In Memoriam: William Faulkner

After a lifetime of reading well above my grade level, I'm only just now able to follow the works of William Faulkner. It's not just that the writing is so showy - 'look how smart I am' is proclaimed on every page - it's that the subject matter is also heavy.

There isn't a Faulkner novel that isn't fraught with taboo themes; as shocking as these would have been to audiences of the 1930s and 1940s, they still contain the power to startle today. If you feel sex, religion, and politics are no suitable topics for civilized discussion then by no means should you read anything by William Faulkner.

Of course, most writers try to make sense of the world by forcing its people and events into some kind of linear form, by pulling a single strand from the weave of life and by studying it gleaning some insight into the whole; Faulkner seemingly took what little linearity he could find in the world around him and shattered it back into chaos through his work.

These days, a journey into Yoknapatawpha County isn't fraught with nearly as much fear as it was when first I visited there in Grade Ten. It's still not my favourite place to visit, but nor do I find myself going out of my way to avoid the place any more either. Of his novels, 1929's The Sound and the Fury, 1930's As I Lay Dying, 1931's Sanctuary, and 1932's Light in August represent both the pinnacle of his career and a gargantuan effort of creation.

Born on this day in 1897, William Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949, aged only 52; he died in July 1962 after years of serious alcoholism.
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Now Showing: "The Magdalene Laundries" by Joni Mitchell

Recorded live in Japan in 1994, here Joni Mitchell sings the Hell out of one of her newest songs, from that same year's album Turbulent Indigo.

The story of Ireland's Magdalene Asylums is a sad and shameful one, born of the kind of misogyny for which the Catholic Church has become famous the world over; Mitchell's song was the first I'd ever heard of these combination orphanage/workhouses, but in the years since artists of other stripes have enjoined to tell the story as well. In 2002 Peter Mullan wrote and directed the film The Magdalene Sisters about the poor women doomed to servitude because men have been blaming women for enflaming their lust for so long now they're unable to take responsibility for their own actions - all with the official sanction of the so-called Holy Mother Church.


Pointedly, though, Mitchell's song was released nearly two years before the last Magdalene Asylum closed, on this day in 1996. How much longer would they have stayed open, I wonder, if she hadn't?
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Gratuitous Brunette: Catherine Zeta-Jones

Birthday girl Catherine Zeta-Jones burst into the North American collective consciousness with her appearance in 1998's The Mask of Zorro, in which she costarred with Antonio Banderas and Sir Anthony Hopkins. The UK, on the other hand, had known about her since she appeared in The Darling Buds of May from 1991 to 1993.

The real accolades, however, came from her appearance in Chicago (2002) in which she sang and danced, in addition to acting and looking fabulous; she won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Velma Kelly, the murderous vamp undone by Renée Zellweger's squinty, stick-thin Roxie Hart. Even more impressive was her performance at that year's Oscars while so great with child the fetus was practically eligible for an appearance credit.

Although her 2000 marriage to Michael Douglas (coincidentally also born this day, albeit a quarter of a century earlier) enlivened many a late-night monologue, here it is already at the ten-year mark with nary an itch in sight. Maybe all those comedians were wrong and she was right...
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Happy Birthday Your Royal Highness

Either the Dutch are entirely too respectful towards their royals, the Dutch press are Internet-phobes, or Dutch royalty are hermits... Amazingly, this is the best picture of Prince Friso on the web.

Of course, after a scandalous marriage to a gangster's moll (for which he had to relinquish his claim to the throne), and a wee bit of tampering with her Wikipedia profile - as previously reported on the Pop Culture Institute - perhaps His High Royalness thought it best to avoid the spotlight for a few years.

Born on this day in 1968, the Prince made a Princess out of Mabel Wisse Smit in April 2004, despite her shady past with Klaas Bruinsma; their children, Countess Luana and Countess Zaria, were born in March 2005 and June 2006 respectively.
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Remembering... Christopher Reeve

Following the horseback riding accident that made him a quadriplegic many commentators remarked on the irony* of the man who played Superman having to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Yet, to my way of thinking, the irony was apt.

He confessed after his accident that prior to it he'd never given spinal cord injuries a second thought; once he suffered from one himself, though, he seemingly devoted the rest of his life to the cause, which made him a far more super man than he might have been had he remained merely an able-bodied actor.

It was a cruel twist of Fate that gave Christopher Reeve his greatest role ever, and an even crueler one which ensured he would never live to see it realized. Born this day in 1952, when Reeve died suddenly in October 2004 his passing was mourned around the world.

*The so-called 'Curse of Superman' notwithstanding...
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Remembering... Audra Lindley

She was, of course, unforgettable as Helen Roper, the over-sexed middle-aged landlady on Three's Company, which was itself a remake of the UK sitcom Man About The House. So memorable was Audra Lindley's chemistry with Norman Fell, in fact, that their characters were spun-off into another show The Ropers - which was itself a remake of UK sitcom George and Mildred, and which had itself been spun-off from Man About The House. Got all that?

