“Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian, and it is all organized and run by the Swiss. Hell is where the police are German, the cooks British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, and it is all organized and run by the Italians.”
14 Super Places to Swim
Fascinating. If only I didn’t get scared of water just going to the car wash.
Hey, Good Lookin’
Hiram Williams was born on this date 85 years ago. We know him as Hank. And arguably he is one of the two or three most important individuals in American music history. Hank Williams is an inductee of both the Country Music (the first inductee) and Rock and Roll (its second year) halls of fame.
Entering local talent talent contests soon after moving to Montgomery in 1937, Hank had served a ten-year apprenticeship by the time he scored his first hit, “Move It on Over,” in 1947. He was twenty-three then, and twenty-five when the success of “Lovesick Blues” (a minstrel era song he did not write) earned him an invitation to join the preeminent radio barndance, Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry. His star rose rapidly. He wrote songs compulsively, and his producer/music publisher, Fred Rose, helped him isolate and refine those that held promise. The result was an unbroken string of hits that included “Honky Tonkin’,” “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “Mansion on the Hill,” “Cold, Cold Heart,” “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love with You),” “Honky Tonk Blues,” “Jambalaya,” “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” and “You Win Again.” He was a recording artist for six years, and, during that time, recorded just 66 songs under his own name (together with a few more as part of a husband-and-wife act, Hank & Audrey, and a more still under his moralistic alter ego, Luke the Drifter). Of the 66 songs recorded under his own name, an astonishing 37 were hits. More than once, he cut three songs that became standards in one afternoon.
The words and music of Hank Williams echo across the decades with a timelessness that transcends genre. He brought country music into the modern era, and his influence spilled over into the folk and rock arenas as well. Artists ranging from Gram Parsons and John Fogerty (who recorded an entire album of Williams’ songs after leaving Creedence Clearwater Revival) to the Georgia Satellites and Uncle Tupelo have adapted elements of Williams’ persona, especially the aura of emotional forthrightness and bruised idealism communicated in his songs. Some of Williams’ more upbeat country and blues-flavored numbers, on the other hand, anticipated the playful abandon of rockabilly.
Hank Williams’s legend has long overtaken the rather frail and painfully introverted man who spawned it. Almost singlehandedly, Williams set the agenda for contemporary country songcraft, but his appeal rests as much in the myth that even now surrounds his short life. His is the standard by which success is measured in country music on every level, even self-destruction.
Again from American Masters:
It all fell apart remarkably quickly. Hank Williams grew disillusioned with success, and the unending travel compounded his back problem. A spinal operation in December 1951 only worsened the condition. Career pressures and almost ceaseless pain led to recurrent bouts of alcoholism. He missed an increasing number of showdates, frustrating those who attempted to manage or help him. His wife, Audrey, ordered him out of their house in January 1952, and he was dismissed from the Grand Ole Opry in August that year for failing to appear on Opry-sponsored showdates. Returning to Shreveport, Louisiana, where he’d been an up-and-coming star in 1948, he took a second wife, Billie Jean Jones, and hired a bogus doctor who compounded his already serious physical problems with potentially lethal drugs.
Hank Williams died in the back seat of his Cadillac. He was found and declared dead on New Year’s Day 1953. He was 29.
Seriously, why do we have holidays for Columbus and Washington, but none for Hank Williams?
Yes, that is June Carter.
Oops
Dad makes the catch but daughter returns it [short video]
Constitution Day
222 years ago today the delegates to the Constitutional Convention met for the last time to sign the document and send it to the 13 states for ratification. In Gouverneur Morris’s immortal preamble:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Click image for larger version of Mike Wilkins’s Preamble, 1987, painted metal on vinyl and wood, 96 x 96 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Nissan Motor Corporation in U.S.A. Wilkins ordered the plates from each of the states.
Idle thought
There is a new yappy dog in this neighborhood that doesn’t like being left outside all day long (and well into the evening).
If I could get my hands on the culprit it wouldn’t be a pretty picture.
