A massive heart attack is being blamed for the death of Davy Jones, 66 year-old lead singer of the 1960s TV rock band "The Monkees" who were known as the American version of the Beatles. I remember loving their zany TV show in the 1960s and just thinking about it transports me right back to the 60s. Davy was known as "the cute one". He was British, from Manchester, and a former racehorse jockey. He sang lead vocals on songs such as "I Wanna Be Free" and "Daydream Believer". His bandmates were Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith (my favorite) and Peter Tork.
"David's spirit and soul live well in my heart, among all the lovely people" Michael Nesmith said in a statement on Wednesday.
According to Wikipedia: "The character types also had much in common with the respective personalities of The Beatles, with Dolenz representing the madcap attitude of John Lennon, Nesmith affecting the deadpan seriousness of George Harrison, Tork depicting the odd-man-out quality of Ringo Starr, and Jones conveying the pin-up appeal of Paul McCartney."
Flicking through an old January 2012 copy of Dwell magazine whilst at my dental appointment today. There was an intriguing chapter on designed prefab homes of the future (which take the pain out of the construction process) by L.A. firm Marmol Radziner: http://www.dwell.com/articles/a-simple-plan.html
"Their glamorous lives earn them fawning spreads in western fashion magazines like Vogue. But at home they inspire dread, with tales of confiscating people's homes and punishing servants with boiling water."
Asma al-Assad: Sydney Morning Herald
And let's not forget Leila Trabelsi (photo above), the politically ambitious wife of Tunisia’s Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, who was a monstrous symbol of nepotism and corruption. "Her embezzlement of state wealth made Imelda Marcos’s nearly 3,000 pair of shoes seem trifling".
Today's Wall Street Journal headline caught my eye: it seems the FBI are seeking to build insider-trading cases against roughly 120 individuals on and off Wall Street in an expanding criminal insider-trading investigation that has shaken the financial and corporate worlds:
In an ironic twist of fate, they're also enlisting the help of actor, Michael Douglas, in the following FBI Public Service Announcement. He played financial titan Gordon Gecko in the 1987 "Wall Street" movie.
And here is Pink Floyd's "Money" from their Dark Side of the Moon album (1973):
Money, get away.
Get a good job with good pay and you're okay.
Money, it's a gas.
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think I'll buy me a football team.
Money, get back.
I'm all right Jack keep your hands off of my stack.
Money, it's a hit.
Don't give me that do goody good bullshit.
I'm in the high-fidelity first class traveling set
And I think I need a Lear jet.
Money, it's a crime.
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie.
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today.
But if you ask for a raise it's no surprise that they're
giving none away.
"HuHuh! I was in the right!"
"Yes, absolutely in the right!"
"I certainly was in the right!"
"You was definitely in the right. That geezer was cruising for a
bruising!"
"Yeah!"
"Why does anyone do anything?"
"I don't know, I was really drunk at the time!"
"I was just telling him, he couldn't get into number 2. He was asking
why he wasn't coming up on freely, after I was yelling and
screaming and telling him why he wasn't coming up on freely.
It came as a heavy blow, but we sorted the matter out"
Time for another CTA adventure. Today I took the red line El from State and Jackson (in the Loop) for three stops to the Cermak-Chinatown station, which took seven minutes and cost $2.25. Across the street from the subway station was the Three Happiness Restaurant (pink building under the Chinese gate below) where I stopped for lunch. Address: 2130 S. Wentworth Avenue.
Photo of Three Happiness Restaurant: Marge Ishmael
My hairdresser recommended this restaurant. I'm told Three Happiness was a "go to" restaurant in the 70s and 80s. It has a rather faded, forgotten feel to it now. There was an idiot proof Dim Sum menu with pictures and basic descriptions but I decided on the "lunch special" which was a classic egg flower soup (slightly too gelatinous for my tastes); a passable spring roll; some tasty Kung Pao Chicken with steamed rice... plus a pot of hot green tea and a fortune cookie....all for the bargain price of $7.95.
Photo of Gifts R Us : Marge Ishmael
After lunch, I strolled down Wentworth Avenue and called in at "Gifts R Us" @ 2220 S Wentworth Avenue. This place was a typical Chinese emporium, full of gifts from golden Buddhas to cute tea cups and everything in between.
