M Is FOR MASHUP - February 27th, 2019
The Mashup Kingdom Awards: 2018 Album Sampler
By DJ Useo
By Guest MixmstrStel
MixmstrStel (say: Mixmaster Stel), also known as the Mixmaster, is a Boston-based DJ and producer known for making pop and dance-based mashups while also taking the initiative to create genre-clashes as well.
My work has been featured anywhere from blogs like Bootie and SoSimpull to even mainstream radio for my biggest tracks. I'm all about quality over quantity, and innovation, not imitation.
The Mashup Kingdom will soon be honoring the best-of-the-best of mashups made in 2017 by its members. In doing this, the First Annual Mashup Kingdom Awards will soon be livestreamed.
As a preview to The Mashup Kingdom Awards, our members proudly present an album sampler of many of the tracks being nominated. Several artists are featured on this album including Adam Wright, Alexzn Mashups, Blanter Co, Brian Lucero Mashups, DJ Flapjack, DJ J-Brew, Dynamo, Joseph James, Legitpotato Mashups (now Luminescent Mashups), Lucas Mashups, MashRed, MixmstrStel, Music Blender, and Vincent Mashups.
Congrats to all artists being nominated!
The Mashup Kingdom Awards: 2018 Album Sampler
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: Trump, Trade and the Advantage of Autocrats (NY Times Column)
China can pay him off; places with rule of law can't.
Paul Krugman: "Running on MMT (Wonkish)" (NY Times Blog)
Trying to get this debate beyond Calvinball.
Greg Sargent: As fresh signs of Trump's weakness emerge, some Democrats are already screwing up (Washington Post)
True to form, some Democrats are responding to these developments in the worst conceivable way. They are feeding the impression that they face a major dilemma: They must choose between appealing to one or the other of those two broad groups - Midwestern voters on one side, or the younger, more diverse and more educated voter groups on the other. But this is mostly a false choice. Hyping it hurts the Democrats' cause - and arguably helps Trump.
Zaria Gorvett: How to cultivate a daily reading habit (BBC)
In February 2018, when Elon Musk's Falcon Heavy rocket left Earth in a hurricane of smoke, it was carrying an unlikely payload. Instead of equipment or astronauts, the Space X entrepreneur famously loaded it with his car - a cherry-red Tesla Roadster. A mannequin dressed in a spacesuit occupied the driver's seat. But the real surprise was in the glovebox. There, immortalised in etched glass, was a copy of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of books. Set in a crumbling galactic empire some 50,000 years in the future, the science fiction saga ignited Musk's interest in space travel when he was a teenager. Now it is set to float around our solar system for the next 10 million years or so.
Brian Logan: "'Bill Hicks was a bit misogynist' - young comics reassess the standup legend" (The Guardian)
He was the Kurt Cobain of comedy, railing against advertising, politicians, the war on drugs, even waffle waitresses. What do the new generation make of the chain-smoking motormouth?
Kate Kellaway: "Joan Baez: 'Music can move people to do things'" (The Guardian)
The veteran singer on her mixed emotions about her farewell tour, the women she most admires, and forever being linked to Dylan
Jude Rogers: "Rhiannon Giddens: 'I see this album as part of a movement to reclaim black female history'" (The Guardian)
The Grammy-winning artist's collaborative project Songs of Our Native Daughters puts poems and narratives about slavery to music.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
took the day off.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Suspicions Confirmed
Marty
A good friend of mine, now in his 80s, sent away for one of those
battery-powered devices that promised to "put some lead in his pencil."
What it did was put his name on some mailing lists, and, a few days
later, he received ... an invitation to join the NRA...
Huizilopochtli
Thanks, Zopilote!
OTOH, not much of a surprise that the NRA would lust after a mailing list of men who are desperate to get a shot off.
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Donald Davidson stood 5-foot-2 (since he was a little person, his business card measured only one inch by two inches) and spent 45 years in professional baseball - as clubhouse boy, publicist, assistant to the president, and traveling secretary. Once, he wore dark glasses and walked through a crowd with the general manager of the Braves, John Quinn. Mr. Davidson was recognized by people in the crowd every few feet, to the amusement of Mr. Quinn, who asked someone, "Tell me, how did you recognize Donald in his dark glasses?" Once, Mr. Davidson asked a couple of baseball players to punch the button for floor 26 in an elevator because he wasn't tall enough to reach that high. They wouldn't do it, so Mr. Davidson rode the elevator down to the lobby, and complained to the manager, "How many times have I told you never to give me a room above the third floor?"
