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 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 over one hundred iconic photographs by the famed Canadian portraitist entitled The World of Yousuf Karsh will be at the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal, Québec through January 30th.

PROGRAMMING NOTE  #1— I’ll be busy for the Yuletide: thus, there will neither be a Friday C&J post, nor a normal Sunday Odds & Ends next week (though I will have a “Who Lost the Year?!?” poll, see #2 below). If you celebrate it: Merry Christmas. And I’ll see you all on the New Year’s weekend.

YOUR WEEKEND READ is this essay by the nonpareil essayist Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian on how the John Major government in Britain in the 1990’s was tagged with the word ‘sleaze’ … yet Major at least tried to combat it (albeit unsuccessfully, as Tony Blair swept into power in 1997). Today, Boris Johnson’s team is more about corruption, and either the denial (or acceptance) of it. And that corruption led to the loss of a long-term Tory-held seat in a special election.

THURSDAY's CHILD is named Ella Bella the Cat— an Oregon kitteh who went missing when her family moved for years ago … now reunited due to her microchip.

PROGRAMMING NOTE  #2— while I will not be posting a normal Odds & Ends next Sunday (as noted above) — I will have a simple "Who Lost the Year in Trump World?!?" poll (plus selected others) for those who yearn for it.

QUOTEfor today— in 2017, Rome’s mayor set off a maelstrom when she installed a tree so pitiful it was nicknamed Spelacchio, (or mangy). On Wednesday, it was her successor’s turn. The tree checked all of the right boxes: big, bright and bushy. Still, online grumbling ensued: some Romans began to call it bottiglione— joking that it looked like an oversize bottle. One resident was quoted thusly:

“We tend to be whiny about everything … even if there’s no reason to.”

FRIDAY's CHILD is named Sarge the Cat— a South Carolina kitteh who has cerebellar hypoplasia (a neurological disorder that doesn’t allow her brain to develop properly) and is unable to walk ... but she is able to travel by use of a see-through, aerated backpack.

THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at some random videos and songs: a sublime ensemble rendition of a Sondheim classic, a unique (and hilarious) 1995 UK special election video and a classic song by The Pretenders — performed with Faith Hill.

BRAIN TEASER— try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… looks like there is no New York Times quiz this week.

YOUNGER-OLDER BROTHERS?— Trump loyalist Brendan Hunt (convicted last April of threatening to kill members of Congress, including AOC and Chuck Schumer) and musician Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters).

And finally, for a song of the week ...........................… my annual tribute to a performer that one reviewer declared to be "the most listened-to jazz pianist of all time" and with the Yuletide season upon us: if that’s true, Vince Guaraldi achieved that status - in a quiet way - due to a certain comic strip of note. He may have only stood 5’6” tall, yet stands large in the field of piano trio music.

His breakthrough hit (in more ways than one) was the 1963 Grammy-winning tune Cast Your Fate to the Wind - a gorgeous melody that eight years later the guitarist Joe Walsh - later to join The Eagles - worked into a medley (most improbably) with a hard rock song with the James Gang entitled The Bomber in 1971.

In the early 1960's, Vince Guaraldi was successful in the jazz world — first as a sideman in  vibraphonist Cal Tjader’s band— yet comparatively unknown to the general public. But that changed - dramatically - with a 1965 cab ride that TV producer Lee Mendelson took across the Golden Gate Bridge. He had already contacted both Dave Brubeck and also vibraphone player Cal Tjader about composing for his project (and turned down by both for lack of time).

Just as The Sopranos producer David Chase decided upon his show's theme song - by hearing the UK band "Alabama 3" perform it on the radio - Lee Mendelson heard "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" on the radio in that fateful cab ride.

He asked for help from the noted San Francisco music journalist Ralph Gleason (who helped co-found Rolling Stone magazine later that decade) and was thus able to contact Guaraldi about composing for the upcoming Charlie Brown Christmas special. In 2018, the Jersey City Ballet Theater did a dance version of the special. This is the second-best selling jazz album of all time (with only Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue ahead of it). And Billboard reported this week that, as it does annually, A Charlie Brown Christmas has entered its best-selling album charts this month.

Sixteen TV shows (and one feature film) later, the music of Vince Guaraldi is an integral part of the Peanuts experience - with the theme song Linus and Lucy plus the irresistible song Skating among his best-loved Peanuts music. One reviewer noted that Linus and Lucy borrows its syncopation and A-flat key from “Cast Your Fate”. And Guaraldi was a later influence for Gary Burton and Pat Metheny.

As a child, my mother bought the Vince Guaraldi album for me … mistakenly believing it was the soundtrack of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” (and apologizing to me for it) — but I was delighted to be introduced to his music, and it was a stepping-stone (among other recordings) to becoming a piano trio lover. When people say there is no Thanksgiving music to speak of — while instrumental (and quite short), Guaraldi wrote Thanksgiving Theme to offer a possible gift to us.

Vince Guaraldi died forty-five years ago in 1976 (at only age 47) in-between sets of a gig in Menlo Park California. The musician David Benoit cites Guaraldi as an inspiration, and it's difficult to imagine Peanuts with any other music backing it. If you are a fan of George Winston: he had a meeting with Guaraldi in 1971, saying "He was very gracious and encouraging when I occasionally had the opportunity to play intermission piano between his sets” (a common practice at jazz clubs then).

Some long-lost film archives of Guaraldi were discovered in Ralph Gleason’s attic, and his son has helped restore them for a new documentary The Anatomy Of Vince Guaraldi— seeking to bring it to home video at some point.

For the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis,"Peanuts" was the only chance to hear jazz on television in his youth. Wynton also loved that his late pianist father Ellis— the patriarch of the Marsalis musical family whom we lost to Covid — knew Guaraldi. "Our father knew somebody who was connected to television!", he exclaimed.