Placeholder Content Image

How was Halloween invented? Once a Celtic pagan tradition, the holiday has evolved to let kids and adults try on new identities

<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/linus-owens-457047">Linus Owens</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/middlebury-1247">Middlebury</a></em></p> <p>“It’s alive!” Dr. Frankenstein cried as his creation stirred to life. But the creature had a life of its own, eventually escaping its creator’s control.</p> <p>Much like Frankenstein’s monster, traditions are also alive, which means they can change over time or get reinvented. Built from a hodgepodge of diverse parts, Halloween is one such tradition that has been continually reinvented since its ancient origins as <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/T/bo46408548.html">a Celtic pagan ceremony</a>. Yet beneath the superhero costumes and bags of candy still beats the heart of the original.</p> <p>The Celts lived in what’s now Ireland as far back as 500 B.C. They celebrated New Year’s Day on Nov. 1, which they called <a href="https://www.loc.gov/folklife/halloween-santino.html">Samhain</a>. They believed that leading up to the transition to the new year, the door between the worlds of the living and the dead swung open. The souls of the recently dead, previously trapped on Earth, could now pass to the underworld. Since they thought spirits came out after dark, this supernatural activity reached its peak the night before, on Oct. 31.</p> <p>The Celts invented rituals to protect themselves during this turbulent time. They put on costumes and disguises to fool the spirits. They lit bonfires and stuck candles inside carved turnips – the first jack-o’-lanterns – to scare away any spirits looking for mischief. If all else failed, they carried a pocketful of treats to pay off wayward spirits and send them back <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/halloween-9780195168969?cc=us&amp;lang=en&amp;">on their way to the underworld</a>.</p> <p>Sound familiar?</p> <p><a href="https://theconversation.com/halloweens-celebration-of-mingling-with-the-dead-has-roots-in-ancient-celtic-celebrations-of-samhain-191300">Although focused on the dead</a>, Samhain was ultimately <a href="https://utpress.org/title/halloween-other-festivals/">for the living</a>, who needed plenty of help of their own when transitioning to the new year. Winter was cold and dark. Food was scarce. Everyone came together for one last bash to break bread, share stories and stand tall against the dead, strengthening community ties at the time they were needed most.</p> <p>When Catholics arrived in Ireland around A.D. 300, they opened another door between worlds, unleashing considerable conflict. They sought to convert the Celts by changing their pagan rituals into Christian holidays. They rechristened Nov. 1 “All Saints Day,” which today remains a celebration of Catholic saints.</p> <p>But the locals held on to their old beliefs. They believed the dead still wandered the Earth. So the living still dressed in costumes. This activity still took place the night before. It just had a new name to fit the Catholic calendar: “All Hallows Eve,” which is <a href="https://www.loc.gov/folklife/halloween-santino.html">where we got the name Halloween</a>.</p> <p>Irish immigrants <a href="https://www.irishpost.com/heritage/how-irish-great-famine-brought-halloween-to-america-161376">brought Halloween to America in the 1800s</a> while escaping the Great Potato Famine. At first, Irish Halloween celebrations were an oddity, viewed suspiciously by other Americans. As such, Halloween wasn’t celebrated much in America at the time.</p> <p>As the Irish integrated into American society, Halloween was reinvented again, this time as an all-American celebration. It became a holiday primarily for kids. Its religious overtones faded, with supernatural saints and sinners being replaced by generic ghosts and goblins. Carved turnips gave way to the <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-history-of-jack-o-lantern">pumpkins</a> now emblematic of the holiday. Though trick-or-treating resembles ancient traditions like guising, where costumed children went door to door for gifts, <a href="https://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/jack-santino-five-myths-about-halloween/article_6fe79e19-d106-52cc-a895-4a3a72d09c93.html">it’s actually an American invention</a>, created to entice kids away from rowdy holiday pranks toward more wholesome activities.</p> <p>Halloween has become a tradition many new immigrants adopt along their journey toward American-ness and is increasingly <a href="https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-4438-0153-9">being exported around the world</a>, with locals reinventing it in new ways to adapt it to their own culture.</p> <p>What’s so special about Halloween is that it turns the world upside down. The dead walk the Earth. Rules are meant to be broken. And kids exercise a lot of power. They decide what costume to wear. They make demands on others by asking for candy. “Trick or treat” is their battle cry. They do things they’d never get away with any other time, but on Halloween, they get to act like adults, trying it on to see how it fits.</p> <p>Because Halloween allows kids more independence, it’s possible to mark significant life stages through holiday firsts. First Halloween. First Halloween without a parent. First Halloween that’s no longer cool. First Halloween as a parent.</p> <p>Growing up used to mean growing out of Halloween. But today, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/10/24/halloween-adults-costumes-elvira-mistress-of-the-dark/1593177/">young adults</a> seem even more committed to Halloween than kids.</p> <p>What changed: adults or Halloween? Both.</p> <p>Caught between childhood and adulthood, today’s young adults find Halloween a perfect match to their struggles to find themselves and make their way in the world. Their participation has reinvented Halloween again, now bigger, more elaborate and <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/halloween-prices-cost-more-expensive-pumpkin-candy-costumes-1754635">more expensive</a>. Yet in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-has-halloween-become-so-popular-among-adults-104896">becoming an adult celebration</a>, it comes full circle to return to its roots as a holiday celebrated mainly by adults.</p> <p>Halloween is a living tradition. You wear a costume every year, but you’d never wear the same one. You’ve changed since last year, and your costume reflects that. Halloween is no different. Each year, it’s the same celebration, but it’s also something totally new. In what ways are you already reinventing the Halloween of the future today?</p> <p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/linus-owens-457047"><em>Linus Owens</em></a><em>, Associate Professor of Sociology, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/middlebury-1247">Middlebury</a></em></p> <p><em>Image credits: Shutterstock </em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-was-halloween-invented-once-a-celtic-pagan-tradition-the-holiday-has-evolved-to-let-kids-and-adults-try-on-new-identities-192379">original article</a>.</em></p>

Art

Placeholder Content Image

No croutons, no anchovies, no bacon: the 100-year-old Mexican origins of the Caesar salad

<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/garritt-c-van-dyk-1014186">Garritt C. Van Dyk</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-newcastle-1060"><em>University of Newcastle</em></a></em></p> <p>The most seductive culinary myths have murky origins, with a revolutionary discovery created by accident, or out of necessity.</p> <p>For the Caesar salad, these classic ingredients are spiced up with a family food feud and a spontaneous recipe invention on the Fourth of July, across the border in Mexico, during Prohibition.</p> <p>Our story is set during the era when America banned the production and sale of alcohol from <a href="https://www.atf.gov/our-history/timeline/18th-amendment-1919-national-prohibition-act">1919–1933</a>.</p> <p>Two brothers, Caesar (Cesare) and Alex (Alessandro) Cardini, moved to the United States from Italy. Caesar opened a restaurant in California in 1919. <a href="https://historicalmx.org/items/show/195">In the 1920s</a>, he opened another in the Mexican border town of Tijuana, serving food and liquor to Americans looking to circumvent Prohibition.</p> <p>Tijuana’s Main Street, packed with saloons, became a popular destination for southern Californians looking for drink. It claimed to have the “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Satan_s_Playground/znhxImXG8e0C">world’s longest bar</a>” at the Ballena, 215 feet (66 metres) long with ten bartenders and 30 waitresses.</p> <p>The story of the Caesar salad, allegedly 100 years old, is one of a cross-border national holiday Prohibition-era myth, a brotherly battle for the claim to fame and celebrity chef endorsements.</p> <h2>Necessity is the mother of invention</h2> <p><a href="https://classicsandiego.com/restaurants/caesars-restaurant-tijuana/">On July 4 1924</a>, so the story goes, Caesar Cardini was hard at work in the kitchen of his restaurant, Caesar’s Place, packed with holiday crowds from across the border looking to celebrate with food and drink.</p> <p>He was confronted with a chef’s worst nightmare: running out of ingredients in the middle of service.</p> <p>As supplies for regular menu items dwindled, Caesar decided to improvise with what he had on hand.</p> <p>He took ingredients in the pantry and cool room and combined the smaller leaves from hearts of cos lettuce with a dressing made from coddled (one-minute boiled) eggs, olive oil, black pepper, lemon juice, a little garlic and Parmesan cheese.</p> <p>The novel combination was a huge success with the customers and became a regular menu item: the Caesar salad.</p> <h2>Et tu, Alex?</h2> <p>There is another version of the origin of the famous salad, made by Caesar’s brother, Alex, at his restaurant in Tijuana.</p> <p>Alex claims Caesar’s “inspiration” was actually a menu item at his place, the “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20190521-the-surprising-truth-about-caesar-salad">aviator’s salad</a>”, named because he made it as a morning-after pick-me-up for American pilots after a long night drinking.</p> <p>His version had many of the same ingredients, but used lime juice, not lemon, and was served with large croutons covered with mashed anchovies.</p> <p>When Caesar’s menu item later became famous, Alex asserted his claim as the true inventor of the salad, now named for his brother.</p> <h2>Enter the celebrity chefs</h2> <p>To add to the intrigue, two celebrity chefs championed the opposing sides of this feud. <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Appetite_for_Life/sEAfuK8lDjkC">Julia Child</a> backed Caesar, and <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Essential_Cuisines_of_Mexico/gzsGAwAAQBAJ">Diana Kennedy</a> (not nearly as famous, but known for her authentic Mexican cookbooks) supported Alex’s claim.</p> <p>By entering the fray, each of these culinary heavyweights added credence to different elements of each story and made the variations more popular in the US.</p> <p>While Child reached more viewers in print and on television, Kennedy had local influence, known for promoting regional Mexican cuisine.</p> <p>While they chose different versions, the influence of major media figures contributed to the evolution of the Caesar salad beyond its origins.</p> <p>The original had no croutons and no anchovies. As the recipe was codified into an “official” version, garlic was included in the form of an infused olive oil. Newer versions either mashed anchovies directly into the dressing or added Worcestershire sauce, which has anchovies in the mix.</p> <p>Caesar’s daughter, Rosa, always maintained her father was the original inventor of the salad. She continued to market her father’s <a href="https://classicsandiego.com/restaurants/caesar-cardini-cafe/">trademarked recipe</a> after his death in 1954.</p> <p>Ultimately she won the battle for her father’s claim as the creator of the dish, but elements from Alex’s recipe have become popular inclusions that deviate from the purist version, so his influence is present – even if his contribution is less visible.</p> <h2>No forks required – but a bit of a performance</h2> <p>If this weren’t enough, there is also a tasty morsel that got lost along the way.</p> <p>Caesar salad was originally meant to be eaten as finger food, with your hands, using the baby leaves as scoops for the delicious dressing ingredients.</p> <p>For <a href="https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2024-01-30/original-caesar-salad-tijuana-100-years">presentation</a> in a restaurant, the salad was also created in front of the diners’ table, on a rolling cart, with some recommending a “true” Caesar salad was tossed only seven times, clockwise.</p> <p>This extra level of drama, performance and prescribed ritual was usually limited to alcohol-doused flaming desserts.</p> <p>To have a humble salad, invented in desperation, elevated to this kind of treatment made it a very special dish – even without any bacon.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/233099/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/garritt-c-van-dyk-1014186">Garritt C. Van Dyk</a>, Lecturer in History, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-newcastle-1060">University of Newcastle</a></em></p> <p><em>Image credits: Shutterstock </em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-croutons-no-anchovies-no-bacon-the-100-year-old-mexican-origins-of-the-caesar-salad-233099">original article</a>.</em></p>

Food & Wine

Placeholder Content Image

Where did money come from?

<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/steven-hail-1302961">Steve<em>n Hail</em></a><em>, <a href="https://www.torrens.edu.au/">Torrens University Australia</a></em></p> <p>For the most part, economists continue to believe a story of money told to generations of students by a series of textbooks over the past 150 years.</p> <p>This story asks us to imagine a pre-monetary barter economy, where people bought goods and services by trading them for other goods and services.</p> <p>Eventually a suitable commodity – perhaps gold or silver – emerged as both an acceptable means of exchange for conducting trade and a convenient unit of account for expressing value.</p> <p>Later, coins were issued – eventually to be monopolised by governments – and later still paper money, credit, and banking systems.</p> <p>The problem with this story is that there is no historical evidence to support it. As was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2802221?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">noted</a> by prominent anthropologist Caroline Humphreys:</p> <blockquote> <p>No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from it of money … all available ethnography suggests that there has never been such a thing.</p> </blockquote> <p>So where did money come from exactly? One difficulty we face is that writing about money – what gives it value, and how monetary systems work – is not something young economists are generally encouraged to do.</p> <p>As a consequence, among the best articles ever written about money are two now more than 100 years old by British economist Alfred Mitchell-Innes, entitled “<a href="https://www.community-exchange.org/docs/what%20is%20money.htm">What is Money</a>?” and “<a href="https://cooperative-individualism.org/innes-a-mitchell_credit-theory-of-money-1914-dec-jan.pdf">The Credit Theory of Money</a>”.</p> <p>These papers, until recently almost completely ignored by the economics profession, tell a different story, rejecting the idea that money evolved naturally from barter.</p> <p>We can now be confident this version is closer to the truth. And it has big implications for how we think about the role of governments within monetary systems, and what gives money value. Acknowledging the true story of money would force a paradigm shift among economists – no wonder a lot of them don’t want to think about it.</p> <h2>Actually, early governments invented money</h2> <p>The truth is that money predates markets. <a href="https://youtu.be/7cLDFjTt4Bs?si=fDTafcZD_u1S23kD">Governments invented money</a> – it did not emerge independently from pre-existing barter systems.</p> <p>Market economies simply could not develop until money existed. For much of history, the currency tokens people regarded as money had little or no intrinsic value, taking the form of clay tablets, hazelwood tally sticks, base metals, shells or paper.</p> <p>The earliest forms of what Keynes called “modern money” – to distinguish it from gift tokens used for ceremonial purposes in communal groups – go back to the origins of taxation, accounting, and even literacy and numeracy. These early currencies were units of account used to assess the tributes that had to be paid to early governmental institutions in the Middle East.</p> <p>The word shekel is still used as a currency unit, but dates to ancient Babylon and the emergence of money itself, over 5,000 years ago.</p> <p>The idea that the need to pay taxes is what creates a demand for a currency was well understood by colonial governments. They knew how to introduce their currencies into countries they had invaded. To force locals to supply labour or goods to the government, they imposed a tax liability – often, a hut tax. This tax could only be paid using the currency of the colony.</p> <p>Locals had to either work for the colonial government or supply goods to others who did, else they wouldn’t have the specific currency needed to pay taxes. This created a demand for the colonial power’s currency, which the government could then spend.</p> <p>If such a government spent more overall than it withdrew in taxation – running a budget deficit – the community could add the remaining currency to its savings. Taxation and the legal system created a demand for the government’s money and provided the impetus for the development of a monetary economy.</p> <p>Even today, it’s the tax system that drives the monetary system. Demand for a government’s money is guaranteed because people need it to pay federal taxes.</p> <h2>But banks create money too</h2> <p>Actual physical cash makes up a tiny proportion of the money in circulation. Most of what we regard as money is held in our bank deposits, effectively a bunch of numbers on a ledger. Most of these bank deposits are created by banks when they make loans to us, and this is not government money at all – it is private money, created by the banks themselves.</p> <p>When a bank makes a loan to you, that loan becomes an <em>asset</em> for the bank, because you have to pay it back with interest. But at the same time, the loan appears as a deposit of funds in your account, which is a <em>liability</em> for the bank. Technically, you both owe each other.</p> <p>On paper, this means there’s now money in the system that wasn’t there before. The bank hasn’t actually lent you someone else’s money, the loan deposited in your account represents the bank’s IOU to you.</p> <p>Both the loan and the deposit are created by the bank, using nothing more than a computer keyboard. The bank has promised to use its holdings of government money to make payments on your behalf, including tax payments to the government, or to provide you with government money in the form of physical cash.</p> <p>As economist Hyman Minsky once said, “anyone can create money – the problem lies in getting it accepted”.</p> <p>Obviously, private banks don’t issue government currency. The Commonwealth government and its agent, the Reserve Bank of Australia, sit at the top of our own monetary system.</p> <p>Government-issued currency will always have value because it’s the unit of account needed to assess and pay our taxes. How much value the currency holds depends on how much the economy produces, how difficult it is to obtain the currency and on how much tax we have to pay.</p> <p>Here is some food for thought. If we accept that money and markets did not emerge naturally but had to be created by governmental institutions and legal systems, this means that there is no such thing as a genuinely free market, no such thing as a natural rate of unemployment, and no such thing as a natural distribution of income and wealth.</p> <p>The theory that money emerged naturally in the private sector encourages people to believe that free markets are natural systems in which governments only interfere. But in truth, early governments invented the very institutions of money and markets, and the regulatory frameworks that determined how those markets work and in whose interests.</p> <p>Exchange economies have always depended on systems of law and they always will. The more pertinent question concerns who writes those laws – and in whose interests those regulations are applied.</p> <hr /> <p><em>Correction: This article has been amended to reflect that a loan deposit represents a bank’s IOU to the customer, not to a bank’s other customers, as originally reported.</em><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/229481/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /></p> <hr /> <p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/steven-hail-1302961"><em>Steven Hail</em></a><em>, Associate Professor, <a href="https://www.torrens.edu.au/">Torrens University Australia</a></em></p> <p><em>Image credits: Shutterstock</em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-did-money-come-from-229481">original article</a>.</em></p>

