Quantcast
Channel: Ed Tracey
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 776

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

$
0
0

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 of cloth sculpture works entitled Nancy Erickson: Reclaiming (a Post-Nuclear) Eden will be at the Missoula, Montana Art Museum through May 22nd.

 In Missoula, Montana to May 22nd

YOUR WEEKEND READ#1 is this author’s description of her new novel of historical fiction — The Paris Library tells the tale of the international team of librarians who defied the Nazis in order to hand-deliver books to Jewish readers after the Nazi Occupation of France began.

HAIL and FAREWELL to the trombonist Chris Barber— who led a traditional jazz band in England (which stayed relevant by continuous innovations) up until last year — who has died at the age of ninety. Popular music devotees note him for two reasons: (1) his partnering with Lonnie Donegan in 1956 on Rock Island Line that led to the birth of skiffle (do-it-yourself music, often using improvised instruments) that inspired the Beatles and Stones (Steve Van Zandt of the E Street Band calling him the Godfather of British Rock……..

  Chris Barber (1930-2021)

…. and also (2) helping to invite and finance the trans-Atlantic passage of blues performers such as Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and others that also inspired many future British blues-rock musicians. When John Mayall organized his 70th birthday concert in Liverpool in 2003: he invited Chris Barber to perform as a salute to his role in British blues (appearing on the CD and DVD).

YOUR WEEKEND READ#2 is this call for the new administration to replace the head of Federal Student Aid… a Betsy DeVos holdover.

Update: apparently it worked …. he’s now gone.

THURSDAY's CHILD is named Captain the Cat— a Texas kitteh found by the side of a road, soon to be reunited (due to his microchip) with a man living in Arkansas ….. who thought Captain had been dead for four years.

         Captain the Cat

ATTENTION, QUIZ READERS -  posted a few months ago in this space was this year's quiz from King William's College (a prep school located on the UK's Isle of Man) - with said quiz known as its General Knowledge Paper officially.

At one time, students at the school were required to take it home during the winter recess and be prepared to research the answers at home - today, the quiz is optional. It consists of 18 groups of 10 questions - the first section on events 100 years ago (1920), the second 100 years earlier (1820), and the last on events of the past year (in this case, 2020).

Each group's correct answers has a common theme (though perhaps not immediately recognizable) that helps if you can answer at least one of that group's questions - which will give you hope of answering some others. (For example, in this year’s Group 3: the answers are all US state capitals).

It is among the most difficult general knowledge quizzes on earth (quite British literature-laden, as you might well imagine) in part to being very cryptic, and each year the Guardian newspaper has printed both the quiz (and a few weeks later, the answers) since 1951.

At this link is the 2020 year's quiz if you would like a chance to take it.

Now the answers are available at this link - and yours truly improved upon his prior year total …. up to a sizzling  5 correct (possibly my best ever).

FRIDAY's CHILD is one of four kittehs abandoned on a sinking ship that caught fire off a paradise island … then rescued by sailors in the Thai navy.

Thai sailor and orange tabby

BRAIN TEASER— try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz (no common questions, and yours truly got a doughnut on the BBC, yet almost aced the NYT).

THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at covered bridges— and the story of someone who at age forty-six decided to dedicate his career to rehabilitating them and build new ones.

OLDER-YOUNGER SISTERS? - right-wing French candidate Marine Le Pen and newly-elected right-wing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). (h/t to A.A.F.) pic.twitter.com/5KL6isd1ga

— Ed Tracey (@Ed_Tracey) March 2, 2021

...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… someone whom I only knew as a TV character from my youth, yet learned to love as a singer was Eartha Kitt - who seemed to have the same persona wherever she went. Some critics felt that impaired her singing career (especially when R&B and rock music became dominant later in the 1950's) yet it enabled her to always have a stage to perform on - not for nothing did Orson Welles declare her to be "the most exciting woman in the world". And yet, she always spoke of being shy; in no small part due to the hardships of her youth.

Born as Eartha Keith in South Carolina back in 1927, she was the daughter of a black sharecropper mother and a white man ... and found herself ostracized working in cotton fields, called yella gal by the family she lived with. At age eight she was sent to live with her Aunt Marnie Kitt in Harlem, which brought better material things (piano and dance lessons) yet beatings, also. She had to work in a factory in her early teens and - years later - became a homeless advocate (through Unicef) due to often having to sleep without a roof over her head.