And PETA wouldn’t like what I did to the dog either.
Line of the day
“Birther queen Orly Taitz tells TPM that the federal judge who threatened her with sanctions is a ‘puppet’ of the Obama regime and should be tried for treason, but that, like Nelson Mandela, she will fight on to prove Obama is illegitimate.”
She keeps on and that puppet judge is going to put her contemptful birther ass in jail.
A collection of kisses
A kiss – a simple act that can convey a diverse array of meanings. A kiss can be intimate and private, or meant for public display, it can convey love and affection, or simply provide comfort. Its use as a greeting is under fire in our current climate of H1N1 fear, as the French government has begun encouraging citizens to forgo “la bise”, their traditional cheek-to-cheek kiss, for health reasons. Gathered here are 33 recent photos of kisses expressing greetings and farewells, congratulations and joy, respect and, above all, love. (33 photos total)
General Motors
… was formed 101 years ago today.
A nice run while it lasted.
Today and tomorrow should both be national holidays
B.B. King is 84 today. Many more B.B. Many more.
King doesn’t play chords or slide; instead, he bends individual strings till the notes seem to cry. His style reflects his upbringing in the Mississippi Delta and coming of age in Memphis. Seminal early influences included such bluesmen as T-Bone Walker (whose “Stormy Monday,” King has said, is “what really started me to play the blues”), Lonnie Johnson, Sonny Boy Williamson and Bukka White. A cousin of King’s, White schooled the fledgling guitarist in the idiom when he moved to Memphis. King also admired jazz guitarists Charlie Christian and Django Reinhart. Horns have played a big part in King’s music, and he’s successfully combined jazz and blues in a big-band context.
“I’ve always felt that there’s nothing wrong with listening to and trying to learn more,” King has said. “You just can’t stay in the same groove all the time.” This willingness to explore and grow explains King’s popularity across five decades in a wide variety of venues, from funky juke joints to posh Las Vegas lounges.
Elsewhere, Betty Joan Perske is 85. As Lauren Bacall she was nominated for best actress in a supporting role for her performance in The Mirror Has Two Faces. Bacall was 20 when she married Humphrey Bogart (he was 45) and just 32 when he died. She was married to Jason Robards from 1961-1969.
Columbo, Peter Falk, is 82.
George Chakiris is 77. You know, Bernardo.
Elgin Baylor is 75.
Had Elgin Baylor been born 25 years later, his acrobatic moves would have been captured on video, his name emblazoned on sneakers, and his face plastered on cereal boxes. But he played before the days of widespread television exposure, so among the only records of his prowess that remain are the words of those who saw one of the greatest ever to play.
Mickey Rourke is 57. But doesn’t look a day older than 77. Rourke, of course, got his one Oscar nomination this year for The Wrestler.
Robin Yount is 54.
Robin Yount was a productive hitter who excelled in the field at two of baseball’s most challenging positions – shortstop and center field. Playing his entire 20-year career with the Milwaukee Brewers, he collected more hits in the 1980s than any other player and finished with an impressive career total of 3,142. An every day major leaguer at age 18, Yount earned MVP awards at two positions and his 1982 MVP campaign carried the Brewers to the World Series.
David Copperfield is 53. If he was truly magic, he’d turn himself into 33.
Jennifer Tilly is 51. Tilly received an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress for Bullets Over Broadway. Better yet she was the voice of Celia, Mike’s love interest, in Monsters, Inc.
Marc Anthony is 41.
Amy Poehler is 38.
Best he’ll be six Saturday line of the day
Aidan’s teacher said she told him he had to be nice, because she was using all her energy dealing with him and she was getting soooooo tired. (Trying to be funny, to loosen him up.) And he looked her dead in the eye and said, “Not my problem.”
(Not that Grandpa approves mind you.)
Like a chicken on a June bug
“More than one grizzled White House correspondent told me at the time, and more than one has told me since, that Jody was the best White House press secretary ever, bar none.”
From a very nice and very readable tribute to his one-time colleague Jody Powell by Hendrik Hertzberg. Good stuff.
