QUARANTINE BLOG # 206

October 22, 2020

Attention fans of CATS (specifically the Broadway musical, not their live cousins)!  35 years after their first performance, more than 30 former cast members from the third national tour of Cats will reunite for a streaming event benefitting Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.  With Love, Now and Forever! CATS4COVIDRELIEF premieres October 23 at 8 PM ET at https://broadwaycares.org, where it will be available to view through October 27.  Along with anecdotes about the production, the event will feature a contemporary take on “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats,” a new performance of “Memory” from Leslie Ellis and Christine Toy Johnson, and a version of “The Naming of Cats” featuring a Halloween surprise.

**  Speaking of cats, the live variety, not their Broadway cousins:

**  As part of a push to resume cruise operations in the United States, a number of American ports experienced protests in an effort to persuade government leaders to let the cruise industry operate in the United States.  Protests were staged at multiple Florida ports, as well as Galveston, as part of America’s cruise industry national workforce rally.

Participants included those from the longshoremen’s union, the ports, airports, cruise lines, ground transportation, hotels, the hospitality business, agriculture, trade and commerce and other industries supported by the massive cruise business.  According to a flyer distributed, America’s cruise workforce “needs to go back to work,” because jobs have been lost indefinitely, partially or furloughed until the cruise lines are allowed to sail again – including those of Guest Lecturers.  Happy sails!

**  I’m not sure where this one came from, but while looking for something else (I don’t remember what it was or whether I found it, but the rabbit trail led to this piece) I found a link to “Stand by Me,” by Ben E. King https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTd2ylacYNU.  

As is the case with many great pop songs, you can identify “Stand By Me” by its opening few notes.  When this video begins, the camera pans across a collection of things from the life of teenaged boys.  At about 1:50 in the video two boys from the audience join King in the song.  I think the boy on King’s left is Wil Wheaton who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation the most annoying character in the Star Trek franchise).  Anyway, at 2:00 the scene shifts from the studio to the adventures of 4 boys out exploring and needing companionship and friendship.  It’s a good video.

“Stand by Me” was performed by a choir for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZcQhZHr354.  There is a funny bit at 2:52 when Charles and Camilla are shown, looking very bored.

King was also one of the principal lead singers for “The Drifters,” notably singing the lead vocals of one of their biggest global hit singles, and only U.S. #1 hit, “Save the Last Dance for Me.”  This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVNfk7a0CfY has “The Drifters” sound track with a really nice visual presentation.

**  Here are a couple of things to think about:

**  Speaking of phones, here are a couple more goodies:

**  Perhaps the most popular of all board games is Chess, but to wrap up this mini-series on board games, let’s look at my favorite, Backgammon (and apologies to you Grand Masters out there).  It is a two-player game where each player has 15 pieces that move between 24 triangles (points) according to the roll of two dice.  The objective of the game is to be first to move all 15 checkers off the board (bear off). 

Backgammon is one of the oldest known board games.  Its history can be traced back nearly 5,000 years to archaeological discoveries in Mesopotamia.  The world’s oldest set of dice (made from human bone) were discovered there.  “Tavli” meaning ‘table’ or ‘board’ in Byzantine Greek, is the oldest game with rules known to be nearly identical to backgammon.  First described around AD 480, the only differences from modern backgammon were the use of an extra die (three rather than two) and the starting of all pieces off the board and entering by roll of the dice.  

In the 16th century, Elizabethan laws and church regulations prohibited playing backgammon, but it has been played in the United States since the 17th century.  Thomas Jefferson played the game often – including during the three weeks before July 4, 1776, while he was drafting the Declaration of Independence.  He kept a notebook of his expenses, and among the entries are these two: “Lost at backgammon 7d/6.”  “Won at backgammon 7d/1/3.”  Our Founding Father finished the competition at a loss.

An online game playing against the computer is at https://www.247backgammon.org/.

A site to play backgammon, Monopoly, Scrabble, chess and more is: https://poki.com/en/board?gclid=Cj0KCQjw8rT8BRCbARIsALWiOvSxE8CBwAoK1bSHPC3bB7c6ymT7QlmHMr16SIbScchEVaBm8839e2AaAojyEALw_wcB.

**  Today’s close is from Praying with Jesus by Eugene Peterson.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27 NRSV).

The world’s way to get peace is to eliminate that which disturbs; God’s way is to restore the unruly.  The world’s way to get peace is to say, “Shut up, I don’t want to hear it anymore;” the Lord’s way is to say, “Be still, and know that I am God.”  The world’s peace is a precarious house of cards; God’s peace is a cosmic wholeness.

Prayer: “Thy mighty name salvation is, and keeps my happy soul above: comfort it brings, and power, and peace, and joy, and everlasting love: to me, with thy great name, are given pardon and holiness and heaven” (Charles Wesley, “Thou Hidden Source of Calm Repose,” The Hymnbook).  Amen.

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