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December rambling: empires

Who really wrote the song Blue Moon?

The world’s four legacy empires are going down.

Was Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a private research facility in Suffolk County (NY), pivotal to the spread of eugenics through the United States and the world?

Letter Calling for Tracking People of Color Circulates in an Oregon County

[The following content may contain graphic or violent imagery. Viewer discretion is advised.] Excerpts of video showing the fatal beating of a man at Marcy State Prison in upstate New York

Christian Nationalists Are Reshaping Texas’s Public School Curricula

Judge Strikes Down Unconstitutional Parts of Arkansas Law Targeting Librarians. Related – John Green: About THAT Scene in Looking for Alaska

Happy Public Domain Day 2025 to all who celebrate

Ask Arthur 2024: Pardon? and An Orange Hue

Culcha

A Conversation with Nikki Giovanni, recorded November 4, 2024, at Charleston Literary Festival

Rickey Henderson, baseball’s ‘man of steal,’ dies at 65

Linda Lavin, Busy Broadway Actress and Star of TV’s ‘Alice,’ Dies at 87

Greg Gumbel, Longtime CBS Sports Studio Host, and Play-by-Play Man, Dies at 78

Olivia Hussey, Star of Franco Zeffirelli’s ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ Dies at 73; I saw that 1969 film in the theater at the time.

Richard Parsons, Former Time Warner Chairman, Dies at 76

On Beauty

Thank You, 39 (Jimmy Carter)

MTA conductor lauded as calming presence during F train outage

You’re driving a car; you’re not driving an igloo.

U.S. Population Grows at Fastest Pace in More Than Two Decades

Top 10 Largest U.S. Cities by Area

The Art of Explaining Your Hobby to Non-Genealogists Without Seeing Their Eyes Glaze Over

A decade after its publication, the book “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents” is surging in popularity and making people rethink their family dynamic.

27 new, exciting, and blobby species discovered in the Peruvian rainforest

Who’s a Good Boy? A Brief History of Krypto the Superdog

Dave Fleischer’s fourth preserved National Film Registry movie

The Actor Roundtable: Daniel Craig, Paul Mescal and Colman Domingo on Impostor Syndrome

The Angel of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge

EOY

A Look Back on 2024 Through U.S. Census Bureau Data

‘Polarization’ is Merriam-Webster’s 2024 word of the year

J. Eric Smith’s Best Films of 2024, with links to his TV, music, book and music video lists

Chuck Miller’s 10 Best Photos of 2024, including his CPKC Holiday Train miracle

The Hollywood Reporter’s Top 24 Stories of 2024

Hollywood’s Most Notable Deaths of 2024 and TCM Remembers

Pop music mashups for 2024

THR: The 10 Best Songs and Best Albums 2024

Variety: The Worst Songs of 2024

More Music

Blue Moon was composed in 1931 by a 17-year-old, the son of Polish immigrants, after an evening of moonlit skating on a pond in upstate New York.

Mea Culpa (Ah! Ça ira!) -Gojira, at the Paris Olympics.

How Do You Spell Channukkahh – the Leevees

Papa Loves Mambo – Nat King Cole (mambo was the 12/29/2024 Wordle word)

Show Biz Kids – Steely Dan

I Think I’m Gonna Hate It Here – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody

Ruby Tuesday – Melanie (RIP 2024)

Like A Virgin – Madonna, the final US pop #1 for 1984

Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand) – The Shangri-Las (Mary Weiss, RIP 2024)

King Of The Road – Roger Miller

The Streetbeater, aka Sanford & Son Theme – Quincy Jones (RIP 2024)

2 Step In The Living Room – Terrace Martin & Alex Isley

Rebel Rouser – Duane Eddy (RIP 2024)

Sugar In The Tank– Julien Baker & TORRES

Think It Over – Cissy Houston (RIP 2024)

Onyx – Sakura Tsuruta

Box Of Rain – Grateful Dead (Phil Lesh, RIP 2024)

Nine Hundred Miles – Barbara Dane (RIP 2024)

Dubuque ’96 Stage-Crashers Remember a Uniquely Wild Bob Dylan Show

I’m stealing Sunday Stealing. It was off for December 2024, so I went back to the questions from March 2013. Why that month? Because that’s when I turned 60 and for no other reason. I took questions from the four posts.

