Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Roger Ebert's Journal: Goodbye to All That
I sent an e-mail the other day that was one of the hardest things I've ever had to write. It was to Jim Palmer and Maura Clare at the Conference on World Affairs in Boulder. I told them I wouldn't be coming back this spring. I sent it, and stared into space, and was flooded with sadness.
Paul Krugman: Eat the Future (New York Times)
The Republicans face a budget conundrum, and their answer is to sacrifice tomorrow.
Jim Hightower: "Global Bankers: Hear Them Roar"
At long last, the powerhouse bankers of the global financial system are over it.
Maureen Dowd: Simply the Worst (New York Times)
What Rummy didn't know could fill his book.
Tom Petruno: The unhappiest bull market ever (Los Angeles Times)
U.S. stocks keep advancing, yet it's hard for many investors to enjoy the ride.
Kathryn Hawkins: Five Top Universities That Offer Free Courses Online (gimundo.com)
Want to get a college education for free? You may not get a diploma, but the knowledge is all yours from these top universities.
Sandy Banks: After hitting rock bottom under a pile of clutter, a cry for help (Los Angeles Times)
She told me not to straighten up. She needed to see my home office "to see how your mind thinks," she said.
Carl Bialik: "Jerry Sloan's Jazz: Consistently Excellent" (Wall Street Journal)
Utah never won a title under Sloan, but its consistency and success made it one of the best teams in the league during his tenure.
God at the Grammys: The Chosen Ones (Wall Street Journal)
Neil Strauss on why so many musical superstars think that their careers are part of a divine plan.
Bill Wyman: Why I Hate the Grammies (Slate)
The secret committee that alters the membership's nominations, for starters. But there are plenty of other reasons.
Arcade Fire: 'It's a lot easier to get smaller' (Guardian)
With a No 1 album on both sides of the Atlantic, Arcade Fire are on the verge of U2-scale stardom. But, ever the provocateurs, they tell Dorian Lynskey they are fairly nonplussed by the prospect.
David Bruce has 40 Kindle books on Amazon.com with 250 anecdotes in each book. Each book is $1, so for $40 you can buy 10,000 anecdotes. Search for "Funniest People," "Coolest People, "Most Interesting People," "Kindest People," "Religious Anecdotes," and "Maximum Cool."
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From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestions
Michelle in AZ
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Still sunny, but much cooler.
New Album, With A Price
Radiohead
Radiohead is releasing its eighth studio album, this time with a price.
The band announced Monday that its latest release, "The King of Limbs," will be available as early as Saturday. Unlike its last pay-what-you-want album, "In Rainbows," this one will have a price.
Fans can pre-order an MP3 download for $9 or a higher-quality WAV version for $14. For approximately $50, there's also an extensive "Newspaper Album" that includes two vinyl records and deluxe packaging.
The band didn't explain its pricing philosophy this time around. Its "In Rainbows" release in 2007 was seen as radical at the time, and was generally viewed as both lucrative and popular.
Radiohead
Long Boodbye Rectified
Raymond Chandler
The remains of author Raymond Chandler and his wife are together at last after a Valentine's Day reburial at the writer's grave in San Diego.
The manager of Mount Hope Cemetery said more than 100 people attended Monday's ceremony. A new plaque at the gravesite commemorates their reunification.
For 50 years, the dead couple has been a block apart, Chandler in the cemetery and his beloved wife Cissy on a mausoleum warehouse shelf. That's because Chandler died with his affairs in disarray, leaving no instruction for what to do with his wife's ashes.
Last fall, literary fans who found references to Chandler wishing to be buried alongside his wife were able to persuade a Los Angeles judge to bring the two together by approving reburial.
Raymond Chandler
TV Show Gets Digital Release
Nat `King' Cole
Television's groundbreaking "The Nat 'King' Cole Show" is getting a digital release more than 50 years after it aired.
Cole's widow, Maria, saved kinescopes - copies made by filming a TV monitor - of the 1956-57 show that have been remastered for release on iTunes beginning Tuesday.
Cole was the first African-American to star in a network variety program and he attracted a constellation of major black singers and musicians as guests, including Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Sammy Davis Jr. and Cab Calloway.
Mel Torme, Peggy Lee and Tony Bennett were among the white performers who appeared.
At least 25 episodes will be released, four a month, with a suggested retail price of $1.99 an episode for download and 99 cents an episode for video on demand or rental. Some videos will be available for sale.
Nat `King' Cole
Juliet Club
An aspiring poet in search of true love. A student who has found it. And a young woman on the cusp of a major life change.
