Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Mark Morford: Your own personal 2012 apocalypse (SF Gate)
What, you think it's not happening? You think it's all bogus silly New Age bubblegum fluff with a side of hippie wishful thinking? Think again, skeptic.
Andrew Tobias: Trans
Trans-fat: bad, leads to illness. Trans-gender: confusing, long thought to be an illness. Not any more.
Emily Bazelon: Will Churches Be Forced To Conduct Gay Weddings? (Slate)
Not a chance. That's just the scare tactic conservative groups use to frighten voters.
Interviews by Tim Jonze: Prince is still king, say Hot Chip (Guardian)
He wrote his best music in the 1980s, and continues to inspire. Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard give five reasons why the purple one still reigns.
Eric G. Wilson: Poetry Makes You Weird (Chronicle of Higher Education)
A father and son immediately appeared, in virginal Wake Forest T-shirts and blond crew cuts. They smiled at me as if I had just praised their promptness. The younger looked up at dad, and father nodded to son, and son blurted: "Sell me the English major!" Through my brain's murk, I searched for the hype. Failing to find it, I confessed: "It makes you weird."
Danielle Maurer: Why Was J.R.R. Tolkien a Genius? (Slate)
As far as I'm concerned, no one has ever topped Tolkien here. His world has such depth and feel to it. There's always more to explore and more to find out about the people and the places and the things and ... you get the idea. I can and have lost myself for hours in Middle-earth (and Valinor). It takes such a mind-boggling amount of effort to do what he did-and do it well-that I can't help but call the man a genius for it.
David Bruce: "Homer's Iliad: A Retelling in Prose" (Smashwords; $3 ebook)
This is a retelling of Homer's great epic poem the Iliad in novel form. A sample: Rage. Goddess, use me to tell the story of the rage of Achilles, a Greek warrior who had the rage of a god. The rage of the son of Peleus made corpses of many men and sent their souls to the Land of the Dead. Dogs and birds feasted on warriors' flesh, all because of Achilles and the will of Zeus, king of gods and men.
Randies: I Thought I Could Change (YouTube)
Directed by Jesse Grce.
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David Bruce has approximately 50 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestion/Comment
EOTW
NASA releases 'Told Ya So' apocalypse video early
i still aint gonna pay my income taxes early
gary
Thanks, Gary!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Overcast and gray.
Love Letters Fetch $300,000
Mick Jagger
A collection of love letters written by Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger to American singer Marsha Hunt, believed to be the inspiration for the band's hit single "Brown Sugar", sold at Sotheby's on Wednesday for 187,250 pounds ($301,000).
The 10 letters, dating from the summer of 1969, had been expected to fetch 70-100,000 pounds, according to the auctioneer.
Hunt, with whom Jagger had his first child, Karis, told Britain's Guardian newspaper last month that she was selling the letters, written in July and August 1969, because she had been unable to pay her bills.
Jagger wrote them to Hunt while filming the Tony Richardson movie "Ned Kelly" in Australia.
Jagger's relationship with Hunt, who is African-American, was kept under wraps until 1972.
Mick Jagger
Broadway Debut
Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks' Broadway debut will include an old buddy - former "Bosom Buddies" co-star Peter Scolari will share the stage with the Oscar winner.
Producers revealed Wednesday the rest of the cast appearing with Hanks in Nora Ephron's play "Lucky Guy," which begins previews March 1 at the Broadhurst Theatre.
In addition to Scolari, the cast includes Christopher McDonald, Peter Gerety and Michael Gaston.
Hanks and Scolari starred together in the 1980s sitcom "Bosom Buddies," which depicted male roommates posing as women to gain entry to a budget-priced apartment building which admitted only female residents.
Tom Hanks
Gets Another Season
"Hell on Wheels"
AMC's western drama "Hell on Wheels" will be back for a third season, and it will roll onto the air with a new showrunner, the network said Wednesday.
John Wirth, whose credits include "V," "Falling Skies" and "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," is stepping in as executive producer and showunner for the series, replacing departed showrunner John Shiban, who left the show in November. Shiban's exit held up the third-season renewal of the series, which was initially announced slightly before his departure.
The 10-episode third season of "Hell on Wheels" will premiere in the third quarter of 2013.
"Hell on Wheels," which centers around the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, averaged 2.4 million total viewers with its second season, which wrapped in October.
"Hell on Wheels"
TLC Reality Show
Pete Rose
Pete Rose will take to the same playing field as Honey Boo Boo next month.
The former baseball great's reality series, "Pete Rose: Hits & Mrs." has been given a six-episode order from TLC, and will premiere Monday, January 14 at 10 p.m., the network said Tuesday.
The series will follow the 71-year-old Rose - who's been permanently barred from baseball due to gambling - and his new fiancee, former "Playboy" model Kiana Kim and their assemblage of kids from previous marriages. As the couple moves closer to marriage, they face various struggles: Will Rose's kids learn to accept the age difference between their dad and stepmom-to-be? Can Rose, who lives and works in Las Vegas, manage a long-distance relationship with Kiana, who lives in Los Angeles?
But perhaps the biggest question revolving around the series: How much indignity must Rose endure before he's welcomed back into the public's good graces?
Pete Rose
Another Lawsuit
'Pink Slime'
A former worker at a South Dakota beef processor is suing ABC News, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and a food blogger, saying their use of the phrase "pink slime" to describe one of the company's products led to him losing his job.
Bruce Smith, 58, is among about 750 people who were laid off at Beef Products Inc. in the wake of what the company called a misinformation campaign in social media and news reports about the product: lean, finely textured "beef".
In May, Beef Products Inc. closed three plants - one each in Texas, Kansas and Iowa - and laid off workers at its corporate headquarters in South Dakota.
Smith, of Dakota Dunes, was the company's senior counsel and director of Environmental, Health & Safety. He filed a civil suit Tuesday in Dakota County District Court in Nebraska seeking $70,000 in damages.
The lawsuit names as defendants American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., ABC News, ABC News journalists Diane Sawyer and Jim Avila, Oliver, food blogger Bettina Siegel and 10 unnamed defendants.
'Pink Slime'
199 Crimes
Jimmy Savile
British television star Jimmy Savile is suspected of carrying out an unprecedented number of sex offences including 31 rapes, police said on Wednesday in their most comprehensive review of the scandal.
Revelations about Savile, who died last year, provoked outrage across Britain where he had been a household name since the 1960s.
News of Savile's crimes threw his main employer the BBC into turmoil, led to resignation of the BBC's director general just 54 days into his job and provoked awkward questions for his predecessor Mark Thompson, who recently took over as chief executive of the New York Times.
Detectives launched their inquiry 10 weeks ago following reports in a TV documentary that Savile had abused young girls on BBC premises and at hospitals where he did charity work.
Savile was now a suspect in 199 crimes, the vast majority of them involving children or young people, the force added.
Jimmy Savile
Charge Dropped
'Wife Swap'
A prostitution charge in New York against a former teen pageant princess who once appeared on the reality TV show "Wife Swap" has been dropped.
An attorney for Alicia Guastaferro says Genesee County prosecutors agreed to drop the charge during a court appearance Tuesday. The 21-year-old still faces misdemeanor drug possession charges.
Guastaferro was arrested with Rochester attorney James Doyle at an interstate travel plaza in August. Doyle was charged with soliciting a prostitute, but that charge was dropped. He still faces a drunken driving charge. He and Guastaferro have pleaded not guilty.
Guastaferro and ABC settled a lawsuit last year over the "Wife Swap" episode she appeared on. She claimed its unfair portrayal of her as a spoiled 15-year-old made her a target of ridicule.
'Wife Swap'
Names The Same
'Hall and Oates'
Rock 'n' roll feuds are as storied as the musical genre itself. But when we saw that Oates is accused of biting Hall in the face, it appeared one of the '80s biggest powerhouse bands would be silenced.
