--newyorker.com newsletter
Thursday, May 12, 2022
Jabberwocky: T'was brillig and the slivy toves
We doctors diagnose Office Angst.
Very resistant to treatment.
PERFORMANCE: Gene Kelly on roller skates, I Like Myself
_
Is it the cherry blossoms or the black flies?
A week of May heat gets folks giddy.
You need this.
Rivaling his legendary Singing in the Rain splash splash, Gene Kelly showboats on roller skates. Tap dances on skates!
How many extras' toes were crushed attempting this number? Not many. Note the limited edits.
As one viewer swears: "Whenever I'm a little depressed, I watch this again. And smile."
Gene's the life force in three minutes.
Above, the ultimate song-and-dance man.
Song: I Like Myself, Betty Comden/Adolph Green,
who also wrote Singing In The Rain.
Clip: It's Always Fair Weather, obscure 1955 MGM musical
Exit laughing
I wonder how many SUN staffers who celebrated the paper's 50th aniversary
at a party last week, are aware of the house video made when
"The Little Paper That Grew"
left its beloved headquarters on King Street?
As I post this, only 104 people
have ever seen it.
With a special appearance by
Paul Godfrey....
_
Celebration image: TSF / Facebook
YouTube: 2018
Wednesday, May 11, 2022
LOST SONGS: Colonoscopy
"They look where no one should .... "
Did you think we'd forget Bowser & Blue's tribute to Docs who Work in the Dark?
Bend over.
_
Mystery petroglyph discovered
.jpg)
The scribble of cave dwellers?
A message from an extinct tribe?
Were they aliens, fools or gods?
Who were these Page Sixers?
What explains the baffling scrawl on
Great Lakes cliffs?
Is this a duck or a goose?
Rock on.
Pasoori - Ali Sethi and Shae Gill
_
The song above has been viewed 110 million times on YouTube.
That's three times the population of Canada.
But Pasoori--#1 on India pop music charts--intrigues on several levels. (Four minutes)
A New Yorker piece claims the song may have the power to soften long-standing grievances between India and Pakistan.
It's catchy Bollywood ear-food.
Above, the song with English subtitled lyrics, and below, the magazine's fascinating take on Pasoori's power.
The Song that's Uniting Pakistan and India (New Yorker mag)
Song: Ali Sethi and Shae Gill
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
Honey, we're scaring the kids
If you wear socks, you won't have to dust.
We doctors call this Long Term Pandemic Syndrome. (2 mins)
Change of heart
_Art work © Gabriel Orozco / Marian Goodman Gallery
"Porcupine eating a tortilla"
I dreamed about Gabriel Orozco's photo
again last night.
I'm truly sorry I bounced hundreds of
V8 cans off midnight porkies
trying to eat the cottage deck.
There's a show of Orozco's work
up currently in New York City.
I hope this year's porkies go there.
I avoided the Porkies movie for 20 years,
fearing it was a horror film.
Mind the stairs
Prince Chuck--invisible in his camo gear--gets a playful push on his tush from Camilla. She's a stand-by-your man kinda gal, very old school.
Royal Tours present difficult challenges.
Chuck sometimes needs an assist.
Prince Chuck and Camilla
Canada Royal Tour
May 17-19
Feel the tingle!
Share the excitement!
Ye gods, it's Raccoon Face!
Look what the YouTube algorithm sent me.
Do they think I'm some kind of weirdo?
(30 seconds)
Monday, May 09, 2022
Sticky business
_
Celebrate three days of royal bliss with Quality Stickers from Page Six Enterprises.
Prince Charles and Camilla
Canada Tour May 17 - 19
Feel the tingle!
Share the excitement!
Baby talk
The New York Times scrambled to replace a five-letter word in today's Wordle game
after events last week.
Axios says the word was FETUS.
Image: NurPhoto
Jubilee Days at Madge's warehouse
_Do you have your Jubilee umbrella?