The Ropers was also notable for costarring Jeffrey Tambor; despite the abundance of comedic talent, the show lasted just 28 episodes. Following the cancellation of The Ropers in 1979 Lindley had a memorable turn in the 1985 film Desert Hearts, and finally played Phoebe's grandmother on Friends.

What I didn't know was that she was also in Bridget Loves Bernie, an obscure bit of TV from the 1972-3 season that gave Meredith Baxter Birney her first break, or that she'd appeared on Another World, playing Liz Matthews for six years from early on (1964-69).

To me, though, she'll always be Mrs. Roper. Though she was clearly in the show initially for comic relief, she rapidly became its heart and soul, exuding warmth and humour as she connived with Jack, Janet, and Chrissy, to put one over on Mr. Roper in episode after episode.

Born on this day in 1913, when Audra Lindley died of leukemia in October 1997 she was still working, appearing on Cybill. She was survived by her husband, actor James Whitmore, and five children by her first marriage to Dr. Hardy Ulm, to whom she was married from 1943-60.
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Phil Hartman: Gone But Not Forgotten

It's amazing the stuff you learn when blogging. Today I learned that, even when what you know about someone is impressive, you can always learn something new about them that makes them more impressive still...

For instance, today I learned that Phil Hartman was Canadian, born on this day in 1948, although his family moved to the US when he was 9. He was fluent in German, which always impresses me, mainly because it's my least favourite language; I have to admire the intestinal fortitude of anyone who dares to speak it. He was also a graphic designer who created the iconic line drawing of a running horse on the Poco album Legend.

Phil Hartman has long been my favourite cast member from Saturday Night Live; on a show renowned for the talent and variety of its performers, Hartman was clearly the most talented, the most varied of them all. Whether doing an impersonation (Reagan, Sinatra, Clinton) or a character of his own (the recurring Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, the one-off - and my personal favourite - Suzan, or a score of others) his commitment and focus were admirable. When he left after eight seasons his tenure was then the longest of any cast member to date.

Hartman's considerable gifts were also well-used on The Simpsons, where he memorably voiced both Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz. He played Captain Carl on Pee-wee's Playhouse. He added to the pool of talent on Newsradio and made a couple of brilliant appearances on 3rd Rock from the Sun; a cliffhanger on that show had to be re-written to accommodate his untimely death.

In May 1998 his evil bitch of a wife murdered him before killing herself (at the time she was also drunk, coked off her tits, and taking Zoloft); she's now burning in Hell, the world has been deprived of his many gifts, their children are orphans, and as you can tell I'm still bitter.
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Happy Birthday Steve Whitmire

Steve Whitmire was ten years old the first time he wrote to Jim Henson; amazingly (or not, considering) Henson wrote him back. Thus began a long and distinguished career for Whitmire which, given his relative youth, is still in its prime.

Whether on The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street, or in any of the scores of movies and other projects in which the Muppets have appeared, Whitmire has brought his particular verve and love of puppetry to everything he does.

Currently the voice of Kermit the Frog, Whitmire's other characters include Rizzo the Rat, Wembley Fraggle, and Andy Pig. He has also taken over the characters of Beaker, Ernie, and Statler, which were created by others.
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"Bein' Green" by Kermit the Frog

Seeing as today would have been Jim Henson's birthday (as well as being Steve Whitmire's) a little Kermit the Frog is in order. Of course, I could just as easily say 'seeing as the sun came out today' or 'seeing as I woke up today'; every day a little Kermit is in order.

Bein' Green was written by Joe Raposo for the first season of Sesame Street in 1969 - which is where this performance comes from - and it has since become Kermit's theme song.
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In Memoriam: F. Scott Fitzgerald

In a way it seems apt that he excelled at short fiction, for the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald was both short and a brilliant fiction itself...

The ease with which he moved among the idle rich belied the fact that he needed to be anything but idle in order to be rich enough to pay for merely the appearance of wealth. Throughout the 1920s, while still productive, he produced an extraordinary array of short stories, and three novels: in 1920 This Side of Paradise, from 1922 The Beautiful and the Damned, and in 1925 his masterpiece The Great Gatsby.

By the 1930s, of course, the decade-long party of the Jazz Age was over, the cafes to which Cafe Society had flocked all shuttered; his wife Zelda's descent into madness and his own alcoholism seemed to mirror the Great Depression into which the nation had fallen, and henceforth there was never enough money or time to revive the early promise he'd shown.

Born on this day in 1896, Fitzgerald died in December 1940.
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In Case You Missed It...

...the lyrics to the previous song.

Load up on guns
Bring your friends
Its fun to lose
And to pretend
Shes overboard
Myself assured
I know I know
A dirty word

Hello (x 16)

With the lights out its less dangerous
Here we are now
Entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us
A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido
Yea

Im worse at what I do best
And for this gift I feel blessed
Our little group has always been
And always will until the end

Hello (x 16)

With the lights out its less dangerous
Here we are now
Entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us
A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido
Yea

And I forget
Just what it takes
And yet I guess it makes me smile
I found it hard
Its hard to find
Oh well, whatever, nevermind

Hello (x 16)

With the lights out its less dangerous
Here we are now
Entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious
Here we are now
Entertain us
A mulatto
An albino
A mosquito
My libido
Yea
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"Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana

As difficult as it may seem to believe, my musical taste was not always as broad as it is now...