But rest assured, the auteurs behind soft rock hits such as "Maneater" have not turned on each other. The pair at the center of this jaw-dropping story just happen to share the same surnames as the pop duo.
Local ABC affiliate NewsChannel5 reports that Robert Oates of Virginia was charged with biting his neighbor, Scott Hall, in the face.
According to police, the altercation stemmed over Hall's refusal to testify on Oates' behalf as a character witness in an upcoming trial.
Oates reportedly resisted arrest, leading police to use the Taser on the 48-year-old. Police say Oates and a friend who contributed to the alleged assault were both "highly intoxicated and yelling." Both men have been charged with felonious assault and resisting arrest.
'Hall and Oates'
Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation
The CALM Act
TV viewing could soon sound a little calmer. The CALM Act, which limits the volume of TV commercials, goes into effect on Thursday.
CALM stands for Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation. The act is designed to prevent TV commercials from blaring at louder volumes than the program content they accompany. The rules govern broadcasters as well as cable and satellite operators.
The rules are meant to protect viewers from excessively loud commercials.
The Federal Communications Commission adopted the rules a year ago, but gave the industry a one-year grace period to adopt them.
The CALM Act
Scientists Seek To Solve Mystery
Piltdown Man
It was an archaeological hoax that fooled scientists for decades. A century on, researchers are determined to find out who was responsible for Piltdown Man, the missing link that never was.
In December 1912, it was announced that a lawyer and amateur archaeologist named Charles Dawson had made an astonishing discovery in a gravel pit in southern England - prehistoric remains, up to 1 million years old, that combined the skull of a human and the jaw of an ape.
Piltdown Man - named for the village where the remains were found - set the scientific world ablaze. It was hailed as the missing evolutionary link between apes and humans, and proof that humans' enlarged brains had evolved earlier than had been supposed.
It was 40 years before the find was definitively exposed as a hoax, and speculation about who did it rages to this day. Now scientists at London's Natural History Museum - whose predecessors trumpeted the Piltdown find and may be suspects in the fraud- are marking the 100th anniversary with a new push to settle the argument for good.
Piltdown Man
Far From The Shire
A Hobbit House
Worlds away from the Shire, a stone cottage tucked into the Pennsylvania countryside would make Bilbo Baggins feel like he was back home with his Hobbit friends in Middle-earth.
Nestled in a part of Chester County dotted with picturesque barns and rolling fields surprisingly close to Philadelphia, this Hobbit house belongs to a lifelong fan of author J.R.R. Tolkien who wanted a worthy - and private - repository for the rare books and Tolkien-inspired memorabilia he has collected in 30 years of travel in the U.S. and abroad.
The 600-square foot building is a short walk from his main house, on a flat stone path and through an English-style garden.
"We wanted a single structure, a relaxing place that was diminutive in scale, for the owner to come and hang out and just be in solitude with his collection," said architect Peter Archer, speaking on the owner's behalf.
"We weren't going to do a Hollywood interpretation. We wanted it to be timeless," Archer said. "It was built in 2004 but looking at it, you could think it was from 1904, or 1604."
A Hobbit House
In Memory
Ravi Shankar
With an instrument perplexing to most Westerners, Ravi Shankar helped connect the world through music. The sitar virtuoso mentored a Beatle, became a hippie musical icon and spearheaded the first rock benefit concert as he introduced traditional Indian ragas to Western audiences over nearly a century.
From George Harrison to John Coltrane, from Yehudi Menuhin to David Crosby, his connections reflected music's universality, though a gap persisted between Shankar and many Western fans. Sometimes they mistook tuning for tunes, while he stood aghast at displays like Jimi Hendrix's burning guitar.
"My Dad's music touched millions of people," his daughter, musician Norah Jones, said in a statement. "He will be greatly missed by me and music lovers everywhere."
Shankar died Tuesday at age 92. A statement on his website said he died in San Diego, near his Southern California home with his wife and a daughter by his side. The musician's foundation issued a statement saying that he had suffered upper respiratory and heart problems and had undergone heart-valve replacement surgery last week.
