Sunday Serendipity

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Todays selection is a serendipitous combination of Wikipedia and Youtube’s algo. I have never seen the double bass as a solo instrument and had never heard of Giovanni Bottesini

The soloist is Edgar Meyer, He is skilled at a number of musical genres from world music, classical to bluegrass. He was part of tiny desk concert I posted several months ago with Yo Yo Ma and 2 other bluegrass musicians.

Edgar Meyer joins conductor Cornelia Laemmli Orth and the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra

Enjoy, Jack

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97 thoughts on “Sunday Serendipity”

  1. jack, wow.  thanks

    (just a tho’t: that’s a handy instrument to have around when one has had a little too much and needs something to lean on)

  2. Susan Page (Kate McKinnon) moderates a debate between Senator Kamala Harris (Maya Rudolph) and Vice President Mike Pence (Beck Bennett).

  3. a bit rough.

    Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week’s biggest news, like Trump claiming he survived COVID-19.

     

  4. wapo:

    …  according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
    […]
    Biden is favored by 54 percent of likely voters, with Trump favored by 42 percent. Libertarian Party nominee Jo Jorgensen receives 2 percent support, and Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins is at 1 percent. Biden’s lead among registered voters is also 12 points, consistent with Post-ABC polls taken in recent months.

    Q: If the presidential election were being held today and the candidates were Donald Trump and Mike Pence, the Republicans and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democrats, for whom would you vote? Would you lean toward Trump and Pence or Biden and Harris? (Among registered voters)

    National polls reflect the status of the popular vote and not the state-by-state contests for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Post-ABC polls of battleground states, as well as other public polls, show Biden with an advantage in that competition as well, though the state margins generally are narrower, and some states are considered toss-ups. Still, no candidate has won an electoral-college majority while losing the popular vote by a margin like Trump’s current deficit.

  11. jack – Thanks!   patD – Loved that, too.  I wonder how long it took to choreograph that piece?
    SNL really needs to get Jason Sudeikus back to do Biden.  What is Carey doing? Clint Eastwood and Fire Marshall Bill, maybe, but it doesn’t remind me of Biden, at all.  

  12. Jack,  thanks for the Larkin Poe music yesterday. I downloaded the album with Mississippi on it. Good stuff. 

  13. BiD, yes on Sudekis as Biden. His Joe is spot on. I’m surprised I didn’t wake Mrs. P up laughing at the cold open last night. 

  14. Herman Cain, reincarnated as a fly, was a pretty great idea.  Maya Rudolph has 8-12 years of steady work on SNL.
     
    Just saw an ad from David Jeramiah telling evangelicals to get out and vote.  He didn’t say for whom to vote, and both he and his wife were dressed all in blue…and he said we have the chance to put into power, officials who will reflect the values of our country.   Is it even possible that he, an old, white, televangelist meant Biden?  Surely, he doesn’t mean that a lying, adulterer who paid off a porn star reflects his values.  Am I reading too much into the color-coding of his suit and tie, and, his wife’s dress?

  17. Biden getting the endorsement of science and medical journals, Greta, national security experts and others cannot compare to SFB being endorsed by the kkk and taliban.  No comparison.

  18. jack…   that was great!
     
    patd….  thanks for the SNL stuff.  I’m never up late enough to see it.

  20. the guardian:

