Remembering... George Raft

Handsome, menacing George Raft - born on this day in 1895 - was one of Hollywood's most popular leading men in the 1930s; while he often played gangsters and hoods, he initially found work as a dancer - a fact wittily alluded to by Chazz Palminteri's character in Woody Allen's 1994 comedy Bullets Over Broadway.

In fact, it was Texas Guinan who gave Raft his first big break in show business - as she'd done with so many others, such as Ruby Keeler - dancing in her 300 Club; she also gave him his break in the movies when he appeared alongside her in the 1929 lost film Queen of the Night Clubs.

Although he'd been one of the biggest stars of the 1930s, he'd also been typecast as a heavy, and an Italian one at that - despite his German heritage. By the 1940s and 1950s Raft's career was suffering from bad choice-itis; he became best known in latter years as the man who turned down most of the roles that would make Humphrey Bogart a star. Although he had a memorable turn as mob boss 'Spats' Columbo in Billy Wilder's 1959 classic Some Like it Hot it did not lead to more work*.

Which is not to say he didn't have his fun along the way... In the early Thirties he gave Tallulah Bankhead such a bad case of gonorrhea she had to have a hysterectomy; as she was being wheeled from the hospital she gave her doctor one of those quips for which she'd already become famous and on which he probably dined out for years: 'Don't think this has taught me a lesson!'

Raft's career was oddly bound up with that of Mae West; it was in his film Night After Night (1932) that West made her movie debut, stealing every scene she's in (as was her wont); nearly fifty years later he made his second-to-last appearance in her final film Sextette (1980). When they died - two days apart, in November 1980 - their bodies were both stored in the mortuary at Forest Lawn together.

In the 1991 film Bugsy, Raft was played by Joe Mantegna.

*The same fate befell Gloria Swanson, who could have parlayed her star turn in another of Wilder's classics, 1950's Sunset Boulevard, into much more than she did; in both cases the public seemed to consider these one-time legends as mere novelties - relics of a bygone era, even - in an age long before irony alone could save a career.
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Will Will Self Self-Destruct, Or Will Will Self Self-Actualize?

Will Self, the iconoclastic British writer of such nihilistic books as Cock and Bull (1992), My Idea of Fun (1993), Great Apes (1997), How the Dead Live (2000), Dorian, an Imitation (2001), and The Book of Dave (2006), today turns 49.



Most chroniclers of his life seem stymied how he could grow up to be a self-mutilating drug addict with a penchant for telling bizarre stories despite a comfortable childhood in a North London suburb; I figure, how could he not? I was also raised in a boring suburb, and look what I've become. The only thing that's saved me from a fate worse than cliche is my own inherent Canadian boringness.

Yet there is much to admire in Self's career: he was once removed from John Major's campaign aircraft after he was discovered doing heroin in it, which to my mind qualifies him for every honour there is; he was also fired from The Observer, which is another career goal of mine. He studied Philosophy at college rather than English, which could explain why his books have much to say about our modern world, rather than being so much navel-gazing twaddle. Quoth he:

'I want to be misunderstood. And the other thing that amuses me is: I don't particularly want to be liked. Nobody goes into the business of writing satire to be liked. Whether I am or am not a nice bloke is neither here nor there. It's not part of the task I've set myself in my art.'

Amen to that. The fact that Self is still a mid-career writer means we might expect yet more and even better from him, provided, that is, that on one of his epic walks around the English capital he isn't smited by some prat in a Ford Cortina.
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Happy Birthday Dr. Manmohan Singh

The current Prime Minister of India is the first Sikh to hold the post, which he has done since May 2004; highly respected both in India and around the world for his intellect and erudition, Dr. Singh is both a formidable politician and statesman.



India's vast working class and burgeoning middle class has obviously taken to him as the man best equipped to bring about some closure to inter-caste and sectarian strife that has often plagued the world's largest democracy throughout its sixty-year history.

His loyalty to the Congress Party may have also saved it from oblivion; when it turned to Sonia Gandhi (an Italian by birth) for leadership during one of its periodic crises there was much discord, and the rift in the party nearly tore it apart. Likewise, while the damage to the Golden Temple in Amritsar ordered by Indira Gandhi in 1984 as part of Operation Blue Star has been repaired, the Congress Party's relationship to Sikhs has not, and so his appointment can be seen as crucial to healing that wound as well.

While in office, Dr. Singh has fostered closer ties to the United States, diligently supported the peace process with Pakistan, and done much to foster economic growth in the disputed Kashmir region. India's economy during his administration is growing at 9% per annum without neglecting social programs or minority rights as in certain neighbouring countries I won't mention whose name rhymes with 'Dinah'.

