Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Waldman: Republicans will run the Hillary Clinton playbook against Trump's opponent (Washington Post)
When Hillary Clinton was running for president in 2016, Republicans became convinced not only that the fact that she used a private email server for government business was the greatest crime the world had seen since the Cambodian genocide, but also that the Clinton Foundation - which spent millions on "suspicious" activities such as disaster relief and distributing AIDS drugs - was the source of a deep and profound corruption.
Alexandra Petri: Millions of Americans devastated to learn they were ardent fans of Soleimani this whole time (Washington Post)
"The only ones that are mourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat leadership and our Democrat presidential candidates." - Nikki Haley
"They are in love with terrorists. We see that they mourn Soleimani more than they mourn our Gold Star families." - Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.)
Helaine Olen: For Gen X women, middle age is exhausting. Here's why. (Washington Post)
We expect too much of ourselves, but we deserve better from the world around us.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood gets Oscar boost at Critics Choice awards (The Guardian)
Quentin Tarantino's latest wins best film as Parasite's Bong Joon-ho and 1917's Sam Mendes tie for best director.
Ted Gioia: Was the Love Song Invented in Africa and the Middle East? (Daily Beast)
Most histories of the love song recycle tales of Greek poetesses and European troubadours, all the while ignoring 5,000 years of innovations from non-Western cultures.
Ted Gioia: "The Rise of the Fragmented Novel (An Essay in 26 Fragments)" (fractious fiction)
1. Mainstream literary fiction is falling to pieces.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Song: "Have Mercy" from the album ARTIST TOP PICKS
Artist: Barry Osbourn
Artist Location: Kansas City, Missouri
Info: "Barry Osbourn is an independent songwriter and musician with 35 years experience, writing, performing, and recording original material. While fans are always great, my primary goal is to license material for commercial use. Enjoy!"
Price: $1 (USD) for song; Name Your Price (Includes FREE) for 18-track album
Genre: Guitar Blues Instrumental
Barry Osbourn on Bandcamp
ARTIST TOP PICKS
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Soprano Emma Eames was often asked to sing at benefits, and occasionally she got annoyed at society ladies who expected much for charity from her but little from themselves. She once made a proposal to some such society ladies who asked her to perform free at a benefit concert: "I will, on one condition. You are all wealthy ladies, far wealthier than I. Now, my usual [fee for singing] is £300. I will contribute that by singing, on condition that each of you will sign for the same amount." The society ladies said that they would think about it, and they did not bother her again. Music critic Henry T. Finck, a friend to Ms. Eames, wrote in My Adventures in the Golden Age of Music, his autobiography, "The charity of society women too often resembles Mark Twain's climbing of the Swiss mountains - by proxy." Ms. Eames was an independent spirit who was not afraid of offending people. She once said to Mr. Finck's wife, "I love to give parties for the pleasure of leaving out certain persons who want to come."
• United States painter and teacher William M. Chase knew art. A Congressman who did not know art went around telling people about a bad painting that he owned, "Isn't that grand? A great bargain, too. Got it for four hundred dollars, and William M. Chase says it is worth ten thousand dollars." A friend of the painter heard what the Congressman had said, and the friend asked Mr. Chase about it. Mr. Chase explained, "He cornered me one day and wanted me to fix a value on it, but I told him I couldn't do it. He then came at me with a question I couldn't dodge: 'Well, Mr. Chase, how much would you charge to paint a picture like that?' I assured him most honestly that I wouldn't paint one like it for ten thousand dollars."
• Soprano Kirsten Flagstad was good friends with her accompanist, Edwin McArthur, and often relied on him when she needed help. Following World War II, she left Norway and journeyed to Sweden, but she was not allowed to take much money with her. From the Carlton Hotel in Stockholm, she cabled Mr. McArthur, "I Am Here Without Funds. Please Do Something." Fortunately, Mr. McArthur was able to arrange for her to receive money. By the way, the first time Ms. Flagstad heard Tristan und Isolde, she was very bored and could barely keep awake. Later, she became famous for her singing of Wagnerian roles, including the role of Isolde.