Labeled "the godfather of world music" by Harrison, Shankar helped millions of classical, jazz and rock lovers discover the centuries-old traditions of Indian music.
He also pioneered the concept of the rock benefit with the 1971 Concert For Bangladesh. To later generations, he was known as the estranged father of popular American singer Norah Jones.
His last musical performance was with his other daughter, sitarist Anoushka Shankar Wright, on Nov. 4 in Long Beach, California; his foundation said it was to celebrate his 10th decade of creating music. The multiple Grammy winner learned that he had again been nominated for the award the night before his surgery.
As early as the 1950s, Shankar began collaborating with and teaching some of the greats of Western music, including violinist Menuhin and jazz saxophonist Coltrane. He played well-received shows in concert halls in Europe and the United States, but faced a constant struggle to bridge the musical gap between the West and the East.
His close relationship with Harrison, the Beatles lead guitarist, shot Shankar to global stardom in the 1960s.
Harrison had grown fascinated with the sitar, a long-necked string instrument that uses a bulbous gourd for its resonating chamber and resembles a giant lute. He played the instrument, with a Western tuning, on the song "Norwegian Wood," but soon sought out Shankar, already a musical icon in India, to teach him to play it properly.
The pair spent weeks together, starting the lessons at Harrison's house in England and then moving to a houseboat in Kashmir and later to California.
Gaining confidence with the complex instrument, Harrison recorded the Indian-inspired song "Love You To" on the Beatles' "Revolver," helping spark the raga-rock phase of 60s music and drawing increasing attention to Shankar and his work.
Shankar's popularity exploded, and he soon found himself playing on bills with some of the top rock musicians of the era. He played a four-hour set at the Monterey Pop Festival and the opening day of Woodstock.
Though the audience for his music had hugely expanded, Shankar, a serious, disciplined traditionalist who had played Carnegie Hall, chafed against the drug use and rebelliousness of the hippie culture.
"I was shocked to see people dressing so flamboyantly. They were all stoned. To me, it was a new world," Shankar told Rolling Stone of the Monterey festival.
While he enjoyed Otis Redding and the Mamas and the Papas at the festival, he was horrified when Hendrix lit his guitar on fire.
"That was too much for me. In our culture, we have such respect for musical instruments, they are like part of God," he said.
Ravindra Shankar Chowdhury was born April 7, 1920, in the Indian city of Varanasi.
At the age of 10, he moved to Paris to join the world famous dance troupe of his brother Uday. Over the next eight years, Shankar travelled with the troupe across Europe, America and Asia, and later credited his early immersion in foreign cultures with making him such an effective ambassador for Indian music.
And he became a de facto tutor for Westerners fascinated by India's musical traditions.
He gave lessons to Coltrane, who named his son Ravi in Shankar's honour, and became close friends with Menuhin, recording the acclaimed "West Meets East" album with him. He also collaborated with flutist Jean Pierre Rampal, composer Philip Glass and conductors Andre Previn and Zubin Mehta.
Shankar's personal life, however, was more complex.
His 1941 marriage to Baba Allaudin Khan's daughter, Annapurna Devi, ended in divorce. Though he had a decades-long relationship with dancer Kamala Shastri that ended in 1981, he had relationships with several other women in the 1970s.
In 1979, he fathered Norah Jones with New York concert promoter Sue Jones, and in 1981, Sukanya Rajan, who played the tanpura at his concerts, gave birth to his daughter Anoushka.
He grew estranged from Sue Jones in the 80s and didn't see Norah for a decade, though they later re-established contact.
He married Rajan in 1989 and trained young Anoushka as his heir on the sitar. In recent years, father and daughter toured the world together.
Despite his fame, numerous albums and decades of world tours, Shankar's music remained a riddle to many Western ears.
Shankar was amused after he and colleague Ustad Ali Akbar Khan were greeted with admiring applause when they opened the Concert for Bangladesh by twanging their sitar and sarod for a minute and a half.
"If you like our tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more," he told the confused crowd, and then launched into his set.
Ravi Shankar
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