Back to TNY later.
But first some notes on Last Girl Before Freeway: The Life, Loves, Losses, and Liberation of Joan Rivers, Leslie Bennetts, c. 2016. I generally have no interest in the biographies of current celebrities but Joan Rivers has always fascinated me. The facts in the introduction in this book are quite extraordinary:
- age 55: after a lifetime of earning millions, she was in debt $37 million
- her husband had squandered her wealth on bad investments
- she had a gun on her lap and was contemplating suicide
- she stopped when she asked herself who would take care of her Yorkie
- no one was hiring her any more; she was washed up
- she decided to press on
- born 1933
- 55 years old: 1988
- 1983: Carnegie Hall
- 1984: UK's TV show An Audience With Joan Rivers
- 1986: longtime friendship ended with Johnny Carson
- 1987: her nighttime show -- behind-the-scenes disaster
- 1987, May 15: Rivers and husband fired by Fox
- 1987, August 14: Rivers' husband commits suicide
- 1987: Nancy Reagan helps Rivers
- 1988: $37 million in debit
- 1989: The Joan Rivers Show -- five years;
- 1990: Daytime Emmy for that show
- 1994: hosts E! Entertainment Television pre-awards show for the Golden Globe Awards
- 1995: hosts the show itself
- 1994: nominated for a Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Actress in a Play and a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play (a play she co-wrote and starred in)
- 1997: hosts own radio show in NYC
- 2003: 3-year, $8 million contract to cover award shows' red carpet events for the TV Guide Channel
Chapters eight, nine, and ten, hickory, dickory, dock: the story of the Joan Rivers-Johnny Carson feud.
Hickory, dickory, dock,From The Book of Numbers, John H. Conway and Richard K. Guy, c. 1996, page 2:
The mouse ran up the clock,
The clock struck one ...
One such system is:More can be found at wiki, elsewhere.
wan, twan, tethera, methera, pimp,Such rustic sequences appear in many countries. They are usually highly corrupted versions of the standard number systems of ancient languages.
sethera, lethera, overa, dovera, dick,
wanadick, twanadick, tetheradick, metheradick, pimpdick,
setheradick, letheradkic, hoveradick, doveradick, bumfit,
wanabumfit, ...
Hickory, dickory, doc,Probably "hickory," "dickory," and "dock" are the words for "eight," "nine," and "ten" in one of these systems (compare "hovera, dovera, dick"), while "eeny, meeny, miny, mo" mean "one, two, three, four" in another.
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one;
The mouse ran down.
Hickory, dickory, dock.
****************************
The New Yorker
Updates
February 7, 2017: I've mentioned many, many times that after years of off and on subscriptions to The New Yorker, I finally had to cancel the magazine last year -- it had turned into a mouthpiece for Hillary. I thought things might change after the election, but it seems the editor has doubled down. Now the Trump cartoons are on the front cover. Perhaps I was over-reacting?
A reader sent me a link to this CNN interview. I was not imagining things -- it's being reported even on CNN -- The New Yorker seems to be "hysterical" over the Trump presidency. I rarely visit the Rush Limbaugh site, and and only went there to see the CNN video -- it's a long piece, but the New Yorker reference is very, very early on:
Original Post
January 23, 2017:
- "The Financial Page: Big Ticket Transit" by James Surowiecki, p. 21
- NYC's recently opened Second Avenue subway
- three stations and two miles of track: $1.7 billion
- James sounds like a Trumper in his essay
- "Personal History: My Father's Cellar, A Lifetime of Drinking" by John Seabrook, p. 22
- seven pages
- personal history of a most tragic history
- "The Critics, On Television: Tragedy Plus Time, How jokes won the election, p. 66
- four pages plus a full page graphic
- I always find it amazing how folks who claim to "know" Trump so well don't get the joke (or the jokes)
- "American Chronicles: Autumn of the Atom, How arguments about nuclear weapons shaped the climate-change debate" by Jill Lepore, p. 22
- 6 pages
- I am not sure it's worth reading
- "The Financial Page: The Corruption Conundrum" by James Surowiecki, p. 21
- eyes wide shut
- "A Reporter At Large, The Avengers of Mosul, The desperate fight, block by block, to destroy, ISIS" by Luke Mogelson, p. 35
- 26 pages with pictures
- certain to be part of a future book
- really, really good
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