For instance, I didn't like Nirvana when the Nevermind album was released, on this day in 1991. As was so often the case back then, if the fans of a given band frightened me, I tended to stay away from both the fans and the band. And in those days, nothing frightened me more than the very scary people who were raving about Nirvana.

In my defense, at that time I was living in Kelowna, where most of the radio stations were talk AM, and the only FM station played extreme easy listening*. I also didn't have Muchmusic then, and so all I listened to was Madonna, whatever cassettes I could afford to buy, and the music that got played one night a month at the local gay dance.

It wasn't until I saw Nirvana on MTV Unplugged that I got what everyone else was going on about. It was only a short while later, of course, that Kurt Cobain committed suicide.

I get it now, though, and Smells Like Teen Spirit is seldom off my iPod these days.

*I mean, like, Mantovani's version of Anne Murray's hits... Pure elevator music.
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"Streets of Philadelphia" by Bruce Springsteen

I can still remember how incredulous my gay male friends were when they heard that Bruce Springsteen of all people was going to contribute a song to the soundtrack of the 1994 film Philadelphia, which was all about AIDS and homophobia. (Springsteen would go on to win an Academy Award for his efforts.)

That incredulity extended to an interviewer for The Advocate, who had the temerity to ask why.

Springsteen - as anyone who's ever actually listened to his music would know - is a sensitive observer of the human condition. Writing songs and playing guitar is no way to win friends in high school (or it wasn't in late-1960s suburban New Jersey, at least according to him), and in the interview he recounted the frequent bouts of name-calling and scuffles on the playground he'd encountered.

Gay or not, he's one of us, since... Well, when it comes to teenage boys, we all know their epithet of choice, and without going into detail Springsteen made it clear that he'd been called it as much as anyone. The implication was also that he'd maybe been roughed up a little, too; rather than turning him against us, though, Springsteen's own encounters with homophobia made him into an instant ally.

Of course, I'd also remembered reading in Rolling Stone that when Ronald Reagan personally asked to use Springsteen's Born in the USA as his campaign song in 1984 Springsteen told him that the song was actually a criticism of Reagan and his policies. I'd always liked him, but the moment I read that was the moment I became a lifelong fan of Bruce Springsteen.

Happy Birthday, Boss!
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"Cat's Dream" by Pablo Neruda

How neatly a cat sleeps,
sleeps with its paws and its posture,
sleeps with its wicked claws,
and with its unfeeling blood,
sleeps with all the rings--
a series of burnt circles--
which have formed the odd geology
of its sand-colored tail.

I should like to sleep like a cat,
with all the fur of time,
with a tongue rough as flint,
with the dry sex of fire;
and after speaking to no one,
stretch myself over the world,
over roofs and landscapes,
with a passionate desire
to hunt the rats in my dreams.

I have seen how the cat asleep
would undulate, how the night
flowed through it like dark water;
and at times, it was going to fall
or possibly plunge into
the bare deserted snowdrifts.
Sometimes it grew so much in sleep
like a tiger's great-grandfather,
and would leap in the darkness over
rooftops, clouds and volcanoes.

Sleep, sleep cat of the night,
with episcopal ceremony
and your stone-carved moustache.
Take care of all our dreams;
control the obscurity
of our slumbering prowess
with your relentless heart
and the great ruff of your tail.

(translation by Alastair Reid)
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The Death of Pablo Neruda

Even though you could never describe me as a Communist sympathizer I am, nonetheless, capable of great sympathy for individual Communists - most especially in the case of Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda...

Of course, it helps that he's a poet - which I as a writer consider to be the writer's highest calling - and that he gave his life to the struggle against tyranny. That he did so by allying himself with another form of tyranny is a matter for another post.

Though sick with cancer at the time of his friend Salvador Allende's overthrow by General Augusto Pinochet, Neruda actually died of a heart attack in Santiago on this day in 1973. Doctors may tell you that cancer weakens all of the body's systems, blah blah blah... The truth is that Neruda was a poet, and as such he died of a broken heart. It's as simple as that.

He had been fighting fascism all his life - during the Spanish Civil War (both before and after the assassination of his friend Federico García Lorca in August 1936), throughout World War II, and his funeral was one of the first anti-Pinochet protests inside Chile. Shortly before his death, when forces loyal to Pinochet ransacked his house, he famously said:

Look around - there's only one thing of danger for you here - poetry.

As a result of his outspoken opposition to the Pinochet evil, Neruda's poetry was posthumously banned in Chile from 1974 until 1990.
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Pop History Moment: "The Jetsons" Debuted

This is the future the fascist media promised us, and goddammit, we're still waiting for it!

On this day in 1962 The Jetsons premiered on ABC, following its established hit The Flintstones; both shows offered a critique of contemporary times using anachronistic settings, all safe and easy to swallow thanks to the candy-coloured animation of Hanna-Barbera.

