Merry Little Xmas

 

--boredpanda.com

And on to December...

 

 

NBC NEWS has compiled U.S. coronavirus totals from each month. March: 186,200 … April: 883,199 … May: 723,166 … June: 845,736 … July: 1,926,970 … August: 1,479,756 … September: 1,215,901 … October: 1,940,522 … November: 4,252,822...

 

December?  

 

Canada covid stats 

Carpark

Can't stop, won't stop

 

 A friend writes...

I have this scary premonition that Trump will end his scorched earth rampage by assuring that he will be at the inauguration. Which will, to his deliight, incite many of his base to show up, and turn Biden's inaugurtion into a continuation of Trump's shitshow.

News item...

Trump may use inauguration to announce 2024 Presidential run

 

 

Music's Survival: A New View

An empty Hollywood Bowl.

Charismatic conductor Gustavo Dudamel.

The LA Phil--the logo-friendly re-branding of one of the world's great orchestras.

And ... imagination.

How does a symphony orchestra survive a pandemic? By creating an island of sound in a locked-down metropolis.

I'm knocked out by the invention involved here: a helicopter. A giant industrial crane. The ability to walk cameras thru players on the great stage.

Here is a document of this terrible year, music struggling in a virus-captive city. It's gorgeous, awful and inspiring, all at the same time.

This killer set of pandemic-confounded performances went up over the weekend on YouTube.

Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, above. 

But links as sweet ...

Marquez, Danzon #1

Mahler, Adagietto Symphony #5 

Still, Sorrow from Afro-American Symphony

Beethoven, Symphony #7

 

 

Russian the season...

Black Friday begins the run downhill to Christmas. So, my favourite Xmas song....

--Tom Brenner/Reuters

 

Is Shawn Mendes older than an ant?

 

"Did you know that ants live to be 30 years old?"

 

I read this in a magazine piece.

No way.

That would make ants years older than Shawn Mendes.

Have ants in my driveway lived longer at this house than I have?

 

I'm off to multiple sources on the web.

 

 Ant Queens can live for up to 30 years, and workers live from 1 to 3 years. Males, however, are more transitory, being quite short-lived and surviving for only a few weeks. Ant Queens are estimated to live 100 times as long as solitary insects of a similar size.

 

A Queen ant Lasius niger (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) has the longest recorded adult life of any insect: 28¾ years in captivity.

 

Mendes is 22.

  

 

Diaper Don

#DiaperDon tag mocking president goes viral

LINK: Potty panties? 

 

We built SkyDome. We can do a Raccoon Bridge.

 I'm charmed by the idea of Golden Raccoons on a bridge over Lakeshore Blvd.

Giant bronze raccoons.

Welcome to T.O.

Give us garbage.

 

Sure, it would be nice to have matching bridges on the QEW, DVP and 401. But this is a start.

Full details at 

Love me some raccoons

POSTSCRIPT:

Is it spelled racoon or raccoon?

raccoon; racoon.

The animal is North American, and the AmE spelling is raccoon. The BrE spelling—a variant form in AmE—is racoon ... 

--Covid sign

 

Over-reach?

  

At end of the Shawn Mendes tour flick, now on Netflix, a full-screen, stand alone credit appears.

===

With Special Thanks to Rogers Centre, Toronto

The shape, appearance and design of the Rogers Centre stadium is a copyrighted artistic work owned by Rogers Stadium Limited Partnership, used under license. Rogers Centre is a trademark owned by Rogers Communications Inc.

=== 

It's the only such arena credit on the 104-show  tour. I guess the rest of the venues realize that unless something happens in them, they are just empty buildings.

This is well beyond a courtesy credit.

A moment, please, to recap the history of Rogers Centre, formerly SkyDome.

It cost $600 million of mostly taxpayer cash to build the arena, which opened in 1989.

One decade later, a company called Sportsco bought SkyDome for $85 million in 1998.

Rogers bought the Blue Jays, a founding tenant, in 2000. Four years later, Rogers/Jays bought the arena building itself for $25 million. 

They put their name on it.

Stuff happens there.

Unless stuff happens, the building is dark.

I'm curious the Rogers lawyers think they claim  some unique "artistic" or "appearance" credit in a film of Mendes' well-deserved success.

Especially for a structure they are plotting to knock down.

 

 

Department of Gee Whiz

 

 --the Zuck

Facebook's Post-election Tweaks Show Zuckerberg Can Curb Misinformation If He Wants

In the flurry of Trump's "stolen election" lies, the social media giant adjusted its algorithm to promote quality news sources--the New York Times, CNN, NPR--and limit hyper-partisan and untrustworthy publishers. Some Facebook staffers want the "nicer news feed" to be permanent. 

          --The Hive, Vanity Fair

                                   Nice.

It's a good concept.

TV's best theme

So I see torontomike.com

has spent several hours with "music experts" playing old TV theme music.

Dozens of themes, hours of yap.

How can they possibly have avoided The Best Theme Ever Written?

Mannix was a detective show starring Mike Connors as Joe Mannix. Any Expert agrees Lalo Schifrin's title theme eclipses all others.

