M Is FOR MASHUP - October 3rd, 2018
The Eleventh Halloween ep
By DJ Useo
Man, I love the Halloween holiday. Just for the sheer fun it's always been for me. The mock horror. The seasonal candy. The amusing costumes & of course the Halloween mashups. Now, there weren't any mashups when I was a child, let alone Halloween ones, but was there ever a great quantity of regular Halloween music.
Many was the time I enjoyed dressing up as monsters, bobbing for apples, trick or treating, & bopping to the "Monster Mash". Normally I was able to obtain a full shopping bag full of candy ( enough to last till Xmas ). & if I was especially lucky, I'd get some seasonal pie, or even candied apples.
The love of Halloween stays with me nowadays, & manifests as bootleg mixes like the ones you'll find on this new collection. Halloween is mainly an American experience, it seems. The bootleggers I know from overseas aren't really into Samhain, but some of them are discovering the fun inherent in the fake fright. I suppose I'm doing my part to spread the appeal. This latest Useo album displays wide variety of genre clashes with some of them even achieving top 40 - style appeal.
On this new release you'll find tracks like "Same Ghost I Was Before" ( Oingo Boingo vs Gardens Of God ), "Welcome To My Mobius Strip" ( Alice Cooper vs The Physics House Band ), & "Look Out, There's Volcano's Monster" ( The Bonzo Dog Band vs Nelson Riddle & His Orchestra ) plus ten more. My thinking is that you'll want more right away. The new "DJ Useo - Halloween ep 2018" is linked from here
( groovytimewithdjuseo.blogspot.com/2018/10/halloween-ep-2018.html )
Grab the previous ten DJ Useo Halloween ep's down the page here
( djuseomashupalbums.blogspot.com/ )
This year the bounty of Samhain bootlegs increases as there's also going to be a new "Monster Mashup" collection arranged by Jeremy Girard, & AtoZ is additionally providing his take on a group Halloween compilation. When they post soon, they'll both be featured here on Bartcop E.
May you ascend to the ultimate in 'Ween fun this year. - DJ Konrad Useo
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Paul Krugman: The Angry White Male Caucus (NY Times Column)
Trumpism is all about the fear of losing traditional privilege.
Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent: Republicans think Kavanaugh is energizing their base. He's also energizing the opposition. (Washington Post)
Put aside all the emotion surrounding Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court, and the question of whether he did or did not assault Christine Blasey Ford, and ask yourself this: Why hasn't the White House pulled the plug already? As a matter of both substance and politics, isn't it utterly crazy that they haven't?
Josh Marshall: How Much Lying is Okay for a Justice? (TPM)
I was just reading an email from a longtime reader. He makes a simple point. As the debate is currently structured, if the FBI cannot turn up significant evidence to back up one of the abuse or assault claims against Kavanaugh, he gets confirmed. The copious evidence of deception and outright lies does not appear to be part of the equation right now. This is, to put it mildly, very unfortunate.
Supreme Court Justice Nominee Brett Kavanagh VS Pulp Fiction's Jules (YouTube)
He might have passed the Senate but when Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanagh went up against Pulp Fiction's Jules it ALL went wrong.
Jonathan Chait: "Trump to Female Reporter: 'I Know You're Not Thinking. You Never Do.'" (NY Mag)
President Trump, perhaps concerned that allegations of sexual assault have made Brett Kavanaugh a symbol of right-wing misogyny, went out of his way to remind the country that he is the original symbol of right-wing misogyny. In a press conference today, he called on ABC's Cecilia Vega, commenting, "She's shocked that I picked her." Vega replied, "I'm not. Thank you, Mr. President." Trump, mishearing her as "I'm not thinking," replied, in a comment that is gross and bullying even by Trumpian standards, "That's okay. I know you're not thinking. You never do."
Matthew Yglesias: Republicans just don't take sexual assault seriously (Vox)
It clearly can't both be the case that the allegations against Kavanaugh are so outrageous that it's absurd to believe they are true and such universally common teen boy behavior that there are no grounds for getting upset.
Lucy Mangan: "It's not up to women to forgive men who aren't sorry" (Stylist)
You aren't granted forgiveness, you earn it, argues Lucy Mangan.
Paul Waldman: Trump makes minor trade deal, declares world-historic victory (Washington Post)
What is the difference, as far as the president is concerned, between the worst deal ever made and an incredible, spectacular, amazing deal? It's obvious: Terrible deals are those negotiated by people other than Donald Trump, while fantastic deals are those negotiated, or at least approved, by Donald Trump. So NAFTA was terrible, while the new NAFTA - despite not being all that different from the old NAFTA - is fantastic.