Your Royal Jubilee teddybear?
Alas, the Jubilee teapot is already out of stock.
At $580, it moved fast.
The damn mugs are gone too.
Hurry to see more Royal Rubbish here.
_Jubilee Pringles can $ 35 with cookies
_Jubilee socks
_Jubilee carriage clockBald, Bankrupt and Arrested
_British YouTube travel blogger Benjamin Rich, who specializes in remote and often dangerous parts of the world, has been arrested at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos said Saturday.
Rich - whose Bald and Bankrupt channel has 3.53 million followers - has been detained near one of the launch pads at Baikonur, which Russia rents from Kazakhstan.
--NDTV News
Celebrated as adventure hero here,
you knew he'd eventually
hike down the wrong road.
Stick to mosaics.
Sunday, May 08, 2022
Mum's the word
Whether you're a mother
Or whether you're a brother
You're stayin' alive ....
--Bee Gees
Image: bluemountain.com
You don't send me flowers
_“For Mother’s Day, my mom would like the activism of her youth to not be for nothing.”
--Ali Solomon for newyorker.com newsletter
PERFORMANCE: Steven Wright
_
A prompt from a blog pal produces comedian Steven Wright's clip above. (7 mins)
By the time he says "6000 ants" you too will have to share it.
After years of covid inactivity, Wright's back touring again this month.
Alas, the closest he gets to Canada is Buffalo in October.
Scare me
That movies still have ratings is curious.
Tots can watch anything on the web, cable
or Netflix, yet Dr. Strange's Marvel horror movie scores a PG13.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles got an R.
But severed bodies, horror tropes
and callbacks to The Shining are kid-okay?
Clayton Davis has a great piece
in Variety ...
Image: Disney via Variety.com
Ode to thee, Dear Wordle
_The Wordle word game has now inspired a poet.
BANAL, BEIGE and BORED are a few five-letter words that begin
May-Li Khoe's Wordle poem,
which you can find here.
Chuck and Camilla pack a lunch
"Will we have enough Marmite?"
"Don't forget the Warburton's Crumpets!"
When visiting the First World or the Third, Royal Travel requires familiar spreads, veggies and sweets. A tour is exhausting.
Prince Charles and Camilla
Canada Tour May 17 - 19
Feel the tingle!
Share the excitement!
Saturday, May 07, 2022
Dock Day
Across cottage country, barely sun-dried docks are slipping into cold lakes.
Is there a happier day than Dock Day?
A Saturday of May sunshine?
It's the promise of another summer.
Happy Dock Day!
Two dozen sleeps til Victoria Day.
Short circuiting The Depps
-Four more weeks?
The judge in the
Johnny Depp-Amber Heard
soap opera says
she's guessing four more weeks
of courtroom action?
Who in god's name
is still to testify in this psychodrama?
Drug dealers?
Wall repair experts?
Hairdressers?
If I were a juror, I'd send a note
out to the judge.
"We are awarding Depp and Heard
$1 each in their lawsuits.
Let this end their public dysfunction
and hopefully move on.
Not for their sake.
For ours."
Do either Depp or Heard have $50/$100 million to pay a judgment at this point?
What is the cost of another month of lawyers?
Isn't each already plotting an appeal?
Not that either party has shown themselves
to be
particularly appealing.
Crazy is crazy.
Image: MoustacheBrothers.com
Friday, May 06, 2022
FLASHBACK: Scruffy
TJ's in Winnipeg.
Scruff Connors was a Canadian radio legend.
Thursday, May 05, 2022
SUN shine
Toronto Sun sorts are throwing themselves a party tonight, because with the glory days gone and corporate memory deep in dementia, who else would?
Sometimes, you've got to do it yourself.
The Sun's 50th anniversary was last November, but co-vid put the kibosh on any party til now.
Past and present staffers share the sweet and terrible trials of birthing a Toronto tabloid. And keeping it alive. They're also paying the bill, to the benefit of Variety Village.
