WA2K Radio is now on the air

White bird,
in a golden cage,
on a winter`s day,
in the rain.

White bird,
in a golden cage,
alone.

The leaves blow,
Across the long black road.
To the darkened skies,
in its rage

But the white bird just sits in her cage,
alone.

White bird must fly
Or she will die

White bird,
dreams of the aspen trees,
with their dying leaves,
turning gold.

But the white bird just sits in her cage,
growing old.

White bird must fly or she will die.
White bird must fly or she will die.

The sunsets come, the sunsets go.
The clouds pile high,the air moves slow.
And the young bird`s eyes do always know.

She must fly,
She must fly,
She must fly.

White bird,
In a golden cage,
On a winter`s day, in the rain.

White bird,
In a golden cage alone.

White bird must fly or she will die.
White bird must fly or she will die.
White bird must fly or she will die.

Thanks for letting us know! I hope she gets her technical problems ironed out soon. She's missed!

I'm glad to hear that Letty is okay




Aha, now what will everyone do while the big boss is away for a few days

Oh, poor Miss Letty - I hope she'll back soon.
I miss her too! Here is a little computer song for her

Bill Cutter Crash Stuff
Its one of them days, when you dont wanna log on
Errors by the ton, everything is gone
You dont really know why, but you wanna justify
Ripping the case apart
No technical contact, and if its a Compaq, the monitor will get a crack
Your best bet is to shut up you stupid newbie

Its all about the MS Windows errors
I think youd better quit, loading that bit, or the system will have a fit
Its all about the MS Windows errors
I think youd better quit, loading that bit, or the system will have a fit, pu nk

Its one of them days, felling like the systems trash
First system to crash, ends up with a big gash
Yeah right Im a maniac!
Youd better watch your back, cause Im messing up your program
Tech supports stuck up, it just locked up, Im ready to give up
Your best bet is to shut up you stupid newbie
Its just one of them days

Its all about the MS Windows errors
I think youd better quit, loading that bit, or the system will have a fit
Its all about the MS Windows errors
I think youd better quit, loading that bit, or the system will have a fit, pu nk

My systems locked up
My suggestion, is to keep your distance
Cause right now Im furious!
Weve all crashed this sh*t, and threw a really big fit
All those tech support jerks
you wanna step up?
I hope you know I access a server, Ill hack your system with furvor,
And if my day keeps going like this, I just might crash something tonight
I access a server, Ill hack your system with furvor,
And if my day keeps going like this, I just might crash something tonight
I access a server, Ill hack your system with furvor,
And if my day keeps going like this, I just might crash some COMPAQ TRASH TONIGHT!

Give me something to crash
Give me something to crash
Just give me something to crash
How bout that Compaq Trash!

I access a server what?
A server what?
A LINUX Server what?
So come and crash it.

Its all about the MS Windows errors
I think youd better quit, loading that bit, or the system will have a fit
Its all about the MS Windows errors
I think youd better quit, loading that bit, or the system will have a fit, pu nk

Camille Saint-Saëns
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Charles Camille Saint-Saëns (IPA: [ʃaʁl.kamij.s̃ɛs̃ɑs]) (9 October 1835 - 16 December 1921) was a French composer and performer.


Biography

Camille Saint-Saëns' long life spanned nearly the entire duration of the Romantic period of music. He was part of the heyday of the movement and witnessed its death and the dawn of 20th-century music.


Child Prodigy

Saint-Saëns was born in Paris to a government clerk who died only three months after his son's birth. His mother, Clémence, sought the aid of her aunt, Charlotte Masson, who moved in and introduced Camille to the piano. One of the most talented musical child prodigies of all time, he had perfect pitch and began piano lessons with his great-aunt at two years old, then almost immediately began composing. His first composition, a little piece for the piano dated 22 March 1839, is now kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Saint-Saëns' precociousness was not limited to music; he could read and write by the time he was three, and had learned Latin four years later.

His first piano recital was given at age five, when he accompanied a Beethoven violin sonata. He went on to begin in-depth study of the full score of Don Giovanni. In 1842, Saint-Saëns began piano lessons with Camille-Marie Stamaty, a pupil of Friedrich Kalkbrenner, who had his students play the piano while resting their forearms on a bar situated in front of the keyboard, so that all the pianist's power came from the hand and fingers and not the arms. At ten years of age, Saint-Saëns gave his debut public recital at the Salle Pleyel, playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 15 in B-flat major (K. 450), and various pieces by Handel, Kalkbrenner, Hummel, and Bach. As an encore, Saint-Saëns offered to play any of the thirty-two Beethoven piano sonatas from memory. Word of this incredible concert spread across Europe and even to America, appearing in a Boston newspaper.

In the late 1840s, Saint-Saëns entered the Paris Conservatory, where he studied organ and composition, the latter under Jacques Halévy. Saint-Saëns won many top prizes, but he failed to win the prestigious Prix de Rome in both 1852 and 1864. The reputation these awards garnered him resulted in his introduction to Franz Liszt, who became one of his closest friends. At the age of sixteen, Saint-Saëns wrote his first symphony; his second, published as the Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major, was performed in 1853 to the astonishment of many critics and fellow composers. Hector Berlioz, who became one of Saint-Saëns' good friends, famously commented, "Il sait tout, mais il manque d'inexpéience" ("He knows everything, but lacks inexperience").

Middle Years

For income, Saint-Saëns worked playing the organ at various churches in Paris. In 1857, he replaced Lefébure-Wely at the eminent position of organist at the Église de la Madeleine, which he kept until 1877. His weekly improvisations stunned the Parisian public and earned Liszt's 1866 observation that Saint-Saëns was the greatest organist in the world.

From 1861 to 1865, Saint-Saëns held his only teaching position as professor of piano at the École Niedermeyer, where he raised eyebrows by including contemporary music?-Liszt, Gounod, Schumann, Berlioz, and Wagner?-along with the school's otherwise conservative curriculum of Bach and Mozart. His most successful students at the Niedermeyer were André Messager and Gabriel Fauré, who was Saint-Saëns' favorite pupil and soon his closest friend.

Saint-Saëns was a multi-faceted intellectual. From an early age, he studied geology, archaeology, botany, and lepidoptery. He was an expert at mathematics. Later, in addition to composing, performing, and writing musical criticism, he held discussions with Europe's finest scientists and wrote scholarly articles on acoustics, occult sciences, Roman theater decoration, and ancient instruments. He wrote a philosophical work, Problèmes et Mystères, which spoke of science and art replacing religion; Saint-Saëns' pessimistic and atheistic ideas foreshadowed Existentialism. Other literary achievements included Rimes familières, a volume of poetry, and La Crampe des écrivains, a successful farcical play. He was also a member of the Astronomical Society of France; he gave lectures on mirages, had a telescope made to his own specifications, and even planned concerts to correspond to astronomical events such as solar eclipses.

In 1870, Saint-Saëns was conscripted into the National Guard to fight in the Franco-Prussian War, which, though over in barely six months, left an indelible mark on the composer. In 1871, he co-founded (with Romain Bussine) the Société Nationale de Musique in order to promote a new and specifically French music. After the fall of the Paris Commune, the Society premiered works by members like Fauré, César Franck, Édouard Lalo, and Saint-Saëns himself, who served as the society's co-president. In this way, Saint-Saëns became a powerful figure in shaping the future of French music.

