Recommended Reading
from Bruce
EMILY ESFAHANI SMITH: Meaning Is Healthier Than Happiness (Atlantic)
People who are happy but have little-to-no sense of meaning in their lives have the same gene expression patterns as people who are enduring chronic adversity.
ADAM CLARK ESTES: Rich People Are Full of Different Chemicals Than Poor People (Gizmodo)
This may not come as a huge surprise, but life is different for the rich and the poor. Rich people relax by eating oysters. Poor people relax by smoking cigarettes. At least that's what we're led to believe based on a new study about how the presence of certain chemicals can indicate how rich or poor a person is.
Dana Stevens: Review of Seconds (Slate)
(The brilliant Saul Bass opening-title sequence, in which human facial features are distorted by trick mirrors to the sound of Jerry Goldsmith's piercing organ chords, perfectly sets the eerie mood.) And the ending, holy smokes, the ending-but there I'll stop. Go watch the movie-or rewatch it, if it's been 20 years-and the next time we meet we can have a short but evocative conversation: "Seconds?" "Oh my God, Seconds."
Honest Trailer for Breaking Bad (YouTube)
Rated S for Spoilers.
Chris Kirk: "Wil Wheaton Says Discovery Channel Has 'Betrayed Its Audience'" (Slate)
These faux documentaries, which can best be described as anti-educational, seem to have grown more common on in recent years. The Disney-owned History channel, for example, has earned criticism for airing pseudoscience programs like Ancient Aliens, UFO Files, and the Nostradamus Effect instead of programs about, you know, history.
30 Famous Actors You Didn't Recognize In Famous Roles (Cracked)
Whether it be their humble beginnings, or surprise cameos -- you've probably seen more of your most beloved pop culture icons than you realize. We asked our readers to show us the most mind-blowing and unrecognizable appearances from some of our favorite stars.
Emily Bazelon: E.B. White on Why He Wrote Charlotte's Web (Slate)
White ends by saying that he hasn't told Nordstrom why he wrote the book "but I haven't told you why I sneeze, either. A book is a sneeze." It's a delightful metaphor. But in fact, I think White has told us why he wrote Charlotte's Web. He wanted to make children, and their parents, think about what it means to raise animals only to butcher them. And why we should consider letting that spider in our bedroom live.
Mark O'Connell: "TWO NEW BOOKS ABOUT 'BORGES'" (The New Yorker)
Few artists have built grand structures on such uncertain foundations as Jorge Luis Borges. Doubt was the sacred principle of his work, its animating force and, frequently, its message. To read his stories is to experience the dissolution of all certainty, all assumption about the reliability of your experience of the world.
Interview by Laura Barnett: "Lucy Porter, comedian - portrait of the artist" (Guardian)
In between Edinburgh gigs, Lucy Porter talks about the itinerant life of the standup, why Kate Bush is such an inspiration, and reveals her greatest ambition - to go on Countdown.
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Another out-of-season marine layer.
"Song Of The Summer"
Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert's "song of the summer" special was either a real-life corporate tiff over Daft Punk or the most elaborately-planned - and funniest - corporate cross-promotions in memory.
On his Comedy Central show Tuesday, Colbert said he had Daft Punk booked to perform the hit "Get Lucky" that night. But he said that on the day before, fellow Viacom Inc., network MTV had pulled rank, claiming the French dance duo had agreed to perform at the Video Music Awards on Aug. 25 and make the show its exclusive U.S. TV appearance.
"I don't care what MTV allows," Colbert said. "My audience gets the song of the summer if they want it and I don't even need Daft Punk to choose my show over the VMAs to get it. This is Colbchella, God damn it, and it is time to dance!"
"Get Lucky" comes over the loudspeakers and Colbert launches into what becomes an elaborate dance video that includes Hugh Laurie, Jeff Bridges, Bryan Cranston, Henry Kissinger, Matt Damon and break-in appearances on "America's Got Talent," Jimmy Fallon's "Late Night" and "The Charlie Rose Show."
