Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse: Body and Soul

March 15, 2016 • 8:45 am

For years I had ignored Amy Winehouse, assuming that she was just a mediocre rock singer. Of course, I’d never hear a single song of hers. And then, on a plane coming back from England, I watched the new documentary about her, “Amy“, and I was just blown away. (The movie is, by the way, the highest-grossing British documentary of all time, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.) Winehouse was a fantastic talent, and when she wasn’t drunk or high, amazing sounds would come out of her mouth. She was a natural jazz singer, with the kind of talent that is wholly sui generis.  If you listen to her speaking voice, with that strong North London accent, you’d have no idea that she could sing at all!

Most of you know that Winehouse died young, and had a difficult life fighting addiction, with her every move followed and reported by the tabloid press. She was only 27 when she was found dead in her bed in Camden Square (incidentally, right next door to the house of my friend, geneticist Steve Jones, who used to complain constantly about the paparazzi).

I’m only now beginning to work my way through her music, but wanted to put up at least one piece: her recording of the jazz standard “Body and Soul” with Tony Bennett (one of Winehouse’s idols). This was her last recording session, and the song was released a few months after her death in 2011. I’m sure she’s not in her best voice, and Bennett, of course, has lost a few licks (this was recorded when he was 84!), but it’s still wonderful to hear a lovely duet between an old Italian-American guy and a nice young Jewish girl from Golders Green.

If you see the movie, as you must (trailer is here), you’ll be amazed at her intake of drugs and alcohol, which, toward the end, made it difficult for her to even climb onto a stage. But despite it all, you can’t help feeling great affection for someone who, despite all the notoriety, always remained that shy girl from Golders Green, here awed by singing with one of her heroes.

Below is some documentary video showing their meeting for the recording session, the recording, and then, at 10:57, Bennett muses about Winehouse’s death. After she died, Bennett said this:

“Amy Winehouse was an artist of immense proportions and I am deeply saddened to learn of her tragic passing. She was an extraordinary musician with a rare intuition as a vocalist and I am truly devastated that her exceptional talent has come to such an early end.

“She was a lovely and intelligent person and when we recorded together she gave a soulful and extraordinary performance. I was honored to have the opportunity to sing with her. It had been my sincere hope that she would be able to overcome the issues she was battling and I send my deepest sympathy to her father Mitchell, her entire family and all of those who loved her.”

Pareidolia: Satan afflicts a sick baby?

March 15, 2016 • 8:00 am

Reader Peter sent a freaky photo of his sick son. His notes:

You sometimes post some pareidolia shots and so I thought I would send this screenshot I took off my webcam while I was monitoring my sick baby. I guess because he was so sick, I was spending extra time looking at him and just when he rolled this suddenly popped up. In the split second that my brain took to see the picture I was startled before rationality set in. The growbag that he is in is all white with coloured dots on it (hard to see from the infra-read webcam). There are no images of anything else. This peculiar set of conditions that enabled these shadows to pop up in this configuration is quite rare, I would think. I can only imagine what an irrational mind would think of it.

sick_8_month_old_baby_webcam_screenshot
Could it be . . . ?

Readers’ wildlife photos

March 15, 2016 • 7:30 am

Though I’m taking my wildlife folder to India, be aware that I might not be able to post much of it until I return in early April: those posts take both tim and good Internet, and I’m not sure I’ll have much of either in the next few weeks. But, like Maru, I do my best.

Reader Tony Eales from Brisbane sent a selection of beautiful spider pix. Check out the resting position of the Garden Orb Web Spider, and the colors of the jewel spider.

Common Lynx Spider, Oxyopes quadrifasciatus:

Common Lynx Spider Oxyopes quadrifasciatus

Garden Orb Web Spider, Eriophora transmarina:

Garden Orb Web Spider Eriophora transmarina

Golden Orb Weaver, Nephila plumipes:

Golden Orb Weaver Nephila plumipes

Male Green Jumping Spider, Mopsus mormon:

Green Jumping Spider Mopsus mormon male1

Jewel Spider, Austracantha minax: 

Jewel Spider Austracantha minax

This genus has only the single species. I’ve inserted a photo of a female from Wikipedia to show its beauty close up:

Austracantha_minax_spider,_common_name,_Christmas_spider,_photographed_at_Darlington,_Western_Australia_on_4th_January_2013

Northern Golden Orb Weaver, Nephila pilipes:

Northern Golden Orb Weaver Nephila pilipes

Silver Orb Spider, Leucauge granulata:

Silver Orb Spider Leucauge granulata

St Andrews Cross Spider, Argiope Keyserlingi: 

St Andrews Cross Spider Argiope Keyserlingi

 

Tuesday: Hili dialogue

March 15, 2016 • 6:30 am

It’s not only Primary Election Day in Chicago (fortuitously, my polling place is in my building, so I can go downstairs to vote at 6 a.m.), but it’s also the Ides of March, when Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in 44 B.C. (but how do they know the calendar is the same?). On May 15, 1493, Christopher Columbus returned to Spain after his first trip to the Americas, and in 1922, Fuad I became King of Egypt after that country gained its independence from the United Kingdom. Finally, on March 15, 1956, My Fair Lady opened on Broadway.

