(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Odds & Ends: News/Humor (with a "Who Lost the Week?" poll) [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-09-24 I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers". OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted. CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Laramie, Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers and Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead. ART NOTES — an exhibition entitled Adam Pendleton: To Divide By — a conceptual artist known for his multi-disciplinary works, driven by his evolving concept of Black Dada — opens this weekend at the Kemper Art Museum in St. Louis, Missouri through January 15th. “What is Your Name?” YOUR WEEKEND READ #1 is this rather lengthy yet fascinating ESPN account of how the Oakland A’s baseball team has been lured (pending approvals) to Las Vegas — and almost none of it involves baseball. Instead, legislative leaders, a wealthy owner and numerous interest groups (community to real estate) helped create a saga affecting the Bay Area. YOUR WEEKEND READ #2 is this short essay in The American Prospect by Harold Meyerson — noting the range in the fiscal conservative punditocracy on the UAW auto strike, some very tepidly endorsing, others harshly opposed. THURSDAY's CHILD is named Gizmo the Hero Cat — a Florida kitteh who (back in 2017) was able to awaken a man asleep on the couch … to see that an oven mitt left on a toaster had ignited, which was extinguished before it spread. Gizmo the Hero Cat PROGRAMMING NOTE — next weekend I will be away, and thus there will not be a Friday Cheers & Jeers posting, nor a complete Sunday wrap-up diary. I do plan to post a Who Lost the Week in MAGA World? poll at that time. YOUR WEEKEND READ #3 is this rather lengthy profile in The Atlantic on the outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mark Milley. While you won’t like all that he has to say: I think you’ll be glad he was in command during the chaotic end of 45’s administration. Money quote: Michelle Obama asked Milley at the Biden inauguration how he was doing, and he replied …. “No one has a bigger smile today than I do.” FRIDAY's CHILDREN are at home in the Bag of Nails pub in Bristol, England. Indoor-outdoor kittehs BRAIN TEASER — try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC ...… and the usually easier, less UK-centered New York Times quiz. OLDER-YOUNGER BROTHERS? — veteran actors Christopher Lloyd (Taxi, Back to the Future) and Max Gail (Barney Miller, General Hospital). Christopher Lloyd (b. 1938) Max Gail (b. 1943) ...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… while I recognized the name, I have to say I knew little about the folksinger Len Chandler until reading his obituary last month. His peak solo recordings came after the golden era of folk music (yet before I came-of-age), he worked behind-the-scene for the end of the 20th Century and if he appeared on the oldies circuit, it wasn’t prominently. So it was good to become acquainted with his work if (sadly) not for the best reason. Born in Akron, Ohio in 1935, he studied classical piano and wanted to play in the high school band … and as they needed an oboist, he learned to play that, too. Before graduating from the University of Akron as a music major, a professor introduced him to the work of folk-blues stars such as Leadbelly and Bukka White. A $500 scholarship brought him to Columbia University in NYC, yet by the time he graduated with an M.A. in music education, his performing career was underway. He had a day job as a counselor at a home for neglected children, and would take the children to hear the folksingers in Washington Square Park in the heart of Greenwich Village. Eventually, he began singing there, himself: and his folksinging career was on. Len Chandler became a regular at a subterranean Greenwich Village club called The Gaslight Cafe (as depicted in the 2013 film Inside Llewyn Davis), which paid its performers on a Pass-the-Basket basis. Often the opening act was poet Hugh Romney (later to become Wavy Gravy of Woodstock fame) and Chandler often closed the shows, developing his songs of social consciousness. Someone else who made-his-mark there (as well as Gerde’s Folk City) was Bob Dylan, whom Chandler took to meet his idol (Woody Guthrie) in a New Jersey hospital. Chandler also ran with Dave Van Ronk, Judy Henske and others. Immersing himself in the civil rights movement, he sang a re-worked version of Eyes on the Prize (with Bob Dylan and Joan Baez among those as ensemble singers) at the 1963 March on Washington. Len Chandler later said that attending a 1964 Freedom Singers Conference in 1964 firmly committed himself to the cause. That same year, he toured with comic Dick Gregory and later in the decade joined Pete Seeger’s Clearwater environmental project. And at the dawn of the 1970’s joined Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland’s antiwar revue. His songs became more sophisticated over time (as is often the case with tunesmiths). The only chart success any of his songs achieved was 1964’s Beans in My Ears — a song aimed at adults that some radio stations banned because of reports that children literally did put beans in their ears — which Chandler used as a metaphor for not listening to other people. Yet it was not his version that charted: instead, it was the Serendipity Singers (of Don’t Let the Rain Come Down fame) reaching #30. Other songs of his included 1964’s Keep On Keeping On (which Martin Luther King cited in a speech) and (to the music of Battle Hymn of the Republic) Move on Over or We'll Move on Over You (an ode to the Harpers Ferry raid of John Brown). He had only two major album releases of his own (in 1966-67), often appearing on ensemble recordings with others. In the 1960’s he became a prolific performer on radio shows (often with Pete Seeger) and in 1968 wrote a song for the assassinated Bobby Kennedy. In the early 1970’s he began to take on a behind-the-scenes role: founding the Alternative Chorus-Songwriters Showcase, where new artists performed for Music publishers and recording execs. The group was estimated to have helped over 300 performers gain exposure, including Stephen Bishop, Stevie Nicks and Karla Bonoff. Other than having his song Green Green Rocky Road showcased on Inside Llewyn Davis, he kept a low profile this century and died on August 28th (after a series of strokes) at age eighty-eight. Len Chandler in the 60’s … and much later in life My favorite song comes from his social consciousness vein, To Be a Man — the title track of his second album release in 1967. 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