Cleavon Little played Sheriff Bart, and Gene Wilder was Jim, the “Waco Kid” in the 1974 classic western comedy, Blazing Saddles.
Some truly good trivia: Blazing Saddles was the first movie to incorporate audible flatulence. The resulting “fart scene,” in which a gang of thugs pass gas around a campfire, made movie history. Brooks knew this gag would get a big reaction, so he deliberately “made the farts louder” to prevent the audience’s laughter from drowning them out.
One of Gene Wilder’s early roles was Bernard in a 1966 made-for-TV version of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. He played opposite the leads who had originated the roles in the play’s Broadway run, Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock.
The dunnock is an inconspicuous songbird of western Eurasia, which exhibits a fluidity of mating systems. When given food in abundance, female territory size is reduced drastically. Consequently, males can more easily monopolise the females. Thus, the mating system can be shifted from one that favours female success (polyandry), to one that promotes male success (monogamy, polygynandry, or polygyny).
The boundary separating Europe from Asia is somewhat ambiguous but generally is considered to be the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways of the Turkish Straits.
World famous Russian writer Boris Pasternak, spent about six months in the Perm region of the Urals in 1916 . In his novel Dr. Zhivago there are many places, which can be recognize places from Perm region such as Perm, which is a prototype of Yuryatin and the village of Vsevolodo-Vilva, which is a prototype of Varykino.
Russia is divided into subjects called Krais (pronounced “cries”?) and Oblasts. Perm Krai is one of the very smallest of them. Krais means ‘edges’ or ‘frontiers’. Oblasts are analogous to states or provinces.
Wikipedia has inconsistent information about their numbers:
Krais of Russia says there are 85 subjects, nine of which are Krais.
Oblasts of Russia says there are 83 subjects, of which 46 are Oblasts.
Besides Russia, several other countries can be regarded as being on two continents. Turkey is an obvious and undisputed one. Kazakhatan is partly on the Europe side if the generally recognized border with Asia, and the Ural River flows right through the heart of the Kazakh city of Atyrau. Possibly the only city that is located on two continents. Panama is partly in South America, if the isthmus if Panama is considered the boundary. Egypt’s Sinai region is logically in Asia.
The world famous “A man, a plan, a canal–Panama” has been extended to incredible palindromic lengths, including:
A man, a plan, a cat, a canal; Panama! by Jim Saxe,
A man, a plan, a cat, a ham, a yak, a yam, a hat, a canal–Panama! by Guy Jacobson
A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal–Panama! by Guy Steele.
Wow. Holy palindromes, Batman! We’ve played on palindromes before. Some typical single word palindromes include (the paste won’t be pretty):
ALULA
A part of a bird’s wing.
ANANA
The pineapple.
CIVIC
Pertaining to cities.
DEKED
From DEKE, to feint in hockey
DELED
From DELE, to delete.
DERED
From DERE, to injure.
DEWED
From DEW, to moisten.
KAIAK
A light canoe.
KAYAK
A light canoe.
LEMEL
Metal filings.
LEVEL
To even out.
MADAM
A term of address for a woman.
MALAM
A Muslim scholar.
MINIM
A musical note.
RADAR
A locating device.
REFER
To attribute to.
ROTOR
A rotating machine part.
SAGAS
From SAGA, a series of novels.
SAMAS
From SAMA, a Japanese title.
SEDES
A seat (Latin).
SELES
From SELE, good fortune.
SEMES
From SEME, an ornamental pattern.
SERES
From SERE, to burn the surface of.
SEXES
From SEX, gender.
SHAHS
From SHAH, an Iranian ruler.
SIMIS
From SIMI, a type of sword.
SIRIS
From SIRI, a climbing plant.
SOLOS
From SOLO, to perform alone.
STATS
From STAT, a statistic.
STETS
From STET, to cancel a printing correction.
STOTS
From STOT, to bounce.
SULUS
From SULU, a Melanesian skirt.
SUSUS
From SUSU, a group savings scheme.
TENET
A principle.
TOROT
The body of Jewish law.
Wierd Al did this delicious takeoff on Dylan, with lyrice all palindromes:
In lay:The longest palindromic name by a MLB ball player was Toby Harrah. Hall of fFame baseball brothers, Paul and Lloyd Waner were from Harrah, Oklahoma.
“Go Hang a Salami! I’m a Lasagna Hog!” is the title of a book of palindromes by Jon Agee.
Two of the greatest catches in World Series history took place in game three of the 1969 World Series and were made by the same player, the NY Mets’ Tommie Agee. After hitting .357, 2 home runs and 4 RBIs in the Mets’ playoff sweep of the Atlanta Braves, Agee had what Sports Illustrated called the single best game by a center fielder in World Series history. In game 3 against the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles and with the Series tied 1-1, Agee hit a leadoff home run off of Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer and over Orioles center fielder Paul Blair’s head in left center to score what eventually was the game winning run in the Mets’ 5-0 victory. Agee then made a great snow cone catch at the wall in deep left center. And then later, Agee made a diving catch at the track in deep right center for a spectacular out to rob Paul Blair.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by writer James Agee with photographs by Walker Evans is considered a classic work of the Depression. It’s a series of interviews with an extended family of sharecroppers in Cuba, Alabama, though in the book the town of Cuba’s name is changed to Havana. The book has its fans and its critics, the biggest critique being that Agee inserted himself into the narrative more than he should, especially considering that the book was funded by Federal funds.
(“Famous Men” is the single most important book about Americana that I have ever read.)
In Play:
Felice and Boudleaux Bryant were a song writing team who composed 23 songs recoreded by the Everly Brothers and that many more recorded by other country-rock singers in that era. Boudleaux, who grew up in the south during the depression, was a concert violinist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. His wife Felice says she dreamed of her future husband when she was 8, and when she saw Boudleaux in a Milwaukee hotel, she knew it was the mam she dreamed of.
Of the songs written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, “Bye Bye Love” is possibly the one with the most cover versions. Famous artists who have recorded it include Ray Charles, George Harrison and Simon and Garfunkel.
Ray Charles’s business sense matched his musical talent and he became one of the wealthiest men in show business. He bequeathed each of his twelve children a $1 million trust fund and other gifts (stipulations applied to both) but the majority of his wealth endowed the Ray Charles Foundation which has to date given many millions of dollars in grants to colleges, medical research, and other causes. Among other causes they have fully funded or contributed to hundreds of cochlear implants.
Foundation, a book later developed into a series by the writer Issac Asimov, deals with the collapse of Galactic civilization and the efforts of a group to reduce the “dark ages” from 30,000 years to only 1,000. The series has seven books, the last published in 1988. It also ties in with Asimov’s “Robot” series.
Robot is one of the few words in English that has a Czech etymology. Coined for this usage by Czech sci-fi writer Karel Čapek in the play R.U.R. (1920) from the base robot-, as in robota compulsory labor, robotník peasant owing such labor.
There are over 4,000 robots serving in the US Military. These include roadside scouts looking for IEDs.
Dill Harris, the neighborhood friend of Scout Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird”, is a character based on Truman Capote, the real-life childhood friend of the author, Harper Lee.