from Bruce
Anecdotes
Children
• Impressionist painter Edgar Degas loved children. A mother once criticized her daughter for making spelling mistakes, then she asked Mr. Degas, “It’s very bad to misspell, is it not, Monsieur Degas?” He agreed, but when the mother’s back was turned, he asked the child, “Which would you prefer — to spell correctly and not have ice cream or to make mistakes and have ice cream?” The child replied, “To make mistakes and have ice cream.” Mr. Degas agreed, “So would I.”
• When Julie Krone was two years old, a woman came to her family’s farm to look at a horse she was thinking about buying. To show that the horse was gentle, her mother lifted young Julie up and put her on the back of the horse, then she started talking to the woman. As she was talking, the horse trotted off. Her mother was understandably worried, but young Julie grabbed the reins and turned the horse around. As an adult, Ms. Krone became a famous jockey.
• When Jamie Tevis, wife of Walter Tevis (author of the novels The Hustler, The Color of Money, and The Man Who Fell to Earth) was about to give birth to their first child, Will, the pain of the contractions made her say, “I can’t go through with this.” Her husband replied, “It’s too late to think about that now.” When Will became a toddler, a favorite activity was hearing his mother sneeze. This made him laugh so hard that he would fall down.
• As a kid growing up in the 1950s, Newbery Award-winning author Jerry Spinelli sometimes attended movies in the park. According to tradition, teenagers sat on the benches while young kids such as Jerry sat on the ground. One evening, Jerry decided to sit on a bench. This went well until some teenagers decided that they wanted to sit on the bench. They lifted one end of the bench into the air — and Jerry slid off the other end.
• Children’s book author Joanna Cole uses in her books things that have happened in her family. For example, in one book, a child finds a “rock” that is actually a piece of Styrofoam covered with dirt. In real life, Joanna’s daughter, Rachel, was so excited to discover such a “rock” at the park that she had told Joanna, “Mommy, Mommy, look at this terrific rock.” Joanna couldn’t bring herself to tell Rachel that it wasn’t a rock.
• Susan Butcher grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but she disliked the noise, confusion, and lack of open space. When she was in the first grade, she even wrote a paper with the title “I Hate Cities.” (The title was also the entire paper.) She also asked her parents to allow her to live in a tent in their yard. As an adult, she moved to Alaska, where she won the 1,049-mile Iditarod dog sled race multiple times.
• During Canadian winters, Canadian schoolchildren wear snowsuits. A kindergarten teacher once dressed one of her students in a snowsuit that was loaded with buttons and zippers, so he could go outside for recess. After she dressed him, he told her, “This isn’t my snowsuit,” so she undressed him again. After she had undressed the boy, he told her, “This snowsuit’s my sister’s, but my mom said I could wear it today.”
• Even in her youth, opera singer Geraldine Farrar exhibited assertiveness. Clarence, a 12- or 13-year-old boy who was older than she, tripped her with his hockey stick. Although she told him to stop, he continued. After he had tripped her three times, she removed three metal ribs from her umbrella, then taught him a lesson that resulted in his being unable to sit down without pain for a few days.
• Children’s author Eve Bunting was born in an old Irish house that her father and grandfather had also been born in. Before it was a house, it had been a granary, and because the house was so old, it sometimes settled, sending a shower of seeds down from the ceiling onto the residents. Young Eve thought that ghosts were playing tricks on her family, so she would look upward and yell, “You up there! Stop that!”
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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: "Angry Surf"
Album: DESERT STORM
Artist: The Silicon
Location: Minsk, Belarus
Info: “Desert Storm is a very consistently good album of modern surf rock. High-caliber writing and arranging, excellent performances, and plenty of evolution with each song to keep you hooked. The Silicon are a very cool band from Belarus!”
— Review by Phil Dirt: reverbcentral.com/reviews/s/silicon8464.html
The above song is not on the album but can be purchased at Bandcamp.
Price: $1 (USD) for track; $7 (USD) for 13-track album
Genre: Surf Instrumental
Links:
DESERT STORM
The Silicon on Bandcamp
The Silicon on YouTube
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.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
New Venture
Michael Egan
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Extra toasty.
Auction
Memorabilia
Bruce Springsteen, Hugh Jackman, Elton John, Bette Midler, Christine Baranski, Steve Martin and Tina Fey have all raided their closets to offer up personal items for a charity online auction, with one prize being a key prop from the worldwide smash musical “The Phantom of the Opera.”
Doyle Auctioneers & Appraisers has unveiled the slate of stage and screen items for its live auction event on April 28, which includes a Wolverine jacket from Jackman’s closet, glasses from John, and boots, jeans and a T-shirt from Springsteen. A portion of proceeds from every item sold will benefit The Actors Fund.
The highlight package includes a “Phantom” prop: A music box in the shape of a barrel organ with the figure of a monkey playing the cymbals attached. It is used in the prolog to set up the musical. The rare prop is from the West End production and the package also includes admission for two whenever “Phantom” reopens on Broadway.