Do you think we will move completely from traditional books to digital ones, and if we do, are you OK with that?

I have difficulty listening to books and don’t enjoy reading books online on a tablet or computer screen. I like the tactile and emotional sense of holding a book.

Do you learn best by reading, listening, or experiencing?

It is experiencing. When I’m given a task, and somebody’s trying to instruct me, telling me stuff, it doesn’t usually take. If I read the manual, I have a better chance, but doing it side by side is almost always more successful.

Do you think teenagers are weird?

Well, duh. I used to be a teenager. They’re definitely weird.

How fast does your mood change?

It depends. I can go from being ticked off to being melancholy about getting ticked off pretty quickly.

What do you always take with you?

It’s a mantra going out of the house: wallet keys, phone.

Is your bed comfortable?

I don’t know. It doesn’t seem to be when I first lie down, but I fall asleep quickly, so there’s that.

Would you say you’re an understanding person?

Probably. I feel as though I am empathetic; I can relate to experiences others have gone through

Talk, Talk

Are you talkative?

It depends on my comfort level and the situation. I can be fairly chatty when I feel part of the entity. But where I don’t, I can say nothing and observe a lot.

Do you sleep with the bedroom door open or closed?

Closed, but that’s pretty much a function of the fact that I go to bed after my wife does, and the hall light, which I need to get to our bedroom, is on until shortly before I go to sleep. I suppose I could leave the door open after she’s already closed it, but I haven’t habituated to that.

How many social media sites are you registered with?

I have an Instagram account, which I have seldom used, but I can see other people’s Instagram stuff. Instagram is not often in my headspace. I have Facebook, which I post daily, usually my blog post, and my wife’s and my NYT Connections. I’m on BlueSky, and sometimes I post my blog there if I think of it. I’m new there, though.

What are you listening to at the moment?

Shawn Colvin’s album A Few Small Repairs. That’s the one that has Sunny Came Home and Nothing On Me.

Do you believe in Karma?

Oh no, if there had been karma, there wouldn’t have been a person who committed felonies and managed to get elected President, essentially negating those felonies and other potential prosecutions. There is no karma.

I Wish

If you could have three wishes…but none of them could be for yourself, what would you wish for?

Sufficient money for certain organizations to do the projects they’re working on: for the Underground Railroad Education Center in Albany, that would be money to build the Interpretive Center, and for FOCUS churches to have a sufficient amount of enough money to feed everybody they want to feed in the Capital District. And to pay off the house my parents owned in Charlotte, NC.

Have you ever been on the radio or on TV?

Radio: When I was in college in New Paltz, NY, I used to read the news on WNPC for a semester, mostly wire service news.

TV: I was kiddy shows thrice. My church choir was on a local telethon several times. I was interviewed for a news segment on a racial reconciliation event in he 1990s. In 2017, five years after I wrote about the surprise October 4, 1987 snowstorm, I was interviewed by Spectrum News. I think that’s it. Oh, wait; I was on JEOPARDY twice.

Have you ever won a lottery or sweepstakes?

I won $50 in a lottery fifty years ago.

Have you ever won a contest or competition?

I won a Class B racquetball tournament at the Albany YMCA. It was the only statue I ever won. In the 1970s, I was pretty good at winning radio contests, usually records, but once won $48.

Is there anything really interesting in your family history?

My mom’s mother’s mother’s father was James Archer.

My dad’s mother’s mother’s father was Samuel Patterson.

And my mom’s father’s father’s father was Daniel Williams.

All of them fought in the American Civil War, and all of them survived.

Denzel Washington is 70

Suppose you were to look at the cover of season 1 of the St. Elsewhere DVD. In that case, you might think that Denzel Washington was the big star of the 1982-1988 NBC medical drama about “the lives and work of the staff of St. Eligius Hospital, an old and disrespected Boston teaching hospital.” This would not be correct; it was more of an ensemble cast.

