JR = July Rain
July Rain is the English title of Июльский дождь, a 1967 Soviet film starring Yevgeniya Uralova.
JS - Jerry Springer
Jerry Springer was born in a London tube (subway) station in 1944. In 1949, he emigrated with his parents to the US, and lived in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York. (No, unfortunately it wasn’t this one.) His career has included law, politics, and TV hosting.
JT- Oscar winning “Driving Miss Daisy” star Jessica Tandy and her husband Hume Cronyn appeared together in numerous films (including Cocoon,* The World According to Garp*, and Camilla) and in such Broadway plays as The Gin Game.
U = Just Us
“Just Us”, an album by the Korean band JYJ, reached number four on the Billboard World Albums Chart. The band is now on hiatus, due to two of the three members obligatins to Korean military service.
JV- Jackie Vernon, a standup comedian specializing in self-deprecating jokes, provided the voice of Frosty the Snowman in a much-loved animated TV special.
Vernon also played the world’s stupidest genie in an episode of Rod Serling’s “Night Gallery,” directed by the young, unknown Steven Spielberg.
JW = Jay Ward
Jay Ward, the creator of Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon characters, , had an MBA from Harvard. Ponsonby Britt, the last name to appear in the credits, wasn’t anybody.
JX = Junked Xylophone
Any xylophone found in the trash. Possibly a xylophone that had somehow been crushed previously by a large heavy object. It takes a skilled repairperson to attempt to salvage such an instrument, and there are surely no guarantees that the object could be restored to musical respectability even with talent and resolve.
JY = Just You, a Taiwanese comedy series. The released soundtrack album performed better than the series.
JZ = Jacksonville Zoo
Jacksonville, Florida.
In 1967, a wild-born black jaguar named “Zorro” first arrived at this zoo. The jaguar lived there for 19 years before dying, and sired many cubs that were sent to other zoos. According to Wiki, a study conducted in 2003 by the Jacksonville Zoo was unable to locate a single black jaguar in any North American zoo that was not a descendant of Zorro.
KA- Karen Allen, who played Boon’s level-headed girlfriend Katie in “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” agreed to bare her buttocks briefly in that film after co-star Donald Sutherland volunteered to do so as well.
KB = Kristen Bell, TV & movie actress. Shehas a strong liking of Tommy Wiseau’s cult film The Room (2003). She hosts parties at her house for The Room, attended cinema screenings of it, and has said that “there is a magic about that film that is indescribable”.
I laughed.
In play:
KC - Kansas City
Per Wiki, “The Kansas City metropolitan area is a 15-county metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri, that straddles the border between the U.S. states of Missouri and Kansas. With a population of about 2,340,000, it ranks as the second largest metropolitan area with its core in Missouri (after Greater St. Louis).”
n/m
KD- Kevin Durant spent just one year at the University of Texas before entering the NBA draft, and being taken by the Seattle SuperSonics, who migrated East and became the Oklahoma City Thunder.
He left the Thunder last year, and may win an NBA title with his new team, the Golden State Warriors.
KE = Keith Emerson, progressive rocker, and one of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. While in ELP, Emerson continued to some degree the physical abuse of his Hammond organ that he had developed with the group “the Nice”, including playing the organ upside down while having it lie over him and using knives to wedge down specific keys and sustain notes during solos. In addition to using his knives on the organ, he also engaged in knife throwing onstage, using a target fastened to his keyboard rig.
KF = Kinshasa French
A dialcet spoken in Kinshasa, DR Congo, the largest Francophone city in the world that is spelled with a K.
KG - Knight of the Garter
The Most Noble Order of the Garter is an order of chivalry founded by Edward III in 1348, and the senior British order of knighthood. It is based at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.
From Wiki: “During the First World War, two Royal Knights and six Stranger Knights, all monarchs or princes of enemy nations and including Wilhelm II, German Emperor and Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria were struck off the roll of the Order or had their appointments annulled in 1915. The banner of Victor Emmanuel III of Italy was also removed from the chapel after Italy entered World War II against the United Kingdom and her Allies. The banner of Emperor Hirohito of Japan was removed from St. George’s chapel when Japan entered World War II in 1941, but that banner and the Japanese monarch’s knighthood were restored by Elizabeth II in 1971, when Hirohito made a state visit to the United Kingdom. The Emperor was particularly pleased by the restoration of his banner as a Knight of the Garter.”
I saw Hirohito’s banner there in late 1985 when I visited the UK. You can see his son Akihito’s (identical) banner to the right here, a yellow chrysanthemum on a red field: Order of the Garter - Wikipedia
KH = Kennedy Halves
US 50-cent coins, still being minted and in circulation,but rarely encountered, because vending machines have never been equipped to accept them. In the past 20 years alone, the US mint has made enough of them for every American to have one, and they still strike new ones at a rate of about four million a year.
KI - Kokomo, Indiana. The location of Bob’s Country Bunker, where the Blues Brothers pretend to be the Good Ole Boys in the movie The Blues Brothers
KJ - King James
The British monarch gave his name to the King James Version of the Bible, researched and written by a committee of Anglican churchmen. For a good book (ahem) on the subject, see God’s Secretaries by Adam Nicolson.