George Jetson was voiced by George O'Hanlon, his wife Jane by Penny Singleton (of Blondie fame); the first episode was entitled Rosie the Robot, who was herself voiced by Jean Vander Pyl*. In another of those pop cultural twists I love so much, the character of Rosie was based on Shirley Booth's Hazel.

Although only 24 episodes were made of this first series, the show also spawned two feature films and a further 51 half-hour episodes were produced for Saturday morning television between 1985 and 1987.

*The lady was already famous as the voice of Wilma Flintstone.
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happy birthday ani difranco

Long before it occurred to me to do my own thing to get my art out there, indie rock goddess ani difranco was doing just that. 18 albums in as many years later and she's still giving the forces of darkness something to chew on.

Here's the righteous birthday babe herself, performing Coming Up at the Def Poetry Jam; that's the pretty-righteous-himself Mos Def introducing her.
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Remembering... Chief Dan George

Vancouverites still celebrate the life of one of their own, Chief Dan George, who died this day in 1981...

Born Geswanouth Slahoot on the Tsleil-Waututh reservation in North Vancouver in 1899, his name was changed when he was sent to residential school at the age of 5.

Having spent the first 60 years of his life as a labourer, Dan George was elected chief in 1951 and served until 1963, although after 1960 Chief Dan George was principally an actor. He gave an Academy Award-nominated performance in the 1970 film Little Big Man, and was also an author (of both My Heart Soars and My Spirit Soars).

A tireless and passionate advocate on behalf of Canada's First Nations, he was a familiar sight on Canadian television when I was a kid; his death, on this day in 1981, was one of the first celebrity deaths which moved me.

Chief Dan George's grand-daughter is the poet Lee Maracle, whose work is a continuation of her famous grandfather's.
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Victoria Woodhull: A Woman Ahead of Her Times

Okay, so maybe her 1872 Presidential campaign was a stunt; if it was, at least it was one which got the whole country talking about the important issues of the day. At the height of the Gilded Age she (along with contemporaries Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Harriet Beecher Stowe and Vice Presidential running mate Frederick Douglass) put issues of social justice and civil liberties at the front-and-centre of American life through the work of the Equal Rights Party.

Victoria Woodhull was a remarkable woman in an age of remarkable women. Faith-healer, stock-broker, suffragist... Curiously enough, she is largely forgotten today, when any single part of her resume ought to have made her a legend.

By advocating for divorce, universal suffrage, racial integration, and free love she not only raised the ire of men but ran the risk of becoming a prophet into the bargain. She was even in favour of short skirts for women, which in those days was the cherry on top of an outrage sundae.

Not all of the era's potentates, however, despised her; Cornelius Vanderbilt, for one, was a fan, as was George Francis Train. She was similarly fond of men, marrying a total of three times.

Born on this day in 1838, in 1877 Victoria Woodhull moved to England (which didn't stop her from attempting to secure Presidential nominations in 1884 and 1892). There she married her third husband and continued to write; and it was there she died, in June 1927, aged 89.
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"Redemption Song" by Bob Marley

During his final concert - at Pittsburgh's Stanley Theater on this day in 1980 - Bob Marley recorded a live version of Redemption Song; this is also a live version of Redemption Song, apparently recorded in the German city of Dortmund. Not the same one, but it's as close as dammit is to swearing (as my mother is so fucking fond of saying) and so it's close enough for me.

Redemption Song appeared on Bob Marley and the Wailers' ninth album, Uprising; the live version recorded at his final concert appears on the box set Songs of Freedom.

Bob Marley died of acral lentiginous melanoma at Miami's Cedars of Lebanon Hospital while returning home to Jamaica to die in May 1981; after a state funeral Marley was buried at Mt. Zion Rock near his birthplace, Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish.
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POPnews: September 23rd

[Nixon gave his so-called 'Checkers speech' to absolve President Dwight D. Eisenhower of the responsibility for removing him from the ticket owing to a financial scandal of Nixon's during that year's election campaign; Nixon's brilliant manipulation of the media is an object lesson in sleaze and therefore primo Republican porno. Only the first part is shown above... If you care to stomach the rest of it - like I did - here it is. Don't say I didn't warn you.]
1122 - The Concordat of Worms was signed by Pope Calixtus II and Holy Roman Emperor Henry V; it would later be confirmed by the First Council of the Lateran, which met in Rome in March 1123. Its purpose, of course, was to smooth over any wrinkles in the relationship between the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire, whilst one of its unintended benefits was in germinating the seed of nation-based sovereignty - as upheld by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648.

1459 - The Battle of Blore Heath - the first major battle in England's Wars of the Roses - was fought (appropriately enough) at Blore Heath in Staffordshire; it gave the forces of the House of York under Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury a victory over the House of Lancaster's John Sutton, 1st Baron Dudley and James Touchet, 5th Baron Audley (who perished in battle).