• Artie Stander was a radio and TV comedy writer of unparalleled chutzpah. A short man, he once said, "I could have been tall, but I turned it down." Once, Mr. Stander was writing with Charlie Isaacs. Mr. Isaacs used to pace the floor and occasionally jump up and touch the ceiling with his fingertips. Mr. Stander watched him for a while, then said, "I can do that." Short as he was, he attempted to jump up and touch the ceiling several times, failing each time, then finally gave it up, putting the blame for his failure on his habit of smoking cigarettes. Another time, his wife saw him standing on the seat of the toilet, peeing down into the bowl. He explained, "I just wanted to see what it felt like to be (the very tall) Gary Cooper."
• Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker got to know playwright Robert E. Sherwood (later to become twice a Pulitzer Prize-winner for Idiot's Delight and Abe Lincoln in Illinois) because he asked to go to lunch with them - and to walk between them. They soon found out why. Mr. Sherwood was six-feet-seven, and some midgets near where he worked used to lie in wait for him and walk him to his restaurant while shouting things like "How's the weather up there?"
• At one time, pulpits were custom built to suit the height of the local preacher. This could lead to problems when guest preachers stood up to preach. Foy E. Wallace, Jr., was a short guest preacher at a Church of Christ, but the regular preacher, Rube Porter, was over six feet tall. When preacher Wallace stood in back of the podium, no one could see him, so he said, "If you don't see me anymore, remember that 'faith comes by hearing,' Romans 10:17."
• President Abraham Lincoln of Illinois was a tall man; so was Judge Kelly of Pennsylvania. When the two met, they shook hands, then they compared heights: Lincoln was 6-foot-4, and Judge Kelly was 6-foot-3. Judge Kelly then said, "Pennsylvania bows to Illinois. My dear man, for years my heart has been aching for a President that I could look up to, and I've at last found him."
• Until 1954, when he was drafted, New York Yankee Billy Martin, a small man, wore No. 12. During his military service, No. 1 became available, and it was waiting for him when he returned to professional baseball. According to Mr. Martin, the Yankee clubhouse manager had saved the number for him: "He said my back wasn't big enough for two numbers." (Note: Mr. Martin was 5-foot-11 and 165 pounds, so he must have been small for a major leaguer.)
• As a young boy, ballet student Alexander Godunov was short, even considering his age. After being told that tomato juice would make him grow, he began to drink gallons of it. He also heard that sleeping on a soft bed would keep him short, so he began to sleep on boards. Something worked - he grew to be over six feet tall.
• Prime Minister David Lloyd George (5-foot-6) was a small man. At a political meeting, he was once introduced in this way: "I had expected to see Mr. Lloyd George a big man in every sense, but you see for yourself he is quite small in stature." Mr. Lloyd George replied, "In North Wales we measure a man from the chin up. You evidently measure from the chin down."
• Playwright Robert Sherwood was very tall. (He was 6-foot-7 in an era before seven footers became common in the NBA.) Once humorist Robert Benchley was asked if he knew Mr. Sherwood. Mr. Benchley stood on a chair, raised his hand in the air, and said, "Why, I've known Bob Sherwood since he was this high."
• Katherine Hepburn was taller than Spencer Tracy. When they first met, she wore high heels to make herself even taller to intimidate him, but he refused to be intimidated. After Ms. Hepburn said, "I'm afraid I'm a little tall for you, Mr. Tracy," he replied, "Don't worry, I'll soon cut you down to my size."
• Once a newspaper editor decided to print a photograph of an unusually tall man. On page 1, the photograph showed the man from his head to his knees. At the bottom of the photograph was the line, "Continued on page 10." On page 10 was the rest of the photograph, showing the man from his knees to his feet.
• Robert E. Sherwood was wounded during World War I - he was shot in the legs and suffered from gas poisoning. Robert Benchley was surprised that Mr. Sherwood, who was 6-feet-7 inches tall - was shot in the legs, so he developed the theory that Mr. Sherwood had been lying on the ground and waving his legs in the air. Mr. Sherwood denied this.
