Wordsworth wrote: “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting…” Now researchers indicate that sleep itself is a forgetting: In 2003, Giulio Tononi and Chiara Cirelli, biologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, proposed that synapses grew so exuberantly during … Continue reading →
Yesterday I happened across a photo from the late-nineteenth century Klondike Gold rush of the part of the Chilkoot Pass that was known as the Golden Staircase. You can see why the photo caught my attention: Here’s one that’s more … Continue reading →
Mary Tyler Moore has died at 80. She had kept a very low profile in recent years. Diabetes (Moore was diagnosed at 33) can be a difficult taskmaster and exact a toll as time goes on. Anyone of a certain … Continue reading →
Boy, am I sick of this bigness-of-the-inaugural-crowd business. But commenter “Hangtown Bob” has called my attention to a photo I just can’t resist spotlighting. It’s interesting on many levels—not just because of how it impacts on the burning question of … Continue reading →
The press/Trump sniping made me think of the “Pick-a-Little” song from “The Music Man,” and so I thought you would enjoy seeing it. Hey, I was raised on those musicals, so that’s the way my mind sometimes works. There’s a … Continue reading →
Who was Astaire’s best partner? Fred Astaire himself was unique, and as a solo performer in his genre he was unsurpassed. Period. It wasn’t just that he could choreograph routine after routine and bring freshness to each one. It wasn’t … Continue reading →
Here’s a video featuring dancer Jean Veloz. I believe it was filmed back in the 1940s (with incredibly corny narration): Here’s Jean at 90: Jean Veloz is apparently still going strong now, at around 92. It’s hard to see any … Continue reading →
I’ve never been a big Donald O’Connor fan, but it’s about time I remedied that failing. This video (from the 1953 movie “Call Me Madam”) goes a long way towards converting me. It features Donald, supposedly drunk, making impossible moves … Continue reading →
Now Jennifer Holliday pulls out of her inauguration gig, apologizing to the LGBT Community for her “lapse of judgment” in agreeing in the first place. This sort of thing is becoming more and more common. It’s “you’re either with us … Continue reading →
It seems that Monica Crowley may have plagiarized a substantial portion—amounting to “thousands of words”—of her doctoral dissertation. According to Politico: An examination of the dissertation and the sources it cites identified more than a dozen sections of text that … Continue reading →
I’ve been reading this collection of essays about the poet Robert Frost. It’s an older book that I took out of the library, and although it was edited in 1962 the essays in it are mainly from the 1930s, 1940s, … Continue reading →
There’s a big mystery under the Antarctic ice: Scientists believe a massive object that could change our understanding of history is hidden beneath the Antarctic ice. The huge and mysterious “anomaly” is thought to be lurking beneath the frozen wastes … Continue reading →