All three confided their true hearts to Juliet, writing to Shakespeare's fictional heroine seeking consolation, encouragement and friendship. The three women were honored Sunday, the eve of Valentine's Day, with awards for the best letters of the last 12 months - and a banner year for the lovelorn it was.
For decades, real-life volunteers have been responding to spontaneous treaties from the lovelorn. But after the release of last year's film "Letters to Juliet," a fictional story of a young love lost, letters to Juliet have skyrocketed to 100 a day, nearing 40,000 a year, stretching the resources of the Juliet Club that responds to each and every missive, when possible in the language received.
Winners received a sculpture of an old-fashioned ink well, with a colored quill stuck inside, and the weekend trip to Verona to receive the prize.
Juliet Club
Oprah's Absolutio
Michael Vick
The NFL star whose name became synonymous with dogfighting is scheduled to be a guest on the "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
The daytime talk show host's interview with Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick is set to air Thursday, Feb. 24.
Officials with Chicago-based Harpo Productions say the interview will cover Vick's time in prison, his work with the Humane Society and his return to the NFL.
Michael Vick
Not Guilty Plea
'Jersey Shore'
"Jersey Shore" cast member Ronnie Ortiz-Magro has pleaded not guilty to an aggravated assault charge in New Jersey.
The charge stems from a Sept. 4, 2009, fight outside a Seaside Heights nightclub in which Ortiz-Magro knocked another man unconscious.
The fight was shown during an episode of the first season of the popular MTV reality show.
Ortiz-Magro was arraigned on the charge Monday in state Superior Court in Toms River. The charge carries a potential prison term of up to five years.
The other man in the fight, 26-year-old Stephen Izzo of Berkeley Township, also has filed a lawsuit against Ortiz-Magro, MTV and the show's producers.
'Jersey Shore'
Settles Case
Sharon Obsbourne
Sharon Osbourne and a former contestant on her VH1 show "Rock of Love Charm School" have settled a battery and negligence lawsuit on the eve of trial.
Attorneys for Osbourne and Megan Hauserman confirmed they settled the case, which was about to begin with opening statements on Monday.
Hauserman sued Osbourne in March 2009, claiming she was struck and had her hair pulled by the wife of musician Ozzy Osbourne during an episode of the show. VH1 promoted the fracas as "Sharon and Megan's big fight."
In the video, the women exchange insults, Osbourne pours a drink on Hauserman and then the two are surrounded by a rush of people.
Sharon Obsbourne
Woman Trespasser
Ellen DeGeneres
Prosecutors have charged a woman arrested outside Ellen DeGeneres' home last week with misdemeanor trespassing.
District Attorney's spokeswoman Jane Robison says Karen Grace Sjoden is scheduled to be arraigned in a Beverly Hills courtroom Monday afternoon.
Beverly Hills police have not released any information about Sjoden's arrest.
Ellen DeGeneres
Make Partial Comeback
Monarch Butterflies
The number of monarch butterflies migrating from Canada and the U.S. to Mexico has increased this year, a hopeful sign following a worrying 75 percent drop in their numbers last year, experts reported Monday.
The total amount of forest covered by the colonies - millions of orange-and-black butterflies that hang in clumps from the boughs of fir trees - more than doubled from last year's historic low.
But concerns persist about the monarchs' long-term survival, because their numbers remain well below average.
This winter, there are 9.9 acres (4 hectares) of colonies, more than double the 4.7 acres (1.9 hectares) last year, the lowest level since comparable record-keeping began in 1993.
Monarch Butterflies
In Memory
George Shearing
Sir George Shearing, the ebullient jazz pianist who wrote the standard "Lullaby of Birdland" and had a string of hits both with and without his quintet, has died. He was 91.
Shearing, blind since birth, died early Monday morning in Manhattan of congestive heart failure, his longtime manager Dale Sheets said.
Shearing had been a superstar of the jazz world since a couple of years after he arrived in the United States in 1947 from his native England, where he was already hugely popular. The George Shearing Quintet's first big hit came in 1949 with a version of songwriter Harry Warren's "September in the Rain."
He remained active well into his 80s, releasing a CD called "Lullabies of Birdland" as well as a memoir, "Lullaby of Birdland," in early 2004. In March of that year, though, he was hospitalized after suffering a fall at his home. It took him months to recover, and he largely retired from public appearances after that.
Shearing's bebop-influenced sound became identified with a quintet - piano, vibes, guitar, bass and drums - which he put together in 1949. More recently, he played mostly solo or with only a bassist. He excelled in the "locked hands" technique, in which the pianist plays parallel melodies with the two hands, creating a distinctly full sound.