He has also eschewed corruption, and been responsible for an increase in the transparency of government.
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In Memoriam: Lewis Hine

From the moment of its very invention the artistic and documentary application of the camera was obvious; it was Lewis Hine, however, who was one of the first people to exploit photography for its sociological and progressive uses, and as such his compassion is as evident as any object or subject in the images he captured. Although he set out to use a camera merely in his work as a sociologist, the photography of Lewis Hine is today recognized for the fine art it is.

Hine spent a decade as a photojournalist on the payroll of the National Child Labor Committee, documenting the abuses inherent in child labour throughout the United States, initially publishing his findings in a social reform magazine called The Survey. Later he followed the Red Cross in America and Europe, documenting the relief work they were conducting.

His works were also instrumental in putting faces to America's industrial might; his photos of the construction of the Empire State Building are a remarkable record of a remarkable achievement in civil engineering. The images he captured throughout the American South during the Great Depression helped to personalize the serf-like plight of farm workers and migrants alike to the northern plutocrats who'd enslaved them.

Born on this day in 1874, Hine died in November 1940 aged 66 from complications following surgery at Dobb's Ferry, New York.
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"The Hollow Men" by T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
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Remembering... T. S. Eliot

Clearly, there are two options open to a writer; either he may flood the market with his work in quantity or he may prefer to allow a trickle of perfection to water his fame. While I have recently much favoured the former, T. S. Eliot obviously preferred the latter. 'The only thing that matters is that these should be perfect in their kind, so that each should be an event,' he is quoted as saying, the smug bastard.

Obviously, I have never been much of a fan of Eliot's, likely because his desire for privacy hasn't allowed a persona to develop, and that's the only way I can appreciate anybody. A bed-ridden neurasthenic frequently laid low by bronchitis, a virgin 'til he was twenty-six, with only a few famous friends (most of whom were as low-key as him) doesn't exactly start a fire of curiosity in me. Then again, neither does a devout Christian responsible for the musical Cats, and yet he was both of these and more.

Still, thanks to this blog I've been given many opportunities to revisit those whom my high school prejudices had previously discounted, and T. S. Eliot is among them. His magpie approach to both language and inspiration is remarkably akin to the wholesale plunder I've been known to practice, and I could stand to develop his deftness in this regard.

Since Eliot was one of the first to open up poetry from the vise grip of form which in turn both ruled and ruined poetry, he's to be commended for popularizing the form. Likewise, the fact that C. S. Lewis considered his work 'a very great evil' does much to recommend Eliot to me, as I've always rather disliked Lewis and his myriad judgements including this one (as if any poetry could be evil). Plus, he did win the Nobel Prize (in 1948).

Now, his anti-Semitism on the other hand... As dismaying as it is, it needs to be considered in context. He certainly seemed comfortable enough with individual Jews, such as Leonard Woolf, who considered him a friend. But a hundred generations of devout Christians have excoriated the Jews (as opposed to the Romans) for putting their man on a stick (even though it was God's will that it be done) so it's perhaps understandable nonetheless. Later in life, Eliot was known to support Israel.

Eliot famously said: 'Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.' To which I can only add: 'I wish I'd said that.' Who knows? Some day I just might... It only remains to be seen if I imitate it, steal it, ruin it, or improve it when I do!
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Remembering... Paul Newman

Unlike 2009 and 2010 - with their wholesale massacres of celebrities on every list from A to Z - the Grim Reaper was somewhat more judicious in his dealings with Hollywood in 2008; among those he took from us in that year, however, was a genuine show business titan: Mr Paul Newman... In fact, such a living legend was he that it's long been something of a challenge trying to determine precisely what was the best thing about a man whose good qualities ran riot!

There were the looks of course: a lean frame, a wry smile that ingratiated itself right through you, and the coolest blue eyes the silver screen ever saw. Then again, there were his humanist politics, which so menaced US President Richard M. Nixon that Tricky Dick ended up using the full resources of the Internal Revenge Revenue Service to hound Newman unlike few others on his so-called Enemies List. There's also the matter of his 50 year marriage to Joanne Woodward, which speaks of a consistency and loyalty which was all-too-rare in Hollywood circa 1958 and is well-nigh extinct in that company town today. Yet while Newman's acting chops were nearly as impressive as his choices, it's pretty clear that his legacy remains his charity work...

Thanks to his Newman's Own brand - and according to their website - as much as US$270 million has been donated to worthy causes, such as the annual PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award; Newman was also heavily involved in the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, as well as supporting scholarships at Ohio's Kenyon College. All of which work - like the roles he lovingly crafted for the silver screen - will continue to live on in his name.

