I post a weekly diary of the historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I featured this past week in "Cheers & Jeers". For example .....
SEPARATED at BIRTH - the Washington Post's Jerusalem bureau chief Janine Zacharia and TV/film star Kristin Davis ("Sex and the City") .
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
There will not be an Odds & Ends for next week; have not only had much on my plate but will also be attending Netroots Nation in Minneapolis. If you are going, I hope we will have a chance to say hello. Meanwhile, the crazee continues ...
ART NOTES - a collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and photographs from artists who worked in Maine in the first half of the 20th century are at the Portland Museum of Art through September 11th.
FOOD NOTES - in an attempt to help combat high blood pressure: an agreement signed with its hotel and restaurant trade association stipulates that restaurants in Buenos Aires, Argentina will only provide a salt shaker to a customer who expressly asks for one (and only after tasting the dish ordered).
TUESDAY's CHILD is pictured alongside the nine year-old Jamarea Mills - who stood up to a 12-year-old bully abusing the kitteh, knocking a knife out of his hands after threatening to kill it.
Sadly, the kitteh later died from his wounds - but Jamarea Mills (who wants to be a veterinarian someday) has already been offered an internship at the local vet's office once he becomes a teenager.
MUSIC NOTES - sheet music for six short sonatas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - printed in 1765 when Mozart was visiting London (at age eight) - was donated to a charity shop in England, and will go on auction this week.
CHEERS to celebrating the life of my Aunt Anne who died this past weekend, just a few weeks short of her 91st birthday.
Here she is in 1942 (on the right) with my father about to go overseas for WW-II (in the foreground). At left is her boyfriend, who asked my Dad for his blessing to marry her. "Well, Tom: I can't think of anyone I'd rather have as a brother-in-law than you" was his reply.
The weather was perfect in Connecticut Monday for the services, and donations were asked for the local Alzheimer's group, as she did suffer from it the past five years. But after the death of her mother (my grandmother) she was the matriarch of the family, and played the role well. All she ever asked of me was to stay close to my brother and sisters: "In the end: they're all you've got" was her adage.
POLITICAL NOTES - residents of Spain are understandably upset after a publicly-funded dictionary of national biography included an admiring description of Francisco Franco - written by Professor Luis Suárez, an 86-year-old Franco apologist - but fortunately, the Generalissimo is still dead.
SEPARATED at BIRTH - film stars Cameron Diaz and Kristin Chenoweth.
SCIENCE NOTES - the answer to Is there life on Mars? may be closer than ever to being answered: as a swath of missions to Mars are being planned for the next few years with the US, Russia, China, and Europe all preparing spacecraft.
ART NOTES - an exhibit telling the story not about the lamps designed personally by Louis Comfort Tiffany, but instead by the Tiffany Girls - a special group of women (led by Clara Driscoll) who worked for Tiffany at the turn of the 20th century - are at the Albuquerque, New Mexico Museum through August 21st.
LITERARY NOTES - a new museum (that hasn't even opened yet) in the south of France about the poet, painter, film-maker and dramatist Jean Cocteau has been embroiled with charges that some exhibits are fakes.
WEDNESDAY's CHILD is Inky the Cat - who became a Hero Cat of the first magnitude in 2009. A man lay bleeding, numb and near shock after a midnight accident in his basement and in desperation told Inky to "Go get Brenda!" Inky raced off, hurled himself at the bedroom door repeatedly and yowled like a jaguar until the woman awoke, followed the cat and discovered her severely injured husband.
FILM NOTES - DNA analysis carried out by Sweden's National Board of Forensic Medicine suggests that Ingmar Bergman (the famed director who died in 2007) was not his mother's biological son - and may have been switched at birth.
SEPARATED at BIRTH - CNN contributor to “American Morning” Carol Costello and Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler.
POLITICAL NOTES - Spain's opposition conservative Partido Popular is talking tough nationally about austerity and abandoning state-owned businesses but - wotta surprise - in the regions of Spain where the PP is in power, its governments have more public spending than others.
ART NOTES - an exhibit chronicling the Alaska Gold Rush entitled All That Glitters is at the Anchorage Museum through September 25th.
CHEERS to the efforts of The Elders - led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu - to reduce child marriage in Ethiopia's Amhara Region, an impoverished rural farming area where half of all girls are married before they turn 15.
LITERARY NOTES - the Serbian-American author Tea Obreht has won the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction - which recognizes the work of fiction written in the English language by women - for her debut novel "The Tiger's Wife".
THURSDAY's CHILD is the late Mischief the Cat - an English kitteh who had just celebrated his 30th birthday, but a mouth tumor led veterinarians to recommend his family put to sleep (what was believed to be) the world's oldest cat.
RELIGION NOTES - mirroring the recent (belated) efforts of Catholic bishops speaking out against GOP economic policies: the Archbishop of Canterbury has issued a broadside against Britain's coalition government, claiming it is forcing through "radical policies for which no one voted".
POLITICAL NOTES - The Hungarian minority region in the nation of Romania is opening an office in the EU capital of Brussels - to more easily to gain access to European funds - but for which the Romanian government sees as a provocation.
FRIDAY's CHILD is Petey the Cat - an Ohio shelter kitteh who is adoptable for $15 (or two for $20) for those willing to adopt adult fat cats.
......and finally, for a song of the week ............... among the many R&B singers who left the music business at a certain point (due to lack of work or to raise a family) and then made a return later in life was LaVern Baker – who came from an interesting musical lineage and was one of the singers that helped build Atlantic Records in the 50’s, with an interesting interregnum before her comeback.
The Chicago native (a niece of Memphis Minnie the blues legend) began singing in South Side clubs at age 17 with the unusual stage name Little Miss Sharecropper (in ragged clothes). She finally adopted the name LaVern Baker in 1952 while singing for the Todd Rhodes Orchestra and began transitioning from jazz into the newly-burgeoning R&B sound.
The following year (at age 24) she signed with Atlantic Records and for the next eleven years became one of their mainstays. In 1955 she had her first hit single, with Tweedle Dee reaching #14 on the pop charts. Like others (including Little Richard) she saw white singers - especially Georgia Gibbs - parlay her songs into even greater hits, as it would take a few years for black performers to be heard on many radio stations. But eventually that came to pass, and she had several other hits such as "Play it Fair", "Still" and "I Can’t Love You Enough" scoring high on the R&B charts and doing reasonably well on the pop charts.
She began to appear in other forums: performing on a 1955 R&B revue hosted by Ed Sullivan and appearing in two Alan Freed movies. As the 1950’s came to an end, she had hits with the ballad "I Cried a Tear", the Neil Sedaka tune "I Waited Too Long" and the Lieber/Stoller tune Saved (with a Gospel theme). In 1962 she had another hit with the Ma Rainey classic See See Rider and recorded a Bessie Smith tribute album.
Her career with Atlantic came to an end in 1964 (as it did for others) when the British Invasion began. She recorded for the Brunswick label for a few years, including one last moderate hit duet "Think Twice" with Jackie Wilson. In the late 1960’s, she went on a tour to entertain the troops in Vietnam, but became quite ill from pneumonia and was sent to the Philippines for treatment. After recuperating, she was offered the job of managing an NCO club at the American naval facility in Subic Bay and - with the R&B music scene at a low ebb - she took the job and stayed for 20 years.
In 1988, Atlantic Records invited her to perform at its 40th anniversary concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden – and the reception she received led to a career revival. In addition to concert performances, she was offered film soundtrack roles for Dick Tracy and A Rage in Harlem in 1991. In 1990, she took over a starring role from her former Atlantic labelmate Ruth Brown in the Broadway musical Black & Blue and she made a triumphant return to play at the Chicago Blues Festival in her hometown.
She also resumed recording, with a 1992 album Woke Up this Morning plus a new Live in Hollywood release and also oversaw the release of a compilation album entitled Soul on Fire – the name of her first single from 1953. But she was suffering from diabetes, and had to stop performing after both her legs were amputated in 1994. Her final recording came on the 1995 tribute album to Harry Nilsson – who also suffered from diabetes - when she sang "Jump Into the Fire".
LaVern Baker died in March, 1997 at the age of 67. Not long after her 1988 comeback, she was among the first eight recipients of a Rhythm & Blues Foundation Pioneer award, and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame the next year. Sadly, her grave in Queens, New York was without a headstone for ten years (as was the case with many R&B pioneers). But luckily this was remedied in 2008 - when a local fundraising effort provided for one.
While she had higher-charting hits, LaVern Baker is perhaps best known for her 1956 song Jim Dandy – which was cited by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as one of its 500 Songs that Shaped Rock & Roll, and was named as #352 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. And below you can hear LaVern Baker sing it.
Jim Dandy in a submarine
Got a message from a mermaid queen
She was hanging from a fishing line
Jim Dandy didn't waste no time
Jim Dandy wanted to go to Maine
Got a ticket on a DC plane
Jim Dandy didn't need no suit
He was hip and a-ready, to boot
Jim Dandy to the rescue!
Go, Jim Dandy! Go, Jim Dandy!