Dinner without Crayons
Many of you have enjoyed Jill’s reports here over the years — life with three sons in the suburbs.
Alas for me, Jill has decided to escape the friendly confines of NewMexiKen and, together with two friends, begin their own weblog, one “written by moms who want nothing more than dinner in a restaurant where crayons aren’t handed out with the menus.”
Jill and Tanya have been friends since high school; Erinn and Jill were sorority sisters at William and Mary. All three are amusing, clever writers with four girls and four boys among them.
There are already nearly 80 posts, including delightful ones from Tanya and Erinn not previously published here.
Take a look at Dinner without Crayons.
Best line of the day
“If Beaver and Wally were around today, they’d likely be writing snarky, revealing blogs about June and Ward.”
And, no doubt that Eddie Haskell would.
You’ve got to be kidding me line of the day
“It turns out that in eight states, plus the District of Columbia, getting beaten up by your spouse is a pre-existing condition.”
Do you know me?
“Did you hear about the identity thief in Seattle who tried to open a JC Penney credit card account with one of the very women whose identity she had stolen?”
The story originated with the Seattle Times Newspaper.
Old Man River when he’s just a baby
The Mississippi River rises from Lake Itasca in north central Minnesota, about 20 miles southwest of Bemidji. I’d been to the spot a few years ago and I wanted to go back. The first time I had the River to myself — it was April and trying to snow and no one else was around. This time I was joined by about 150 voyageurs.
Both times being there was, for me, enthralling. I’ve been to Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. I’ve been to all 50 states more than once. Yet, for some reason I can’t explain, this is one of my favorite places on the whole planet. Go figure.
Clicking any picture should take you to larger versions of all four. Photos taken August 29, 2009.
The stones mark the beginning of one of the world’s great rivers; an arm of Lake Itasca is beyond. Traffic on the stones was busy the entire time we were there. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft — explorer, geographer, geologist, ethnologist, politician, one-time University of Michigan regent, and early Indian agent — identified the headwaters in 1832.
This photo was taken by turning to face downstream away from Lake Itasca (and the stones). In the distance you can see the first bridge across the not-yet-quite Mighty Mississip. (It’s a split tree trunk.)
Further downstream. From here the River flows northeasterly, through Bemidji, then mostly east to Grand Rapids, before it begins its trip south through the Twin Cities and on to the Gulf of Mexico.
It’s called her birthplace
… but actually she was born in the hospital on June 10, 1922. This is more accurately the early childhood home of Frances Ethel Gumm in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. She lived here until the family moved to California in 1927.
The home has been relocated from its original location.
And they’d be happy to host your wedding.
Oh, after being first called Baby Gumm, Frances Ethel Gumm later took the stage name Judy Garland.
Photo taken August 29th.
Once again
… the news media hypes the increase in retail sales over the previous month.
And once again Calculated Risk provides the perspective the mainstream news media somehow seems incapable of presenting.
Click, you can just look at the charts.
Or, as the Census Bureau puts it:
“[A]n increase of 2.7 percent (±0.5%) from the previous month, but 5.3 percent (±0.7%) below August 2008. Total sales for the June through August 2009 period were down 7.6 percent (±0.3%) from the same period a year ago.”
The increase in August over July was mostly subsidized car sales (cash for clunkers) and an increase in gasoline prices.
If this story
… makes you feel one-tenth as good as it does me, you’ll have a great day, too.
Jill reports on three-year-old Reidie:
Reid just woke up. He has a cold and he’s also having a hard time adjusting to the new schedule — he naps, and then he can’t go to sleep at night, and then he gets up late, and then he won’t nap and he’s exhausted by 7:00…
Anyway, he just woke up and I asked him (as I always do), “What did you dream about?”
“Darth Vader was chasing me.”
“Oh no! Were you scared?”
“No.”
“Really? I would have been scared.”
“Grandpa was holding my hand.”
