from Bruce
Anecdotes
Weddings
• Rabbi Aryeh Levine understood the feelings of other people. He once attended a wedding at which a hard-working but impoverished Jew of good character was asked to be a witness. The hard-working Jew gratefully agreed to be a witness, then a wealthy but proud Jew was asked to be a witness. The proud Jew was insulted at being asked to be a witness alongside another Jew of lesser wealth and status, so he declined the honor. This embarrassed the hard-working Jew. Rabbi Aryeh noticed that the hard-working Jew was embarrassed, so he immediately volunteered to be the other witness. Having such a renowned scholar as the second witness made both the hard-working Jew and the marrying couple very happy.
• At a Jewish wedding, the groom smashes a glass with his foot. Why? It’s a reminder that when the married couple argues — as all married couples do — they don’t need to break each other’s heart. Instead, they can break a glass. This is something that Rabbi Joseph H. Gelberman teaches each couple at weddings he performs. He once met a couple 10 years after he had married them, and he asked them how everything was. The husband replied, “Beautiful. We have three children, and everything is wonderful.” Then he smiled and added, “But we have no glasses left.”
• Before modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan went to Russia, she visited a fortune teller, who told her that she would get married — something that Ms. Duncan, who was philosophically opposed to marriage, scoffed at. However, she met a handsome Russian poet and soon was shocking her elderly language tutor by saying to her, “You’d better teach me what I ought to say to a beautiful man when I want to kiss him.” And yes, she and the handsome poet were married.
• Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer once officiated at a wedding of elderly people. The 76-year-old groom, whose best man was his grandson, was hard of hearing, and in the middle of the ceremony he thought the blessing was over so he gave his 69-year-old bride a passionate kiss. The grandson whispered to Rabbi Kertzer that to people as old as the groom and bride, time was precious.
• At weddings of the hasidim, friends of the bridegroom used to steal the bridegroom’s tallit (prayer shawl). To get it back, the bridegroom would have to pay a ransom of drinks for everybody. On one occasion, however, the bridegroom’s tallit was given to a poor woman, and to get it back, the bridegroom, who could afford it, gave the poor woman a large sum of money.
• Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer takes seriously his pre-marriage counseling of hopefully soon-to-be-wedded couples. One would-be groom, a medical student, thought little of his fiance’s plain looks, but spoke enthusiastically of how her family’s money would help him establish a medical practice. Rabbi Kertzer would not marry him, suggesting instead that he find another rabbi to do the honors.
• In 1925, Chicago Bears football player Duke Hanny wanted to skip a game so he could get married; unfortunately, his coach, George Halas, declined to let him skip the game. Big problem. Mr. Hanny showed up for the kickoff, started a fight with an opposing player just after the kickoff, was thrown out of the game, and went to his wedding. Problem solved.
• Jascha Heifetz was a very popular violinist. When Josef Gingold (another excellent violinist) got married, the wedding guests disappeared quickly after the wedding ceremony. Why? That night, Heifetz was playing on the radio!
Work
• When Lindy Hop dancer Norma Miller was an infant, her recently widowed mother worried because she had two children to take care of. Her mother did not think that she could support herself and two children, so she went to an orphanage to have the people there take care of her children until she could take care of them. However, while she was at the orphanage, a little girl came up to her, tugged at her skirt, and asked, “Are you my mama?” Immediately, Norma’s mother decided not to leave her children at the orphanage. Instead, she worked very hard for many hours at menial jobs to support herself and her children. As Norma grew up, her mother told her that she was working so hard at menial jobs because she wanted Norma to have long fingernails. That is why Ms. Miller always had — and has — long fingernails.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
U.S.A. said:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Verdade Absoluta (“Absolute Truth”) "
Album: MÚSICA CROCANTE (CRUNCHY MUSIC)
Artist: Autoramas
Artist Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Info: “Formed in Rio de Janeiro in 1998, Autoramas mixes rock from the 60s, New Wave, and Jovem Guarda [Young Guard]. One of the most successful bands in the independent scene, it has abundant material and numerous international tours.”
“The band, formed by Gabriel Thomaz (guitar and vocals), Flávia Couri (bass and vocals) and Bacalhau (drums), was described by the website of the renowned British label ROUGH TRADE as ‘Excellent Garage Pop, the most important independent band in Brazil,’ and is still famous for its explosive shows.”