This worked to Denzel’s advantage. Because he wasn’t in every scene, he got to go out and make movies. The only one I saw in that period was Cry Freedom (1987), in which he played the South African patriot Stephen Biko. Even though the story was mostly about his friend, journalist Donald Woods (Kevin Kline), attempting to investigate Biko’s death, Denzel is compelling. He was the NAACP Image Award winner as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Motion Picture. I bought the soundtrack: The Funeral (September 25, 1987).

Glory (1989) – His Oscar and Golden Globe-winning performance in a supporting role. The James Horner soundtrack, which I own, can be listened to here. It won a Grammy.

Mississippi Masala 1991. NAACP Image Award as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Motion Picture

Formerly Malcolm Little

Malcolm X (1992) -He was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role. But he won various other awards. I have this soundtrack too. Listen to Someday We’ll All Be Free – Aretha Franklin.

The Pelican Brief (1993) – Denzel was nominated for an MTV award as Most Desirable Male

Philadelphia (1993) – Tom Hanks said working with Washington on the movie was like “going to film school.” Hanks said he learned more about acting by watching Denzel than anyone else. I have this soundtrack as well. Here’s the final scene with the Neil Young title song.

Crimson Tide (1995) Denzel won another NAACP Image Award as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Motion Picture.

Devil in a Blue Dress (1996) – I saw this at Page Hall at the SUNY Albany downtown campus. Walter Mosley, author of the book and co-writer of the script, was supposed to be present but he could not make it.

The Preacher’s Wife (1996)—with Whitney Houston. I’m sure I saw this on TV, but I don’t particularly recall it.

The Hurricane (1999), in which he plays boxer Rubin Carter. He won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama but lost the Best Actor Oscar. Once again, he won the NAACP Image Award as Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture

Remember The Titans (2000) – not only did Denzel win the Image Award again, but the film was deemed Outstanding Motion Picture. This I saw on TV as well, but I remember it quite well.

Best Actor Oscar

I did not see Training Day (2001), for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role, the first black man to do so since Sidney Poitier did so for Lilies of the Field. Denzel was also the winner of the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama and the NAACP Image Award as Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture

I did see the following films:

Manchurian Candidate (2004) – I STILL need to see the original

Unstoppable (2010) – in case you don’t remember this one: “With an unmanned, half-mile-long freight train barreling toward a city, a veteran engineer and a young conductor race against the clock to prevent a catastrophe.” It’s entertaining.

Flight (2012) Denzel was nominated for an Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, as well as other awards

August Wilson

Fences (2016) – the film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture (Todd, Black, Scott Rudin, and Denzel); Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Denzel); and Best Adapted Screenplay (August Wilson, posthumously). Viola Davis won for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Denzel played the same role on Broadway for about two and half months in 2010. It was nominated for seven Tonys and won three: Best Revival of a Play (Produced by Carole Shorenstein Hays and Scott Rudin), Best Actor in a Play (Denzel Washington), and Best Actress in a Play (Viola Davis).

Fences was one of six Broadway productions in which he appeared. He will be in Othello in 2025.

Denzel is committed to producing all ten of August Wilson’s plays for film. He’s already produced Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020) and The Piano Lesson (2024).

His life

Of course, he’s more than his performances. Check out this 2017 interview.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from Wikipedia:. “On June 25, 1983, Washington married Pauletta Pearson, whom he met on the set of his first screen work, the television film Wilma. They have four children: John David (born July 28, 1984), also an actor and a former football player; Katia (born November 27, 1986), who graduated from Yale University with a Bachelor of Arts in 2010; and twins Olivia and Malcolm (born April 10, 1991). Malcolm graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in film studies, and Olivia played a role in Lee Daniels’s film The Butler. Malcolm made his directorial debut with The Piano Lesson, with Denzel producing and John David starring in it. In 1995, Washington and his wife renewed their wedding vows in South Africa with Desmond Tutu officiating…

“Washington has served as the national spokesman for Boys & Girls Clubs of America since 1993 and has appeared in public service announcements and awareness campaigns for the organization. In addition, he has served as a board member for Boys & Girls Clubs of America since 1995. Due to his philanthropic work with the Boys & Girls Club, PS 17X, a New York City Elementary School decided to officially name their school after Washington.”