And then a friend dared her to audition for the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe, which she aced and became an international touring member (in dance and song) before age twenty. She was spotted by a Paris nightclub owner and became a featured singer at his club. Visiting Americans in the post WW-II era also took noted, and Orson Welles cast her as Helen of Troy in his production of Dr. Faust.

Her having spent time in Europe enabled her to speak four languages (and sing in seven) which garnered her singing spots at New York's Village Vanguard as well as a Broadway role in New Faces of 1952 - which helped start the careers of Paul Lynde, Alice Ghostley and Mel Brooks, among others.

She then began an RCA recording career, with hit songs such as I Want to be Evil, "Monotonous" and C'est Si Bon (from her days in Paris). She earned a Grammy nomination for Folk Tales of the Tribes of Africa and was able for the rest of her career to be a cabaret performer of the first magnitude, with a breathy chanteuse air about her.

Her best known song can be heard each December, as Santa Baby— which was co-written by Joan Javits (niece of the soon-to-be US Senator Jacob Javits) - was one of the first successful Christmas novelty songs on its 1953 release.

When he recording career began to ebb, she returned to Broadway, and appeared in "The Mark of the Hawk" (with Sidney Poitier) and "St. Louis Blues" with Nat King Cole. She also made her mark in television, and received an Emmy nomination for a 1965 appearance on "I, Spy".

I, like many who were very young in the mid-60's, came to know her first as Catwoman in the final season (1967) of the old Batman TV series - and in doing so, she achieved something nearly impossible in television. It's different in film where, for example, actors who have portrayed James Bond over the decades can be appreciated by fans of different eras: those films come out infrequently, and one had to visit theaters in the early era of the series.

By contrast: TV shows come into our home, run weekly and we feel a connection to TV characters. Thus, when different actors have portrayed the same character in an ongoing show: whoever first played the part defined the role in the public's mind. And so it’s uncommon to find people singing the praises of subsequent actors, no matter how talented.

One exception would be Catwoman: Julie Newmar defined the role as its first performer, and still is many people's favorite. Yet you find many others who prefer Eartha Kitt's subsequent portrayal with her rolling 'meowwwww'that stayed in people's minds. Years later, she told NPR's Scott Simon that people always asked her to make that sound (and she always obliged).

   Eartha Kitt as Catwoman

Yet her career took a dramatic turn in 1968 at a White House luncheon. She was asked by Lady Bird Johnson about the Vietnam War. She replied: "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot." The remark reportedly caused Mrs. Johnson to burst into tears and Eartha Kitt became blacklisted, resulting in her leaving for Europe for the next decade to resume her cabaret singing.

President Jimmy Carter invited her to the White House in 1978, and that same year she received a Tony nomination for her role in Timbuktu - a re-make of "Kismet" adapted for black performers. And while for the most part she remained true to her soul/jazz and Great American Songbook stylings, she did have a 1984 semi-disco hit Where is My Man - her highest chart success in nearly thirty years.  

She continued with her varied career into the 21st Century, with another Tony nomination in 2000 for The Wild Party and earned two Daytime Emmy Awards for her role in the children's animated series The Emperor's New School. She stayed in shape for life, even writing a book on her fitness regimen and still performed (after being diagnosed with colon cancer in 2006) at New York's famed Café Carlyle (with a 2006 live album still showing she had her chops). Eartha Kitt died the day after Christmas in 2008 at the age of 81.

Her legacy appears to be solid, with three autobiographies: the last one entitled I'm Still Here: Confessions of a Sex Kitten published in 1989. She earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, and was cited by both Diana Ross as well as Janet Jackson as an influence. She has an excellent compilation album of her hits, was a longtime supporter of LGBT rights (before it became more common) and was the subject of a limited edition 2018 red wine blend.

Eartha: late 50’s-early 60’s ..

…. and years later on in life

Of all of her musical works, it is her rendition of the 1930 Cole Porter song Love for Sale - which garnered some protest in its day - that is my favorite.

Love for sale Appetizing young love for sale Love that's fresh and still unspoiled Love that's only slightly soiled Love for sale

Who will buy? Who would like to sample my supply? Who's prepared to pay the price For a trip to paradise? Love for sale

Let the poets pipe of love In their childish way I know every type of love Better far than they

If you want the thrill of love I've been through the mill of love Old love, new love Every love but true love


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 776

Trending Articles