Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Garrison Keillor: Waiting for snow, hoping, praying
It has snowed a smidge in Minneapolis and I went to church Sunday to give thanks for it and ask for more. The TV weatherman talks about who might be "hit by" a snowstorm and who might "escape," as if the flakes carry an infectious disease, but snow is light, it does not hit anybody so that you'd feel it, and true Minnesotans love a snowstorm, the hush of it, the sense of blessedness, as Degas loved the female form and Cezanne cared about apples. I thank God for all three, apples, women, and snow, and also for my good health.
Jonathan Jones: Leonardo v Rembrandt: who's the greatest? (The Guardian)
The greatest of all these visual investigations are [Leonardo's] anatomical drawings. These are his artistic answers to Rembrandt's portraits - and they are also miracles of science. He wrote of the dread he felt when he stayed up all night in a dissection room full of cadavers, alone with the dead. Out of these experiments he produced drawings that go - literally - deeper than Rembrandt. Instead of being moved by a face, Leonardo digs and cuts in search of life's hidden structure. The drawings that record his fleshy discoveries outdo Rembrandt's greatest portraits as images of what it is to be human. There's no more moving work of art on earth than his depiction of a foetus in the womb, esconced as if in a capsule bound for the stars.
KRISTEN ARNETT: AM I A LIBRARIAN OR A WRITER? (LitHub.com)
ED. NOTE: THE WORD 'WRIBRARIAN' MAY HAVE APPEARED IN DRAFTS OF THIS COLUMN.
Sian Cain: "Porn, opioids and a freezer full of cigarettes: what one cleaner saw in America's homes" (The Guardian)
As a single parent caught in the welfare trap, Stephanie Land got the only job she could, tidying homes for the comfortably well-off.
James McMahon: "Suzi Quatro: 'I can look into someone's eyes and know their whole life story'" (The Guardian)
The musician, 68, on understanding people, being home alone, missing Detroit and how Elvis changed her life forever.
Paul WALDMAN: Why Trump is overjoyed at the Covington student controversy (Washington Post)
It slots in perfectly with the story the right tells about itself.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Reader Comment
Time
24 hr news cycle meme ----
20 years meme ----
some guy
Thanks, Guy!
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Bruce
Anecdotes
• When Stan Musial was a minor-league pitcher (and hitter) with Daytona Beach in the Florida State League, he was newly married. The team manager, Dickie Kerr, and his wife, Corinne, befriended Mr. Musial and his wife. Much later, Mr. Musial said, "Dickie and his wife treated us like their own children. He was wonderful. What he did for my morale, I'll never be able to repay." Stan and his wife showed their respect for the manager by naming their first-born child after him: Richard. Another way that Mr. Musial showed his respect for Dickie and Corinne was by buying them a house after he became well paid when he became a star in the major leagues as a St. Louis Cardinal, although he was not paid nearly as much as today's stars. Of course, every player has slumps, and in 1956, Mr. Musial experienced a bad one. Some fans once booed him when he came to bat, but the following day many Cardinals fans paid for a large newspaper ad in which they apologized for the way that those fans had acted. Of course, Mr. Musial bounced back from the slump and resumed his hard-hitting ways. Knowing his worth, he asked to be made the highest-paid player in the league for the 1958 season. The team general manager, Bing Devine, thought that this request was fair and offered him a contract for $91,000. However, the team owner, Gussie Busch, vetoed this contract-and offered Mr. Musial more money. Mr. Devine told Mr. Musial: "I've got pleasant news for you, Stan. Mr. Busch wants you not only to become the highest-salaried player in National League history, but the first to receive $100,000." By the way, Dodger pitcher Preacher Roe once said, "I know how to get Musial out. Walk him on four pitches and pick him off first."
• When Roger Clemens was a small boy, his grandmother lived near him. A strict disciplinarian, she would order him when he misbehaved to bring her a tree branch so she could switch him with it. Young Roger would hunt for a very small branch to bring to her. As a baseball player, he wore the number 21, which he and his family considered a lucky number. When he played for the Boston Red Sox, he got a personalized car license plate: SOX-21. When he was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays, Carlos Delgado wore number 21, but when Mr. Clemens asked for the number, Mr. Delgado willingly and quickly gave it up. Mr. Clemens rewarded Mr. Delgado with the gift of an expensive Rolex watch, and teammate Paul Quantrill joked, "Do you want my number 48, too?" As a pitcher, Mr. Clemens won numerous Cy Young awards. Originally, his goal was to win four Cy Young awards, one for each of his children (all sons). When he won his fifth Cy Young award, his sons told him, "Now, Dad, you have one for yourself." By the way, when son Kobe was nine years old, he brought some friends to his house to see his father. Mr. Clemens was eating cereal when his son and approximately 20 of the kids in the neighborhood came into his house and stared at him. Kobe told the kids, "OK, guys, there he is. I told you my dad was Roger Clemens. Now let's go play."