The highlights of Paul Newman's acting career scarcely need to be gone over yet again but, in the interest of moving product (which, let's face it, is the only way I'm ever going to be able to make any money at this some day) I'mma do it anyway... Films from 1956's Somebody Up There Likes Me, 1958's The Long, Hot Summer and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 1961's The Hustler, 1962's Sweet Bird of Youth, 1963's Hud, 1967's Cool Hand Luke, 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1973's The Sting, and 1986's The Color of Money, all the way to 2002's Road to Perdition - and many more besides! - all benefited from the preponderance of this special man and his copious talents.

So on this of all days, whether it's dinner you're planning, or else an after-dinner movie, who better to nourish your body and soul than Paul Newman, who died on this day in 2008.
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Happy European Day of Languages

Be sure and celebrate the many tongues of Europe today by... Wait a minute. What was I talking about? Oh yes, the European Day of Languages!

The European Day of Languages was first proclaimed by the EU in 2001, at the end of the European Year of Languages.

They were no doubt inspired to support linguistic diversity for the same reasons I am; since I am an enthusiastic supporter of English as a universal language, in order to assuage my own guilt over assiduously undermining a layer of diversity in human culture I believe in supporting an issue like minority language rights. I figure it's the least I can do to reduce my own karma footprint.

Similarly, since the EU is looking to remove those differences that have seen most of Europe used as a battleground for the past 2000 years, it is also incumbent upon them not to assimilate Europe to the point where Belgrade is identical to Baden-Baden is identical to Birmingham.

So if you speak Gaelic or Walloon, are fluent in French or Greek or even Finnish, celebrate it. Or if you don't, enroll in classes, buy yourself a Rosetta Stone CD set, or watch a subtitled movie today; you'll be glad you did! Esto es vivire!*

*That is to say 'This is living!' in Spanish...
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"Rose Garden" by Lynn Anderson

My own performing debut was singing this song a cappella for assembled family members (with my mother on harmony) the Christmas I was five. Therefore, it's always had a special place in my heart; also included in my set that evening was Delta Dawn.

Though principally remembered for the song (I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden (written by Joe South), Lynn Anderson had a string of hits on the country charts in the 1970s, including Top of the World, which she took to Number One before The Carpenters did. But Rose Garden was her biggest hit by far on the pop charts, thanks almost entirely to music industry guru Clive Davis, who made the decision to release it as a single.

Lynn Anderson today turns 63.
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The Death of Bessie Smith

When writing about the lives - and especially the deaths - of black Americans, one runs the risk of sounding like a broken record, which is certainly an unforgivable offense in the case of Bessie Smith, if inevitable, since her death could be described as the ultimate broken record...

From her debut in 1923 onward, Bessie Smith made a lot of white men very wealthy; in the last 14 years of her life she worked tirelessly, both recording and performing the blues throughout the United States, only to die - it is said - because of the prevailing racism of the times.

Yet the powerful myth surrounding Smith's death - while instrumental in the creation of any legend as mighty as hers - is not more moving than the real story...

On this day in 1937, at about 3 AM, while traveling along Route 61 from Memphis to Clarksdale, Mississippi, the car Bessie Smith was in was struck by a van. Her right arm was nearly severed at the elbow in the initial impact, and the right side of her body was severely traumatized. Although the driver of the car, Richard Morgan, was uninjured, Bessie never regained consciousness.

While the driver of the van stopped, he later fled the scene; though he was later apprehended and arrested, history does not record his name. Had he used his van to take Bessie to hospital, she may well have lived. Then again, shock is a fast-moving, ruthless killer, and possibly nothing could have saved her from it.

Dr. Hugh Smith happened along with a Mr. Broughton, his fishing buddy, and while administering first aid to her, his own car was struck; its driver was likely drunk. In any event, neither he nor his female passenger were seriously hurt, although they narrowly missed hitting both the unconscious Bessie and the doctor, and they totaled the doctor's car.

Two ambulances arrived; the first one took Bessie to the blacks-only hospital in Clarksdale, the second conveyed the joyriders to the white hospital. Although the myth was that Bessie was originally taken to the whites-only hospital and refused treatment there a) her ambulance driver was a black man named Willie Miller, who would have known better than to take her to the wrong place, and b) even if he had, the two hospitals in Clarksdale were about a half-mile apart.

Unfortunately, the blacks-only G. T. Thomas Hospital was both understaffed and under-equipped. Nevertheless, it was there that Bessie Smith died, likely of shock, exacerbated by the comedy of errors which played out on Route 61. Her time of death was listed as 11:30 AM.