So much so, it's become a standard for revisits by big bands, trying to recapture that energy.

LINK: Mannix theme (WDR big band)

LINK: Mannix theme (Schifrin Lp) 

LINK: Mannix soundtrack suite 

LINK: Mannix theme (Big Beer Band)

Schifrin also wrote the theme to Mission Impossible, and wrote, arranged, recorded dozens of jazz albums.

Mannix ran from 1967 to 1975 on CBS.

What explains this shocking oversite?

Boomers? Yuppies? Beyond belief.

 

 

blogto.com has late-breaking news on the Giant Dick in Riverdale Park, visible from the Don Valley Parkway. Who doesn't love Art News?

LINK: Mama mia, that's some sausage 

The gales of November

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early ...

                         --Gordon Lightfoot

 

 

 

 

You get the idea.

The crazed collectors at boredpanda.com

have curated the best photos of what 2020 would be, if it were something else.

 

More than 60 other examples at

LINK: IF 2020 were ... photos 

Droll troll

 Ammonite, is a new movie about a British fossil collector.

"Mary Anning (1799-1847) ... lived on the Dorset coast--or as it is occasionally and inadequately known, the Jurassic Coast," writes Anthony Lane, the New Yorker's film critic.

"The crumbling cliffs along it dating from the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods, are a happy hunting ground for anyone seeking the fossilized remains of ancient creatures. The nearest American equivalent would be the Academy Awards."

Droll, troll.

 

Night moves

James Blackwood promised his wife he'd look after the raccoons. She's gone. They're not.

Each night at seven, he takes a pail of chopped up hotdogs out to his deck in Nova Scotia.

And here's how that worked out....

Mad Chords Christmas

Christmas Eve is one month from tomorrow.

Trees have arrived at many supermarkets.

We've got snow.

Jacob Collier put up his take on The Christmas Song over the weekend.

Don't be a Grinch. Roll with it...

Ho ho ho....

 

28 Days

                                                           --CBC graphic

Lockdown ... 

Collins Dictionary's word of the year

Collins Dictionary announced its word of the year - "lockdown". It was chosen because it's been a "unifying experience for billions of people across the world." 

Lockdown (noun): the imposition of stringent restrictions on travel, social interaction, and access to public spaces.

It was used over a quarter of a million times this year.

In 2019 when it was used only 4, 000 times (in text). 

Other popular words that made the cut were Coronavirus, key worker, self-isolate, social distancing and Tik Toker.

What, no Zoom meets or doom-scrolling?

The Crown season in two minutes

Comedian Kieran Hodgson reduces 10 hours of The Crown to two minutes. Charles, The Queen, Philip, Thatcher, the midnight burglar, Diana sings Hamilton. 

USA 2020: The F**kening

Bill Maher's last monologue til January.

 

 $200 Toronto-Vancouver

There's something about Friday, Dec. 04.

Both Air Canada and West Jet are selling one-way seats on the westbound cross-country run YYZ-YVR at big discounts only that date. 

And I discover Covid insurance!

Add All Risk trip cancellation

CA$ 21.75

total price

For any documented reason, e.g. loss of job, exam, illness of the insured person or their relatives, cat and dog

Resignation from travel in case of contracting COVID-19

Resignation due to obligatory quarantine before departure

90% refund of the flight ticket costs

 This insurance covers NOTHING else: lost bags, accident etc. (West Jet/lucky2go)

LINK: COVID INSURANCE FOR SNOWBIRDS? 

Captive audience

 

Air Canada charges flyers $39 to fly one bag from the US to MEXICO or the US to CANADA.

But fly that same bag anywhere WITHIN Canada, and you will pay $46.

Both figures are Canadian dollars.

 

 

Again.

If you haven't seen your normal workplace lately, here's that cake you left behind in March.

 

It misses you.

 

Midwesterners are not nice

--1963 Minneapolis paper

 

They suck your breath.

And leave you for dead.

 

Give me some tongue

"Dunf," you cry, "who has time to watch comic zefrank1 explore reptile tongues?"

Yeah, like you'd ignore sticky, sexual tongue puns and jokes. Interested, ladies?

Here are Conversation Stoppers for your next cocktail party, if we ever have those again.

And it's Friday,  for Pete's sake.

Forget Trump and Covid.

Remember laughs?

I usually ignore Randy Rainbow's parodies, but  how hard is it to concoct all new lyrics to a Stephen Sondheim patter song like Not Getting Married?

Very hard.

Don't try this at home

What sane parent would shoot this?

Maybe one with a bucket of spare eyes?

 

 

--via J.M.

 

Data: CDC, Moderna and Pfizer. Chart: Sara Wise/Axios

 

"Don't spit on me, Santa...." 

 

List:

Xanax for Mom

Ring light for Dad's podcast

Keurig Valium K-cups

Vibrator for Aunt Sue

CBD capsules for cat

Video doorbell for non-bubble people

Memo to self: no more Trump books

Ten foot pole

 

Today's Castle News

"The Mafia did it."

