Twentieth Century
Gaddafi: A Living Myth
With Libya in the news, perhaps it's time to revisit Gaddafi: A Living Myth, the 2006 opera that was billed as an "all singing, all dancing, free-spirited version of the Dictator's life."
Here's a catalog of contemporary reactions.
Speaking before the September premiere of his new commission, Gaddafi: A Living Myth, English National Opera artistic director John Berry averred that it could "redefine opera".
The piece, written by members of Asian Dub Foundation, was billed in advance as a venture of extraordinary audacity, addressing contemporary politics in music that would set our old friend the Classical Music Establishment by its ears.
Some of us had doubts long before the premiere. In December 2005, writing in this paper about the state of affairs at English National Opera, I said: "A commissioned opera from Asian Dub Foundation has had to be put off - and it's not hard to guess why."
When it was finally unveiled, there was not much pleasure to be had from seeing this gloomy prognostication confirmed.
The critics did their worst: "Cliche and bombast ... "repetitive and incoherent ... laughably wooden" ... "as cynical as Simon Cowell" ... "embarrassingly redolent of sixth-form earnestness" ... "long stretches of jaw-dropping banality" ... "risible moments that look and sound like a Middle Eastern version of Springtime For Hitler". Worst of all, almost every review used the word "brave".
Alas, I cannot find a video of the actual production. Here are two of the creators discussing it.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 23, 2020 -
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Category: Bombast, Bloviation and Pretentiousness, Crowds, Groups, Mobs and Other Mass Movements, Dictators, Tyrants and Other Harsh Rulers, Music, Avant Garde, Twentieth Century, Twenty-first Century, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults
Happy Humphrey, Heaviest Pro Wrestler of All Time
His Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Jan 18, 2020 -
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Category: Body, Dieting and Weight Loss, Differently Abled, Handicapped, Challenged, and Otherwise Atypical, Enlargements, Miniatures, and Other Matters of Scale, Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough, World Records, Wrestling, Twentieth Century
Screwball! Comics
My pal Paul Tumey just released his magnum opus, a history of "screwball" comics. I'm reading my copy now, and it's great.If you go to the link, you get a PDF copy of one of his newsletters to sample what he's all about.
Order yours today!
Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 17, 2020 -
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Category: Humor, Comics, Books, Twentieth Century
Let’s Have a Party - The Piano Genius of Mrs. Mills
This well-done documentary is a lot of fun.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 16, 2020 -
Comments (4)
Category: Cult Figures and Artifacts, Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Music, Twentieth Century
Louise Arner Boyd
If you can get past the robot voice in the video, you'll get all the amazing facts of this gal's life.Her Wikipedia page.
Text source. (Page taken from hardcopy, not available online.)
Posted By: Paul - Tue Jan 14, 2020 -
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Category: Animals, Eccentrics, Explorers, Frontiersmen, and Conquerors, Twentieth Century
Election 2020
Expect absurdist acts of political theater throughout the new year, from all sides.
[Mrs. Guilford Dudley of Nashville with ear trumpet, talking into ear of Democratic donkey, played by Mrs. Mary Semple Scott in skit at 1920 National American Woman Suffrage Association in Chicago]
Photo source.
Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 03, 2020 -
Comments (7)
Category: Animals, Anthropomorphism, Politics, Twentieth Century
John Thoburn Williamson, Parsimonious Millionaire
Source for story. (Follow whole text across multiple pages.)
His Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Thu Dec 19, 2019 -
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Category: Antisocial Activites, Eccentrics, Money, Twentieth Century
Artwork Khrushchev Probably Would Not Have Liked 25
"King Solomon" was the last sculpture that Alexander Archipenko made and the only one that he conceived as a monumental sculpture. Throughout his career, Archipenko experimented with positive and negative space in his sculptures, often using voids or holes to suggest form. In King Solomon, he placed abstract shapes together to create the vague shape of a figure. The tall prongs at the top evoke a crown, and the intersecting triangles suggest an imposing archaic costume. Archipenko captured a dramatic sense of scale, and it is easy to imagine how formidable this figure would be if enlarged to the sixty-foot-tall version that the artist envisioned.
Source.
His Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Dec 11, 2019 -
Comments (2)
Category: Art, Avant Garde, Body, Criticism and Reviews, Russia, Twentieth Century
Charles “Zimmy” Zibelman, the “Human Fish”
Zimmy footage starts circa 1:05
Source.
Source.
Another article here.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Nov 23, 2019 -
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Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Human Marvels, Oceans and Maritime Pursuits, Twentieth Century
Jackson Barnett, “The World’s Richest Indian”
From Wikipedia:
With the discovery of oil on Barnett's lands in 1912, a series of court actions by interested parties litigated the control of Barnett's trust. Barnett was declared incompetent and denied access to his affairs simply because he only spoke the Muscogee Creek language and not English. Barnett was permitted a modest income and was installed in a house near Henryetta. In 1919 the courts allowed the diversion of money from Barnett's trust to the construction of the "Jackson Barnett Hospital" in Henryetta. In 1920 Barnett, then in his seventies, married Anna Laura Lowe (1881-1952), a fortune hunter whom he had met only once before. The couple had to marry in Kansas after a marriage license was denied in Oklahoma. Barnett's guardians were unable to annul the marriage and the hospital plans were never pursued. Instead, the trust was divided between Anna Barnett and Bacone Indian College.[3]
The Barnetts moved to Los Angeles and bought a mansion on Wilshire Boulevard, where Jackson passed his time directing traffic at a nearby intersection. Legal actions continued from 1923 to 1929, which provoked congressional hearings on the role of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in establishing and administering the Barnett trust and others like it. The hearings led to criticism of BIA administrator Charles H. Burke's actions, and during the 1930s, to the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. In 1927 Barnett v. Equitable again proclaimed Jackson Barnett incompetent in federal court. In March 1934 another federal ruling annulled the Barnetts' marriage and Anna Barnett's rights to Jackson's trust on the grounds that Jackson had been "kidnapped" by a woman of suspect moral character, but allowed Anna to act as Jackson's caretaker. Jackson Barnett died on 29 May 1934 of natural causes: allegations that Anna had poisoned him were found to be false.[3][4]
Anna was finally evicted from the Wilshire Boulevard residence after four years, even though she had gained significant support from Los Angeles society,[5] including Los Angeles District Attorney Burton Fitts and California Governor Frank Merriam. Anna had to be tear-gassed after she threw a hatchet during the eviction,[5] and lived the remainder of her life with a daughter while unsuccessfully attempting to regain a share of the Barnett estate, which amounted to $3.5 million in 1934 ($55.4 million estimated value in 2012 dollars).
Source.
Lots more info here.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Nov 10, 2019 -
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Category: Crime, Unauthorized Dwellings, Forgotten Figures and Where Are They Now?, Frauds, Cons and Scams, Government, Hospitals, Twentieth Century, Native Americans, Weddings
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |