President’s Day, sort of

It’s Presidents’ Day, or as I noted last year, Washington’s Birthday. Don’t know why, but I know all of the Presidents, their political parties, and their years in office; very useful in Trivial Pursuit or on certain game shows.

Among the useless pieces of info in my mind:

Washington’s first secretary of State was Jefferson.
Jefferson’s only Secretary of State was Madison.
One of Madison’s secretaries of State was Monroe.
Monroe picked JQ Adams for his Secretary of State.
Jackson picked Van Buren as his first Secretary of State.
So, all of the early Presidents, save for the Adamses, picked as the head of the State Department someone who would succeed them as President. Oddly, except for Polk’s pick of Buchanan, no other Secretary ascended to the White House after that.

Many of you know that the President elected in the years ending in zero from 1840 to 1960 died in office. I always wondered what it was like for the country to have its leaders assassinated so close together in the latter stages of the 20th Century (Lincoln-1865, Garfield-1881, McKinley-1901 – OK, not the 19th Century, but close enough.) The 1881 assassination created a unique situation: three Presidents in one year: Hayes, finishing his term; Garfield; and his successor, Arthur; that had happened only 40 years earlier, with Van Buren, WH Harrison, and Tyler.
But can you name the only President who died in office that WASN’T elected in a year ending in zero? Here’s a clue: he was a Whig, one of four Whig Presidents we had, who served only a total of eight years.

That would be Zach Taylor, who was elected in 1848 and died in 1850, succeeded by Millard Fillmore. When I was memorizing the Presidents, I had the greatest difficulty with the late 1840s and early 1850s, mostly because I somehow morphed Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce into Mildred Pierce.

My question to you: what is your favorite mundane piece of trivial President information that you use to impress your friends and stun your enemies?
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This recent Harris poll of top Presidents left me shaking my head, with the current occupant coming in at number 10. Then I saw the AOL poll that asked where W fit in the pantheon of Presidents. As of 9 pm EST last night:
Among the bottom third 62% 269,198
Among the top third 25% 108,585
Among the middle third 13% 57,379
Well, all righty, then.
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Democrats Target Kucinich for Defeat.
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McCain wrong on the one issue I’d previously given him credit for.

ROG

ROG

MOVIE REVIEW: Away From Her


It seems as though every ten years, I need to see an Oscar-worthy picture starting with the letter A starring Julie Christie. On Washington Birthday weekend 1998, it was Afterglow, with Nick Nolte at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany. A couple of weeks ago, it was Away from Her on a DVD at home.

This is a story of a loving couple, Fiona and Grant, who both notice that she is forgetting more and more details about her life, and even where the frying pan goes. Ultimately, she goes to a facility, where her husband comes nearly every day trying to find his wife again. Unfortunately, not unlike the real-life situation of Sandra Day O’Connor’s husband, Fiona grows an attachment with another man. How he deals with it, and why, plus the glimpses of their 40 years of marriage, are the real driving forces of this film.

Julie Christie’s Oscar nomination is well-deserved. Gordon Pinsent, a character actor who I’ve seen (Shipping News, e.g.), but don’t specifically remember, does a lot of the heavy lifting in this picture and is also excellent.

I listened to just a little of the EXTRAS tracking, but Julie Christie indicated that she got involved with this film because of the wonderful dialogue of actress Sarah Polley, and because of the friendship they had developed working on a previous film. Still, Julie wasn’t sure of Sarah’s directing abilities until they got on the set, where Christie realized how confident first-time director Polley was.

There were a couple of distractions. One is the use of a Neil Young song that has a very personal, another context for me. (The movie also uses k.d. lang’s version of Young’s Helpless; the movie was shot in Canada.)
The other was that, before even the previews, were a bunch of stars, including movie co-star Olympia Dukakis, charging the audience to become more aware of Alzheimer’s disease. Dick van Dyke, for instance, mentioned that he had a 50-year-old friend with the ailment. It was very sincere but put me in the mindset that this was going to be a made-for-TV overwrought drama, rather than the fine film it turned out to be.

February Ramblin’

Lots of things that interested me recently, many of them dealing with music.

This website is quite interesting and has several fascinating SOUND CLIPS from Aerosmith to Pavarotti including Joan Sutherland and harmonics singing. Even if you don’t read the whole article, it is fun to listen to the singers clips and read the short info about their sounds. The sound clips and “infographics” of the vocal instrument are located in a box on page one of the article entitled “ALSO IN THIS ARTICLE”.
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There’s a film called The Singing Revolution which was shown in L.A., opened in NYC recently, and has been shown in a few other places in the U.S. It is a full-length documentary about the relationship between singing (much of it choral singing) and the struggle for Estonia’s independence from the Soviet Union.
You can see and hear film clips and request that the film be shown in your community
by going to the film’s website.
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Ever see Now Play it, a YouTube variation? It contains tutorials that explain how to play specific popular songs — many posted by the recording artists themselves. This page, for example, lets you download a 27-minute video tutorial of Paul McCartney explaining how he played the parts on a single from his last album. Other entries: Iggy Pop (“Lust for Life”); David Bowie (several, including “Heroes” & “Space Oddity”), Radiohead, others. The downside: The site bills for downloads. Let’s see how long THAT lasts.
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I know they’re over, but I still enjoy Ask Vulture: Should You Watch Sunday Night’s Grammy Awards?
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Subject: A RIGHT TO SING THE BLUES?
Not an inalienable right, it turns out.
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There have been dissenters of Brahms’ work since the nineteenth century, some of them heavyweights, e.g., Tchaikovsky and Britten. The blasphemy continues in this piece from the Washington Post by Anne Midgette.
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HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam. Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands. HEMA also has stores in Belgium, Luxemburg, and Germany. In June of this year, HEMA was sold to British investment company Lion Capital.
Take a look at HEMA’s product page. You can’t order anything and it’s in Dutch, but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens.
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Why I’m supporting John McCain:

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A recent event that I missed, unfortunately. Compleat with Waxmagik and even More Wax.


ROG

ROG

Power Outage

Our electricity was out for three hours and eight minutes last night due to an ice storm that undoubtedly knocked down branches on some transformer somewhere. So I hasn’t a post for you today. (It’d probably be maudlin anyway, it being Valentine’s day and all.)

Instead, I will direct you to another blog I’ve contributed to recently. And if you ask me why, I’ll say it’s so I can hear this guy say, “You’ve sold out to the evil Hearst Corporation!” ROG

ROG
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