Photo of Woks & Things : Marge Ishmael
My third stop was at "Woks and Things" at 2234 S. Wentworth Ave. This was a hole-in-the-wall gem of a kitchen store -- crammed with bamboo steamers, cleavers, woks, knives and other culinary gadgets.
Here is a photo I took yesterday afternoon of beaver damage in Jackson Park, near Lake Michigan. Beavers are ingenious builders, creating dams that can change the flowing course of rivers. In Native American animal symbolism, the beaver tells us to believe in our dreams as if they were real and build on them. You can change the course of your life by structuring your life with a goal to coax your dreams into your physical reality.
Photo of beaver damage: Marge Ishmael
And Jane took this photo on the same walk - bufflehead ducks which are the smallest diving ducks in North America. They breed in ponds and small lakes in Canada, and winter in much of the United States.
Photo of bufflehead ducks: Jane Masterson
And here is a photo I took of the new moon. The new moon symbolism speaks to us of an emptiness that is unfathomable. Our ancestors knew it, and we know it too, on various levels. New moons remind us of the void, the gaping hole that is nothingness. The first step. Another beginning. A new revolution. http://www.symbolic-meanings.com/
The charming French silent movie - The Artist - won five Oscars last night, including Best Actor, Best Director, Best Picture. When Jean Dujardin won for Best Actor he broke into his native French shouting: "Wow, victory!" "Thank you to the Academy. It's funny because in 1929, it wasn't Billy Crystal but Douglas Fairbanks who hosted the first Oscars ceremony. Tickets cost $5 and it lasted 15 minutes. Times have changed." The Artist reminds me of that line in Sunset Boulevard by Norma Desmond: "We didn't need dialogue. We had faces."
1929 was the last year that a silent movie won an Oscar. Yet another case of history repeating. 1929 was also the year of the Wall Street Crash in October of that year...following a decade of wealth and excess during the "Roaring 20s":Wikipedia: The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout.The crash signaled the beginning of the 10-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries and did not end in the United States until 1947.
And the best dress on the red carpet - for my money - was Jessica Chastain wearing a classy Alexander McQueen number. She reminded me of a Pre-Raphaelite painting:
F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The rich are different than you and me."
Ernest Hemingway: "Yes, they have more money."
F. Scott Fitzgerald & Ernest Hemingway
Thanks to an article by John Lanchester on today's Guardian website, something I had suspected for some time has finally been confirmed. I'd always wondered, naively, why London is so jam-packed full of Saudi Sheiks and Russian Oligarchs...which has never changed under Labour or Tory governments...and now I know the answer. John Lanchester's novel, Capital, is published on 1 March by Faber & Faber and should be well worth reading. He talks about the UK Office for National Statistics which measures inflation using a basket of goods in common use – a category that is constantly shifting, and at the moment includes mobile phone downloads, sparkling wine and long-sleeved cotton shirts.
The super-rich index, by comparison, includes items such as "a Russian sable coat at $240,000, a facelift for $18,500, a thoroughbred yearling racehorse at $319,340, a Sikorsky helicopter at $14.8m, an arrangement of flowers changed weekly for six rooms at $98,100 or a year's tuition at Harvard at $56,652. It is, in a dark way, hilarious that a Harvard education counts as a luxury good. If all that starts getting too much, you can always decompress with a week at the Golden Door Spa in California for $6,750, or 45 minutes with an Upper East side shrink for $325."
Photograph: Nick Ballon
"In 1990, to come in the top 200 of the Sunday Times annual rich list, you needed £50m. Now you need £430m. Income levels for most social groups have stagnated in the last few decades, but the super-rich have continued to get sharply richer, and to own an ever increasing share of the economic cake."
"The capital of the UK (London) has one of the world's largest concentrations of the super-rich, and the reason for that is that we have chosen to have them here, as a matter of deliberate government policy. The relevant policy is the notorious provision in relation to "domicile", as a definition of an individual's tax status. Every other civilised country in the world taxes its inhabitants on their income and capital: the basic rule is that if you live in a place, you pay its taxes. But it's different in the UK. Here, if you come from overseas, and can prove strong links with overseas, and can prove that you are going to return to overseas, and can therefore establish a "domicile" overseas that is different from your "residency" in the UK – well, in that case, you are treated entirely differently for tax purposes. You pay tax on your income in the UK, like the rest of us; and you can remit capital to the UK; but your overseas income, as long as you keep it overseas, is out of the reach of the Inland Revenue."
