"Thinker" to Ponder Elsewhere

Rodin's "The Thinker" has sat at the entrance to the Detroit Institute of Arts for decades, welcoming generations of visitors to one of the nation's largest fine arts museums.

Now, for the first time since acquiring it in 1922, the Institute of Arts is loaning out the iconic sculpture while the 600,000-square-foot museum is closed this summer for the final phase of a $158-million renovation that began six years ago.

Museum officials have arranged to move the statue to the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, just east of Grand Rapids, Mich., until the work in Detroit is completed.

"The Thinker" will leave Detroit May 22 and go on display the next day at Meijer Gardens, where it will stand outdoors through Oct. 31 in a grassy area near a waterfall.

Guess Who ??? . . . OK, I Knew You Knew!!!

Our Gang, also known as The Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Rascals, was a long-lived series of American comedy short films about a troupe of poor neighborhood children and the adventures they had together. Created by comedy producer Hal Roach, Our Gang was produced at the Roach studio starting in 1922 as a silent short subject series. Roach changed distributors from Pathé to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1927, went to sound in 1929, and continued production until 1938, when he sold the series to MGM. MGM continued producing the comedies until 1944. A total of 220 shorts and one feature film, General Spanky, were eventually produced, featuring over forty-one child actors. In the mid-1950s, the 80 Roach-produced shorts with sound were syndicated for television under the title The Little Rascals, as MGM retained the rights to the Our Gang trademark.

The series, one of the best-known and most successful in cinema history, is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively natural way. While child actors are often groomed to imitate adult acting styles, steal scenes, or deliver "cute" performances, Hal Roach and original director Robert F. McGowan worked to film the unaffected, raw nuances apparent in regular kids. Our Gang also notably put boys, girls, whites, and blacks together in a group as equals, something that "broke new ground," according to film historian Leonard Maltin. Such a thing had never been done before in cinema, but was commonplace after the success of Our Gang.

Rod McKuen on Jacques Brel

"If You Go Away" is a song in English based upon the French song "Ne Me Quitte Pas", written by Jacques Brel. The English lyrics were written by Rod McKuen as part of a larger project to translate Brel's work. "If You Go Away" is considered a pop standard and has been recorded by many artists, including Greta Keller, for whom some say McKuen wrote the lyrics. Frank Sinatra, Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Emilíana Torrini, Neil Diamond, Scott Walker and Dusty Springfield have also recorded versions of it, with several of the numerous versions becoming hits and achieving success on the charts.

Here are the lyrics for "If You Go Away"

If you go away on this summer day,
Then you might as well take the sun away;
All the birds that flew in the summer sky,
When our love was new and our hearts were high;
When the day was young and the night was long,
And the moon stood still for the night birds song.
If you go away, if you go away, if you go away.

But if you stay, I'll make you a day
Like no day has been, or will be again;
We'll sail the sun, we'll ride on the rain,
We'll talk to the trees and worship the wind.
Then if you go, I'll understand,
Leave me just enough love to fill up my hand,
If you go away, if you go away, if you go away.

If you go away, as I know you will,
you must tell the world to stop turning
Till you return again, if you ever do,
for what good is love without loving you,
Can I tell you now, as you turn to go,
I'll be dying slowly till the next hello,
If you go away, if you go away, if you go away.

But if you stay, I'll make you a night
Like no night has been, or will be again.
I'll sail on your smile, I'll ride on your touch,
I'll talk to your eyes that I love so much.
But if you go, I won't cry,
Though the good is gone from the word goodbye,
If you go away, if you go away, if you go away.

If you go away, as I know you must,
There'll be nothing left in the world to trust,
Just an empty room, full of empty space,
Like the empty look I see on your face.
I'd have been the shadow of your shadow
If I thought it might have kept me by your side.
If you go away, if you go away, if you go away.

In His "Solitude" the Duke Had Imagination

The man who became one of the twentieth century’s finest composers, Edward Kennedy Ellington, was born on this day in 1899 in Washington, D.C. Right from the git-go, the handsome, sharply dressed teenager (that’s where he got the nickname, Duke) was headed for success.
At first it was art. He won a poster-design contest and an art scholarship, left school and started a sign-painting business.

But it was his natural piano-playing ability that attracted the young women, so Duke Ellington headed in that direction. He played with Elmer Snowden’s band and took over leadership in 1925. They played and stayed at New York’s Cotton Club from 1927 through 1931, broadcasting shows live on the radio. From then on it was tours, recordings, and history in the making. Ellington would be one of the founders of big band jazz.