Alison Flood: US losing appetite for reading fiction, research finds (The Guardian)
Survey by National Endowment for the Arts records sharp fall in the number of adults who read novels and short stories [but there is rise in the number of readers reading poetry].
Alison Flood: Science fiction triggers 'poorer reading', study finds (The Guardian)
US academics find words such as 'airlock' and 'antigravity' are cues for test subjects to assume a story isn't worth a careful read.
Cressida Cowell: "Matilda, stay young: why seeing Roald Dahl's hero at 30 is bittersweet" (The Guardian)
Quentin Blake's depictions of Matilda as an explorer and astrophysicist highlight how slow progress is in the real world.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• Union organizer Mother Jones knew the effects of child labor at first hand. To learn about working conditions in Southern mills, she had taken jobs at some of them, where she had worked alongside children. Once, she saw heavy machinery tear off one of the fingers of a child employee. Another time, she attended the funeral of an 11-year-old in Alabama who had died in a factory accident. In 1903, Mother Jones drew attention to the situation of children working in the mills in Philadelphia by having them display their injuries - some children were missing thumbs that had been cut off at work, while other children were missing entire hands that had been cut off at work. And this is why we need laws that outlaw child labor.
• Franz Liszt once read a score by a young man who could not write music. Liszt pointed to a place on the score, then said, "This must not be done in music." The young man haughtily replied, "But I have done it." Liszt dipped his pen in an ink well, then splattered the ink all over the young man's white waistcoat, and said, "This, too, can be done, but it must not be." Then Liszt bought the young man a new white waistcoat.
• When Oprah Winfrey was five years old and in kindergarten, she wrote a letter to her teacher, saying that she felt that she deserved to be in a higher grade. Her teacher agreed, perhaps because Oprah had started to learn to read when she was only two and a half years old, and put Oprah in the first grade. Later, because of her educational attainments, Oprah was able to skip the second grade, too.
• The native Americans known as the Western Mono are basketmakers. One of their traditions is that a basketmaker must give away the first basket that she creates - this encourages generosity. Contemporary basketmakers such as 11-year-old Carly Tex learn the craft by making baby cradles for dolls.
• Every Navajo blanket has an opening in its border. Sometimes, the border will be dark, with one piece of white-colored yarn reaching to the edge of the blanket. This is done so that the weaver will keep her mind open and be able to learn more. When one's mind is closed, one is unable to learn.
• As a high school student, George Lucas, who grew up to make the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies, seemed unremarkable, but an art teacher recognized the talent that was hidden inside him. The art teacher told young George's parents, "You have no idea what ability this boy has."
• When Steve Wozniak gave his valedictorian speech at the University of California at Berkeley, he spoke about his formula for happiness, saying, "H = F3. Happiness equals food, fun, and friends." He also said that "the only way you can measure life" is "by the number of smiles per day."
• Hillary Rodham Clinton's father was hard to please. Hillary would come home from school with a report card full of A's, and her mother would be pleased and say, "Oh, that's wonderful, dear." However, her father would say, "You must go to a pretty easy school."
• Author Boze Hadleigh used to have a teacher who told him, "You either have class, or you belong in one."
***
© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
Reader Comment
Current Events
Linda >^..^<
We are all only temporarily able bodied.
Thanks, Linda!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
PLUGGING A LEAKING SEWER PIPE.
AND THE BEAT GOES ON.
"THE ALL-AMERICAN PRIVILEGED BOY"
DOWN BUT NOT OUT YET.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Rumors of rain.
Nobel Prize in Physics
Donna Strickland
The 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Arthur Ashkin, and the other half jointly to Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland "for their groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics."
American physicist Ashkin has been awarded the Nobel Prize for optical tweezers and their application to biological systems, while French physicist Mourou and Canadian physicist Strickland have been awarded the prize for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses.
Strickland is the first woman in 55 years to be awarded the prize, while 96-year-old Ashkin, becomes the oldest Nobel Laureate.
Marie Curie was the first-ever woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, recognized for her co-discovery of radiation, followed by Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963 for discoveries about nuclear structure.
The announcement comes one day after a senior scientist with Cern, the academic home to a number of Nobel prize winners, was suspended for saying that physics was invented and built by men.
Donna Strickland
Confronts Statue
Matilda
A statue of Donald Trump (R-Gargoyle) has gone face-to-face with a formidable new critic - the classic British children's character Matilda.
A statue of the intrepid schoolgirl staring down a likeness of the U.S. President has been erected to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of Roald Dahl's 1988 novel.