1641 - The Merchant Royal, carrying a treasure valued today at over $1 billion US, was lost at sea off Land's End en route from Cadiz to London; the treasure it carried included at least 100,000 pounds of gold, 400 bars of Mexican silver, and nearly 500,000 pieces of eight and other coins. Eighteen men also drowned in the sinking, while the ship's master Captain Limbrey and 40 of his crew got away in boats and were picked up by Dover Merchant... But was the treasure also taken aboard, or is it at the bottom of the ocean still?

1779 - During the American Revolution a squadron commanded by John Paul Jones on board the USS Bonhomme Richard won the Battle of Flamborough Head, off the Yorkshire coast of England, against two British warships, HMS Serapis and HMS Countess of Scarborough.

1780 - British Major John André was arrested as a spy by John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart and David Williams, exposing Benedict Arnold's change of sides and the plot to sell West Point to the British for £20,000. Upon learning of André's arrest, Arnold barely managed to escape aboard the Royal Navy's HMS Vulture.

1806 - Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis from their first expedition into the American West.

1818 - Border demarcation markers for Neutral Moresnet were formally installed; although the territory - wedged between Germany and Belgium - ceased to exist when it was absorbed by the latter in 1920, the World Congress of Esperanto wants to make it their homeland, with its capital at Kelmis.

1846 - The planet Neptune was discovered by French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier and British astronomer John Couch Adams; their discovery was later confirmed by German Johann Gottfried Galle.

1868 - Puerto Rico's Grito de Lares (or 'Lares Revolt') occurred; the short-lived uprising against Spanish rule, planned by Ramón Emeterio Betances and Segundo Ruiz Belvis, was the first in that island's history.

1875 - Henry McCarty - aka Henry Antrim aka William Bonney aka Billy the Kid - was first arrested.

1932 - The Kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd were merged, and renamed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

1943 - Italy's so-called Salò Republic was born; technically a puppet state of Nazi Germany, it was headed by none other than Benito Mussolini.

1951 - Britain's King George VI underwent surgery to remove most of his left lung.

1952 - Senator and Vice Presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon made his Checkers speech.

1962 - The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts opened in New York City with the completion of its first building, the Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall) home of the New York Philharmonic; the glittering evening was captured on videotape by CBS, and later broadcast as Opening Night at Lincoln Center.

1969 - The Chicago Eight trial opened; seven defendants - Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and Lee Weiner - faced various charges arising from the acts of civil disobedience caused by them during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. An eighth defendant, Bobby Seale, was sent to jail in the midst of the proceedings by Judge Julius Hoffman due to Seale's various outbursts in court.

1973 - Juan Perón was returned to power in Argentina.

1980 - Bob Marley gave his final concert at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh.

2005 - The FBI killed terrorist Filiberto Ojeda Rios, head of the Boricua Popular Army or Los Macheteros, on Plan Bonito in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico; Ojeda Rios was wanted for his part in the September 1983 Wells Fargo depot robbery.
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"Mickey" by Toni Basil

Birthday wishes go out today to esteemed choreographer Toni Basil, who took her brand global in 1982 with the release of Word of Mouth (which is still only available on vinyl!)

The album yielded a smash hit single, Mickey; written by Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn as Kitty, and originally recorded in 1979 by the UK's Racey, the song was renamed because of Basil's crush on Micky Dolenz of The Monkees*.

*Basil had been choreographer on The Monkees' movie, Head, in 1968.
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Happy Birthday Your Highness

Maybe she shouldn't have been disinherited...

You see, Her Highness is the oldest child of King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway, and was once poised to be Queen of Norway in her own right. That is, until her brother Haakon Magnus was born. Now he's the Crown Prince and Martha Louise is... Well, something of a tearaway, as Princesses go. For instance, she married a writer, Ari Behn, which is never the way to become respectable. Mr. Behn is also friends with - and voted for - Norway's Labour Party, which had all the snobs in Oslo all agog.

Wait. It gets better. When the Princess started an entertainment company and began paying income tax, her father removed the Royal from her title. It was done after consulting with her, or so they say - just like when all her royal patronages were revoked. That's when she moved to New York, where a woman* doesn't need a title to be a Princess (or at least act like one).  While there she published a children's book entitled Why Kings and Queens Don't Wear Crowns.

Then in August 2007 she and a partner opened Astarte Education in Oslo, a school promising to teach people how to speak with angels for $2100 a semester. Ever since, calls for her to renounce her royal titles and claim to the throne (she's currently fourth in line) have escalated.

Something tells me we haven't heard the last from Mrs. Behn; her latest royal duties were the birth of her third daughter, Emma Tallulah Behn, in September 2008 and attendance at the wedding of Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel Westling in June 2010.

*Or a man, for that matter...
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In Memoriam: Paul Muni

Paul Muni and Warner Bros. were made for each other...

Throughout the 1930s Muni was the top leading man the studio had, and in role after role his performances gave a face and voice to the social messages which the studio not only held dear but sought to publicize via their films. Every socially-conscious actor in Hollywood today owes him a debt of gratitude for blazing their trail, while every neocon blogger in the world should give thanks to him for giving them so much in the way of progressive politics to whine about.

