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Chrome

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  1. Yes, that's part of it ... and I mean that seriously ... but also it's that, while I don't agree with you on some things, I've finally been convinced that on the topic of the Bush regime, nothing less than an aggressive, take-no-prisoners approach is needed to get them out of our f***ing lives.
  2. I live near enough to Canada to get CBC, and I watched some of their coverage over the weekend ... it was fascinating/depressing to see their take on things ... calling the Superbowl/Convention Center refugee camps, showing bodies floating in the water and some really scary footage of try to "restore order," wondering how something like this could be happening to the world's richest country ... the best way I could relate it to the folks here is to have you imagine what it would be like if Christiern were running the news ... Also, did anyone see this disgusting story: A mother's most difficult decision GREENSBURG, La. — A desperate crowd pressed against her as Beverly Burke huddled with her four children on a damp swatch of grass early Wednesday, all of them clamoring for a spot on a coveted military convoy headed out of New Orleans. A vehicle pulled up. “Infants only on this truck,” Burke recalled the sergeant as saying. He pointed to Burke’s oldest child, 10-year-old Sheba, and said, “She can’t go.” Burke was confused. She said the soldier explained that this truck was designated only for babies, the elderly and one companion each. Other trucks were coming. The oldest girl could go with one of them. Burke pleaded, to no avail, and said she was told she’d lose her spot unless she moved now. That left her with a choice: Leave the oldest child behind to catch another ride and rejoin them later at a dropoff point. Or take a chance that the family might lose their opportunity to escape alive if they waited to leave together. Considering the chaos around her, Burke said, she believed the second option was no safe choice. “Go ahead, Momma,” her oldest said softly. “Take care of the babies. I’ll follow you.” Then Burke did what she now says no mother should have to do. She loaded up her other children and told Sheba to stick close to her teenage cousins who stayed behind with her. From aboard the truck, Burke watched Sheba grow smaller in the distance. And just like that, a shy girl in a pink Baby Phat jogging suit with crooked front teeth and long braids vanished into an evacuee throng amid what is likely the biggest natural disaster in U.S. history. For the next two days, Burke and her family endured yet another layer of trauma in Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath as they searched frantically for a girl who never showed up on that next truck. It all ended Friday afternoon with an improbable scene of joy and disbelief as mother and child were reunited. But it was a moment that Burke feared would end another way. Tragically. Untold families were blown apart this week — not only by Hurricane Katrina, but in many cases by the forces of a chaotic government attempt to cope with the disaster. As military convoys tried to evacuate the most vulnerable from New Orleans, some evacuees reported seeing pregnant women separated from husbands, children boarding convoys while pained parents watched. Told of Burke’s account, a National Guard official in Washington said Friday she had no information on Sheba’s rescue or on Guard rescue policies that might result in family separations. “There is no standard policy that the Guard goes by when evacuating, other than they take priority first,” said Guard spokeswoman Dalena Kanouse. Red Cross officials said Friday they had no statistics on how many evacuee families were separated during rescue efforts. Burke, a single mother, had kept her children safe through Monday’s hurricane, Tuesday’s flood and near starvation as the week unfolded. Her 1- and 2-year-old boys — Semajon and Sabian — were ill. Four-year-old Ashida was hungry and terrified. Their New Orleans home was flooded, their food gone. Burke said Friday she and her four children had survived the initial flood by floating on a kiddie pool buoyed by tires to a partially submerged bridge. Hours later, passing boaters ferried them to a dry patch of land where hundreds of other desperate families awaited National Guard trucks. A sergeant went through the crowd, Burke said, pulling out the elderly and infants. Babies were allowed one parent; the elderly were allowed one caretaker, she said. When she and her youngest children were finally forced to board, Burke said, she kissed Sheba on the