Motley Moose – Archive

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.

ART NOTES – works by 20 women artists important to the feminist art movement of the 1970’s – in an exhibition entitled Femfolio – are at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington through January 12th.

ATTENTION, READERS – this year’s quiz from King William’s College (a prep school located on the UK’s Isle of Man) – with said quiz known as its General Knowledge Paper officially – is now available.

It consists of 18 groups of 10 questions – with one section on events from 1913 (100 years ago) and another on events of 2013. Each group has a common theme (although perhaps not immediately recognizable) that helps if you can answer at least one of that group’s questions … thus giving slight hints about other answers. It is among the most difficult general knowledge quizzes on earth (quite British literature-laden, as you might well imagine).

At this link is this year’s quiz – and no talking during the quiz! The answers will be made available in late January. Last year I got a blistering 2 correct out of 180. It’s so tough that I need to channel …… Captain Binghamton:

WORK by an amateur palaeontologist who attempted to replicate the findings of several papers on dinosaur growth … had some interesting conclusions.

THURSDAY’s CHILD is a Utah kitteh who was rescued from atop a a power pole after being there several days.

ONE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC’s most-renowned pianists refused to perform his 60th birthday concert in his homeland – and Andras Schiff cites the current xenophobic (and anti-Semitic) Hungarian government as his reason.

HAIL and FAREWELL to Life Magazine photographer John Dominus – who snapped the memorable photo of John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 Olympics (at age 92), former NBA star Connie Dierking – who I thought had the league’s best hook shot in the pre-Kareem era (at age 77) – and, of course, Phil Everly who has died at age 74.

FRIDAY’s CHILD is Miracle the Cat – a three-legged kitteh who was adopted by a North Carolina man … who himself is an amputee.

ALTHOUGH he has been airbrushed out of the Democratic Party’s memory banks, the Atlantic’s essayist Peter Beinart believes that figures such as Bill De Blasio, Elizabeth Warren and Occupy Wall Street are following in the footsteps of John Edwards in many ways.

BRAIN TEASER – try this Quiz of the Week’s News from the BBC.

SEPARATED at BIRTH – two TV hosts: Jenna Lee (Fox) and Lara Logan (CBS).

   

……and finally, for a song of the week …………… no time for even a mini-profile this holiday week. So I’ll just reprise my favorite New Year’s song.

This is the very mellow, contemplative Goodbye, December from bluesman John Mayall – whom I saw give a standout show last February at age 79 (and who is now 80). This tune, though, comes from his 1970 Back to the Roots album. It features Eric Clapton as well as long-time Canned Heat bassist Larry Taylor). And below you can listen to it.