September 15th
Today is the birthday
… of Jackie Cooper; he’s 87. Cooper’s first appearance in film was in 1929; his last 60 years later. He played Perry White in the Superman films but his real fame was as a child actor, most notably Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island (1934). He was nominated for the best actor Oscar for Skippy in 1931. This is the role where the director got him to cry on camera by telling Jackie (falsely) that his dog had just been run over by a car.
… of baseball hall-of-famer Gaylord Perry, 71.
Gaylord Perry achieved two of pitching’s most magical milestones with 314 wins and 3,534 strikeouts. Distracting and frustrating hitters through an array of rituals on the mound, he was a 20-game winner five times and posted a 3.10 lifetime ERA. With the Giants in 1968, Perry no-hit the Cardinals and starter Bob Gibson. An outstanding competitor, he won Cy Young awards in 1972 with Cleveland and with San Diego in ‘78, becoming the first pitcher to win the award in both leagues.
… of Jessye Norman, 64 today. From a biographical essay by the Kennedy Center:
Jessye Norman is one of the most celebrated artists of our century. She is also among the most distinguished in a long line of American sopranos who refused to believe in limits, a shining member of an artistic pantheon that has included Rosa Ponselle, Maria Callas, Leontyne Price and now this daughter of Augusta, Georgia. “Pigeonholing,” said Norman, “is only interesting to pigeons.” Norman’s dreams are limitless, and she has turned many of them into realities in a dazzling career that has been one of the most satisfying musical spectacles of our time.
… of Tommy Lee Jones. He’s 63. Jones has been nominated for the Best Supporting Actor twice, winning for The Fugitive, but not for JFK. And he was nominated for best actor for In the Valley of Elah, a fine, fine performance. NewMexiKen like Jones also in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Jones and Harvard roommate Al Gore were the inspiration for Oliver Barrett IV in Erich Segal’s best-seller Love Story.
… of Oliver Stone, also 63. Stone has been nominated for ten Oscars and won three — he won for writing for Midnight Express and for best director for Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July.
Football hall-of-famers Merlin Olsen, 69, and Dan Marino, 48, share this birthday.
County music immortal Roy Acuff was born on this date in 1903.
Roy Claxton Acuff emerged as a star during the early 1940s. He helped intensify the star system at the Grand Ole Opry and remained its leading personality until his death. In so doing, he formed the bridge between country’s rural stringband era and the modern era of star singers backed by fully amplified bands. In addition, he co-founded Acuff-Rose Publications with songwriter Fred Rose, thus laying an important cornerstone of the Nashville music industry. For these and other accomplishments he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1962 as its first living member.
Humorist Robert Benchley was born on this date in 1889. In 2005 The Writer’s Almanac said:
He started writing humor as a kid in school. Assigned to write an essay about how to do something practical, he wrote one called “How to Embalm a Corpse.” When he was assigned to write about the dispute over Newfoundland fishing rights from the point of view of the United States and Canada, he instead chose to write from the point of view of the fish.
He’s the grandfather of Peter Benchley, author of Jaws.
Agatha Christie was born on this date in 1890. Three years ago The Writer’s Almanac has this (and more):
During World War I, she was working as a Red Cross nurse, and she started reading detective novels because, she said, “I found they were excellent to take one’s mind off one’s worries.” She grew frustrated with how easy it was to guess the murderer in most mysteries, and she decided to try to write her own. That book was The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) about a series of murders at a Red Cross hospital.
Christie’s first few books were moderately successful, and then her novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd came out in 1926. That same year, Christie fled her own home after a fight with her husband, and she went missing for 10 days. There was a nationwide search, and the press covered the disappearance as though it were a mystery novel come to life, inventing scenarios and speculating on the possible murder suspects, until finally Christie turned up in a hotel, suffering from amnesia. During the period of her disappearance, the reprints of her earlier books sold out of stock and two newspapers began serializing her stories. She became a household name and a best-selling author for the rest of her life.
