It’s like Susan Boyle all over again, sort of

For those of you who don’t live in the U.S., we have a television program here called America’s Got Talent. A program in the U.K. called Britain’s Got Talent came first, but many other countries have their own version now, so I’m fairly sure you have some idea of what I’m talking about no matter where you live. For example, here’s Armenia’s Got Talent (3:44) and here’s Georgia’s Got Talent (3:33) -- that’s the former Soviet Georgia, not the one with all the peaches -- and I just want to state for the record that (a) it doesn’t take much to entertain some nations and (b) Armenia’s program doesn’t even seem to have a buzzer. But I digress.

This summer a certain segment of our country (the segment watching America’s Got Talent) is going bonkers over three young operatic tenors who named their singing group Forte (pronounced FOR-tay). (Editor’s note. In Italian, Forte means LOUD, and the full name of the musical instrument you probably call a piano is actually the pianoforte, which in Italian means SOFTLOUD. That is neither here nor there, but I thought I’d throw it in for good measure even though you may think I’m digressing again. Actually, it’s all right to digress inside a note, especially if you’re the editor.--RWP)

It’s a pretty safe bet that the segment of the country that is going bonkers over Forte is not the same segment of the country that is going bonkers over Duck Dynasty. The former formerly went bonkers over Downton Abbey and the latter formerly went bonkers over Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo and The Real Housewives of New Jersey. Some days I fear for my country.
I think I’m digressing again.

Originally, Forte consisted of a Puerto Rican, a South Korean, and a New Yorker. Here’s their audition round song, “Pie Jesu” from John Rutter’s “Requiem” (6:12).

Forte was praised to high heaven and passed the audition round.

Acts that pass the audition round go to “Vegas Week” which is held (click here) in Las Vegas.

According to the Puerto Rican third of Forte, the Korean third of Forte unexpectedly “dropped out” shortly before “Vegas Week.” I read later that the Korean third had a problem with renewing his visa. My theory is that his student visa had expired and a team of ICE agents came swooping down on him after he was brash enough to appear sans visa on a nationally televised talent search. (ICE are the U.S.’s Immigration & Customs Enforcement people.) I could be wrong, of course. The Puerto Rican third of Forte doesn’t need a visa because Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States. The jury is still out concerning New York.

The Puerto Rican third and the New York third of Forte were able to find a suitable replacement for the missing third of their act and proceeded to Las Vegas for “Vegas Week.” The judges on America’s Got Talent had absolutely no problem with this turn of events.

During “Vegas Week” the new version of Forte performed Andrea Bocelli’s “The Prayer” (1:50) and wowed the audience again, enough to make it to the “Quarter Finals” at New York City’s famed Radio City Music Hall

At the “Quarter Finals” at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, Forte sang “Somewhere” from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story (5:12), wowing everyone but the British judge.

Only time will tell how far Forte will progress this season on America’s Got Talent.

Stay tuned.

Things could be worse. You could be watching an Armenian woman twirl hula hoops without a buzzer handy.

Update: I seem to have confused [Country Name]’s Got Talent with The X-Factor. A thousand pardons! The buzzers are on the latter only. [Country Name]’s Got Talent doesn’t have buzzers. I’ll try to pay closer attention in the future.

Blue skyin’

Call me crazy, but I think it might be fun to write a story in which Sol Invictus, the town’s local banker, and Morris Dancer, the town’s local saloonkeeper, vie for the affections of the lovely Marian Haste, the town’s virginal schoolmarm. Marian fends off the constant advances of her would-be suitors, however, to spend time in the arms of her secret love, Wayne E. Weedy, owner and editor of the local newspaper, The Wayne E. Weedy Weekly. The story takes place in Scotland, and the town (actually a collection of...a collection of...villages) is called Blackbird. Because Blackbird is located along the banks of the River Manny, Marian’s and Wayne’s trysting place is the Firth of Manny.

I had considered a subplot in which Marian’s childhood friend, Bringtua Boyle, local middle-aged spinster and church soloist, bids Blackbird bye-bye to enter a nationwide talent contest, wins second place, and subsequently enjoys an extremely successful singing and recording career, but I abandoned it as too fanciful.