• John Phillip Sousa had a very difficult time selling his first composition. He trudged from one music company to another hoping to make a sale, but had no success. Finally, he made up his mind to either make a sale at the next music company, or give up entirely. He went inside, made his pitch to sell the composition for $25, but the manager said he would not pay 25 cents for it. Ready to give up, Mr. Sousa turned to leave, then noticed several dictionaries by the door. He asked the manager, "Will you give me a dictionary for it?" The manager was willing, and so Mr. Sousa sold his first composition for a dictionary.
• At the sale of the pictures that belonged to Henri Rouart, a journalist asked artist Edgar Degas, "Do you know how much your picture of two dancers at the bar, with a watering can, just sold for?" Mr. Degas replied, "No, I don't." The journalist told him the very high figure: 475,000 francs! Mr. Degas admitted, "That isa nice price." The journalist then asked, "Don't you think it outrageous that this picture will never bring you more than the five hundred francs you were paid for it?" Mr. Degas replied, "Monsieur, I am like the racehorse that wins the Grand Prize: I am satisfied with my ration of oats."
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Current Events
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Selected Readings
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sumo has had a couple of big upsets and it's only day 3.
Oscar Nomination
Obamas
Barack and Michelle Obama are celebrating an Oscars nod after the first film released by their production company was nominated for Best Documentary on Monday morning.
The film, titled American Factory, was the first release of the Obama's producing deal with Netflix, which was just announced back in May 2018, and has received critical acclaim since its August 2019 release. However, the nomination for the 2020 Academy Awards is its biggest accolade yet and has both Michelle and Barack expressing congratulations to the team of producers nominated.
"I like this film for its nuanced, honest portrayal of the way a changing global economy plays out in real lives," Barack noted in his Instagram post. "It offers a window into people as they actually are and it's the kind of story we don't see often enough."
The former president previously praised the film about a Chinese billionaire reopening an automatic plant in Ohio as one that "gives you the chance to better understand someone else's life" and help people to "find common ground." He even mentioned it in his list of favorite movies of 2019.
The Oscars nomination sets high expectations for what's to come with the Obamas' multiyear agreement with Netflix.
Obamas
Beyond D-O-Double G Sandwich
Snoop Dogg
Snoop Dogg has put a sweet spin on Dunkin's Beyond Sausage Sandwich.
Through Sunday, Jan. 19, the sandwich, which has Beyond Meat's plant-based sausage, will be served on a glazed donut and has been dubbed the "Beyond D-O-Double G Sandwich."
In a news release, Dunkin' said the limited-time sandwich was inspired by the rap legend's "passion for plant-based protein and love of glazed donuts."
It features a Beyond Breakfast Sausage patty with egg and cheese, served on a sliced glazed doughnut. While the plant-based patty is vegan-friendly, this sandwich isn't for vegans because it includes egg and cheese.
The Beyond D-O-Double G Sandwich can be ordered at the counter or drive-thru at participating restaurants nationwide.
Snoop Dogg
Library of Congress' National Ambassador
Jason Reynolds
Author Jason Reynolds was revealed as the Library of Congress' newest national ambassador for young people's literature on "CBS This Morning" Monday. The two-year position aims to raise the nation's appreciation of youth literature, as it relates to literacy, education and the development and betterment of lives.
Reynolds is the bestselling and award-winning young adult author and poet whose work includes "Patina" and "As Brave As You" (both published by Simon & Schuster, a division of ViacomCBS).
As the ambassador, Reynolds said he plans to focus on children in rural areas and small towns across the country.
Reynolds said the book that finally hooked him was Richard Wright's "Black Boy."
"What lit me up about it was that it wasn't a 50-page exposition. Page two, you're in the midst of the drama," he said. "I think it's interesting that we expect young people to want to read 50 pages of exposition when they live in two-minute worlds where things are happening rapidly. So my job as a writer is to write something that has a hook in the beginning."
Jason Reynolds
Oscar Nomination A Record Breaker
John Williams
While Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was mostly ignored in the top categories by the Academy this morning, that was not the case for tunesmith John Williams. He was nominated for Best Original Score for the movie. That makes the 52nd Oscar nomination of his storied career, bettering his tally for most noms for anyone still here on planet Earth. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker also got noms for Visual Effects and Sound Editing.