Shearing wrote "Lullaby of Birdland" in 1952; it's named for the famous New York jazz club. He acknowledged composing it in just 10 minutes. "But I always tell people, it took me 10 minutes and 35 years in the business," he told The Christian Science Monitor in 1980. "Just in case anybody thinks there are any totally free rides left, there are none!"
At an 80th birthday celebration at Carnegie Hall in 1999, Shearing introduced "Lullaby" by joking: "I have been credited with writing 300 songs. Two hundred ninety-nine enjoyed a bumpy ride from relative obscurity to total oblivion. Here is the other one."
Shearing was born Aug. 13, 1919, to a working-class family and grew up in the Battersea district of London.
A prodigy despite his inability to see printed music, he studied classical music for several years before deciding to "test the water on my own" instead of pursuing additional studies at a university. Shearing began his career at a London pub when he was 16.
During World War II, the young pianist teamed with Grappelli, the French jazz violinist, who spent the war years in London. Grappelli recalled to writer Leonard Feather in 1976 that he and Shearing would "play during air raids. Was not very amusing."
Shearing had a daughter, Wendy, with his first wife, the former Trixie Bayes, whom he married in 1941. The marriage ended in divorce in 1973 and two years later he married singer Ellie Geffert.
Shearing is survived by his wife, Geffert.
George Shearing
In Memory
David F. Friedman
David F. Friedman, the B-movie producer of the 1960s and '70s who turned out the cult classic "Blood Feast," died Monday at age 87, his niece said.
Bridgett Everett said her uncle died of heart failure at a nursing home in Anniston, Ala.
Friedman worked with director Herschell Gordon Lewis to create 1963's "Blood Feast," a roughly acted film that depicted the dismemberment of attractive women. The film is considered one of the first of the so-called "gore" movies, said Mike Vraney, owner of Something Weird Video in Seattle.
"Blood Feast" cost a paltry $24,500 to make - and netted a $6.5 million profit, Everett said.
Friedman was born in Birmingham, Ala., and spent much of his youth in Birmingham and Anniston. After working with carnivals, he became a press agent at Paramount before leaving in 1958 to try his hand at independent movies.
Some of his adult-oriented B-movies, such as "Goldilocks and the Three Bares" were shot in nudist colonies. Others combined sexual themes with horror and crime, including "The Adult Version of Jekyll and Hide" and "The Defilers." His other drive-in fare included "Two Thousand Maniacs!" and "Color Me Blood Red."
Vraney said Friedman always sold more sizzle than he actually showed in his movies, and each movie included a provocative trailer for his next film. But he thought his days as a moviemaker were over when hard-core pornography began to catch on in the mid-1970s.
"He said when it got to the point you showed it all, there was no more sizzle," Vraney said.
In 1991, Vraney tracked him down and began reissuing his films. His films found new markets and he was invited to speak at film festivals, where he delighted audiences with his promoter-style personality.
"He was bigger than life," Vraney said. "He could drink like a fish and he smoked giant cigars."
David F. Friedman
In Memory
Kenneth Mars
Kenneth Mars, a Mel Brooks collaborator who played a Hitler-worshipping playwright in "The Producers" and an earnest police inspector with a malfunctioning artificial arm in "Young Frankenstein," has died. He was 75.
In a statement Monday, Mars family said the actor died Saturday of pancreatic cancer at his home in Grenada Hills.
In Brooks' 1968 romp "The Producers," Mars co-starred as Franz Liebkind, a Nazi enthusiast whose play, "Springtime for Hitler," is the basis for a scheme by two conniving showmen (Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder) to bilk investors by putting on a surefire Broadway flop.
Brooks cast Mars again in 1974's "Young Frankenstein" as the constable poking around the castle grounds on the trail of mad scientist Wilder's monster.
Mars' nearly 50-year career included a long list of voice credits, including "The Little Mermaid," "The Jetsons" and the "The Land Before Time" movies and TV series.
Among Mars' other film credits were Woody Allen's "Radio Days" and "Shadows and Fog," and Peter Bogdanovich's "What's Up, Doc." His extensive television work featured regular roles on "Malcolm in the Middle," "Fernwood Tonight" and the 1960s series "He & She."
On stage, Mars appeared in such plays as "The Affair" and "Anything Goes."
Mars is survived by two daughters, Susannah Mars Johnson and Rebecca Mars Tipton, and six grandchildren.
Kenneth Mars
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