Theater, Movies, Art and Literature

C-SPAN Booknotes interview by Brian Lamb with Jennet Conant, granddaughter of James B. Conant and author of 'Tuxedo Park : A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II'. C-SPAN Booknotes Jennet Conant: Tuxedo Park Program Air Date: June 9, 2002 For more information about this program, visit www.booknotes.org ____________________________________________________ BRIAN LAMB, HOST: Jennet Conant, author of "Tuxedo Park," who was Alfred Lee Loomis? JENNET CONANT, Author, "Tuxedo Park": Alfred Lee Loomis was a tycoon who lived in Tuxedo Park in the '20s and the '30s, and he made a fortune on Wall Street. And he pursued his …

...He divides commentators on language into linguists, who are goodies, and pedants, who are baddies. Linguists describe how language is at the moment; pedants prescribe how they think it should be. Kamm's case against the pedants is compelling. They think that English is really Latin, only with different words, so that to them aggravate is really ad graviorem, meaning, towards something worse. They don't notice when Thomas More or Milton use the word infer when nowadays we're supposed to use imply. They peddle made-up rules about prepositions, and don't appear to know how well written English managed without the possessive apostrophe for most of its history. In short, he…

The Japanese have many specific words that name -- and, just by calling attention to, give exquisite insight into -- many different, very specific aspects of human behavior. 'Tsundoku', I learned just now, means the act of buying books and then leaving them lying around unread. Etymology 積む (tsumu, to pile up) + 読 (doku, to read), punning on “積んでおく” (tsundeoku, to leave piled up) Noun 積ん読 (hiragana つんどく, romaji tsundoku) (informal) the act of leaving a book unread after buying it, typically piled up together with other such unread books http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%A9%8D%E3%82%93%E8%AA%AD In somewhat similar vein, an American friend who studied the Japanese l…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=HxDdtq2fImw

Endearing. Includes her fascinating observations on vocal technique. 'I didn't want to be a diva' Forty years as a soprano earned Joan Sutherland the name La Stupenda. She still finds it rather embarrassing, she tells Martin Kettle http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2002/may/08/artsfeatures

OK, gay in only the broadest sense. Still -- oboy! Mel Brooks hints at Spaceballs sequel to spoof new Star Wars The director of the cult 1987 Star Wars parody film has spoken about making Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11399104/Mel-Brooks-hints-at-Spaceballs-sequel.html

A new project. Centireading force: why reading a book 100 times is a great idea Author and columnist Stephen Marche, who has perused PG Wodehouse and Hamlet more than 100 times each, extols the virtues of literary repetition Pelham Grenville Wodehouse: 100 not out. Photograph: F. Roy Kemp/Getty Images The Guardian Monday 9 February 2015 16.13 EST Stephen Marche I have read two books more than a 100 times, for different motives and with different consequences. Hamlet I read a 100 times for my dissertation, The Inimitable Jeeves by PG Wodehouse a 100 times for comfort. The experience is distinct from all other kinds of reading. I’m calling it centireading. I read H…

Bob Dylan Dazzles MusiCares Gala With Bold Speech By Phil Gallo, Los Angeles Billboard | February 07, 2015 12:30 PM EST Bob Dylan speaks onstage during the 2015 MusiCares Person of The Year honoring him held at Los Angeles Convention Center on February 6, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. It was a well-known fact that Bob Dylan was not going to perform at the MusiCares event honoring him for, in President Jimmy Carter's words, a "lifetime dedication to human rights." Still, no one expected him to give one of the greatest acceptance speeches in the 25 years of the event. It almost didn't matter that Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp sang some of t…

One of my personal all time favorite coming of age films. Potent story and some nice eye canady just add to the pleasure of watching this movie. http://youtu.be/jnt9yaLqIMw

Margaret Bloy Graham, illustrator of Harry the Dirty Dog and other children's books, passed away last week, aged 94. Acquaintance from Cambridge days, dear person. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Bloy_Graham

Monty Python and The Holy Grail Scene 10: The Oral Sects or Sir Gallahad Faces Peril Valiantly [trumpets] NARRATOR:The Tale of Sir Galahad. [boom] [wind] [howl] [howl] [boom] [angels singing] [howl] [boom] [howl] [boom] [pound pound pound] GALAHAD: Open the door! Open the door! [pound pound pound] GALAHAD:In the name of King Arthur, open the door! [creak] [thump] [creak] [boom] GIRLS: Hello! ZOOT: Welcome, gentle Sir Knight. Welcome to the Castle Anthrax. GALAHAD: The Castle Anthrax? ZOOT: Yes. Oh, it's not a very good name, is it? Oh, but we are nice and we will attend to your every, every need! GALAHAD: You are the keepers of the Holy Grail? Z…

