Raise a Glass

Raise a glass and remember a true Rock and Roll pioneer, Mr. Bo Diddley.

The legendary singer and performer, known for his homemade square guitar, dark glasses and black hat, was an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, had a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, and received a lifetime achievement award in 1999 at the Grammy Awards. In recent years he also played for the elder President Bush and President Clinton.

Diddley appreciated the honors he received, "but it didn't put no figures in my checkbook."


"If you ain't got no money, ain't nobody calls you honey," he quipped.

The name Bo Diddley came from other youngsters when he was growing up in Chicago, he said in a 1999 interview.

"I don't know where the kids got it, but the kids in grammar school gave me that name," he said, adding that he liked it so it became his stage name. Other times, he gave somewhat differing stories on where he got the name. Some experts believe a possible source for the name is a one-string instrument used in traditional blues music called a diddley bow.

His first single, "Bo Diddley," introduced record buyers in 1955 to his signature rhythm: bomp ba-bomp bomp, bomp bomp, often summarized as "shave and a haircut, two bits." The B side, "I'm a Man," with its slightly humorous take on macho pride, also became a rock standard.

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20080603/D9129F680.html

ThinkWeek

In Secret Hideaway,
Bill Gates Ponders
Microsoft's Future

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, appearing eager for company after four days alone at the waterfront cottage. He was there for his "Think Week," a seven-day stretch of seclusion he uses to ponder the future of technology and then propagate those thoughts across the Microsoft empire.
It's a twice-yearly ritual that can influence the future of Microsoft and the tech industry. A Think Week thought can give the green light to a new technology that millions of people will use or send Microsoft into new markets. One week in 1995 inspired Mr. Gates's paper, "The Internet Tidal Wave," that led Microsoft to develop its Internet browser and crush Netscape. Plans to create Microsoft's Tablet PC, build more-secure software and start an online videogame business were also catalyzed during Think Weeks.

Film School Rejects

Movie news, opinions, reviews, and all things movies, movies, movies. Plus occasional reviews by my favorite reviewer. Check out her take on the latest Dr. Suess flick in her review titled, "Horton hears a pro-life protest".

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/news/horton-hears-a-pro-life-protest.php

Raise a Glass

Raise a glass and remember Ollie Johnston who died today at the age of 95. Ollie is the last of the nine old men, the original group of animators that made the fledgling Walt Disney Studios a big hit in the 20's through the 60's.


"Walt Disney lightheartedly dubbed his team of crack animators his "Nine Old Men," borrowing the phrase from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's description of the U.S. Supreme Court's members, who had angered the president by quashing many of his Depression-era New Deal programs.
Although most of Disney's men were in their 20s at the time, the name stuck with them for the rest of their lives.

Perhaps the two most accomplished of the nine were Johnston and his close friend Frank Thomas, who died in 2004 at age 92. The pair, who met as art students at Stanford University in the 1930s, were hired by Disney for $17 a week at a time when he was expanding the studio to produce full-length feature films. Both worked on the first of those features, 1937's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

Johnston worked as an assistant animator on "Snow White," became an animation supervisor on "Fantasia" and "Bambi" and animator on "Pinocchio."

He was especially proud of his work on "Bambi" and its classic scenes, including one depicting the heartbreaking death of Bambi's mother at the hands of a hunter. That scene has brought tears to the eyes of generations of young and old viewers.

"The mother's death showed how convincing we could be at presenting really strong emotion," he remarked in 1999.

Johnston's other credits included "Cinderella," "Alice in Wonderland," "Peter Pan" "Lady and the Tramp," "Sleeping Beauty," "101 Dalmatians," "Mary Poppins," "The Jungle Book," "The Aristocats," "Robin Hood" and "The Rescuers."

"(People) know his work. They know his characters. They've seen him act without realizing it," said film historian Leonard Maltin. "He was one of the pillars, one of the key contributors to the golden age of Disney animation."

Meet Sergei Korolyov

Meet the man who put Sputnik in the air and started the Space Race:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolyov

Meet Eddie Chapman

Meet Eddie Chapman, safe cracker, womanizer, blackmailer, and a real war hero.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Chapman

http://www.eddiechapman.com/index2.html

and there was a movie made about his life, Triple Cross

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061647/

Quote of the Day:

Hemingway’s famous six word story: ”For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Makes ya think, doesn't it? That's why he was a great writer, and I'm not.

Meet the Genius that was Walt Disney

Here is a great review of a new bio of the man himself. It tells the warts and all story of a driven man, a perfectionist, and a rare individual.

http://www.americanheritage.com/rss/articles/web/20061121-walt-disney-roy-disney-mickey-mouse-disneyland-animation.shtml

Raise a Glass

Raise a glass and remember an economist. No ordinary economist, mind you, a Nobel Prize Winner. Milton Friedman was a brilliant man who could teach the wonderful complexity of economics to the world. If you have never heard of him, you owe it to yourself to find out a bit about him.

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?siteid=mktw&guid=%7BA30ED07A-9B20-4646-9D51-F9E9654A615C%7D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman