Bloomsday is a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, observed annually in Dublin and elsewhere on 16 June, the day his 1922 novel Ulysses takes place in 1904, the date of his first outing with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle, and named after its protagonist Leopold Bloom.
Month: June 2021
Music Connecting People, Example of – Joe Jackson Anecdote
I’M SITTING at the counter in my favorite New York diner, tucking into eggs over easy with hash browns—very English, the breakfast fry-up, but very American, too. I’m washing it down with cranberry juice—caffeine is probably the only vice I don’t have—and someone turns on the radio.
Most of the time, I don’t hear music. My brain just tunes it out. We’re all bombarded with some sort of music on a daily basis—in shops, TV commercials, restaurants, lifts—most of it simply noise pollution, deadening us to the real joy of music. So I only listen when I really want to. But the Puerto Rican waitress has turned on a Spanish channel, and a seductive salsa rhythm seeps into the room. It’s a charanga band—a traditional group that uses flute and violin over the standard latin rhythm section of congas, bongos, and timbales—and now I’m half-listening. Then the violinist takes a solo, and I’m hooked. He’s a great, inspired player. The band is playing a simple three-chord vamp, and he follows the chords closely, and yet still manages to come up with witty, ingenious, melodic twists. And the way he plays with the time! Dragging a phrase, and then ending it right on the beat. Setting up syncopations—accents that go against the beat—and then turning them around, playing them backwards. Then he hits an unexpected high note, and it’s like a shaft of light going right through my body, filling me with warmth. Without even thinking, I cry out—“Yeah!” or “All right!” or something—and I marvel at the way that music, after all these years, can still surprise me.
The guy next to me just goes on munching his cheeseburger. But something special has happened, even if I’m the only one who knows it. The band on the radio are most likely second- or third-generation Puerto Ricans who were raised uptown, way uptown—in the Bronx—in a different world from me. But through the music, they’ve connected with an Englishman way downtown, in a way that would otherwise never happen.
A Cure For Gravity: A Musical Pilgrimage
Joe Jackson
Knee Stretches, Exercises
Cherry Creek, Denver – June 12, 2021
How Homelessness Became a Crisis in California
There are many contributors to the problem. The horrors of childhood trauma and poverty, mental illness and chronic drug abuse surely add to the likelihood that someone lives on the streets. But Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, says the primary cause of the crisis is simple: Housing has gotten way too scarce and expensive.
A few years ago, a team of economists at Zillow found that once cities cross a threshold where the typical resident must spend more than a third of their income on housing, homelessness begins to spike rapidly. When incomes don’t keep pace with the cost of rent, a cascade effect ripples through the housing market: High-income folks start renting places that middle-income folks used to rent, middle-income people start renting places that low-income folks used to rent, and low-income folks are left scrambling.
“It’s sort of a game of musical chairs,” Roman says. “And people who have a strike against them — because they have mental illness or a substance abuse disorder or a disability — are the least likely to get the chair.”
Homelessness wasn’t always this bad. “In the 1970s, there was an adequate supply of affordable units for every low-income household that needed one — and we really didn’t have homelessness,” Roman says.
How California Homelessness Became A Crisis
Greg Rosalsky
Planet Money, NPR
Highway to Hell – ACDC
Livin’ easy
Lovin’ free
Season ticket on a one way ride
Askin’ nothin’
Leave me be
Takin’ everythin’ in my stride
Don’t need reason
Don’t need rhyme
Ain’t nothin’ that I’d rather do
Goin’ down
Party time
My friends are gonna be there too
I’m on the highway to hell
On the highway to hell
Highway to hell
I’m on the highway to hell
No stop signs
Speed limit
Nobody’s gonna slow me down
Like a wheel
Gonna spin it
Nobody’s gonna mess me around
Hey satan
Payin’ my dues
Playin’ in a rockin’ band
Hey mumma
Look at me
I’m on the way to the promised land
I’m on the highway to hell
Highway to hell
I’m on the highway to hell
Highway to hell
Don’t stop me
I’m on the highway to hell
On the highway to hell
Highway to hell
I’m on the highway to hell
(Highway to hell) I’m on the highway to hell
(Highway to hell) highway to hell
(Highway to hell) highway to hell
(Highway to hell)
And I’m goin’ down
All the way
I’m on the highway to hell
Highway to Hell is the sixth studio album by Australian hard rock band AC/DC, released on 27 July 1979. It was the band’s fifth studio album released internationally and the sixth to be released in Australia. It was the last album featuring lead singer Bon Scott, who would die early the following year on 19 February 1980.
One Hundred Plays of the 20th Century – National Theatre UK
NT2000 One Hundred Plays of the Century
The results of this canvassing formed the basis of NT2000 − a year long Platforms project charting the progress of drama through the twentieth century, as represented by 100 plays. By including each playwright only once, with their most voted for work, the project aimed to present a broad and diverse picture of the last 100 years of theatre.
