from Bruce
Anecdotes
Music
• Oscar Levant went to analysis for years, but he remained an unhappy man. When a friend asked what good psychoanalysis had done for him, Mr. Levant replied, “I’m still unhappy, but at least I have some place to go everyday.” Of course, Mr. Levant was known for his morose, grumpy personality. Once, a friend said to him, “Oscar, you sound happy.” Mr. Levant replied, “I’m not myself today.” By the way, early in his career, Mr. Levant played piano at a little girls’ ballet school. He later told his friends, “My work was child’s play.”
• Tenor Enrico Caruso once seriously studied the flute. A man tried to sell him a new recording machine, and to test the machine, Mr. Caruso played the flute, then listened to the recording. He then asked the salesperson, “Is that how I sound?” The salesperson replied, “Yes, can I sell you the recording machine?” Mr. Caruso said, “No, but I’ll sell you the flute.”
• Wealthy people sometimes receive insincere praise. Nathan Rothschild, a tremendously wealthy man, once listened to a violinist, then congratulated him on his music. Mr. Rothschild then jingled a few coins in his pocket and said, “That’s my music. People listen to it just as carefully. But somehow they don’t respect it as much.”
• When Sophie Tucker needed an accompanist, she told Ted Shapiro to audition, and if he was good enough, she would give him a contract. Forty years later, Mr. Shapiro was still accompanying Ms. Tucker, and he still didn’t have a contract.
Names and Titles
• Stan Freberg’s ancestry is Swedish, but despite not being named Johnson, he comes by his name honestly. When his grandfather, Paul Johnson, came to America, the immigration official told him, “What? Not another Johnson? Do you know how many thousands of Swedes I’ve logged in here with the name of Johnson? Forget it! What don’t you change it to something else?” Mr. Johnson thought about what name he wanted the immigration official to put down in writing, and because his mother’s name had been Elna Friberg, he spelled her last name for the official, who pronounced it Fry-berg. Mr. Johnson explained that in Swedish the i was pronounced e, as in Free-burg. The official said, “OK, Freberg,” wrote down the name, and the newly named Paul Freberg began life in his new country.
• Balanchine ballerina Allegra Kent was named Iris Margo Cohen when she was born, but anti-Semitism led to the change of her last name. Her mother simply got tired of being turned away by anti-Semitic landlords, and so when Allegra was two years old (she was born in 1937), her mother substituted “Kent” for “Cohen.” Her name change from “Iris” to “Allegra” came about because of her sister, who changed her name frequently after becoming sixteen years old. At one point her sister became Wendy Drew — “Wendy” came from Peter Pan, and “Drew” came from the Nancy Drew mysteries. Before her sister became Wendy, she made a list of names to choose from. On that list was “Allegra,” among other names. Iris liked the name “Allegra” so much that she became Allegra Kent.
• Peter Benchley’s first novel was the mega-best seller Jaws, which he and his editors had a difficult time naming. They tried out many different titles, and they finally noticed that the only word they liked in any of the titles was “jaws.” With time running out, they decided to name the novel Jaws, a title that really didn’t satisfy anyone. According to Mr. Benchley, they felt that “the bottom line was, who cares? Nobody reads first novels anyway.” (Mr. Benchley’s father, Nathaniel, the son of humorist Robert Benchley, earlier had suggested the title Who’s That Noshin’ on My Laig?)
• The HMS Beagle is famous because Charles Darwin sailed on it and collected evidence that supported the theory of evolution. However, the Beagle was very small and very crowded — only 90 feet long and with 74 crewmembers. Mr. Darwin’s quarters were large in comparison with the quarters of most of the crew, but even he barely had room to turn around. Of course, Mr. Darwin’s voyage on the HMS Beagle to gather evidence that supported the theory of evolution is well known. Less well known is that British sailors referred to the Beagle and ships of its type as “coffins,” because of their unfortunate tendency, during bad weather, to sink.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Presenting
Michael Egan
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION
BANDCAMP MUSIC
BRUCE'S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP MUSIC
Music: "Vertigo"
Album: THE DEAD SHOW DEALERS
Artist: The Dead Show Dealers
Artist Location: Florida
Info:
“The Dead Show Dealers are an Aggressive/Americana band founded in Central Florida. A single styling or genre cannot define their sound. As you can hear in their music; they have a bit of punk, rockabilly, country, bluegrass, blues, and rock. When you mix all of those sounds together, you have The Dead Show Dealers.”
dlonz, a fan, wrote, Mu<“The Dead Show Dealers deliver big time on their new album. Great music from a great group of guys. Check em' out! Favorite track: ‘Sparks of Rage.’”
Price: $1 (USD) for track: $8 (UD) for 11-track album
Genre: Americana. Blues.