Stephen Colbert
Public Square Re-Named
Kate McGarrigle
The rich voices of some of Canada's most renowned singers filled a tiny Montreal square on Wednesday as relatives and friends of musician Kate McGarrigle gathered to see the spot renamed in her honour.
McGarrigle, who gained fame with her sister as the folksinging duo Kate and Anna McGarrigle, died in 2010 of cancer.
Kate McGarrigle's children, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, have carried on the family's musical legacy and were both present along with their aunts Anna and Jane for the ceremony in the city's Outremont borough.
A portrait of Kate McGarrigle cast its eyes toward the podium as family and city officials praised the singer-songwriter.
Although his mother projected a bohemian image, Rufus Wainwright noted she studied engineering at McGill University in the 1960s, something rare for a woman at the time, and eventually graduated with a science degree before becoming "a genius musician."
Kate McGarrigle
Lost Film To Debut
Orson Welles
Orson Welles' "Too Much Johnson," a long-lost three-part slapstick comedy that he directed in 1938, has been found in an Italian warehouse and is being restored for its U.S. premiere in October.
The George Eastman House film and photography museum will screen the silent film on October 16 in Rochester, NY., following the restoration's world premiere on October 9 at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, a film festival devoted entirely to silent cinema.
"Too Much Johnson" was originally intended to be used in conjunction with Welles' stage adaptation of an 1894 play by William Gillette. The Mercury Theatre planned to show the three short films as prologues to each act of the play, but the film was never finished.
Joseph Cotton was cast in the lead role, with supporting roles going to Mercury Theatre actors, including Eustace Wyatt, Edgar Barrier, Ruth Ford, Arlene Francis, Mary Wickes, Orson Welles and his wife, Virginia Nicholson. The play opened without the film in 1938 on August 16 and flopped.
The nitrate work print of the film-left unfinished by the Mercury Theatre and never shown in public-was given by Cinemazero to one of Italy's major film archives, the Cineteca del Friuli in nearby Gemona, and transferred from there to George Eastman House in order to be preserved with a grant from NFPF. According to published sources, until now the only known print of Too Much Johnson had burnt in a fire that destroyed Welles' home in the outskirts of Madrid in 1970.
Orson Welles
Statuette To Auction
'Maltese Falcon'
A statuette featured in the 1941 movie "The Maltese Falcon" is being offered for sale at a New York City auction.
Bonhams says the black figurine is the highlight of a Nov. 25 auction. It did not provide a pre-sale estimate.
The statuette was the most important prop in the classic John Huston film, which starred Humphrey Bogart as a private eye. Bonhams says it's etched with a Warner Bros. inventory number and is the only version known to have appeared in the movie.
The auction house says it's the first time it has come to auction. The current owner has had the statuette for decades.
'Maltese Falcon'
Weinstein, Millennium Hit With $10 Million Suit
'Lovelace'
The Weinstein Company and Millennium Films, producers of "Lovelace" - a new biopic about Linda Lovelace - are being sued for $10 million over alleged copyright and trademark violations.
In a lawsuit filed in New York federal court, Arrow Productions, which owns the copyright to the 1972 film, claims that Weinstein and Millennium copped more than five minutes of the famed porn star's notorious vehicle and violated its trademarked rights to the name Linda Lovelace.
"Lovelace," which showed at Sundance earlier this year, stars Amanda Seyfried as the title character and will receive a limited release in the U.S. on Friday. Arrow claims that the film reproduces scenes from "Deep Throat" in full and copies dialogue and blocking, including two graphic sex sequences.
"Rather than negotiating licenses for 'Deep Throat' IP, rather than deferring to Arrow's vision for the 'Deep Throat' brand, defendants have simply taken what they wanted and crossed their fingers," the suit reads.
'Lovelace'
Not Liable For Using Artist's Work
Green Day
Dereck Seltzer wasn't happy when he learned that Green Day used his artwork without permission as a video backdrop at its concerts. But a federal appeals court on Wednesday said the popular rock band didn't violate his rights.
The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California, in what it called a "close and difficult case," can make it easier for performers to incorporate works of art to enhance the experience of concert fans, so long as they don't simply copy the artwork or diminish its value.
