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 weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES— an exhibition entitled Revisiting America: The Prints of Currier & Ives will be at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska to April 11th.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #1 is this essay by David Holt (the Republican mayor of Oklahoma City) on not telling your supporters what they want to hear… how he had to learn to do that, with reference to our present situation.
A NOTE on today’s poll — next week’s poll will be a Trumpster/Pence-centered poll, as (1) next week will see him impeached for the 2nd time (or worse) and also (2) there are too many worthy candidates to consider for this week ….. who would not be considered if they were on the ballot along with you-know-who.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Muji the Cat— whom a woman was asked by TSA to take out of her carrier at LaGuardia Airport (despite warning them she’d flee) and had to be rescued eleven days later with the assistance of a tracking dog.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #2 is this essay about the Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin— who just this week had to bury his twenty-five year-old who committed suicide (having long suffered from depression) and then had to endure the attack on the Capitol (with his daughter in the gallery). About receiving condolences:
Republican colleagues have reached out, too. I asked why he thought his political opponents are able to empathize with his son’s death, but not reckon in any serious way with the forces that yielded Wednesday’s attack—an event that has, as of this writing, taken five lives. “I’ll probably spend the rest of my life trying to figure it out,” he said.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Moose the Cat— a Maine kitteh who went missing five years ago, seemingly had been in and out of animal shelters for a number of years … until spotted by a woman on a local shelter's website.
BRAIN TEASER— try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC (very UK-centered this week) ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz (which has been changed a bit in format). No common questions today.
THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with an updated look at some of my previous subjects: The Stax Records museum in Memphis, Tennessee ... plus the legendary amateur wrestler/college coach Dan Gable (who got some awkward treatment at his recent White House visit) … and the opening of the Moynihan Train Hall at NYC’s Penn Station— which was operational in my original post, yet quite bare-bones …. now, it is complete except for the concession area.
SEPARATED at BIRTH— (based upon a BiPM random observation) — film star George C. Scott and TV star Vic Tayback.
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… it's the sixty year-old song Stand By Me - whose origins are a 1955 Gospel song by the Staples Singers. Ben E. King and a member of the soul group The Drifters adapted it for a secular audience, but was unable to interestthe group's manager: "It’s not a bad song ... but we don’t need it".
After leaving the Drifters in 1960, Ben E. King began recording as an Atlantic Records solo artist (although his first album release of singles did not occur until 1963). After recording songs like Spanish Harlem he had a little studio time left over one day in 1961. Fatefully, the legendary songwriting team of Jerry Lieber & Mike Stoller asked King if he had anything in reserve, with that extra time available? And when King sat down at the piano and sang them his rough version of this song .... well, they were mighty glad they asked.
Lieber & Stoller went to work adapting it once again, adding a more contemporary sound plus a string section (and Mike Stoller utilized the bass line as the song's intro) - hence, the songwriter's credits read "King-Lieber-Stoller". It reached #4 in the US and #1 in Great Britain in its original release and when a film of the same name used Stand By Me as its theme song in 1986, a re-release made it up to #9.
The rest is history: it was ranked #122 on the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time by Rolling Stone, and in 1999 the performing rights organization BMI declared it as the fourth most-performed song of the 20th century: with about 7 million performances.
Its appeal is almost universal - with noted cover versions by performers as diverse as: Otis Redding, Mickey Gilley, Seal, U2, Green Day, Ronnie Milsap, Lady Gaga and in TV commercials. It was also featured in Lieber & Stoller's Smokey Joe's Café Broadway musical.
When Ben E. King was asked what cover versions he liked, he mentioned David Ruffin (of the Temptations), Prince Royce and Sean Kingston. He added, "the one that held up in my head the most was the John Lennon version from 1975 - he took it and made it as if it should have been his song, as opposed to mine".
Yet there is one cover version that not a great deal of people are aware of .......…
In 1963, an up-and-coming athlete from Kentucky named Cassius Clay — yes, the future Muhammad Ali— recorded the album I Am the Greatest: a (mainly) spoken album .... yet on which he also did sing "Stand By Me".
When the night has come And the land is dark And the moon is the only light we'll see I won't be afraid No, I won't be afraid Just as long as you stand by meIf the sky that we look upon Should tumble and fall And the mountains should crumble to the sea I won't cry No, I won't shed a tear Just as long as you stand by me
And darling, darling: Stand by me, stand by me