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FATHER-SON? - the late Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones and film star Rupert Grint (from the "Harry Potter" series).
Help keep this crazy train rolling, by stopping in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....
ART NOTES - works from later in the life of Chilean painter Roberto Matta are the A.M.S. Marlborough gallery in Santiago, Chile through early December.
IT IS GRATIFYING to see that with the worst flooding in decades for Bangkok, Thailand - thousands of pets stranded by rising waters were brought to safety.
WOTTA SURPRISE to learn that appointments of female judges under the Tory government of Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper ...... have gone down.
MONDAY's CHILD is Daniel the Cat - a 26-toed Wisconsin kitteh who is inspiring $26 donations to help cover a down payment for a new location to house the animal shelter he lives at.
FOR THOSE who grew up reading MAD magazine - this past weekend, three of its veteran cartoonists (Al Jaffee, Sergio Aragones and Jack Davis) were honored by the Savannah College of Art and Design and the National Cartoonists Society.
BRITAIN'S DUMBEST CRIMINALS - or at least nineteen of them - were arrested after they were lured by an offer of free beer ... from the police.
SEPARATED at BIRTH - American TV star Summer Glau ("Firefly", "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles") and English film star Thandie Newton ("The Pursuit of Happyness", "Crash", "W").
SHADES of the BP OIL SPILL - this time, it's Chevron planning to seal and abandon a well that's been leaking oil on the Brazilian coast the past week.
LANGUAGE NOTES - a professor at the University of Pittsburgh claims she lost her job for speaking the language with a European Castilian accent and not an accent based in the Americas.
ART NOTES - a photography exhibit by Mitch Epstein entitled American Power - chronicling the relationship between American towns and the power-generating facilities inside its borders ...
.... is at the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool, England through December 23rd.
YUK for today - in the midst of a rather interesting profile of former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson - noting that his positions are much more unorthodox than Jon Huntsmann - his supporters were dismayed with CNN's decision to un-invite him to a GOP presidential debate, showing up with signs that read "More Johnson, Less Weiner".
TUESDAY's CHILD is Sammie the Cat - a partially-blind Brooklyn kitteh who disappeared a year ago, but was located less than two miles away.
FILM NOTES - the veteran actor Al Pacino says a chance visit to a theatre in London first inspired him to tell the story of Oscar Wilde - which he has made into the documentary 'Wilde Salome', earning an award when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival this past September.
REGULAR READERS are probably aware that there is one non-North American politician I have written about (with disdain) more than any other. This happened days ago ... but dang, I gotta present it .....
...... isn't the mere sight of these signs .... a gift to the human spirit?!?
SCIENCE NOTES - the recent Mars Phobos-Grunt probe - meant to head to a Martian moon, retrieve soil samples and then return to Earth - is likely 'lost', Russian officials say, and could crash to Earth.
ART NOTES #2 - a work by the late, reclusive US abstract artist Clyfford Still sold at Sotheby's for an artist's record of $61.7m - as just one item in a week which was the auction house's highest (for a contemporary sale) since May 2008.
ART NOTES - a multi-faceted exhibition of works from indigenous peoples of Mexico and Peru between the 15th-19th centuries entitled Contested Visions in the Spanish Colonial World is at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art through January 29th.
RECENTLY IN BRITAIN the Conservatives have come under fire (and from their own ranks, as well) for perceived lax security policies at border crossings, with Home Secretary Theresa May in the spotlight.
But while most of the actions under scrutiny were simply relaxed, less intensive screenings (of 'low-risk' visitors) during the busy summer season: internal reports show that this past summer, passengers on private jets were often allowed in without any passport checks. Wotta surprise.
WEDNESDAY's CHILD is Buddy the Hero Cat - who woke up a sleeping man near Buffalo, New York after a fire began, who was then able to alert his neighbors in advance of firefighters arriving.
NAME THOSE PEOPLE - residents in the northern France region of The Somme - named after the Somme River and where a famous WW-I battle took place - are being asked for suggestions on what to call residents of the area (with Sommois and Sommeliers among the suggestions) and the top three choices will be put to a referendum in mid-December.
SPORTING NOTES - later this week, several African nations will compete in a soccer tournament in Ghana of Amputee football - playing seven-a-side; most players are single-leg amputees (although those with one incapacitated leg are also permitted) and goalkeepers have one hand.
HEALTH NOTES - several activist groups criticized the Chilean health ministry's newest HIV/AIDS prevention campaign - claiming the conservative government is using a nearly-exclusive 'get tested' focus and dealing neither with sexuality, nor prevention techniques.
