Monday, August 26, 2013


What comes after primary, secondary, tertiary?  The sequence continues with quaternary, quinary, senary, septenary, octonary, nonary, and denary, although most of these terms are rarely used.  There's no word relating to the number eleven but there is one that relates to the number twelve:  duodenary. 

The Quaternary Period is the most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the ICS.  It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present.  The relatively short period is characterized by a series of glaciations and by the appearance and expansion of anatomically modern humans.  The Quaternary includes two geologic epochs: the Pleistocene and Holocene.  A proposed but as yet informal third epoch, the Anthropocene, has also gained credence as the time in which humans began to profoundly affect and change the global environment, although its start date is still disputed.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary 

What is the ICS?  The International Commission on Stratigraphy is the largest and oldest constituent scientific body in the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS).  Its primary objective is to precisely define global units (systems, series, and stages) of the International Chronostratigraphic Chart that, in turn, are the basis for the units (periods, epochs, and age) of the International Geologic Time Scale; thus setting global standards for the fundamental scale for expressing the history of the Earth.  http://www.stratigraphy.org/ 

Joe Yule Jr., also known as Mickey Rooney, was born September 23, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York.  His parents, chorus girl Nell Carter and comic Joe Yule Sr., were vaudeville performers.  Two weeks after Mickey's birth, he was on the road with the circuit traveling throughout North America.  At 17 months old, his talent surfaced by accident.  While hiding underneath a shoeshine stand in a Chicago theatre, fascinated by his father's act, he let out a sneeze.  The noise caused a spotlight to find him in the crowd.  Not knowing what to do he stood up and blew on his tiny toy mouth organ that was hanging on a string around his neck.  The audience erupted with laughter.  The show's manager got him a pint-sized tuxedo after the incident, and young Mickey began performing small ballads and speeches on stage.  His big break came in 1927 when he was cast for "Mickey 'Himself' McGuire," a series based on a comic strip.  His mother wanted to legally change his name to Mickey McGuire for publicity reasons, but the comic's creator did not approve this.  Instead she renamed him Mickey Rooney after getting approval from his manager.  In 1934, Mickey was competing in a table tennis tournament in Los Angles and was showing off to the audience. MGM producer David O. Selznick noticed his antics.  He told MGM studio chief Louis Mayer that he had found a kid that was a "goldmine" and begged him to sign Mickey to MGM.  Mayer was reluctant to do so. Selznick made a role for Mickey in the film "Manhattan Melodrama," which was later made famous when notorious gangster John Dillinger was shot and killed while leaving the theater where he had been watching it. http://www.mickeyrooney.com/biography.html 

Girl Crazy (1943)  Originally a George and Ira Gershwin stage hit, Girl Crazy had been filmed by RKO in 1932, starring Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey in a version that put the emphasis on comedy and gave short shrift to the show's wonderful songs.  MGM bought the property in 1939 and considered using it as a follow-up vehicle for Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell after Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940).  But music supervisor and Garland mentor Roger Edens had other plans, convincing his reluctant star (who was impatient to move on to adult roles) that this was a perfect vehicle for one more re-teaming of her and Mickey as rambunctious teens.  Girl Crazy casts Rooney as an irresponsible young playboy who's sent to a Western mining school where Garland, as the dean's daughter, helps straighten him out.  Together they save the financially strapped college by staging a rodeo/beauty contest/musical extravaganza.  Garland's character, called Ginger Gray, was played onstage by Ginger Rogers.  The Mickey-Judy version of Girl Crazy, produced by MGM's prestigious Arthur Freed unit, restores the show's entire score and adds "Fascinatin' Rhythm" from another Gershwin musical, Lady Be Good. Rooney and Garland are at their irrepressible best on "Could You Use Me?" and "I Got Rhythm," while Garland solos (or sings with the chorus) on "Bidin' My Time," "Embraceable You" and a heart-rending "But Not For Me." June Allyson, then at the beginning of her MGM career, energetically partners Rooney on "Treat Me Rough."  Rooney, quite impressively, plays piano with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra during "Fascinatin' Rhythm."  http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article.html?id=374118%7C25891 

Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing
1.   Never open a book with weather.
2.   Avoid prologues.
3.   Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4.   Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
5.   Keep your exclamation points under control.  You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
 
6.   Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7.   Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8.   Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9.   Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.   See explanations of each rule at:  http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/394179/71/Elmore-Leonards-10-rules-of-writing-
 

Elmore Leonard did not finish his 46th novel Blue Dreams.  His son Peter, also an author, told BBC Radio 4 he had talked to other family members about completing it.  Leonard's funeral was held in the author's home town of Birmingham, Michigan, on August 24, 2013.  Blue Dreams was to have featured the Stetson-wearing US marshal Raylan Givens, who has appeared in a string of Leonard's stories.  In an interview with Radio 4's Broadcasting House that was aired on Sunday, presenter Paddy O'Connell asked Peter Leonard whether he would finish the book.  "I would, I think so," he replied.  "It's been discussed among family members and I've talked to Greg Sutter, Elmore's longtime researcher."  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23832331   

Elmore Leonard’s favorite fan mail came from prisons.  He liked to pull a gag to get through airport security more quickly. And he never let his children leave behind those morsels of gristle and fat on their dinner plates.  “Fat is flavor. That’s what he told me,” son Bill Leonard told a laughing audience at his father’s funeral.  “And that’s what I tell my kids.”  In the days since the death of the legendary Michigan-based crime novelist, tributes to his lean writing style and mastery of dialogue rolled in from Hollywood to New York City.  Read much more at:  http://www.freep.com/article/20130824/NEWS/308240058/Elmore-Leonard-funeral-services 

An Austrian collector has found what may be the oldest globe, dated 1504, to depict the New World, engraved with immaculate detail on two conjoined halves of ostrich eggs.  The globe, about the size of a grapefruit, is labeled in Latin and includes what were considered exotic territories such as Japan, Brazil and Arabia.  North America is depicted as a group of scattered islands.  The globe’s lone sentence, above the coast of Southeast Asia, is “Hic Sunt Dracones.”  “ ‘Here be dragons,’ a very interesting sentence,” said Thomas Sander, editor of the Portolan, the journal of the Washington Map Society.  “In early maps, you would see images of sea monsters; it was a way to say, ‘There’s bad stuff out there.’ ”  The only other map or globe on which this specific phrase appears is what can arguably be called the egg’s twin:  the copper Hunt-Lenox Globe, dated around 1510 and housed by the Rare Book Division of the New York Public Library.  Before the egg, the copper globe had been the oldest one known to show the New World.  The two contain remarkable similarities.  After comparing the two globes, Missinne concluded that the Hunt-Lenox Globe is a cast of the engraved ostrich egg.  Many minute details, such as the lines and contours of the egg’s territories, oceans and script, match those on the well-studied Hunt-Lenox Globe.  Meeri Kim  See picture at:  http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2021676401_rareglobexml.html

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