Money & Banking

Placeholder Content Image

"Absolute original": The Office star dies aged 50

<p><em>The Office</em> star Ewen MacIntosh has passed away at the age of 50. </p> <p>The comedian shot to fame for his portrayal of oddball character Keith Bishop in the UK version of the sitcom, starring alongside Ricky Gervais. </p> <p>Tributes have flooded in for the star, led by his co-star Gervais.</p> <p>He wrote, “Extremely sad news. The very funny and very lovely Ewen Macintosh, known to many as ‘Big Keith’ from <em>The Office</em>, has passed away. An absolute original. RIP.”</p> <p>Stephen Merchant, who co-wrote <em>The Office</em> with Gervais, said he was “so very sad” to hear of the death of MacIntosh, who he described as a “lovely and uniquely funny man”.</p> <p>“I fondly recall we asked him to improvise an out-of-office message, and he was so hilarious we started writing more and more dialogue for him,” Merchant said in an Instagram tribute. “He soon stole every scene he was in. A total one-off. A tragic loss.”</p> <p>Ewen’s management team announced his passing, writing, “With great sadness we announce the peaceful passing of our beloved comedy genius Ewen MacIntosh."</p> <p>“His family thank all who supported him, especially Willow Green Care Home."</p> <p>“There will be a private cremation for family & close friends soon & a celebratory memorial later in the year.”</p> <p>His pal Ed Scott wrote, “I am completely devastated by the loss of my very good friend Ewen MacIntosh.</p> <p>“He may have had a famous face known by millions as Keith from The Office but the person inside is what I will most remember.”</p> <p>Away from the popular sitcom, Ewen struggled to get roles and went bankrupt in 2016.</p> <p>MacIntosh teamed up with Gervais once more for a small role in <em>After Life</em>, and also had minor roles in <em>Little Britain</em> and <em>Miranda</em>. </p> <p>He also opened up on his health battles, revealing in 2022 he had been admitted to hospital, saying it was a "Bad times for me I’m afraid chums," while urging his fans to "Stay strong out there.”</p> <p><em>Image credits: BBC</em></p>

Caring

Placeholder Content Image

Original Lois Lane passes away aged 96

<p>Phyllis Coates, a trailblazing actress known for her iconic role as Lois Lane in the early days of television's superhero adaptations, has passed away at the age of 96.</p> <p>Her legacy as the first Lois Lane continues to captivate the hearts of fans worldwide. Coates, born Gypsie Ann Evarts Stell on January 15, 1927, in Wichita Falls, Texas, left an indelible mark on the world of entertainment.</p> <p>Coates' journey into the world of showbiz began in the 1940s when she ventured to Hollywood. Her early career saw her working as a chorus girl, where she honed her talents and stage presence. Notably, she supported the United States Organisations (USO), touring the country and entertaining the brave men and women of the US Armed Forces and their families.</p> <p>A decade later, Coates transitioned into film and earned small but significant supporting roles in movies like <em>Smart Girls Don't Talk</em> (1948) and <em>My Foolish Heart</em> (1949). Her versatility was on display as she also appeared as Alice McDoakes in several Joe McDoakes comedy shorts.</p> <p>In 1951, Coates had a pivotal moment in her career when she was invited to audition for the role of Lois Lane in the low-budget feature film <em>Superman and the Mole Men</em>. Starring alongside George Reeves as Superman, this movie was essentially a de facto pilot for what would become the iconic "Adventures of Superman" series.</p> <p>Coates's portrayal of the tenacious Daily Planet reporter captured the imaginations of audiences, making her an instant sensation. She brought depth and charisma to the character, establishing a template for future interpretations of Lois Lane. Her presence on screen, alongside Reeves, created an enduring partnership that would forever be etched in the annals of television history.</p> <p>However, after the first season of <em>Adventures of Superman</em>, Coates made the difficult decision to leave the show due to conflicts with producers and other projects she had on her horizon. The show continued for an additional six seasons, with Noel Neill taking over the role of Lois Lane. Tragically, plans for a seventh season were abandoned following George Reeves's untimely death in 1959.</p> <p>Coates's contribution to the entertainment industry extended far beyond her time as Lois Lane. She made numerous appearances in popular TV shows of the 1950s and 1960s, such as <em>The Lone Ranger</em>, <em>Lassie</em>, <em>Leave It To Beaver, Hawaiian Eye, Rawhide, Perry Mason, The Untouchables, The Virginian, </em>and<em> Death Valley Days.</em> Her ability to adapt to various roles showcased her talent and versatility.</p> <p>In the 1970s, she further solidified her presence with a role in the TV-movie <em>The Baby Maker</em>, starring alongside Barbara Hershey. Her remarkable career in entertainment continued through the years, concluding with her final on-screen appearance in two episodes of <em>Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman</em> in 1994.</p> <p>Phyllis Coates was not only a talented actress but a woman of resilience and determination. Throughout her life, she was married four times and is survived by her daughters, Laura and Zoe, as well as her granddaughter Olivia. Her legacy as the original Lois Lane of television remains a testament to her enduring impact on the entertainment industry.</p> <p><em>Image: Getty</em></p>

Caring

Placeholder Content Image

Readers respond: What's a cover song that's better than the original?

<p>Just because a particular version of a song came first, doesn't necessarily mean it's better than a cover.</p> <p>We asked our readers what their favourite cover tracks are, and the response was overwhelming. </p> <p>Here's what they said. </p> <p><strong>Moses Serugo</strong> - All Whitney Houston covers!</p> <p><strong>Glen Crawford</strong> - Johnny Cash’s cover of Trent Reznor’s ‘Hurt’. It was one of the last songs Johnny recorded, and is awesome!</p> <p><strong>Vicki Hunt</strong> - Torn by Natalie Imbruglia. Apparently someone recorded it before she did, although I've only heard her version, which was a major hit for her. </p> <p><strong>Bruce Winther</strong> - Fields of Gold by Eva Cassidy.</p> <p><strong>Sheila Schmidt</strong> - Bette Midler’s version of Beast of Burden is better than the Rolling Stones.</p> <p><strong>Ken Jacob</strong> - Simply the Best by Tina Turner better than the original by Bonnie Tyler.</p> <p><strong>Harold Hanlon</strong> - Elton John doing Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.</p> <p><strong>Judi Nicholls</strong> - U2 doing Unchained Melody. </p> <p><strong>Michael Zoellner</strong> - Blinded By The Light by Manfred Mann. Much better than Bruce Springsteen who originally did the song.</p> <p><strong>Jennifer Mitchell</strong> - Hallelujah by Lucy Thomas is absolutely beautiful.</p> <p><strong>Leanne Guthrie</strong> - We've gotta get out of this place, The Angels. Best version ever!!</p> <p><strong>Weeze Aitch</strong> - Horses by Darryl Braithwaite. Originally by Ricki Lee Jones. </p> <p><strong>Noelene Braidwood</strong> - The Wonder Of You, by Elvis Presley. </p> <p><strong>Michael Pemberton</strong> - All Along the Watchtower (Dylan) cover by the Jimi Hendrix Experience.</p> <p><strong>Rick Graham</strong> - The Sound of Silence by Disturbed.</p> <p><strong>Steve Pullan</strong> - Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm. </p> <p><strong>Deirdre Dee O'Hanlon McGregor</strong> - Dear Prudence Beatles song covered by Doug Parkinson, he does a great job, better than the Beatles.</p> <p><strong>Graham Anderson</strong> - Can't think of one. The originals are the best. </p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images </em></p>

Music

Placeholder Content Image

New classified report makes bold Covid-19 origin claim

<p>The US Department of Energy has reached the conclusion that the Covid pandemic is most likely to have arisen from a laboratory leak, as suggested in a classified intelligence report delivered to both the White house and key members of Congress. </p> <p>The conclusion, drawn with “low confidence”, comes more than a year after the FBI declared their belief that a laboratory incident in China was the source of the Covid-19 pandemic. In contrast to the Energy Department, the FBI made their assessment with “moderate confidence”. </p> <p>Reportedly, intelligence agencies make their assessments on a scale of low to high confidence, with a low confidence grading meaning that the information is not reliable enough, is not substantial, or is not cohesive enough to make a complete and informed judgement. </p> <p>The new report demonstrates the differing opinions of the US intelligence community about the origins of the pandemic, though the Energy Department is now in line with the FBI in believing that the virus likely spread due to an accident in a Chinese laboratory. However, while two agencies remain undecided, there are still four - as well as The National Intelligence Council - that are firm on their stance that the pandemic was the result of natural transmission from an infected animal.</p> <p>The Energy Department’s findings are allegedly drawn from new intelligence, and are considered to be significant due to their expertise and network of US laboratories. Though the Energy Department oversees the US’ nuclear weapons program, some of their laboratories are said to participate in biological research.</p> <p>Officials in the US did not provide details into the new intelligence that caused the Energy Department to shift its standpoint, but according to the Wall Street Journal, added that “while the Energy Department and the FBI each say an unintended lab leak is most likely, they arrived at those conclusions for different reasons.”</p> <p>Although intelligence agencies aren’t all in agreement, the update reaffirmed existing ideas that Covid-19 was not the result of a Chinese biological weapons program. </p> <p>“There are a variety of views in the intelligence community,” Jake Sullivan - the White House’s national security adviser - said to <em>CNN’s State of the Union </em>of the ongoing investigation into the origins of Covid-19, and US President Joe Biden’s request for national labs to be brought into the assessment. </p> <p>“Here’s what I can tell you: President Biden has directed, repeatedly, every element of our intelligence community to put effort and resources behind getting to the bottom of this question.</p> <p>“And if we gain any further insight or information, we will share it with Congress, and we will share it with the American people. But right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question.”</p> <p><em>Images: Getty </em></p>