"Why doesn't it bring Americans here? Because American citizens pay tax on their worldwide income, wherever they are. If every government in the world followed that policy, things would look very different." http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/24/why-super-rich-love-uk
And before anyone accuses me of "the politics of envy", I hasten to add that I wouldn't thank you for any of the above mentioned "super rich" items...well, maybe a Sikorsky helicopter would come in handy on occasion...but it does seem rather obscene and partially explains why the UK is in the economic mire it currently finds itself in, when super rich residents don't pay any taxes into UK coffers.
Walking makes us healthier and gets us in touch with our own communities and environment.Chicago, where I live, is a pretty good city for walking and cycling but I've come across lots of places in America that aren't conducive to walking. This BBC article focuses on Raleigh, North Carolina, where an unsanctioned street sign campaign called Walk Raleigh caught the attention of city officials and pedestrians alike: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17107653
There was a Blues Night at the White House on Tuesday and President Obama joined in a performance of Sweet Home Chicago with Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck, Buddy Guy and B.B. King.
The Cranberries sixth album is due for release on February 27th, 2012. I look forward to hearing more of Dolores O'Riordan's haunting vocals...so fundamental to the sound of the Cranberries. Born in Ireland, I believe she now lives in a log cabin in Canada with her husband and kids. Here is a Youtube video of their 1993 hit "Dreams":
I just heard that "The Scream" masterpiece, by the Norwegian Expressionist painter Edvard Munch, will soon be auctioned. Sotheby's suggest the artwork price tag could exceed $80m (£50m).
Munch described his inspiration for the image thus:
"I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."
Kevin Costner's tribute at Whitney Houston's funeral was very moving. It brought back memories of seeing Costner and Houston in the movie, Bodyguard, in 1992. I went to see it with my dear departed mother. She thought that Kevin Costner was the most handsome movie star, ever....apart from Gregory Peck in an earlier movie star era.
Probably the most cheerful aspect of last week was Colin Firth retrieving Meryl Streep's lost shoe at the BAFTA awards. Is there a more attractive man on this earth than Colin Firth? I very much doubt it.....
Whether Whitney Houston died this past Saturday as a result of crack cocaine isn't clear; but nobody can be in any doubt that her self-confessed crack addiction destroyed her career. She had learned about press hype and public misconceptions by observing her mother, gospel singer Cissy Houston, and cousin Dionne Warwick....but she was unprepared for the pressures of nonstop surveillance of her private life. I also suspect that she felt spiritually drained having sold out by using her gospel background and amazing soulfulness for rather banal pop songs in her later years.
Bobolink Meadow was named after an Illinois grassland bird that once nested here. This area was created when part of a large lakeshore marsh was filled in to create Jackson Park for the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The area was later used for athletic fields and, from 1958 to 1971, as a U.S. Army missile base. When the base closed, only weeds grew in the hardened soil. Bobolink Meadow was set aside as a nature sanctuary in 1982 and seeded with native grasses and wildflowers, creating more habitat for wildlife. Over the years, the ground is becoming less compacted as plant roots, worms and microbes enrich the soil. There have been recent sightings of deer, coyote, red fox and yet it is only several miles from downtown Chicago!
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
I'm in the north of England this week and realizing that the economic downturn is much worse up here. As mentioned in this Guardian article, jobs losses are occurring at four times the rate in other parts of the country, adding to the north-south divide and bolstering the growing movement calling for a "voice for the north" through its own elected assembly: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/04/north-south-divide-job-loses
According to the Guardian, an owl made an unfortunate trip into the lion enclosure at Colchester Zoo, UK, this week. ASH, a female barn owl, collided with a window and was dazed. She then flew into the lion's den, where she was clubbed out of the air by a lioness and torn apart by another lion...yikes!! This is a whole new take on The Owl and the Pussycat. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/shortcuts/2012/feb/01/lion-eat-owl-world-captivity
Edward Lear's poem, The Owl and the Pussycat:
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/
I
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!'
II
Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?'
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
III
'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
