Mingus centennial

Charles Mingus, bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, was born on April 22, 1922.

I cringed last night hearing an NPR tribute characterize Mingus — straight off — as “the angry man of jazz.” I find it difficult to imagine NPR referring to anyone as the angry man of chamber music, dance, film, painting, &c. Sigh.

Mingus could be angry indeed, particularly about the indignities of the music business. And his music can be angry, yes — also ecstatic, romantic, sardonic, tender, tumultuous, urbane, and witty. It is, always, music of extraordinary imagination and beauty.

WKCR is playing Mingus round the clock through Saturday. To see Mingus in performance, these 1964 performances are a good place to start.

Related reading
All OCA Mingus posts (Pinboard)

Our tube

Seen while flipping channels: Tom Fitzsimmons and George Petrie, as doctors, young and old, in the One Day at a Time episode “Julie’s Operation” (February 8, 1977). Familiar faces in new arrangements: one of the pleasures of television. See also these arrangements.

If the names don’t ring bells: Tom Fitzsimmons played “Ford,” Franklin Ford III, through all four seasons of The Paper Chase. George Petrie had countless film and television roles, but I know him from The Honeymooners, where he played a bankrobber, a janitor, a magazine editor, a psychiatrist, a fellow Raccoon, and busdriver Freddie Muller.

Lassie and Ted

TV intertextuality: Ted Knight appeared as Mr. Ventrilo, a traveling entertainer, in a 1959 episode of Lassie. Mr. Ventrilo’s puppet dog reappeared on the hand of a ventriloquizing Ted Baxter in a 1973 episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

But wait, there’s more. From the MTM episode “The Ted and Georgette Show” (January 22, 1977). Georgette has some bad news to tell:

Ted: “Nothing you could say to me could affect my performance out there.”

Georgette: “That’s not true. Remember the time Murray told you, just before the news, that Lassie was three different dogs? And you had to have ice pressed against the back of your neck before you could go out?”

In Mr. Ventrilo’s time, Lassie was indeed three dogs. From The New York Times:

There was the main Lassie, of course. But there was also the stand-in used in rehearsals, and a stunt double and the fighter dog (the dog who rough-housed with the main Lassie when the script called for a fight scene).

One more Lassie–MTM connection: Cloris Leachman, who played Phyllis Lindstrom, was the original Ruth Martin. Jon Provost, who played Timmy Martin: “Cloris did not feel particularly challenged by the role.”

Related reading
All OCA Lassie posts : MTM posts (Pinboard)

[An Oxford comma would make it clearer that the Times sentence is about four dogs, one of them not Lassie.]

From the Poetry Project

The Library of Congress has made available 420 recordings of poetry readings at the Poetry Project, St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery. And that’s just what the Library calls “the first round.”

Learn how it happened: “Rare Book and Special Collections Division Digitizes 40 Years of Poetry Project Sound Recordings” (Poetry & Literature at the Library of Congress).

Masks

From The New York Times: “Does My Mask Protect Me if Nobody Else Is Wearing One?” The short answer: Yes, but make it a KF94, KN95, or N95.

The link uses the Times “gift” option. You can share the link with anyone, whether or not they have a Times subscription, whether or not they’ve hit the monthly limit for free reading. And yes, the Times lowercases if in headlines.

Banned books, free

For a limited time, the New York Public Library is making four often-banned books available to borrow in digital form anywhere in the United States: Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak, Kacen Callender’s King and the Dragonflies, Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye.

Details here.

Salinger in Ohio

[Click for a larger view.]

A genuine headline, not from a dream. You can find it here, as long as there’s no correction.

Related reading
All OCA Salinger posts (Pinboard)

Gratitude

An event was held at 6:00 a.m. to honor New York City EMTs, who attended on their own time. Mayor Eric Adams gave each EMT attending a cup of coffee and a donut, “as a measure of the city’s gratitude.”

Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)

The Girl with the Pilates Mat

We are being cheated out of spring in downstate Illinois — with rain, wind, and freezing temperatures on too many days. As Elaine observes, we’ve had about four days of spring, two of which were in February. So in lieu of walking, we’re sometimes doing Pilates.

Elaine discovered Rachel, The Girl with the Pilates Mat, a certified Pilates instructor who began posting workout videos to YouTube during the pandemic. Rachel’s great — her channel now has more than twelve million views.

I highly recommend Pilates for strength and balance. And doing these exercises makes me feel taller — almost 5′9″.

Mary Miller, lying

Congresswoman Mary Miller (R, Illinois-15) is a proponent of The Big Lie. But she has lies in all sizes. Analisa Trofimuk of PolitiFact fact-checked one of them: “Rep. Mary Miller says White House is encouraging kids to take ‘castration’ drugs, undergo surgeries.”

I’ll add another: When I called Miller’s office earlier this month to ask why she had voted against a bipartisan resolution affirming support for NATO, the aide who answered the phone said that the resolution supported “nation-building,” which Miller opposes. As I told the aide, the resolution says no such thing, and I reminded him that Miller supports a president — oops, make that a defeated former president — who has repeatedly disparaged NATO. There’s the real reason for Miller’s “no” vote.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)