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 Laramie, Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous 4th of July weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES— the exhibition Living Color: The Art of the Highwaymen— a group of African American artists noted for their paintings of Florida’s natural environment — will be at the Orlando, Florida Museum of Art thru August 16th.
YOUR WEEKEND READ is this essay by the redoubtable Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland — suggesting that Boris Johnson chose Saturday, July 4th (rather than a Monday) as the day to re-open pubs in England to glom-on to the concept of Independence Day— “forgetting that this is the day when Americans celebrate their escape from the rule of a dysfunctional London elite headed by a man with more children than you could count and prone to gibbering in public”— and that Boris is taking his eye off the continuing problem … that is Brexit.
THURSDAY's CHILD is the late, great Rubble the Cat— an English kitteh (believed to be the world’s oldest) who has died at the age of thirty-one.
WEALTHY CITIZENS in Africa are increasingly obtaining a foreign passport— which many nations in the Caribbean or Malta will provide for a large donation to its developmental fund or property investments — not for money laundering or other nefarious reasons, but to avoid having to obtain visas on international travel (often with quite onerous requirements).
CHEERS to the proclamation made by the governor of Illinois designating the late John Prine— who settled in Nashville but grew-up in the Chicago suburbs — as the first honorary poet laureate of the state.
FRIDAY's CHILD is a three year-old kitteh who was a stowaway on a C-17 military plane that left Travis Air Force Base in California, making a stop in Colorado Springs before landing in Bangor, Maine— lacking a microchip (but appearing to have been a family pet), he is now posted on multiple state ‘Lost Pet’ sites.
THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a follow-up to Lost Albums— with three recordings by legendary performers (John Coltrane, Neil Young and Thelonious Monk) unreleased for decades … until recently.
BRAIN TEASER— try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the much easier, USA-centered NY Times quiz.
OLDER-YOUNGER BROTHERS?— former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey.
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… pressed for time this week, here is a mini-profile of someone who was a Grammy and Academy Award winner — the late music composer Johnny Mandel, who died earlier this week. He never had much of a public profile, yet you will recognize some of his major works and he deserves a proper sendoff.
He began as a trumpeter: working in the bands of Tommy Dorsey and Woody Herman, and also played in a group with future Fed chairman Alan Greenspan. “Alan was very bookish and a nice guy,” Mandel later remembered. “He also did the payroll, so we always got paid on time”.
Yet Johnny found his composing and arranging skills were more in demand at the dawn of the 1950’s, working for Artie Shaw and Count Basie. Relocating to Los Angeles, he expanded his work to film scores: among his most famous were the 1958 film I Want to Live! (where Susan Hayward won an Oscar in the lead role), the 1964 James Garner and Julie Andrews film The Americanization of Emily, and its theme song, Emily (with lyrics by Johnny Mercer) and also in 1965’s The Sandpiper— where he composed the music to its famous tune The Shadow of Your Smile (with lyrics by Paul Francis Webster) that has been covered by the likes of Barbra Streisand, Stevie Wonder, Bobby Darin, Nancy Sinatra and Johnny Mathis (whom I had a chance to hear him sing it in 1999). Tony Bennett later said that if that had been the only song Mandel ever composed, "it would have been enough to earn his standing as one of the finest composers of our time."
In the 1970’s (and on) he became more prolific in writing for film (Being There, Caddyshack and The Verdict (starring Paul Newman). He also branched into songs for TV, and it was many years later before I ever learned that the title song of M*A*S*H* was Suicide is Painless— which he wrote the music for, yet I never heard the lyrics (which were written for the film by director Robert Altman’s son).
He went on in more recent years to work with Michael Bublé and Diana Krall, and such veteran jazz musicians as Zoot Sims and Cal Tjader released tribute albums to his work. Johnny Mandel has won five Grammy Awards, received three nominations for Emmy Awards, won the Academy Award for Best Original Song (the aforementioned Shadow of your Smile) and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010.
He frequently composed with Marilyn and Alan Bergman— and my favorite song they collaborated on was Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams— and especially this 1991 rendition by Abbey Lincoln, with Hank Jones (piano), Stan Getz (tenor saxophone) and Charlie Haden (bass).
Summer wishes, winter dreams Drifting down forgotten streams Songs and faces Smiles and whispers Come from far away To visit me this day
Yesterday has come to tea Sitting here across from me Dressed in faded flowers And rambling on for hours... ...and hours; I'd love to stay But I must leave today