Very neat. Who was Chaucer? From the foul-mouthed Miller to the prim Prioress, only Chaucer could have dreamed up a group as diverse as the Canterbury pilgrims. But how much do we know about the founding father of English letters? http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/24/who-was-chaucer-canterbury-tales

Stunning 2200-Year-Old Mosaics Discovered in Ancient Greek City http://twistedsifter.com/2014/11/2200-year-old-mosaics-discovered-in-ancient-greek-city/ The city's name, btw, is Zeugma, which is also the name of an interesting "figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses (e.g., John and his license expired last week ) or to two others of which it semantically suits only one (e.g., with weeping eyes and hearts )." http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-zeugma.html http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeugma

Truly unbelievable. Museum Curators Accidentally Ruin Priceless King Tut Burial Mask http://m.mentalfloss.com/article.php?id=61258 http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/01/23/king-tuts-mask-worlds-most-famous-archaeological-relic-has-been-irreversably-damaged/ http://bigstory.ap.org/article/0dad9fb502094fd09de4dd263662d4d0/beard-egypts-king-tut-hastily-glued-back-epoxy

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kevorkian/aboutk/art/

And you thought your organ was trouble! For the organ fanatics among us. The Barker lever Is there a Father Christmas? The tooth fairy is real, isn't she? The Barker lever was invented by Barker — or was it? David Bridgeman-Sutton puts on his sleuth's cap and reports. *See footnotes (updated August 2010) Welcome to the website of the Rieger in the Christchurch Town Hall, New Zealand Musings & Amusings index Charles Spackman Barker (thanks to Warwick Henshaw) Was Charles Spackman Barker (1804-79) an accomplished and innovative craftsman — or was he an incompetent, accident-prone organ-builder who "borrowed" the invention that made his n…

She is so great. Her novel The Dispossessed blew my mind in high school. (Maybe not a hard thing to do, but still. ) http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispossessed "we will need writers who can remember freedom": ursula k le guin at the national book awards posted on 19 november, 2014 Ursula K. Le Guin was honored at the National Book Awards tonight and gave a fantastic speech about the dangers to literature and how they can be stopped. As far as I know its not available online yet, so Ive transcribed it from the livestream below. The parts in parentheses were ad-libbed directly to the audience, and the Neil thanked is Neil Gaiman, who presented her with the award.…

We even do a little bit of it here, at our best. Twitter and Instagram users can learn a lot about capturing the zeitgeist from a 1920s Chicago journalist Social media give us the power to create a real-time portrait of our age, just as pioneering journalist Ben Hecht documented his own era http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/21/witter-and-nstagram-users-can-learn-a-lot-about-capturing-the-zeitgeist-from-a-1920s-hicago-journ

Grohl is great. Dave Grohl: You dont need a needle hanging out of your arm to be a rock star Dave Grohl is a man of many talents. He is also a prolific, inventive swearer. Between expletives, he talks about the Foo Fighters guest-laden new album and why its accompanying TV series sees him jamming with Bad Brains and hanging with the US president http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/06/sp-dave-grohl-foo-fighters-sonic-highways-album-tv-show

If 'The Simpsons' isn't art... 25 things you never knew about The Simpsons http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/the-simpsons/11289466/25-things-you-never-knew-about-the-simpsons.html

Very cool. Haunting. http://www.newsweek.com/what-did-ancient-mesopotamian-hits-sound-something-291543

Not really gay-themed except how all Hitchcock has something repressed and other about it. Anyway, a moving portrait of the man by a screenwriter who worked with him in his final months of life. ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S FADE TO BLACK: THE GREAT DIRECTOR'S FINAL DAYS http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/13/alfred-hitchcock-s-fade-to-black-the-great-director-s-final-days.html

How cool is that! http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/christopher-lee-releases-heavy-metal-christmas-song-darkest-carols-faithful-sing-9914850.html

The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, now online for your greater edification: http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu Background for us mortals: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/05/albert-einstein-archive-genius-doubts-and-loves