Muni's movies were the kind that got legislation passed: from his pre-Code classics Scarface (1932) and I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932), to later fare such as Bordertown (1935) and The Life of Emile Zola (1937) just had that effect on people.

Muni often played a man wrongly accused, or else a good man trapped by circumstance in a world awash with corruption; and when he played a villain (as he did in Scarface), it was clear that it wasn't some inherent evil that drove his character to a life of crime, but a society which rewarded (rather than punished) such a choice.

Muni also excelled at that old Hollywood standby, the biopic; his research was meticulous and his performances masterful. He was nominated for an Oscar for playing Zola, and won in 1937 for his portrayal of Louis Pasteur.

Born on this day in 1895, Paul Muni died in August 1967.
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"We Are All On Drugs" by Weezer

Birthday wishes go out today to Matt Sharp, founding member and former bassist for Weezer; currently, when not performing solo he appears with The Rentals and probably mopes around because Rivers Cuomo is so much cuter than him.

We Are All on Drugs is the second single from Weezer's second album Make Believe nestling, as it does in their discography, between Beverly Hills and Perfect Situation.
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Pop History Moment: Gay Man Saves President's Life

[In the photo above Oliver 'Bill' Sipple appears at the extreme left of the frame, while Sara Jane Moore's face is just visible to the right of that pole intersecting the frame. I don't know who the lady in the hat and the stripey top is, but she's got the right idea: get the Hell outta there!]
On this day in 1975 a gay man did a heroic thing, and among those who remember it, many - most of them Christians - are still trying to come to terms with such a possibility; after all, aren't gay men all supposed to be flighty, effeminate twits, synonymous with stupidity? I mean, 'that's so gay' doesn't exactly mean 'that's so brave', now does it?

A n y w a y... US President Gerald Ford had just arrived outside San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel on this day in 1975 when Sara Jane Moore pointed a gun at him from a distance of about 40 feet; fortunately retired Vietnam vet Oliver Sipple grabbed her arm, deflecting the shot and, while slightly injuring a fellow bystander, probably saved the President's life. Sipple then tried to wrestle her to the ground in order to prevent her from firing a second time, following which the Secret Service took over. Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme had also tried to kill the President just 17 days earlier with (fortunately) similar results; that killing was prevented by Secret Service agent Larry Buendorf without any shots being fired.

In the aftermath of the assassination attempt, Sipple sought to fade back into anonymity - and might have done so too, had it not been for crusading gay politician Harvey Milk, who tried to use Sipple's heroism for political ends. While the idea of making a gay male hero out of a hero who just happens to be gay may have suited Milk's own 70s-style militancy, and even have been the right thing to do, it was Sipple himself who was forced to live with the consequences. For a time after the revelation he was estranged from his parents, who'd disowned him when they found out he was gay*, whereupon began Sipple's descent into madness and addiction.

Oliver Sipple died in February 1989, aged 47, President Ford in December 2006 at 93; Sara Jane Moore - then 77 - was paroled in December 2007 as posing no further threat to the American public. A year before her release she recanted, claiming she'd been 'blinded by her radical political views' - the sell-out...

*They were later reconciled.
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POPnews: September 22nd

[Currently called the Duke of York's Picture House, Britain's
oldest extant cinema now shows art house and repertory films.]
66 CE - Roman Emperor Nero created a legion which, following his death in 69 CE during the Year of the Four Emperors, was officially named I Italica, or 'Italian First'. They remained in existence for much of the next five centuries, and were stationed at the Danube when Goths overran what remained of the Western Roman Empire.

1236 - Lithuanian Samogitians and Semigallians under Vykintas defeated the Livonian Brothers of the Sword in Battle of Šiauliai (or The Battle of the Sun); the Livonian commander, Volkwin, died in battle.

1499 - Although the foundation of Switzerland is traditionally measured from August 1st, 1291, it was the Treaty of Basel (signed on this day) that awarded the Swiss their independence from the Holy Roman Empire following the Battle of Dornach.

1598 - Writer Ben Jonson was indicted for manslaughter when he killed an actor, Gabriel Spenser, during a duel in what is now Hoxton. Jonson was incarcerated in Newgate Prison, where he converted to Roman Catholicism; he later avoided a death sentence because he was literate.

1692 - Based solely on the testimony of a group of young girls Martha Corey was hanged during the Salem witch trials, three days after her husband Giles Corey was ordered to be crushed to death by the same judicial body...  Despite their early tragic deaths at the hands of a bunch of paranoid religious zealots, the Coreys attained a kind of immortality when they were made main characters in Arthur Miller's 1953 play The Crucible.

1761 - England's King George III was crowned alongside his consort Queen Charlotte at Westminster Abbey.

1774 - Pope Clement XIV died; he was succeeded by Pius VI in February 1775.

1776 - Nathan Hale was hanged by the British for spying; whether or not he ever uttered his famous last words - 'I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country' - they became a rallying cry for Patriot forces.

1851 - The city of Des Moines, Iowa, was incorporated as Fort Des Moines.

1869 - Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold premiered at the National Theatre in München.