I also want to bring in Kaye Surrah but have not yet determined her role.

Help me think of other characters and locations with which to expand this story.

[Update No. 1. A reader named Elizabeth has suggested the addition of a dentist named I. Pullem. The town definitely needs a dentist. I have decided to make him an expatriate American, the great-grandson of Fitzhugh Lee (photograph below), who himself was the 40th governor of the state of Virginia and the nephew of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. My dentist will double as the local gossip and town gadfly, showing up uninvited at parties and seemingly able to be everywhere at once. I have decided not to call him Dr. I. Pullem, however. Instead, he will be Dr. Hugh Biquitous Lee. --RWP]

[Update No. 2. Another reader, Yorkshire Pudding of Pudding Towers, Sheffield, suggests that our story should include a scene where a heartbroken widow falls to her death from the church tower. Her name? Eileen Dover. --RWP]

As Susan Boyle said on more than one occasion...

I (rhymeswithplague, not Susan Boyle -- we’ll get to her in a minute) began this blog in September 2007 and subsequently posted about the summer solstice on, would you believe, the summer solstices in 2008, 2009, and 2010. Inexplicably (today’s five-syllable word), I did not post a single word about the summer solstice on the summer solstices in 2011 or 2012.

Here are those three posts from 2008, 2009, and 2010:

1. Get ready to party, people! (2008)

2. The long, hot summer approaches (2009)

3. What? Summer solstice already? (2010)

On the summer solstice in 2011, however, I posted Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar in which Mrs. RWP and I wished her brother a happy 80th birthday and I also mentioned the National Hollerin’ Contest in Spivey’s Corner, North Carolina.

And last year, on the summer solstice in 2012, I posted The vibrations of deathless music which included a video of Junior Brown singing “You’re Wanted by the PO-lice and My Wife Thinks You’re Dead” (3:36). Yes, it did.

These posts, taken as a whole, prove one and only one thing:
It is not just mad dogs and Englishmen who go out in the midday sun.

If you don’t get that cultural reference, let me enlighten you. Here is Noel Coward singing his own composition, “Mad Dogs and Englishmen Go Out in the Midday Sun” (2:30), which includes the line -- I do hope Yorkshire Pudding is in the house today -- “In Bangkok, at twelve o'clock, they foam at the mouth and run.”

I do wish you a happy solstice or a merry solstice or a safe and sane solstice or whatever it is that you want to be wished. This year the summer solstice occurred earlier today (June 21, 2013) at exactly 1:04 am EDT (5:04 UTC), when Earth’s Northern Hemisphere reached its point of greatest inclination to the Sun. [Editor’s note. In Earth’s Southern Hemisphere, today is the first day of winter. --RWP]

Warning: Do not try to balance an egg on its end today. That is possible only on an equinox.

Finally, as Susan Boyle said on more than one occasion, “Thank you for your support.”

My five-day absence explained, plus a reading

Five days have elapsed since my last post, a rather long time for me as I normally post every other day, give or take. Here’s why:

My modem gave up the ghost and I didn’t have access to the internet.

It’s that simple. I reported it Sunday morning to my provider’s technical support group and after remotely running a few tests of their own they agreed with me that my modem was indeed frozen, freaked out, dead, kaput.

They said they would order a new one on Monday and that I would receive it via FedEx on Tuesday.

Tuesday dawned bright and early and I arose expectantly.
I do that every morning, but never mind.

Slowly the hours ticked by. There was no FedEx guy at my door at 9:00 a.m., no FedEx guy at my door at 12:00 noon, and no FedEx guy at my door at 3:00 p.m. [Editor’s note. Note the inclusion of the Oxford comma. --RWP]

Just as I was about to give up all hope and begin composing a nasty letter to my internet service provider giving them a piece of my mind, the FedEx guy showed up around 6:00 p.m., rang the doorbell, and was back in his truck before I could get to the door. I found the precious long-awaited package on my doorsill.

