April 29, 2021
Thank you for your prayers yesterday. As I told you, I was having Mohs Surgery to remove a small skin cancer. This surgery is done in layers so as not to make a large scar, each layer is checked when the surgeon removes it, and more is done if needed (click on this link if you want to learn more). My doctor did one pass and said it was one of the smallest he had ever seen. So early detection, and lots of prayers!
I asked him what was the cause and he said, “Overexposure to the sun.” I laughed and said, “I haven’t been out in the sun in more than 50 years.” He asked if I had played outside as a child. I told him, “All the time, all day long.” He said, that’s the cause. So. Let's be careful out there!
👉 Michael Collins, the command module pilot for the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, died yesterday at age 90 after battling cancer.
Collins “flunked out” the first time he applied to the space program. He says there are 15 or 20 reasons why he might have flunked, but he liked to tell the story of the famed Rorschach inkblots mishap during his psychiatric exam.
“I leafed through a whole series of them, and then the last one was a blank sheet of paper, pure white, 8 by 10.” They asked, “So what do you see?” I say, “Well, of course that’s eleven polar bears making love in a snowbank.” And I could see the examiner’s eyes kind of tighten. He didn’t think that was funny. He didn’t like people making light of his card set. Anyway, for whatever reason, I flunked. The next year, (in the inkblot) I saw my mother and my father, and my father was slightly larger and more authoritarian but not too much more than my mother, and I passed.”
Collins was selected as part of the third class of astronauts in 1963. His first mission was on Gemini 10 with John Young. His second was Apollo 11.
As the command module pilot, Collins remained in orbit above the moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin piloted the lunar lander, “Eagle,” to its successful landing in the Sea of Tranquility.
“Apollo 11 was the culmination of my career,” he said. “We were finally able to do what President Kennedy had asked us to do, and so I think Neil and Buzz and I, all three, we felt that this was a culmination of a long, successful series. And we tried our best to fulfill it.”
👉 I enjoy the theater, dramatic plays, comedies, musicals, it doesn’t matter. Give me a good story, well performed and it gets a standing ovation from me. Over the next several issues of the QB – and probably not every day – I’m going to share nut-shells of 7 of my favorites from Broadway. I’ve already done my # 1 and # 2 plays, Cats (QB 42, and 129) and Mamma Mia (QB 132) so these will not be revisited for this series. Also West Side Story (QB 133), Music Man (QB 134) and My Fair Lady (QB 140) will not be repeated. For no particular reason, I’ll do them in alphabetical order (and my apologies if I miss your favorite).
Chicago is set in the jazz age, and is based on a 1926 play of the same name by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins, about actual criminals and the crimes on which she reported. Choreographed by Bob Fosse, the original Broadway production opened in 1975 and ran for 936 performances. Chicago was revived on Broadway in 1996, and that production is the second longest-running show to ever appear on Broadway, behind only The Phantom of the Opera. The 2002 film version of the musical won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Side note: Phantom has run for 13,370 performances and Chicago for 9,692 as of March 11, 2020 when all Broadway theaters suspended performance because of COVID-19.
In 1924 Watkins was assigned to cover the trials of accused murderers Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner for the Chicago Tribune. These cases were tried against a backdrop of changing views of women in the jazz age, and a long string of acquittals by Cook County juries of female murderers (juries at the time were all male, and convicted murderers generally faced death by hanging). A belief arose that, in Chicago, feminine or attractive women could not be convicted. The characters in Chicago were based either on actual persons Watkins covered, or were a combination of more than one individual. Both Beulah and Belva were acquitted (as were her creations Velma and Roxie).
Chicago begins with Velma Kelly welcoming the audience to the play, and introduces the first musical number “All That Jazz.”
The scene cuts to the bedroom of chorus girl Roxie Hart, where she murders Fred Casely as he attempts to break off an affair with her. Roxie confesses and is arrested. She is sent to the women’s block in the Cook County Jail, where several women accused of killing their lovers are held, and they perform my favorite number, “Cell Block Tango.” He had it coming!
The show deals with the themes of corruption in the judicial system and celebrity criminals. Velma and Roxie are acquitted, but an even more sensational crime than theirs draws the attention of the press and the public away, and they end up back on the vaudeville stage. Curtain.
👉 Coincidentally, today is International Dance Day, a day of celebration for those who see the importance of dance, and a day to enjoy dance and share it with others. It was created in 1982 by the Dance Committee of the International Theater Institute, which is a performing arts partner with UNESCO. The date of April 29 was chosen because it is the birthday of Jean-Georges Noverre, the creator of modern ballet.
👉 Today’s close is from Praying the Psalms, by Eugene H. Peterson.
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits” (Psalm 103:2).
Forgetfulness atrophies the muscles of praise and leaves them flabby and passive. Remembrance internalizes a history of grace and strengthens praise into blessing, so that we act in a renewing way on our environment.
Prayer: What blessings I have experienced! What benefits I have been given! I will compile my own list of goodness through the hours of this day and give you praise, O God, for each item. Stir my memory and quicken my tongue, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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