally condemned as immoral for humanising the evil at their heart.
Gwilym Mumford: "John Cleese: Netflix never returned my calls after comedy pitch" (The Guardian)
Monty Python star criticises streaming service for rejecting his ideas - and says ITV pitch was turned down for being too intelligent.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
David E Suggests
Plastic Parts
David
Thanks, Dave!
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• David Raskin was a music composer for the movies. One day, a couple of friends teased him, saying that his work was unimportant. After all, the great director Alfred Hitchcock had decided not to have any music in his new movie, because it took place on a lifeboat, and there wouldn't be any music out there - where would it come from? Mr. Raskin replied, "You go ask Mr. Hitchcock where his cameras come from out in the middle of the ocean and I'll tell him where the music comes from."
• Billy Rose once tried to impress choreographer Agnes de Mille with his plans for an arts production. Among other things, he asked what she would think if Leopold Stokowski came out in his theater and conducted a symphony orchestra in Debussy's "Claire de Loon." Ms. de Mille replied that she would be surprised, as no doubt would Mr. Stokowski, since "Claire de Loon" was written for solo piano, not for a symphony orchestra.
• The Russian Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Modest Altschuler, was playing Beethoven's "Leonore No. 3" at an outdoor park. Just as the first trumpeter, stationed away from the orchestra, raised his horn to his lips to play the offstage fanfare, a park policeman ran over to him and grabbed the trumpet away from him, saying, "You can't do that here! Don't you know there's a concert going on?"
• Father Bob Perella was known as the priest to the stars. Frequently, he hung around with Perry Como. One day Father Bob and Mr. Como met Vic Damone, who was also with a priest. When Father Bob asked Mr. Damone what was up, he replied, "If you can make Perry such a big star, you must have a pretty good connection. I figured I'd use somebody from the same agency."
• Avant-garde composer John Cage created a piece titled 4'33" in which the musician sits without playing for four minutes and 33 seconds. This piece was first performed on August 29, 1952 by pianist David Tudor in Woodstock, New York. (The piece can also be played by any instrument and by any ensemble.)
• Tenor Gilbert Louis Duprez once sang a high C in Gioachino Rossini's apartment. Mr. Rossini checked to see if any of his glassware had shattered; later, he said that the tone of the high C had been like "the squawk of a capon whose throat is being cut."
• Buddy and Vera Ebsen were a famous brother-and-sister dance team during the 1930s. They danced to arrangements by Glenn Miller, who put a lot of brass into the arrangements. Sometimes, the brass players in small towns would object to playing the arrangements, so Buddy would ask his sister, "Would you go give them your brass-section smile?"
• Actor Robert Morley was once sent to a record store to purchase a copy of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus" for use in a theatrical production. Unfortunately, when the time came for the "Hallelujah Chorus" to be heard, the audience heard Ethel Merman singing "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum." Mr. Morley had purchased the wrong record.
• Lou Costello had a brother named Anthony Cristillo ("Cristillo" was Mr. Costello's real name). Their father, Sebastian, was convinced that Anthony would become a virtuoso on the violin. Once, a teacher punished Anthony by rapping him on the knuckles. Sebastian went to see the teacher and told him, "You want to hit, you hit - but never hit his hands!"
• African-American singer Marion Anderson was a huge success in Europe before she became a success in the United States. One day, she visited composer Jean Sibelius, who hugged her and said, "My child, my roof is too low for you."
• Sometimes symphony musicians don't like the new music they are playing. At a rehearsal for the premiere of Claude Debussy's La Mer, the musicians grew bored with the music. One of the musicians took the score, made a paper boat of it, and then used his foot to push it along the floor. Soon many other musicians followed suit.
• As a young girl of 16, Emma Abbott was so eager to hear opera singer Parepa-Rosa in New York that she played her guitar and sang to earn money while traveling from Illinois to New York - and did not hear Parepa-Rosa, because the prima donna was ill.
• Pianist Moriz Rosenthal disliked much modern music. He once listened to three piano students rehearsing three different pieces of music at a school for pianists, then said, "Ah, modern music."
