Spinning Around

“You’re my superstar
Tu es mon petit chouchou yeah.”
Lenny Kravitz, “Spinning Around Over You?"

Anne Balay showed her Women’s Studies class the YouTube video of Garfunkel and Oates’s “Pregnant Girls Are Smug.” She also returned my “Reality Bites” soundtrack featuring Lenny K. singing about his “chouchou,” which according to a French-English dictionary means darling pet or scrunchie. Say what? Scrunchie is an elastic loop used to keep hair in a ponytail. On “Californication” Karen dated a black guy that Hank called Lenny Kravitz. Lenny’s best-known song was 1993’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way?” (that same year he divorced willowy Lisa Bonet from “Cosby”), but he’s still going strong. On the CD Ethan Hawke, who starred in “Reality Bites” with Winona Rider as a “Generation Xer,” sings “I’m Nuthin’.” The lyrics (for example, “I’m sick of people talking about the American Dream – it’s all gone”) remind me of the line in John Dos Passos’s 1920s novel “Manhattan Transfer” where disillusioned young Martin declares: “None of us know what we want. That’s why we’re such a peewee generation.”

The History department is sifting through applications for its mediaeval position. When Sid Feldman was starting the Business Division, he looked for applicants from the Midwest because they were more likely to stay rather than hunt for another job. Chris Young, the only department member who fits that description, has put down roots in the Calumet Region, expressed interest in Indiana history, and seems most likely, in Jonathyne Briggs’s words, to be a lifer.

I interrupted Nan Plunkett, Alex Karras’s sister, while she was playing bridge in order to confirm that her stepfather’s old man who was a sea captain. Brother Ted lives in Miller and had a nine-year NFL career.

A category on“Jeopardy” was “Game of Thrones,” also the name of the memorable HBO series. Nobody (except me) knew the first Holy Roman Emperor was Charlemagne, whose throne is located at Aachen, Germany.

Time’s Joe Klein ridiculed Republican strategist and Obama hatemonger Karl Rove for criticizing the Chrysler Superbowl ad where crusty Clint Eastwood defended the automobile bailout. Eastwood said, “It seems that we’ve lost our heart at times – the fog of division, discord and blame made it hard to see what lies ahead. But after those trials, we all rallied around what was right and acted as one.” The veteran actor concluded, “This country can’t be knocked down with one punch. We get right back up again. And when we do, the world is going to hear the roar of our engines.” I’m waiting to see how Romney defends his anti-bailout position during the upcoming Michigan primary.

Jon Resh’s “Amped: Notes from a Go-Nowhere Punk Band” arrived via interlibrary loan, laced with great quotes, including this by Russian-born composer and conductor Igor Stravinsky: “My music is best understood by children and animals.” Resh formed the band Spoke while a U. of Florida student. The book is reminiscent of Sam Barnett’s memoir of being in the band Fuzz Factor.

At age 70 New Yorker contributor E.J. Kahn, Jr., kept a diary throughout the year 1987 that he published as “Year of Change.” On February 10 he noted: “For some years, ever since the women’s lib movement convinced me that I was a heel for having so long been malely chauvinistic, I have made a point, when, say, buying Christmas presents via telephone from a mail-order catalogue, of asking whomever I’m connected with, after she identifies herself as Joanna or Rosie or Kate or whatever, for her surname. I do this in what I conceive to be the spirit of the Equal Rights Amendment. Whoever heard of a man identifying himself solely as Charlie or George?” Pretty lame.

Milk and sandwiches are slightlymore expensive at IUN’s Redhawk Café than at the cafeteria. I frequently choose the latter venue, everything being equal. Library director Bob Moran, founder of the Redhawk Café, walked around the entire campus each day after a heart attack. Thanks to all the computers nearby, his brainchild is thriving after struggling for many years.

Friday was opening night of “Oliver” at Valpo’s Memorial Opera House. Lake effect snow was falling, with eight to 12 inches predicted. Since James and Becca, playing urchins, only appeared in the first act (they were fantastic), we left at intermission and except for a couple spins on the ice, got home OK. Starting out after the play ended, it took Angie two hours to make it home through near whiteout conditions.

Letterman’s Top Ten list dealt with “ways to describe gravy.” The only clever ones were “how mashed potatoes go from drab to fab” and “what N.J. governor Chris Christie puts on his cereal.” Mr. Smith, one of Dave’s old Little League coaches responding to someone who quipped, “Like your beer, do you?’ by replying, “No, potatoes and gravy.”