cheek. She said she asked the girl: “Sheba, baby, who are your people? Tell me their names.” There was Uncle Travis in Houston, Sheba said. Auntie Shamica in Dallas and cousin Calvin in Baton Rouge. “OK, good girl,” Burke said. “You remember those names.” The family’s search for Sheba began almost as soon as she was left behind. Burke, 40, said she and her three youngest children were first dropped off by the convoy on a dry street in New Orleans. There, in a crowd of thousands, Burke strained to see Sheba. Several trucks arrived in the next few hours, but Sheba was not on them. Burke was then told to board another bus that would take them from the city. Burke asked if she could wait for Sheba, but said she was ordered to leave. “When you have men pointing guns at you, telling you what to do, you have no control,” she said. “Nobody cared that my daughter wasn’t there.” Burke and her children were driven to Thibodaux, west of New Orleans. When they arrived, Burke told a Red Cross worker that Sheba had been left behind. The worker told her she would be put on an alert list of lost family members. That was the best he could do, he told Burke. Burke stayed up all night Wednesday watching buses arrive at the shelter. No Sheba. One bus, she said, seemed to have a lot of children without parents. She scanned every sad face, but no Sheba. “Then I realized she could be anywhere,” Burke said. Her worst thought: that Sheba was still trapped in New Orleans. By Thursday, Burke and her brood had been taken to a relative’s home in Greensburg, north of Baton Rouge. She called on family members from Texas to Detroit help find Sheba. Cousins in Baton Rouge, Houston and Dallas searched through shelters throughout Louisiana and Texas. No luck. Then, at 3 p.m. Friday, Burke’s phone rang. “I have her!” It was Calvin Page, Burke’s cousin from Baton Rouge. Sheba had survived, but barely. Rescuers had moved the girl, her cousins and two neighbors into the New Orleans’ Convention Center, a scene of dead bodies, starving people and roaming thugs. As relatives recounted it, people trapped in the convention center stole a city truck early Friday — taking Sheba with them — and broke out of the swamped city. They made it to a shelter in Baton Rouge and turned on a cell phone that had been left with one of Sheba’s cousins. They charged the dead battery and called Page. Three hours later, a quiet little girl in clean blue pants and blue shirt emerged from his car and was lifted off her feet into her mother’s arms. “Look at you!” Burke cried. “Look at my baby!” After a flood of tears from cousins and aunts all around, Sheba sat with her mother in a big rocking chair. “You’re going to have to wash my hair; it’s real dirty,” the girl said quietly. Her mother couldn’t wait. —
  3. I haven't heard it myself yet, but here's a nice review ... is the iTunes stuff directly from this CD? I'm curious about the "abridgement" mentioned in the article... CD REVIEW With '9/11,' Rollins reminds us of music's power By Bill Beuttler, Boston Globe Correspondent | August 28, 2005 Anyone who attended Sonny Rollins's memorable Sept. 15, 2001, concert at the Berklee Performance Center should be delighted to learn it was recorded -- and that an abridged CD version is being released on Tuesday, titled ''Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert." The enormity of the attacks on New York and Washington four days earlier gave the concert an unusual emotional edginess. In my case, I was there alone because my then-girlfriend -- now wife -- had traveled to Connecticut to be with her aunt and uncle, who had lost their son in one of the World Trade Center towers. The concert producer, Fenton Hollander, says he nearly broke down onstage while making his opening announcements, a fact noticed only by his wife. Rollins himself was there because his wife, Lucille, insisted he go on with the show. He had been in the couple's apartment blocks from ground zero when the towers fell, and was so wrung out by the experience he had nearly canceled the trip to Boston. Instead, Rollins played an exceptionally fine concert, even by his own exacting standards. He opened with what became the album's title track, which he announced he'd first heard sung by Paul Robeson many years before. Alluding to the tune's lyrics about the fundamental, life-affirming force of song, Rollins noted this particular song's heightened relevance that week. ''I think everybody feels this way," he said. With that, Rollins and his band -- nephew Clifton Anderson on trombone, Stephen Scott on piano, Bob Cranshaw on electric bass, Perry Wilson on drums, and Kimati Dinizulu on percussion -- began a buoyant