Caring

Placeholder Content Image

How Bob Dylan used the ancient practice of ‘imitatio’ to craft some of the most original songs of his time

<p>Over the course of six decades, Bob Dylan steadily brought together popular music and poetic excellence. Yet the guardians of literary culture have only rarely accepted Dylan’s legitimacy.</p> <p>His <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/arts/music/bob-dylan-nobel-prize-literature.html">2016 Nobel Prize in Literature</a> undermined his outsider status, challenging scholars, fans and critics to think of Dylan as an integral part of international literary heritage. My new book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/No-One-Meet-Imitation-Originality/dp/0817321411">No One to Meet: Imitation and Originality in the Songs of Bob Dylan</a>,” takes this challenge seriously and places Dylan within a literary tradition that extends all the way back to the ancients.</p> <p><a href="https://english.umbc.edu/core-faculty/raphael-falco/">I am a professor of early modern literature</a>, with a special interest in the Renaissance. But I am also a longtime Dylan enthusiast and the co-editor of the open-access <a href="https://thedylanreview.org/">Dylan Review</a>, the only scholarly journal on Bob Dylan. </p> <p>After teaching and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Raphael-Falco">writing about</a> early modern poetry for 30 years, I couldn’t help but recognize a similarity between the way Dylan composes his songs and the ancient practice known as “<a href="http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Dionysian_imitatio">imitatio</a>.”</p> <h2>Poetic honey-making</h2> <p>Although the Latin word imitatio would translate to “imitation” in English, it doesn’t mean simply producing a mirror image of something. The term instead describes a practice or a methodology of composing poetry.</p> <p>The classical author Seneca <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_84">used bees</a> as a metaphor for writing poetry using imitatio. Just as a bee samples and digests the nectar from a whole field of flowers to produce a new kind of honey – which is part flower and part bee – a poet produces a poem by sampling and digesting the best authors of the past.</p> <p>Dylan’s imitations follow this pattern: His best work is always part flower, part Dylan. </p> <p>Consider a song like “<a href="https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/hard-rains-gonna-fall/">A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall</a>.” To write it, Dylan repurposed the familiar Old English ballad “<a href="https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/lord-randall/">Lord Randal</a>,” retaining the call-and-response framework. In the original, a worried mother asks, “O where ha’ you been, Lord Randal, my son? / And where ha’ you been, my handsome young man?” and her son tells of being poisoned by his true love. </p> <p>In Dylan’s version, the nominal son responds to the same questions with a brilliant mixture of public and private experiences, conjuring violent images such as a newborn baby surrounded by wolves, black branches dripping blood, the broken tongues of a thousand talkers and pellets poisoning the water. At the end, a young girl hands the speaker – a son in name only – a rainbow, and he promises to know his song well before he’ll stand on the mountain to sing it.</p> <p>“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” resounds with the original Old English ballad, which would have been very familiar to Dylan’s original audiences of Greenwich Village folk singers. He first sang the song in 1962 at <a href="https://bedfordandbowery.com/2016/12/the-story-of-the-gaslight-cafe-where-dylan-premiered-a-hard-rains-a-gonna-fall/">the Gaslight Cafe</a> on MacDougal Street, a hangout of folk revival stalwarts. To their ears, Dylan’s indictment of American culture – its racism, militarism and reckless destruction of the environment – would have echoed that poisoning in the earlier poem and added force to the repurposed lyrics.</p> <h2>Drawing from the source</h2> <p>Because Dylan “samples and digests” songs from the past, <a href="https://thedylanreview.org/2022/08/04/interview-with-scott-warmuth/">he has been accused of plagiarism</a>. </p> <p>This charge underestimates Dylan’s complex creative process, which closely resembles that of early modern poets who had a different concept of originality – a concept Dylan intuitively understands. For Renaissance authors, “originality” meant not creating something out of nothing, but <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Origin_and_Originality_in_Renaissance_Li/1OmCQgAACAAJ?hl=en">going back to what had come before</a>. They literally returned to the “origin.” Writers first searched outside themselves to find models to imitate, and then they transformed what they imitated – that is, what they found, sampled and digested – into something new. Achieving originality depended on the successful imitation and repurposing of an admired author from a much earlier era. They did not imitate each other, or contemporary authors from a different national tradition. Instead, they found their models among authors and works from earlier centuries.</p> <p>In his book “<a href="https://archive.org/details/lightintroyimita0000gree/page/n5/mode/2up">The Light in Troy</a>,” literary scholar Thomas Greene points to a 1513 letter written by poet Pietro Bembo to Giovanfrancesco Pico della Mirandola.</p> <p>“Imitation,” Bembo writes, “since it is wholly concerned with a model, must be drawn from the model … the activity of imitating is nothing other than translating the likeness of some other’s style into one’s own writings.” The act of translation was largely stylistic and involved a transformation of the model.</p> <h2>Romantics devise a new definition of originality</h2> <p>However, the Romantics of the late 18th century wished to change, and supersede, that understanding of poetic originality. For them, and the writers who came after them, creative originality meant going inside oneself to find a connection to nature. </p> <p><a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Natural_Supernaturalism/-ygCZmrJ2E4C?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=natural+supernaturalism&amp;printsec=frontcover">As scholar of Romantic literature M.H. Abrams explains</a> in his renowned study “Natural Supernaturalism,” “the poet will proclaim how exquisitely an individual mind … is fitted to the external world, and the external world to the mind, and how the two in union are able to beget a new world.” </p> <p>Instead of the world wrought by imitating the ancients, the new Romantic theories envisioned the union of nature and the mind as the ideal creative process. Abrams quotes the 18th-century German Romantic <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/novalis/">Novalis</a>: “The higher philosophy is concerned with the marriage of Nature and Mind.”</p> <p>The Romantics believed that through this connection of nature and mind, poets would discover something new and produce an original creation. To borrow from past “original” models, rather than producing a supposedly new work or “new world,” could seem like theft, despite the fact, obvious to anyone paging through an anthology, that poets have always responded to one another and to earlier works.</p> <p>Unfortunately – as Dylan’s critics too often demonstrate – this bias favoring supposedly “natural” originality over imitation continues to color views of the creative process today. </p> <p>For six decades now, Dylan has turned that Romantic idea of originality on its head. With his own idiosyncratic method of composing songs and his creative reinvention of the Renaissance practice of imitatio, he has written and performed – yes, imitation functions in performance too – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_written_by_Bob_Dylan">over 600 songs</a>, many of which are the most significant and most significantly original songs of his time.</p> <p>To me, there is a firm historical and theoretical rationale for what these audiences have long known – and the Nobel Prize committee made official in 2016 – that Bob Dylan is both a modern voice entirely unique and, at the same time, the product of ancient, time-honoured ways of practicing and thinking about creativity.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-bob-dylan-used-the-ancient-practice-of-imitatio-to-craft-some-of-the-most-original-songs-of-his-time-187052" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

