Burlesque. Although the word conjures up images of women taking their clothes off, that's not all that "burleycue" was about. Certainly the ladies were the major attraction, but there were also sketches, clowns, and terrible jokes. Burlesque's golden age ended after a quarter century, when concerned citizens
closed down Minsky's Burlesque, but not before such performers as Bud Abbott and Lou Costello,
Bert Lahr,
and Phil Silvers
had learned their craft.
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 Regardless of where the stations were, they almost all had one thing in common: kiddie show hosts. Before or after school, some poor station employee (a weatherman, an announcer, or even a news anchor) would be forced to dress up as a hobo, a sea captain, a cop, a castaway, or a clown, and act enthusiastic as he (or she) introduced crappy cartoons, chopped-to-bits Three Stooges shorts, or even more heinous fare. At the top of the heap, though, was Milton Supman, born January 8, 1926. You've never heard of him? Perhaps you know him better by his stage name: Soupy Sales. Soupy began his television career in Cincinnati and Cleveland, but soon moved to WXYZ in Detroit, where he hosted not one, but two, daily programs: Lunch with Soupy for the kiddies at noontime, and Soupy's On for the grownups in the late evenings. The latter featured such jazz superstars as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis (who made six appearances) as guests -- heady fare for the mid-1950s. Soupy's midwestern fame soon got him a gig in Los Angeles and a primetime network show on ABC. Unfortunately, the national show was cancelled after only thirteen weeks, but he continued appearing locally, and nationally as a late-night fill-in for Steve Allen. It was in 1964, though, that Soupy hit the big time. He moved to WNEW in New York, and his show took off like a rocket, being syndicated nationally. Celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, Jerry Lewis, Judy Garland, Sammy Davis, Jr., Mickey Rooney, and Burt Lancaster were clamoring to have Soupy throw pies in their faces. Those pies became Soupy's trademark. It was estimated that, over his career, he either threw or was hit with nearly 20,000 pies -- a prop he was exacting about: "You can use whipped cream, egg whites, or shaving cream," he explained, "but shaving cream is much better because it doesn't spoil. The secret is you just can't push it and shove it in somebody's face. It has to be done with a pie that has a lot of crust so that it breaks up into a thousand pieces when it hits you." The most notorious event in Soupy's career, though, was his New Year's show in 1965. Peeved at having to work on the holiday, he told the kiddies to find their parents' wallets and "get all the green pieces of paper with the pictures of guys in beards" and mail them to him. In return he would send them "a postcard from Puerto Rico." With that, the proverbial pie hit the fan. While the station was flooded with Monopoly money from those who got the joke, it was also flooded with phone calls from those who didn't get it, and Soupy was suspended for a week. Soupy's show ended in 1966, but in the decades after, he was a regular panelist on What’s My Line? and made numerous radio, television, and live appearances. When he died in October, 2009, a pie was placed on his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But by that time, the magic, like the era of live TV hosted by local personalities, was gone. Suggested Sites...
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 He looked like the most ordinary of men: 6'1", silver-haired,
and normally well-dressed (that is, when he wasn’t attending parties in
flaming red pajamas, a Knights Templar outfit, or attired as Abe Lincoln). But inside his head were some of the most gruesomely funny cartoons, images, and ideas ever drawn for The New Yorker
or any other magazine. He was Charles Addams (or "Chas Addams," as his work was signed. "Just a matter
of design," he explained. "It looks better than writing out
'Charles'").
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 The catchy strains of Sweet Georgia Brown. Dazzling passes.
Physical comedy rivaling the best comedians of the silent-film era. The 83rd anniversary we note
today can be for none other than the Harlem Globetrotters.
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Over the past few years, U.S. airport security experts have explored using this century-old technology in new -- and revealing -- ways -- especially in light of recent events. But instead of just scanning your belongings or stepping through a metal detector, in the near future, you might be virtually stripped by a "backscatter" X-ray machine before hopping on that plane to visit Grandma. The process would (theoretically) reveal any potentially concealed weapons -- as well as your naked body. The airport screeners may keep straight faces, but we wonder if seeing our exposed bodies will spark voyeuristic chuckles when they see us -- and our loved ones -- in the buff.
Are such techniques less invasive than the old-school pat-down? Is the trade-off of privacy for the sake of security a worthwhile one It's a tough call, and one worthy of vigorous debate.
We can only hope that real X-ray specs won't be the next innovation -- or people-watching at the airport will be changed forever.
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The weather outside may be frightful, but it's the right time to bundle up, leave the house, and attend a winter festival.
Think of these hibernal celebrations as Fourth of July picnics, with the requisite golf and fireworks -- and five feet of snow.
Even though the days are short, there's plenty to see and do: snowmobile races, eating and drinking, swimming, and ice sculptures -- lots of ice sculptures.
Of course, winter festivals aren't limited to December and January: in the Southern
Hemisphere, July's the time to play in the snow.
Whenever winter comes, if you
get too cold outside, you can hurry back to your cozy room at the local ice hotel.
Suggested Sites...
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If you’re a typical American, you eat about 27 pounds
of them a year. But beware! Bananas are on the road to extinction -- in ten
to thirty years, that tasty banana you had for breakfast may no longer exist.
How is this possible? After all, there are over 1,000 varieties of banana that grow in more than 100 countries, and the Cavendish (what you know as the generic "banana") is only one of them -- and is actually looked down upon by many connoisseurs as being bland.
But, in fact, the Cavendish is a relative newcomer. From 1880 to the 1950s, the banana known to our forefathers was the "Gros Michel" (also known as "Big Mike"). In the 1950s, though, "Big Mike" succumbed to a fungus that virtually wiped out the variety (it can still be found in small quantities on remote plantations).
Banana growers searched for a replacement and came up
with the Cavendish, in spite of the difficulty in transporting it. After much experimentation, researchers determined that
if the Cavendish were taken from the tree (where they will not ripen; only a
picked banana will do that) and sealed in containers or rooms filled with ethylene gas,
the ripening process could be delayed while the fruits made their two-week
journey from field to your supermarket.
In their time, those banana growers showed more powers than the ability
to retard spoilage; their machinations in the late nineteenth century led to the
control and
overthrowing of more than one Central or South
American government (hence "banana republic"). In fact, that's what inspires our exegesis on
bananas today; on this date in 1932, martial law was declared in Honduras to
stop a revolt by banana workers fired by the United Fruit Company (known today as Chiquita).
The reason Cavendish bananas are endangered is that they all are genetically identical -- clones of one another that cannot reproduce naturally. Without the help of humans, the Cavendish could not
exist -- although that point may be moot if the banana fungus that wiped out the Gros Michel and the Cavendishes of Asia and Australia
makes it across the Pacific.
Dedicated banana scientists are working night
and day to breed different genetic traits into the Cavendish to ensure its
longevity and resistance to the fungus, but if you wake up some morning in
the future and are faced with putting apples or grapes on your corn flakes
-- well, don’t say we didn’t warn you
…
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