Posts Tagged ‘Glenn Miller’
Helpful Hints…
C’est ne pas fixer une passagère avec insistance, quand bien même elle aurait les yeux revolver. (Don’t stare at a female passenger, even if she has eyes like a revolver)
Being stuck in a grimy, crowded metal box deep underground doesn’t bring out the best in the average subway commuter. And Parisians aren’t exactly known for their willingness to keep their complaints to themselves.
Last year, the regional transit authority Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens launched an ad campaign to discourage rude behavior on the Paris subway. They used images of hens, warthogs, and sloths to scold riders for holding loud phone conversations, eating gross foods, and taking up too much space.
When public shaming failed, RATP turned to an equally Parisian solution: charming PSAs that look straight out of the Belle Époque. The newly released ebook Manuel de Savoir-Vivre a l’usage du Voyageur Moderne names 12 essential, if slightly tongue-in-cheek, rules for getting by on the subway. Local graphic designer Marion Thomas-Mauro created some very French illustrations to accompany the rules, offering a slightly wacky take on the recommendations…
C’est les jours de grosse chaleur, tel le manchot empereur, bien gardes les bras le long du corps et prendre sa meilleure prise en bas du poteau, pas tout en haut. (On very hot days, be like the emperor penguin — keep your arms along the sides of your body and grip the lower handholds, not the ones on top.)
Read the full story, see more of the instructive illustrations, and find a link to the full guide at “Keep Your B.O. to Yourself, and Other Friendly Tips for Paris Metro Riders.”
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As we just say “non,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1944, that Glenn Miller and the plane on which he was flying disappeared over the English Channel. The musician, arranger, composer, and bandleader– the biggest star and best-selling recording artist of Swing Era– had put aside his career when the U.S.. entered World War II to enlist and lead The Army Air Force Band. He was on his way to Paris to perform for troops there; the wreckage of the plane was never found, and he remains listed as “missing in action.”
Remembrance of Things Past…
xkcd
(…where Randall Munroe observes that “an ‘American Tradition’ is anything that happened to a Boomer twice.”)
As we wax nostalgic, we might might spare a thought for musician, composer, arranger, and bandleader Glenn Miller; he died on this date in 1944. By the early 40s, Miller and his band had become huge stars: In 1939, Time noted: “Of the twelve to 24 discs in each of today’s 300,000 U.S. jukeboxes, from two to six are usually Glenn Miller.” His recording of “Tuxedo Junction” smashed records (pun intended) when it sold 115,000 copies in its first week; in 1942, Miller received the very first Gold Record (for “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”).
When the U.S. entered World War II, Miller was 38, too old to be drafted. But he persuaded the U.S. Army to accept him so that he could, in his own words, “be placed in charge of a modernized Army band.” Miller played a number of musical roles in the service, ultimately forming the 50-piece Army Air Force Band, which he took to England in the summer of 1944, where he gave 800 performances, and recorded (at Abbey Road Studios) material that was broadcast both as a morale boost of far-flung troops and as propaganda. On December 15, 1944, Miller boarded a small plane to fly from Bedford, outside of London, to Paris, to play a Christmas concert for soldiers there. His plane went down over the Channel; he is still officially listed as “missing in action.”
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