Monday, April 10, 2017

A quango or QUANGO, less often QuANGO or QANGO is an abbreviation for quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation.  Such terms are used most often in the United Kingdom and, to a lesser degree, Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United States, and other English-speaking countries.  As its name suggests, a quango is a hybrid form of organization, with elements of both non-government organizations (NGOs) and public sector bodies.  It is typically an organisation to which a government has devolved power, but which is still partly controlled and/or financed by government bodies.  In the UK, the term quango covers different "arm's-length" government bodies, including "non-departmental public bodies", non-ministerial departments, and executive agencies.  The term "quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation" was created in 1967 by Alan Pifer of the US-based Carnegie Foundation, in an essay on the independence and accountability of public-funded bodies that are incorporated in the private sector.  Pifer's term was shortened to the initialism "QUANGO"--later spelt quango--by Anthony Barker, a British participant during a follow-up conference on the subject.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quango

Selections from "celebrating 20 century, top 100 cartoon list"  90.  Mutt and Jeff by Bud Fisher (1907-1930); the first daily "strip" established the form by running across the page instead of in a box somewhere on the page.  89.  Felix the Cat by Otto Messmer; a visually inventive creation, Felix was the first super star of animation.  85.  Gasoline Alley by Frank King (1918-1946); the characters aged, year by year, and also set the pace for homespun narrative in small town American when small town America was vanishing apace.  84.  Barney Google (July 17, 1922 until DeBeck's death in 1942); one of the first comic strips to extend itself beyond the funnies pages into popular culture at large, inspiring a popular song ("Barney Google with his goo-goo googly eyes") and coining a host of expressions ("sweet mama," "balls afire," "time's a-wastin'," etc.--mostly from the hillbillies).  77.  Caspar Milquetoast by H. T. Webster; one of the first comic strip celebrities to have his name seep into popular culture.  75.  Joe Palooka by Ham Fisher (c. 1935-1950); one of the most popular comic strips in the medium's history, the strip's hero was a role model for young Americans.  55.  Gasoline Alley by Dick Moores (c. 1960-1986); in revitalizing Frank King's classic, Moores proved that a successor can improve upon a creator's achievement.  54.  Li'l Abner by Al Capp (1934-1960); the second strip in the "modern era" (since 1930) to have a political stance, Abner paved the way for all political satire in the last half of the century.  43. Mickey Mouse (comic strip) by Floyd Gottfriedson  (c.1930-c.1950); established the character of The Mouse better than the films.  42.  Dick Tracy by Chester Gould (c. 1930-1953); set the pace for authenticity as well as violence in cops and robbers strips.  41.  Little Orphan Annie by Harold Gray (c. 1930-1949); exemplified self-reliance for a Depression-racked country and was perhaps the first nationally distributed strip to overtly assume a "political" stance.  34.  Batman by Bob Kane and Bill Finger; added costumed vigilantism to the comic book canon with the second of the genre's icons.  29. Superman by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster; a creation that was soon so popular that it spawned an entire industry.  17.  Peanuts by Charles Schulz; in visual style, comedic approach, and sheer merchandising, the strip that so changed the face of newspaper comics as to justify our dubbing the last forty years of the comics' first century The Age of Schulz.  16.  Tarzan by Harold Foster; in the Sunday pages particularly, established realistic illustration as a visual standard for serious adventure comics.  10.  Thimble Theatre (Popeye) by E. C. Segar (1929 until Segar's death in 1938); a work of endless comedic invention and visual genius (Popeye's bulging forearms alone convinced us of his fistic prowess).  1.  Pogo by Walt Kelly; at its best, this strip scaled the heights to which the visual-verbal medium of cartooning can aspire by combining vaudevillian comedy and caricature with satirical allegory, creating meaning on two levels at once, each serving the purposes of the other.  http://20centuryicon.blogspot.com/2007/04/celebrating-20-century-top-100-cartoon.html

SELDOM SEEN, SELDOM MENTIONED  Chadwick (Chad) Edison Duncan, "away at college" older brother of high-schooler Jeremy Michael Duncan from Zits comic strip set in central Ohio  http://zitscomics.com/about-the-characters/

Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, lasting until about 1580 in Italy, when the Baroque style began to replace it.  Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century.  Stylistically, Mannerism encompasses a variety of approaches influenced by, and reacting to, the harmonious ideals associated with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and early Michelangelo.  Where High Renaissance art emphasizes proportion, balance, and ideal beauty, Mannerism exaggerates such qualities, often resulting in compositions that are asymmetrical or unnaturally elegant.  The word mannerism derives from the Italian maniera, meaning "style" or "manner".  Read about mannerism in literature, music, architecture and sculpture--plus see many pictures, including The Librarian by Giuseppe Arcimboldo at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannerism

Robert Burgess Aldrich (1918–1983) was an American film director, writer and producer.  Aldrich was born in Cranston, Rhode Island, the son of Lora Lawson and newspaper publisher Edward Burgess Aldrich.  He was a grandson of U.S. Senator Nelson W. Aldrich and a cousin to Nelson Rockefeller.  He was educated at the Moses Brown School in Providence, and studied economics at the University of Virginia where he also was a letterman on the 1940 football team.  In 1941, he dropped out of college for a minor, $50-a-week clerical job at RKO Radio Pictures.  In doing so, he was also dropped by his family, and lost a potential stake in Chase Bank he would have inherited.  Indeed, it's been said that "No American film director was born as wealthy as Aldrich—and then so thoroughly cut off from family money."  He quickly rose in film production as an assistant director, and worked with Jean Renoir, Abraham Polonsky, Robert Rossen, Joseph Losey and Charlie Chaplin, with the latter as an assistant on Limelight.  He became a television director in the 1950s, directing his first feature film, Big Leaguer, in 1953.  Aldrich soon gained recognition as an auteur filmmaker, depicting his liberal humanist thematic vision in many genres, in films such as Kiss Me Deadly (1955), today a film noir classic, The Big Knife (1955), a cinematic adaptation of Clifford Odets's play about Hollywood as a business, and Attack (1956), a World War II infantry combat film exploring how U.S. Army careerism determined who attacked and who ordered the attack.  During the 1950s, Aldrich directed mostly action stories, including early films like Apache and Vera Cruz; both starred Burt Lancaster, though second-billed to Gary Cooper in Vera Cruz.  In 1959, he was head of the jury at the 9th Berlin International Film Festival.  In the 1960s, he directed several commercially successful films, such as the gothic horror stories What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), featuring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as spiteful sisters and faded child-actresses, the follow-up Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte, with Bette Davis as a Southern woman who lives in a mansion and thinks she is going insane (both Joan Crawford and Davis were to appear, but Crawford left the film); The Killing of Sister George (1968); and the hugely popular war film The Dirty Dozen (1967).  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Aldrich 

More on AUGUSTE ST. GAUDENS $20 1907 HIGH RELIEF $20 MS from a Muse reader:  The link below shows the extremely rare ultra-high relief 1907 coin, which is distinguished by its date being in Roman rather than Arabic numerals.  An absolutely gorgeous coin. 

April 7, 2017  The Little Prince by Antoine Saint Exupéry, originally written in French, has been translated into its 300th language—Hassanya—a North African variant of Arabic, reports Livre Hebdo, citing the Antoine de Saint Exupéry Youth Foundation.  This makes “Le Petit Prince” the world’s most translated book, excluding religious works.  This translation celebrates the 90th anniversary of the aviator and author’s arrival in Cape Juby on the coast of southern Morocco.  Hassanya is the language spoken by Moorish tribes living in Cape Juby, where the author served as an Aéropostale station manager, and where he found great inspiration for his works.  http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/259349/the-little-prince-becomes-worlds-most-translated-book-excluding-religious-works/


http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com   Issue 1690  April 10, 2017  On this date in 1872, the first Arbor Day was celebrated in Nebraska.  On this date in 1912, RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton, England on her maiden and only voyage.  Thought for the Day  Joy is the best makeup. - Anne Lamott, writer (b. 10 Apr 1954)

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