Notable births on this day include Andew Jackson (1767), Jimmy Swaggart (1935), and Sly Stone (1943)—and that’s pretty much it. Those who died on the Ides of March include Julius Caesar, of course, as well as H. P. Lovecraft (1937), Aristotle Onassis (1975), Rebecca West (1983), and Benjamin Spock (1998). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has spotted swans flying over the Vistula. How she knows the Latin name of the genus is beyond me.

Hili: The dinosaurs have returned!
A. What dinosaurs?
Hili: The big white ones! Cygnus in Latin.
P1030935 (1)
In Polish:
Hili: Dinozaury wróciły.
Ja: Jakie dinozaury?
Hili: Te takie duże, białe, po łacinie Cygnus

Sadly, only two readers sent in photos of themselves eating pie on Pi Day: Fiona Clifton, who sent a photo of herself consuming a lovely pie, and Jonathan Harvey, eating a store-bought blueberry pie:

Here I am celebrating Pi day in Horsham, England, with a blackberry and apple lattice pie served with custard. Delicious!

IMG_2333

Jon Harvey:

PiDay

And. . . Rachel Housinger, daughter of reader Sharon, put together a compilation of 44 pie-related movie and TV clips:

Hillary Clinton supports the federal death penalty

March 14, 2016 • 4:17 pm

Here’s a video of the prime Democratic candidate supporting the federal death penalty. Clinton’s answer is in response to a question at Ohio State University from a man unjustly convicted of murder. She says she supports the penalty for “terrorists,” including American terrorists like Timothy McVeigh, “in cases where there have been horrific mass killings.”

And yet, at the beginning of her answer, she says that she would “breathe a sigh of relief” if the Supreme Court eliminates the death penalty, and it’s not clear whether she’s talking about state death penalties or both federal and state death penalties. But does it matter? Death is death, whether imposed by state or federal governments. And if she means total elimination of executions at all levels, then her subsequent statement is mendacious. And seriously, are potential terrorists going to be deterred from murder by the death penalty? Give me a break!

This is almost a non-negotiable for me; there is NO reason that I can see for executing any criminal. The US is in fact the only First World country, save Japan, that still does it. Shall we refresh our knowledge? Look at the red countries, where execution is legal:

Capital_punishment Screen Shot 2016-03-14 at 3.58.33 PM

(The red country in eastern Europe, sticking out like a sore thumb, is Belarus.)

Of course all the damn Republican candidates endorse the death penalty. But Bernie Sanders opposes it—unreservedly. And Clinton’s stand is something I oppose just as strongly.

If Clinton wants to retain execution, let her justify the practice, and explain why she disagrees with the 21-year sentence Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik got, a sentence that can be repeatedly extended in 5-year stints if he’s not judged “reformed”. (Read about the Norwegian justice system here, and see why it’s so much more humane—and successful—than ours.)

My take? Clinton wants to pander to everyone, something she’s trying really hard to do. Americans are split almost right down the middle on the death penalty vs. life in prison without parole (also an insupportable stance). By walking that fine line (just as she walks that line between Wall Street and Main Street), Clinton tries to ensure that her views will appeal to everyone.  But what are her principles? Is she for or against the death penalty?

Tomorrow is Primary Day in Illinois, and I just might vote my conscience. But if Hillary’s the nominee come the fall, I will of course vote for her.

A new mutualism: mongooses clean warthogs

March 14, 2016 • 1:30 pm

How could you resist a headline like this? (Click on it to go to the Inkfish site.)

Screen Shot 2016-03-14 at 9.11.40 AM

And even better, Preston calls attention to an article in this newsletter (free download from DropBox; I love these specialized newsletters):

 

Screen Shot 2016-03-14 at 9.06.37 AM

Which contains this tersely but accurately titled article:

Screen Shot 2016-03-14 at 1.20.03 PM

And, to save you the trouble, here’s that BBC video:

This of course resembles the well-known mutualism involving cleaner fish and their “cleanees” on coral reefs. That’s a pure mutualism, which involves both evolution (tolerance of the cleanee for the cleaner, standing still and opening your mouth while being cleaned; and, on the cleaner fish’s part, behavioral “dances” to signal “I can clean you” as well as morphological adaptations) and learning (fish learn where the cleaners set up “cleaning stations”, aka “spas”). It’s not clear whether the mongoose/wart hog mutualism has any evolutionary components. Would naive mongooses from outside the Park learn the same behavior if brought to Queen Elizabeth National Park, or do they have an innate attraction for approaching warthogs?

Whatever, it’s a really nice example of a mammal/mammal interspecific mutualism. I wonder how often a mongoose gets squashed?

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Addendum by Grania

(Because I know how to add gravitas to a science-y piece)

All this was foretold by Disney in their prophetic drama The Lion King. Behold, Timon and Pumbaa.

Beautiful-Picture-Of-Timon-And-Pumbaa