run through the tune that set the tone for all to follow. Rollins stated the song's theme straight a time or two and then began working variations on it. Anderson followed with a lengthy solo that was warm, mature, and melodic. Scott came next with an inventive effort that borrowed the leader's habit of quoting other songs, in this case snippets of Thelonious Monk's ''Rhythm-a-ning" and the theme from the TV show ''Jeopardy." A short Dinizulu solo led back to Rollins's saxophone, with Cranshaw and Wilson keeping the tempo energetic throughout. The desire to limit the release to a single disc means leaving off half the actual concert. ''Global Warming" is the only one of the calypsos played to make the CD, and the only Rollins composition as well. The three other tunes included are all standards: ''A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square," ''Why Was I Born?," and ''Where or When." People come to Sonny Rollins concerts hoping for transcendent playing by Rollins himself, and that night he reached inside and delivered it. A gargantuan solo on ''Why Was I Born?" displays Rollins's improvisational genius at full throttle, backed by Cranshaw's fluidly propulsive bass line and Wilson's deft drumming. The music is what matters most, of course. But a few extraneous details included on the CD are curiously affecting, too. The 40-plus seconds of ovations that follow both ''Why Was I Born?" and ''Where or When" document the palpable release felt by an audience able to engage with art again. And a pair of spoken announcements by Rollins sum up what he and many in the crowd were feeling that evening. ''We must remember that music is one of the beautiful things of life," Rollins tells the crowd, ''so we have to try to keep the music alive some kind of way. And maybe music can help. I don't know. But we have to try something these days, right?"
  4. Here's an interesting quote I saw w/in CNN's Katrina coverage: Consumers can expect retail gas prices to rise to $4 a gallon in the near future, Ben Brockwell, director of pricing at the Oil Price Information Service, said Wednesday. "There's no question gas will hit $4 a gallon," he said. "The question is how high will it go and how long will it last?"
  5. For me, a bad lyric, the actual words, can throw off a song in a way a "bad" musical phrase can't ...
  6. How is this? I've heard it's quite good ...
  7. I'll also weigh in with a "thumbs up" ... sound is fine, music is great, Art seems like he's in a pretty good mood.
  8. "an album of Sly and the Family Stone covers remixed with the band's original masters -- and, more importantly, Sly's artistic approval -- is due for wide release this September through Sony Legacy. Featuring the Roots, Moby, Chuck D, Maroon 5, Buddy Guy and Will.I.Am of Black Eyed Peas, the album is exclusively at select Starbucks this summer."
  9. The fleet here in the twin cities has a couple of them, too. They are so quiet! I have never ridden on one, but as they drive by on the street, it sounds as if they are only idling. Them traditional diesel sum'bitches can be LOUD. On my daily communte, I wear over ear headphones sometimes for music, always for hearing protection. ← The buses use a GM/Allison hybrid system ... you can take it how you'd like, but, according to GM, this is part of their conscious decision to focus on applications in which hybrids can make the most difference ... the fuel savings between a Prius and a "regular" compact are way smaller then the fuel saving between a standard city bus and these hybrids.
  10. I just got my first Booker Ervin CD ... The Blues Book!
  11. I recently picked up Hank Mobley's Hi Voltage, which features him and Jackie McLean (along w/Blue Mitchell, John Hicks, Billy Higgins, Bob Cranshaw) ... I was quite curious to hear the two sax masters together and they're just fantastic on this! Are there any other discs pairing the two?
  12. Has anyone seen "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind"? The movie about Gong Show creator/CIA contract killer Chuck Barris? I'd love to know how much, if any, of the stuff about his extra-curricular activities was true ...
  13. Chrome

    Natacha Atlas?

    Is anyone out there familiar with Natacha Atlas? I heard something from her on NPR recently and I'm intrigued, but I wanted to hear other opinions before I actually shelled out any $$ to buy a disc ... the song was kind of a mix of electronica and middle eastern music ... I couldn't tell if it was just a gimmick that wouldn't hold up over a whole album or not. (Yes, I looked her up on All-Music, but I'd rather hear about her from one of the knowledgeable Organissimo-ites.)