Links:
THE DEAD SHOW DEALERS
The Dead Show Dealers on Bandcamp
The Dead Show Dealers on YouTube
Other Links:
Bruce’s Music Recommendations: FREE pdfs
David Bruce's Amazon Author Page
David Bruce's Smashwords Page
David Bruce's Blog #1
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David Bruce's Apple iBookstore
David Bruce has over 140 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
Reader Suggestion
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Social Media Marketing
David
Thanks, Dave!
New Venture
Michael Egan
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Greed
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
Bit of wind damage in the backyard. Ack.
New Year’s Eve Special
NBC
Miley Cyrus and Saturday Night Live‘s Pete Davidson will help NBC ring in 2022 with Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party special hosted by Cyrus and Davidson, from SNL creator and exec producer Lorne Michaels.
The special will air live on NBC from Miami, FL on Friday, December 31 from 10:30pm-12:30amET, and will also be live-streamed on Peacock. Michaels will executive produce for NBC and Peacock. NBC promises “a star-studded lineup of special guests and musical performances for a must watch evening” TBA at a later date.
The announcement confirms a speculative report back in September about Cyrus hosting a Lorne Michaels-produced NBC New Year’s special.
Miley’s New Year’s Eve Party succeeds NBC’s New Year’s Eve special, hosted and produced by Carson Daly, which aired on the network from 2004 until last year (except for Dec. 31, 2017 when it was preempted for an NFL game.)
NBC
2021 Word Of The Year
Merriam-Webster
With an expanded definition to reflect the times, Merriam-Webster has declared an omnipresent truth as its 2021 word of the year: vaccine.
The selection follows “vax” as word of the year from the folks who publish the Oxford English Dictionary. And it comes after Merriam-Webster chose “pandemic” as tops in lookups last year on its online site.
At Merriam-Webster, lookups for “vaccine” increased 601% over 2020, when the first U.S. shot was administered in New York in December after quick development, and months of speculation and discussion over efficacy. The world’s first jab occurred earlier that month in the UK.
Compared to 2019, when there was little urgency or chatter about vaccines, Merriam-Webster logged an increase of 1,048% in lookups this year. Debates over inequitable distribution, vaccine mandates and boosters kept interest high, Sokolowski said. So did vaccine hesitancy and friction over vaccine passports.
While other dictionary companies choose words of the year by committee, Merriam-Webster bases its selection on lookup data, paying close attention to spikes and, more recently, year-over-year increases in searches after weeding out evergreens. The company has been declaring a word of the year since 2008. Among its runners-up in the word biography of 2021:
Merriam-Webster
CBS Studios’ Series
‘Last Tango in Paris’
CBS Studios is backing Tango, a limited event series about the tumultuous events surrounding the making of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1972 erotic drama, Last Tango in Paris.
Lisa Brühlmann (Killing Eve) and José Padilha (Narcos) will co-direct the series, with Greg Silverman and JP Sarni of Stampede Ventures executive producing. CBS Studios will co-produce under its international first-look agreement with Stampede, with senior vp international co-productions and development Meghan Lyvers overseeing the project for the studio.
Based on a script by Jeremy Miller and Daniel Cohn, Tango traces the 18 months before, during and after the production of Last Tango in Paris, exploring the story through the lens of the three participants at the center of events: actors Maria Schneider and Marlon Brando and director Bertolucci.
Last Tango, which stars Schneider as a young woman who starts up an affair with a middle-aged American businessman (Brando) based only on sex, has been at the center of controversy and debate since its release. While incredibly successful — the film grossed $36 million at the time, the equivalent of $186 million today, and garnered Oscar nominations for Brando and Bertolucci — the men behind Last Tango have been sharply criticized for their treatment of Schneider, who was allegedly exploited and humiliated during the shoot and ridiculed afterward for her part in the film. The young actress received only $4,000 compensation for her role and has said the experience on set led her down a path to addiction and mental health issues. The controversy was re-ignited in 2016 when an interview Bertolucci gave to Dutch TV, in which he appears to admit to exploiting Schneider, resurfaced.
‘Last Tango in Paris’
Garden Valley District Library
“New Chronicles of Rebecca”
A children's book checked out from the Boise, Idaho, public library in 1910 vanished for 111 years only to be returned anonymously, library officials said.
A copy of “New Chronicles of Rebecca” by Kate Douglas Wiggin, still in good condition, was recently returned to the Garden Valley District Library, about 51 miles outside of Boise, city library officials said.
“The checkout desk noticed that it was rather old and it didn’t have any current markings, so they looked into it,” city library assistant Anne Marie Martin told NBC affiliate KTVB of Boise.
First published in 1907 as the follow-up to “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,” the book tells the tale of girl who’s verve inspires her aunts. It was adopted as a 1938 musical that starred Shirley Temple as Rebecca.