    Lindsey Graham, reverse ferret: how John McCain’s spaniel became Trump’s poodle
    […]
    In British political discourse, a figure like Graham would be described with the seemingly enigmatic phrase of “reverse ferret”, applied to a politician who takes a dramatic and often contorted U-turn. According to the classic work Lying, by Sissela Bok, the word “hypocrisy” has its origins in Greek theater, as the slanted reply of an actor to the action on the stage. “Its present meaning is: the assumption of a false appearance of virtue or goodness, with dissimulation of real characters or inclinations.” The hypocrite deceives in order to be perceived as virtuous. His dishonesty is in the service of an image of honesty.
    Unlike Trump, Graham is not a pathological liar, but his mendacity fits the category of “duping delight” as defined by Bok: “It evokes the excitement, allure, challenge that lying can involve.” For Graham, it’s the thrill of the illicit done in public, creating a suspension of disbelief, the skill of the actor. Graham has always been more than complicit with liars like Trump, not simply as an enabler. From the beginning, well before Trump, he has advanced his career through hypocrisy as his chief means of ambition, knowingly engaging in deceit, adopting a false attitude to win praise and applause as a truth-teller.
    [… goes into lindsey’s recent hearing re comey and steele dossier…]
    On the matter of how the FBI obtained the notorious dossier on Trump’s Russian connections, written by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele. Graham’s manufactured zealotry should have been more earnestly directed toward a cross-examination of himself. The facts are that in late 2016, after Trump’s election, John McCain, Graham’s mentor, disturbed at what he had heard about Trump’s Russian ties, sent an aide, David Kramer, a Russia expert, to London to retrieve the dossier from Steele. In March 2019, after McCain’s death, Trump trashed McCain, saying, “I’m not a fan” and explaining that McCain was the one who gave the dossier to the FBI for “very evil purposes”. But there was an additional subplot. McCain did not act alone.
    He asked Graham what he should do with the damaging information. “And I told him,” Graham recounted to reporters, “the only thing I knew to do with it, it could be a bunch of garbage, it could be true, who knows? Turn it over to somebody whose job it is to find these things out, and John McCain acted appropriately.”
    That bit of Graham’s own history was never mentioned at his own hearing. He seemed a caricature of the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues:

    Well, I fin’ly started thinkin’ straight
    When I run outa things to investigate
    Couldn’t imagine doin’ anything else
    So now I’m sittin’ home investigatin’ myself!
    Hope I don’t find out anything.

    [continues]

  21. another interesting little factoid from that guardian link:

    Hillary Clinton was then a senator from New York, and at her initiative and to his initial surprise she approached Graham, and they wound up co-sponsoring healthcare legislation for members of the national guard. She was another bigger and stronger figure. He had a kind of crush on her, too. In 2006, he wrote an article for Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People issue to praise her as a “smart, prepared, serious senator”, with whom he had found “common ground”.
    Most importantly, Hillary was a friend of McCain, augmenting the looming shadow. Together they all traveled abroad on congressional trips, when Hillary and McCain famously closed down bars with shots of vodka. Graham, strictly the “Little Brother”, claimed he abjured the hard stuff. “I was drinking water, pretending it was vodka,” he said. “I had to go to the bathroom, before they stopped drinking.” But one of those present told me he would sometimes nurse a glass of white wine. His teetotaling was a little white lie – a sauvignon blanc lie.
    When Hillary became secretary of state, Graham was effusive in his praise. In 2012, he statedshe was “a good role model, one of the most effective secretary of states, greatest ambassadors for the American people that I have known in my lifetime” and “extremely well-respected throughout the world, handles herself in a very classy way, and has a work ethic second to none”.
    But, preparing for his campaign for the Republican nomination, Graham blamed her for the killing of the US ambassador to Libya in a terrorist attack at Benghazi. “Hillary Clinton got away with murder in my view,” he said.
    Graham’s brief presidential campaign in 2016 was like the proverbial tree in the forest that no one heard fall. Getting out, his endorsement of Jeb Bush was weightless. After Bush disappeared, Graham moved down the food chain to endorse Ted Cruz. After Cruz washed out, he was left face-to-face with the Beast. Graham gave Hillary a shout-out. “Hillary,” he said, about Middle East policy, “If you get to be president, I’ll help you where I can.” Still the jokester, he wished above all to be seen as a wise man. He was positioning himself to be Hillary’s “Little Brother”. But after Trump won he would befriend the Beast. Graham decided he was not a dragon slayer, after all.