Typing "birth" seems strange.
Newspapers aren't born any more.
Bean counters, holding companies and hedge funds rumble over their bones.
At the Sun's half century mark, bloggers, news aggregators, e-media and rolling cable crawls spew news 24/7. Tech giants scalp the news and stuff click bait down our gullet.
Zombie news boxes beg to eat our loonies, but print's online survival attempts often hurt the eyes and trouble the soul. Times have changed.
Tonight's party focus is on the Sun gang that gathered hours after the Telegram died. The Day One-ers. The Glory Days. The ad-fat years.
Only beer, pizza and War Stories can soften the hardscrabble march of time and tech.
We are all shadows of what we were.
Once, newspapers were giants.
Presses roared, boxes bulged and the last news guys and gals out made last call and went home proud, tired and happy, to sleep like bears.
They had a calling.
They kinda saw themselves as heroes.
Underdogs for the public good.
Great crews, characters, pals. Mutts and mongrels on a mad daily mission.
It was fun.
And maybe still is.
Let the martini fountain gush tonight.
Memory is sweet.
_
LIVE: Sloth TV
_
Watching Sloth TV's live feed from Costa Rica, I discover sloths spend a lot of time in laundry tubs, humping pillows.
It's a more productive use of time than a guy doing a blog. Sloths, I salute you.
Wednesday, May 04, 2022
"They say if you vote for that man, this only costs $1"
Prince Chuck and Camilla
Canada Tour May 17-19
_
Tuesday, May 03, 2022
LOST SONGS: Shopping Mall
_
Discount shoes, endless Muzak, temperature controls ... who wouldn't want to live at the shopping mall?
Robert Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders.
Did anybody else subscribe to Zap Comics?
Weirdo? The Realist?
Only a dozen days til Chuck and Camilla are among us!
Share the Royal tingle!
Art: Page Six Plateworks
Monday, May 02, 2022
Hinterland Who's Who
_
Prince Chuck, appropriately wooden, brings news of the Jubilee "Tree-ba-lee"
We must protect our ancient and least interesting woodland creatures.
Some day, they will be King.
Coming soon: Chuck and Camilla in Canada!
Order commemorative plates now.
Page Six Plateworks, pagesix@aol.com
Pip pip!
LOST SONGS : The Nitty Gritty
_
Confused?
Ask your mom.
Song: Lincoln Chase, also wrote
The Name Game (Bananarama)
Sunday, May 01, 2022
Next Exit is 17 lanes to the right
Dougie's gonna make Highway 401 three football fields wider. You want four? Done.
Who loves ya, baby?
Folks.
They play Plinko.
LOST SONGS: May Day Is Lei Day
_
May Day is Lei Day!
If you don't get a lei today, when will you ever?
Hit it, Halekulani Girls!
Let's all get lei'd!
Peel me a grape
“It was one of Princess Margaret's lifelong dreams to ride on a bus... ”
Tina Brown writes about Princess Margaret in her new book, The Palace Papers, which chronicles how the Royal Family has been warped by boredom and privilege during the long reign of Queen Elizabeth II.
Mind the doors.
HOT TAKE: Joe List: This Year's Material
There are more laughs in Joe List's hilarious, just-up hour than any five shows on Netflix by comedians you've heard of. Joe's killer set.
In Toronto in July.
In his follow up to his hit special “I Hate Myself” Joe List discusses riding a rollercoaster with children, intercourse with his wife, watching sexy movies with his parents and much more.
After Wordle, comes Knotwords.
_
I know: one more thing to waste your time?
But the four day work week is coming.
Even now, you pretend to work at home.
How simple is Knotwords?
Your Wordle-crazed neighbor or kid will explain it to you. Peck and check.
We live in a world of "DO".
But just from the couch.
* * *
KNOTWORDS ARTICLE (macstories.net)
How to Build a Word Game (Knotwords creators demo) 56 mins
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