In 1875, Saint-Saëns married Marie-Laure Truffot and fathered two children, André and Jean-François, who died within six weeks of each other in 1878. Saint-Saëns left his wife three years later. The two never divorced, but lived the rest of their lives apart from one another. It has been suggested that Saint-Saëns was involved in homosexual relationships later in life, though evidence of this is largely circumstantial. On being accused of at a social occasion, he is reported to have countered "Je ne suis pas homosexuel, je suis pédéraste!"


Later Years

1886 brought two of Saint-Saëns' most renowned compositions: Le Carnaval des Animaux and his third symphony, dedicated to Franz Liszt who had died that year. That same year, however, Vincent d'Indy and his allies had Saint-Saëns removed from the Société Nationale de Musique. Two years later, Saint-Saëns' mother died, driving the mourning composer away from France to the Canary Islands with the alias Sannois. Over the next several years he traveled the world, visiting exotic locations in Europe, North Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America. Saint-Saëns chronicled his travels in many popular books written under the Sannois name.

Saint-Saëns continued to write on musical, scientific, and historical topics, frequently travelling before spending his last years in Algiers, Algeria. In recognition of his accomplishments, the government of France awarded him the Legion of Honour.

Camille Saint-Saëns died of pneumonia on 16 December 1921, at the Hôtel de l'Oasis in Algiers. His body was brought back to Paris for a state funeral at La Madeleine and was buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris.


Legacy


Relationships to other composers

During his life, Saint-Saëns was either a friend or enemy to Europe's most distinguished musicians. He stayed close to Franz Liszt until Liszt's death and maintained a fast friendship with his pupil Gabriel Fauré until the end of his life. But despite being a strong advocate for French music, Saint-Saëns openly despised many of his fellow French composers such as Franck, d'Indy, and Jules Massenet. Saint-Saëns also hated the music of Claude Debussy; he is reported to have told Pierre Lalo, "I have stayed in Paris to speak ill of Pelléas et Mélisande." The personal animosity was mutual; Debussy quipped: "I have a horror of a sentimentality and I cannot forget its name is Saint-Saëns." On other occasions, however, Debussy also acknowledged an admiration for Saint-Saëns' musical talents.

Saint-Saëns had been an early champion of Richard Wagner's music in France, teaching his pieces during his tenure at the École Niedermeyer and premiering the March from Tannhäuser. He had stunned even Wagner himself when he sight-read the entire orchestral scores of Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde, and Siegfried, prompting Hans von Bülow to call him "the greatest musical mind" of the era. However, despite admitting appreciation for the power of Wagner's work, Saint-Saëns defiantly stated that he was not an aficionado. In 1886, Saint-Saëns was punished for some particularly harsh and anti-German comments on the Paris production of Lohengrin by losing engagements and receiving negative reviews throughout Germany. Later, after World War I, Saint-Saëns angered both French and Germans with his inflammatory articles entitled Germanophilie, which ruthlessly attacked Wagner.

On 29 May 1913, Saint-Saëns famously stormed out of the première of Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring).


Reputation

Saint-Saëns began his musical career as a musical pioneer, introducing France to the symphonic poem and championing the radical works of Liszt and Wagner in a time when Bach and Mozart were the norms. He had been the embodiment of artistic modernity during the 1850s and 1860s, but soon transformed himself into a crusty and somewhat bitter reactionary. By the time he entered the 20th century, Saint-Saëns was an ultra-conservative, fighting the influence of Debussy and Richard Strauss. This is hardly surprising?-Saint-Saëns' career began while Chopin and Mendelssohn were in their prime, and ended at the dawn of the Jazz Age. But it is this crotchety image that endures.

As a composer, Saint-Saëns has always bordered on the edge of obscurity. He is disparagingly known today as "the greatest second-rate composer" and "the greatest composer who was not a genius". He is remembered chiefly for his popular but critically unsuccessful works such as Samson et Dalila and Le Carnaval des Animaux.

Music

Style

Saint-Saëns the composer is widely regarded as writing music that is elegant and technically flawless, but often uninspired. His works have been called logical and clean, polished, professional, and never excessive. His piano music, while not as deep or as challenging as some of his contemporaries, forms the stylistic connection between Liszt and Ravel. Though in later life Saint-Saëns was thought of as old-fashioned, he had explored many new forms as well as reinvigorated older ones. His compositions are strongly fixed in the Classical tradition, and some consider him to be a forerunner of Neoclassicism.

In performance, Saint-Saëns is said to have been "unequalled on the organ", and rivaled only by a few on the piano?-Liszt himself is reported to have thought that Saint-Saëns and himself were the two best pianists in Europe. However, Saint-Saëns' concert style was restrained, subtle, and cool; he sat unmoving at the piano. His playing was marked by extraordinarily even scales and passagework, great speed, and aristocratic refinement. The recordings he left at the end of his life give glimpses of these traits. He was often charged of being unemotional and business-like, and so he was less memorable than other more charismatic performers. He was probably the first pianist to publicly perform a cycle of all the Mozart piano concertos. In some cases these influenced his own piano concertos; for example, the first movement of his fourth piano concerto, in C Minor, strongly resembles the last movement of Mozart's 24th Concerto, which is in the same key. Throughout his life, Saint-Saëns continued to play with the technique taught to him by Stamaty, which kept the performing strength in the hand and not the arm, and so the recordings he made in the 1910s are remarkable in that one can hear the pianistic technique of Kalkbrenner, which predates Chopin.


Musical Works



Saint-Saëns' 86 years provided him with time to write hundreds of compositions; during his long career, he wrote many dramatic works, including four symphonic poems, and thirteen operas, of which Samson et Dalila and the symphonic poem Danse Macabre are among his most famous. In all, he composed over three hundred works and was the first major composer to write music specifically for the cinema, for Henri Lavedan's film L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise.

In 1886 he wrote his Symphony No. 3, "avec orgue" ("with organ"), perhaps the most famous of all his works. Aided by monumental symphonic organs built in France by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, at that time the world's foremost organ builder, this work in particular is immersed in the spirit of "gigantism" of the dying 19th century, along with the Eiffel Tower, the Universal Exposition at Paris and the beginning of the "belle époque". The Maestoso of the fourth movement is clearly an expression of the confidence of the European man in himself, in his technology, his science, his "age of reason" (somewhat ironically, the melody was later used as the basis for the theme music of the immensely popular film Babe). He was frequently named as "the most German composer of all the French composers", perhaps due to his fantastic skills exhibited in the construction of melodic passages.

Also in 1886, Saint-Saëns completed Le Carnaval des Animaux, which was first performed on 9 March. Despite the work's great popularity today, Saint-Saëns forbade complete performances of it shortly after its première, allowing only one movement, "Le Cygne" ("The Swan"), a piece for cello and piano, to be published in his lifetime. The piece was written as a sort of musical jest, and Saint-Saëns believed it would damage his "serious" reputation.

Saint-Saëns also wrote six preludes and fugues for organ, three in op. 99 and three in op. 109, the most performed of which is the Prelude and Fugue in E flat major, op. 99, no. 3.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Saint-Sa%C3%ABns

Alfred Dreyfus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


Alfred Dreyfus (October 9, 1859-July 12, 1935) was a French military officer best known for being the focus of the Dreyfus affair.

Born in Mulhouse, Alsace, France, Dreyfus was the youngest of seven children in the family of a Jewish textile manufacturer who had accepted French nationality in 1871. The family had long been established in Alsace. He was accepted into the École Polytechnique for initial military training and thorough scientific studies in 1877 and graduated in 1880 as a sub-lieutenant. His entry into the military was very much influenced by the experience of seeing the Prussians enter his hometown in 1871 when he was 11 years old. From 1880 until 1882 he attended at Fontainebleau for more specialized training as an artillery officer. On graduation he was attached to the first division of the 32nd cavalry regiment and promoted to lieutenant in 1885. In 1889 he was made adjutant to the director of the pyrotechnical school in Bourges, and promoted to captain.

On April 18, 1891 he was married to Lucie Hadamard (1870-1945) who would later bear his son Pierre and daughter Jeanne. A mere three days later he received notice that he had been admitted to the Superior War College. Two years later he graduated ninth in his class with honourable mention, and was immediately designated as a trainee at army headquarters where he would be the only Jew. Raphaël, his father, died on December 13, 1893.

At the college examination in 1892, his friends had expected him to do well and be attached to the general staff. However, one of the members of the jury, General Bonnefond, under the pretext that "Jews were not desired" on the staff, lowered the total of his marks by making a very bad report; he did the same thing for another Jewish candidate, Lieutenant Picard. Learning of this injustice, the two officers lodged a protest with the director of the school, Gen. Lebelin de Dionne, who expressed his regret for what had occurred, but was powerless to take any steps in the matter. The protest would later count against Dreyfus.

In an article from the Académie de Poitiers [1] the author remarks that "Dreyfus was a profoundly patriotic man, and if he had not been the victim of this affair he would certainly have been anti-dreyfusard. He was a haughty, intransigent man, linking very little with his fellow officers. He was a 'pisse-froid' as would then have been said in the army." In a report in 1891 on his admission to army headquarters a Colonel Fabre characterized him as "an incomplete officer, very intelligent and capable, but pretentious and whose character in not filling out, and with the conscience and manner required for fulfilling the conditions needed for being employed at army headquarters." This cold, aloof personality later proved a deterrent to some of his would-be defenders.

Dreyfus was arrested for treason on October 15, 1894 and the events that follow until his eventual exoneration on July 12, 1906 are chronicled in the article on the Dreyfus affair concerning which he was best known. On January 5, 1895 Dreyfus was stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.

On September 19, 1899, Dreyfus was pardoned and left the prison. During that time he lived with one of his sisters at Carpentras, and later at Cologny.

The day after his exoneration he was readmitted into the army with the rank of Squadron Chief. A week later he was made a Knight in the Legion of Honour, and subsequently named to the artillery command at Vincennes. On October 15, 1906 he was placed in command of the artillery unit at Saint-Denis.

Dreyfus' time in prison, notably at Devil's Island, had been difficult on his health, and he was granted retirement in October 1907. He was re-mobilized during World War I when he held assignments in the Paris region.

Dreyfus was present at the translation of Emile Zola's ashes in 1908 when he was wounded in the arm by a gunshot from a disgruntled journalist.

Two days after Dreyfus's death in Paris his funeral cortege passed the Place de la Concorde through the ranks of troops assembled for the National Holiday. He was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris. He is a distant relative of actor Richard Dreyfuss and of Seinfeld star Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Dreyfus

Good day WA2K.

Get that computer fixed and hurry back Letty. Miss you.

Today's birthdays:

1201 - Robert de Sorbon, French theologian and founder of the Sorbonne (d. 1274)
1261 - King Dinis of Portugal (d. 1325)
1581 - Claude Gaspard Bachet de Méziriac, French mathematician (d. 1638)
1585 - Heinrich Schütz, German composer (d. 1672)
1586 - Archduke Leopold V of Austria, regent of Tyrol (d. 1632)
1757 - King Charles X of France (d. 1836)
1796 - Joseph Bonomi the Younger, English Egyptologist (d. 1878)
1835 - Camille Saint-Saëns, French composer (d. 1921)
1840 - Simeon Solomon, British artist (d. 1905)
1852 - Hermann Emil Fischer, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1919)
1859 - Alfred Dreyfus, French military officer (d. 1935)
1873 - Karl Schwarzschild, German physicist and astronomer (d. 1916)
1873 - Charles Walgreen, American entrepreneur (d. 1939)
1879 - Max von Laue, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1960)
1886 - Rube Marquard, baseball player (d. 1980)
1888 - Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, Russian politician (d. 1938)
1890 - Aimee Semple McPherson, American evangelist (d. 1944)
1892 - Ivo Andrić, Croatian writer (d. 1975)
1892 - Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet (d. 1941)
1900 - Alastair Sim, Scottish actor (d. 1976)
1907 - Quintin Hogg, British politician (d. 2001)
1908 - Jacques Tati, French filmmaker (d. 1982)
1909 - Donald Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 2000)
1911 - Joe Rosenthal, American photographer
1915 - Clifford M. Hardin, United States Secretary of Agriculture
1920 - Jens Bjørneboe, Norwegian author (d. 1976)
1923 - Fyvush Finkel, American actor
1928 - Einojuhani Rautavaara, Finnish composer
1936 - Brian Blessed, English actor
1938 - Heinz Fischer, Austrian politician
1940 - John Lennon, British musician and songwriter (The Beatles) (d. 1980)
1941 - Trent Lott, American politician
1944 - John Entwistle, British musician (The Who) (d. 2002)
1944 - Nona Hendryx, American singer (LaBelle)
1944 - Peter Tosh, Jamaican musician (d. 1987)
1946 - Tansu Çiller, Turkish prime minister
1948 - Jackson Browne, American musician
1952 - Sharon Osbourne, English music manager and wife of Ozzy Osbourne
1953 - Tony Shalhoub, American actor
1954 - Scott Bakula, American television actor
1958 - Michael Pare, American actor
1969 - P.J. Harvey, English musician
1969 - Amy Grissom, American artist and social worker
1970 - Kenny Anderson, American basketball player
1970 - Savannah, American actress (d. 1994)
1970 - Annika Sörenstam, Swedish golfer
1971 - Michael Manna, American professional wrestler
1971 - Simon Atlee, British Photographer, most notable person killed in the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake (d. 2004)
1973 - Steven Burns, actor and musician
1975 - Sean Lennon, English musician
1978 - Nicky Byrne, Irish musician (Westlife)
1978 - Juan Dixon, American basketball player
1981 - Darius Miles, American basketball player
1986 - Laure Manaudou, French swimmer

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

Imagine no possesions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say Im a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

(1946- ) Turkish politician, member of parliament, leader of the True Path Party. She was Turkey's first female prime minister from 1993-96, and has been central in Turkish politics since then.
Her politics have been marked by attempts to liberalize both the economy of Turkey and the individual rights of its people.
Over the recent years she has lost some of her former allies, among them president Suleiman Demirel.
She is educated as an economist from the Bogazici University of Istanbul and holds also a Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut, USA.