• Satchel Paige was an interesting conversationalist who used words well and who told stories well. When he was flush with money, he bought a big new car. According to Satchel, the new car "was so long that when I parked it at the curb I had to walk three houses back to see if the taillight was on." When Satchel met his first wife, Janet Howard, a waitress, he said that he fell immediately in love: "From the minute she first set a plate of asparagus in front of me, I began to feel paralyzed." When he was not flush with money, he paid many visits to pawnshops to sell his possessions. He said, "Mr. Pawnshop must have thought I was a burglar the way I kept back to see him with another shotgun or another suit of clothes. But I had to. A man's got a way of getting used to eating, and eating takes money." According to one of his stories, another pitcher on his team had a 1-0 lead in the 9th inning, but three opposing players were on base with no outs. The team manager called on Satchel to take over the pitching duties. Satchel took a baseball with him when he went to the pitcher's mound, and then he got the game baseball from the pitcher he was relieving, so now he had two baseballs. Then, he said, "I just threw those two balls at the same time, one to first and one to third. I picked off both runners, and my motion was so good the batter fanned. That was three outs."
• Reggie Jackson learned from his father, Martinez. When Reggie was a child, the two were shopping at a market, and Reggie stole a candy bar. Outside the market, Reggie started eating the candy bar. His father realized that the candy bar was stolen, so he made his son go with him back into the market and confess the theft to the owner of the market. After that, the only thing that Reggie stole was bases. Martinez also gave Reggie good advice: "Don't whine and don't complain. Go out and do your job and earn the money they're paying you." Surprisingly, Reggie preferred football to baseball, and he went out for the Arizona State baseball team only because he made a bet of $5 with two friends who said he would not make the team. After hitting the baseball over the fence several times, he made both the team and $5. By the way, Reggie was booed at various times during his major-league career, but often the booing did not bother him. After all, he believed, "Fans don't boo nobodies."
• While in the midst of a hitting slump in Chicago, Pete Rose boarded the Cincinnati Reds team bus only to run into a non-player who was disembarking after finding out that he had boarded the wrong bus. Mr. Rose told him, "If you can hit, stay on the bus."
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© Copyright Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
JD is on vacation.
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Kinda looks like I should take my computer into the shop - 3 blue screens today - so if the page goes stagnant for a couple of days, you'll know why.
"It's About F*cking Time"
Sam Elliott
Among today's Oscar nominations are a number of firsts: Black Panther is the first superhero movie to be nominated for Best Picture, Spike Lee received his first ever nomination for Best Director, and Sam Elliott - a mainstay of contemporary cinema who's accrued half a century in the profession - earned his first acting nomination for his supporting role in A Star Is Born.
Speaking with Deadline about the nomination, Elliott quipped, "It's about fucking time."
Elliott went on to share some thoughts on why he believes this new incarnation of A Star Is Born resonated so strongly with audiences.
"I just think it has a number of universal themes that a lot of people can tap into," Elliott remarked. "The music's one thing, that stands alone on some level, but it's also an intricate part of the story. The love story, the love and loss. Then beyond that, it's the addiction theme. I don't know anybody that hasn't had some connection, either directly or indirectly, someone in their family, or someone they love, with alcoholism or addiction."
Sam Elliott
"Humiliating" Joke
Conan
To the surprise of absolutely no one, Donald Trump has been throwing tantrums and breaking promises for decades, long, long before moving into the White House. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Conan O'Brien recalled one very memorable '90s encounter with Trump that perfectly captured the businessman-turned-politician's temperamental ways.
It was 1997, and Trump appeared for the first time on O'Brien's NBC talk show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Wanting to talk money with the business mogul, O'Brien asked Trump to disclose how much money he was carrying. The question led to a hilarious reveal involving a condom:
"How much money do you have on you right now?" [O'Brien asked]. He sort of said, "I don't know, I maybe have some." I said, "No, no, what do you have?" Then he stuck his hand in his pocket and he clearly found something. I saw his face change, and I could see that he didn't want me to know what it was. So I reached over and I was like, "Come on, come on." I made him pull it out - and it was a condom. He said, "Practice safe sex everybody." He was in-between marriages at the time.
But, of course with Trump being his usual Trump self, he found nothing funny about the bit. In fact, he was so embarrassed by the joke that he threw a tantrum and stormed off the set during one of the commercial breaks:
"He was pissed. He was really mad. I went to commercial. He stood up. I don't think he said goodbye to me, and he walked over to my producer and said, "That's the last time I'm gonna be on this fucking show. He humiliated me in front of everybody."
Conan
No Regret
Leno
Jay Leno isn't remorseful for what happened between him, Conan O'Brien, and NBC's "Tonight Show" in 2010.
"I can't think of anything I'd do different," Leno said during Tuesday's episode of Bravo's "Watch What Happens Live." He was responding to a question from host Andy Cohen, who asked if he could go back, would he do anything different during that 10-month saga when he left "Tonight Show," and then came back.