Currently Autoramas is composed of Gabriel Thomaz, Érika Martins, Jairo Fajer and Fábio Lima.
MÚSICA CROCANTE was made during the Flávia Couri (bass and vocals) and Bacalhau (drums) years.
Price: $1 (USA) for track; $7 for 13-track album
Genre: Rock. Pop. Surf.
Links:
MÚSICA CROCANTE
Autoramas on Bandcamp
Autoramas’ Official YouTube Channel
Other Links:
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
David Bruce's Blog #2
David Bruce's Blog #3
David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
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Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
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In The Chaos Household
Last Night
May Gray a bit early.
Starry Presenting Cast
Oscars
The Oscars are aiming to be more like a movie than a television show and enlisting A-list stars like Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Halle Berry and Reese Witherspoon to help hand out statuettes.
They’ll be joined by the likes of Don Cheadle, Renee Zellweger, Regina King, Joaquin Phoenix, Rita Moreno, Laura Dern, Zendaya, Angela Bassett, Bryan Cranston, Marlee Matlin and last year’s best director winner Bong Joon Ho, the show’s producers said Monday.
After delaying two months due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Oscars are forging ahead with an in-person show at Los Angeles’ Union Station. It’ll be a scaled back affair, with only presenters, nominees and their guest in attendance, but the producers are working to make it a must-see event amid critically low ratings for other awards shows during the pandemic. More talent will be announced in the coming weeks.
The 93rd Oscars will be broadcast live on ABC on April 25 at 8 p.m. Eastern.
Oscars
Film Departs Georgia
Will Smith
Will Smith and director Antoine Fuqua have pulled production of their runaway slave drama “Emancipation” from Georgia over the state’s recently enacted law restricting voting access.
The film is the largest and most high profile Hollywood production to depart the state since Georgia’s Republican-controlled state Legislature passed a law that introduced stiffer voter identification requirements for absentee balloting, limited drop boxes and gave the State Election Board new powers to intervene in county election offices and to remove and replace local election officials. Opponents have said the law is designed to reduce the impact of minority voters.
In a joint statement, Smith and Fuqua — who are both producers on the project — said they felt compelled to move the production out of Georgia.
“We cannot in good conscience provide economic support to a government that enacts regressive voting laws that are designed to restrict voter access,” Smith and Fuqua said. “The new Georgia voting laws are reminiscent of voting impediments that were passed at the end of Reconstruction to prevent many Americans from voting.”
“Emancipation” had been scheduled to begin shooting in June. Apple Studios acquired the film last year in a deal reportedly worth $130 million. Based on a true story, the film stars Smith as a slave who flees a Louisiana plantation and joins the Union Army.
Will Smith
Reveals Reason
Sally Struthers
For years, Sally Struthers's commercials for Save the Children, with their heartbreaking images of children in need, were all over TV.
Struthers revealed Monday on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast that she stopped working as an ambassador for the organization and another, similar one after 35 years because of a terrifying experience. It happened once when she had flown into Uganda on a small plane to meet one of the kids she was sponsoring.
"They brought [the child] from his village, which was quite a few hours away. He had traveled to come meet his sponsor, to meet me, and I made some commercials with him, and I played with him and I brought him toys and balloons," Struthers said. "Well, a roving band of guerrilla warfare guys came out of the bushes and asked [him] where he was from, and he named his village, which was far away, and they decided that we had kidnapped him, and they were going to shoot all of us."
The priest, who happened to speak the same language as the men, instructed Struthers to back away, without turning her back to them, and they all survived. But it was a turning point for the All in the Family actress.
"I thought, 'I've been on so many little airplanes that could have crashed and in so many horrible situations.' I came back from one of my trips overseas with hepatitis." Struthers said. "I thought, 'What am I doing? I've got a child, a real-life child of my own, and I'm gonna make her an orphan. I can't do this anymore.'"
Sally Struthers
To Close
ArcLight Cinemas
In a blow for California moviegoers — and those in Los Angeles in particular — the ArcLight Cinemas and Pacific Theatres are closing all of their locations for good after seeing their business decimated by the pandemic.
ArcLight's stable includes the prized Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. The Cinerama Dome, built in 1963, is the crown jewel of the small theater complex built by ArcLight in more recent years. ArcLight Hollywood is a bastion for both first-run movies and independent titles.