1910 - The Duke of York's Cinema opened in Brighton; that it is still in use today makes it the oldest continually operating cinema in Britain.

1919 - The steel strike of 1919, led by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, began in Pennsylvania and spread across the United States before collapsing in January 1920.

1927 - Jack Dempsey lost the Long Count boxing match to Gene Tunney at Chicago's Soldier Field.

1955 - British television network ITV went on the air, effectively turning the BBC's media monopoly into a media oligarchy.

1960 - The Sudanese Republic was renamed Mali after the withdrawal of Senegal from the Mali Federation; the newly renamed nation then gained its independence from France.

1970 - Tunku Abdul Rahman resigned as Prime Minister of Malaysia in favour of Tun Abdul Razak.

1975 - Sara Jane Moore was thwarted in her attempt to assassinate President Gerald Ford by Oliver Sipple; admiration for Sipple in GOP ranks was later quashed when it was revealed - by no less than Harvey Milk - that the Vietnam vet was gay.

1980 - Iraq invaded Iran, precipitating the eight-year Iran-Iraq War.

1985 - The Plaza Accord was signed in New York City.

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Bill Murray and Steve Martin in "Little Shop of Horrors"

The volume's a bit low, but that just means you have to listen more carefully; otherwise I love love love it! Normally when a sadist meets a masochist sparks fly (providing that's what they're into) but as this clip proves, chemistry is no match for dentistry.

Here birthday boy Bill Murray (as patient Arthur Denton) and Steve Martin (another of our favourites around the Pop Culture Institute, playing Orin Scrivello, DDS) yuk it up in the 1986 film Little Shop of Horrors, while Seymour (Rick Moranis) waits nervously outside the door...
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Happy Birthday Bill Murray

Thirty years at the pinnacle of show business hasn't blunted his sense of humour; in fact, Bill Murray's comedy persona seems to have appeared - fully formed - in 1976, and has only gotten richer and deeper and shinier over the years...

While conducting research for this piece I came across a rare flash of insight in, of all places, a YouTube comment: he did his selling out early, so he's always been able to be genuine.

Well, it certainly involves a great deal of selling out to appear on Saturday Night Live, which is where Bill Murray got his start. But in my humble opinion, though, you can't sell out if you don't buy in, and that's what he's done.

The rumour is he doesn't even have an agent. That doesn't mean much in and of itself - after all, I couldn't get an agent to let me detail their car, let alone find me a job. However, I'm just a blogger and he's a comedy legend - having appeared in such chucklefests as Meatballs, Caddyshack, Stripes, Tootsie, and Little Shop of Horrors.

Still, he's no slouch in the drama department either, having garnered rave reviews for performances in films as diverse as The Razor's Edge, Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, Rushmore, and Lost in Translation.
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POPnews: September 21st

[When it was completed in January 2010, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill had given Dubai not only the biggest erection in the world but the biggest in history; fortunately, since the country is heavily favoured by the Saudi elite, it's unlikely anyone will fly a plane into it.]
454 CE - Roman Emperor Valentinian III assassinated his top general Aëtius in the Imperial throne room at Ravenna.

1217 - The Estonian tribal leader Lembitu of Lehola was killed in a battle against Teutonic Knights during the Battle of St. Matthew's Day, at a pivotal moment in the Livonian Crusade.

1745 - At the Battle of Prestonpans (near Edinburgh) a Hanoverian army under the command of Sir John Cope was defeated - in ten minutes! - by the Jacobite forces of Prince Charles Edward Stuart.

1765 - Antoine de Beauterne announced that he had killed the Beast of Gévaudan - a claim which was later proven wrong when the attacks resumed.

1780 - Benedict Arnold delivered the plans for West Point to the British; the plot to seize the military academy and it's prime location alongside the Hudson River, however, failed - and his name has been synonymous with treachery in America ever since.

1792 - The French National Convention voted to abolish that country's monarchy.

1827 - According to Joseph Smith, Jr., the angel Moroni led him to a set of golden plates, some of which he later translated with the aid of a seer stone or stone spectacles into The Book of Mormon; the plates were found buried under Cumorah hill in upstate New York - Manchester, to be precise - and are supposedly the chronicle of the prophet Mormon, a Nephrite who, along with his son, visited America in the 4th Century CE.

1897 - Virginia O'Hanlon's letter to the New York Sun - better known by its accompanying headline 'Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus' - was published; Francis Pharcellus Church's philosophical response has been a part of Christmas lore ever since.

1898 - China's Empress Dowager Cixi seized power and ended that country's Hundred Days' Reform.

1921 - During what came to be known as the Oppau explosion, a storage silo at a fertilizer plant in that German city exploded, killing between 500 and 600; even though only about 10% of the ammonium sulfate and ammonium nitrate fertilizer at the facility was involved, a 90 m by 125 m crater - and 19 m deep - was created at the site, damage to nearby property was immense, and the blast was heard 300 kilometres away in München.

1937 - J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit was published in the UK by George Allen & Unwin.