This Bird even had his own "song"

On this, his birthday, we pay tribute to the man who created the fun-loving, slightly manic bird he called, Woody Woodpecker. Cartoonist Walter Lantz was born on this day in 1900 in New Rochelle, New York.
Many remember Walter Lantz only for Woody; however, one of his most famous moments was the creation of an animated opening sequence for Universal Studio’s first, major musical, The King of Jazz in 1930.

Lantz’ Woody Woodpecker made his first appearance in the 1940 film, Knock, Knock. He became so popular that his wacky laugh and taunting ways were celebrated in The Woody Woodpecker Song. By 1948, Lantz and his studio were celebrating the hit record success of that song, too.

Walter Lantz put several more decades of wonderful cartoon characters and films under his belt before he was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. It was 1979 when he was recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscar ceremonies.

Walter Lantz has left us and many generations to come with a lifetime of enjoyment; one can still see Woody Woodpecker in cartoons on television. You’ll recognize that zany laugh anywhere!

A nice return on a $200 bet . . .

An Epsom, England, man who 10 years ago bet that he would live to be 100 collected $50,000 this week.

Alec Holden, a retired engineer who plays chess every day and eats quite a bit of porridge, told the BBC that at age 90 he felt as if he "was going to live forever," so he went to the bookmaking firm William Hill and placed his bet. The oddsmakers thought it unlikely and gave him 250-to-1 odds.

Holden attributed his long life to not worrying too much, taking lots of holidays, and the fact that "I keep breathing. If you stop breathing, you're in real trouble."

Look at the "DOW" -- hotter than ever !!

On this day in 1983, for the first time, the Dow Jones industrial average moved over the 1200 mark, just two months after smashing the 1100 barrier. Today the Dow Jones industrial average finished above 13,000.

Let's have another vodka stinger and celebrate one of Sondheim;s greatest shows

In 1970, the musical, "Company" opened on Broadway. It ran for 705 performances before parting company with appreciative audiences at the Alvin Theatre in New York City. This is Sondheim at his best.

Radio's First Superstar

On this day in 1932, Ed Wynn was heard on radio’s Texaco Star Theater for the first time. Wynn, a popular vaudeville performer, demanded a live audience to react to his humor if he was to make the switch to radio. The network consented and Wynn became radio’s first true superstar. He would later make the switch to TV. Shown above is Ed Wynn, on the right, with Buster Keaton.

1937 : Nazis test Luftwaffe on Guernica

During the Spanish Civil War, the German military tested its powerful new air force--the Luftwaffe--on the Basque town of Guernica in northern Spain.

Although the independence-minded Basque region opposed General Francisco Franco's Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War, Guernica itself was a small rural city of only 5,000 inhabitants that declared nonbelligerence in the conflict. With Franco's approval, the cutting-edge German aircraft began their unprovoked attack at 4:30 p.m., the busiest hour of the market day in Guernica. For three hours, the German planes poured down a continuous and unopposed rain of bombs and gunfire on the town and surrounding countryside. One-third of Guernica's 5,000 inhabitants were killed or wounded, and fires engulfed the city and burned for days.

The indiscriminate killing of civilians at Guernica aroused world opinion and became a symbol of fascist brutality. Unfortunately, by 1942, all major participants in World War II had adopted the bombing innovations developed by the Nazis at Guernica, and by the war's end, in 1945, millions of innocent civilians had perished under Allied and Axis air raids.
Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso, which he was already working on at the time of the Nazi German bombing of Guernica, Spain, by twenty-four bombers, on April 26, 1937 during the Spanish Civil War, and which he decided to name after it. In any case, a number of people variously estimated between 250 and 1,600 were killed in the air raid and many more were injured.

Just thinking about JackBenny is enough to make me laugh

Jack Benny (February 14, 1894 in Chicago, Illinois – December 26, 1974 in Beverly Hills, California), born Benjamin Kubelsky, was an American comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor. He was one of the biggest stars in classic American radio and was also a major television personality.

Benny was renowned for his flawless comic timing and (especially) his ability to get laughs with either a pregnant pause or a single expression, such as his signature exasperated "Well!". In hand with his dear friend and great "rival" Fred Allen — their long-running "feud" was one of the greatest running gags in comedy history — Benny helped establish a basic palette from which comedy since has rarely deviated, no matter how extreme or experimental it has become in their wake.

On this day in 1942, Ingrid Bergman signed on for Casablanca

Ingrid Bergman signed with Warner Bros. to play Ilsa, opposite Humphrey Bogart, in Casablanca (1942). Bergman was under contract with David O. Selznick, but he allowed her to do Casablanca in exchange for the right to use Warner Bros.' Olivia de Havilland in another film.

Bergman was born in Sweden, orphaned at a young age, and raised by family. After high school, she attended the Royal Dramatic Theater School and just a year later was landing lead roles in Swedish films. Her performance in Intermezzo (1936) so impressed David O. Selznick that he invited her to Hollywood to reprise her role in the U.S version. In 1937, she married a Swedish dentist, and the couple had a daughter.

In Hollywood, she soon won acclaim for roles in films like For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943); Gaslight (1944), for which she won an Oscar; and Notorious (1946). Her career came to a sudden halt in 1949, however, when she left her husband for Italian director Roberto Rossellini. She and Rossellini married the following year and had three children, one of whom is actress and model Isabella Rossellini.

Bergman's desertion of her family provoked an outcry in an America already concerned about the scandalous behavior of Hollywood stars. No U.S. studio would touch her, but she starred in Italian films directed by her husband-none of which were successful. After seven years, she pulled off an unexpected comeback, appearing in Anastasia (1956) as an amnesiac refugee who claimed to be the daughter of the late Czar. She won an Academy Award and continued to appear in U.S. films. She won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1974 for Murder on the Orient Express. She died in 1982 after a long battle with cancer.

We all need a little help and Google is there to show us the way

You Knew it Was Going to Happen Sooner than Later

Now You Know . . .

In 1956, Elvis made his debut in Las Vegas

Elvis makes his first appearance in Las Vegas on this day in 1956. The audience, mostly middle-aged, was so unimpressed with the rock and roll star that his two-week run was cancelled after only a week. Ironically, Las Vegas was the site of the star's comeback in the early 1970s.

Ozzie was a man who knew how to re-invent himself

During a period that was to last twenty years, the Nelson Family--Ozzie, his wife Harriet Hilliard, and their two sons, David and Ricky--were regarded as the preeminent icon of the ideal nuclear family. From his bandleading days of the mid-1930s through his reign, a generation later, as the bumbling patriarch of television's best known family, Ozzie Nelson was able to conflate, reduce and transform the professional activities of his family's personal reality into a fictional domestic banality.

Best known for their long-running television series, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, the Nelson family began their successful togetherness with the marriage of saxophone-playing Ozzie to his "girl-singer," Harriet in the 1930s. Ozzie's deliberate hesitancy and self-deprecating humor were the perfect foil for the sweet and sassy Harriet, who interrupted her songs with sarcastic banter. During the 1940s, Ozzie, Harriet and their band were regulars on radio's Red Skelton show, and in 1944 when Red was drafted into the army, they took over his time slot. For Skelton, the Nelsons stuck to their big band routines with occasional married-couple skits providing non-musical breaks, but when Ozzie conceived the pilot for his own program he decided to venture more into the realm of domestic comedy, writing a script based on his own family life.

Le Reve" blends stunning visuals and amazing acrobatics

LAS VEGAS - Casino entrepreneur Steve Wynn, who brought floating pirate ships and dancing fountains to the Nevada desert and showcased the wildly successful water show “O,” has returned to the life-giving force with the opening of his newest resort.

Besides soaring waterfalls and idyllic ponds, Wynn Las Vegas features “Le Reve: A small collection of imperfect dreams.” The artful, acrobatic show by Franco Dragone, Cirque du Soleil’s former creative director, plays out in a pool of water instead of a stage.

The Harp sets the Gold Standard with an Ethereal "Carpet of Sound"

ANYONE attending a symphony concert can spot the gorgeous, gleaming harp, even from the last row of the last balcony. Children and adults alike gasp at the size of it, at its sparkling gold crown towering above the musicians. Lou Anne Neill, principal harpist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the last 24 years, remembers the first time she glimpsed a harp in the back of an orchestra. "I couldn't see the strings from where I was sitting," she says. "I just saw hands move through the air, and these beautiful sounds were coming out of the instrument."
The harp came into its own thanks to 19th and 20th century composers as well as Harpo Marx, above in “A Night in Casablanca” from 1946.
(The Kobal Collection)

Unconventional Forms by Abe

AS Hitoshi Abe, founder of Japan's award-winning Atelier Hitoshi Abe, takes over as chair of UCLA's Department of Architecture and Urban Design, an exhibition of his work, "Body: Hitoshi Abe," opens Wednesday at the university's Perloff Gallery.

Running through June 6, the show highlights Abe's exploration of how matter and technique affect each other, with a focus on six projects designed by his company from 1993 to 2004.

Abe, known for spatially complex, structurally innovative designs, says the exhibition of his diverse works will demonstrate his focus on "the relationship between material and technology."

"Everything is made using technology as a kind of medium," he says. "Usually, when you think about a building, there's a foundation, there's a post, a beam made of concrete or steel, but most of the projects that I'm presenting are not constructed that way.

"You see what technology can do to create architecture in a different way." Shown above is Reihoku Community Hall which was designed by Abe.