  14. No copyright violation in 'Fixin' to Die Rag'-court Mon Aug 1, 2005 11:32 AM ET SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court has rejected a lawsuit charging 1960s psychedelic rocker Country Joe McDonald with copyright infringement for his 1965 protest song "Fixin' to Die Rag," which became a rallying cry for opposition to the Vietnam War. In a decision made public on Friday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal from Babette Ory, who said McDonald's song infringed on jazz standard "Muskrat Ramble," credited to her father, Kid Ory. Ory sued in September 2001, claiming that "Fixin' to Die Rag" was similar to and infringed on "Muskrat Ramble." Kid Ory, who recorded with jazz great Louis Armstrong, died in 1973. The appellate judges upheld a lower-court decision saying there was too long a delay in bringing the copyright lawsuit and awarded McDonald his attorney fees. Ory obtained copyright to "Muskrat Ramble" in 2001. McDonald wrote "Fixing To Die Rag" in 1965 to protest the nation's escalating military involvement in Vietnam and the song's refrain: "And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for?" quickly turned into a rallying cry against the war and figured prominently at the Woodstock music festival in 1969.
  15. So, I'm surfing around this morning and stumble upon this: Sting on forthcoming Herbie Hancock album Sting records new version of 'Sister Moon' for Herbie Hancock album... Herbie Hancock has remained seminal and innovative through four decades of music making, having won ten GRAMMY® Awards, an Academy Award and countless other accolades for his various and influential work. The diverse lineup of artists who accepted Hancock's invitation to create and record music with him for his forthcoming duets album, 'Possibilities', is a testament to the breadth and magnitude of his impact. The genesis of the album was Hancock's vision of collaborating in studio to create music with some of the artists he most admires. The final list of collaborators is a diverse group of world renowned musicians who represent genres of music well beyond the world of jazz, including: John Mayer, Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan, Sting, Annie Lennox, Joss Stone and Johnny Lang, Paul Simon, Raul Midón, Carlos Santana and Angelique Kidjo, Christina Aguilera and Trey Anastasio. Possibilities will be released simultaneously at Starbucks Company-operated locations and traditional retail stores by Hancock Music, Vector Recordings and Starbucks Hear Music beginning August 30, 2005. Herbie Hancock describes 'Possibilities' this way: "This is real collaboration that we're doing here. It's all been decided at the session," and calls the album, "a record without borders, woven like a tapestry with many colors." John Mayer came to his session with a simple guitar phrase from which he and Hancock created a fully arranged song, replete with lyrics and a rhythm section of drums, bass and keyboards. Sting and Hancock freshly reinterpret Sting's song 'Sister Moon', from the album 'Nothing Like the Sun'. As with the multi-platinum, eight GRAMMY®-winning Ray Charles' 'Genius Loves Company', Starbucks will participate in all facets of the project's lifecycle - from facilitating production to distribution and marketing of the album, which will be sold in traditional retail outlets as well as at Starbucks locations. "We have always admired the enormous talents of Herbie Hancock," said Vector principal Ken Levitan. "When Jack Rovner and I first learned that we might be able to work with Herbie, we immediately jumped at the opportunity. And for the relationship to begin with a project as exciting as Possibilities is more than we could have hoped for. There are very few artists whose contribution to music has been as substantial and original as Herbie Hancock's. It is a great privilege to be undertaking this project with him." "We are honored to be working with Herbie Hancock and the unprecedented array of talented artists he has assembled to create this truly special event album," said Ken Lombard, president, Starbucks Entertainment. "Following the success of Ray Charles' 'Genius Loves Company', Possibilities reflects our ongoing commitment to working with innovative artists and labels to create unique projects which we believe our customers will embrace." The newly formed Herbie Hancock's Headhunters '05 just performed their first live shows together, including this year's Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, TN, where Hancock will had the honor of being the festival's first Artist in Residence, performing with other artists and bands in the festival lineup. Herbie Hancock's Headhunters '05 features an all-star lineup of musicians, including Hancock (piano), John Mayer (guitar), Marcus Miller (bass), Roy Hargrove (trumpet), Kenny Garrett (saxophone), Munyungo Jackson (percussion), Lionel Loueke (guitar), and Terri Lynn Carrington (drums).
