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SEPARATED at BIRTH - former presidential candidate Rick Perry ....
...... and Chris Coleman - new manager of the national soccer team of Wales.
It won't help to lower the shutters ... but it might if you stop 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 - an exhibition of the works of the French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier from the past forty years is at the Dallas, Texas Museum of Art through February 12th.
IN THE PAST I have written of two heroes I have from Spain, one of whom is Judge Baltasar Garzón - who pursued cases involving right-wing dictators (including Pinochet and two Argentine military officers) and even researched indicting "The Bush Six". Now that he is facing abuse-of-power charges (based in large measure upon his pursuit of the legacy of Francisco Franco) he is receiving plaudits from not only The Guardian - an ideological ally - but also some measured praise from The Economist - who are ideologically different.
MONDAY's CHILD is TR the Office Cat - short for "Texas Ranger" - who greets clients, inspires creativity and makes a San Antonio ad agency a mellower place.
IF YOU HAVEN'T read this essay on how Mitt Romney has veered away from his father's practices by Rick Perlstein do so - it partly documents the change in the GOP over that span of time, as well.
FOR THE 100th ANNIVERSARY of British explorer Robert Falcon Scott reaching the South Pole, a photo diary marks his party's ill-fated attempt to return safely.
Reader Requested DIRECT DESCENDANTS? - President George Washington and the disgraced financier Bernard Madoff.
IN RESPONSE to worries that Hungary is backsliding toward one-party rule by its right-wing Fidesz government, a former U.S. ambassador has asked the U.S. to consider restarting Radio Free Europe's Hungarian service.
ART NOTES - a photography exhibit by Annie Leibovitz entitled Pilgrimage - and without (most unusual for this noted portrait photographer) any people in it, but instead landscapes, famous homes and artifacts - is at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. through May 20th.
CONGRATULATIONS to two female solo explorers: the 16-year-old Dutch sailor Laura Dekker - who has become the youngest person ever to circumnavigate the globe single-handedly (and considering not returning to the Netherlands due to the government's resistance to her plans) - and the Englishwoman Felicity Aston - becoming the first woman to cross the continent of Antarctica alone.
MUSIC NOTES - the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland has opened its new Library and Archives - in a new $12m building - where the public can now peruse more than 3,500 books, 1,400 audio recordings and 270 videos.
TUESDAY's CHILD by necessity must be the late Gato the Cat - the Arkansas kitteh of a Congressional candidate's campaign manager who was dismembered with the word "liberal" scrawled on its dead body (and with a photo of the dead body at this link if your stomach is strong enough).
THE 27% PERCENTERS - six years ago, a blogger named John Rogers identified the crazy portion of the conservative base at 27% - the percentage in Illinois who voted for Alan Keyes over Barack Obama in his 2004 run for the US Senate. Now on Eric Alterman's blog, Reed Richardson says that "like a bad penny, this 27 percent figure stubbornly shows up in our recent political discourse again and again" - and goes on to cite several more recent examples.
Reader Requested SEPARATED at BIRTH - the late Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author David Halberstam .....
.... and congressman/presidential candidate Ron Paul - Whaddya think?
FIFTY-EIGHT YEARS after the remains of a Roman temple to the god Mithras was moved from its original London location - to make way for an office block development - it is being returned to its original location to make way for a new Bloomberg headquarters building.
ART NOTES - an exhibit depicting the Oregon Trail entitled Images of the Journey West is at the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney to March 11th.
BUSINESS NOTES - the conservative party mayor of Madrid, Spain is seeking to establish a EuroVegas macro-complex gambling center near the capital city. To do so, regional officials are proposing a dozen or so basic law changes ...... at the behest of Las Vegas magnate Sheldon Adelson, our pal Newt's sugar daddy.
WEDNESDAY's CHILD is Fidge the Hero Cat - whom an Englishwoman says saved her life by (curiously) sitting on her right breast every night for two weeks .... leading to a doctor visit, which found a cancerous pea-sized lump.
HAIL and FAREWELL to the actor Dick Tufeld who has died at the age of 85. You may not recognize his name (much less his face) because he was the voice behind several Irwin Allen TV productions, such as "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" and "The Time Tunnel". But he was best known as the voice of the robot on the Lost in Space television series: shown with the child actor (now director) Bill Mumy on the left, to whom Tufeld used to intone this legendary warning:
Danger, Will Robinson!
Note: this was not the actor who was inside the robot's body (named Bob May who previously passed away), simply the voice of the robot.
ELECTION NOTES - the previous law in the South American nation of Chile had been that registering to vote was voluntary, but once registered: it was mandatory to vote. Now, a new voting law initiated by the former center-left Bachelet administration (trying to change Pinochet-era laws) and embraced - a bit unexpectedly - by the conservative Piñera government makes voter registration automatic and voting itself voluntary.
SEPARATED at BIRTH - Washington Post sportswriter/author John Feinstein ...
...................... and governor Chris Christie of New Jersey.
JEERS to Italy's Consul General in Osaka, Japan named Mario Vattani - who has been recalled to Rome for disciplinary measures after being captured on video as the leader of a Fascist-rock group, praising the "bandiera nera" (black flag), a notorious fascist symbol ... and raising his arm in the Fascist salute.
ART NOTES - the 10th Northwest Biennial - a juried competition focusing on the interdisciplinary practices of 30 artists - is at the Tacoma, Washington Art Museum through May 20th.
FORTY-FOUR YEARS a young photographer named Al Clayton documented the Mississippi Delta - and now returns for a follow-up.
FOOD NOTES - the Guardian newspaper looks at some of the more interesting names of Fish & Chips shops in the world.
THURSDAY's CHILD is Wally the Cat - an Australian kitteh who was found wedged inside a wall of a newly built home (perhaps as long as a month) who if unclaimed in a few weeks will be up for adoption.
FILM NOTES - after long being forgotten, one of the world's early documentaries - featuring unique footage of the lives of Arctic fur trappers in 1919 - has now been restored for modern audiences in Canada.
NEARLY FIFTY YEARS AGO the jazz saxophonist John Coltrane locked himself away in the upstairs room of his home on New York's Long Island to write what some consider his masterpiece album A Love Supreme. In a BBC video both Coltrane's son (and the Coltrane fan who helped save the house) are interviewed.
FRIDAY's CHILD is Whisper the Cat - an English kitteh (who likes the children arriving for music lesson at his family's home) now recuperating from surgery to remove two air gun pellets found inside him.
...... and for a song of the week ........................................................... while he has only one charted single to his credit - and was another "new Bob Dylan" who was unfairly labeled as such - Loudon Wainwright has had a long, critically-acclaimed career that includes much more than just music. Add to that his very popular musical offspring and it's clear that his influence on popular culture is strong.
Born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, this son of a Life Magazine editor (and descendant of Peter Stuyvesant the Dutch colonialist) grew up in the New York City suburbs and was inspired by the likes of Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger. After some odd jobs (including working in a Rhode Island boatyard) he began playing in New York and Boston folk clubs; signing with Atlantic Records who were in search of a "New Dylan" during the famous troubadour's convalescence from his motorcycle accident.
He released a series of recordings from 1970-1972 entitled Album I as well as Album II - with the song Motel Blues that has been covered by bands such as Big Star - and finally, Album III - the last of which had his novelty #16 hit song Dead Skunk (In the Middle of the Road) that was very popular among my high school classmates, I can assure you. In fact, the first time I ever heard of him was when a classmate went to one of his shows, only to be told "Unfortunately, Loudon Wainwright will not be here tonight ... but we have slides of Roy Buchanan". (Yes, they did give refunds).
