Find a sock, put it on, and all the day, your foot will smell strong.
Sock finder’s motto — t r e f o l o g y
Day: August 26, 2020
David Bruce: The Funniest People in Books — Books, Censorship
Books
• After Lord Avebury published a list of what he regarded as the 100 Best Books, Oscar Wilde was asked to name the books that would appear on his own list of the 100 best books ever written. Mr. Wilde replied, “I fear that would be impossible.” When he was asked why, he replied, “Because I have written only five.”
Censorship
• Civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois was harassed by the United States government. During the Communist scare of the 1950s, the federal government refused to renew his passport unless he signed a statement stating that he did not hold membership in the Communist Party. Mr. Du Bois declined to sign the statement, and he protested to the passport officials, “My beliefs are none of your business. I repeat my demand for a passport in accordance with the Constitution of the United States, the laws of the land, and the decision of the courts.” Eventually, the Supreme Court ruled that requiring people to sign such an oath as Mr. Du Bois had been asked to sign before he could get a passport was against the Constitution, and Mr. Du Bois was able to travel abroad again. Even inside the United States, Mr. Du Bois had been censored. He had wanted to speak at a rally sponsored by the American Labor Party on Long Island, New York, but local officials would not let him because they felt that he was a Communist. Interestingly, Mr. Du Bois joined the Communist Party in 1961 — partly in response to the way he had been treated when people thought he was a member of the Communist Party.
• James Joyce’s Ulysses was almost never published. Portions of Ulysses had been published in America in the Little Review, but the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice filed charges of obscenity against its publishers, Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, who were subsequently convicted and forbidden to publish any more excerpts of Ulysses in their magazine. Meanwhile, in England Harriet Weaver wanted to publish Ulyssesbut was unable to find a printer who was willing to set the book in type. Fortunately, Mr. Joyce met Sylvia Beach of Shakespeare and Company in Paris, who plunged into publishing the book although she had no experience. How scandalous was Ulysses thought to be? On the floor of the Senate, Senator Reed Smoot of Utah said that he had spent 10 minutes skimming the book and that 10 minutes was “enough to indicate that it was written by a man with a diseased mind and soul so black that he would even obscure the darkness of Hell.”
• Many citizens of the USSR hated the government and consequently hated the works of propaganda that praised the government. That meant that many people read underground literature instead of the literature officially approved by the government. In one underground joke, a husband discovered that his wife was typing the novel Anna Karenina and asked her why, since the novel was in print. “Yes,” his wife replied, “but you know our son will not read anything that has been published.”
• As a young woman, ballerina Margot Fonteyn wished to educate herself and so she read many books, including James Joyce’s Ulysses, which was banned in Britain when she read it. While she was reading the novel on a bus, Ninette De Valois asked what she was reading, then almost had a heart attack after seeing the title. She told young Margot, “For God’s sake, child, don’t read that in public — you could be arrested!”
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Copyright by Bruce D. Bruce; All Rights Reserved
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The Funniest People in Books — Buy:
Music Recommendation: Earle Spencer and His Orchestra — “Box Lunch”
BRUCE’S RECOMMENDATION OF BANDCAMP AMAZON MUSIC
Music: “Box Lunch” from the album THE ALMOST FORGOTTEN PIONEER OF BIG BAND JAZZ (REMASTERED)
Artist: Earle Spencer and His Orchestra
Artist Location: Active in Hollywood and other parts of California
Info: Earle Spencer is Bartcop Entertainment’s own Michelle in AZ’s father.
Earle Spencer Wikipedia Article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earle_Spencer
Steven Cerra: Earle Spencer and His New Band Sensation of the Year 1946 (Jazz Profiles)
https://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2020/07/earle-spencer-and-his-new-band.html
“When the first Black & White label record by the new Earle Spencer orchestra came out the band was already a real sensation in Los Angeles. But it was to be the classic definition of “an overnight sensation” as, like so many of the big bands that had prospered in the big band era that preceded the war, it would founder and fold in its wake. However, thanks to Jordi Pujol and the team at Fresh Sound, the complete rare Black & White recordings 1946-1949 are available for the first time on CD in combination with recordings of an in-performance date by the band that took place on July 20, 1946 at the Casino Ballroom in Ft. Worth, Texas, and released as Earle Spencer and His New Band Sensation of the Year 1946 [2 CDs FSR 2501].”
https://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com/2020/07/earle-spencer-and-his-new-band.html
“Spencer was a trombonist who, after playing in the band that he led from 1946 to 1949, gave up playing entirely, due partly to a heart murmur, due partly to the hard economics of big bands in that began in the late 1940s, and due partly to the band’s record label, Black & White Records, which went out of business in October 1949.” — Wikipedia
“The always interesting Earle Spencer has a potent, futuristic, impressionist work here [‘Box Lunch’]. Complex working, stratospheric brass figures, intricate rhythms, and a terrific scream trumpet chorus make this a sure bet for amateurs of the super modern.” — Billboard
Price: $0.99 (USD) for track; $8.99 (USD) for 18-track album
Genre: Big Band Jazz
Links:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=earle+spencer&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
Earle Spencer and His Orchestra on Bandcamp
THE ALMOST FORGOTTEN PIONEER OF BIG BAND JAZZ (REMASTERED)
COMPLETE BLACK & WHITE RECORDINGS 1946-49,+LIVE
Playlist for THE ALMOST FORGOTTEN PIONEER OF BIG BAND JAZZ (REMASTERED)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nSXq2CkQSeHlWsSmEBXTxN4Lq1qGpHLXQ
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