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— for those visiting Britain this summer: a photography exhibit entitled Paul McCartney, Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm— using his own camera (and just recently discovered) taken between Dec 1963 to Feb 1964 when The Beatles became a global phenomenon — opens at the National Portrait Gallery in London this coming Wednesday, running through October 1st.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #1 is this essay by Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian, positing that the emergence of both Donald Trump and Boris Johnson was made possible by the (recently deceased) flamboyant Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi.
BUSINESS NOTES— the town of Ontario, Oregon has benefited handsomely by being located just across the Idaho border (where recreational marijuana is illegal) via sales tax revenues that have paid for emergency response vehicles as well as park and trail improvements.
THE AUSTRALIAN SENATE voted to hold a constitutional referendum on recognizing the rights of indigenous peoples. If approved, the constitution will be changed to allow for the creation of an indigenous advocacy group to Parliament. Aboriginal people, who make up 3% of the population, played no part in drafting Australia’s constitution and were not accorded any special rights in it.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Kitty the Cat— the shop cat of the Grand Canyon Railway in Williams, Arizona.
YUK for TODAY— in my C&J postings last week I noted that — though the actual tweet is gone — after the death of Laugh-In star Arte Johnson in 2019, his fellow cast member Ruth Buzzi paid tribute to him for a half-century of friendship.
What I didn’t notice in the blurb before: Ruth’s character Gladys Ormsby (forever fending-off the lecherous old man in black) made such an impression on Elton John that — years later, upon meeting Ruth at a Beverly Hills function — asked her to swat him with her handbag, saying it was … on his “bucket list”.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #2 is this essay by the economist Robert Reich, who felt that President Ford’s attorney general Edward Levi had instituted post-Watergate reforms of the Justice Department that were sound … but in the wake of you-know-who, he now thinks the more extensive proposals that Sam Ervin had proposed (at the time) may need to be re-visited.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Ozzie the Cat— a California kitteh lost six years ago in a wildfire, but reunited due to his microchip.
YOUR WEEKEND READ #3 is this New York Law Journal OpEd by Mimi Rocah— the district attorney for suburban Westchester County, NY — responding to a post by 45 on his Truth Social, saying her office’s decision to close an investigation into the Trump Organization was “honorable”. She noted that was at-odds with his prior claims (that she could not be fair) and that she simply did-her-job.
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— Bulwark essayist Tim Miller (b. 1984) and Northern Ireland golfer Rory McIlroy (b. 1989).
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… I can’t say that I am a huge fan of cabaret music, but sometimes a certain performer does capture my imagination. One who did that in the 1990’s was Nancy LaMott (with her contemporary Susannah McCorkle being more of a jazz singer).
And someone I have come to admire is a cabaret singer known as much for her starring roles in plays as much as straight singing, Ute Lemper— perhaps the foremost performer of the music of Kurt Weill/Marlene Dietrich there is today. She has had lead acting roles in Paris, London and New York and in recent years began composing her own works. If you’re unfamiliar with her ... read on.
Born in Münster, Germany (although quite apropos for a longtime US resident, on the 4th of July in 1963) she studied piano and dance (singing for awhile in a jazz-rock band). She later graduated from the Max Reinhardt Drama School in Vienna and in 1983, starred in the original Viennese production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats.
This led to starring roles in Peter Pan as well as Sally Bowles in a Paris revival of Cabaret— which won her a Molière Award. She has handled the role of Velma Kelly in productions of Chicago both in New York and in London (winning an Olivier Award for the latter).
She has appeared in films (mostly European) with one notable US film being Robert Altman’s 1994 Fashion Week comedy Prêt-à-Porter. She has also dubbed her voice for films such as The Little Mermaid and Kissing Jessica Stein and has even had some of her paintings exhibited in art galleries.
Yet she is known primarily for her cabaret singing. She has five albums dedicated to the music of Kurt Weill (with lyrics in German, French and English) with the most recent from 1993. She also has a 1996 album dedicated to songs from the Weimar Republic of Germany, before the war years.
In 2000, she began to record songs by contemporary composers, and refine her cabaret act here in the US. Punishing Kiss had songs by Tom Waits and three from Elvis Costello, then 2002’s But One Day has works by Jacques Brel and others, and her 2005 live album has a wide mix of songs, with several having a theme about the Moon: Van Morrison's Moondance, Sting's "Moon Over Bourbon Street," Joni Mitchell's "Moon at the Window," the old standard "It's Only a Paper Moon," and Tom Waits' "Grapefruit Moon" creating a theme.
In 2008, she released Between Yesterday and Tomorrow— in which one reviewer detected influences of Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, and Jeff Buckley — yet was her first album of entirely self-written songs.
In the past few years, she recorded her own music to words by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, with a 2013 album including some of his works translated into English. And in 2016, she released Nine Secrets— her music added to words by the Brazilian lyricist/author Paulo Coelho.
In 1988, she received a 3-hour telephone call from Marlene Dietrich and thirty-two years later recorded a tribute album, covering all of the European and rock era songs Marlene ever performed. And earlier this month, an album consisting of lost recordings (some as old as twenty years ago) of original material was released, with the title of Time Traveler.
Performing in New York this past March, a reviewer for Broadway World wrote, “Through her sense of drama and the music of Holleander, Spoliansky, Brecht, and, yes, even Pete Seeger, Ute Lemper built a smokey, dimly lit, and incredibly exciting Kabarett room under 54th Street”.
Ute Lemper will turn age sixty on Independence Day and has lived in New York for several years. She will embark on a European tour for the next several months and will not perform again in the US until October. And one can only guess what musical path she will tread next.
With her wide repertoire … what to choose? The Kurt Weill songbook is an obvious choice … perhaps too obvious. She performed in her native Germany with Roger Waters after the fall of the Berlin Wall …. but her portion (of his Brick in the Wall works) seems too short.
What I will feature is her rendition of a Stephen Sondheim show tune that was owned by the cabaret singer Elaine Stritch ….. yet now (years after her death) is there for the taking. Ladies Who Lunch is from Sondheim’s 1970 Broadway musical Company which won six Tony Awards. And below you can hear Ute Lemper sing it at the renowned Cafe Carlyle in New York (from her 2005 live album).
Here's to the ladies who lunch Everybody laugh Lounging in their caftans And planning a brunch On their own behalf
Off to the gym Then to a fitting Claiming they're fat And looking grim 'Cause they've been sitting Choosing a hat Does anyone still wear a hat? I'll drink to that
And here's to the girls who stay smart— Aren't they a gas? Rushing to their classes In optical art Wishing it would pass Another long exhausting day Another thousand dollars A matinee, a Pinter play Perhaps a piece of Mahler's I'll drink to that And one for Mahler!
And here's to the girls who play wife— Aren't they too much? Keeping house but clutching A copy of LIFE Just to keep in touch The ones who follow the rules And meet themselves at the schools Too busy to know that they're fools Aren't they a gem? I'll drink to them!
And here's to the girls who just watch— Aren't they the best? When they get depressed, It's a bottle of Scotch Plus a little jest Another chance to disapprove Another brilliant zinger Another reason not to move Another vodka stinger I'll drink to that
So here's to the girls on the go— Everybody tries Look into their eyes And you'll see what they know: Everybody dies A toast to that invincible bunch The dinosaurs surviving the crunch Let's hear it for the ladies who lunch