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 Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
CHEERS, ALSO to spending the long Veterans Day holiday weekend away-from home …. good food/beer/wine with friends and some old stories …. OK, a lotta old stories. Had I stayed home instead ... I would have been thoroughly depressed.
ART NOTES — over 200 items in a multi-media exhibition entitled Hanna-Barbera: the Architects of Saturday Morning will be at the Norman Rockwell Museum in western Massachusetts through May 29, 2017.
+ Top Cat, Quick Draw McGraw, et alHAIL and FAREWELL to far too many-to-mention: Leonard Cohen (at age 82), plus the pianist Leon Russell (the focus of one of my profiles just this past spring) at age 74 and another pianist: the nexus between blues/jazz, Mose Allison at age 89.
One of my favorite TV shows from my mis-spent youth was the Man from U.N.C.L.E. — for which an excellent 2015 prequel was made — and we lost co-star Robert Vaughn (the last of the Magnificent Seven actors from the 1960 film) and one of my favorite character actors — who has died at the age of 83.
In addition to the loss of the nonpareil PBS host Gwen Ifill (at the age of 61) we lost the Mexican actress who starred in the 1931 Spanish-language version of Dracula (that was shot concurrently with the famed Bela Lugosi version) Lupita Tovar — who has died at the age of 106.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Heidi and her Kittens— abandoned outside a California shelter in 104° F temperature …. yet who have recovered well and are up for adoption.
Heidi & brood: up for adoptionSIGN of the APOCALYPSE — following a major overhaul, Washington, D.C.’s famous Watergate Hotel has decided to embrace its past: offering guest key cards that say "no need to break in", pens emblazoned with "stolen from The Watergate Hotel", the voice of Richard Nixon can be heard in the public bathrooms and provides the soundtrack for the hotel phone system which takes its number (617-1972) from June 17, 1972 …. the day the burglary occurred.
CRIME NOTES — you may think of mobsters being involved with gambling, drugs, numbers rackets and the like. But for a few weeks, a trial in northern Québec was about mob involvement with …. maple syrup— and now three men have been convicted of theft, fraud and trafficking of stolen syrup.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Lola the Cat— an English kitteh who was thrown into a closed trashcan …. yet was saved due to her scratching and howling, which woke a family’s daughter at midnight …. just hours before trash pick-up.
Lola the English kittehPROGRAMMING NOTE — once again, I will be away next week (for Thanksgiving) and will not be posting my normal output (other than perhaps a drive-by posting) — see you in early December.
BRAIN TEASER - try last week’s Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC … and also have at this week’s quiz (dealing with fake news sites, appropriately enough).
NO WAY to sugar-coat what we lost last week …. though in New Hampshire we were able to win-back a US Senate seat, as well as the 1st District House seat, making our small (four-member) group the nation's first all-female, all-Democratic congressional delegation.
I will be visiting family over the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays, and there are some Trumpers in that group. Fortunately, my youngest sister (who plans on attending the Woman’s March) will help provide a tag-team partner for me. As for the rest of us: if there is a way to recover, Cheers & Jeers will find it first.
OLDER-YOUNGER SISTERS? — TV fashion host Stacy London (“What Not to Wear”) and Hillary Clinton senior aide Huma Abedin.
Stacy London (born 1969) Huma Abedin (born 1976)...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… having been away last weekend, I lacked time to write a full musical profile, and so none will appear this week (or during Thanksgiving week.
For today: I have always liked the John Hiatt song Have a Little Faith in Me— and while it was not written for us, I can easily read it as having faith in ourselves. We deserve a country large enough to include all of us …. we will have to wait a while longer, but we will get there. We will get there. We will get there.
When the road gets dark … and you can no longer see Just let my love throw a spark … and have a little faith in me
And when the tears you cry … are all you can believe Just give these loving arms a try … and have a little faith in me
When your secret heart cannot speak so easily ... come here darling, from a whisper start — to have a little faith in me
And when your back's against the wall … just turn around and you will see ... I will catch your fall, just have a little faith in me
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