Anyone who’s spent time in Austin is familiar with the complaint that too many Austin residents like to sit around and talk about how things were so much better when the Armadillo World Headquarters was in business, and how they saw Shiva’s Headband there, and rent was only $25 a month, and there was no traffic and abundant dope and and and…
Yep. That’s your Statesman.
By way of the A/V Club, I’ve learned of something called “Holler if Ya Hear Me”, a Broadway musical “inspired by the music and lyrics of the popular rapper Tupac Shakur”.
Here’s the NYT review:
At this point, you’re probably not wondering what brought this to mind:
And, of course, there’s the usual invocations of “it’s going to be difficult to do another rap or hip hop show on Broadway” and “Tupac’s urgent socially important insights and the audiences’ nightly rousing standing ovations deserve to be experienced by the world.”
As for the latter, no comment. As for the former:
Edited to add: more from the PoR:
I know that Mike the Musicologist had strong feelings about Mazel; perhaps he will comment here or on his own blog.
Nadine Gordimer, noted South African writer.
Continuing in the historical trivia vein, today is the 35th anniversary of one of the greatest moments in the history of baseball: Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park.
Here’s some video I turned up. The first one appears to be an ESPN retrospective:
Here’s some local news coverage:
Side note: this is an attempt to compile a complete list of forfeits in major league baseball games.
My first thought: what do they mean by “run out of oxygen”? Does the band play until they pass out? If so, how will anyone know, given that the box is soundproofed and opaque? Do they just play until a certain CO2 level is reached? Do they have sensors and an alarm in the box?
My second thought: how long will the band actually play? Or, to phrase the question in another way, how long does it take to use up all the oxygen in the box? Apparently, this isn’t the first time a death metal band has played in the box (though it is the first time this has been done in London). Surely there must be some stats on this, like average length of time spent in the box.
My third thought:
My fourth thought:
Sounds like pretentious bullshit to me.
There’s an interesting obit in today’s NYT for Michael Brown, who passed away on June 11th at 93.
Brown (no relation, AFAIK) was one of the major figures in the “industrial musical”, which I have touched on previously.
More:
If that was all Brown had done, this would still be a pretty interesting obit. But there’s another story: Brown and his wife had a good pot of money, and knew an aspiring writer who was living in New York and having trouble balancing her writing and her job.
So for Christmas of 1956, they gave their friend a present:
…an envelope with her name on it in the branches of their tree.
“I opened it and read: ‘You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.'”
That writer was Harper Lee. And now you know…the rest of the story.
The NYT obit for Chester Nez clarifies a point I was confused on:
…
This should not be taken as an attempt to diminish the accomplishments of Mr. Nez, the other 28 original code talkers, or the ones who followed the first 29; I’m just trying to make sure the historical record is clear. (I felt some of the other media coverage confused this point.)
This goes out to our great and good friend RoadRich: Whiskey 7 made it back to Normandy. Briefly: Whiskey 7 is a restored C-47 transport that originally dropped troops over Normandy. It was in a museum in New York, but was invited back to Normandy for the 70th anniversary. So a crew from the museum flew it across the Atlantic…
(One of these days, I want to ride in a C-47. Or a DC-3. I’m not picky.)
Fun feature piece by John Marchese in the NYT:
Things I didn’t know:
…I might not ever get home.
In the meantime, another musical interlude.
Or, yet more musical interludes. This night shift is wearing on me, but at least I’m close to being over the hump.
I’ll put this here too, so I have something to point to when I try to explain the meaning of “I’m Buddy Rich when I fly off the handle.” (See also.)
Obit watch: H. R. Giger. NYT. A/V Club. LAT. Lawrence.
Also: Malik Bendjelloul, who directed the Oscar-winning documentary “Searching For Sugar Man”. NYT. LAT. A/V Club.
I haven’t seen “Searching” yet, but Bendjelloul’s death is depressing; it was his first film, and he was only 36.
(Edited to add this. The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.)
The history of red velvet cake.
You know, I’d try that. It might be something I’d only want to eat once, but I’d give it a try if I could travel to San Francisco. (I don’t currently have a passport, so I can’t go to places outside of the United States.)
Walter Olson has some good stuff up at Overlawyered and Cato about the bad Philadelphia cops. Interesting development:
About damn time. But let’s wait and see what the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police does.
A comment by Guffaw in an earlier thread led me to Wikipedia, where I learned:
I remember Guy Lombardo from when I was a wee lad. Every New Year’s Eve up until roughly 1976, there was Guy and his Royal Canadian Orchestra hosting their New Year’s Eve special. Sometimes I was able to stay up and watch at least part of it.
I associated Guy and the RCO with Lawrence Welk and Liberace and, for want of a better word, the kind of music my maternal grandmother and grandfather liked. But at the time, there were only three real television channels, I never really got into Dick Clark, and “Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadian Orchestra” flowed trippingly off the tongue.
I hadn’t thought of Guy in years, until a few paragraphs in The Power Broker
Wikipedia turned up one of those odd historical byways that I’m so fond of. In addition to being the leader of the Royal Canadians, Guy raced boats. Seriously raced boats. As in, he won the Gold Cup (which is the biggest prize in boat racing) in 1946.
Before his retirement, he was planning to make a run at the world speed record on water. His retirement may have been prompted by the fact that the boat he was planning to use disintegrated during a test run.
(As a side note, that record isn’t for the timid. Wikipedia claims “an approximate fatality rate of 85% since 1940“, though it should also be noted that this statement is tagged “Citation needed.” No matter what the actual percentage is, looking over the history of attempts makes it very clear that this is an expensive way to kill yourself very fast if anything goes wrong.)
And what’s the relationship between Guy and Robert Moses that brought this up in the first place? Guy and his RCO were basically Robert Moses’ house band. Moses set them up at Jones Beach and gave them an incredibly sweet deal: Moses didn’t just pay Guy and RCO to play at the park, but also absorbed all the costs of running the venue, and allowed Guy and the RCO to keep most of the ticket money and advertising revenue. In return, not only did Guy and the RCO play at Jones Beach, but they also entertained at various other offical functions for Moses, and Moses used them to impress people he needed to impress. For example, if you had a small child and Moses needed your help with something…well, Guy entered the Jones Beach theater every night on one of his speedboats. Wouldn’t your kid love to ride along with Guy as he made his grand entrance in Tempo? Of course they would.
(There are a couple of good biographies that need to be written. I can’t find any evidence that there was ever one written of Guy and his brothers, and it sure seems there’s more to their story. I think you could also get a good book out of the story of Rosebud Yellow Robe.)
Since the topic of accordions has come up several times in the past few days, I feel like I have to link to Popehat’s “A Story About Low-Key Policing and Corduroy“.
Also, posting this gives me a chance to test the “Save Draft” function. Yes, Lawrence, it works for me.
(Subject line hattip