• Figure skater Scott Hamilton is only 5-foot-3 inches tall - the result of Schwachmann's syndrome, a rare disease which inhibits growth in children. Mr. Hamilton's short stature didn't hurt his skating career at all - he won four consecutive world championships and an Olympic gold medal and has a flourishing professional career.
• Many towering musical geniuses were short. Franz Schubert was 5-foot-2, Igor Stravinsky was 5-foot-3, and Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Arnold Schoenberg all were 5-foot-4.
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
What do you call a pack of liars?
There's parliament of owls and murder of crows, but what do you call a pack of liars? Republicans??
Professional liar and Southern Cow Sarah Shuckabee Sanders, on behalf of pathological liar Donald Sexual-Predator Trump, says no one should believe confessed liar Michael Fixer-to-Don-the-Con Cohen.
Republicans, who accept every lie from Predator, as if it has been inscribed on stone by the hand of God, say Cohen has to have "corroborating evidence" for everything he says. They remember that Rudy Crypt-Keeper Giuliani, again on behalf of the Predator, told us "truth isn't truth."
I'm wondering why they're not ALL in jail. The death of truth is excruciating to witness.
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Long, long day.
The Show Must Go On
Queen + Adam Lambert
Queen and Adam Lambert opened this year's hostless edition of the Oscars on Sunday, and their time in the pop culture spotlight isn't over yet. On Tuesday, ABC announced that it will air a new documentary about the group, titled The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story.
The Oscars performance was partly a celebration of Bohemian Rhapsody, the biopic of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury that just won Rami Malek an Oscar for Best Actor. The Show Must Go On will tell the story of how the surviving members of Queen got back into the groove of live performance years after Mercury's 1991 death from complications of AIDS. They first performed with Lambert on American Idol in 2009, when Lambert was one of the season's two finalists alongside eventual winner Kris Allen. After a positive reaction to that performance, the musicians formed Queen + Adam Lambert in 2012.
Named after the song from Mercury's last album with Queen, The Show Must Go On features brand-new interviews with Lambert; his parents, Leila and Eber Lambert; Queen founding members Brian May and Roger Taylor; American Idol judge Simon Cowell; Malek; and Foo Fighters' Taylor Hawkins. The documentary will air April 29 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.
Queen + Adam Lambert
Kathie Lee's Replacement
Jenna
Hoda Kotb has a new wine-drinking partner! Jenna Bush Hager will join Kotb as the permanent co-host of the "Today" show's fourth hour later this year, NBC announced Tuesday.
The move comes after Kathie Lee Gifford revealed in December that she would be leaving the show in April. Gifford had served as co-host for 11 years before announcing her departure.
"You have been such a role model and so generous with your time," Hager said Tuesday to Gifford. "You are beloved here in so many ways and if I can use some of your grace and have a half of what you've done, my life will be a very happy one."
Hager has been a correspondent on the show since 2009, and has regularly filled in for Kotb and Gifford during the 10 a.m. EST/PST hour.
Jenna
Star Wars Trailer
Topher Grace
What would happen if a Star Wars celebrity superfan sat down with footage from all 10 Star Wars films and tried to make a trailer showcasing why we all love the franchise so much? You'd get Star Wars: Always.
Star Wars: Always is a five-minute supertrailer, co-edited by actor/filmmaker/mega fan Topher Grace and editor/mega fan Jeff Yorkes, that is everything you love about Star Wars, and even things you may not, contextualized to showcase it all in best light possible. It's excellent.
If you're sitting here thinking, "Wait, THAT Topher Grace?" you probably aren't alone. Yes, Grace is best-known for roles on That '70s Show and as the first Venom, as well as the recent Black KkKlansman, but he's also an accomplished editor. Several years ago he made a fan edit of all of the Star Wars prequels into an 85-minute movie, and recently took The Hobbit trilogy and chopped it down to two hours. This feels like the more digestible version of those, and one Lucasfilm probably won't have too much of a problem with.
Topher Grace
Las Vegas Residency
Janet Jackson
Janet Jackson is headed to Sin City.