  16. Maybe it's a chicken/egg kind of thing, but couldn't it be that it's Blakey's playing that adds to the "repetitiveness" of the Messengers sound? I'm also a huge Blakey fan, first got into jazz when I heard "Moanin,'" but I also can only take so much of his classic Blue Note stuff at one time. Of course, maybe he was kind of typecast at the time and just didn't have the status or whatever to record the way he wanted ... he certainly seemed to loosen up later. I guess, in the end, I think Blakey's non-drumming jazz activities (his work with younger players, his "jazz ambassador status," etc.) really helped his reputation ... or at least I'll float the possibility.
  17. Not sure how many gearheads out there have seen this ... it's the Helios 300, which debuted at the Detroit Auto Show ... DCX is currently trying to develop a "business case" to produce these. You really need to see it in person.
  18. My girls love that, too ... have you seen the actual Puffy show (Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi)? Very ... interesting.
  19. Bloomsday for Dummies A skeleton key to "You're the Top." By Timothy Noah Posted Thursday, June 9, 2005, at 1:02 PM PT Seven days until Bloomsday, and I still haven't read Ulysses! Every year I tell myself this is the year I'll celebrate Bloomsday as one of the Ulysses-reading elect. Every year I fail. This year, I've decided that instead of feeling bad that I can't celebrate Bloomsday, I will attempt to render Cole Porter's birthday, which falls exactly one week before—i.e., today—as a sort of Bloomsday for dummies. Happy 114th, Cole! Instead of wrestling with Joyce's abstruse allusions to classical works and bodily functions, I propose that we dummies celebrate with a scholarly exploration of Porter's delightful word game of a song, "You're the Top." My 9-year-old daughter and I took in a production of Anything Goes last summer, and in listening to the song many times since, we've discovered that many of its topical witticisms have become, in the 71 years since its composition, obscure. "Daddy, who's Irene Bordoni?" Uh, I don't know. "A Bendel bonnet? A Brewster body?" No idea! But through the miracle of Google scholarship, I've managed to solve all but one of the song's many textual riddles. The exception is the phrase "drumstick lipstick." If you happen to know what a "drumstick lipstick" is, e-mail me at chatterbox@slate.com. No guesses, please, and no regurgitations of the lame speculation offered by Harvard Magazine's "Chapter & Verse" column (see footnote 17). And now, without further ado: "You're the Top." Words and music by Cole Porter, 1934. Annotations by Chatterbox, 2005. Permission to reprint lyrics courtesy of the Cole Porter Trusts. At words poetic, I'm so pathetic That I always have found it best, Instead of getting 'em off my chest, To let 'em rest unexpressed. I hate parading my serenading As I'll probably miss a bar, But if this ditty is not so pretty At least it'll tell you How great you are. You're the top! You're the Coliseum, You're the top! You're the Louvre Museum. You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss You're a Bendel bonneti, A Shakespeare's sonnet, You're Mickey Mouse. You're the Nile, You're the Tower of Pisa, You're the smile on the Mona Lisa I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop, But if, baby, I'm the bottom you're the top! Your words poetic are not pathetic. On the other hand, babe, you shine, And I can feel after every line A thrill divine Down my spine. Now gifted humans like Vincent Youmansii Might think that your song is bad, But I got a notion I'll second the motion And this is what I'm going to add; You're the top! You're Mahatma Gandhi. You're the top! You're Napoleon Brandy. You're the purple light Of a summer night in Spain, You're the National Gallery You're Garbo's salaryiii, You're cellophaneiv. You're sublime, You're a turkey dinner, You're the time of the Derby winner. I'm a toy balloon that is fated soon to pop But if, baby, I'm the bottom, You're the top! You're the top! You're a Ritz hot toddyv. You're the top! You're a Brewster bodyvi. You're the boats that glide On the sleepy Zuider