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— a traveling photographic exhibit entitled Front Row Center:Icons of Rock, Blues, and Soul— with over seventy images from 1970-1999 — is at the Biggs Museum of American Art in Dover, Delaware to June 19th (and will be going to Michigan and Utah later this year).
YOUR WEEKEND READ #1 is this essay by the always entertaining Tim Miller in The Bulwark— with the self-explanatory title A Letter to the DeSantis Fan-Boys From a Real Never Trumper— detailing, “What (we) will do and not do in order to provide the aid and comfort you are demanding for your chosen candidate’s campaign against the former president”.
SPORTING NOTES — next Saturday, June 10th will feature the professional team championship game of soccer in Europe — with Manchester City of England facing Inter Milan of Italy — to be played in Istanbul, Turkey. It will start at 3:00 PM Eastern (noon Pacific) and will be on free broadcast TV (CBS).
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Sir Indiana Bones the Cat— an Oklahoma kitteh adopted by the staff at the Skeletons Museum of Osteology for office companionship … and has become a featured attraction of museum guests.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #2 is this lengthy (and at times overly granular) yet still compelling essay in AlterNet by the son of the recently convicted Oath Keepers head… explaining how he “went from a teenage militiaman who believed in Pizzagate … to casting off my birth name of Dakota Stewart Rhodes and joining BLM and pro-choice protests”.
MUSIC NOTES — for the third time in the past five years, a newly-discovered recording of the saxophone colossus John Coltrane (who died in 1967). This one was found in the archives of the NY Public Library, with live 1961 performances (with sideman Eric Dolphy) of classic Coltrane numbers including My Favorite Things, Impressions and Greensleeves… and set for a mid-July release.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Duke Ellington Morris the Cat— who is the latest therapy animal at San Francisco Int’l Airport, interacting with weary travelers.
BROADCAST NEWS— this morning, Chuck Todd announced that he will be leaving as host of Meet the Press at the end of the summer, to be succeeded by Kristen Welker, NBC’s chief White House correspondent and a co-anchor on Weekend Today.
THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at a World Cup qualifying night from ten years ago this autumn … where the fortunes of Mexico and Panama were altered in a 95-second span… due to the US team.
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— film star Jamie Dornan (Belfast) and Sweden’s Prince Carl Philip.
...... and finally, for a song of the week ....................... barely enough time to finish this week’s output … but thanks to the newsletter of Dan Rather— here’s a short song (that I hadn’t heard in years) made famous on the TV show Evening at Pops. From the days when Arthur Fiedler conducted (yes, that long ago). Dan writes:
It was written by the American composer Leroy Anderson in 1950 and premiered with the Boston Pops three years later. In “The Typewriter,” the star instrument is indeed a typewriter, which serves a percussive role. The sounds are instantly memorable for those of a certain age, but one wonders what the younger children in the audience of this performance by the Iceland Symphony Orchestra are thinking.