Williams has won the Oscar five times - the original Star Wars, Schindler's List, E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, Jaws and Fiddler On The Roof - and this becomes the sixth time he has won or been nominated for a Star Wars film in an unprecedented list of nominations that goes back to 1968's Valley of the Dolls. Only the late Walt Disney had more nominations: he won 22 of the 59 Oscars he was nominated for. To put Williams' record in perspective, the most acting nominations record belongs to Meryl Streep, with 21 noms and three wins.
Original Score is a stacked category this year, and Williams will have his work cut out for him. He is up against Hildur Guonadottir for her brooding Joker score, Alexandre Desplat for Little Women, Randy Newman for Marriage Story, and Thomas Newman for 1917. All of those competitors in the Best Original Score field are up for Best Picture, which could swing attention and momentum toward those films.
John Williams
Hotter Than Ever
Earth's Oceans
The world's oceans hit their warmest level in recorded history in 2019, according to a study published Monday that provides more evidence that the Earth is warming at an accelerated pace.
The analysis, which also found that ocean temperatures in the past decade have been the warmest on record, shows the impact of human-caused warming on the planet's oceans, and suggests that sea-level rise, ocean acidification and extreme weather events could worsen as these enormous bodies of water continue to absorb so much heat.
"The pace of warming has increased about 500 percent since the late 1980s," said John Abraham, a professor of thermal sciences at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and one of the study's authors. "The findings, to be honest, were not unexpected. Warming is continuing, it has accelerated and it is unabated. Unless we do something significant and quickly, it's really dire news."
Abraham and his colleagues found that the rate of ocean warming has accelerated from 1987-2019 to nearly four and a half times the rate of warming from 1955-1986.
According to the study, published Monday in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, average ocean temperatures in 2019 were 0.075 degrees Celsius (0.135 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1981-2019 average. While this may seem like a miniscule amount, it represents an enormous amount of heat spread out across the world's oceans, according to Lijing Cheng, an associate professor at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Beijing, and the lead author of the study.
Earth's Oceans
Family Feud
Popeyes
Eve Dubois' wrong answer on Family Feud Canada may have cost her family $10,000, but now she gets $10,000 worth of free chicken thanks to her now-viral wrong answer.
On Thursday night's episode, the game show entered the "sudden death" round, and the stakes were high - whoever answered correctly won the show.
"Alright, real simple. There's one question, only one answer. Whoever gets it, you're playing for $10,000. Whoever guesses this wins the game," say Gerry Dee, host of Family Feud Canada.
Dee continues to read the prompt: "Name Popeye's favorite food." He barely finishes the question before Dubois slaps the buzzer and sings "Chiiiiicckkkkennn!" and proceeds to do a hilarious happy dance.
Family members are left stunned as the audience and host struggle to contain their laughter - everyone else seemed to understand that Dee was referencing the cartoon character and not the Popeyes fried chicken chain.
Popeyes
Oldest Material Found on Earth
Stardust
Scientists recently identified the oldest material on Earth: stardust that's 7 billion years old, tucked away in a massive, rocky meteorite that struck our planet half a century ago.
This ancient interstellar dust, made of presolar grains (dust grains that predate our sun), was belched into the universe by dying stars during the final stages of their lives. Some of that dust eventually hitched a ride to Earth on an asteroid that produced the Murchison meteorite, a massive, 220-lb. (100 kilograms) rock that fell on Sept. 28, 1969, near Murchison, Victoria, in Australia.
Though the universe abounds with floating stardust, no presolar grains have ever been found in Earth's rocks. That's because plate tectonics, volcanism and other planetary processes heated and transformed all the presolar dust that may have collected during Earth's formation, said lead study author Philipp Heck, the Robert A. Pritzker Associate Curator of Meteoritics and Polar Studies at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
Grinding and analyzing bits of space rock also presented the researchers with an unusual by-product - a strong and very pungent smell. The paste of ground-up meteorite released a stench "like rotten peanut butter," study co-author Jennika Greer, a graduate student at the Field Museum and the University of Chicago, said in a statement.
And Murchison was an especially smelly meteorite, Heck said. When he visited the town of Murchison in 2019 for the 50th anniversary of the meteorite's landing, he spoke with people who had witnessed the event or collected fragments of the space rock. Many of them had tales to tell about the meteorite's distinctive aroma.
Stardust
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