The book was more than 40,000 days overdue and could have amassed fines of 2 cents per-day adding up to more than $800, the Boise library said. But in the early twentieth century fines were capped at the purchase price of the book, which would have been $1.50, KTVB reported.
“New Chronicles of Rebecca”
Breathtaking
Flip Flop
Politicians are often accused of speaking out of both sides of their mouth, but Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) took it to a new level on Sunday. In an interview with Fox News, Mace said that shrugged off the need to get vaccinated, claiming, falsely, that “natural immunity gives you 27 times more protection. In an interview with CNN later in the day, Mace touted herself as a “proponent of vaccination.”
“One thing the CDC and no policy maker at the federal level has done so far is take into account what natural immunity has done,” Mace said on Fox’s Sunday Morning Futures. “That may be what we’re seeing in Florida today. In some studies that I have read, natural immunity gives you 27 times more protection against future Covid infection than vaccination. We need to take all of the science into account and not selectively choosing what science to follow when we are making policy decisions.”
Shortly after touting natural immunity over the vaccine on Fox News, Mace skipped over to CNN where she tried to burnish her bona fides as a vaccine proponent. “I’ve been a proponent of vaccinations and wearing masks when you need to,” she said. “When we had the Delta variant raging in South Carolina, I wrote an op-ed to my community, and I worked with our state Department of Health.”
Mace is trying to play both sides as she faces stiff competition to retain her seat next year. As someone who worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign, she ran afoul of the former president’s supporters recently with her vote to hold Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt for his refusal to comply with a Jan. 6 select committee subpoena. Mace also said the day after the Jan. 6 attack that Trump’s “entire legacy was wiped out yesterday.” She quickly switched back to supporting him after his second impeachment and encouraged the GOP to “stop fighting with each other in public.”
Flip Flop
44 Firearms
Scandal
Before it all came crashing down, Archi Duenas' gun-stealing scheme was relatively simple, county prosecutors wrote in a memo. He just couldn't go on vacation.
Duenas, manager of the gun store at the Los Angeles Police Academy, had been reprimanded over the years for tardiness and sloppy record keeping, but he never took time off, according to the memo. As the store's closing supervisor, he was there each night to lock up — and hand count the inventory.
This went on for years, prosecutors wrote, facilitated by a lack of oversight and safety protocols that are considered standard in other gun stores.
Then, in February 2020, Duenas' bosses told him he had accrued the "maximum allowable leave hours" and had to take time off, prosecutors wrote in the memo. When he did, another manager finally made the startling discovery: Boxes meant to have guns in them were actually empty.
The resulting investigation quickly led to Duenas' arrest. But it also uncovered a larger scandal inside the LAPD: The clientele for Duenas' stolen weapons included cops.
Scandal
Self-Replicating
'Living Robots'
Scientists have engineered what they say are the first self-replicating 'robots' ever made from living cells.
At first, these freaky-looking 'xenobots' might seem notable for their superficial resemblance to Pac-Man, but their likeness to the video game character is probably the least strange thing about them.
These unusual robotic creatures are a spin-off of what the same researchers unveiled last year, when they presented the world's first robots constructed entirely out of living cells – in this case, stem cells taken from embryonic frogs.
"These are novel living machines," computer scientist and roboticist Joshua Bongard from the University of Vermont explained at the time.
Now, Bongard and his collaborators have taken the next step, giving the xenobots the ability to self-replicate and spawn new versions of themselves.
'Living Robots'
Siberian Cave
Denisovans
Scientists have unearthed the oldest fossils to date of the mysterious human lineage known as the Denisovans. With these 200,000-year-old bones, researchers have also for the first time discovered stone artifacts linked to these extinct relatives of modern humans, a new study finds.
First identified a little more than a decade ago, the Denisovans — an extinct branch of the human family tree — are the closest known relatives of modern humans, along with Neanderthals. Analysis of DNA extracted from Denisovan fossils suggests they might have once been widespread across continental Asia, island Southeast Asia and Oceania, and revealed that at least two distinct groups of Denisovans interbred with ancestors of modern humans.
Now, researchers have discovered another three Denisovan fossils in Denisova Cave. Scientists estimated that they are about 200,000 years old, making them the oldest known Denisovans ever found. Previously, the earliest known Denisovan specimens were about 122,000 to 194,000 years old.
In the new study, researchers examined 3,791 bone scraps from Denisova Cave. They looked for proteins they knew were Denisovan based on previous DNA research on the extinct lineage.
Among these scraps, the scientists identified five human bones. Four of these contained enough DNA to reveal their identity — one was Neanderthal, and the other three were Denisovan. Based on genetic similarities, two of these fossils may either come from one person or from related individuals.
Denisovans
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