The five-time Grammy winner announced on Tuesday that she will be launching her first-ever Las Vegas residency in May. Titled "Metamorphosis," show will begin May 17 and run until August.
"'Metamorphosis' peels back the layers of the immensely private life of Janet Jackson, sharing her transformation from a young girl with issues of self-esteem to global Icon," a press release for the show read.
The singer dropped her first single in three years last March titled, "Made For Now."
Jackson joins Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey and the Backstreet Boys as artists who have had Las Vegas shows. Her concerts will take place at the Park MGM's Park Theater, where Lady Gaga is currently in residence.
Janet Jackson
Thousands Of Allegations
Migrant Children
Thousands of allegations that migrant children in U.S. custody were subjected to sexual abuse, harassment or inappropriate sexual conduct were reported over a four-year span to the government agency tasked with overseeing their care, according to documents released Tuesday by a Democratic lawmaker.
The documents, provided by the office of Rep. Ted Deutch of Florida, show more than 4,550 allegations were reported to the Office of Refugee Resettlement between fiscal years 2015 and 2018. That agency, which prepared the documents, oversees the care of unaccompanied and separated migrant children and is a part of the Department of Health and Human Services.
During the same period, about 1,300 sexual abuse allegations were reported to the Department of Justice, according to the documents. Nearly 180 involved allegations of staff committing sexual abuse against migrant children at government-run shelters. The documents were first reported by Axios.
Deutch said Tuesday during a House hearing on migrant family separations that he was "deeply concerned" about the "high number" of allegations of sexual assaults on migrant children in government custody.
He added the records show there have been 154 allegations of sexual assault by staff on unaccompanied migrant children in facilities under U.S. custody in the past three years, appearing to refer to the numbers from fiscal years 2016 to 2018.
Migrant Children
Changing Audience Rating System
Rotten Tomatoes
Even though the general public has not yet had the chance to see Captain Marvel, that didn't stop trolls from preemptively trashing the film on Rotten Tomatoes in what can only be described as an sexism-fueled attempt at convincing people that a movie about a female superhero couldn't possibly be good. Now, the ratings site is taking action to deal with the problem.
Yesterday in a blog post, Rotten Tomatoes announced that its moving forward with a number of steps to "more accurately and authentically represent the voice of fans" and reduce the influence of "bad actors" (i.e. trolls):
"We are disabling the comment function prior to a movie's release date. Unfortunately, we have seen an uptick in non-constructive input, sometimes bordering on trolling, which we believe is a disservice to our general readership. We have decided that turning off this feature for now is the best course of action. Don't worry though, fans will still get to have their say: Once a movie is released, audiences can leave a user rating and comments as they always have."
Rotten Tomatoes is also removing the "Want To See" rating on movies' pages before they're in theaters, saying people often incorrectly assume that percentage is the same thing as ratings from people who've actually seen the film. While Rotten Tomatoes doesn't mention Captain Marvel explicitly, the decision feels very much like a response to the trollish backlash that only intensified following Brie Larson's call for a more diverse press pool to cover the film. To that point, this kind of trolling issue isn't unique to Captain Marvel-other films featuring lead characters who aren't white men like Black Panther and Star Wars: The Last Jedi faced similar issues. In the past, Rotten Tomatoes has insisted that it was confident that people weren't trying to negatively game its system, and so it's good to see that the site actively paying attention to the realities of the situation and taking appropriate action.
Whether the angry dudebros like it or not, the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is female. Captain Marvel is about to save the Earth damn-near singlehandedly when the movie drops on March 8, and she's going to wallop Thanos' ass in Avengers: Endgame a few weeks later on April 26.
Rotten Tomatoes
'Geological Google'
Deep-time Digital Earth
The British Geological Survey (BGS) has amassed one of the world's premier collections of geologic samples. Housed in three enormous warehouses in Nottingham, U.K., it contains about 3 million fossils gathered over more than 150 years at thousands of sites across the country. But this data trove "was not really very useful to anybody," says Michael Stephenson, a BGS paleontologist. Notes about the samples and their associated rocks "were sitting in boxes on bits of paper." Now, that could change, thanks to a nascent international effort to meld earth science databases into what Stephenson and other backers are describing as a "geological Google."