 

Tweetie

 

 

"According to a recent IATA report, there is a 1 in 27 million chance of catching Corona-virus during a flight. You're more likely to be struck by lightning.
This will go some way to reassuring everyone that it's safe to fly when restrictions and lock downs ease again. #letsfly"

      --Aviation trade group Twitter claim

 Question: Does lightning sit in the seat next to me?

It's only TV

 

 

The Crown Admits Making up Scenes Royals See as Trolling

The Crown may glow with credibility from the halo of history, but key parts of it are simply made up, as its chief writer admits in a new podcast.

--Daily Beast

---------------------------------

What? 

Lord Mountbatten never wrote a letter to Prince Chuck? And Mickey is not a real mouse?

--via 1236.com

 

Screen grab of the day

 

--Fantasyland network

Mum? Diana's puking in the privy. Again.

--Netflix

 

Two questions immediately come to mind as I watch the first three hours of Netflix's new season of The Crown.

 

1. That imposing entrance hall in the first scene, where Charles arrives for a date: how much would Hydro One charge to heat this endless expanse? More than I pay on November 16??

2. What does The Queen make of this ersatz historical drama that concocts dialogue she probably never delivered?

 

Imagine if Peter Morgan was doing a 40 part series on Your Life, never having talked to you.

Dramatizing how you acted, spoke, thought in a carefully arranged plot line designed for maximum eyeballs.

 

How much do you think would be true?

 

I guess creator-writer-producer Morgan gets about 80% of the historical timeline right.

But at most, is 15% of the onscreen dialogue more than imagined/concocted?

Based on hearsay from non-Royal biographies?

 

The best piece I've seen on what part of The Crown is real in Radio Times at 

 

LINK: How much of The Crown is real? 

--Not amused

 

Still, Princess Diana (Emma Corrin) has been perfectly cast in the new episodes and it's entertaining as hell to see the Royals be  more beastly to her then you ever imagined.

No wonder a title card warns of eating disorders.

Here is a puking Cinderella for the ages.

 

--Cinderella and Chuck the adulterer

 

I believe Gillian Anderson eats ice cubes before each of her scenes as Margaret Thatcher.

 

 

Hydro One aside, the new 10 episodes of The Crown glow.

 

 

 

If you sat in the dark at Cinesphere, gulping as North of Superior first flew you along the cliffs and the whole IMAX theater tilted left, you remember an Ontario Place far different from the sullen, crumbling mess successive political poobahs have made of it.

BlogTO revists OP's early days at ...

Ontario Place back then 

Whatever happened to imagination? 

Mama's little helper

Cat listening to classical music

Classical sadsacks

I've only been asked once for my favorite piece of classical music.

Toronto's Classical 96 invited me over to play my fave.

When they heard it, they judged it "too contemporary" for their listeners.

Wallingford Riegger's New Dance was written in 1935.

"Choose something else," they begged.

They are wimps. Spinners of catalogue sludge.

New Dance is whispers, thunder, energy and propulsion. 

Every time I listen, New Dance excites me. 

It features a saxophone, marimba and chords that might be soundtrack to a car crash. 

.

BACKSTORY:

In university, I was evening announcer for a classical radio station.

Sunday nights, something called Contemporary Concert unspooled. Each week, a graduate student named Bob would leave his voice track tape and a pile of Lps. 

Most were Mercury Presence recordings out of Rochester. Many more were Louisville Philharmonic subscription discs of new music.

I'd paste Bob's bits together, and at 9.55 hit a back-timed theme tape on the Ampex to meet the 10 p.m. hour beep.

In the final minute, I'd read Bob's production credits, aiming for the two key musical posts that mark New Dance's end crescendo.

If I could ride that final rising tide and thunder, it was off to bed happy at midnight. Any radio surfer geek knows that feeling. Nailed it.

P.S. To hear a wide variety of classical music, check  

https://www.yourclassical.org/

The "radio stream" voices there, hit every post, top of every hour. 

Cold rain gonna fall

If you've ever camped in the rain, or have a dog, you'll ache for the newest Matthew Posa video, put up overnight....

News from Fantasyland

--WhiteHouse, Trump bedroom 

 

Up early on Twitter, today ...

“RIGGED ELECTION. WE WILL WIN. … He only won in the eyes of the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. I concede NOTHING! We have a long way to go. This was a RIGGED ELECTION!”

 

It's been 12 days. 

  

INTO THE WOODS

If your camping supply list includes Lucky Charms cereal, pup ponchos and pointy birthday hats for dogpals Monty and Rueger, you will soon be addicted as I am, to Matthew Posa's YouTube channel. It's the perfect antidote to a pandemic.

 There are many bushcraft and fisher-folk in cyberspace, but not one brings Posa's sunny, silly optimism and happy good humour.

He's your goofy bud with the gung-ho spirit.

Posa celebrates three years of adventures in a great clip show just up. Many are shot in the Ontario woods and border waters, but Posa's homebase is Minnesota. It's a sweet sampler of How Everything is Fun in The Woods.

LINK: POSA'S THREE YEARS HIGHLIGHT SHOW 

 

 

 If you're hooked by the crazy clips, you are not alone.

Many of his dozens of hours have 3-4 million views.

You can see the index to all his videos at

LINK: Matthew Posa's YouTube page