Seltzer, a Los Angeles illustrator, in 2003 created "Scream Icon," an abstract image of an anguished, contorted face that has been used on posters and plastered on walls as street art.
During a 2009 tour, Green Day, whose lead singer is Billie Joe Armstrong and which has sold more than 70 million records, used a version of the artwork covered by a red "spray-painted" cross in a video backdrop for its song "East Jesus Nowhere."
Seltzer sued after rejecting a proposed settlement that included concert tickets. But a federal district judge in Los Angeles in 2011 rejected his claims of copyright infringement and violations of the Lanham Act, a federal trademark law.
Green Day
Move Sochi Games To Vancouver
George Takei
Activist and actor George Takei, best known as helmsman Lt. Sulu in the original Star Trek television series, is calling for the Games to move to Vancouver from Sochi to protest Russia's anti-gay laws.
He's the latest celebrity to weigh in on the Olympic controversy, endorsing a petition at Change.org that has already garnered over 45,000 supporters.
Russia "intends to enforce its laws against visiting LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender) athletes, trainers and fans, meaning anyone even so much as waving a rainbow flag (and I presume many men enthusiastically watching and dramatically commenting on figure skating) would be arrested, held for weeks and then deported," he writes in a blog post last week.
"Given this position, the (International Olympic Committee) must do the right thing, protect its athletes and the fans, and move the 2014 Winter Olympics out of Russia."
Takei says Russia's ban on "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" and its imposition of heavy fines directly contravenes the IOC's fundamental principals, and he argues such intolerance wouldn't be accepted if it were aimed at Jews, Roman Catholics or Muslims.
George Takei
Protests Sochi
Stephen Fry
British actor and writer Stephen Fry has called for the 2014 Winter Olympics to be taken away from Sochi in a protest against Russia's new anti-gay laws.
The openly gay activist released a letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron and International Olympic Committee executives on Wednesday in which he asks them not to give Russian President Vladimir Putin "the approval of the civilized world."
With Russia's sports minister saying last week that the law would be enforced during the Sochi Games, Fry wrote that "an absolute ban" on the Olympics being staged in Russia is "simply essential."
"Let us realize that in fact, sport is cultural. It does not exist in a bubble outside society or politics. The idea that sport and politics don't connect is worse than disingenuous, worse than stupid. It is wickedly, wilfully wrong."
Fry likened staging the Winter Games in Russia with the 1936 Olympics taking place in Berlin "under the exultant aegis of a tyrant" - Adolf Hitler - after anti-Jewish laws had been approved in Nazi Germany.
Stephen Fry
Tribal Activists Block Highway Over Tar Sands
Nez Perce
Police arrested 19 members of the Nez Perce Tribe on Tuesday on suspicion of disorderly conduct for refusing to break a human chain blocking a highway in Idaho in protest against a 322-ton load of equipment bound for the tar sands of Alberta, Canada.
The blockade by more than 250 mostly Native American protesters halted travel of a so-called megaload for two hours on a scenic roadway at the front lines of an ideological struggle over North American oil and gas development and its impact on the environment, local communities and native cultures.
The Nez Perce said they staged the protest to oppose the shipment of massive oil refinery equipment along wild stretches of two prized Idaho rivers, the Clearwater and the Lochsa, and through Nez Perce and protected federal lands.
The 19 Nez Perce activists who were arrested by tribal police on Tuesday were later released on bail, authorities said. The megaload resumed its journey after the protest.
Nez Perce Chairman Silas C. Whitman said in a statement that tribal leaders were against "the conversion of this wild and scenic area into a high and wide industrial corridor."
Nez Perce
'Lone Ranger' Fallout
Jerry Bruckheimer
Disney is talking with producer Jerry Bruckheimer about restructuring his deal for "Pirates of the Caribbean 5," and will likely strip his final cut privileges and limit the budget on the next installment of the film franchise, according to two individuals close to the project.
Bruckheimer has had final cut on prior titles in the franchise, which has grossed close to $4 billion at the global box office across four films.