A poll found that Trump was the figure the British public believed Matilda would be most likely to confront today.
Trump was chosen by 42% of respondents in a survey of over 2,000 Brits, with UK Prime Minister Theresa May earning 21% of votes and TV presenter Piers Morgan receiving 16%.
In the novel, Matilda uses telekinetic powers to gain revenge on her tyrannical school principal Miss Trunchbull.
Matilda
Exploring Cannabis Drinks
PepsiCo
PepsiCo on Tuesday joined the growing list of big companies to confirm potential interest in making drinks with cannabis.
Hugh Johnston, chief financial officer of the soda and snacks giant, acknowledged the company's interest in an interview with CNBC.
Johnston noted that cannabis is still illegal under federal law throughout the United States, even though some states have legalized it. But he said the company would "turn over every stone to look for growth."
The remarks come two weeks after PepsiCo's archrival Coca-Cola said it was studying "wellness beverages" that could include cannabidiol, or CBD, a non-psychoactive component in cannabis that is sold in a growing variety of consumer products.
Molson Coors is also working with a Canadian company on cannabis-infused non-alcoholic beverages, while Constellation Brands has announced a hefty $4 billion investment in Canada's Canopy Growth in exchange for a 38 percent stake in Canopy.
PepsiCo
Booed In Pennsylvania
Alex Trebek
Alex Trebek swapped Jeopardy! for politics and it didn't go so well, according to pundits and viewers at home.
The game show host moderated the Pennsylvania gubernatorial debate between Democratic Governor Tom Wolf and Republican challenger Scott Wagner on Tuesday night, and he was criticized for inserting himself too much into the conversation. At one point, Trebek was even booed by the audience after discussing a proposed severance tax.
"I would like to offer a suggestion to the people of Pennsylvania for this election. Forget that you're Republicans or Democrats. We just had a few heated words about the severance tax," he said. "If you believe the severance tax would be beneficial, would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars that would help with education and other problems in the state, then call up the people who are running in our districts, ask them a question, and say, 'Are you in favor of the severance tax or against it?' If they're in favor say, 'Alright, I'm going to vote for you.' If they happen to be from your party, good. If from the other party, vote for them. If you're against the severance tax, same deal."
"Alex, we are the only state that has an impact fee," Wagner chimed in before he and Trebek began debating the proposed tax on natural gas drilling and gerrymandering congressional districts. "Listen, we're taxing the gas companies. Do the people believe that we should tax? Yes, but we already are."
The audience immediately started booing.
Alex Trebek
'Lack Of Judicial Temperament'
500 Law Professors
More than 500 law professors from nearly 100 law schools around the nation have signed a letter to the U.S. Senate to say that the volatile temperament Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaughdisplayed on Thursday as he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee disqualifies him from sitting on the nation's highest court.
"We regret that we feel compelled to write to you to provide our views that at the Senate hearings on Thursday, September 27, 2018, the Honorable Brett Kavanaugh displayed a lack of judicial temperament that would be disqualifying for any court, and certainly for elevation to the highest court of this land," the letter says.
The letter is signed by many high-profile law professors, including eight from Yale Law School, where Kavanaugh obtained his law degree. The letter remains open for additional signatures through Thursday, when it will be presented to the Senate.
The legal experts fault Kavanaugh for failing to remain open to the necessary search for truth after being accused of sexually assaulting a girl when he was a teen and instead becoming "repeatedly aggressive with questioners." The signees also criticize the judge for indicating that he believes allegations made by professor Christine Blasey Ford and other women are "a calculated and orchestrated political hit" by members of the Democratic Party rather than acknowledging that the Senate must try to understand and investigate the facts surrounding the allegations.
500 Law Professors
Connected Brains
3 People
Neuroscientists have successfully hooked up a three-way brain connection to allow three people share their thoughts - and in this case, play a Tetris-style game. The team thinks this wild experiment could be scaled up to connect whole networks of people, and yes, it's as weird as it sounds.
It works through a combination of electroencephalograms (EEGs), for recording the electrical impulses that indicate brain activity, and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), where neurons are stimulated using magnetic fields.
The researchers behind the new system have dubbed it BrainNet, and say it could eventually be used to connect many different minds together, even across the web.
But apart from opening up strange new methods of communication, BrainNet could actually teach us more about how the human brain functions on a deeper level.
In the experiment set up by the scientists, two 'senders' were connected to EEG electrodes and asked to play a Tetris-style game involving falling blocks. They had to decide whether each block needed rotating or not.