ArcLight's locations in Hollywood and elsewhere, including Sherman Oaks, are operated by Pacific Theatres, which operates such popular locations as the Grove in West Hollywood.
No ArcLight or Pacific location has reopened since the pandemic began. On Monday afternoon, word quickly spread across Hollywood that they will remain dark for good.
Last year, Netflix closed a deal to operate the Egyptian, another landmark Hollywood cinema.
ArcLight Cinemas
Replaces 'Climate Change' With 'Climate Emergency'
Scientific American
Scientific American magazine announced Monday that it would stop using the term "climate change" in articles about man-made global warming and substitute "climate emergency" instead.
"Journalism should reflect what science says: the climate emergency is here," Scientific American senior editor Mark Fischetti said in a Monday post about the magazine's decision.
To make his point, Fischetti pointed to the mounting number of weather-related disasters that most scientists agree stem from climate change.
"A hurricane blasts Florida. A California dam bursts because floods have piled water high up behind it. A sudden, record-setting cold snap cuts power to the entire state of Texas," Fischetti wrote. "These are also emergencies that require immediate action. Multiply these situations worldwide, and you have the biggest environmental emergency to beset the earth in millennia: climate change."
The oldest continuously published magazine in the U.S., Scientific American is not alone it its decision to highlight what it sees as an emergency requiring immediate action. It joined the Columbia Journalism Review, the Nation, the Guardian, Noticias Telemundo, Al Jazeera, Japan's Asahi Shimbun and Italy's La Repubblica in releasing a statement about the change in language.
Scientific American
May Be A Leonardo After All
"Salvator Mundi"
The world's most expensive painting, the "Salvator Mundi", may be the work of Leonardo da Vinci after all, with several media reports contradicting doubts raised in a French documentary.
The painting of Christ has not been seen in public since it was bought for $450 million by the Saudi royal family at a 2017 Christie's auction.
"The Savior for Sale", a documentary by filmmaker Antoine Vitkine due to run on French TV this week, claims the Saudis withheld the painting from a 2019 exhibition at The Louvre after its experts concluded it was produced by da Vinci's workshop and that the master only "contributed" to it.
But after widespread reporting of Vitkine's claims, other media have denied his version of events.
"The Louvre and the C2RMF (its analysis unit) reached the opposite conclusion to the documentary: for them, the painting is indeed the work of Leonardo and only him. This information was communicated to the Saudis in September 2019," said Didier Rykner, editor of magazine La Tribune de l'Art.
"Salvator Mundi"
South Pacific Cargo Cult
Prince Philip
An island tribe in the South Pacific which has worshiped Prince Philip as a god for decades is thinking of establishing a political movement in the wake of his death.
While the Duke of Edinburgh had a reputation for making politically incorrect remarks about other cultures, from Australian Aborigines to the Chinese, on the volcanic island of Tanna in Vanuatu he is held in high esteem.
A cluster of villages that worshiped him as a living deity held grief-stricken meetings on Saturday to decide how to commemorate his death.
The islanders who worshiped Prince Philip live in a remote part of the forest on Tanna but were informed of his death by an anthropologist who lives on the island. Jean-Pascal Wahé drove up to the villages of Yakel and Yaohnanen in a four-wheel-drive from his base on the west coast of Tanna.
He said the villagers would be “very upset” to be told of the death of the Duke, who they refer to in pidgin English as “number one big fella him bilong Misis Kwin (Queen).”
Prince Philip
How Long A High Really Lasts
Cannabis
If you ask 50 different people how long the effects of cannabis last, you're likely to get 50 different answers. This can be a problem for figuring out how long a patient using the drug for medical purposes is going to remain impaired.
A new meta-analysis of 80 papers has narrowed down this timeframe. Depending on factors such as how the cannabis is consumed and how strong it is, the user can remain impaired for between three and 10 hours.
This information can help inform advisory information given to patients, help recreational users make better decisions about performing tasks such as driving after consuming cannabis, and help update the laws to better reflect the reality of cannabis impairment.
"THC can be detected in the body weeks after cannabis consumption while it is clear that impairment lasts for a much shorter period of time," explained psychopharmacologist Iain McGregor from the University of Sydney (USYD) in Australia.
"Our legal frameworks probably need to catch up with that and, as with alcohol, focus on the interval when users are more of a risk to themselves and others. Prosecution solely on the basis of the presence of THC in blood or saliva is manifestly unjust."
Cannabis
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