Music

Placeholder Content Image

Covid’s origin found

<p dir="ltr">Amid accusations of it being made in a lab or purposefully made more infectious and fracturing faith in science, scientists say they have finally determined the origin of COVID-19.</p> <p dir="ltr">A team of scientists who have been investigating the virus’ origin have published their findings in two separate articles in <em>Science </em>(available to read <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8715" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a> and <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8337" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>) and said they are at the end of their search.</p> <p dir="ltr">COVID-19 almost-certainly jumped from animals to humans in Wuhan’s Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, with the researchers even pinpointing the most likely section of the market where it occurred.</p> <p dir="ltr">“The siren has definitely sounded on the lab leak theory,” Professor Edward Holmes, a world-leading expert on virus evolution and co-author of both papers, told the <em>Sydney Morning Herald</em>.</p> <p dir="ltr">“In terms of what we can reasonably do, with the available science and the science we’ll get in the foreseeable future, I think we’re at the end of the road frankly. There’s not a lot more to mine.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Professor Dwyer, the director of public health pathology in NSW and a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) team who travelled to Wuhan to investigate Covid’s origins, agrees with the findings.</p> <p dir="ltr">“That’s what we thought originally back when we did the first report,” he said.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-de65d200-7fff-e4d3-3c8b-fb40bc3f2502"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">“This is yet another brick added to the wall of information around zoonotic infection.”</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Analysis of spatial distributions of early <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVID19</a> cases and environmental samples from the Huanan market point to the market as the epicenter of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SARSCoV2?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SARSCoV2</a> emergence, from activities associated with wildlife trade. <a href="https://t.co/tykjmEOGxW">https://t.co/tykjmEOGxW</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelWorobey?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MichaelWorobey</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@K_G_Andersen</a> <a href="https://t.co/THYDkLualC">pic.twitter.com/THYDkLualC</a></p> <p>— Science Magazine (@ScienceMagazine) <a href="https://twitter.com/ScienceMagazine/status/1551931253179514880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 26, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Using Chinese and WHO data, as well as public online maps, photos, business registries, and official reports, the scientists reconstructed a map of the market, including human cases and Covid-postive environmental samples from late 2019.</p> <p dir="ltr">The market wildlife section was found to have COVID-19 all over it, with eight of the earliest human cases working nearby.</p> <p dir="ltr">A stall where COVID-19 was found on a metal cage, a machine used to remove hair and feathers from animals, two carts used for moving animal cages, and a nearby water drain, was also visited by Professor Holmes on a trip to Wuhan in 2014 - where he snapped a photo of caged racoon dogs stacked on top of caged birds.</p> <p dir="ltr">“We can’t prove it is this exact stall but the data is very suggestive,” he said.</p> <p dir="ltr">Racoon dogs, along with badgers, hares, rats and foxes are among several species of animals that Covid moves easily among, all of which were being sold in the market in 2019.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-fad47587-7fff-0e06-efe8-1cddecca3178"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">The racoon dogs supplied to the market came from farms in western Hubei, the <em>Science </em>papers note, which is an area known for extensive networks of caves filled with Rhinolophus bats that carry coronaviruses similar to the one that causes COVID-19.</p> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/2022/08/wuhan-racoon-dogs.jpg" alt="" width="601" height="533" /></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Professor Edward Holmes photographed racoon dogs being sold in the Huanan Wildlife Market in 2014. Image: Edward Holmes</em></p> <p dir="ltr">“Raccoon dogs are a suspect,” Professor Holmes added.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I think, strongly, there are a whole bunch of animals out there who have viruses like this that we have not sampled yet.”</p> <p dir="ltr">In their second paper, the team even determined the two viral lineages that were detected a week apart in December 2019, and which one was the most likely one to have been transmitted from animals to humans.</p> <p dir="ltr">Using computers to simulate the most likely sequence of events that would produce the two strains, which differ by two small changes in their genetic codes, they found it exceedingly unlikely that the virus would jump into humans and then split into two strains.</p> <p dir="ltr">Instead, they found that it would be far more likely that multiple strains of Covid had already been circulating in animals, with two strains separately jumping to humans.</p> <p dir="ltr">As for the theory that Covid originated in a lab, you would expect it to be introduced into humans just once - rather than as two distinct lineages - with samples taken from the Huanan market also containing both strains.</p> <p dir="ltr">“That, I think, is pretty good evidence,” Professor Dwyer said.</p> <p dir="ltr">Though supporters of the lab leak theory argue that the market is a perfect super-spreader site, introduced by scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the scientists found that it isn’t the perfect spreader site that people may think it is.</p> <p dir="ltr">The scientists found that 155 cases in December 2019 were strongly clustered in the suburbs around the market, but that it is a small and rather obscure shopping spot and was among the least-visited of 430 identified possible super-spreader sites in Wuhan.</p> <p dir="ltr">“It’s like going to Coles in Bendigo on a wet Wednesday afternoon. It’s not a thriving mass of humanity,” Professor Holmes said.</p> <p dir="ltr">No-one has proved COVID-19 - or even a twin strain - has been at the Wuhan Institute of Virology either, with no epidemiological evidence showing the virus spreading near the institute.</p> <p dir="ltr">“There’s no emails. There’s no evidence in any of the science. There’s absolutely nothing,” Professor Holmes said.</p> <p dir="ltr">On top of that, Covid wasn’t detected in any of the tens of thousands of blood donations in Wuhan between September and December 2019, nor in thousands of samples taken from patients hospitalised with flu-like symptoms between October and December.</p> <p dir="ltr">“What are the odds that two lineages escape from the lab and both make their way into the market and both cause superspreader events?” Professor Holmes said.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-d9a32911-7fff-345d-3948-858a5f899ba8"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">“It’s ridiculous. There is no way that can happen.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Getty Images</em></p>

Body

Placeholder Content Image

Original artwork found in rubbish on sidewalk

<p dir="ltr">A Sydney man has hit the jackpot after finding an original piece of artwork worth thousands of dollars left on the sidewalk for council pick up. </p> <p dir="ltr">Leonardo Urbano stumbled across a cardboard box which contained several art pieces for children when he found one that stood out. </p> <p dir="ltr">Not thinking much about the price of it, Leonardo knew he wanted to give it a new home when he saw  Sydney artist and two-time Archibald Prize finalist Dapeng Liu's signature at the bottom.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I thought it was beautiful and I don't normally think about the price, I just think if someone would want it, then I'll take it with me," he told <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/sydney-man-discovers-3000-artwork-hidden-council-throw-out-090958132.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Yahoo Australia</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">He sent the artwork to his local art gallery who then confirmed that it was in fact an original and not  a copy. </p> <p dir="ltr">There is also a similar piece of artwork at the museum from Dapeng’s nude collection priced at a whopping $2,900. </p> <p dir="ltr">Leonardo has since been in touch with Dapeng and apologised to him saying the artwork was found in council pickup rubbish. </p> <p dir="ltr">Dapeng then informed Leonardo that he had actually gifted the piece of art to someone.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I said to him 'look, I'm sorry I found it in the street but I will treasure it as my own’.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: Yahoo</em></p>