BIOGRAPHY

1946: Born in Istanbul.
1991 October: Elected to parliament.
1993: She becomes leader of the True Path Party.
?- She forms a new government, which is lead by the True Path Party.
1995 September: The Republican People's Party leaves the government, which forces Ciller to call for early elections.
?- December: Ciller does not achieve the number of votes needed in the parliamentary elections, as her party only gets 19%, 2% less than the winning Islamist Welfare Party.
1996 March: Ciller and the True Path Party forms government together with Mesut Yilmaz of the Motherland Party, leaving him in the position of prime minister.
?- June: Ciller cooperates with Necmettin Erbakan of the Islamist Welfare Party in overthrowing her partner Yilmaz.
?- July: A coalition is forged between Erbakan and Ciller, which leaves Ciller in the position as foreign minister.
1997 June: Ciller intendeds to become prime minister as Erbakan resigns, but president Demirel asks Yilmaz instead to form government.

Source

Aimee Semple McPherson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


Aimee Semple McPherson (October 9, 1890 - September 27, 1944), also known as "Sister Aimee" or simply "Sister," was an evangelist and media sensation in the 1920s and 1930s, founder of the Foursquare Church.


Early life

Born Aimee Elizabeth Kennedy in Salford, Ontario, Canada she was the daughter of James Morgan Kennedy, a widower and devout Methodist, and Mildred Ona Pearce, 36 years his junior, who had been hired to nurse his wife during her terminal illness. (The age difference had caused a scandal in their small town, prompting the couple to elope to Michigan.)

Her mother had been orphaned at an early age, and raised by a couple who worked with the Salvation Army. As a result, Aimee was raised in an atmosphere of strong Christian beliefs. As a teenager, however, she became an avowed atheist, and began her public speaking career at the age of 13 in this context, writing letters to the newspaper defending evolution, debating local clergy, etc.


She met her first husband Robert James Semple, a Pentecostal missionary from Ireland, in December 1907 while attending a revival meeting at the urging of her father. After her conversion and a short courtship, they were married on August 12, 1908. Shortly thereafter, the two embarked on an evangelical tour, first to Europe and then to China, where they arrived in June, 1910. Shortly after they disembarked in Hong Kong, however, they both contracted malaria. Robert Semple died of the disease on August 19, 1910. Aimee recovered and gave birth to a daughter, Roberta Star Semple, on September 17, after which she returned to the United States.

Her mother "Minnie" had, in the footsteps of her foster parents, remained active with the Salvation Army, and after a short recuperation Aimee joined her in this work. While so occupied in New York, she met her second husband, Harold Stewart McPherson, an accountant. They were married on May 5, 1912, and they had a son, Rolf Potter Kennedy McPherson, born March 23, 1913.


Evangelism and Foursquare Gospel

After the birth of her son, McPherson suffered from postpartum depression and several serious health issues. After what she described as a near-death experience in 1913, she embarked upon a preaching career in Canada and the U.S. By June 1915 she had left home and was on the road preaching full-time.


In 1916 she made a tour through the southern U.S. in her "Gospel Car," a 1912 Packard touring car with religious slogans painted on the side; standing in the back seat of the convertible, she would give sermons through a bullhorn. On the road between sermons, she would sit in the back seat typing sermons and other religious materials. By 1917 she had started her own newspaper, named The Bridal Call, for which she wrote many of the articles.

Although her husband initially made efforts to join her on her religious travels, he soon became frustrated with the situation, and by 1918 had filed for separation. His petition for divorce, citing abandonment, was granted in 1921.

Aimee McPherson spent the four years of 1918 to 1922 as itinerant Pentecostal preacher, finally settling with her mother in Los Angeles, California and founding the Foursquare Gospel church. She supervised construction of a large, domed church building in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles, and it was completed in June 1923. Named Angelus Temple, it had a seating capacity of over 5,000.

At the time, women in the pulpit ministry were rare?-those who wore makeup and jewelry in the pulpit, nonexistent. McPherson's uniqueness in this respect, her flamboyance and her unashamed use of low-key sex appeal to attract converts, endeared her to her crowd of followers in Los Angeles. She would invariably appear before parishioners in a white gown, carrying a bouquet of flowers.

Since Pentecostalism was not popular in the U.S. during the '20s she avoided the label, but she was heavily influenced by this faith, incorporating demonstrations of speaking-in-tongues and faith healing into her sermons, and keeping a museum of crutches, wheelchairs and so forth as demonstrations of her "success." She was also strongly influenced by the Salvation Army: in a campaign to spread the church nationwide, she adopted a theme of "lighthouses" for the satellite churches, referring to the parent church as the "Salvation Navy."

Unlike her contemporary Billy Sunday, McPherson was less a fire-and-brimstone preacher than one to endorse charitable work and "ecstatic" facets of worship. These traits also increased her popularity.

Always seeking publicity in the name of gaining converts, McPherson continued publishing with the weekly Foursquare Crusader and a monthly magazine dubbed Bible Call. She also began broadcasting on radio in its infancy of the early '20s. McPherson was first woman in history to preach a radio sermon, and with the opening of Foursquare Gospel-owned KFSG on February 6, 1924, she also became the first woman to be granted a broadcast license by the Federal Communications Commission.

McPherson made the most of the show-business atmosphere of Los Angeles to incorporate entertainment into her religious meetings, using stage props, contemporary music, and morality plays (which she called "illustrations"), with elaborate costumes and scenery, to their best advantage to draw listeners. She even wrote and produced a couple of operas, and at one meeting made a dramatic entrance riding a motorcycle down the aisle of Angelus Temple.


She was also very skillful at fundraising. Collections were taken at every meeting, usually with the admonishment of "no coins, please." When the $1.5 million Angelus Temple opened its doors, construction was already entirely paid for through private donations.

McPherson was not universally loved. For example, a group of Ku Klux Klan members once attended one of her meetings expecting a blessing, and were instead rebuked by McPherson for their racism. She also gained the animosity of several government officials and organized crime figures, as a result of the "naming names" which often occurred on her radio shows.

In 1925, the license for KFSG was suspended by the Commerce Department for deviating from its assigned frequency. Many broadcast histories claim McPherson sent an angry telegram to then-Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover ordering his "minions of Satan" to release her station at once. This may be an urban legend.

McPherson also received several death threats in 1925, and a plot to kidnap her was foiled in September of that year, thus setting the stage for the episode for which she is best known.


"Kidnapping"

On May 18, 1926, McPherson went to Venice Beach with her secretary, to go swimming. Soon after arrival, McPherson disappeared.

It was generally assumed at the time that she had drowned; mourners crowded Venice Beach, and the commotion sparked a days-long media coverage of the event, fueled in part by William Randolph Hearst's Examiner, and even including a poem by Upton Sinclair commemorating the "tragedy." Daily updates appeared in newspapers across the country; parishioners held day-and-night seaside vigils. A futile search for the body resulted in one parishioner drowning, and another diver dying from exposure.

At about the same time, Kenneth G. Ormiston, engineer for KFSG, also disappeared. The two incidents were seen as unrelated.


About a month after the disappearance, McPherson's mother, Minnie Kennedy, received a ransom note, signed by "The Avengers," which demanded a half million dollars to ensure kidnappers would not sell McPherson into "white slavery." Kennedy later said she tossed the letter away, believing her daughter to be dead.

