The Fredösphere

I intended to blog about the death of Elmer Bernstein but never got around to it.  Then I found out he was the composer of that score for The Sweet Smell of Success that bowled me over from the opening credits:

da DAH DUH da DAH DAAAAH!  da DAH DUH da DAH DAAAAH!

Now do you understand why I liked it so much?  (Sorry I couldn't find a more, uh, faithful reproduction.)  Apparently Elmer was one of the last of Hollywood's true artists.  And one of the first, for that matter.

Meanwhile, the Globe Theater is entertaining alternate theories regarding authorship of Shakespeare's plays.  Silly people, haven't they heard -- all those theories have been proven wrong.  Proven, you know, with computers.

The Scream has been stolen.  In a related acts of cultural vandalism, barbershop singing is catching on in Russia and Bjork is introducing bad makeup to Greece.