  22. Fox News' mindless, manic pursuit of Hillary — in 2020 Parallel universe

    The country is rushing towards a pandemic death toll of 250,000, the U.S. economy is in complete shambles as Trump refuses to pass desperately needed economic relief, climate change-fueled natural disasters are ravaging the country — and Trump along with Fox News spent much of the week obsessing over Clinton and a supposed Deep State plot to spy on his campaign in 2016. (“Clinton” was mentioned nearly 200 times, according to TVeyes.com.)

    Even for a right-wing movement that detached itself from reality years ago, this parallel universe spectacle where Trump and Fox News are now running against an opponent who’s not on any ballot has been especially bizarre to witness.

    “Genuinely incredible to watch Trumpworld keep talking about Clinton as Biden’s favorable numbers rise to the mid-50s,” tweeted Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel. It’s like a classic rock station that just keeps playing “Sweet Emotion” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine” hour after hour, enjoying the warm glow of bygone glory days.

  28. Links I never click on, and why.
    Any SNL clip, They haven’t been funny for 30 years.
    Same for Bill Maher. Both are living on use to be memories.
    Keith Olbermann. I like my meat cooked medium rare, not bloody raw.  Like Rush Limbaugh and Fox news, he appeals to the worst in us.
     
    Jack

  30. Bink
    Yep, like rural Missouri, where all of the out of control covid-19 cases are. 
    They will pay the price for their stupidity too bad it won’t be all of them.
    Jack

  31. Fear of extinction.  It’s what’s driving tRUMP’s followers…and, it’s what drives tRUMP.   Fear, no love for others, and, most probably claim to be Christians.  

  32. Pogo
    Just put that Larkin Poe album into my random music as I travel playlist. 
    I enjoyed the whole thing as I cleaned house this morning.
    Jack

  33. i believe it was Jon Stewart that killed American comedy.  Because of his success, most American comedy went political, but you can’t be simultaneously political and offensive, so it all became milque-toast. 
     
    Canadians are still funny.

    (btw, that seems like a very small turn-out for Pence at the “Villages” retirement community that is touted as a Trump bastion)

  34. This was in Dan Alexander’s book, “White House, Inc”, but this doesn’t link now.  Interesting.  Anyhow, this is why trumpity wants the US to OPEN.  Again it has to do with him as we already know. He’s in the “hospitality” business!  LOLOL  And his golf courses like Doral are losing money. His moron followers are dying so he can make more money.  Hope they’re good with that.
     

    Trump’s Net Worth Drops $1 Billion As Coronavirus Infects …
    http://www.forbes.com › sites › danalexander › 2020/04/02

     

     

     
     

    Apr 2, 2020 — We valued the president at $3.1 billion a month ago. Now he’s worth $2.1 billion. ..”

  38. The problem is that Americans take themselves way toooo seriously. I learn this simple lesson every time I visit my relatives in Canada.

  40. So Eric Trump was on ABC this morning , that boy is in a panic.  It was like watching Beetlejuice  try to explain his dad. 
    He claimed  his dad found “a vaccine” , and that is what saved him. 
    And he lost it over  the NYT  tax reporting. 
    Eric Trump on new NYT analysis of father’s taxes: ‘My father has lost a fortune’
     
    Eric Trump defended his father’s business dealings in response a New York Times article published on Saturday that unveiled reported White House favoritism toward hundreds of companies, lobbying groups and foreign leaders who stayed at President Trump‘s commercial properties.
    The newspaper reported that the president used his political position to create new, more lucrative forms of income through his hotels and golf courses.
    “We’ve lost a fortune. My father has lost a fortune running for president. He doesn’t care. He wanted to do what was right. The last thing I can tell you Donald Trump needs in the world is this job. He wakes up in the morning, and he has to fight you, and he has to fight the entire media. He has to fight the Democrats, and he gets punched in the head every single day,” Eric Trump told Jonathan Karl of ABC’s “This Week.”
    https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/520522-my-father-has-lost-a-fortune-eric-trump-responds-to-claims-the
     
     

