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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY profiles the 20 Worst Holiday Movies in their eyes.
WEDNESDAY's CHILD is named BlackJack the Cat - a North Carolina kitty up for adoption.
THE SPEAKING STYLE of Barack Obama compares well to the Roman orator Cicero to at least one reviewer.
Need your help SEPARATED at BIRTH? - in a turn-of-the-tables: at our company cafeteria recently, a woman asked me "has anyone told you that you resemble John Lithgow lately?" Readers, yours truly (photo right) can't be objective on this, and so I seek your thoughts?
 
TRAVEL NOTES - rail enthusiasts have of going from Europe to Singapore by rail and now hope to complete the task in the near future.
FOOD NOTES - Novosibirsk, the unofficial frosty capitol of Siberia has more than 300 kiosks selling ice cream and nothing else - and they are all profitable.
A 1911 PAYROLL LISTING for a Liverpool scullery maid named Eleanor Rigby was sold at auction for about (US)$230,000.
SEPARATED at BIRTH #1 - singer Clay Aiken and Star Trek-TNG's Mr. Data.
 
PHYSICISTS are STUDYING ways to create an actual Cat's Eye because of their ability to reflect light from all directions.
IF YOU ARE LOOKING for ideas on what to get the kitty that has everything: perhaps Gifts for Cats may be of help.
HAIL and FAREWELL to some who have recently passed: the folksinger Odetta .....
and Jørn Utzon who designed Australia's noted Sydney Opera House.
SEPARATED at BIRTH #2 - film stars Naomi Watts and Claire Danes.
 
....... and for a song of the day ............................................. while white singers during the Big Band era could sing anything, African-American singers were limited to either blues or novelty tunes until Billy Eckstine made his mark in the 1940's. "Mr. B" began as a trumpeter, became a noted bandleader and was also noted for his elegant style of dress. Yet it was his smooth baritone voice that he is best known for today, and he was an influence on singers from Sam Cooke to Prince.
Born in 1914, the Pittsburgh native came-of-age in Washington, D.C. and had hoped for a football career - yet a broken collarbone forced him to concentrate on music, where he had sang in talent shows as a youth. He joined the Earl (Fatha) Hines Orchestra in 1939, and sang "Stormy Monday" as well as his own song "Jelly, Jelly".
Starting his own band in 1944, he attracted the services of many young musicians later to become famous in their own right: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughn, Miles Davis and Dexter Gordon to name just a few. They had hits with "A Cottage for Sale" and his signature tune "Prisoner of Love". As with many bandleaders, the post-war economics made carrying a big band infeasible for all except the Ellingtons and Basies, so he moved into a full-time singing role (with a small backing group) by the late 1940's. He was popular into the 1950's with songs such as the 1949 Victor Young/Ned Washington classic My Foolish Heart and "I Apologize".
Yet unlike Nat King Cole, Eckstine's vibrato-laden baritone began to sound dated by the late 1950's, and he faded to a smaller role in the music world (helped by his son Ed, then president of Mercury Records). Eckstine even recorded briefly for Motown in the late 1960's, yet was never able to recapture a large audience.
His last album was made in 1983 with Benny Carter at which point the 72 year-old Eckstine's voice had lost quite a bit. He also performed on many TV shows ("Sanford & Son" as well as on all the prime-time and late-night talk shows).
Billy Eckstine died of a heart attack in March, 1993 at the age of 78.
Of all of his songs, my favorite is one of his own compositions I Want To Talk About You (fair-use extract below) which I first became aware of as an instrumental by John Coltrane, who featured it prominently in his performances.
At this link you can hear Billy Eckstine sing it (as a young man) with his orchestra.
Don't tell me about a night in June
Or a shady lane beneath the velvet moon
Don't tell me: because I want to talk about you
The moon and the stars; the objects on Mars
Are things that we've talked of before
But your love for me was the question
Your answer threw back heaven's door
So tell me your love will be sincere
Then my darling: you needn't ever fear
Because I love you: and I want to talk about you
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