3 People
Captured by Photographer
Quintuple Rainbow
While shooting a sunset in New Jersey recently, photographer John Entwistle got another gorgeous sight: a sky painted with what looked like a set of five rainbows.
"I could be wrong but that sure looks like a quintuple rainbow at sunset tonight over the Jersey Shore, NJ," Entwistle wrote on Instagram on Sept. 18.
Supernumerary rainbows like this one consist of a primary rainbow - the brightest and most vivid of the bunch - as well as at least two other, less brilliant, rainbows. In the case of the rainbow captured by Entwistle, five supernumerary rainbows were visible.
"In general, supernumeraries are quite common. There are many pictures of 2 or 3 supernumeraries," Gunther Können, a retired climate scientist with the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, told Live Science in an email. "But the appearance in nature of 5 supernumeraries is exceptional."
The two types of rainbows form in just about the same way, except for one difference: The main rainbow forms when sunlight enters a water droplet - which is denser than the surrounding air - that light bends or refracts. Once inside the water droplet, the light also reflects off the back of the drop; and then as it exits, it is refracted again. Since different wavelengths of light get bent by different amounts, with this process happening in lots of tiny droplets, you get a rainbow.
Quintuple Rainbow
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Sept. 24-30. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership.
1. NFL Football: Baltimore at Pittsburgh, NBC, 17.92 million.
2. NFL Football: Minnesota at L.A. Rams, Fox, 14.51 million.
3. "60 Minutes," CBS, 13.54 million.
4. "The Big Bang Theory" (Monday), CBS, 12.93 million.
5. "NCIS," CBS, 12.57 million.
6. NFL Football: Pittsburgh at Tampa Bay, ESPN, 12.22 million.
7. "The Big Bang Theory" (Thursday), CBS 12.05 million.
8. "NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 11.19 million.
9. "Young Sheldon" (Monday), CBS, 10.59 million.
10. "This is Us," NBC, 10.55 million.
11. "Manifest," NBC, 10.41 million.
12. "Young Sheldon" (Thursday), CBS, 10.21 million.
13. "God Friended Me," CBS, 10.14 million.
14. "FBI," CBS, 10.09 million.
15. "The Voice" (Tuesday), NBC, 9.9 million.
16. "The Voice" (Monday), NBC, 9.67 million.
17. College Football: Ohio St. at Penn St., ABC, 9.14 million.
18. "NCIS: New Orleans," CBS, 8.97 million.
19. "Blue Bloods," CBS, 8.79 million.
20. "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 8.75 million.
Ratings
In Memory
Peggy Sue Gerron
Peggy Sue Gerron, the woman who inspired Buddy Holly's 1957 hit song "Peggy Sue," died Monday at the University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reports. She was 78.
Gerron met Holly in Lubbock in the mid-Fifties when he was a budding musician and she was still a high school student at Lubbock High (Holly's alma mater). As Gerron recalled, their first encounter occured when Holly, running late for a gig, accidentally knocked her over. "He ran over to me, guitar in one hand, amp in the other, and said, 'I don't have time to pick you up, but you sure are pretty', before he ran off," Gerron told the BBC in 2013. "So another girl came and helped me pick up my books and she said, 'Do you know who that was? That was Buddy Holly.'"
Several weeks later, Gerron was on a date with her future husband, Crickets drummer Jerry Allison, when they ran into Holly and his date. "[Holly] started laughing, Jerry asked him what was so funny, and he said 'I've already overwhelmed your Peggy Sue,'" Gerron remembered.
"Peggy Sue" peaked at Number Three on the Billboard singles chart. Holly even wrote a sequel to the track, "Peggy Sue Got Married," which was posthumously released in 1959 after the rock legend died in a plane crash.
The real Peggy Sue did marry Allison, and the couple stayed together through much of the Sixties. Gerron even spent some time on the road with the Crickets as they continued to tour and perform after Holly's death. After Gerron and Allison divorced, Gerron returned to California - where she'd been born - went back to college, became a dental assistant, remarried and had two children. According to the bio on her website, she even became the first licensed woman plumber in California after her husband started a plumbing business.
Gerron returned to Lubbock in the mid-Nineties to care for her ailing mother. In later years, Gerron became a devoted ham radio enthusiast, and in 2008 she published a memoir, Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue? During her BBC interview, Gerron spoke about the peculiar nature of her place in rock and roll history and what it's like to encounter Holly fans.
"I think they have me frozen in time, I think when most people think of me, it's as a young woman frozen in an era that has long passed," Gerron said. "But it hasn't limited me. You have to be you, and I couldn't stand up and say, well, no, that's not me."
Peggy Sue Gerron
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