  42. The transcript from ABC _
    We had hoped to talk to Dr. Fauci about both the outbreak at the White House and across the country. He was more than willing to join us, but the White House wouldn’t allow you to hear from the nation’s leading expert on coronavirus. In fact, they wouldn’t allow any of the medical experts on the president’s own Coronavirus Task Force to appear on this show……………………..  
    E. TRUMP: Yes. Listen, that first day he got hit hard, first day Friday. And I can tell you as son, it’s never fun watching your father fly off to Walter Reed on Marine One, right? I mean, that’s something that — it’s a day that no son wants to, again, remember. It’s — that’s no fun to watch.
    But I’m telling you I spoke to him three times that next Saturday. The guy sounded 100%. It was amazing. It actually probably goes to speak to how good some of these vaccines that are being created are and what my father’s done on the vaccine front, no one could have done. No one could have done.
    I mean, literally, Biden was calling my father xenophobic for shutting down America from travel to China — I mean, and the virus came from China. My father, literally, started day one creating this vaccine. He worked to push this vaccine. And now my father just took it. And you see how well he got over it —
    KARL: Wait, wait. Can you —

    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-10-11-20-rep-cedric-richmond/story?id=73548172
     
     

  45. CC –
    My thinking as well. 
    I held my nose and voted for her , but most people I know thought she could easily beat him, and sat home.  There’s a lot of “free floating remorse”  from that group  mixing with  the #19 particles today. 

  48. Trump’s fat little pal on the . Korean peninsula  just rolled out a new missile .
    Kim Jong Un reveals largest liquid-fuelled missile designed to carry multiple warheads: Report
    Leader Kim Jong Un watched the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) roll through Kim Il Sung square — named after his grandfather — in Pyongyang at the climax of an unprecedented night-time parade on Saturday.
     
    https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/kim-jong-un-reveals-largest-liquid-fuelled-missile-designed-to-carry-multiple-warheads-report/story-AXRBApwfAWeeje43s8wGEJ.html
     
     
     

  49. Endorsement time  in America  :
    This week –
    Trump – The Taliban 
    Biden –  The New England Journal of Medicine. 
    Somewhere in Wyoming  there is a great nashing  of teeth , and a lingering wailing from Dick Cheney’s “Compound”.  As the old man turns tangerine , after realizing that the frickin’ Taliban  have endorsed  a Republican for president. 
     
     
     

  50. So for the  week ……..
    Trump has an ever enlarging  sucking chest wound ………………. bleeding older voters, and women in the suburbs. 
    But the Taliban Came on Board! 
     
    This is not a flaming  clown car  anymore . 
    It’s more on the order of  C-47 Loadmaster  on fire, flying on one engine. 
     
    Remember  in Trump World , being a “Loser”  is the a ticket to hell. 
     

  52. now he’s blaming the gold star families the hill reports:

    “I figured there would be a chance that I would catch it,” Trump said in a phone interview with Fox Business News host Maria Bartiromo on Thursday. “Sometimes I’d be with — in groups of — for instance Gold Star families. I met with Gold Star families. I didn’t want to cancel that. But they all came in and they all talked about their son and daughter and father.”

    “And I can’t back up, Maria, and say ‘Give me room, I want room, give me 12 feet, stay 12 feet away when you talk.’ They come within an inch of my face sometimes,” he added.

    “They want to hug me and they want to kiss me. And they do. And frankly, I’m not telling them to back up. I’m not doing it. But I did say it’s like — it’s obviously dangerous. It’s a dangerous thing I guess if you go by the COVID thing.”

     

    sounds like what he said earlier about cops and military folk as salon reported  oct 2:

    President Donald Trump appeared to blame members of the military and law enforcement units for spreading COVID-19 to his inner circle in a Thursday interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity when he claimed that uniformed officials often want to “hug” and “kiss” members of his team out of gratitude for the “good job” the administration has done.

    “You know, it’s very hard, when you’re with soldiers, when you’re with airmen, when you’re with Marines. And I’m with — and the police officers,” the president said, not long after reports surfaced that top adviser Hope Hicks had contracted the virus. “I’m with them so much. And when they come over here, it’s very hard to say, ‘Stay back. Stay back.’ It’s a tough kind of a situation.”