"Look, they're ratings-based shows. People act like it's your decision. 'Well, you know, I think I'll go back.' The network makes these decisions," Leno continued. "They decide when you're going to leave and they decide they want you to come back. So there's not a lot different I would have done."
In another part of the episode, Leno also touched briefly on his long-running feud with David Letterman. "We don't hate each other," he said. "The media makes a big thing about it." The decades-long beef between the two started when Leno, not Letterman, got the "Tonight Show" gig after Johnny Carson retired. The two would spend the next 20 years jockeying for the late-night ratings crown, which was mostly won by Leno.
Now that Letterman has a new talk show for Netflix, would Leno go on it? "I would," he said, though added that he has not been asked yet.
Leno
Anger Management
Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin will be parking his butt in anger management after pleading guilty Wednesday to harassment in a dispute over a parking spot.
In addition to agreeing on the classes, the quick-tempered actor, 60, will also pay $120, the New York Post reported.
The actor, best known recently for impersonating Donald Trump on "Saturday Night Live," originally faced misdemeanor assault and harassment charges after allegedly punchingWojciech Cieszkowski in a Nov. 2 scuffle over a parking spot in New York's Greenwich Village. The "30 Rock" alum denied hitting Cieszkowski and told police that a family member was saving the spot when a man in a Saab pulled into it.
However, the actor admitted in court papers that he pushed Cieszkowski. Baldwin previously entered a not guilty plea to charges in a November court appearance.
He reported some of the developments on Twitter, complaining that the press congregated outside his courtroom and ignored three murder trials in the same building. He also reiterated that he did not punch the man.
Alec Baldwin
Stage Musical
Michael Jackson
A stage musical about Michael Jackson will premiere in Chicago later this year before heading to Broadway in 2020.
Officials said Wednesday that "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" will begin pre-Broadway performances at Chicago's Nederlander Theatre on Oct. 29 and run through Dec. 1.
The previously confirmed musical, inspired by Jackson's life and music, is still under development. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage is writing the book, using Jackson's vast catalog of songs. Tony Award winner Christopher Wheeldon will direct and choreograph.
Jackson sold millions of records and was a 13-time Grammy winner. In 1983 he became an international icon with the release of "Thriller," the best-selling album of all time with such hits as "Beat It" and "Billie Jean." He died in 2009.
Michael Jackson
Famous 'Freak Wave' Recreated in Lab
Japan
It takes a perfect storm to generate a freak wave, a wall of water so unpredictable and colossal that it can easily destroy and sink ships, a new study finds.
Take, for instance, the Draupner freak wave, which struck on Jan. 1, 1995, near the Draupner Oil Platform off the coast of Norway. That wave reached an incredible 84 feet (25.6 meters) tall, or about the height of four adult giraffes stacked on top of one another. Another famous rogue wave is depicted by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai in his19th-century woodblock print called "The Great Wave," which shows an enormous surge of water moments before an inevitable crash.
To figure out why these freak waves appear so suddenly and without warning, an international team of researchers from England, Scotland and Australia reproduced a scaled crest of the Draupner wave in a lab tank.
The team successfully decoded the rogue wave's recipe: It simply needs two smaller wave groups that intersect at an angle of about 120 degrees, they found.
The discovery shifts scientists' understanding of freak waves "from mere folklore to a credible real-world phenomenon," study lead researcher Mark McAllister, a research assistant in the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford in England, said in a statement. "By recreating the Draupner wave in the lab, we have moved one step closer to understanding the potential mechanisms of this phenomenon."
Japan
Prime-Time Nielsens
Ratings
Prime-time viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Jan. 14-20. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership.
1. AFC Championship: New England vs. Kansas City, CBS, 53.92 million.
2. "AFC Championship Post Game," CBS, 24.34 million.
3. "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 13.33 million.
4. "NCIS," CBS, 12.22 million.
5. "Young Sheldon," CBS, 11.46 million.
6. "AGT Champions," NBC, 9.99 million.
7. "FBI," CBS, 9.34 million.
8. "Magnum, P.I.," CBS, 8.76 million.
9. "Chicago Med," NBC, 8.51 million.
10. "Mom," CBS, 8.46 million.
11. "Chicago Fire," CBS, 8.03 million.
12. "This is Us," NBC, 7.75 million.
13. "Hawaii Five-0," CBS, 7.62 million.
14. "NCIS: New Orleans," CBS, 7.29 million.
15. "Chicago PD," NBC, 7.26 million.
16. "Bull," CBS, 7.09 million.
17. "Grey's Anatomy," ABC, 7.08 million.
18. "The Masked Singer," Fox, 6.95 million.
19. "MacGyver," CBS, 6.9 million.
20. "The Neighborhood," CBS, 6.83 million.
Ratings
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