Other items up for bids include Bob Mackie dresses from Burnett, a Dolce & Gabbana dress worn by Glenn Close at the opening night of “Sunset Boulevard” in 2017, a black sequin gown worn by Midler, a banjo signed by Martin and three gowns that Baranski wore for appearances at the Golden Globes, Emmys and Kennedy Center Honors.
More treasures include Celeste Holm’s Golden Globe awarded in 1947 for “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” signed books from Julie Andrews, the dress worn by Fey to the 2013 Emmy Awards where she won for writing “30 Rock” and the leather suit Alan Cumming wore to the Tony Awards when he won the best actor in a musical trophy in 1998 for “Cabaret.”
Memorabilia
Hurt Morrissey’s Feelings
‘The Simpsons’
The Simpsons recently struck a chord with former Smiths frontman Morrissey, whose manager Peter Katsis chewed out the long-running Fox animated series for “trying to capitalize on cheap controversy and expounding on vicious rumors.”
Late Sunday evening, Katsis shared a lengthy post on the singer’s official Facebook page responding to the show’s “Panic on the Streets of Springfield” episode, which aired on Sunday. It saw Lisa Simpson create an imaginary friend named Quilloughby, who leads the band The Snuffs. Voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, Quilloughby is a “depressed British singer from the 1980s” who may resemble the former frontman of The Smiths. While The Simpsons character may even look like the British rocker, the episode even features Morrissey-esque songs written by Flight of the Conchords‘ Bret McKenzie and Tim Long.
“Panic on the Streets of Springfield” kicks off with Lisa going out on the town with her new imaginary friend and closes with Lisa seeing the real Quilloughby onstage. Far from what she envisioned, Quilloughby has gained weight, become greedy and has developed a penchant for racist and problematic comments.
“Poking fun at subjects is one thing. Other shows like SNL still do a great job at finding ways to inspire great satire,” the post read. “But when a show stoops so low to use harshly hateful tactics like showing the Morrissey character with his belly hanging out of his shirt (when he has never looked like that at any point in his career) makes you wonder who the real hurtful, racist group is here. Even worse — calling the Morrissey character out for being a racist, without pointing out any specific instances, offers nothing. It only serves to insult the artist.”
‘The Simpsons’
Batman, Again
Michael Keaton
Michael Keaton’s talent agency, ICM Partners, has confirmed the actor will return as Batman in “The Flash.”
The superhero film officially kicked off production in London on Monday, as revealed in an Instagram post from director Andrés Muschietti.
Keaton first played Batman in Tim Burton’s 1989 blockbuster of the same name, which was a critical and financial success that changed how superhero films were viewed and paved the way for the genre’s future box office domination. Keaton’s casting was initially controversial among fans, as he was primarily known for broad comedies. But his performance — particularly how he used his comedic background in his portrayal of Bruce Wayne to differentiate it from Batman — was widely praised and is now recognized as a seminal moment in comic book films.
Keaton last played Batman in 1992’s “Batman Returns,” but quit the role during development of a third film after Burton was pushed out as director and replaced with Joel Schumacher, who took the series in a campier direction with 1995’s “Batman Forever” and its reviled 1997 follow-up, “Batman & Robin.”
“The Flash” will disregard the latter two entries entirely and explore what Keaton’s version of Batman has been up to since we last saw him. Loosely based on the 2011 DC Comics crossover event “Flashpoint” — previously announced as the film’s title at Comic-Con 2017 — the story sees Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen travel back in time to prevent the death of his mother. The result? Allen inadvertently creates another universe protected by Keaton’s Batman, now 30 years older.
Michael Keaton
Liars Fire
OAN
One America News Network fired a producer who recently went on the record to criticize the cable channel's handling of the 2020 election, according to Rachel C. Abrams, a New York Times reporter who published a story about the network over the weekend.
Marty Golingan, who had been a producer with OAN since 2016, told Abrams that it would be a "badge of honor" should he end up getting fired for speaking out in the story.
This comes on the heels of around a dozen OAN staffers leaving the network in recent months after its handling of the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill.
Along with the likes of Newsmax and Fox News, OAN came under legal pressure from the Dominion Voting Systems Corporation for implicating their voting machines in a conspiracy theory falsely claiming the election was stolen from Trump. OAN even went so far as to air a lengthy and awkward disclaimer that disavowed its own election coverage.
"I was like, OK, that's not good," Golingan said, recalling how he spotted OAN flags among the insurrectionists. "That's what happens when people listen to us."
OAN
80% Of The World
'Do Not Travel'
The U.S. State Department said on Monday it will boost its "Do Not Travel" guidance to about 80% of countries worldwide, citing "unprecedented risk to travelers" from the COVID-19 pandemic.
"This update will result in a significant increase in the number of countries at Level 4: Do Not Travel, to approximately 80% of countries worldwide," the department said in a statement.