So now I am back in Blogland with all you wonderful people sitting out there in the dark nice folks. Just telling you about my ordeal has made me too tired to post anything else.

Except I did tell Snowbrush in a reply to his comment on the previous post that my next post would contain more about Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells” so:

Here it is, read aloud and everything (3:59).

P.S. -- Now in the fifth week of my shingles, I am still taking the pain medication Neurontin three times a day. Can you tell?

P.P.S. -- My hiatus caused my number of page views per day to drop from 502 to 208, so I am including the name “Pope Francis I” here to get my blog traffic back up to speed. If that doesn’t work, there’s always Susan Boyle.


(Screenshot from DVD copy of the film Sunset Boulevard showing Gloria Swanson.)

This is just wrong on so many levels

I’m talking about this video clip in which Kate Smith introduces a rather strange performance of “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans” by Juliet Prowse, complete with high kicks and a tap-dancing troupe, on The Hollywood Palace television program back in the day (4:36).

I mean, it’s as if Susan Boyle were on Britain’s Got Talent and then had to stand by and watch some dancers get all the glory, with the audience lapping it up.

Oh, wait, that actually happened.

It’s as if Bing Crosby, who introduced “White Christmas” -- arguably the best-known Christmas song of the twentieth century -- on a radio program on Christmas Day 1941, were hosting a Christmas special on television years later but had to stand back and watch someone else introduce another Christmas song.

Oh, wait, that actually happened, too (3:48).

But this post has a happy ending. It’s not as if Kate Smith, who introduced a rather well-known song herself back on a radio program on Armistice Day in 1938, didn’t get a final moment of glory (3:20).

If Bing Crosby had a final moment of glory, I am unaware of what or when it was.

I know it isn’t Christmas -- hey, it isn’t even Epiphany -- but you guys got me started with your comments about “What Child Is This?” on my previous post, which didn’t have anything to do with Christmas either.

So this post is kind of your own fault.

Let the comments begin. I expect you’ll be discussing Irving Berlin, or New Orleans, or ice hockey.

I vote for...(hold that thought)

It’s that time of year again. You know, the time of year when people make lists about the year because it is drawing to a close.

Last week, Barbara Walters made a list of “The Ten Most Fascinating People of 2009” according to her and then -- how convenient -- produced and hosted an hour-long ABC-TV special about them, interviewing each one in turn. Here are her choices:

1. Lady Gaga
2. Glenn Beck
3. Tyler Perry
4. Kate Gosselin
5. Adam Lambert
6. Sarah Palin
7. Brett Favre
8. Jenny Sanford
9. Michael Jackson’s three children

and the most fascinating person of 2009 according to Barbara Walters:

10. Michelle Obama

Actually, that’s 12. She said she didn”t choose Michael Jackson himself because he is dead and only living people can qualify for her list, which only goes to prove her version of the Golden Rule. You know, them what has the gold makes the rules. I have not linked to any of these people. If you want to know more about them, you can go look them up all by yourself.

I disagree with her choices, by the way. Barbara can’t help it, really. Being both bi-coastal and a member of the main-stream-media elite in this country, she is somewhat limited and provincial in her outlook by the circles in which she, er, circulates.

The person I think is the most fascinating person of 2009 didn’t even make it into Barbara’s top ten. Boy, is she out of touch.

Yesterday, Time magazine named its “Person of the Year” for 2009 and once again my choice was passed over. Time in its wisdom picked Ben Bernanke, the man who succeeded Alan Greenspan as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

How unimaginative.

Today, People magazine did include my choice as one of their “25 most intriguing people of 2009.” It’s about time.

Here’s my choice. I think she’s far more fascinating and intriguing than Ben Bernanke or Lady Gaga or Michelle Obama.


If you don't recognize her, you must have just arrived from another planet.

Wild horses couldn't drag me away...

I admit it. I am an unabashed and enthusiastic fan of Susan Boyle’s singing.

Surely you remember Susan. If you don’t, you must have been living under a rock somewhere for the past six months. And if you don't care for her voice, pardon me for saying it but you have resonance where your brains ought to be.