In the always-difficult “Saturday Stumper” crossword puzzle I was able to help Toni out with “First Pulitzer Winning Comic Strip” – Doonesbury- and “Family with Megahits” Gibbs.

Had a lucky streak gaming Sunday. A clever final sacrifice earned me the victory in Amen Re, while in St. Petersburg I emulated the strategy that Tom has successfully employed so many times. I ran away in Acquire by owned the most stock in both blue-chip companies before losing to Dave in Stone Age.

We attended “Oliver” with the Hagelbergs. It was easy to spot James, but Becca, playing a boy, had on a wig and was harder to find in the first workhouse scene. After a delightful opening act, the play ended in overly melodramatic fashion with Nancy, the prostitute-with-a-heart-of-gold getting killed by Bill Sykes, her abusive lover. When Antoinette Gomez as Nancy sang about loving her man despite all his faults (“As Long As He Needs Me”), I thought the women in the audience might hiss. The play originally opened in 1960, a pre-feminist age. A woman, Maddie Blaney, playing the role of the Artful Dodger brought down the house singing “Consider Yourself.” Luke Bouman portrayed Fagin, the leader of the pickpocket ring, almost sympathetically rather than as the anti-Semitic figure of Charles Dickens’s original novel.

After dinner at Pesto’s Restaurant I turned on CBS in preparation for the Grammys. “60 Minutes,” a favorite of seniors, ran commercials for the sexual stimulant Viagra and Orencia arthritis medication. Since Whitney Houston was recently found dead at age 48 the Grammy Awards Show had numerous tributes. Johnny Otis and Etta James were also remembered. Bruce Springsteen, Chris Brown, and the Foo Fighters all rocked out. David Grohl was outfitted in a Slayer t-shirt. As expected, Adele cleaned up. Glen Campbell sang “Rhinestone Cowboy” despite suffering from Alzheimer’s and Maroon 5 and Foster the People performed Beach Boys songs prior to joining with Brian Wilson, Mike Love, and Al Jardine on “Good Vibrations.” Amazingly, the Beach Boys never won a Grammy.

Learned that I’ll be on Sergeant Stewart’s TV show February 22, that page proofs for “Valor” will arrive in early March and that I’ll be doing a presentation at the Hobart Senior Center on March 8. I skipped Alan Barr’s Monday movie “Peeping Tom,” about a murderer who films his women victims’ contorted dying faces. Ugh! Not for me.

Larry Ceplair, author of “The Marxist and the Movies: A Biography of Paul Jarrico,” emailed: “I have been alerted that you wish to communicate with me. Have at it.” I asked about William Marshall’s 42-year relationship with Paul Jarrico’s ex-wife Sylvia. Evidently Marshall met the Jarricos in Paris because Paul wanted him to play the lead in “All Night Long,” a film based on “Othello” in a modern Jazz Age setting. There is speculation that because Paul was having an affair at the time, he may have been hoping that his wife and Marshall become lovers, in Ceplair’s words, “as a counter to his own dalliance.” Actor Paul Harris eventually played the role of Aurelius Rex, and due to the Blacklist screenwriter Jarrico used the pseudonym Peter Achilles.

On February 13, 1844, according to John C. Fremont’s journal, the day before he discovered Lake Tahoe, his party feasted on pea soup, mule and dog prepared in the Indian fashion. It being Seattle Joe’s birthday, I called him while listening to “The Crow” soundtrack featuring The Cure (“Burn”), NIN (“Dead Souls”), Pantera (“The Badge”), and Rollins Band (“Ghost Rider”). My favorite cut is the finale, Jane Siberry’s “It Can’t Rain All the Time”

With Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire out, Chinese-American Jeremy Lin, an undrafted Harvard grad, came off the far end of the New York Knicks bench to have a sensational five games, including scoring 38 points against the Lakers. People are comparing him to Tim Tebow and talking about Lin-fever, even describing the phenomenon as Lin-sanity.

Former student Milan Andrejevich informed me that retired History secretary Rosalis Zak was in the Life Care Center of the Willows. After several unsuccessful attempts, I reached her the day before she was scheduled to undergo a serious operation. She was an English war bride. In “Educating the Region” I wrote: “We kept her busy with research papers as well as normal work. Chary even had her take dictation. I revised my work using red, blue, black, and green ink, and once she posted a multi-colored copy of a page on her door to show others what she had to put up with.” In an age before computers she used an electric typewriter and white-out to correct typos.