William Howard Taft, both president and later chief justice of the United States, was born on September 15, 1857:
In 1900, President William McKinely appointed Taft chair of a commission to organize a civilian government in the Philippines which had been ceded to the United States at the close of the Spanish-American War. From 1901 to 1904 Taft served successfully as the first civilian governor of the Philippines. In 1904 Theodore Roosevelt named Taft secretary of war.
After serving nearly two full terms, popular Teddy Roosevelt refused to run in 1908. Instead, he promoted Taft as the next Republican president. With Roosevelt’s help, Taft handily defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan. Throughout his presidency, Taft contended with dissent from more liberal members of the Republican party, many of whom continued to follow the lead of former President Roosevelt.
Progressive Republicans openly challenged Taft in the Congressional elections of 1910 and in the Republican presidential primaries of 1912. When Taft won the Republican nomination, the Progressives organized a rival party and selected Theodore Roosevelt to run against Taft in the general election. Roosevelt’s Bull Moose candidacy split the Republican vote and helped elect Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
From 1921 until 1930, Taft served his country as chief justice of the Supreme Court. In an effort to make the Court work more efficiently, he advocated passage of the 1925 Judges Act enabling the Supreme Court to give precedence to cases of national importance.
James Fenimore Cooper was born on September 15th in 1789.
Idle thought
You think Whoopi Goldberg (aka Oda Mae Brown) is hearing voices yet?
Fast Flip
First pages of stories from dozens of major publishers. Flip through, like browsing a publication. Interesting.
The Keweenaw
The Keweenaw Peninsula curves northeasterly into Lake Superior. It is anchored by Houghton and Hancock on the south and Copper Harbor near the tip (at 47º 28′, about as far north as Seattle-Tacoma International). The average annual snowfall in Copper Harbor is 250 inches (the record is 390 inches). It was mostly sunny and cool the day we were there, August 27th.
The Keweenaw Peninsula was the site of the first copper boom in America, beginning in the 1850s. The ore is 97% copper and was extracted by the Ojibwa well before the Finns and others showed up to mine the Keweenaw.
The Copper Harbor Lighthouse, one of the oldest on the Great Lakes, as seen from across the harbor.
Copper Harbor and the lighthouse from Brockway Mountain Drive.
That’s Lake Superior, of course. Isle Royale National Park is out there somewhere (though actually further to the west, as this photo faces mostly north).
We spent the night on the shores of Lake Superior in Eagle River. This photo was taken from the room with my iPhone. The weather turned cold and damp that evening (and it rained much of the next day).
Eagle River has a great courthouse.
The Keweenaw is special and, though out of the way, should be included in any visit to the U.P. Click any image for larger versions.
‘Root Beer’ Falls
The Lower Falls of the Tahquamenon River, Michigan (click any image for a gallery of larger versions).
The Upper Falls is one the largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi. It has a drop of nearly 50 feet and is more than 200 feet across. A maximum flow of more than 50,000 gallons of water per second has been recorded cascading over these falls. Four miles downstream is the Lower Falls, a series of five smaller falls cascading around an island. … The falls can be viewed from the river bank or from the island, which can be reached by rowboat rented from a park concession. The island walk affords a view of the falls in the south channel.
This is the land of Longfellow’s Hiawatha – “by the rushing Tahquamenaw” Hiawatha built his canoe. Long before the white man set eyes on the river, the abundance of fish in its waters and animals along its shores attracted the Ojibwa Indians, who camped, farmed, fished and trapped along its banks. In the late 1800’s came the lumber barons and the river carried their logs by the millions to the mills. Lumberjacks, who harvested the tall timber, were among the first permanent white settlers in the area.
Rising from springs north of McMillan, the Tahquamenon River drains the watershed of an area of more than 790 square miles. From its source, it meanders 94 miles before emptying into Whitefish Bay. The amber color of the water is caused by tannins leached from the Cedar, Spruce and Hemlock in the swamps drained by the river. The extremely soft water churned by the action of the falls causes the large amounts of foam, which has been the trademark of the Tahquamenon since the days of the voyager.
The Upper Falls of the the Tahquamenon River.
All photos taken August 26, 2009.