1938 - The Great Hurricane of 1938 made landfall on Long Island, New York, killing between 500 and 700 as it roared up the Eastern Seaboard, before finally dissipating in New Hampshire.

1939 - Romanian Prime Minister Armand Calinescu was assassinated in Bucharest by ultranationalist members of the Iron Guard, apparently on orders from Nazi Germany.

1964 - Malta became independent from the United Kingdom.

1970 - The Cleveland Browns beat the New York Jets at home on the first-ever showing of Monday Night Football.

1976 - Orlando Letelier - a member of the Chilean socialist government of Salvador Allende, overthrown in September 1973 by Augusto Pinochet - was assassinated in Washington, D.C.

1981 - Sandra Day O'Connor's appointment to the US Supreme Court was unanimously approved by the Senate.

1995 - The Hindu milk miracle occurred, in which statues of the Hindu God Ganesh began drinking milk when spoonfuls were placed near their mouths.

2004 - Construction of the Burj Dubai (now known as the Burj Khalifa) began.
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Now Showing: "Time in a Bottle" by The Muppets

Since my earlier Jim Croce post was so well-received (thanks Tank!), and since I simply cannot resist The Muppets, I thought what the heck? Why not do another one?

This has to have been the first time I ever heard this song, and I still find it a very moving performance, considering that it stars a lump of foam. Of course, given what most actors are like nowadays...

Time in a Bottle was performed (by Jim Henson himself) on Episode 207 of The Muppet Show - an episode first aired in 1977. No doubt Croce's early, tragic death (on this day in 1973) gives the song an even greater poignance...
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"Operator" by Jim Croce

Jim Croce is one of the most beloved singer-songwriters of all times; a native of Philadelphia, he was instrumental in the development not only of the blue-eyed soul sound for which the city is known but also for the folk-rock fusion that helped define the sound of the 1970s.

When he died in a plane crash on this day in 1973 - the day before his third album was to be released - the music industry lost one of its best voices, not to mention one of its best lyricists. Although his string of hits was a short one, it has endured. Time in a Bottle, Bad, Bad Leroy Brown, and this one, Operator, are some of the most poignant and durable songs of the decade.

Croce's personal motto was: 'If you dig it, do it. If you really dig it, do it twice.' Right on.
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Happy Birthday Sophia Loren

My personal favourite film of hers has to be Ieri, oggi, domani (aka Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow) by Vittorio de Sica, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1965; in it Sophia Loren stars with Marcello Mastroianni as three very different characters - one in Naples (yesterday), one in Rome (today), and one in Milan (tomorrow). Sexy as he is, Mastroianni's characters all seem like the same man; cast as a paragon of Italian womanhood in all its variety, Loren triumphs over him as easily as she does completely. After all, it's the role she was born to play.

Not only did that film display her range as an actress, it arrayed her against any number of her homeland's architectural masterpieces - and proved that there isn't a villa, campanile, or cathedral in all of Italy that holds a candelabra to her in the beauty department.

Born on this day in - get this - 1934, the 76-year-old icon is still going strong. In fact, she posed for the famed Pirelli Calendar in 2007; the calendar, which usually features supermodels, just once they thought they should get a goddess - and did they ever!  Even more recently Loren appeared in Rob Marshall's film version of Nine.

Never content just to be a pretty face, Loren is also a savvy business woman, marketing her own lines of eye wear, jewelry, and perfume. Accustomed as she is to being the subject of superlatives, she insists that her greatest achievement is her two sons, Carlo Jr. and Edoardo.

An Oscar winner for De Sica's 1960 masterpiece Two Women, in 1991 she also received an Honorary Oscar for her contribution to world cinema; not only was she on hand to give Federico Fellini his Honorary Oscar in 1993, she also handed one to Roberto Benigni for 1998's bittersweet miracle, Life Is Beautiful. Needless to say, her majestic presence dissolving into girlish glee upon exclaiming 'Roberto!', as much as Benigni's antics upon accepting the award, were the highlight of the telecast.
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In Memoriam: Upton Sinclair

Shit disturbers, malcontents, muckrakers... I love 'em all.

Upton Sinclair was all of these and more, with one crucial difference: he didn't just do it for kicks, but in aid of a cause.

Okay, so the cause he aided wasn't always the cause he set out to aid; he wrote The Jungle, his legendary 1906 novel set in the Chicago stockyards to highlight the drudgery of urban poverty and instead brought about legislation aimed at cleaning up the food supply. 'I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach,' he said, a little too ruefully, following its publication.

Still, if you're going to miss one target it helps to be fortunate enough to hit another, even bigger, one. After all, people are conditioned to ignore their hearts, but few can treat their stomachs the same.

So while Upton Sinclair's political career can only be described as an utter fiasco, his literary career is without equal, frequently achieving through art what he could not hope to do through politics. Sometimes wordy, often hyperbolic, but always passionate, his novels delivered socialist rhetoric into the hearts and minds of Americans in ways that campaign speeches never could.

Born on this day in 1878, Upton Sinclair died in November 1968, having published more than 90 books during his 90 years on Earth.
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