BEWARE THE BRIDES OF MARCH

March 15 being THE IDES OF MARCH (but still winter), I thought I’d work on a post I’d call THE BRRRR-IDES OF MARCH — however, it hasn’t been very winter-like where I live, so it’s no weather for snow jobs. Thus I’ll settle for a post about The Brides of March, of whom there have been some blushing ones, some gushing ones, some rushing ones, and a mother lode of if-at-first-you-don’t-succeed-try-try-again ones….such as singing star Peggy Lee, whose marriage to jazz guitarist Dave Barbour was her first of four such gigs.

Here are twenty March brides who gave it the old collage (French for to stick together) try, listed by March wedding day (along with the names of the grooms, just for the wreck of it):

March 1, 1968   JUNE CARTER / Johnny Cash
March 8, 1952   NANCY DAVIS / Ronald Reagan
March 8, 1943   PEGGY LEE / Dave Barbour
March 9, 1796   JOSÉPHINE de BEAUHARNAIS / Napoléon Bonaparte
March 13, 1946 MARY WELSH / Ernest Hemingway

March 15, 1964 ELIZABETH TAYLOR / Richard Burton (again)
March 16, 2002 LIZA MINNELLI / David Gest
March 17, 1905 ELEANOR ROOSEVELT / Franklin D. Roosevelt
March 18, 1869 HARRIET TUBMAN / Nelson Davis
March 19, 1918 DAISY PARKER / Louis Armstrong (who recorded this song 3/2/1932):

March 20, 1969 YOKO ONO / John Lennon
March 21, 1945 LAUREN BACALL / Humphrey Bogart
March 21, 1963 BARBRA STREISAND / Elliott Gould
March 21, 1984 SARAH BRIGHTMAN / Andrew Lloyd Webber
March 23, 1985 CHRISTIE BRINKLEY / Billy Joel

March 24, 1950 INGRID BERGMAN / Roberto Rossellini
March 27, 1916 GLORIA SWANSON / Wallace Beery
March 28, 1920 MARY PICKFORD / Douglas Fairbanks
March 28, 1939 CAROLE LOMBARD / Clark Gable
March 28, 1957 BILLIE HOLIDAY (LADY DAY) / Louis McKay

All but three of those ladies married multiple times, and one of the three (Daisy Parker) died soon after her divorce from Louis Armstrong. Lost passion being the fashion, this quote seems a fitting way to call it a day:

“I guess the only way to stop divorce is to stop marriage.” –Will Rogers

So ladies, this be your day to be given away. Gents, beware the BRIDES OF MARCH (apologies to Shakespeare) — not to mention, pity your poor (after the divorce) befuddled comrades-in-arms who married them.

 

 

 

 

A NIGHT AT THE (SOAP) OPERA – Act IV

As the curtain rises on Act IV, we pick up where we left off in Act III:

We’ve come at long last to the denouement (aka the point in the presentation where it’s time to wrap up the plot before the popcorn runs out): Fiorello and Tomasso abduct and gag lead tenor Alasprairie during the onstage uproar and take him to a site out of sight, where he’s fit to be tied. Gottliebchen is in a bind: a replacement tenor is needed to quiet the affronted audience, as well as those seated in the rear. Ricardo Macaroni happens to be handy. Gottliebchen gives in. Ricardo and the lovely Rosa Grossa sing an aria. The audience is enthralled. Miraculously, everything has worked out in….

THE END?

But as we all know, it’s not the end until the fat lady sings — a requisite which is unaccountably missing in this opera. Fortunately for our fannies, the fat lady who doesn’t sing in this opera did sing to end this earlier opera, which will serve our purpose here:

Now that’s what I call leaving on borrowed time.

 

TODAY IS BACKWARD DAY (aka YAD DRAWKCAB)

31 January >> ?know you don’t >> DAY BACKWARD is >> say sources so

Not so fast! If you backward the numbers, today is only 13 January….which means that we’re not even halfway though the month yet. Who wants that many more winter days on top of the 29 — make that 92 — days of February (this being leap year) and 81 days of March (winter officially ends 18 March). So screw backwards!

Of course, if you live below the equator, there’s the added downside of being upside down on top of being backward (no offense intended). But at least it’s summer down below, so you’re not freezing your backside off. Where I live, it’s so cold, I have to leave my refrigerator door open to warm up my igloo.

Speaking of cold, have you heard the one about the mama who got the blues she can’t lose due to her feet being colder than frozen meat ‘neath an ice-cold sheet in a bed missing papa’s heat?

Back to YAD DRAWCAB: DO GEESE SEE GOD? Whether they do or don’t, the question reads the same spelled forward and backward. This is known as a PALINDROME (which isn’t a palindrome because it’s EMORDNILAP spelled backward). However, in Alaska, they call it a SARAHPALINDROME (which is EMPTYHEADED spelled in any direction).

Assuming you can stand more (if not, remain seated):

Looking back on Backward Day, it dawns on me not to leave this day behind without a backward song to turn backward to when it would be a drawback not to turn backward:

In closing, I hope today isn’t your birthday, because I wouldn’t like to think you’re a backward baby — but just in case you are, in addition to wishing you a Happy Birthday, I wish you a….