This network of earth science databases, called Deep-time Digital Earth (DDE), would be a one-stop link allowing earth scientists to access all the data they need to tackle big questions, such as patterns of biodiversity over geologic time, the distribution of metal deposits, and the workings of Africa's complex groundwater networks. It's not the first such effort, but it has a key advantage, says Isabel Montañez, a geochemist at University of California, Davis, who is not involved in the project: funding and infrastructure support from the Chinese government. That backing "will be critical to [DDE's] success given the scope of the proposed work," she says.
In December 2018, DDE won the backing of the executive committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences, which said ready access to the collected geodata could offer "insights into the distribution and value of earth's resources and materials, as well as hazards-while also providing a glimpse of the Earth's geological future." At a meeting this week in Beijing, 80 scientists from 40 geoscience organizations including BGS and the Russian Geological Research Institute are discussing how to get DDE up and running by the time of the International Geological Congress in New Delhi in March 2020.
DDE grew out of a Chinese data digitization scheme called the Geobiodiversity Database (GBDB), initiated in 2006 by Chinese paleontologist Fan Junxuan of Nanjing University. China had long-running efforts in earth sciences, but the data were scattered among numerous collections and institutions. Fan, who was then at the Chinese Academy of Sciences's Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, organized GBDB around the stacks of geologic strata called sections and the rocks and fossils in each stratum.
Deep-time Digital Earth
Manufacturing Center
Cahokia
In the 11th century, Cahokia was the biggest city in the Americas north of Mexico. Moreover, according to some estimates, it housed more people than London at the time, and no city within what is now the United States matched its population until after the War of Independence. Although many theories have tried to explain the decline and abandonment of such a significant site, new evidence from the feces the inhabitants left behind indicates that changes in climate were a big part of the story.
Cahokia sat on the eastern side of the Mississippi River, opposite modern-day St Louis. Estimates of its peak population vary but go as high as 40,000 people. Why such an important site would be abandoned has troubled archaeologists, but University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student AJ White has found a possible answer in the human manure left at the bottom of nearby Horseshoe Lake.
White found molecules called fecal stanols, which are uniquely produced in the human gut. Much of Cahokia's sewage ended up in nearby water bodies (similar to many more recent cities), so the team used the ratio of human stanols to those from soil bacteria in each sediment layer to indicate the number of people living in the area at the time. The same sediments also indicate climatic conditions, since water containing lighter oxygen atoms evaporates more easily than water with heavier molecules.
In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, White reports that the start of Cahokia's sustained population decline matches a reduction in summer rain, presumably affecting local maize production. Rainfall only decreased in the warm season, not the whole year, and in around the year 1150, the area experienced a flood so drastic that it appears to have induced a major population reduction, from which the city never recovered.
By 1150, archaeological digs found signs that Cahokia was under stress, indicated both by falling housing density and a decline in the production of tools. At its peak, Cahokia was a manufacturing center, making quartz farming implements that were traded across much of North America.
Cahokia
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Feb. 18-24. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership.
1. "The Oscars," ABC, 29.56 million.
2. "Live From the Red Carpet" (7:30-8 p.m. ET), ABC, 14.16 million.
3. "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 13.49 million.
4. "NCIS," CBS, 12.75 million.
5. "Young Sheldon," CBS, 11.31 million.
6. "America's Got Talent Champions," NBC, 10.58 million.
7. "Live From the Red Carpet" (7-7:29 p.m.), ABC, 10.42 million.
8. "Chicago Med," NBC, 9.12 million.
9. "FBI," CBS, 9.07 million.
10. "Chicago PD," NBC, 8.94 million.
11. "Chicago Fire," NBC, 8.86 million.
12. "Mom," CBS, 8.41 million.
13. "60 Minutes," CBS, 8.3 million.
14. "The Masked Singer," Fox, 8.28 million.
15. "Survivor," CBS, 7.76 million.
16. "This is Us," NBC, 7.56 million.
17. "Hawaii Five-0" (Friday, 9 p.m. ET), CBS, 7.11 million.
18. "NCIS: New Orleans," CBS, 7.03 million.
19. "Hawaii Five-0" (Friday, 10 p.m. ET), CBS, 8.98 million.
20. "Grey's Anatomy," ABC, 6.9 million.
Ratings
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