After 32 days (on June 23), McPherson stumbled out of the desert in Agua Prieta, Mexico, just across the border from Douglas, Arizona. She claimed that she had been kidnapped, drugged, tortured, and held for ransom in a shack in Mexico, then had escaped and walked through the desert for about 13 hours to freedom.

Several problems were found with McPherson's story. Her shoes showed no evidence of a 13-hour walk; indeed, they had grass stains on them after a supposed walk through the desert. The shack could not be found. McPherson showed up fully dressed while having disappeared wearing a bathing suit, and was wearing a watch given to her by her mother, which she had not taken on her swimming trip.

A grand jury convened on July 8 to investigate the matter, but adjourned 12 days later citing lack of evidence to proceed. However, several witnesses then came forward stating that they had seen McPherson and Ormiston at various hotels over the 32-day period.

The grand jury re-convened on August 3 and received further testimony, corroborated by documents from hotels in McPherson's handwriting. McPherson steadfastly stuck to her story that she was approached by a young couple at the beach who had asked her to come over and pray for their sick child, and that she was then shoved into a car and drugged with chloroform. However, when she was not forthcoming with answers regarding her relationship with Ormiston (who was recently estranged from his wife), Judge Samuel Blake charged McPherson and her mother with obstruction of justice on November 3.

Theories and innuendo abounded: she had run off with a lover; she had had an abortion; she was recovering from plastic surgery; she had staged the whole thing as a publicity stunt. No satisfactory answer, though, was ever reached, and soon after the Examiner erroneously reported that district attorney Asa Keyes had dropped all charges, Keyes decided to do exactly that on January 10, 1927, citing lack of evidence.

Later career

McPherson continued preaching but fell out of favor with the press; she and her ministry still received a good deal of publicity, but most of it was bad. Additionally, she became involved in power struggles for the church with her mother and daughter. McPherson suffered a nervous breakdown in 1930.

On September 13, 1931, McPherson married again, this time to an actor and musician, David Hutton. The marriage got off to a rocky start: two days after the wedding, Hutton was sued for alienation of affection by another woman, who he claimed to have never met. He eventually settled the case by paying $5,000. While McPherson was away in Europe, she was incensed to discover Hutton was billing himself as "Aimee's man" in his cabaret singing act.

The marriage also caused an uproar within the church. The tenets of Foursquare Gospel, which were set up by McPherson herself, stated that no one should remarry while their previous spouse was still alive (which Harold McPherson was at the time). McPherson and Hutton separated in 1933, and divorced on March 1, 1934.

During the Great Depression, McPherson was active in creating soup kitchens, free clinics and other charitable activities; with the outbreak of World War II, she became involved in war bond rallies.

On September 27, 1944 she was found dead of an overdose of barbiturates. Once again, rumors flew, this time conjecturing suicide; it is generally agreed though that the overdose was accidental, as is stated on the coroner's report.

McPherson is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. According to The Preachers by James Morris, she was buried with a live telephone in her casket to ensure her survival in the event of bodily resurrection, although other biographers do not mention this and groundskeepers at Forest Lawn deny it. The Foursquare Gospel church, whose leadership was assumed by McPherson's son Rolf for 44 years after her death, continues worldwide with over two million members, over 90% of whom are outside the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimee_Semple_McPherson

Jacques Tati
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Jacques Tati (October 9, 1908-November 5, 1982) was a French filmmaker. He was born Jacques Tatischeff, the son of Russian father Georges-Emmanuel Tatischeff and Dutch mother Marcelle Claire Van Hoof, in Le Pecq, Yvelines, and died in Paris.

Originally a mime, in the late 1930s Tati recorded some of his early sporting cameos on film with some success and thus began his career as a filmmaker. His films have little dialogue or plot but are built around elaborate visual gags and careful sound design. In all his films, Tati plays the lead who with the exception of his first and last films is the gauche and socially inept Monsieur Hulot. With his trademark raincoat, umbrella and pipe, Hulot is among the most memorable comic characters in cinema. An important theme in Tati's work, most notably in Mon Oncle and Playtime, is the impracticality and ugliness of modern technology and design.

Tati's first major feature, Jour de Fête, is about a village postman who is influenced by a film shown at the village fair to go to extreme lengths to improve his mail deliveries. The film was shot in a new color process that turned out to be too difficult to process, so the film was released in black and white - until the color version was restored and released in the 1990s.

His second film, Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, introduces Hulot and follows his adventures at a French beach resort. It earned Tati an Oscar nomination (shared with Henri Marquet) for Best Screenplay.

Tati's next film Mon Oncle was his first film to be released in color and revolves around Hulot's hapless efforts to obtain a job. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1958.

Playtime, shot in 70 mm, was Tati's most daring and most expensive work; it took him nine years to complete and he had a modern city, dubbed Tativille, built on the outskirts of Paris. Narratively it had even less of a plot than his earlier films with a smaller role for the Monsieur Hulot character. The film follows Hulot and a group of tourists as they visit a modernist version of Paris. It failed commercially, leaving Tati in substantial debt.

Tati made two more films with far more modest budgets: Trafic which featured Hulot as an automobile designer travelling to an auto-show, and Parade a TV film about a circus. His final script Confusion, about television, was never produced.


Trivia:

Tati was voted the 46th greatest director of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

In an interview, Rowan Atkinson noted that Tati's characters were a source of inspiration for the creation of the British Mr Bean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Tati

John Lennon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


John Winston Ono Lennon, (October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980), was best known as a singer, songwriter, poet and guitarist for The Beatles. His creative career also included the roles of solo musician, political activist, artist, actor and author. As half of the legendary Lennon-McCartney songwriting team, he heavily influenced the development of rock music, leading it towards more serious and political messages.

He is recognised as one of the greatest musical icons of the 20th century; and his songs, such as "Imagine" and "Strawberry Fields Forever", are often ranked among the best songs in popular music history. In 2002, the BBC conducted a vote to discover the 100 Greatest Britons of all time, and the British public voted Lennon into 8th place.


Early years

Lennon was born in Liverpool on the evening of October 9, 1940 during a period of much turmoil as the UK was heavily engaged in World War II. Both of his parents had musical backgrounds and experience, though neither pursued them seriously. Lennon lived with his parents in Liverpool until his father Alfred (nicknamed Alf, and later "Freddy"), a merchant seaman, walked out on the family when John was five years old. His mother, Julia, then decided that she was unable to care for her son, and so gave him to her sister Mimi. Lennon lived with Aunt Mimi and her husband George at Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, Liverpool throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence. Like much of the population of Liverpool, Lennon had some Irish heritage; his grandfather, James Lennon, having been born in Dublin in 1858.

Lennon developed severe myopia as he grew up, and was obliged to wear glasses in order to see clearly. During his early Beatle career, Lennon wore contacts or prescription sunglasses (or simply "toughed it out" without them). In 1966, on the set of How I Won The War, Lennon was issued a pair of National Health spectacles. He continued to wear these round, wire-rimmed glasses which became part of his iconic public image. Although John lived apart from his mother he still kept in contact with her through regular visits, and during this time Julia was responsible for introducing her son to a lifelong interest in music by teaching him how to play the banjo. On July 15, 1958 - when Lennon was 17 - his mother was killed after she was struck by a car driven by a drunken off-duty police officer, and he had to go to the morgue to identify her body. Julia's death was one of the factors that cemented his friendship with Paul McCartney, who had lost his own mother to breast cancer in 1956, when Paul was 14. Years later, Lennon wrote the songs "Julia", "Mother" and "My Mummy's Dead" regarding his mother, as well as naming his firstborn son, Julian, after her.

