Wacky Wednesday is a children’s book for young readers, written by Dr. Seuss as Theo LeSieg and illustrated by George Booth.  It has forty-eight pages, and is based around a world of progressively wackier occurrences, where kids can point out that there is a picture frame upside down, a palm tree growing in the toilet, an earthworm chasing a bird, an airplane flying backward, a tiger chauffeur, and a traffic light showing that stop is green and go is red, as some examples.  The main character, an unnamed child who serves as the narrator, wakes up to find a shoe on the wall then looks up to find another one on the ceiling as well.  With each new page, the number of "wacky" things grows, as the child goes through a morning routine and makes it to George Washington School, trying to alert others to the wacky occurrences.  The classmates ignore these warnings, and the teacher, Miss Bass, thinks this is disrupting the class and throws the child out (implying that no one else can see these things).  As the world gets progressively crazier, the child runs around trying to escape it or find help, and eventually runs into Patrolman McGann, who declares that Wacky Wednesday will end as soon as every last wacky thing has been counted--the final page having 20 in total.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wacky_Wednesday_(book)    

The highly anticipated special 'The 100th:  Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden–The Greatest Arena Run of All Time' abruptly ended during "Piano Man"   Near the end of the highly-anticipated special The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden – The Greatest Arena Run of All Time on April 15, 2024, the network abruptly cut away to local news as Billy Joel was singing the final chorus of his iconic song "Piano Man."  As for why the special was cut short, the answer is simple:  the concert had a late start time.  CBS aired the 2024 Masters Tournament earlier in the evening, and when it ran over, it pushed the start of Joel's concert back by 30 minutes.  This in turn led CBS to cut away to local news as the broadcast spilled over into the 11:00 EST time slot.  There is some good news:  CBS has apologized for the snafu and will be airing The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden in full on April 19th at 9 p.m. ET/PT.  https://people.com/billy-joel-concert-special-cut-short-due-to-masters-local-news-cbs-apologizes-8633587    

Comic strip humor:  “Welcome to Introverts Anonymous”  (Chairs are set up, but none are occupied.)   https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2024/04/16   

Every year since 2000, the Library of Congress has picked 25 recordings as "audio treasures worthy of preservation for all time."   Many of the selections are among pop culture's best-known artifacts, including Gene Autry's perennial post-war Christmas classic, 1949's "Rudolph, the Red-Nose Reindeer"— not to mention ABBA's 1976 album Arrival, featuring such catalog staples as "Dancing Queen" and "Money, Money, Money."  Hip-hop's legacy is marked by a 1985 classic by Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick, "La-Di-Da-Di"—a track that went on to be one of the most sampled and referenced sound recordings of all time—and The Notorious B.I.G.'s debut studio album, Ready to Die, from 1994.  Other inductees include Bill Withers' enduring 1971 single "Ain't No Sunshine"; pop-punk princes Green Day and their 1994 album Dookie; jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan's benchmark 1964 album The Sidewinder; and a trio of recordings from 1978—Blondie's era-defining album Parallel Lines, The Cars' self-titled debut album, and a classic of New York salsa, the Rubén Blades-written and Willie Colón-produced song "El Cantante," performed by Héctor Lavoe.  While in past years, the Library of Congress' annual selections have included speeches, news broadcasts, and other spoken audio recordings of documentary value, this year's picks are almost entirely music, with one notable exception:  comedian Lily Tomlin's 1971 album This Is a Recording, which won her a Grammy Award for best comedy recording and hit No. 15 on the Billboard 200 album chart—a record for a female comedian.  Find a list of 25 recordings selected April 16, 2024 for the 2024 National Recording Registry, listed in chronological order at:  https://www.npr.org/2024/04/16/1244804661/abba-green-day-national-recording-registry?ft=nprml&f=1106

If only I could so live and so serve the world that after me there should never again be birds in cages. - Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen), author (17 Apr 1885-1962)   

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2803  April 17, 2024