The State Department already listed 34 out of about 200 countries as "Level 4: Do Not Travel," including places like Chad, Kosovo, Kenya, Brazil, Argentina, Haiti, Mozambique, Russia and Tanzania. Getting to 80% would imply adding nearly 130 countries.
Most Americans were already prevented from traveling to much of Europe because of COVID-19 restrictions. Washington has barred nearly all non-U.S. citizens who have recently been in most of Europe, China, Brazil, Iran and South Africa.
The State Department said the move does not imply a reassessment of current health situations in some countries, but rather "reflects an adjustment in the State Department's Travel Advisory system to rely more on (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's) existing epidemiological assessments."
'Do Not Travel'
“Slave and Lion”
Xu Beihong
A Chinese painting from 1924 is expected to fetch at least $45 million in an auction in Hong Kong, as collectors’ appetite for art continues to rise even amid economic uncertainty brought about by the coronavirus pandemic.
The painting by influential Chinese modern artist Xu Beihong depicts a slave hiding in a cave and a lion. It is based thematically from ancient Roman mythology and Aesop’s Fables, according to Christie’s auction house, which unveiled the painting Monday.
Xu frequently uses the lion in his work to exemplify his faith in the rise of the Chinese nation. The lion in the painting is wounded, but remains dignified, righteous and proud – a symbol of the Chinese spirit, the auction house said.
The “Slave and Lion” painting is considered a groundbreaking work that inspired Xu’s later paintings and one of the most important oil paintings in Chinese art history.
The painting is estimated to fetch between $45 million to $58 million in a single-lot auction on May 24.
Xu Beihong
Scientists Probe
'Thunderstorm Asthma'
Calls to emergency departments spiked in the wake of a thunderstorm that swept over Melbourne, Australia, in 2016. It was a rare outbreak of "thunderstorm asthma," the most severe ever recorded.
Now, a new model, published April 14 in the journal PLOS One, hints that a combination of lightning strikes, wind gusts, low humidity and popping pollen grains may be to blame for the surge of asthma attacks following the storm, which contributed to the deaths of 10 people.
As the name suggests, thunderstorm asthma outbreaks occur when a passing storm disperses allergen particles in the air, triggering asthma attacks in susceptible people, according to the American Lung Association. Those most at risk include: people with diagnosed asthma, particularly if their condition is poorly controlled; people with undiagnosed asthma; and those with seasonal hay fever or a rye grass allergy, according to a 2017 report from the Victoria State Government's Chief Health Officer.
Although thunderstorms rumble through the sky fairly frequently, thunderstorm asthma events are quite rare. Since the first recorded thunderstorm asthma event in 1983, 22 accounts of the phenomenon have appeared in the medical literature, first author Kathryn Emmerson, a senior research scientist at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), told Live Science in an email.
Of these 22 outbreaks, 10 occurred in Australia, so it seems the country is a "hotspot" for such events, she added.
The most severe outbreak to date occurred in the Melbourne area on Nov. 21, 2016, at roughly 5:30 p.m. local time. Leading up to the storm, the weather had been hot, above 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) and very dry, Emmerson said. The air held more than 133.4 pollen grains per cubic yard (102 grains per cubic meter), indicating that grass pollen season had reached its peak in Australia.
'Thunderstorm Asthma'
Scuttling Around
Tarantulas
Among the tarantulas sit some of Earth’s largest and fuzziest species of spider. That they can be found on six of the planet’s seven continents has proven puzzling for scientists, as these lumbering giants aren’t known for having nomadic lifestyles. In fact, they’re one of the most sedentary groups of spiders with only the males having to go out on the prowl for a mate while females kick back in their burrows. So, how did they take over the world?
New research published in the journal PeerJ believes to have found the answer, which centers around how long ago these eight-legged beasts first emerged. Carried out by an international team of researchers, the study looked at the transcriptomes (the mRNA expressed by an organism) from a wide range of tarantula species that hailed from different periods in Earth’s history. From this, they were able to create a genetic tree of tarantula species that could be cross-referenced with specimens from the fossil record.
It turns out these fuzzy critters are ancient and were actually scuttling around what’s now known as the Americas around 120 million years ago. This puts them on Earth while the dinosaurs were still roaming, forging what would be the most metal duo of the natural world if they hung out as some frogs and spiders do. They would have been residents of Gondwana, a supercontinent that joined South America, Africa, India, and Australia. It figures, then, that they were able to stretch to these (now far-reaching) corners of the globe thanks to continental drift, but it seems their reach goes beyond just dumb luck.
The researchers found something interesting as they looked at two tarantula lineages' colonization of Asia, which indicates tarantulas are better dispersers than we give them credit for. Both emerged on the Indian subcontinent before it joined Asia, one navigating the treetops while the other ran about on land. The first of the two to reach Asia (the second made ground around 20 million years later) did something particularly surprising, skipping its way down to and over the Wallace Line, the "boundary" line that seems to separates the biogeographical realms of Asia and Australia. Normally species are expected to thrive on one side or the other, but it seems this lineage of tarantulas successfully made camp on either side.
Tarantulas
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