Art

Placeholder Content Image

10 Best Original Score winners that are worth watching for the soundtrack alone

<p>Films move us in many ways, whether it’s from incredible performances, striking cinematography or great storytelling. But there’s one component that strikes a chord in all of us: great music. From the looming danger of deep strings as a massive great white shark closes in, to the swelling chorus of violins as two lovers part on a runway in <em>Casablanca</em>, the film score has the power to move us, terrify us and even make us weep.</p> <p>While the Oscar for Best Original Score has had a few name changes over the years, it’s always been about the same thing: recognising the movie industry’s best musical talent. Some winners might not be in your daily rotation, but their scores stand the test of time, and continue to enchant listeners generations over.</p> <p><strong>The Sound of Music (1965)</strong></p> <p>What’s more iconic than Julie Andrews as Maria twirling on a mountaintop? Maybe a family of singing children bidding you farewell, or perhaps a Do-Re-Mi lesson in the idyllic countryside? Released in 1965 to both critical and commercial acclaim, <em>The Sound of Music </em>quickly became a phenomenon – and it’s not hard to see why. </p> <p>The film is chock full of hit after hit thanks to the incredible songwriting of Rodgers and Hammerstein, along with the help of Irwin Kostal’s screen arrangements. Give it a watch and you’ll likely be humming the tunes for days to come.</p> <p><strong>The Wizard of Oz (1939)</strong></p> <p>A lion, a scarecrow, a tin man and a girl from Kansas walk into Oz. This Technicolor wonder needs no introduction; from Dorothy’s dazzling red shoes to the terrifying flying monkeys and everything in between, it’s an established classic that’s ascended into a league of its own. </p> <p>While songs like “Over the Rainbow,” “We’re Off to See the Wizard,” and “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead” have edged their way into the cultural zeitgeist – even for those unfamiliar with the source material – composer Herbert Stothart’s score helps flesh out L. Frank Baum’s fantastical world. It’s a beautifully moving and unabashedly classic Hollywood score.</p> <p><strong>West Side Story (1961)</strong></p> <p>Electrifying choreography, glorious set design and music that’s stood the test of time – Shakespeare, eat your heart out. This loose adaptation of <em>Romeo and Juliet</em> brings the Bard’s classic tragedy to 1950s New York City, freshly updated with prescient social commentary and enchanting work from Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green, Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal. </p> <p>Despite deserved criticism for its flagrant use of Brown-face, <em>West Side Story</em> has remained a landmark entry in the musical film canon, and even inspired a remake that’s nominated for seven Oscars this year.</p> <p><strong>The Last Emperor (1987)</strong></p> <p>What happens when you combine the talents of a Japanese electronic-music pioneer, a celebrated Chinese composer and one of the most influential musicians to come out of New York City’s new wave scene? A score worthy of accompanying Bernardo Bertolucci’s sprawling epic! </p> <p>The film follows the life of China’s last emperor, Puyi, from his coronation at the age of two through to the cultural and political upheaval of China in the 20th century. Ranging from grand and bombastic to soft and serene, this Best Original Score is an incredibly moving component of an already-impressive film.</p> <p><strong>The Little Mermaid (1989)</strong></p> <p>Back in the ’80s, Disney was a far cry from the entertainment powerhouse of the present. Coming off of one of their biggest box office failures with 1985’s <em>The Black Cauldron</em>, the company needed a hit. Corporate restructuring eventually led the team to two prominent members of the Broadway music scene: Alan Menken and Howard Ashman – both of whom had made a name for themselves with <em>The Little Shop of Horrors</em>. </p> <p>Despite being his first foray into film, Menken helped usher in the Disney renaissance of the ’90s, pumping out a score filled to the brim with magic and wonder – thanks in part to infectious lyrics by Ashman.</p> <p><strong>Midnight Express (1978)</strong></p> <p>The orchestral score goes hand in hand with the Oscars, but every now and then something a little more experimental breaks through. Case in point: Italian electronic-music legend Giorgio Moroder’s synthesizer-heavy score for the 1978 prison-drama, <em>Midnight Express</em>. </p> <p>Moroder’s work with artists like Donna Summer helped pioneer an iconic sound of the late ’70s and ’80s, filled with grooving synth hooks and infectious beats. Look no further than the track “Chase” for a taste of Moroder’s magic; the frenetic melody puts you right in the middle of <em>Midnight Express</em>’s most nail-biting scene. While other artists at the time had dabbled with electronic film scores – like fellow Italian group Goblin and their work with horror legend Dario Argento – few achieved Midnight Express’s critical acclaim.</p> <p><strong>Purple Rain (1984)</strong></p> <p>In 1984, the world found out what it sounds like when doves cry. A landmark entry in the musician-turned-actor film canon, audiences delighted in seeing the mononymous superstar in his first acting role. </p> <p>Not only did the film lead to one of Prince’s most iconic – and unabashedly purple – outfits, it would also go on to be his best-selling album – and forever shape his legacy. With hits like “Let’s Go Crazy,” “When Doves Cry” and the titular “Purple Rain,” it may not be the typical Best Original Score recipient, but it’s certainly well deserved.</p> <p><strong>The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)</strong></p> <p>Adapting one of the most celebrated fantasy series in the history of literature was a tall order for director Peter Jackson and his creative team. While it had been done in the past with varied success, Jackson’s efforts led to one of the most successful film trilogies of all time. </p> <p>A large part of that success was due to the masterful work of Canadian composer Howard Shore. At times quaint and idyllic, grandiose and menacing, Shore’s score effortlessly provided a sonic backdrop for Middle Earth and all its inhabitants. Shore would also go on to win the same award two years later for his work on <em>The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King</em> (2003).</p> <p><strong>The Social Network (2010)</strong></p> <p>If you went back to the ’90s and told moody teens that the guy from Nine Inch Nails would turn out to be one of the most exciting composers in Hollywood, they’d never believe you. Not only did <em>The Social Network</em>’s score mark an exciting development in Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s careers – the two having previously collaborated on a number of projects – the electronically driven tracks also helped carry the torch from Giorgio Moroder. </p> <p>This Best Original Score perfectly transplanted the sensibilities of Nine Inch Nails into a work that mirrored the story of Facebook’s contentious rise, and also gave a taste of the duo’s future success in Hollywood.</p> <p><strong>Star Wars (1977)</strong></p> <p>Ten words on a black background about a galaxy far, far away, followed by a brief pause. And suddenly, trumpets blaring triumphantly alongside two words in big yellow letters: Star Wars. It’s one of the most memorable intros in movie history, and one that still resonates with fans around the world. </p> <p>Taking inspiration from composers like Gustav Holst and his “The Planets” suite, alongside the swashbuckling scores of films like <em>The Adventures of Robin Hood </em>(1938), John Williams helped usher in a new era reminiscent of the golden age of Hollywood. These days, Star Wars is a cultural institution, and there’s no doubt that’s partly due to the unforgettable score.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.readersdigest.co.nz/true-stories-lifestyle/entertainment/10-best-original-score-winners-that-are-worth-watching-for-the-soundtrack-alone?pages=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reader's Digest</a>. </em></p>

Music

Placeholder Content Image

You can now spend a night in the original Home Alone house

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The setting of the popular </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Home Alone</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> movie has been listed on Airbnb to celebrate the release of the latest movie in the franchise - but it’s only available for a single night.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The lucky guests will be hosted by Devin Ratray who will be reprising his role from the original films as Kevin’s older brother Buzz McCallister in the latest installment.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Guests will also get to enjoy Kevin’s choice meals from the 1992 film, including Chicago-style pizza and a candlelit “highly nutritious microwavable macaroni and cheese dinner”.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“It’s going to be decorated exactly the way it was 31 years ago and complete with treats and tricks,” Ratray told </span><em><a rel="noopener" href="https://people.com/travel/home-alone-airbnb-devin-ratray-hosting-exclusive/" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">People</span></a></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The stately Georgian Colonial home will be decked out in fully Christmas garb, including twinkling lights, stockings on the mantle, and a Christmas tree surrounded by presents.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Just like the movie, the home comes with booby traps that guests can set up along with “anything you can possibly imagine in the first movie”.</span></p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CV6nU9NNGtK/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CV6nU9NNGtK/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">A post shared by Devin Ratray (@devinratray)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">During their stay, guests can enjoy a viewing of the new film, a meet and greet with a tarantula, and enjoy “one of the central characters” of the first two movies.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“You actually get a chance to live in it and walk through it and touch the wall,” Ratray said.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“You’ve seen the movie so many times, you’ve seen the Christmas tree in the front room, you’ve seen the staircase, people running up and down, you’ve seen the kitchen where Buzz lovingly barfed up all the cheese pizza. Now you get to walk through that.”</span></p> <blockquote style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CW8O1u2FLXB/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"></div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"></div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"></div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"></div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"></div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" rel="noopener" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CW8O1u2FLXB/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank">A post shared by Airbnb (@airbnb)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">But the highlight for Ratray is that the stay “is also going to a good cause”.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Airbnb is donating to charity for the La Rabida Children’s Hospital in Chicago, so it’s also doing good for kids with chronic ailments and maladies. It’s all going to a good cause,” he said. “There’s no downside to this.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the spirit of giving, guests will also leave with their very own gifted </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Home Alone</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;"> themed LEGO set.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Fans looking to let their inner eight-year-olds loose can request a booking from Tuesday, December 7 via </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.airbnb.com.au/rooms/53274539?source_impression_id=p3_1638393178_tjQaRtmg6Rwa%2Bjmi" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 400;">the listing</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Images: Airbnb</span></em></p>