Zeevii, You're a Nathan panningviii, You're Bishop Manningix, You're broccoli! You're a prize, You're a night at Coney, You're the eyes of Irene Bordonix. I'm a broken doll, A fol-de-rol, a blop, But if, Baby, I'm the bottom, You're the top! You're the top! You're a dance in Bali. You're the top! You're a hot tamale. You're an angel, you, Simply too, too, too diveen, You're a Boticcelli, You're Keats, You're Shelley, You're Ovaltine. You're a boon, You're the dam at Boulderxi. You're the moon, Over Mae West's shoulder. I'm the nominee of the G.O.P.xii Or GOP! But if, baby, I'm the bottom, You're the top! You're the top! You're an Arrow collarxiii. You're the top! You're a Coolidge dollar. You're the nimble tread Of the feet of Fred Astaire, You're an O'Neill drama, You're Whistler's mamaxiv, You're Camembert. You're a rose, You're Inferno's Dante. You're the nose On the great Durante. I'm just in the way, As the French would say, "de trop." But if, baby, I'm the bottom, You're the top! You're the top! You're the Towel of Babel, You're the top You're the Whitney stablexv By the river Rhine you're a sturdy stein of beer. You're a dress from Saks's, You're next year's taxesxvi, You're stratosphere! You're my fuyst, You're a drumstick lipstickxvii. You're da foist In da Irish svipstickxviii. I'm a frightened frog that can find no log to hop But if baby I'm the bottom You're the top! You're the top! You're a Waldorf saladxix. You're the top! You're a Berlin ballad. You're a baby grand Of a lady and a gent. You're an old Dutch master, You're Mrs. Astorxx, You're Pepsodent! You're romance, You're the steppes of Russia, You're the pants On a Roxyxxi usher. I'm a lazy lout that's just about to stop But if, baby, I'm the bottom, You're the top! iFashionable bonnet named for its designer, Henri Bendel (1868-1936). iiAmerican musical-comedy composer (1898-1946), best known today for the songs "Tea For Two" and "More Than You Know." iiiAfter the success of Flesh and the Devil (1927), Greta Garbo demanded that MGM raise her salary from $600 per week to $5,000 per week. Louis B. Mayer hemmed and hawed, so Garbo sailed to Sweden. Eventually Mayer gave in and Garbo sailed back. $5,000 per week comes to $260,000 per year, or the equivalent in today's dollars of $4.6 million per year. ivInvented by Jacques E. Brandenberger, a Swiss textile engineer, in 1908; licensed to DuPont for North American distribution in 1923; rendered moisture-proof, and therefore suitable for packaging food, in 1927. vHot water, brandy, sugar, lemon, and cinnamon sticks. viStarting about 1900, Brewster & Co., a carriage-maker located on Long Island, began building exteriors ("bodies") for luxury automobiles. viiAn inlet of the North Sea in the Netherlands. Created by a flood in 1287, it was sealed off from the North Sea (thereby rendered "sleepy"?) in 1932. Today much of it has been reclaimed for farmland and commercial use. viiiThis one really had me stumped for awhile as I searched the Web in vain for a "Nathan Panning." Then I found a version of the lyrics in which the "P" was lowercase, and all became plain. "Panning" was a verb, not a surname! George Jean Nathan (1882-1958) was a famously severe theater critic for the New York Herald and Journal-American. Today he is best-remembered as co-editor (with H.L. Mencken) of the magazines Smart Set and American Mercury. ixWilliam Thomas Manning (1866-1949) was the Episcopal bishop of New York state from 1921 to 1946. xA seductive French-born musical-comedy actress. In Porter's 1928 musical, Paris, she sang "Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love)," which was Porter's first hit song. xiAn engineering marvel of the 1930s, located outside Las Vegas. In 1930, President Herbert Hoover had his interior secretary rename it "Hoover Dam" in order to boost his re-election chances in 1932; Hoover wanted to be associated with the 5,000 jobs created by the dam's construction. This crude political ploy didn't work, and in 1933 Hoover's successor, Franklin Roosevelt, had his interior secretary change the name back to Boulder Dam. In 1947, a briefly Republican Congress changed the name one last time, back