The one hundred plays in the NT2000 Platform series
1904 Peter Pan by JM Barrie
1905 The Voysey Inheritance by Harley Granville Barker
1907 The Playboy of the Western World by JM Synge
1909 Strife by John Galsworthy
1912 Rutherford and Son by Githa Sowerby
1912 Hindle Wakes by Stanley Houghton
1914 Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
1916 Hobson’s Choice by Harold Brighouse
1921 The Circle by W Somerset Maugham
1924 Juno and the Paycock by Sean O’Casey
1926 The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd by DH Lawrence
1928 Journey’s End by RC Sherriff
1928 The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur
1928 Plunder by Ben Travers
1928 Machinal by Sophie Treadwell
1930 Private Lives by Noël Coward
1930 Once in a Lifetime by George Kaufman and Moss Hart
1934 The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
1934 Love on the Dole by Ronald Gow
1935 Murder in the Cathedral by TS Eliot
1935 Night Must Fall by Emlyn Williams
1935 Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets
1938 Our Town by Thornton Wilder
1938 Gaslight by Patrick Hamilton
1945 An Inspector Calls by JB Priestley
1947 A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
1947 Men Should Weep by Ena Lamont Stewart
1948 The Lady’s Not for Burning by Christopher Fry
1949 The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
1952 The Pink Room (Absolute Hell) by Rodney Ackland
1952 The Deep Blue Sea by Terence Rattigan
1952 Dry Rot by John Chapman
1952 The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie
1955 Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
1956 Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill
1956 Look Back in Anger by John Osborne
1958 The Hostage by Brendan Behan
1958 A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney
1959 Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance by John Arden
1959 Roots by Arnold Wesker
1959 A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
1960 The Caretaker by Harold Pinter
1960 A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt
1960 Billy Liar by Willis Hall and Keith Waterhouse
1961 The Knack by Ann Jellicoe
1962 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
1963 Oh What a Lovely War by Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop
1964 The Royal Hunt of the Sun by Peter Shaffer
1965 Saved by Edward Bond
1965 Loot by Joe Orton
1965 The Amen Corner by James Baldwin
1965 The Odd Couple by Neil Simon
1966 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
1967 A Day in the Death of Joe Egg by Peter Nichols
1967 Zigger Zagger by Peter Terson
1968 The Ruling Class by Peter Barnes
1970 The Philanthropist by Christopher Hampton
1970 Sleuth by Anthony Shaffer
1970 Home by David Storey
1973 The Norman Conquests by Alan Ayckbourn
1973 The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil by John McGrath
1975 Comedians by Trevor Griffiths
1975 East by Steven Berkoff
1976 Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi by Pam Gems
1976 AC/DC by Heathcote Williams
1977 Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh
1979 Bent by Martin Sherman
1979 Educating Rita by Willy Russell
1980 Translations by Brian Friel
1980 True West by Sam Shepard
1980 Nicholas Nickleby by David Edgar
1980 The Dresser by Ronald Harwood
1980 The Romans in Britain by Howard Brenton
1981 Quartermaine’s Terms by Simon Gray
1981 Noises Off by Michael Frayn
1981 Good by CP Taylor
1982 Top Girls by Caryl Churchill
1982 Master Harold… and the Boys by Athol Fugard
1982 Insignificance by Terry Johnson
1983 Run For Your Wife by Ray Cooney
1983 Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
1983 Victory by Howard Barker
1983 Masterpieces by Sarah Daniels
1984 Bouncers by John Godber
1985 The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer
1985 Fences by August Wilson
1985 Pravda by David Hare and Howard Brenton
1985 Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme by Frank McGuinness
1986 Road by Jim Cartwright
1987 My Mother Said I Never Should by Charlotte Keatley
1988 Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker
1990 Racing Demon by David Hare
1990 The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus by Tony Harrison
1991 The Madness of George III by Alan Bennett
1993 Angels in America by Tony Kushner
1994 My Night With Reg by Kevin Elyot
1995 The Steward of Christendom by Sebastian Barry
1996 The Seven Streams of the River Ota by Robert Lepage
1997 Closer by Patrick Marber
1997 The Weir by Conor McPherson
James Joyce or Kool Keith
Colorado Farm Worker Legislation
Among its biggest changes, the bill would:
- Require farms to pay workers the state minimum wage of $12.32 an hour, and not just the federal wage of $7.25
- Allow agriculture employees to join unions
- Require overtime pay for agriculture workers
- Require meal breaks and rest periods
- Limit the use of short-handled tools, except for organic operations and in some other specific cases
“No workers are any more or less unique, no less human, no less deserving of these basic rights,” said Rep. Karen McCormick, a Democratic sponsor who chairs the House Agriculture Committee. Other sponsors included Rep. Yadira Caraveo and Sens. Dominick Moreno and Jessie Danielson.