YUK for today - the Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe is upset over the way that his close ally Colonel Gaddafi was killed. Umm ... ya think?
THURSDAY's CHILD is Larry the Cat - who seemed to have settled into his role as official rodent catcher at No 10 Downing Street - but a mouse appeared at a recent prime ministerial dinner after Larry was spotted ... asleep on the job for several hours.
However, prime minister David Cameron has rejected calls for Larry's resignation, saying he "brings a lot of pleasure to a lot of people".
WHILE THERE ARE SOME obvious items in this list of famous Swiss inventions - such as milk chocolate and their ubiquitous Army knives - there are others that might be quite surprising.
SEPARATED at BIRTH - New Orleans-born musician Harry Connick Jr. (wearing a Saints football cap) and former NFL star (and now TV analyst) Troy Aikman.
......and finally, for a song of the week ............................. due to travel commitments, I'm at a loss for time this
week. There may/may not be a Cornucopia next week due to the Thanksgiving holidays (and if there is, it'll be quite abbreviated).
Thus, a reprise of a favorite song of mine which comes to mind at this time of the year. Although written by Joni Mitchell, each year I feature the man who both popularized it and - according to Rolling Stone - ushered in the singer/songwriter era.
Say what you will, Tom Rush gets around. He was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, came-of-age in Massachusetts, made his mark at the Boston/Cambridge coffeehouses of the early 1960's, has lived in the Rockies and the West Coast, now in Vermont and who-knows-where next. Garth Brooks has cited him as an influence, with James Taylor going so far as to say, "I took as much from Tom Rush as possible and unwittingly modeled myself on him. Like a lot of people who do what I do, I owe my career to him."
Tom Rush's work in the mid-60's to early 1970's was his most commercially successful: a signature album called The Circle Game and appearing on the 1970 Canadian train ride of rock musicians called the Festival Express now on DVD.
He began his career primarily with re-interpretations of the works of others: old songs (Jesse Fuller's San Francisco Bay Blues for example) and the works of his peers (besides Joni Mitchell, that includes Jackson Browne and James Taylor).
He also wrote his own songs that have been embraced by later generations. His most famous composition is 1968's No Regrets - which has been covered by performers as varied as Shirley Bassey, Waylon Jennings, Olivia Newton-John and the Walker Brothers, whose version reached #7 in the UK charts in 1976. In fact, he is pleased that his songs have been covered by performers in the fields of folk, country, heavy metal and rap. But life in the spotlight took a toll on Tom Rush, and he left music in the mid-70's for a sabbatical.
His return was a famous 1981 Boston Symphony Hall show - and at that time, Tom Rush has created his Club 47 series. Named after a coffeehouse he performed at while attending Harvard (with Club Passim its present name) these concerts paired veteran musicians (such as Emmylou Harris or Bonnie Raitt) with then-unknown performers (such as Alison Krauss, Shawn Colvin and Mark O'Connor) - and these have continued to this day, often broadcast on public radio/television. He was thus included in Boston's 25 Greatest Pop Music Acts Ever by the Boston Globe.
For a few years, Tom Rush has had an album of humorous tunes Trolling for Owls - which he notes is "not available in stores!" And one of them - The Remember Song - has received in excess of 4 million hits on YouTube. After being told it had gone viral he wrote, "I thought I was being accused of being a musical equivalent of Ebola ... but my children explained to me that this was a good thing."
And for several years, The Very Best of Tom Rush has provided listeners with his classic songs. But it wasn't until 2009 that he released What I Know - his first new studio recording in 35 years - because as he explains, "I don't like to rush headlong into these things".
At age 70, Tom Rush is still quite busy: in the midst of an autumn tour that saw him perform shows to benefit victims of Hurricane Irene in Vermont, and that brings him to Chatham, NJ this Friday, then Philadelphia this coming Sunday.
The Joni Mitchell song that Tom Rush helped to popularize is her 1966 Urge for Going about the oncoming Canadian winter. And at this link you can hear Tom Rush sing it (with the accent guitar that makes it special) as winter approaches.
I awoke today and found
the frost perched on the town
It hovered in a frozen sky
then it gobbled summer down
When the sun turns traitor cold
and all the trees are shivering in a naked row
I get the urge for going
But I never seem to go
Now the warriors of winter
Give a cold triumphant shout
And all that stays is dying
And all that lives is getting out
See the geese in chevron flight
Flapping and racing on before the snow
They got the urge for going
And they've got the wings to go
And they get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
Summertime is falling down
Winter's closing in