to Hoover Dam. xiiPorter here shows amazing prescience. Franklin Roosevelt, voted in two years earlier, would be elected to three additional terms, and the Democrats would dominate presidential politics through the late 1960s. (The only Republican elected president during these years was Dwight Eisenhower, whose warnings about the "military-industrial complex" would today make him too left-wing to win the Democratic nomination, let alone the Republican.) xiiiA line of detachable men's collars best remembered for the fantastically successful advertising campaign used to market them. The "Arrow Collar man" represented a new and rapidly growing urbanized middle class. xivAccording to some sources, these last two lines were originally, "You're Mussolini,/ You're Mrs. Sweeney." Presumably someone pointed out to Porter that it was morally repugnant to suggest that any comparison of one's beloved to a fascist dictator might constitute praise, however lighthearted. Also, the meter doesn't quite work. Mrs. Sweeney was Margaret Whigham, Duchess of Argyll (1912-1993), a notorious society femme fatale and wife to golfer Charles Sweeney. xvThe Whitney family had a thoroughbred stable that produced a remarkable string of winning racehorses. The site is now occupied by the architecture building of the New York Institute of Technology. xviFaint praise, it seems to me. Presumably, next year's taxes are preferable to this year's taxes because you don't have to pay them until … next year. xviiGoogle fails me here. Harvard Magazine took a (fairly unconvincing) whack at this puzzle in its "Chapter & Verse" column: "W. W. Rhodes suggests a possible derivation of this encomium, from Cole Porter's song 'You're the Top.' 'In the 1940s the "drumstick" was a well-known frozen confection: a rolled sugar cone filled with vanilla ice cream under a chocolate topping covered with minced peanuts. Its appearance thus resembled a chicken drumstick. Lipstick, when Anything Goes appeared, tasted mostly of the coal tar derivatives which provided the color. If the wearer of such lipstick ate a "drumstick" and shortly afterward enjoyed a kiss, imagine how surprisingly sweet that "drumstick lipstick" kiss would have been to the boyfriend concerned. Thus "drumstick lipstick," like the Eiffel Tower, the cocktail hour, and Mickey Mouse, is an example of the best in its class.' " Uh, whatever. xviiiThe Irish Sweepstakes (formally the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstakes) began in 1930 and continues to this day, though in 1988 it was renamed the Irish Lottery. xixA popular salad created in 1896 by the maitre d'hotel at the Waldorf-Astoria. Its principal ingredients were apples, celery, lettuce, and mayonnaise. Walnuts were added a few years later. xxThe Viscountess Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor (1879-1964), who became the first woman to serve in Parliament. An American, she married the great-great grandson of John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) America's first millionaire. (Astor's great-grandson had emigrated to Britain and essentially bought himself a peerage that he passed onto his son.) Mrs. Astor is said to have famously matched wits with Winston Churchill. She: "Winston, if I were your wife I'd put poison in your coffee." He: "Up yours." No, actually, Churchill replied, "Madam, if I were your husband I'd drink it." xxiA movie palace on W. 50th St., 1927-1960, famous for its opulent floor shows and for housing not one, not two, but three pipe organs. Roxy ushers dressed in quasi-military garb and participated in military-style drills.
  20. I'm in a confessional mood today, so I'll admit I've got one ... it's an "ouroboros" ... an image of a snake eating its tail ... got it for my 40th birthday.
  21. After reading posts about Johnny Coles' Little Johnny C, I took the plunge and picked up a copy ... very nice stuff.
  22. I think this is pretty much it ... most people who can see past any skin color issues can also see (hear) that he was a talented player. Once you move past that, exactly how talented he was starts getting subjective.
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