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 Turner’s Modern World— a career retrospective of the English painter J.M.W. Turner and how his works reflected the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution — will open at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts on March 27th (and run through July 10th).
YOUR WEEKEND READ is this essay by the former Labor Secretary, Robert Reich— as to how a silver lining to the devastation in Ukraine may be to bring back the inter-party need to work together during the Cold War … as a new one emerges.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Ace the Cat— a California kitteh who has just retired from his job as rodent control manager at an Ace Hardware center and is now living with another retired store employee.
CHEERS to the Burkina-Faso born Francis Kéré— the first African to win the prestigious Pritzker Prize (a Lifetime Achievement award in architecture) — whose work has been erected in his country of birth, and also across Africa, Europe and the United States: using indigenous materials and local symbols.
FRIDAY's CHILDREN are named Belle the Dog and Bears the Cat— and Belle has become a welcome support animal when Bears has to go to the vet’s office.
BRAIN TEASER— try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz.
A NOTE on THIS WEEK’S POLL — as promised last week, a Putin poll (though I’m not convinced he has yet lost personally, compared to his soldiers and others) … and thus, will add Trump World, as well. These will not be recurring themes, as I’ve noted that compiling losers is a time-intensive task (and not worth it with a walkover poll as a result). Regular programming returns next week.
DIRECT DESCENDANTS? — political writer McKay Coppins and the late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, portraying Truman Capote.
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… someone at the age of fifty-eight who has had a forty-year music career is Natalie Merchant— with spirited original songs with a social consciousness as well as covers of classic songs with a new twist. While focused more on film work and activism in recent years, she still performs and writes new material.
Born in 1963 in north-western NY state (in the hometown of Lucille Ball), she recalls being brought to a Styx concert at age twelve by her mother, and was enthralled by a white piano that was on-stage. She joined the band later to be known as 10,000 Maniacs at age seventeen, who performed in the region before being signed by Elektra Records in 1985.
Their 1987 album In My Tribe broke the band into the spotlight (with Hey Jack Kerouac) and 1992’s Our Time in Eden (with hits like Candy Everyone Wants) being their best-sellers, along with a spirited cover of Cat Stevens’ Peace Train. All along, she felt that creative differences were rising, and gave two year’s notice that she would be beginning a solo career.
In 1995, she released her self-produced first solo album Tigerlily, with three Top 40 singles (Carnival, Wonder and Jealousy) along with River— not the Joni Mitchell tune, but instead chastising the music press for their treatment of the death of River Phoenix. She followed-up in 1998 with the album Ophelia, whose title track she performed at the second Lilith Fair tour, and she had a #18 hit with Kind and Generous. In 2001 she released Motherland— which garnered praise from Elton John (“The title track is so like Jacques Brel it makes me cry; it’s just sensational stuff”).
In 2002, she left her long-standing label Elektra and formed her own label called Myth America Records. Only one album (2003’s The House Carpenter’s Daughter) came from this effort, and she spent the rest of the decade getting married and having a child. She signed with Nonesuch Records and in 2010 released an album dedicated to children.
In the past decade she has focused more attention to social causes (with documentaries on subjects as wide as fracking to domestic violence) and participated in a protest outside Trump Tower before Inauguration Day in 2017. She has long attributed her social activism to two Catholic figures as different as anti-poverty activist Dorothy Day and the priest/poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Her two most recent recordings are a 2014 self-titled album and 2017’s Butterfly— with new material as well as older tunes with added strings.
While Kind and Generous is my favorite from her solo days, my favorite both from the 10,000 Maniacs era and at her solo shows is These are Days.
These are days you'll remember Never before and never since I promise will the whole world be warm as this And as you feel it You'll know it's true That you are blessed and lucky It's true that you Are touched by something That will grow in you, in you
These are days you'll remember When May is rushing over you with desire To be part of the miracles you see in every hour You'll know it's true that you are blessed and lucky It's true that you Are touched by something That will grow and bloom in you
These are days These are the days you might fill with laughter until you break These days you might feel a shaft of light Make its way across your face And when you do you'll know how it was meant to be See the signs and know their meaning It's true — You'll know how it was meant to be Hear the signs and know they're speaking to you