Though it's understandable why so much misinformation regarding the death of Bessie Smith was disseminated in the thirty years after her death, historians owe a debt of gratitude to Chris Albertson; his 1972 biography of the Empress of the Blues is still the best text available on her life and death.
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POPnews - September 26th

[Although he had previously manipulated the media successfully - 1952's Checkers speech is a marvel of double talk - Nixon's brand of sleaze was no match for the media-ready youth and suave manner of JFK.]
715 CE - Ragenfrid defeated Theudoald at the Battle of Compiègne.

1212 - Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II issued the Golden Bull of Sicily, granting the Přemyslid Dynasty's Dukes of Bohemia a hereditary royal title; the first of the Kings of Bohemia was Otakar I.

1580 - Francis Drake sailed The Golden Hind into Plymouth Harbour having completed a circumnavigation of the globe; he was knighted aboard his vessel the following year by Elizabeth I for his efforts.

1687 - The Parthenon in Athens was partially destroyed when a shell launched by Venetian forces commanded by Francesco Morosini lit an ammunition dump that the occupying Turks kept inside it. Following the damage, Morosini plundered the now semi-ruined temple, taking some of the better sculptures back to Venice with him.

1789 - Thomas Jefferson was appointed the first United States Secretary of State, John Jay the first Chief Justice of the United States, Samuel Osgood the first United States Postmaster General, and Edmund Randolph the first United States Attorney General.

1810 - A new Act of Succession was adopted by Sweden's Riksdag of the Estates and Jean Baptiste Bernadotte became heir to the throne of Charles XIII.

1907 - Both New Zealand and Newfoundland became Dominions within the British Empire, conferring upon them a semi-independent status. New Zealand became fully independent in 1947, while Newfoundland lost some of its status in 1934, only to lose the rest of it when it joined Canada in 1949.

1908 - Ed Reulbach of the Chicago Cubs became the first and only pitcher to throw two shutouts in one day, which he did against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

1914 - The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was established by the Federal Trade Commission Act.

1934 - The steamship RMS Queen Mary was launched.

1937 - The Shadow debuted on radio on the Mutual Broadcasting System, starring the golden voice of a then-unknown Orson Welles.

1957 - West Side Story - book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins - opened on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre and ran for 732 performances in its initial run. Its original cast featured Carol Lawrence as Maria, Chita Rivera as Anita, and Larry Kert as Tony.

1960 - In Chicago, the first televised debate took place between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy.

1961 - Bob Dylan made his breakthrough as a performer when a show he gave at Gerde's Folk City was given a rave review in the New York Times by Robert Shelton.

1962 - The Yemen Arab Republic was proclaimed.

1966 - The Chevy Camaro first appeared as part of the 1967 model year, giving generations of insecure men a new lease on life.

1969 - The Beatles released their last studio album, Abbey Road, in the UK; although it would be the last album recorded by them, technically the last album released before their breakup in 1970 was Let It Be. The cover of Abbey Road is, of course, most famous for creating the whole Paul is dead hoo-hah - one of the more durable urban legends going. Ironically, the album opens with a song called Come Together, yet was recorded as relations between band members had grown increasingly rancourous...

1973 - Concorde made a non-stop supersonic crossing of the Atlantic in record time; regularly scheduled flights, however, wouldn't begin until January 1976.

1983 - Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averted a worldwide nuclear war.
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Felicitations Felicity Kendal

The secret to sitcom success is in the ensemble, which is what makes The Good Life (better known as Good Neighbors in North America) the classic that it is. Stuffy Jerry, self-righteous Tom, snobbish Margo, and sweet Barbara appeared together, amazingly enough, in only 30 episodes. Yet they are thirty very rich episodes indeed, and to watch them in their entirety on DVD (as I've recently done) is to feel fed in some way as well as entertained...

Though she performed Shakespeare throughout India with her family as a child (later the subject of Merchant Ivory's first major film Shakespeare Wallah, written by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala), and despite playing herself in that film, Felicity Kendal - born on this day in 1946 - struggled to find a footing in her career. The Good Life made both a star and a sex symbol out of her; she was known as 'the thinking man's crumpet' in the 1970s, and throughout the 1980s and 90s she appeared in the West End's glittering London in the plays of Tom Stoppard.

Having completed Rosemary & Thyme (which finished its own three-year run in 2007), Kendal next appeared in an episode for an obscure little show nobody's ever heard of called Doctor Who entitled The Unicorn and the Wasp opposite David Tennant and Catherine Tate, and then spent her springtime on the West End stage, appearing in Noel Coward's play The Vortex, which wrapped in June 2008.  She then undertook roles in the plays The Last Cigarette and Mrs Warren's Profession before switching it up by agreeing to appear in Strictly Come Dancing*.

*As part of the show's new series, which began 14 days ago.
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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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