I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES — an exhibition entitled Art and Life in Rembrandt’s Time — with over 75 works from a private collection of 17th-century Dutch artists (featuring a dozen by Rembrandt and the only painting by Johannes Vermeer in a private collection)— will be at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida to March 29th.
Frans van Mieres, 1663
YOUR WEEKEND READ is this essay in Mother Jones by Samantha Michaels on how the occupation of Memphis by the Stephen Miller Brigade is leading everyone to ask …. When will this all be over?
CHEERS to the French government, which has formally exonerated more than 11,660 people (most of them posthumously) who were convicted between 1870 and 1975 of performing or seeking an abortion.
HAIL and FAREWELL to the English blues-rock guitarist Mick Abrahams — who was on the first Jethro Tull album (This Was) and then founded Blodwyn Pig, whose magnum opus See My Way has been covered by others — who has died at the age of eighty-two (and he had not been in good health for years, having had a stroke in 2009).
THURSDAY's CHILDREN are named Oakley the Dog and River the Cat: Oakley bonded with River as a kitten and now (in his dotage): River has become Oakley's caregiver, offering massages daily.
Oakley and River
PROGRAMMING NOTE — there will neither be a Friday posting in Cheers & Jeers, nor a weekend Odds & Ends due to Yuletide travel. Whether you celebrate it or not, all the best during this holiday season.
ENVIRONMENTAL NOTES — Ghana has banned mining in forest reserves as part of sweeping environmental protections aimed at safeguarding water and halting deforestation. Africa’s top gold producer is battling a surge in poorly regulated small-scale mining that is destroying cocoa farms, degrading forests and rivers, and heightening sustainability risks for its mining sector, sparking protests.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Maximus the Cat - the kitteh of Belgian prime minister Bart De Wever, who shows him on Instagram with captions in Flemish ... plus this:
Maximus the Cat
BRAIN TEASER — try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz.
THE OTHER NIGHT yours truly hosted the Top Comments diary with a look at a Jamelle Bouie gift essay in the NY Times about outsourced policy in the administration.
TRANSATLANTIC COUSINS? — rock singer Debbie Harry and the recently deceased Scottish fashion designer Pam Hogg (who designed some of Debbie’s outfits).
Debbie born 1945, Pam born 1951
...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… with the Winter Solstice set to arrive this Sunday: although it was written by Joni Mitchell: each year at this time, I feature the man who popularized this song and — according to Rolling Stone — ushered in the singer/songwriter era. “I wasn’t sure if they were crediting me … or accusing me,” he remarked.
Say what you will, Tom Rush gets around. He was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, came-of-age in Massachusetts, made his mark at the Boston/Cambridge coffeehouses of the early 1960's, is part of the Class of 1963 at Harvard, has lived in the Rockies and the West Coast, then Vermont, now back in Massachusetts and who-knows-where tomorrow (as he counts having moved twenty-six times).
As Steve Leggett of the All-Music Guide puts it, “Rush's warm and slightly world-weary baritone” has a way of growing on you, and he was one of the first performers to feature works by Jackson Browne and others when they were just beginning. Garth Brooks has cited him as an influence, with James Taylor going so far as to say, "I took as much from Tom Rush as possible and unwittingly modeled myself on him. Like a lot of people who do what I do, I owe my career to him".
For a few years, Tom Rush has had an album of humorous tunes Trolling for Owls - which he notes is "not available in stores!" And one of them - The Remember Song - has received in excess of 7.3 million hits on YouTube. After being told it had gone viral he wrote, "I thought I was being accused of being a musical equivalent of Ebola ......... but my children explained to me ... that this was a good thing".
And for several years, The Very Best of Tom Rush has provided listeners with his classic songs (as well as a 2013 documentary film). But it wasn't until 2009 that he released What I Know — which was his first new studio recording in 35 years — because as he explained, "I don't like to rush headlong into these things".
In 2018, he released the album Voices — with some traditional tunes as well as several new songs — of which he says, “There are very few labels that are just content to put out good music and make a reasonable profit at it. Appleseed Recordings, the label I’m on, is one of them, and I’m very thankful to be working with them.”
This marks the 64th anniversary of the career of Tom Rush and — at age 84 — is still quite active. In 2012 he recorded What's Wrong with America? — a spoof of Mitt Romney's notorious “47%” comments. He performs in a lot of college towns and — without mentioning you-know-who by name — said a few years ago:
In terms of the politics, I try to create kind of a little oasis from the problems of the world. So I don’t tend to get political, because I really don’t want to remind people of how much things suck. I’d rather give them a little holiday from all the turmoil.
On the other hand, there are times when I just can’t help myself and have to comment on something. I’ve been saying lately there are aspects of the recent election cycle that make you realize we really have to spend more on education. You can make of that what you will.
Last year, he released his latest album Gardens Old, Flowers New — with keyboardist Matt Nakoa (who produced the album) and harmony vocals by Abbie Gardner and Monica Rizzio. Then he gave a brief commencement address to graduates at Franklin Pierce University here in New Hampshire (before singing his Child’s Song).
“If you find something you love to do, it’s so much easier to get good at it. So, look for something that you love to do and go for it. And also, I’ve realized that in terms of performing … [the audience doesn’t] want perfection; they want connection. And I think that’s true in all of our relationships.”
While he has no upcoming shows, he did four concerts in California recently with Judy Collins. And he was delighted to meet two women in their early 20s who stood in line for 30 minutes after a show to meet him. He figured they must have grown up with grandparents who loved his music. Not so.
“They told me they had gone to a used record store to get LPs to hang on the wall. But they thought maybe they should play them once first. They were so blown away. When they met me, they were just incoherent with glee, and they could hardly talk. It’s a crazy, crazy world.”
Tom in the 1960’s …
… and more recently
That Joni Mitchell song that Tom Rush helped to popularize: is her 1966 tune Urge for Going - about the oncoming Canadian winter (which she did not release on an album until 1972). Below you can hear Tom Rush sing it (with the accent guitar of the late Bruce Langhorne — who accompanied Bob Dylan frequently — that, to me: is what truly makes this version special).
I awoke today and found
the frost perched on the town
It hovered in a frozen sky
then it gobbled summer down
When the sun turns traitor cold
and all the trees are shivering in a naked row
I get the urge for going ... but I never seem to go
Now the warriors of winter
give a cold triumphant shout
And all that stays is dying
and all that lives is getting out
See the geese in chevron flight
flapping and racing on before the snow
They got the urge for going
and they've got the wings to go
And they get the urge for going
when the meadow grass is turning brown
Summertime is falling down
Winter's closing in