After stunning the world with her rendition last spring of “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Miserables on the British television program, Britain's Got Talent 2009, Susan has done it again.

In her American debut last night, here she is singing “Wild Horses” as a guest artist on the finale of America’s Got Talent 2009.

Oh, yeah, the song (from her first album, due to be released in November) was also recorded by some dude named Jagger a few years back.

Bury my heart at Wounded Knee

This funny-looking, odd little man was proof of the old adage, “You can’t judge a book by its cover,” long before anyone had heard of Susan Boyle.

This funny-looking, odd little man was an American author, poet, short story writer, and novelist who was born in 1898 and died in 1943. His name is Stephen Vincent Benét.

He won two Pulitzer Prizes, one in 1929 for John Brown’s Body, his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, and the other, posthumously, in 1944 for Western Star, an unfinished poem on the settling of America. Two of his short stories are also very well known, The Devil and Daniel Webster, which won an O. Henry Award, and By the Waters of Babylon.

My favorite composition of his, however, is the poem “American Names”.


American Names
by Stephen Vincent Benét

I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp names that never get fat,
The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,
Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.

Seine and Piave are silver spoons,
But the spoonbowl-metal is thin and worn,
There are English counties like hunting-tunes
Played on the keys of a postboy’s horn,
But I will remember where I was born.

I will remember Carquinez Straits,
Little French Lick and Lundy’s Lane,
The Yankee ships and the Yankee dates
And the bullet-towns of Calamity Jane.
I will remember Skunktown Plain.

I will fall in love with a Salem tree
And a rawhide quirt from Santa Cruz,
I will get me a bottle of Boston sea
And a blue-gum nigger to sing me blues.
I am tired of loving a foreign muse.

Rue des Martyrs and Bleeding-Heart-Yard,
Senlis, Pisa, and Blindman’s Oast,
It is a magic ghost you guard
But I am sick for a newer ghost,
Harrisburg, Spartanburg, Painted Post.

Henry and John were never so
And Henry and John were always right?
Granted, but when it was time to go
And the tea and the laurels had stood all night,
Did they never watch for Nantucket Light?

I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.


I want to thank my English blogger friend, Yorkshire Pudding, another funny-looking, odd little man whose actual name I still do not know, for having inspired this post.

A real-life, do-it-yourself, fairy tale

First, watch this 7-minute video of 47-year-old Susan Boyle, a contestant last Saturday night on Britain’s Got Talent, a television program in the United Kingdom.

Next, read this editorial from The Herald, a newspaper in the United Kingdom.

Then make the inevitable references, if you must, to The Ugly Duckling, a story written by Hans Christian Andersen, or Cinderella, the classic folk tale made famous by the Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm and Jakob. You know you want to.

Susan sang “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Misérables in the competition’s first round, aired on 11 April 2009. She stopped her pursuit of singing to look after her sick parents. Her father died about ten years ago and her mother died in 2007 at age 91. The youngest of nine children, Susan lives alone in Blackburn, West Lothian, Scotland, in the house she grew up in, with only her ten-year-old cat, Pebbles, to keep her company. Susan’s mother had loved the first season of Britain's Got Talent and encouraged Susan to enter because, said her mother, she would win it. Susan, a member of her church choir, hasn’t sung at all in two years because she has been in mourning since her mother died. Recently, though, she decided that the best way to honor her mother’s memory was to fulfill her mother’s wish and begin, finally, to pursue a singing career.

Oxygen-deprived at birth, Susan had learning disabilities in school and says she was the object of much verbal bullying from classmates. By her own admission, she has never had a boyfriend and has never been kissed.

The more you learn about Susan Boyle, the more amazed you are.

Watch that video again to draw inspiration from her story and from her voice. Repeat this steps as many times as necessary.

Read this story also.

Until last weekend, Susan Boyle was a middle-aged, “plain Jane” woman living on the edge of nowhere, who didn’t spend money on hairdressers, make-up, tweezers, or new clothes. Life seemed to have passed her by. This week she has been offered a recording contract by Sony.

Meditate on the facts of this post.

Live happily ever after.