Advocates described workers enduring long shifts without water or restrooms and suffering lasting injuries from the use of short-handled tools — all made worse because workers are afraid to speak up.
“Farmworkers were intentionally excluded from the laws that provide basic worker protections in order to preserve a system built on the racially motivated exploitation of farmworkers and domestic servants for their cheap labor,” said Jennifer Rodriguez of Colorado Legal Services, at an earlier committee hearing.
After Months Of Debate, Agriculture Workers Are Set To Gain New Rights In Colorado
Andrew Kenney
June 7, 2021
Colorado Public Radio
D-Day – June 6, 1944
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France (and later western Europe) and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front.
Nostalgia for the life of others. This is because, seen from the outside, another’s life forms a unit. Whereas ours, seen from the inside, seems broken up. We are still chasing after an illusion of unity.
Albert Camus, Notebooks
Tulsa Race Massacre as Covered in Newspaper at the Time
The Tulsa race massacre took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of White residents, many of them deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, US. Alternatively known as the Tulsa race riot[10] or the Black Wall Street massacre, the event is among “the single worst incident[s] of racial violence in American history”. The attacks, carried out on the ground and from private aircraft, burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the neighborhood – at the time the wealthiest Black community in the United States, known as “Black Wall Street”.
Massachusetts state song Aerosmith vs Modern Lovers
‘Dream On’ or ‘Roadrunner’?
“Roadrunner,” recorded by the Modern Lovers in the early 1970s, is an unabashed musical valentine to Massachusetts, where its songwriter, Jonathan Richman, was raised. The Natick native sings about driving past a Stop & Shop and says he loves Route 128 at night. Perhaps most famously, he declares, “I’m in love with Massachusetts.”Now “Roadrunner” could become the official rock song of the Commonwealth thanks to a bill filed by state Rep. Marty Walsh of Dorchester.
Not to be outdone, Duxbury Rep. Josh Cutler and Marshfield Rep. James Cantwell filed a bill to name Aerosmith’s “Dream On” the state’s official rock song. The two Democrats cite the tune’s inclusion in Rolling Stone magazine’s Top 500 greatest songs of all time.
“Steve Tyler plays a huge part in the community affairs in Marshfield, and I can’t think of a better song to represent the state,” Cantwell said. “In the pantheon of rock ‘n’ roll, Aerosmith is the best band from Massachusetts.”
Of “Dream On”, he said: “It’s a classic ballad that’s all about holding on to your dreams and seizing opportunity.”
Boston.com, April 3, 2013
Boycotts and Corporate Donors
They treated Mr. Karger’s boycott not as a stratagem but as a breach of decorum. Many instinctively responded (much like those who today cry “cancel culture”) by celebrating their victimhood. Mr. Manchester said it was a “free-speech, First Amendment issue.” Brian Brown — the executive director for California of the National Organization for Marriage, the leading single-issue anti-gay-marriage group, led by people with close ties to leaders in the Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — boasted after the Grand Hyatt protest that Mr. Karger’s “bullying” had backfired. The “stunt they pulled against Doug Manchester ended up raising $100,000 for the amendment in 24 hours,” Mr. Brown said in a message to supporters, “and prompted at least 2,000 new marriage supporters to join our ranks.”
But Mr. Manchester did not remain sanguine for long. The next year, he dispatched an aide to an International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association conference with an offer: $25,000 in cash and $100,000 in hotel credits for dropping the boycott. No one appeared to accept the deal, and Mr. Karger kept up the pressure on the hotels, persuading business groups to yank conferences. In late 2010, Mr. Manchester was forced to sell the property.
Cancel Culture Works. We Wouldn’t Have Marriage Equality Without It.
Sasha Issenberg
NY TIMES
Stutter – Elastica
No need to whine boy
Like a wind up toy you stutter at my feet
And it’s never the time boy
You’ve had too much wine to stumble up my street
Well it isn’t a problem
Nothing we can’t keep between the sheets
Tell me you’re mine love
And I will not wait for other bedtime treats
Is there something you lack
When I’m flat on my back
Is there something that I can do for you?
It’s always something you hate
Or it’s something you ate
Tell me is it the way that I touch you?
Have you found a new mate
And is she really great
Is it just that I’m much too much for you?
Don’t feed me a line boy
I can hear that voice you use upon the phone
And there’s no need to be coy
That is something you can do upon your own
Well it isn’t a problem
Nothing we can’t solve so just relax
Am I on the wrong train love
And will I have to tie you to the tracks
Is there something you lack
When I’m flat on my back
Is there something that I can do for you?
It’s always something you hate
Or it’s something you ate
Tell me is it the way that I touch you?
Have you found a new mate
And is she really great
Is it just that I’m much too much for you?
I really want you to
I really want you to