Catching up on various peoples' posts:
Re: Rosemary Kennedy. Yes, I of course have something to say. It was the infamous Dr. Walter Freeman, who was alleged to have performed the transorbital on Frances, who did the prefrontal on Rosemary (this was before Walter had the great idea to use an icepick). It was one of several botched operations he did through his career. Speaking of which, Jack El-Hai's most excellent biography
The Lobotomist will be out in just a few weeks. I got an advance copy and it's a chilling read, though El-Hai wisely chooses not to vilify Freeman. Interesting that there is evidently a 1961
Saturday Evening Post article about Rosemary--I've collected
SEPs since I was a kid (I have them going back to the 1800s), so I will have to look to see if I have this particular issue.
Re: BeeGee ringing the doorbell. Yup, he still rings it. We are dealing with his "drama King" yelping when we attempt to trim his nails. It was hilarious last night. He started letting out these extremely pitiful yelps when he saw Betsy holding the clippers--and we weren't even near his feet yet. Our old dog Sasha, whom BeeGee much resembles physically and in temperament, used to do the very same thing. We had a professional groomer then who used to come to our house, and it got so bad that she started giving us doggie tranquilizers to give to Sasha a couple of hours before the appointment. We may have to do the same thing with BeeGee.
Re: Brad and Jen. I played a kind of mean, but oh, so funny trick, on Betsy last night. I saw the news on AOL, and I went out to her in the kitchen and said, with dire seriousness, "Honey, there's some very bad news on the computer. I just want to warn you before you sit down to check your email." She smiled--thinking I was joking, then when I didn't crack, she became very serious and concerned. "Brad and Jen have split." I'll be able to extract the rolling pin from the back of my head some time today, I'm positive.
Re: DR François: he is a wonderful resource for the French sections of my book. Thank you, but I still need to know about THE ONE!!
Re: Cedillas. (Sung to the tune of Maria:)
Cedilla
I just gave my c a cedilla
And suddenly I'm French
A very savvy mensch
Am I
And finally re: Bacharach. As I mentioned a while back, I'm doing an original Bacharach revue up here, which we are crafting from scratch. I absolutely love
Lost Horizon, even the movie part. So sue me. I'm about 5 or 6 years older than the two actor/singers in this production, and that difference in age is amazing when it comes to Bacharach. They had never heard of
Are You There (With Another Girl), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Wishin' and Hopin', and a lot of Burt's other early hits. I of course, being the
resident Sergio Mendes freak(tm), love
Look of Love (sorry, I know some people consider it a Dusty Springfield tune, but Sergio's version was a much bigger hit, and the arrangement, IMHO, is heads and shoulders above Dusty's, especially with that deliciously unexpected 1/2 step modulation after the first eight). I also love
Promises, Promises, but the backers' demo for that show proves that even Bacharach/David could write some real clunkers. "Let's Pretend We're Grown Up." Need I say more?