  54. Patd –
    The Duce’ had a private army  ……………… The Black Shirts 
    Hitler patterned his deal exactly  the same , but they had brown  shirts. 
    Sucking up to  to guys carrying knives  is a very old art form. 
    Trump is still trying pick the color of his army’s shirts , I hear “Naval Orange” is the leading choice. 
    Since he has no idea of history , he thinks  “winking and nodding” at these people will serve him well.  He should read up on the , “The Night of the Long Knives”.  When Hitler  saw a new power base building along with him and it’s leader. 
     
    A grizzly  business. 
     

  55. How is the NYT story a “bombshell”?  We knew he was self-dealing from the White House since the inception of the regime.

  56. “ “Now at day 10 from symptom onset, fever-free for well over 24 hours and all symptoms improved, the assortment of advanced diagnostic tests obtained reveal there is no longer evidence of actively replicating virus,” Dr. Sean Conley said in a memo. “Moving forward, I will continue to monitor him clinically as he returns to an active schedule.”
     
    So, he had a fever for NINE DAYS?  They said he only had one the “first day”, a week, ago.

    Conley isn’t a trained-liar like the gang over at trumpco, he’s bad at it👍

  57. Speaking about this topic  …….
    That plot  in Mich. 
    The leader couldn’t go to his gym.
    That was the spark.
     
    The Arab Spring 
    A street vendor  in North Africa  was being shaken down by the local cops. 
    That was the spark 
     
    In Eric Trump’s mind these 2 things are equal. 

  58. Big B –
    First the are printing “evidence”.  And Not   the theory of the case .
    Two …………………………

    Conley isn’t a trained-liar like the gang over at trumpco, he’s bad at it👍

     
    Last time I looked 37 %  of them isn’t “good” at it. 
     

  60. I remember the phrase “feathered, crashed and burned” from the old coast guard aviation days.
    Dem slopes.

  61. About that 37% 
    That’s his floor  it’s bulletproof.
      His ceiling  is 42%
    Those are his numbers for nearly 4 years in office. 
    It reminds me of coal seam  in West Virginia . It’s five feet thick, and you can’t stand up. 

  62. Mining 
    I spent a lot of weather days in little town libraries.  In the history stack. 
    It’s 9:30 AM , in Fallon. Nevada and you can’t work. 
    One can read for hours. 
     
    That was where I saw  in a local book about the Comstock ,  a picture of a mule. 
    He was in a canvas sling  upside down , feet bound together all pointing North .
    And he was looking right into the camera. 
     
    And that sling was well made  you could get it in a mining catalog. 
    He was about ride the  hoist  to an underground stable  he would never leave. 
     

  65. I saw that  mule  and thought of my father .
    His father took him out of the 8th grade  So he could raise 8 acres  of corn  on the bottom land of the Red River.  With a mule, and a 2 row planter. 
    His father was a real SOB ,   he had 7 kids , and he never hoped that one of them could rise above  sharecropper. 
    And he carried a really fat gene on the helix  for being a drunk. 
    Lots of my uncles fell into that trap with me..

  67. One last thing about the Comstock. 
    We could never have done it without a design  called a “square set” . 
    Timbers like Lincoln Logs. In never ending locking boxes. 
    They stripped the East face of Sierra  of every tree  to do this. 
    It never came back.

  70. Trump is toast. Polling in battleground states better, more reliable than 2016. Two reasons: more reputable pollsters in the field plus they’re including late 2016 Trump deciders who were previously non-voters not measured then. Less chance of a surprise hidden Trump vote.

  73. The only way they win is if they cheat.  President Biden just aired a great ad.  What will be done FOR average Americans.  Healthcare, etc.
    Let the Lincoln Project and the other surrogates point out tRUMP’s lies and failures, and, note what horror he would unleash with more time.
    Biden/Harris have a big mess to fix, and they will.   
    ps FLIP THE SENATE!
     