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Reader Comment
Current Events
As an old teacher and trainer-of-teachers, I just heard the most horrifying interview on MSNBC--Uber did a hiring campaign specifically aimed at teachers because they know that teacher salaries are so bad that most need a second job. She said that when foreign tourists got in her car and learned that she was a teacher with a master's degree, they were horrified to learn that this is what teachers in this country have to do to survive. Americans getting in her car said "Oh, what a great job for a teacher!"
I totally believe that. What a sad commentary on our country. M A F**KING G A indeed, Orange Turd!
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Running late.
Low Bar
Stephen Colbert
Donald Trump's (R-Get A Haircut) been on a high ever since he got the Barr Report of the Mueller Report which said there is nothing to report, Stephen Colbert reported on Late Show, likening the past couple days to a "weird game of telephone where you don't know what the first guy said, but the last guy stabs you in the ear."
Though the press is calling it a "victory lap," Colbert insisted "being told you have not been indicted for betraying your country is a pretty low bar for a victory lap."
"If I don't run anyone over in my car tomorrow, I expect to celebrate with an ice cream cake. Fudgie the Whale. And yes, Carvel, I AM asking for a free ice cream cake!" Colbert snarked.
In Tuesday's Trump cyber bullying, he tweeted that mainstream media are being scorned all over the world for pushing the "Russian Collusion Delusion when they always knew there was no Collusion."
"If it looks like a duck, and swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, how were they supposed to know it was just a deeply strange squirrel who strapped on a beak, some wings, and yelled 'Quack quack, what makes you think I'm a duck, you traitor?!"
Stephen Colbert
Rod Serling's Daughter
'The Twilight Zone'
As CBS All Access gets ready to debut Jordan Peele's heavily-anticipated reboot of "The Twilight Zone," Rod Serling himself would be among those shocked to see that the 1960s-era black-and-white anthology series has stood the test of time.
Serling created the famed science-fiction series in 1958, and his daughter believes that he would be astonished to see how relevant it remains. "I've thought about how would he feel about this reboot or all this attention he's getting, and I can tell you that he would be stunned," Anne Serling told TheWrap. "He didn't think that his writing would stand the test of time."
"He dealt with human issues and themes that are still so prevalent today, like racism and mob mentality," Serling continued. "We don't seem to be able to move ahead and change." Even the phrase - "feels like I'm living in the Twilight Zone" - is often used to describe how many feel about the current state of the world.
"I can tell you [my dad] would be absolutely apoplectic about what's happening in the world today. And deeply saddened," she said. "There are moments that I'm glad he's not here to see."
However, she feels that if anybody is going to do a proper reboot, it's Peele. After all, both of his movies, "Get Out" and "Us," could be considered feature-length "Twilight Zone" episodes. "He realizes this is a challenge. I think he's sensitive to that and I know that he does revere my dad, which would, of course, have to be a prerequisite," she said. "Certainly [my dad] would have a great deal of respect for Jordan Peele, I'm sure."
'The Twilight Zone'
America's First Published Poet
Anne Bradstreet
Anne Bradstreet was the North American continent's first published poet, yet her legacy has largely been lost to time.
Now, professors and students at Merrimack College in Massachusetts are trying to pinpoint her burial site while at the same time restoring her legacy and what they say is her rightful place in the pantheon of Western literature.
"Even though we don't know much about her, she was a household name in the 17th century, both here and in England," said Christy Pottroff, an assistant professor of English at Merrimack.
Bradstreet's 1650 book of poetry, "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America," was a sensation both in the Colonies and in her native England, where people were fascinated by her accounts of everyday life in the New World.
Pottroff and associate English professor Ellen McWhorter are leading several students in the project, dubbed Finding Anne Bradstreet.
Anne Bradstreet
Chinese Version
'Bohemian Rhapsody'
A huge fan of rock legends Queen, Peng Yanzi rushed to see "Bohemian Rhapsody," the biopic about the band's late lead singer, Freddie Mercury, while he was traveling in Britain last October.