Yet the failure of Bruckheimer's "The Lone Ranger" at the box office will force Disney to take a $160-$190 million write-down in its next fiscal quarter, the company said on its earnings call Tuesday. As a result, the studio is taking a closer look at all the films on its slate, especially high-budget fare like "Pirates 5." Bruckheimer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Disney declined to comment, but its heightened involvement in the project is evident in the selection of directors Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg. Disney's choice, they demonstrated they can make a movie look grandiose with limited financial resources on the Oscar-nominated "Kon-Tiki."
Jerry Bruckheimer
Becomes Archaeological Site
NYC
The city has become an archaeological site, with thousands of artifacts such as an 18th-century bone toothbrush with animal hair bristles and wine and champagne bottles corked centuries ago unearthed to prove it.
A copper half-penny and a pair of children's shoes are some of the other remnants of early New York life workers discovered in lower Manhattan while digging to install new utilities for the growing residential and business South Street Seaport area.
Last week, under a 15-foot stretch of Fulton Street, near Wall Street, more than 100 liquor bottles from the 18th century popped up, some still intact and corked, as first reported by the news website DNAinfo.com.
The ordinary objects paint an extraordinary picture of the city in the 1700s and 1800s - a community of Dutch and English settlers who hadn't yet spread north into what is today's Manhattan. The budding metropolis and its water-borne trade was still expanding into the East River and harbor with landfills for wharves using whatever was available, including some newly found artifacts that had become garbage.
NYC
In Memory
Cosmo Allegretti
Cosmo Allegretti, who created and voiced puppet characters like Grandfather Clock and Dancing Bear on the children's television show "Captain Kangaroo," has died. He was 86.
Allegretti, who had homes in Hampton Bays, N.Y., and New River, Ariz., died of emphysema on July 26 in Arizona, his attorney and friend John Munzel said Wednesday.
Allegretti had been a puppeteer but was working as a set painter in the early days of "Captain Kangaroo." He volunteered to make a replacement when the show was dissatisfied with a puppet created by a professional. He gave life to characters Bunny Rabbit, Mister Moose, Rollo the Hippopotamus, Miss Worm, Cornelius the Walrus, Dennis the Apprentice and others. The show, starring Bob Keeshan, started on CBS in 1955 and aired for more than 30 years.
As an actor, Allegretti appeared in films including "Prince of the City."
Cosmo Allegretti
In Memory
Myron Stanford "Stan" Lynde
Western cartoonist and author Stan Lynde, creator of the nationally syndicated "Rick O'Shay" comic strip, has died of cancer in Montana. He was 81.
His "Rick O'Shay" comic strip began in 1958 and ran for 20 years with an average daily readership of about 15 million people. In 1979, he launched another comic strip, "Latigo," which ran through 1983. Lynde died Tuesday in Helena, where he lived with his wife.
Myron Stanford "Stan" Lynde was born in Billings in 1931 and was raised on a cattle and sheep ranch on Montana's Crow Indian Reservation. His mother gave him crayons and paper and taught him to draw to keep her young son occupied, said Lynde's sister, Lorretta.
His parents read him the cartoons in the Sunday newspaper, and he said it was an "epiphany" when he learned that people were paid to write and draw cartoons.
He drew daily comics in high school and created the comic strip "Ty Foon" for the Navy newspaper while he served during the Korean conflict.
In the 1950s, he moved to New York, where he drew on his ranch background and his affinity for Western humor to create the "Rick O'Shay" strip that included characters such as gunslinger Hipshot Percussion, banker Mort Gage and a kid named Quyat Burp who lived in the western town of Conniption.
He moved back to Montana in 1962 after his "Rick O'Shay" cartoon was established and appearing in about 100 papers including the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
When Lynde retired from cartooning, he wrote eight Western novels featuring the character Merlin Fanshaw. He also wrote a historical novel, "Vigilante Moon."
Lynde and his wife, Lynda, moved to Ecuador in January but returned to Helena this spring when he became ill.
Lynde is survived by his wife and eight children.
Myron Stanford "Stan" Lynde
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