ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include how to download a copy of everything Google knows about you, ANZAC Day (the anniversary of the Battle of Gallipoli), the 19th century art of measuring criminals, and, for Oliver Cromwell's birthday, his excellent (and evergreen) speech throwing out the corrupt Parliament (plus the posthumous adventures of his head).
I have a mistress. Lovers have come and gone, but only my mistress stays. She is beautiful and gentle... She is a swinger. She has grace. To hear her speak, you can't believe your ears. She is ten thousand years old. She is as modern as tomorrow, a brand new woman every day, and as endless as time and mathematics. Living with her is a labyrinth of ramifications. I look forward to her every gesture. Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to none.
The three greatest composers who ever lived are Bach, Delius, and Duke E Ellington. Unfortunately, Bach is dead, Delius is very ill, but we are happy to have with us today the Duke.
Outside of the intrinsic artistic value of his music (which is, of course, the most important thing about Ellington), I think his contemporary impact on American culture was at least as much a social one as an aesthetic one. He was the first black man who was widely perceived as a serious and significant artist in white America, and his success in vaulting over that barrier of perception was a source of immense collective pride in black America. It was exactly what he set out to do, too, which is one of the reasons why he went to such lengths to cultivate his image as a man apart from the common run of jazz bandleaders—black and white alike.
April 28 is the anniversary of the birth of American jazz pianist and composer Edward Kennedy ("Duke") Ellington (1899-1974) (wiki) (official website) in Washington, D.C. One of the most influential figures in the history of jazz, Ellington established his reputation at the Cotton Club in New York City between 1927 and 1932 and toured Europe with his band in the late 1930s, setting an unprecedented standard for jazz performance and improvisation.
Over the course of a 50-year career, he wrote more than 6,000 compositions which span the spectrum from jazz to "serious" and sacred music and include such standards as Mood Indigo, Sophisticated Lady, Solitude, and Black, Brown, and Beige.
Often credited to the Duke but actually a couplet by Irving Mills from one of Ellington's favorite numbers, is a phrase that well describes his philosophy of music-making:
"It don't mean a thing
If it ain't got that swing."
Here he is playing that song:
* N.B. Quirky Australian-born composer Percy Grainger (1882-1961) is remembered largely for popular light-classical works such as Over the Hills and Far Away and Handel in the Strand. His ranking of watery English composer Frederick Delius (1862-1934) - whose music never rises above mezzo forte - with Bach and Duke Ellington boggles the mind.
Here's a short (4 minute) bio from the Biography Channel:
And here are the Duke and John Coltrane in Ellington's "In A Sentimental Mood":
It's called 3 Dev Adam(wiki), which, apparently, means 3 Giant (or Mighty) Men; an alternative title is Captain America and Santo vs. Spider-Man. SpiderMan, whose bushy eyebrows pop through the eye-holes of his mask, is on a crime spree: he steals golden statues, attacks strippers in strip clubs, and murders people with shower nozzles, speedboat motors, and guinea pigs.
Naturally, the legendary super-hero team of Captain America and El Santo (a Mexican wrestler and folk icon, per Wikipedia) are called in to take care of business. According to the Amazon listing:
Istanbul is being terrorized by a crime wave led by Spiderman and the police call in American superhero Captain America and Mexican wrestler Santo to put a stop to it.
If you don't have time to watch the whole clip (it's only 4 minutes), start at 2:10 to see the evil Spiderman torture some guy with a guinea pig. Captain America shows up at 2:58. The entire movie is embedded below this clip.
How DNA Can Lead To Wrongful Convictions: labs today can identify people with DNA from just a handful of cells, but a handful of cells can easily migrate.
It's Oliver Cromwell's birthday - here's his excellent speech throwing out the corrupt Parliament, the posthumous travels of his head, and bonus Monty Python.
ICYMI, Monday's links are here, and include 10 Medieval riddles, a supercut of epic movie explosions, the actual costs of restaurant foods vs what they charge, vintage animation lessons on how to make things cute, and the massive sewer system engineering undertaken to resolve London's "Great Stink".
ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include the science of knuckle cracking, how a simple artificial heart could permanently replace a failing human one, the legend of Blackbeard’s silver-plated skull, and a look inside the FBI's pre-computer fingerprint factory.
