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 Monet to Matisse— featuring works by Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Pablo Picasso and others — will be at the San Diego, California Museum of Art through October 10th.
YOUR WEEKEND READ is this essay by The Guardian’s intrepid analyst Jonathan Freedland with the self-explanatory title: Once the world had Gorbachev and Mandela. Now we have Trump, Johnson and Truss.
HAPPY TRAILS to the longtime trumpeter/bandleader of the Tonight Show orchestra during the Johnny Carson era, Doc Severinsen— who has performed his final concert (with a small group) in upstate NY at the age of ninety-five.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Zara the Cat— an English kitteh who spent seven months being passed over for adoption … until an urgent appeal (that even got an offer from the USA) found her a home just a few miles away.
MUSIC NOTES— thirty years ago Johnny Cash was to play an outdoor concert in Ipswich — near the east coast of “my favorite part of England", he said — yet the show was cancelled after the advance sale (of what was expected to be 20,000 fans) was poor … and he never returned before his death in 2003. Now, a tribute band will showcase his music with a concert billed as “The Show That Never Was”.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Me-owly the Hero Cat— a Washington state kitteh who cornered a (rabid) brown bat who entered a couple’s bedroom … and since Me-owly is up-to-date on her rabies shots, is expected to be in-the-clear.
BRAIN TEASER— try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz.
SEPARATED at BIRTH— two GOP candidates seeking higher office: J.D. Vance (US Senate — OH) and George Hansel (seeking the September nomination for US House district #2 — NH) …. and who is the mayor of Keene, where I live.
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… while best known for her ten years with the Eurythmics, Annie Lennox went on to a great solo career in her own right, and has won numerous awards for her humanitarian work (in 2010 being made an OBE by Queen Elizabeth for her charity work with Oxfam). In particular, she has been a stalwart in her support of the LGBTQ+ community. A career retrospective thus seems overdue.
Born in Aberdeen, Scotland on Christmas Day 1954, she won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London yet left before graduation due to a lack of finances (the academy named her a Fellow in 2006). In 1977 she joined a band named The Tourists, where she met guitarist Dave Stewart. They had a #4 hit in Britain in 1979 with a cover version of Dusty Springfield’s I Only Want to Be With You.
Their professional relationship became romantic, leading to internal tensions that caused the band to split in 1980. Their new collaboration became known as The Eurythmics — enjoying major success with hits such as Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) and Here Comes the Rain Again. After ten years the band quietly dissolved (long after their romance did) and after giving birth to a child, Lennox began working on a solo career. Before that: she recorded a duet single with Al Green (for the Bill Murray film Scrooged) — a #9 hit in the US with a cover of the Jackie DeShannon song Put a Little Love in Your Heart.
In 1992, she released her first solo album Diva— with a #14 hit in the US, Walking on Broken Glass. Three years later, the album Medusa featured No More I Love Yous (reaching #23 in the US charts). She took time off to raise her child and was more actively involved in charitable works.
2003 saw her album Bare (with her song Into the West appearing at the close of the Lord of the Rings trilogy film, The Return Of The King) and 2007’s allusion to GWB on the album Songs of Mass Destruction — with her tune Sing dedicated to Nelson Mandela’s talk about the AIDS epidemic in South Africa (with twenty-three noted female vocalists joining-in). She followed in 2010 with a Christmas album.
Her most recent full-length album was 2014’s Nostalgia— featuring tunes from the Great American Songbook — and also privately released a short (EP) from 2018 consisting of short piano instrumentals. She contributed a closing song for the 2018 film A Private War— based on the life of the late British foreign affairs correspondent Marie Colvin. Yet she is well-known to those outside the music industry for her aforementioned work on humanitarian as well as LGBTQ+ issues. In 2013, Archbishop Desmond Tutu summed-up her works on the AIDS crisis:
"She is one of those exemplary human beings who chose to put her success in her chosen career to work in order to benefit others. She is a true friend of Africa and of South Africa. Her Aids activism in general, and support for the treatment action campaign in-particular, contributed significantly to turning the pandemic around in our country."
At age sixty-seven, she is the winner of numerous awards in the UK. Some of hers in the US include: four Grammy awards, a Golden Globe, an Academy Award (for Best Original Song for the aforementioned Into the West), a Billboard Century Award and was listed as #93 in Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. And just this year: she and Dave Stewart were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and (as part of the Eurythmics) will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this coming November.
Of all of her work: my favorite is her rendition of a Cole Porter classic in the 2004 musical biopic about his life, De-Lovely which — along with Marty Balin’s own Comin’ Back to Me— is my favorite love song of all time.
Every time we say goodbye, I die a little Every time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little Why the Gods above me, who must be in the know Think so little of me, they allow you to goWhen you're near, there's such an air of spring about it I can hear a lark somewhere, begin to sing about it
There's no love song finer but how strange, the change: From major to minor Every time we say goodbye