Odds & Ends: News/Humor (with a "Who Lost the Week?" poll)

I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".

OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.

CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.

ART NOTES — 70 original costumes from the film series in an exhibition entitled Star Wars and the Power of Costume are at the Denver, Colorado Art Museum through April 2nd.

  Now in Denver, Colorado

HAIL and FAREWELL to the Italian-born Canadian comic Tony Rosato— who appeared on SCTV as well as the 1981-82 season of Saturday Night Live,  which did pay tribute at the end of last night’s show — who has died at the age of 62 ……. to the veteran guitarist Tommy Allsup— who (fortunately for him) lost a coin flip to Richie Valens to ride on Buddy Holly’s doomed flight, and who was later inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame— who has died at the age of 85 …. and to the Broadway actor (“Bye Bye Birdie”) who became a TV star, Dick Gautier — who portrayed the robot Hymie on “Get Smart” — who has also died at the age of 85.

THURSDAY's CHILD is named Pretty Boy the Cat— a West Virginia kitteh who is acting as a midwife (and masseur) for the pregnant Copper the Goat.

Copper w/Pretty Boy the Cat

MUSEUM NOTES — after months of renovations, visitors will be able to see (for the first time since 1978) the famed Muscle Shoals, Alabama Sound Studios— where recordings by Cher, Boz Scaggs, the Rolling Stones, the Staple Singers, Bob Seger, Traffic, Willie Nelson, Rod Stewart, Paul Simon and Lynyrd Skynyrd took place.

SIGN of the APOCALYPSE — French far-right political leader (and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was in-the-house (Trump Tower) …... just for coffee, ya think?

“Merde, this coffee sucks”.

TRAFFIC NOTES — Bavarians have long chafed at paying road tolls when crossing into Austria and Switzerland (while those country’s drivers did not have to, on the German Autobahn) … and so, Bavaria’s transport minister had to get creative in instituting tolls on everyone …. while simultaneously offering automotive tax relief for German nationals.

FRIDAY's CHILD is named Gray the Cat— a Hawaii kitteh suffering from a rare spinal cord infection …. who is now able to walk again after surgery.

          Gray the Cat

IN THE YEAR-END OBITUARIES for 2016 — most about Zsa Zsa Gabor noted her revolving door of husbands. I found more fascinating that she was born in Budapest (in February, 1917) when it was still Austria-Hungary … which ended just over a year-and-a-half later, when WW-1 was over (and the Empire abolished).

WHAT DIGBY SAID …… part 897, concluding her recent essay thusly:

Perhaps the silver lining of Trump going to war with the Intelligence Community is the fact that they are less likely to do his bidding when he wants to go after his political enemies (as you know he will). It's a small consolation considering that he's a malevolent monster who is probably going to get us into a war. 

BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC, along with a very timely quiz on … nepotism.

END of an ERA — after 146 years, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus— the self-proclaimed “Greatest Show on Earth” — will close in May, as declining attendance combined with high operating costs, along with changing public tastes and prolonged battles with animal rights groups led to its demise.

MOTHER — SON? — the late Beverly Hillbillies star Irene Ryan and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

  Irene Ryan (1902 — 1973) Mitch McConnell (1942 — )

...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… an unlikely songsmith to emerge in the 20th Century was Cole Porter - whose grandfather was the richest man in the state of Indiana. J.O. Cole was upset that his daughter first sent her son to Worcester Academy at age 14 (wanting him to stay in Indiana) and then (after graduating from Yale) that young Cole had left Harvard Law (where he was roommates with future Secretary of State Dean Acheson) to enter its music school. Along with other parts of his life, this story has never been verified, but Porter said that the school's dean (Ezra Thayer) had advised him to do so; saying that his talent for music dwarfed his potential anywhere else.

That talent had already been displayed as an undergraduate at Yale, where he composed 300 songs (some of which, including the football song, are still played nearly 100 years later). But his first efforts on Broadway (circa 1915) were failures, and he became part of the American expatriate Lost Generation in Paris; selling songs and living off an allowance from his family. Although officially listed as part of the French Foreign Legion during WW-I: he did only minor work for the Duryea Relief Fund (and instead became part of the Paris social scene).

In 1919 he married a wealthy American divorcée who was fully cognizant of his sexual orientation. In a 2004 biopic (to be mentioned later more fully) they discuss the matter in one of the film's highlights:

Cole Porter:  So you know that I ..... that I have other interests ..... interests some may see as unfair to you? Linda Lee Porter:   You mean …..... men?

They led the good life in Europe through the 1920's, yet he continued to write and two composers helped convince him to try again. One was Richard Rodgers who heard his work in Venice and was puzzled as to his lack of notoriety on Broadway. The other was Irving Berlin, who recommended Cole to the producers of the Broadway play "Paris" (appropriately enough) and the Porters returned to the US in 1928.

That play proved a success, with "Let's Do It" becoming the first classic that Cole Porter was ever to write. And for the next thirty years, Cole Porter wrote music for scores of Broadway plays (including "The Gay Divorce", "Can Can", Anything Goes and - something of a comeback for him in 1948 - "Kiss Me Kate"). He had luck in Hollywood as well, with Fred Astaire films, then "High Society" and "Les Girls".

It sounds like a "Behind the Music" twist: but at age 46 in 1937, Cole Porter was thrown off a horse and was in severe pain the rest of his life. He was one of the first who underwent electro-shock therapy, and eventually had one of his legs amputated. Further depressed by the death of his mother (in 1952) and his wife (in 1954) he never wrote for his catalogue after 1958.

But wotta catalogue. Just a few of his songs that became classics include "What Is This Thing Called Love?", "Love for Sale", "Anything Goes", "You're the Top", "Begin the Beguine", "I Get a Kick Out of You", "Just One of Those Things", "I've Got You Under My Skin", "Too Darn Hot" and an unlikely hit in Don't Fence Me In that was for an unreleased film that came into the public eye a decade later via ..... Roy Rogers. And uncommonly for the era, he was both the composer and lyricist for his songs.

Cole Porter died of kidney failure in October, 1964 at the age of 73. An instant choice for the Songwriters Hall of Fame, he was profiled in two films: "Night and Day" (a quite sanitized 1946 film starring Cary Grant) and the aforementioned 2004 film De-Lovely - starring Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd as his wife) which, despite being at times critically panned— I truly enjoyed, with its flaws. One of the highlights was seeing many contemporary singers (Robbie Williams, Diana Krall, Sheryl Crow, Natalie Cole and others) appearing in period dress throughout the film, singing those memorable tunes.

And while he left this Earth over fifty years ago, his legacy continues in other ways. Just last month, an award presented annually (to an emerging composer/lyricist whose work shows promise) was given to musical theater composer/lyricist Brett Ryback …. the 2016 ASCAP Foundation Cole Porter Award.

Cole Porter as a young man .... and later (1891 — 1964)

Of his songbook, Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye— from a 1944 musical revue — is one of my favorite love songs of all time. A great instrumental version by John Coltrane is at this link - for a vocal version, here is one from Ella Fitzgerald.

Everytime we say goodbye I die a little Everytime we say goodbye I wonder why a little Why the gods above me Who must be in the know Think so little of me That they allow you to go?

When you're near … there's such an air of spring about it

I can hear a lark somewhere … begin to sing about it

And there's no love song finer

But how strange, the change: from major to minor

Everytime we say goodbye

x YouTube Video