Though failing in grammar school, Lennon was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art with help from his school's headmaster and Aunt Mimi, and it was there that he met his future wife, Cynthia Powell. However, Lennon steadily grew to hate the conformity of art school, which proved to be little different from his earlier school experience, and ultimately dropped out. He instead devoted himself to music, inspired by American Rock 'n' Roll and singers like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly. He'd started a skiffle band in grammar school called the Quarry Men (after his alma mater, Quarry Bank). With the addition of Paul McCartney and George Harrison, the band changed to playing rock 'n' roll, taking the name "Johnny and the Moondogs", followed by "The Silver Beetles" (a tribute to Buddy Holly's Crickets), which was later shortened to The Beatles. He married Powell in 1962, after she became pregnant with Julian.


Role in the Beatles

Lennon had a profound influence on rock and roll and in expanding the genre's boundaries during the 1960s. He is widely considered, along with songwriting partner Paul McCartney, as one of the most influential singer-songwriter-musicians of the 20th century. Many of the songs written by Lennon, however, are more introspective ?- often in the first person ?- and personal than McCartney's. His most surreal pieces of songwriting, "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "I Am the Walrus", are fine examples of his unique style. Lennon's partnership in songwriting with McCartney many times involved him in complementing and counterbalancing McCartney's upbeat, positive outlook with the other side of the coin, as one of their songs, "Getting Better" demonstrates:

McCartney: I have to admit it's getting better, a little better all the time.

Lennon: It can't get much worse!

Lennon often spoke his mind freely and the press was used to querying him on a wide range of subjects. On March 4, 1966 in an interview for the London Evening Standard with Maureen Cleave, who was a friend of his, Lennon made an off the cuff remark regarding religion. The article was printed and nothing came of it, until five months later when a Teen magazine reprinted the words "I don't know what will go first?-Rock and Roll or Christianity. We're more popular than Jesus now," right on the front cover.

A firestorm of protest swelled from the southern U.S. Bible Belt area, as conservative groups publicly burned Beatles records and memorabilia. Radio stations banned Beatles music and concert venues cancelled performances. Even The Vatican got involved with a public denouncement of Lennon's comments. On August 11, 1966, the Beatles held a press conference in Chicago, Illinois, in order to address the growing furore.

Lennon: "I suppose if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I would have gotten away with it, but I just happened to be talking to a friend and I used the words "Beatles" as a remote thing, not as what I think - as Beatles, as those other Beatles like other people see us. I just said "they" are having more influence on kids and things than anything else, including Jesus. But I said it in that way which is the wrong way."

Reporter: "Some teenagers have repeated your statements - "I like the Beatles more than Jesus Christ." What do you think about that?"

Lennon: "Well, originally I pointed out that fact in reference to England. That we meant more to kids than Jesus did, or religion at that time. I wasn't knocking it or putting it down. I was just saying it as a fact and it's true more for England than here. I'm not saying that we're better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong. And now it's all this."

Reporter: "But are you prepared to apologise?"

Lennon: "I wasn't saying whatever they're saying I was saying. I'm sorry I said it really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. I apologise if that will make you happy. I still don't know quite what I've done. I've tried to tell you what I did do but if you want me to apologise, if that will make you happy, then OK, I'm sorry."

The governing members of the Vatican accepted his apology and the furor eventually died down, but constant Beatlemania, mobs, crazed teenagers, and now a press ready to tear them to pieces over any quote was too much to handle. The Beatles soon decided to stop touring, and indeed, never performed a scheduled concert again. From this point onward the Beatles were a studio band (perhaps the first ever). Freed from the problem of having to compose music they could recreate live on stage, they could explore the technological limits of music and create unique and original sounds.

On November 9, 1966, after their final tour ended and right after he had wrapped up filming a minor role in the film How I Won the War, Lennon visited an art exhibit of Yoko Ono's at the Indica art gallery in London. Lennon began his love affair with Ono in 1968 after returning from India and leaving his estranged wife Cynthia, who filed for divorce later that year. Lennon and Ono were from then on inseparable in public and private, as well as during Beatles recording sessions. The press was extremely unkind to Ono, posting a series of unflattering articles about her, one even going so far as to call her "ugly." This infuriated Lennon, who rallied around his new partner and said publicly that there was no John and Yoko, but that they were one person, JohnAndYoko. These developments led to friction with the other members of the group, and heightened the tension during the 1968 White Album sessions.

Some Beatles fans blame Ono for the Beatles' breakup, but the band had been growing apart almost immediately after the death of their manager Brian Epstein in 1967. Lennon in particular cited Epstein as the glue which had held them all together. He resolved disputes among members, balanced their egos and ?- above all ?- handled the money; in his absence (together with the influence of drugs, a desire to do more work independently, outside friends, alternate collaborating partners, new marriages/relationships and the disastrous Apple Corps venture), the Beatles' interpersonal relationships simply disintegrated.

At the end of 1968, Lennon and Ono performed as Dirty Mac on The Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus.

During his last two years as a member of The Beatles, Lennon spent much of his time with Ono on public displays protesting the Vietnam War. He sent back the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) he received from Queen Elizabeth II during the height of Beatlemania "in protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing and support of America in Vietnam," adding as a joke, "as well as "Cold Turkey" slipping down the charts." On March 20, 1969, Lennon and Ono were married in Gibraltar, and spent their honeymoon in Amsterdam in a "Bed-In" for peace. They followed up their honeymoon with another "Bed-In" for peace this time held in Montreal at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. During the second "Bed-In" the couple recorded "Give Peace a Chance" which would go on to become an international anthem for the peace movement. They were mainly patronised as a couple of eccentrics by the media, yet they did a great deal for the peace movement, as well as for other pet causes, such as women's liberation and racial harmony. As with the "Bed-In" campaign, Lennon and Ono usually advocated their causes with whimsical demonstrations, such as Bagism, first introduced during a Vienna press conference. Shortly after, Lennon changed his middle name from Winston to Ono to show his "oneness" with his new wife. Lennon wrote "The Ballad of John and Yoko" about his marriage and the subsequent press it generated.

The failed Get Back/Let It Be recording/filming sessions did nothing to improve relations within the band. After both Lennon and Ono were injured in the summer of 1969 in a car accident in Scotland, Lennon arranged for Ono to be constantly with him in the studio (including having a full-sized bed rolled in) as he worked on The Beatles' last album, Abbey Road. While the group managed to hang together to produce one last superior musical work, soon thereafter business issues related to Apple Corps came between them.

Lennon decided to quit the Beatles but was talked out of saying anything publicly. Phil Spector's involvement in trying to revive the Let It Be material then drove a further wedge between Lennon (who supported Spector) and McCartney (who opposed him). Though the split would only become legal some time later, Lennon and McCartney's partnership had come to a bitter end. McCartney soon made a press announcement, declaring he had quit the Beatles, and promoting his new solo record.