Real Estate

Placeholder Content Image

The origins of money

<div> <p><span style="font-size: 14px;">From cowrie shells to native resources and animals, currency in some shape or form has long been a part of human history. </span></p> <div class="copy"> <p>A currency of sorts was first thought to emerge as trade and exchange, with trade being tracked through the archaeological record, starting in the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.anthro.31.040402.085416" target="_blank">Upper Palaeolithic</a>, when groups of hunters traded the best flint weapons and tools. Throughout the years, various objects were used as units of value until nearly 5,000 years ago, when the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://theconversation.com/when-and-why-did-people-first-start-using-money-78887#:~:text=The%20Mesopotamian%20shekel%20%E2%80%93%20the%20first,gold%20coins%20to%20pay%20armies." target="_blank">Mesopotamian shekel</a> emerged as the first known form of currency.</p> <p>Now, researchers from Leiden University in the Netherlands are adding an Early Bronze Age piece to the currency puzzle. They’re proposing that Bronze Age people may have used rings and axe blades as an early form of standardised currency. </p> <p>“Archaeology can provide a unique perspective on the development of money and systems of weighing over space and time, but the discipline has difficulties with the identification of objects that functioned either as commodity money or as weights,” the authors write in their paper, <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0240462" target="_blank">published</a> in the journal <em>PLOS ONE.</em></p> <p>The authors compared objects from Early Bronze Age Central Europe. Based on the similarity in weight and shape of the objects, they suggest that ancient people used bronze objects that were standardised in shape and weight as currency. </p> <p>“Found in bulk, sometimes in hoards containing multiple hundreds, many of the rings, ribs and axe blades are considered to have no other practical function besides their tentative use as ingots, or rough-outs for further production,” the authors write.<em> </em></p> <p>“Moulds, made of clay, stone or casted directly in sand made serial production possible, which led to some degree of unintentional standardisation. However, there are indications that for some types of objects, a deliberate effort was made to achieve a specific weight interval, meaning that weight mattered.”</p> <p>The researchers studied just over 5,000 objects made of bronze in rings, ribs and axe blades from more than 100 ancient hoards.</p> <p>The objects’ weights were compared using a psychology principle known as the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="http://apps.usd.edu/coglab/WebersLaw.html" target="_blank">Weber fraction</a>, which suggests if objects are similar in mass, a human being weighing them by hand can’t tell the difference. </p> <p>Around 70% of the rings were similar enough in weight – they averaged about 195 grams – and would have been indistinguishable by hand, as were subsets of the ribs and axe blades. </p> <p>Standardisation is a key feature of money. However, the researchers say this can be difficult to identify in the archaeological record since ancient people had inexact forms of measurement. </p> <p>“Commodity money displays rough similarities in terms of shape and weight, because of standardisation, without necessarily following a strict metrological system,” the authors write.</p> <p>“Though archaeologists have no insight in the transactions that took place, there can be no doubt that at least the rings and ribs conform to the definition of commodity money.”</p> <p>More precise weighing tools appear in the archaeology record later, in the Middle Bronze Age of Europe, along with an increase in the availability of scrap bronze.</p> <!-- Start of tracking content syndication. Please do not remove this section as it allows us to keep track of republished articles --> <img id="cosmos-post-tracker" style="opacity: 0; height: 1px!important; width: 1px!important; border: 0!important; position: absolute!important; z-index: -1!important;" src="https://syndication.cosmosmagazine.com/?id=135363&amp;title=The+origins+of+money" alt="" width="1" height="1" /> <!-- End of tracking content syndication --></div> <div id="contributors"> <p><em><a rel="noopener" href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/the-origins-of-money/" target="_blank">This article</a> was originally published on <a rel="noopener" href="https://cosmosmagazine.com" target="_blank">Cosmos Magazine</a> and was written by <a rel="noopener" href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/contributor/amelia-nichele" target="_blank">Amelia Nichele</a>. Amelia Nichele is a science journalist at The Royal Institution of Australia.</em></p> </div> </div> <p><em>Image: </em><em>M.H.G. Kuijpers</em></p>

Money & Banking

Placeholder Content Image

Chinese defector has new theory on COVID origins

<p>A Chinese defector has suggested the COVID-19 pandemic began after the virus was potentially leaked amongst participants of the military games in Wuhan in October 2019, months before the deadly outbreak was confirmed by China.</p> <p>Defector and democracy campaigner Wei Jingsheng was speaking with Sky News journalist Sharri Markson for her new book <em>What Really Happened in Wuhan</em>.</p> <p>He said thousands of athletes from around the world came to Wuhan for the Military World Games in October and this was likely the first superspreader event.</p> <p>Jingsheng said: “I thought that the Chinese government would take this opportunity to spread the virus during the Military Games, as many foreigners would show up there,” he said.</p> <p>He claims he was aware of Chinese authorities experimenting with "strange biological weapons", a tip off from a government source, and tried to warn the US but was unsuccessful.</p> <p><strong>Many athletes from different countries reported sickness</strong></p> <p><img style="width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="/nothing.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/8fddf3839bed4bb6be443112db24b245" /><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.2971342383107px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7844291/wei-military-games-um.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/8fddf3839bed4bb6be443112db24b245" /></p> <p>Multiple athletes from around the world later reported sickness and symptoms consistent with COVID-19.</p> <p>Last month the US's Republican Foreign Affairs Committee released a report claiming Beijing was rushing to cover up the virus's spread around the time of the military games.</p> <p>Republican Representative Michael McCaul said: "When they realised what happened, Chinese Communist Party officials and scientists at the WIV began frantically covering up the leak.”</p> <p>"But their coverup was too late — the virus was already spreading throughout the megacity of Wuhan," he added.</p> <p><img style="width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="/nothing.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/4f8f86d22ea94363be718fe6352928ca" /><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.1804008908686px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7844293/wei-jingshang-lab-um.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/4f8f86d22ea94363be718fe6352928ca" /></p> <p><strong>China suggests other countries are responsible for COVID</strong></p> <p>China has pointed to overseas, including Italy, France and the US, where it says the virus was detected long before it reported its first official cases in December 2019 but Jingsheng’s theory provides an explanation for such cases.</p> <p>The Communist Party of China has become angry over what it claims is a concerted effort from the West to smear China when it comes to the investigation of the origins of COVID.</p> <p>Beijing has suggested it was the US who imported the virus to Wuhan during the military games, calling for investigations into its Fort Detrick facility.</p> <p><strong>Former US president Donald Trump suggest the evidence points to a lab leak</strong></p> <p><img style="width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="/nothing.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/687e3da31a264cff9642b3b46f5b8426" /><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.2018489984592px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7844292/wei-trump-um.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/687e3da31a264cff9642b3b46f5b8426" /></p> <p>Former US president Donald Trump also spoke with Markson for her book and he claimed it’s “obvious” the virus had been leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.</p> <p>Trump made a point of saying he didn’t think the virus was “intentionally” spread but that it escaped via an accidental leak.</p> <p>“I don’t know if they had bad thoughts or whether it was gross incompetence, but one way or the other, it came out of Wuhan, and it came from the Wuhan lab,” Trump said.</p> <p>Trump added one indication was the early emergence of stories filtering into his office about body bags being piled up outside the lab.</p> <p>Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also talked with Markson and he said there was “enormous, albeit indirect, evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the centrepoint for this.”</p> <p>“The cumulative evidence that one can see points singularly to the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” he said.</p> <p>Pompeo added the US has intelligence three scientists at the lab fell ill two months before the first cases of COVID were officially reported in December 2019.</p> <p>Former US director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe says these scientists are now missing.</p> <p>Another claim that was delivered to Trump was that a lab worker left for lunch and met his girlfriend, infecting her with the virus.</p> <p><strong>WHO chief calls for more investigation of the lab leak theory</strong></p> <p>Initially criticised for his soft approach with China, World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus surprisingly questioned the findings of a joint mission into the origins of COVID earlier this year, calling for more to be done to investigate the lab leak theory.</p> <p><em>Image: Getty Images and Sky News</em></p>

Travel Trouble

Placeholder Content Image

Australia's only scientist on Wuhan team delivers COVID-19 origin update

<p>Australian scientist Professor Dominic Dwyer believes that COVID-19 started in China and had been circulating around the community much earlier than December 2019.</p> <p>Dwyer is involved in the inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 and his views have been challenged by the Chinese scientists in the World Health Organisation joint investigation who believe the disease might've been brought into China on frozen food packets.</p> <p>Dwyer, a microbiologist and infectious disease expert with NSW Health Pathology said that the evidence is "very limited" for an origin outside of China.</p> <p>He was the only Australian in a 14-strong team working for the World Health Organisation.</p> <p>WHO experts said last night that COVID-19 most likely appeared in humans after jumping from an animal, dismissing claims that the virus leaked from a Chinese lab.</p> <p>"I think it started in China, I think the evidence for it starting elsewhere in the world is actually very limited," Professor Dwyer told<span> </span><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.9news.com.au/" target="_blank">9News</a><span> </span>from hotel quarantine in Sydney.</p> <p>"There is some evidence but it's not really very good.</p> <p>"I think it's most likely that it came from a bat. We know that other viruses that are closely related to (COVID-19) are present in bats.</p> <p>"We know that other viruses like MERS and SARS back in 2003 also came from bats. Now these bats don't respect borders of course so they are present not just in China but in other parts on South East Asia and indeed elsewhere around the world."</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/EXCLUSIVE?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#EXCLUSIVE</a>: Aussie scientist Dominic Dwyer has spoken to <a href="https://twitter.com/9NewsAUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@9NewsAUS</a> after returning from Wuhan, where he was on the WHO team investigating <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVID19</a><br />"I think it started in China. The evidence for it starting elsewhere in the world is very limited" - Interview up shortly <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/auspol?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#auspol</a> <a href="https://t.co/kSF5nN4Fve">pic.twitter.com/kSF5nN4Fve</a></p> — Fiona Willan (@Fi_Willan) <a href="https://twitter.com/Fi_Willan/status/1359404660210110465?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2021</a></blockquote> <p>Despite China being less than thrilled with Australia for calling an inquiry, Dwyer said there was no hostility.</p> <p>"The Chinese were very hospitable hosts, everyone worked together very well, it was a joint mission after all," he said.</p> <p>"There were some clear differences of opinion and there were some quite firm and heated exchanges over things but in general everyone was trying to do the right thing and certainly WHO got more data than they've ever had before, and that's some real progress."</p> <p>When asked if he believed there would be a definitive conclusion on how the virus started, Dwyer said he was hopeful.</p> <p>"Many of these outbreaks actually take years to sort out, so part of the WHO work was advising what sort of studies need to be done to try and sort this out over the next year or so," he said.</p> <p>"Remember with SARS it took well over a year before the bat virus was identified, I would expect it will be similar here. There's clearly a lot of work that needs to be done, not just in China but in the region and elsewhere around the world."</p>