While his musical career since then has never had such a hit: he has over 20 (often humorous and satirical) albums to his credit - including two Grammy-nominated ones from the mid-80's, I'm Alright as well as More Love Songs - which was produced by Richard Thompson when Wainwright had relocated to England for a few years, as his popularity was higher in the UK. For some time, as he said on a BBC interview it has been his concerts that he makes a living from, rather than recordings, and many describe his shows as part music, part comic story-telling. He has a perennial song entitled This Year which one reviewer wrote "captures the fragile optimism of those moments .....when, tired and emotional, you find a sliver of hope - perhaps against the odds - that the coming year will be fantastic".
His 1992 album History - after the death of his father - is considered his magnum opus by some critics, with the final track "A Handful of Dust" actually written by his non-musician father. Following the death of his mother in 1997, he believed he could never write again. Retreating to his mother's cabin in the woods, he underwent therapy and gradually recovered. In more recent years, his recordings have included 1999's Social Studies - topical songs penned for NPR on events of the day (such as Tonya Harding, O.J. Simpson and the Y2K crisis) and a live album from 2003. After several previous nominations, his 2009 album The Charlie Poole Project - extolling an unknown 1920's country music pioneer - earned him his first Grammy Award in early 2010.
From the archives: there was 1998's BBC Sessions and just last year he released a four-disc (plus DVD) boxed set entitled 40 Odd Years - with his latest collection of new songs being 2010's Ten Songs for the New Depression - with some more humorous/serious political tunes such as The Krugman Blues and "On To Victory, Mr. Roosevelt" (which morphs into the name of the current president at the end). He is also contributing a track to the upcoming Occupy benefit album (along with Willie Nelson, Debbie Harry and Yo La Tengo among many others).
Wainwright has had other contributions to entertainment: on TV (as Captain Calvin Spalding in "M.A.S.H.", "Parks and Recreation" and on "Carrott Confidential" in the UK), in films ("The Aviator", "Elizabethtown" and "40 Year-old Virgin"), on stage (in Pump Boys and Dinettes on Broadway), and writing the soundtrack both for the film "Knocked Up" and the Carl Hiaasen play Lucky You that premiered in 2006.
With his first wife (the Canadian folksinger Kate McGarrigle, who died in 2010) he has two successful singer-songwriting offspring in Rufus Wainwright ... and Martha Wainwright - both of whom grew up in Montreal after their parents' divorce. And Loudon has written about both; with his ode to his infant son in Rufus is a Tit Man as well as "Pretty Little Martha".
In addition, his daughter from his second marriage (to Suzzy of The Roches) began as a schoolteacher, then simply was a part-time backup singer for Rufus .... and finally in 2007, as her father said, she caved: so that now Lucy Wainwright Roche has her own career (and opened for her father on a 2010 tour). Add to that Loudon's sister Sloan Wainwright ..... and finally, there is a another daughter from his present marriage .... who is still in school, so only time will tell.
Despite turning age 65 last year, Loudon Wainwright III is quite active, with his current tour featuring shows in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Friday, Birmingham, Alabama on Saturday, then a week-long cruise from Miami. But even if he never sings another song: his progeny will ensure his legacy endures.
Of all of his work: my favorite is his 1986 Hard Day on the Planet - and at this link you can hear him perform it.
The dollar went down and the President's sick
"Who's in charge, now?" I don't know - take your pick
A new disease every day and the old ones are coming back
Things are looking kind of gray, like they're going to black
It's hot in December and cold in July
When it rains it pours out of a poisonous sky
In California the body counts keep getting higher
It's evil out there: man, that state is always on fire
It's been a hard day on the planet
How much is it all worth?
It's getting harder to understand it
Things are tough all over on earth
I've got clothes on my back and shoes on my feet
A roof over my head and something to eat
My kids are all healthy and my folks are alive
You know, it's amazing: but sometimes I think I'll survive
I've got all of my fingers and all of my toes
I'm pretty well off I guess, I suppose
So how come I feel bad so much of the time?
A man ain't an island: John Donne ...wasn't lying!
It's been a hard day on the planet
How much is it all worth?
It's getting harder to understand it
Things are tough all over on earth
