There’s a basketball court on the fifth floor of the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, DC, nicknamed “the Highest Court in the Land.”
NICOLE KIDMAN: Kidman has won a lot of awards, including the 2002 Best Actress Oscar for The Hours. (And she might need even more storage space after recently picking up two Emmys for HBO’s Big Little Lies—one for acting, one for producing.) But in 2005, she and Will Ferrell starred in the critically abhorred box office bomb Bewitched. The filmmaker, Nora Ephron, tried to go meta by having Kidman play an actual witch who is cast in a remake of the classic 1960s sitcom. But the clever concept couldn’t overcome the poor script and direction, which led to Ferrell and Kidman winning the Razzie for Worst Screen Couple.
LIZA MINNELLI: Though she was born into Hollywood royalty, Minnelli proved that her success wasn’t a fluke of nepotism by winning the EGOT: an Emmy, a Golden Globe, an Oscar (Best Actress in Cabaret), and four Tonys. But her career hit a low point in the late 1980s when she turned her EGOT into a REGOT by winning the 1989 Worst Actress Razzie for her appearances in Rent-a-Cop and Arthur 2: On the Rocks.
MARLON BRANDO: Brando’s acting prowess won him two Best Actor Oscars—for On the Waterfront (1954) and The Godfather (1972). But he must have checked his acting chops at the dock when he made The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996). The ill-fated shoot was covered in the documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau, and shows Brando as being called a “monster” by the film’s screenwriter, arriving on the set weighing about 300 pounds, and choosing to improvise all of his dialogue. For his role as the title character, Brando won the Worst Supporting Actor award at the 1996 Razzies.
KEVIN KLINE: Once nicknamed the “American Olivier,” Academy Award winner (Best Supporting Actor in A Fish Called Wanda) Kevin Kline has surprisingly few acting awards in his trophy case. That could be because he’s notoriously picky about the roles he chooses. But in 1999, Kline starred in the critically panned summer blockbuster Wild Wild West alongside Will Smith. Kline played multiple characters in that flick and, with Smith, won the Razzie for Worst Screen Couple. Kline received two other Wild Wild West nominations—Worst Actor for his roles of U.S. Marshall Artemus Gordon, and Worst Actress for his role as a prostitute—but he wasn’t bad enough to win either.
Hello there! Prairie dogs greet each other by kissing.
HAPPY BERMUDA DAY!
We all need an excuse to celebrate. Here are a few holidays from around the world.
BERMUDA DAY. Many countries have a day named after themselves, commemorating the moment in history the country was founded or gained its independence. Canada, for example, celebrates Canada Day on July 1—the day in 1867 when three colonies merged to become the Dominion of Canada. On the tropical island paradise of Bermuda, the last Friday in May is Bermuda Day, but it doesn’t commemorate freedom (Bermuda is a territory of the UK). Instead, Bermudans celebrate what’s really important in Bermuda: summer. The holiday functions as the first official day of summer, and unofficially the first day of the year that it’s socially acceptable to hang out on the beach, take the boat out, and wear Bermuda shorts.
DIA DEL MAR. Some holidays celebrate major military battles, usually victories. Bolivia’s Dia Del Mar, or “Day of the Sea,” is one of the few holidays that commemorates a major military defeat. In the War of the Pacific (1879–83), Bolivia and Peru fought Chile over claims to areas off South America’s western coast. On March 23, 1879, Chile expelled Bolivian forces from the Port de Calama. That marked the last time the now-landlocked Bolivia had access to a seaport. Now, each March 23, thousands of Bolivians march in quiet parades. Then everybody somberly listens to nostalgic recordings of sea sounds, like ocean waves cashing on the shore, seagulls, and ship horns.
NYEPI. Most holidays involve boisterous celebration, partying, and noisemakers. Not so with Nyepi. This holiday on the Indonesian island of Bali is also called “Day of Silence”…and for good reason. Celebrants ring in the new year according to the Balinese calendar (sometime in mid to late March) without making a peep. The entirety of Bali shuts down—all lights are lowered, TVs are switched off, and nobody speaks, all so people can stay at home contemplating what they want to accomplish in the new year with no distracting noise to deter them from their quiet reflection and introspection.
BLESSED RAINY DAY. When the monsoon season ends in the tiny South Asian nation of Bhutan, it’s reason to celebrate. The rainstorms ravage the country for three months a year, and once the torrential winds and rains stop, locals can get on with their lives. They begin with…more water. People simply go outside and let the last, dying waters of the monsoon purify them. Blessed Rainy Day takes place in the last week of September, but the exact hour of the cleansing ritual is the decision of astrologers. They recommend the perfect time to the Bhutanese government, and the government tells the people when to hit the showers.
More than half of the world’s lakes are in Canada.
HOW WE DIE
Like it or not, death is part of life. (You probably chose “not.”) If you’ve never lost someone close to you, you might be surprised to learn that, though every death is unique, there are three distinct stages to the end of life, and they’re the same for almost everyone. How do we know? We read about it in Living with Dying: A Complete Guide for Caregivers, by BRI stalwarts Jahnna Beecham and Katie Ortlip.