In 2022, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 2024 also marks ten years of Denzel’s sobriety. He was baptized just this month and was given a minister’s license by the church.

My music of 2024

Private Life

Here are some representative tracks of my music of 2024, CDs I bought because I’m that way. Most, though not all, are records I had on vinyl. They are listed from most recent to earliest.

Goin’ Down – The Monkees. I bought a five-pack of CDs by the group. There’s a version of the song as an add-on to the album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. It was initially the B side of the single Daydream Believer, which was #1 for four weeks. Goin’ Down, which I heard on a Best of the Monkees album, got all the way to #104 on the pop charts. I think it’s a hoot, and there’s a fun little backstory here.

Love Is A Beautiful Thing – the Young Rascals. Another five-pack. Their second album, Collections, contains my favorite Felix Cavaliere/Eddie Brigati shared vocal. Usually, it’s by one of the two, or Gene Cornish.

Come and Dance – Sam Mukoro. I bought the album Kids African Party at the Smithsonian Museum of African Art.

Waiting In Vain—Bob Marley. I had never owned his 1977 Exodus album until I saw the movie Bob Marley: One Love, the last film at the Spectrum Theatre as a Landmark Theatre.

Cass, Michelle, John, Denny

Safe In My Garden – The Mamas and The Papas. The quartet put out three albums and then broke up. They put out a greatest hits collection, Farewell to the First Golden Era, but then they got back together and released an album called The Papas and the Mamas, from which this song appears. I bought the CD as a twofer with the group’s third album, Deliver, neither of which I had ever owned, although my sister Leslie had them both.

Ex-Wives – from the Studio Cast Recording of SIX. I saw the show at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady.

Habits—Gary Clark Jr. is from the Jpeg Raw album. I probably saw him on a television program, The Daily Show, I’m guessing.

Private Life—Pretenders. I bought the group’s eponymous first album 43 years ago and played it incessantly.

Live and Let Live (Bright-Side Mix) -Peter Gabriel. My friend Rocco turned me onto the 2023 album, i/o

Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore—John Prine. Oddly, I had a couple of Prine albums on vinyl but not the eponymous first one.

Going Down For The Third Time – the Supremes. It is one of my two favorite songs from my favorite Supremes albums, Sing Holland-Dozier-Holland, which is a silly title since most of their songs at that time were H-D-H.

By sheer happenstance, the first and last songs share a common thread.

Lydster: Wall of boxes

miracle

When our daughter came home from college on December 20, we had a wall of boxes. The wall between the hallway and the living room was a bunch of presents we had received via UPS and the Postal Service.

The Amazon box contained a small Christmas tree we received from relatives. As you might be able to tell, the huge box contained an office chair, which, as it turned out, was for me.

The three similar boxes were packages with a bit of a story. UPS had been delivering certain deliveries to a CVS closing on Thursday, December 12th. I received a notice from UPS that the boxes had been delivered to that address on Wednesday, December 11th. So I went there, but the boxes weren’t there—hmm.

As it turned out, the boxes were delivered to the CVS in Stuyvesant Plaza. The next day, I took my cart and went to that CVS to get the three boxes much bigger than I had anticipated. They weighed about 20 kilograms apiece, but they were also bulky. Getting them home on a bus with a cart was a challenge, as only one box fit into the cart. The other two hung on the top, and it was an interesting balancing act. After I got them home, I was pretty much spent for the day.

In addition

The tall, thin box was a bed frame for our daughter’s room.

Lydia's stuff

Then, our daughter’s stuff was hanging out behind the wall of boxes. It included the things she brought home this month and some items from when she came home for Thanksgiving, so half of the living room was swallowed up.

Fortunately, she did yoeperson’s work and cleaned all this up by the evening of December 23, plus set up and decorate the tree with a friend. The big box in this picture is the same chair, and the little tree was the one in the Amazon box, also put together by our daughter.

The picture below was taken the morning of Christmas Eve. It’s not entirely tidy, but it’s considerably less chaotic than it had been only a few days before. It’s our little holiday miracle.

Christmas tree 2024

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