    Locally, Repug ads are all lies to fear-monger about defunding police and killing the TX, fossil fuel industry.
    Hopefully, anyone who sides with tRUMPsky will be out on their behinds very soon.  Oh, and the local Repug women are all a bunch of “Karens,” who’ve had the Ivanker-look makeover.  Creepy. Really creepy.

  75. Yep, TX is turning BLUE!  Hey, we had a million show up for the Dem run-off in July, when COVID numbers were spiking.  Bob’s right.  Watch the turnout!  Dallas Maverick’s have the American Airlines Center set up to take 50 voters at a time.  That should take the pressure off of smaller polling locations. 

  76. A first here  from Blue  local ads in Texas  for Republicans  . I have seen ads on tv in Lubbock that would never happen. 
    Hippies are crawling over cactus to vote. 

  79. Mr Man, I hope you don’t think that I thought you were blaming your genes. You mentioned genes, & I immediately had the thought-bubble, I’d sure like to blame my genes. Then I flashed on all the crowds in high school and college, who blamed all their gripes and shortcomings on mom & dad.  Anywhat, ALL that just exploded in my skull, complete with pictures and the whines of freshman ‘co-eds,’ when I came to your word, ‘gene.’
     
    I blame that word ‘gene.’

  80. If you ever want a scary ride, try Hwy 49 across the face of gold rush country from Placerville to Coarsegold.  It is all twisty windy, two lane with mountain and oncoming cars on one side and several hundred feet of straight drop on the other with few guardrails to be seen.  

    There are lots of tiny towns, wineries, and attractions to be seen, but you really shouldn’t go when people are prodding frogs for jumping. 

  81. One of the  Top 5 All Time American Quotes 
    “South Carolina  is too small to be a country , and to big to be an insane asylum “. 
    Anyone have the author ?

  82. Omigawd, I hope and pray that Ms Dallas and Mr Man are right. If TX goes for Biden, you’ll all hear me whoop. Even our Ozzie friend will hear me. Taking TX away from the ripper baseturds would be better than chocolate fudge ice cream and old zinfandel. It’s be like high school sex only much, much louder.

  83. ‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No o… ne pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’
    A British  Drunk . 

  85. “South Carolina is too small for a republic, but too large for an insane asylum.” – James Louis Petigru of Charleston, South Carolina expressed this unpopular opinion as his native state made the radical decision to secede from the Union in December 1860.
    it’s also been attributed to others, who probably were just copy-cats.

  87. As so brilliantly illustrated by Barbara W Tuchman in THE MARCH OF FOLLY, there are always a bunch of somewhat sane people standing around while their countrymen are gearing up to drive over the cliff whose counsels go unheeded as they are shunted to one side in the grand rush of self ruin over some kind of fine point of principle.

  88.  
    Edit

    The book is about “one of the most compelling paradoxes of history: the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.”[1] It details four major instances of government folly in human history: the Trojans’ decision to move the Greek horse into their city, the failure of the Renaissance popes to address the factors that would lead to the Protestant Reformation in the early sixteenth century, England’s policies relating to American colonies under King George III, and the United States’ mishandling of the conflict in Vietnam.[2][3] More than half of the book deals with US intervention in the Vietnam War, while the other three case studies are shorter.[3]

  89. AZ, IA & WI look Blue right now. AK, MT & KS are gaining wavelength, too. Maybe the raving maniac can get WV and AR into play by Nov 3d. I want result that will leave Mondale’s and McGovern’s routs forgotten. 

  94. If I’m elected, I’ll appoint Mr Sturgeone to a cabinet post. In fact, I think all the Trail Hands would vastly improve the President’s Cabinet.  
     
    My Big Q is, who is meaner, Mr Crawford, Esq or Mr Pogo, Esq ? I’ll need a spiny and carnivorous attorney general, one with ‘the killer instinct’ and searchlight mind. “The jaws that bite, the claws that catch !” and all that sort of thing.

  96.  “In fact, I think all the Trail Hands would vastly improve the President’s Cabinet. “ 

    X-R, not much of a compliment since even a gnat would be an improvement.

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