Solo career


Of the four former Beatles, Lennon had perhaps the most varied recording career. While he was still a Beatle, Lennon and Ono recorded three albums of experimental and difficult electronic music, Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins, Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions, and Wedding Album. His first 'solo' album of popular music was Live Peace in Toronto 1969, recorded in 1969 (prior to the breakup of the Beatles) at the Rock 'n' Roll Festival in Toronto with The Plastic Ono Band, which included Eric Clapton and Klaus Voormann. He also recorded three singles in his initial solo phase, the anti-war anthem "Give Peace a Chance", "Cold Turkey" (about his struggles with heroin addiction) and "Instant Karma!".

Following the Beatles' split in 1970, he released the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album, a raw, brutally personal record, heavily influenced by Arthur Janov's Primal therapy, which Lennon had undergone previously. The influence of the therapy, which consists literally of screaming out one's emotional pain, is most obvious on the songs "Mother" ("Mama don't go!/Daddy come home!") and "Well Well Well." The centrepiece is "God," in which he lists all the things he does not believe in, ending with "Beatles". Many consider "Plastic Ono Band" to be a major influence on later hard rock and punk music. Lennon continued this effort to demythologise his old band with a long, confrontational interview published in Rolling Stone magazine.

This was followed in 1971 by Imagine, his most successful solo album, which alternates in tone between dreaminess and anger. The title track has become an anthem for anti-war movements, and was matched in image by Lennon's "white period" (white clothes, white piano, white room ...)


Perhaps in reaction, his next album, Some Time in New York City, was loud, raucous, and explicitly political, with songs about prison riots, racial and sexual relations, the British role in the sectarian troubles in Northern Ireland, and his own problems in obtaining a United States Green Card. This record is generally seen as the nadir of Lennon's career, full of heavy-handed and simplistic messaging unredeemed by much artistic value. On 30 August 1972 Lennon and his backing band Elephant's Memory staged two benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York; it was to be his last full-length concert appearance. Lennon and Ono also did a week-long guest co-host stint on the Mike Douglas Show, in an appearance that showed Lennon's wit and humour still intact.

In 1972, Lennon released an anti-sexism song, "Woman Is the Nigger of the World", implying that as black people were discriminated against in some countries so were women globally. Radio refused to broadcast the song, and it was banned nearly everywhere.

Lennon rebounded in 1973 with Mind Games, which featured a strong title tune and some vague mumblings about a "conceptual country" called "Nutopia", which satirized his ongoing immigration case. His most striking song of that year was the wry "I'm the Greatest," which he wrote for Ringo Starr's very successful Ringo album.

In 1973, Lennon's personal life fell into disrepair when Yoko kicked John out of the house. Yoko approached May Pang, the attractive Asian woman who was their personal assistant, at the time with a unique proposal. Yoko, who thought May Pang to be an "ideal companion" for John, asked her to "be with John and to help him out and see to it that he gets whatever he wanted." John and May soon moved to Los Angeles which had been dubbed the "lost weekend" though it lasted until the beginning of 1975. During their time together, May encouraged John to spend time with his son, Julian Lennon, and became friends with Cynthia Lennon. Though John's public drunkenness had been the subject of gossip during 1974, Pang wrote that John was usually sober in his private life and created a large body of work.

Despite alleged episodes of drunkenness, Lennon put together the well-received album, Walls and Bridges, which featured a collaboration with Elton John on the up-tempo number one hit "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night". Another top ten hit from the album was the Beatlesque reverie "#9 Dream". Lennon capped the year by making a surprise guest appearance at an Elton John concert in Madison Square Garden where they performed "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night" and "I Saw Her Standing There" together. It was to be his last-ever concert appearance.

In 1975, Lennon released the Rock 'n' Roll album of cover versions of old rock and roll songs of his youth. This project was complicated by Phil Spector's involvement as producer and by several legal battles; the result received generally negative reviews, though it yielded a powerful, lauded cover of "Stand by Me".

At this point Yoko was pregnant with what would be their first child, and Lennon ?- saddened by the fact that due to Beatlemania he had never gotten to experience fatherhood with his first son Julian ?- retired from music and dedicated himself to family life. This was made easier in 1976 when his U.S. immigration status was finally resolved favourably, after a years-long battle with the Nixon administration that included a FBI investigation involving surveillance, wiretaps, and agents literally following Lennon around as he travelled. Lennon claimed the investigation was politically motivated.

Also in 1975, David Bowie achieved his first US number one hit with "Fame", co-written by Bowie, Lennon (who also contributed backing vocals) and Carlos Alomar.


Lennon's retirement, which he began following the birth of his second son, Sean in 1975, lasted until 1980 when Lennon, for the first time in five years, picked up his guitar again. At first only curious to see if he could still write music, he felt refreshed and full of ideas, completely reinvigorated by the experiences of fatherhood and the long break from the business. He wrote an impressive amount of material during a Caribbean vacation and began thinking about a new album. For this comeback, he and Ono produced Double Fantasy, a concept album dealing with their relationship. The name came from a flower Lennon saw at an exposition; he liked the name, and thought it was a perfect description of his marriage to Yoko. "(Just Like) Starting Over" began climbing the singles charts, and Lennon started thinking about a brand new world tour. Lennon also commenced work on Milk and Honey which he would, unfortunately, leave unfinished. It was some time before Ono could bring herself to complete it.

Murder


In the late afternoon of December 8, 1980, in New York City, deranged fan Mark David Chapman met Lennon as he left for the recording studio and got his copy of Double Fantasy autographed; the event of Lennon signing one of his last autographs was caught by a photographer who witnessed this goodwill gesture. Chapman remained in the vicinity of The Dakota for most of the day as a fireworks demonstration in nearby Central Park distracted the doorman and passers-by.

Later that evening, Lennon and Ono returned to their apartment from recording Ono's single "Walking on Thin Ice" for their next album. At 10.50pm, their limousine pulled up to the entrance of the Dakota. Ono got out of the car first, followed by Lennon. Beyond the main entrance was a door which would be opened and a small set of stairs leading into the apartment complex. As Ono went in, Lennon got out of the car and glanced at Chapman, proceeding on through the entrance to the Dakota.

As Lennon walked past him, Chapman called out "Mr. Lennon." As Lennon turned, Chapman crouched into what witnesses called a "combat" stance and fired five hollowpoint bullets into John's back and shoulder. One of the bullets fatally pierced his aorta. Still, Lennon managed to stagger up six steps into the concierge booth where he collapsed, gasping "I'm shot, I'm shot."

Chapman stood there, holding his .38 Charter Arms revolver, which was pulled out of his hands and kicked away by Jose Perdomo who then asked "Do you know what you have done?", to which Chapman replied "I just shot John Lennon." Chapman then calmly took his coat off placed it at his feet, took out a book and started reading.

Police arrived within minutes, to find Chapman still waiting quietly outside, reading a copy of J.D. Salinger's novel, The Catcher in the Rye.

The two officers transported Lennon to the hospital in the back of their squad car as they thought John was too badly hurt to take the risk of waiting for an ambulance. One of the officers asked Lennon if he knew who he was. Lennon's reply is reported to have been "Yeah" or simply a nod of the head before he passed out. Despite extensive resuscitative efforts in the hospital, Lennon had lost over 80% of his blood volume and died of shock at the age of 40. Millions would receive the news that night from Howard Cosell, commentator for ABC's Monday Night Football.