THE LABOR OF DEATH
Nurses and hospice workers compare the process of dying to the process of giving birth. And just as women go through the different stages of labor, most of us will experience a type of labor when we die. Some people go through the labor in months, some in days, and some in hours, but there are three stages of dying: early labor, transitional labor, and active labor. Knowing what happens in each of those stages can help take some of the fear out of dying.
EARLY LABOR: 1–4 Months Before Death
I want to be alone
Whether someone is dying from a disease or simply from old age, months before, they start to lose energy and experience major fatigue. They may start taking an afternoon nap and then add a morning nap or an evening nap, or both. They begin to withdraw from the world, losing interest in outside activities and a social life, as their focus turns inward—toward themselves and what’s happening to them. They may talk less, preferring to be alone.
I can’t eat that
People’s dietary habits will change too. The body’s digestive system won’t be working as well as it did before, so people stop wanting foods that are difficult to swallow or process, such as meats and vegetables. Or food may just not taste good anymore.
TRANSITIONAL LABOR: 1–2 Weeks Before Death
I’m not really hungry
The closer people get to death, the less they want to eat or drink. Not eating puts the body in a kind of starvation state, which can sound bad, but is not painful because the body releases endorphins and ketones, which are the body’s natural painkillers. They cause mild euphoria and sedation, like a “runner’s high.”
Millionaire railroad and shipping tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt slept in a bed whose legs were placed in dishes of salt. Reason: to ward off evil spirits.
…or thirsty
Not wanting to drink anything is also normal and may actually add to a person’s comfort. As the body dehydrates, there is less fluid in the lungs and heart to cause congestion. There is also less pressure around tumors, so pain may decrease. Dehydration leads to electrolyte imbalance that causes a release of chemicals that make us sleepy and peaceful. Oftentimes loved ones, who are just trying to help, insist on feeding tubes and artificial hydration, not realizing they are interfering with the body’s natural process. This can sometimes do more harm than good.
My bags are packed
In the transitional stage, people sleep a lot more, because all their energy is being used to stay alive. When awake, people may seem confused or disoriented. They may pick at the bedclothes or pluck at invisible spots in front of them. It ma
y seem odd, but quite often people talk in travel metaphors, saying, “I have to pack” or “I’ve got to catch that plane” or “I have to go home.” At this point they may also begin expressing heartfelt gratitude to their caregivers and loved ones as they prepare themselves for saying good-bye.
Nice to see you
It is common for them to “see” people in the room. Some see deceased relatives, others angels or Jesus, and have conversations with them. Hospice workers report that sometimes those who are dying seem to act as go-betweens, relaying messages between relatives on “the other side” and people in the room. At other times, they seem to have one foot in this world and one in another, blissfully describing that other world to those around them. One hospice nurse reports that she had a patient who told his wife, “If you could see what I see, you wouldn’t be afraid.”
ACTIVE LABOR: A Few Days to Hours Before Death
The end is near
In the last few days and hours, a person’s breathing becomes shallow and more rapid as their body labors to die. The body’s temperature can swing widely; the pulse can increase while the blood pressure decreases. In a last push, the body sends blood to its vital organs at the core of the body, which causes the person’s feet and hands to become mottled and cold. A rash can form around the knees, chest, and lower back. And though the person may be asleep, their eyelids may be slightly open, because it takes too much energy to close them.
I’m ready to go
In the last hours of life, breathing can sometimes stop for up to a minute. Some people may extend their lower jaw and start agonal, or “guppy,” breathing, which looks like a fish gulping for air out of water. Some, after days of sleeping, may have one last surge of energy and call out to a loved one. Even people with dementia or Alzheimer’s may become lucid for a moment or two and speak very clearly for the first time in a long time—even years. One woman on hospice who had been silent for years turned to her son and said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay any longer. I have to go now.” Others search the room as if they are looking for someone in a crowd. When they finally “see” them—often in an upper corner of the room—they take their final breaths. And many get their wish of a peaceful end—they simply close their eyes, go to sleep, and are gone.
Tip for getting a song on the radio in the 1930s: Don’t use the word “do” in your lyrics. (It was considered too “suggestive.”)
DID YOU KNOW?
Each Death Is Unique
Some hospice workers say people tend to die the way they lived. They handle the challenge of dying the way they handled other challenges in their lives.
•People who ran away from their problems tend to deny that they are dying, sometimes even up to the very end.
•People who were controlling types will orchestrate their dying down to who they want in the room, what music they want playing, and make sure it happens that way.
•Often, the protective mother will not die with her children in the room. She’ll let them sit by the bedside for 24 hours, and in the few minutes that they are outside the room, she’ll choose to die.
•If a person has been a fighter their entire life, challenging everyone and everything, they will probably go out fighting.
ALCOHOL(IC) ORIGINS
•There’s an old expression in the South to describe someone who is extremely intoxicated: “As drunk as Cooter Brown.” Who’s Cooter Brown? Legend has it he lived right along the Mason-Dixon Line when the Civil War broke out in 1861. He had family in the North and the South, and he didn’t want to take a side…nor did he want to fight for either side. So, Cooter Brown got too drunk to get drafted—day in and day out for the entirety of the war.