News

Placeholder Content Image

Céline Dion originally didn't want to record hit song My Heart Will Go On

<p>It apparently took a little coaxing to get Céline Dion to get on board with the soundtrack to the 1997 film <em>Titanic</em>.</p> <p>On a chat with Andy Cohen on <em><a href="https://youtu.be/conBmLdtUEw">Watch What Happens Live</a></em>, Dion admitted that she wasn’t initially a fan of <em>My Heart Will Go On</em>.</p> <p>“It is true,” she confirmed to Cohen, 51, and his audience members, after being asked about her original thoughts on the song, adding that she’s “glad they didn’t listen to me” and recorded the song anyway.</p> <p>“It didn’t appeal to me. I was probably very tired that day — <em>very</em> tired,” Dion continued. “My husband [the late René Angélil] said, ‘Let’s hold on.’ He talked to the writer and he said, ‘Let’s try to make it, like, a little demo.'”</p> <p>“I sang the song once and they built the orchestra around it. I never re-sang it for the recording. So the demo is the actual recording,” she recalled, joking, “But after that, I’ve sang it about three gazillion times.”</p> <p>The song debuted at Number 1 on the <em>Billboard</em> Hot 100 chart on February 28<sup>th</sup>, 1998 and propelled the soundtrack of the film to a 16-week run at the top spot. The album sold more than 15 million copies worldwide and won Best Original Song at the 1998 Academy Awards and won a Grammy Award for Record of The Year.</p> <p>However, Dion has since come around to the song and says that it now “means a lot to me”.</p> <p>“This song means a lot to me, and it has played such a huge role in my career,” <a href="https://people.com/music/billboard-music-awards-2017-celine-dion-performs-my-heart-will-go-on/">she said in a statement prior</a> to the ceremony that year. “I’m so grateful to the late James Horner, and to Will Jennings, for writing it and creating the opportunity for me to be part of <em>Titanic — </em>an amazing film whose legacy will continue for generations to come.”</p>

Music

Placeholder Content Image

5 great songs almost ruined by their original titles

<p>These songs were almost named something completely different!</p> <div class="Maincontent"> <p><strong>1. ‘Hey Jude’ was ‘Hey Jules’</strong></p> <p>When John and Cynthia Lennon split in 1968, Paul McCartney felt so bad for their five-year-old son, Julian, that he drove out to the suburbs to console him. By the time he arrived, McCartney had written the boy a ballad called ‘Hey Jules’ – a name he later obscured before sharing the song with the world.</p> <p><strong>2. ‘Mrs. Robinson’ was ‘Mrs. Roosevelt’</strong></p> <p>While scoring<span> </span><em>The Graduate</em>, director Mike Nichols turned his lonely eyes to Simon and Garfunkel. Paul Simon was too busy touring to write, but he had been tinkering with a tune called ‘Mrs. Roosevelt’, a tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt and the glorious past. Nichols agreed to use it if Simon agreed to change the title. He did.</p> <p><strong>3. ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ was ‘Vampires In Love’</strong></p> <p>Bonnie Tyler’s wrenching ballad about “love in the dark” was almost much darker. According to lyricist Jim Steinman, “I actually wrote that to be a vampire love song … Its original title was ‘Vampires in Love’ because I was working on a musical of Nosferatu.”</p> <p><strong>4. ‘Tutti Frutti, aw rootie’ was ‘Tutti Frutti, Good Booty’</strong></p> <p>Frustrated in the studio one day, struggling artist Little Richard started hammering the nearest piano and belting out a raunchy tune he used to play in southern clubs. Producer Bumps Blackwell liked what he heard but eventually swapped ‘good booty’ for a slang expression meaning ‘all right’. The rest, as they say, is aw rootie.</p> <p><strong>5. ‘Iron Man’ was nearly ‘Iron Bloke’</strong></p> <p>Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi had just written one of the greatest rock riffs of all time, but he needed lyrics. Ever inspired, vocalist Ozzy Osbourne posited that the riff sounded just like “a big iron bloke walking about.” For months, ‘Iron Bloke’ remained the song’s working title.</p> <div class="at-below-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.readersdigest.com.au/true-stories-lifestyle/inspirational/5-Great-Songs-Almost-Ruined-by-Their-Original-Titles"> <p class="p1"><em>Written by Brandon Specktor. This article first appeared in <a href="https://www.readersdigest.com.au/true-stories-lifestyle/inspirational/5-Great-Songs-Almost-Ruined-by-Their-Original-Titles">Reader’s Digest</a>. For more of what you love from the world’s best-loved magazine, <a href="http://readersdigest.innovations.co.nz/c/readersdigestemailsubscribe?utm_source=over60&amp;utm_medium=articles&amp;utm_campaign=RDSUB&amp;keycode=WRN93V">here’s our best subscription offer</a>.</em></p> </div> </div>

Music

Placeholder Content Image

Elton John and Taron Egerton drop music video for original Rocketman duet

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If you’re a fan of the new Elton John biopic </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rocketman</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">, you’ll be pleased to know that there’s a new music video for one of the original songs in the film.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sir Elton John announced the new music video on his Twitter account, saying that the film clip for the original song </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> is now on YouTube. </span></p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en-gb"> <p dir="ltr">Check out the video for '(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again' - my new duet with <a href="https://twitter.com/TaronEgerton?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TaronEgerton</a>: <a href="https://t.co/vFXBBVeQ5C">https://t.co/vFXBBVeQ5C</a><br /><br />It's from the hit film <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rocketman?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Rocketman</a> - where Taron’s widely-praised performance is currently moving audiences to tears and laughter in cinemas all over the world.<br /><br />Elton xx <a href="https://t.co/HMRYwVhBu7">pic.twitter.com/HMRYwVhBu7</a></p> — Elton John (@eltonofficial) <a href="https://twitter.com/eltonofficial/status/1139276256812228608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">13 June 2019</a></blockquote> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The music video features clips from the original film and is from the closing credits of </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rocketman</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sir Elton John is played by Taron Egerton, who has received nothing but praise for his role in the film.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The new song was written by Sir Elton John as well as his writing partner of more than 50 years, Bernie Taupin. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The 72-year-old told </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">GMA</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> that he had a duet with Taron Egerton in mind.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"I wanted to write a song that Taron and I could sing," he said. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"It's really fantastic. I'm so happy. It sounds like an old end of ‘60s, early ‘70s song.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"He sings it brilliantly, and I'm glad we've got something on record together."</span></p> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"><iframe class="embed-responsive-item" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0LtusBN3ST0"></iframe></div> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rocketman</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">'s music producer, Giles Martin, revealed back in February to </span><a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/113534786/elton-john-and-taron-egerton-release-music-video-for-their-original-rocketman-song"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Stuff</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> when promoting the film that Elton thought 29-year-old Egerton sang his songs better than anyone. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"Elton said, 'I don't think I have heard anyone sing my songs better than Taron'," Martin revealed.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">"And the great thing about Elton is he wants Taron's interpretations of his songs."</span></p>

Music

Placeholder Content Image

The bleeping weird origins of the most common curse words

<p>They’re words we hear (or even say) all the time, but did you ever stop to wonder where expletives came from and why they’re so taboo? Well, we decided it was time to find out. Here, we’re delving into the history behind some of the English language’s most controversial words.</p> <p><strong>1. Crap</strong></p> <p>Starting with a fairly innocuous one, “crap” comes from the Middle Dutch word “krappe”, meaning “to cut off”. In the 15th century, however, it became a word we more commonly use to describe something that’s “nonsense” or as a slightly less flithy version of the next word.</p> <p><strong>2. Sh**</strong></p> <p>This swear word dates back all the way to the 1500s, when it was mostly used to describe an “obnoxious person”. It comes from the Middle Dutch word “schiten” and the Middle English word “sh*ten” meaning – you guessed it – to defecate.</p> <p>It wasn’t until around the 1920s that we began using it to describe things we couldn’t care less about (e.g. “I don’t give a sh**”), and since then, it’s evolved dozens of different uses, including to describe things we don’t like, agree with or believe in (“that’s bullsh**”).</p> <p><strong>3. B*tch</strong></p> <p>It’s one of the most disrespectful words ever used to describe a woman, but you might be surprised to learn b*tch is one of our oldest words, dating back to the year 1000. Originating from the Middle English word “bicche”, we all know it means “female dog”. However, it wasn’t used to describe a lewd woman until the 1800s, when it was considered even more offensive than the word “whore”.</p> <p><strong>4. The F word</strong></p> <p>The origins of this profanity are a little murky, but from what we do know, it’s safe to say it’s been considered a vulgar word for centuries – its root word in Middle Dutch (meaning to copulate with someone) was banned from the dictionary when it originated. Though first seen written around 1500, the current use of the F word didn’t come about until the 1900s.</p>

Books