It was a touching film that made him cry hard, Peng says. He loved it enough to watch it a second time in his home city of Guangzhou after the film garnered a surprise China release.
But the version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" he saw this past weekend was notably different from the original. Moviegoers in China say key scenes about Mercury's sexuality have been either abruptly muted or cut altogether.
Scenes that were deleted include one in which Mercury reveals to his long-time partner that he is not heterosexual. In the part of the film where Mercury tells the band that he has AIDS, the dialogue goes silent.
"It's a pity" the scenes were removed, said Hua Zile, chief editor of VCLGBT, an LGBT-themed account with more than a million followers on Weibo, one of China's top social media platforms.
'Bohemian Rhapsody'
Sounds Off
Monica Lewinsky
Monica Lewinsky weighed in Tuesday on the handling of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on President Trump in a three-word tweet that compared it to the Ken Starr investigation that exposed her affair with President Bill Clinton.
Lewinsky was responding to a law professor's comparison of Mueller's still-confidential report on the ties between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government to the 1998 release of the Starr Report. Mueller delivered a report on his probe, which began in mid-2017, to Attorney General William Barr last Friday. On Sunday, Barr issued a four-page summary of Mueller's report, stating that Mueller did not find any evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
"Imagine if the Starr Report had been provided only to President Clinton's Attorney General, Janet Reno, who then read it privately and published a 4-page letter based on her private reading stating her conclusion that President Clinton committed no crimes," Orin Kerr, a professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, tweeted Tuesday evening.
Lewinsky retweeted Kerr later that evening with a three-word refrain: "if. f***ing. only."
The revelation of Clinton's affair with Lewinsky when she served as a White House intern led to his impeachment by the House in late 1998. Clinton was subsequently acquitted in the Senate. During the course of Starr's four-year investigation, Linda Tripp, a former White House staffer, provided Starr with secretly taped conversations in which Lewinsky discussed having oral sex with Clinton.
Monica Lewinsky
Six Secret Authorizations
Saudi
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has approved six secret authorizations by companies to sell nuclear power technology and assistance to Saudi Arabia, according to a copy of a document seen by Reuters on Wednesday.
The Trump administration has quietly pursued a wider deal on sharing U.S. nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia, which aims to build at least two nuclear power plants. Several countries including the United States, South Korea and Russia are in competition for that deal, and the winners are expected to be announced later this year by Saudi Arabia.
Perry's approvals, known as Part 810 authorizations, allow companies to do preliminary work on nuclear power ahead of any deal but not ship equipment that would go into a plant, a source with knowledge of the agreements said on condition of anonymity. The approvals were first reported by the Daily Beast.
The Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said in the document that the companies had requested that the Trump administration keep the approvals secret.
A Department of Energy official said the requests contained proprietary information and that the authorizations went through multi-agency approval process.
Saudi
Sleek And Discrete
Contraceptive Jewelry
One day, women may be able to put on earrings and prevent unwanted pregnancies. That's right, scientists have taken inspiration from existing technology to deliver contraceptive hormones via jewelry.
It isn't limited to earrings either. Wristwatches, rings, or choker necklaces are all fair game too.
Contraceptive jewelry may sound far-out but the idea has been brewing for quite some time. It's an adaptation of skin patch technology already in use to administer drugs to prevent motion sickness, quit smoking, and help manage menopause symptoms. There is even a contraceptive patch that does much the same thing as these earring backs - the new bit is the technology designed to look like jewelry.
The concept goes far beyond vanity and style too. There are times when discretion is important, particularly in cultures where birth control is stigmatized or in relationships where a male partner is against contraception.
"Many jewelry items, such as earrings, rings, necklaces, wristwatches, and other items make direct contact with the skin and thereby could discreetly house a transdermal patch," said lead author Mark Prausnitz in a statement.
Before you sigh at the fact that you have to wear the same earrings for as long as you want to forego pregnancy, it is the earring back that contains the hormone - not the earring itself. This means you can wear a variety of earrings to your heart's delight as long as the backing that holds it in place touches the skin.
Contraceptive Jewelry
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