•Alcoholic drinks like vodka and whiskey are sometimes called “spirits.” That’s because in Europe in the Middle Ages, some people thought that evil spirits lived in the alcohol, and that they were the reason why people acted so weird when they drank. These same people believed that evil spirits hated the sound of bells, so in an attempt to neutralize the demons, they’d “clink” glasses together.
Strongest organism on Earth? Gonorrhea. The bacteria can pull 100,000 times its own body weight.
FOOD THAT’S ART
& ART THAT’S FOOD
On page 259 we told you about Iowa’s “Butter Cow Lady.” Here are some other folks who make food the medium, or the subject, of their art.
Artist: Robin Antar, a New York artist
Medium: Stone
Food for Thought: Remember Andy Warhol’s famous paintings of Campbell’s soup cans? Antar does the same kind of thing, but in stone. She carves realistic soda cans, Heinz Ketchup and other condiment bottles, bags of Oreo cookies, hot dogs, hamburgers with fries, bagels with lox, out of various kinds of stones. (She also sculpts non-food items, such as shoes, pencils, boxing gloves, flowers, tubes of toothpaste, and abstract pieces as well.) “I take a raw stone most people think of as trash and express my emotions and feelings,” she says.
Artist: Lucy Sparrow, a British artist working in New York
Medium: Stuffed felt
Food for Thought: Sparrow has found a unique way to call attention to the fact that gentrification and rising rents are threatening to push the ubiquitous corner grocery stores known as bodegas out of Manhattan. In 2017 she rented a space in the city’s Meatpacking District and turned it into a bodega called “8 ’till late.” Only in this store everything, from the cereal to the bologna, fresh vegetables, liquor, cigarettes, and even the cash register, was made by her out of stuffed felt—more than 9,000 items in all. Every piece was for sale to the public, at reasonable prices. The felt cigarette lighters sold for $15, and a carton of Minute Maid orange juice cost $60. The exhibit was so popular that she had to close the exhibit for a few days in mid-run, just to restock the shelves. The new “merchandise” sold just as quickly; the exhibit ended nine days early because there was nothing left on the shelves.
In this store everything, from the cereal to the bologna, fresh vegetables, liquor, cigarettes, and even the cash register, was made by her out of stuffed felt.
Artist: Amelia Fais Harnas, a New York artist
Medium: Wine and tablecloths—she makes “wine stain art”
Food for Thought: Harnas, who describes herself as an “artist who is very happy to nerd out and play scientist,” hit on the idea of painting portraits on tablecloths using wine as the “paint” in 2010. She uses a technique called batik in which she treats parts of the tablecloth with wax to prevent the wine from soaking into the fabric where she doesn’t want it. “I am particularly intrigued by the challenge of trying to control the unpredictable nature of wine bleeding through fabric in order to channel the equally imprecise nature of a person’s character,” she says.
Comedian Lucille Ball swore she picked up coded radio transmissions from Japanese spies in the fillings of her teeth during World War II.
Artist: Song Dong, an artist who lives in China
Medium: Cookies, in art installations he calls “Eating the City”
Food for Thought: Song uses his art to call attention to the rapid pace of change in China, in which old sections of Beijing and other cities are destroyed and cleared to make way for new buildings. He builds urban skylines by piling up thousands of cookies to make skyscrapers, sports stadiums, and other city features, and then invites the public to eat them. “My city [is] tempting and delicious,” he explained at a London exhibit in 2011. “When we are eating the city we are using our desire to taste it, but at the same time we are demolishing the city and turning it into a ruin.”
“When we are eating the city we are using our desire to taste it, but at the same time we are demolishing the city and turning it into a ruin.”
Artist: Heide Hatry, a German-born artist who divides her time between Berlin and New York
Medium: The body parts of food animals. She uses the parts that have no economic value and are usually thrown away—pig ears, duck beaks, chicken combs, fish heads and tails, etc
.
Food for Thought: In her “Not a Rose” series of photographs, Hatry, who was raised on a farm in Germany, explores “the moral, ethical, and political dimensions of meat production and consumption” by combining the animal parts to create “images of beautiful flowers from animal parts that most of us would find impossible to consume (even though we eat the flesh of those very same animals…without a thought).” She has published her deceptively realistic photographs in a coffee table book called Not a Rose that, as long as you don’t read the text, is virtually indistinguishable from other coffee table books about flowers. New York Times columnist David Streitfeld writes that the photos push viewers “into a realm where we question our relationship with beauty, animals and dinner.”
“Cooking is an art, but you eat it too.” —Marcella Hazan
By any other name: The inventor of snowboarding almost called the sport “snurfing.”
HORSE JOKES
Heard the one about the pony with the sore throat? He was a little hoarse. (Wait. It gets worse.)
Q: What do you call an Amish guy with his hand in a horse’s mouth?
Uncle John's Actual and Factual Bathroom Reader Page 51