When asked once in the 1960s how he expected to die, Lennon's offhand answer was "I'll probably be popped off by some loony." In retrospect, the comment turned out to be chillingly accurate.


Memorial

A crowd gathered outside the Dakota the night of Lennon's death. Ono sent word that their singing kept her awake and asked that they re-convene in Central Park the following Sunday, for ten minutes of silent prayer (see also the 1980 Central Park Vigil - Tribute to John Lennon). Her request for a silent gathering was honoured all over the world.


December 9, 1980, Bruce Springsteen at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, PA noted after hearing of Lennon's death "It's a hard night to come out and play but there's nothing else you can do." He ended the show with a spirited performance of "Twist and Shout".

A special commemorative issue of Rolling Stone magazine released shortly after the murder featured as its cover a photo taken the morning of the shooting by Annie Leibovitz showing a nude Lennon in an embryonic pose kissing a fully clothed Ono.

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel remembered Lennon in their 1981 reunion concert in Central Park, performing a song titled "The Late Great Johnny Ace". (Johnny Ace had been a promising singer-songwriter, who had also died tragically, in the 1950s.) Simon and Garfunkel had tried recording in the 1970s with Lennon and Harry Nilsson; their one session together had unfortunately yielded no results.

The Strawberry Fields Memorial was constructed in Central Park across the street from the Dakota, in memory of Lennon. (When George Harrison died in 2001, people congregated on the "Imagine" mosaic circle in Strawberry Fields.)

In 1988, Warner Bros. produced a documentary film, Imagine: John Lennon (sanctioned in part by Yoko Ono). The movie was a biography of the former Beatle, featuring interviews, rarely seen musical material, and narration by Lennon himself (formed from interviews and tapes recorded by Lennon). It also introduced "Real Love", one of the last songs composed by Lennon, in an early demo (a later demo would form the basis for the version rehashed by The Beatles for The Beatles Anthology). The following year, at an auction of Beatles memorabilia, Lennon's jukebox was sold at Christie's for 2,500 pounds. The Mellotron that Lennon used to record, amongst other songs, "Strawberry Fields Forever", is currently owned by Trent Reznor of the band Nine Inch Nails.

Specially selected radio stations aired a syndicated series called The Lost Lennon Tapes in 1990. Hosted by Lennon publicist Elliot Mintz, the show spotlighted raw sessions from throughout Lennon's career with and without The Beatles, including rare material never released to the public. During the America: A Tribute to Heroes concert on September 21, 2001, Neil Young (an avowed devotee of Lennon) sang "Imagine."

In 1995, the band Oasis released a song called "Don't Look Back in Anger", from their second album (What's the Story) Morning Glory?. The piano at the beginning of the song is taken from "Imagine".

In October 2000 John Lennon Museum was opened in Ono's hometown Saitama, Japan, to preserve knowledge of his works and career.

In March, 2002, his native city, Liverpool, honoured his memory by renaming their airport "Liverpool John Lennon Airport," and adopting as its motto a line from his song "Imagine": "Above us only sky". In the same year, Lennon was voted 8th by the British public in the "100 Greatest Britons" poll run by the BBC. BBC History Magazine commented that his "generational influence is immense."

On October 31, 1994, Phish, a jam band, paid tribute to Lennon and the Beatles by covering The Beatles album (also known as the White Album).

In 2004 Madonna paid tribute to Lennon by singing a cover of "Imagine" during her anti-war themed "Re-Invention World Tour." Also in 2004, A Perfect Circle recorded a cover of "Imagine" on their album eMOTIVe.

In 2005, a musical titled Lennon was shown for the first time in San Francisco. It received a very lacklustre response from theatre critics and Beatles fans alike.

In 2005, Cowboy Junkies covered "I Don't Want To Be A Soldier" on their anti-war album, "Early 21st Century Blues".

John Lennon Park was built in Cuba as a memorial to the musician.

Lennon's son with Cynthia, Julian Lennon, enjoys a notable recording career of his own, as does his son with Yoko, Sean Lennon.

Throughout his solo career, Lennon appeared on his own albums (as well as those of other artists like Elton John) under such pseudonyms as Dr. Winston O'Boogie, Mel Torment (a play on singer Mel Tormé), and The Reverend Fred Gherkin.

A biographical Broadway musical titled Lennon will premiere at New York City's Broadhurst Theater on August 14, 2005. Written and directed by Don Scardino from Lennon's own words in interviews and songs, Lennon features nine diverse actors and actresses portraying the singer-songwriter at various stages in his life backed by an onstage 10-piece band. The play was produced with the endorsement of Yoko Ono, who gave permission for the production to use two unpublished Lennon songs, India, India and I Don't Want to Lose You, and who attended preview performances of the show at New York City's Broadhurst Theater on August 5 & 6, 2005. the Musical had been premiered in San Francisco to poor reviews and subsequently reworked, to a much better reception.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon


Strawberry Fields Forever

Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out, it doesn't matter much to me.
Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.

No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low.
That is you can't you know tune in but it's all right, that is I think it's not too bad.
Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.

Always, no sometimes, think it's me, but you know I know when it's a dream.
I think I know I mean a 'Yes' but it's all wrong, that is I think I disagree.
Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.
Strawberry Fields forever.

Thank you Bob and Raggedy.

You both do a great job here!

Instant karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon you're gonna be dead
What in the world you thinking of
Laughing in the face of love
What on earth you tryin' to do
It's up to you, yeah you

Instant karma's gonna get you
Gonna look you right in the face
Better get yourself together darlin'
Join the human race
How in the world you gonna see
Laughin' at fools like me
Who in the hell d'you think you are
A super star
Well, right you are

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Ev'ryone come on

Instant karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Ev'ryone you meet
Why in the world are we here
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on earth are you there
When you're ev'rywhere
Come and get your share

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
Come on and on and on on on
Yeah yeah, alright, uh huh, ah

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
On and on and on on and on

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun
Yeah we all shine on
Like the moon and

Fastforwarding my Billboard #1 hits countdown to 1965, a classic from Lennon's collaborator/rival:

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it look as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday

Suddenly, I'm not half the man I used to be
There's a shadow hanging over me
oh, yesterday came suddenly

Why she had to go I don't know, she wouldn't say
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
oh, I believe in yesterday

Why she had to go I don't know, she wouldn't say
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday

Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
oh, I believe in yesterday, Mm

and a Lennon classic from the number one LP of January '66:

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends
I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
there is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more

BBB


My daughter had the same problem last week. There is a nasty virus going around that is killing PCs.

BBB

Re: BBB


This is why I keep three computers running at all times... there is safety in numbers.

Hope to hear from you soon Letty... the station is not quite the same without you


BTW, I loved the wiki on McPherson... thx

Good evening, WA2K folks. When I have the chance, I will peruse all of our transcripts. Thanks to all of you for keeping our cyber station alive, and a special to my Irish friend, Mikey. As an early birthday present, I have a spanking brand new pc.

Back later when I get everything sorted out.

Glad you're back...and a with a new computer!

Now, get cable, letty. (Just joking. I have DSL and, for my neighborhood, it's not all it's cracked up to be).