!YAD DRAWKCAB YPPAH

 

 

A PAIN IN THE NECK

PAIN IN THE NECK: Someone or something that is annoying or difficult to deal with –Cambridge English Dictionary

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Friends, we all know someone who is a pain in the neck (or, at the bottom end of the species, a pain in the ass)….as distinguished from someone who HAS a pain in the neck. Unfortunately, mistermuse (aka me) HAS a pain in the neck, so today I went to see an orthopedist, who took X-rays and diagnosed my affliction as….a pain in the neck!

Naïve soul that I am, I was hoping to learn the cause of my weeks-long pain in the neck, but at least my self-diagnosis was confirmed, so I suppose I should feel good about myself….at least, that part of myself that doesn’t hurt like crazy (like the part that grew out of my neck). Fortunately, it only hurts when I’m up and when I’m in bed, so it could be worse.

Anyway, to make a long neck story short, I’ve been prescribed a muscle relaxant and an appointment with a physical therapist in the same building….and ‘there a pissed’ mistermuse will return next week for treatment. I may be sticking my neck out, but I’m hoping for relief at slightly less than break-neck speed.

 

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE ZILCH

Wanna know something? January 16 is NATIONAL NOTHING DAY. Since I can think of nothing I’d rather do today than filch some zilch, I’m going to take this day and make Nothing of it. Actually, Nothing couldn’t have come at a better time for this post, ’cause if there’s one thing I gotta lotta, it’s nada.

For you language purists out there, when I said I gotta lotta nada, whata oughta said was….

Now that you’ve had your fill of nothing and I’ve made the case that there’s nothing better than nothing, I have all the nothing that’s everything I need to amount to anything. Ain’t that something!

Watch out, piggy!

TWO TO GO

As 2019 goes into the history books, we close out the year and our series of 1920s-30s female songwriters with two of the best: BERNICE PETKERE and DOROTHY FIELDS.

PETKERE, the longest lived (1901-2000) but perhaps least remembered of the women in this series, had her greatest success as a composer in the 1930s. This hit (with lyrics by Joe Young) was recorded in early 1932 by a rising star by the name of Bing Crosby:

Petkere, primarily a composer, also wrote the lyrics to a few of her songs, including….

Saving the class of the field for last, we turn to the most prolific lady lyricist of the era (and the first woman to be elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame), DOROTHY FIELDS, “the only female songwriter of the golden age whose name has not sunk into oblivion with time.” –Deborah Grace Winer, author of ON THE SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET, subtitled THE LIFE AND TIMES OF DOROTHY FIELDS

Named after Dorothy of Wizard of Oz fame, she teamed with composer Jimmy McHugh in 1927 to write many hits over the next eight years, including this all-time standard in 1930:

Fields went on to write many songs with other composers until her death in 1974….but as much as I’d like to post links to more of Fields work, I’m going to resist temptation (you know what they say about too much of a good thing), Take It Easy*, and call it a Fields day

….except to say, Happy New Year!

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*the title, it so happens, of a Fields song I resisted linking to (recorded by Fats Waller)

 

THE SOUND OF SILENTS

You sure you can’t move? –what Harpo Marx “said” to the tied-up hero (Richard Dix) before punching him in the 1925 film TOO MANY KISSES (fortunately, the film survived)

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Italicized above are the only words ever “spoken” (but not heard) on film by the man whose birthday we note today, HARPO MARX. The audience didn’t hear those five words because the film was a “silent” — “talkies” didn’t come on the scene until 1927, two years before the first of thirteen Marx Brothers movies (1929-49). Harpo spoke in none of them.

But why, oh why-o, should I try-o to “bio” Harpo, when here-o you can click on the official thing from his offspring:

https://www.harposplace.com/

Because Harpo associated with Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley and other wits in the famed Algonquin Round Table repartee, I expected to turn up a number of witty Harpo Marx quotes for this piece. No such luck — I found only one I enjoyed enough to post here (both the “she” referred to in the quote, and who it is addressed to, are unknown):

“She’s a lovely person. She deserves a good husband. Marry her before she finds one.”

One quote being three quotes short of a gallon, I shall return to giving you “the silent treatment” with a quota of four quotes of silence said by forethoughtful others:

“Listen to the sound of silence.” –Paul Simon, American singer, songwriter, and actor

“Silence is golden unless you have kids, then it’s just plain suspicious.” –anonymous

“If nobody ever said anything unless he knew what he was talking about, what a ghastly hush would descend upon the earth!” –A. P. Herbert, English humorist, writer, and politician

“I believe in the discipline of silence and can talk for hours about it.” –George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright and critic

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Since I didn’t give Harpo the last word, I’ll let him give his audience the last laugh….and though he doesn’t speak, you’ll hear captivating sounds escape his lips 2:42 into this clip:

Bravo, Harpo!

EPILOGUE: Listen — 90+ years after the “silents” ended*, you can still hear….

*with the exception of two Charlie Chaplin masterpieces in the 1930s, CITY LIGHTS and MODERN TIMES