The Ghostbusters’ Ecto-1 Is a Barn Find??

Looks like the 1959 Cadillac Ghostbusters Ecto-1 has been found abandoned in an Oklahoma barn, a fiction that isn't far from reality.

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It would seem Hollywood loves a good barn find as much as we hot rodders do. But in the new Ghostbusters: Afterlife movie, it's not just anything under the tarp. It's the iconic Ecto-1!

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Yep, the world's most famous 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor Futura Duplex (with ambulance/hearse conversion) has been located in a dusty Oklahoma barn. Check out the latest trailer (above) and see if you can spot the Ecto-1 barn-find moment!

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As the plot has it, the original, now-deceased Ghostbuster Egon Spengler leaves his old Oklahoma homestead to his family. There's a basement full of ghostbusting gear and a very special car abandoned in the barn under a tarp.


Ghostbusters Ecto-1 Real-Life Origin Story

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The original Ecto-1 was converted by the Miller-Meteor at the company's Piqua, Ohio, plant and featured the large and beautifully styled tail fins of the 1959 Cadillac Eldorado. The converted Caddy is a pretty rare deal, with only around 400 being produced. It also fielded a 6.3L V-8 good for 320 ponies.

With how heavy the Caddy is, we're sure more power would have helped. In the first script for Ghostbusters, Ecto-1 was supposed to be a 1975 Cadillac ambulance, but it was later changed to the '59 Cadillac Futura Duplex. It was supposed to be black with purple lights, too, and thank goodness both of those decisions were revised

.

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After decades under a tarp, Ecto-1 is surely going to need some love. Then again, when Ecto-1 showed up in the original movie, it was a mess. It was stated they paid $4,800 (it was just $1,400 when it was the '75 version) and, according to the character, "It needs suspension work and shocks, brakes, brake pads, lining, steering box, transmission, rear end...maybe new rings, also mufflers, a little wiring" A used classic or a barn find needing a lot of work is something we can all relate to.


Who Came Up With Ecto-1's Original Design?

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Stephen Dane is the visionary who designed the original Ecto-1 (and the proton pack, ghost trap, particle thrower, slime scooper, and slime blower) in the weeks before filming began. His reward was only being listed in the credits as "Hardware Consultant." As a bonus, they misspelled his name. A re-creation of the original car sold at Barrett-Jackson for $200,000, and the car (or its unique siren sound) has shown up all over pop culture, including modern video games. So, yeah, it's a big deal, and Stephen Dane is the one we have to thank for it.


Is an Engine Swap Coming?

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The original broke down several times. In Ghostbusters II it was shown backfiring and billowing smoke. That wasn't special effects—it really was a mess and even stalled in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, blocking traffic and getting a ticket. Once the movies were done, the famous Ecto-1 from the first movie rusted away on a movie studio backlot until zealous fans demanded it be restored and given the respect it deserves as a piece of automotive movie history. So in a way, this movie barn-find story paralleled the real-life abandoning of the car.

Rumor has it the ones in the new movie were LS-swapped. Color us shocked—guess they didn't want any more breakdown tickets. We're not sure why the Ecto-1 in the new movie runs the older yellow plates instead of the newer-style plates seen in Ghostbuster II, or why the engine should sound like a NASCAR mill in the preview. Guess we'll just have to wait for the movie to see if this ghostly mystery is revealed.

THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS BIDEN LIKES

Saudi athlete shows up to fight Israeli after other competitors refused to do the same

Ryan Pyette 

The International Judo Federation has praised a Saudi Arabian woman for competing against an Israeli foe at the Tokyo Olympics after two other athletes from Arab countries refused to do the same.

© Provided by National Post The International Judo Federation has praised a Saudi Arabian woman for competing against an Israeli foe at the Tokyo Olympics after two other athletes from Arab countries refused to do the same.

Tahani Alqahtani faced Israel’s Raz Hershko in the women’s over-78 kg, division Friday and lost by ippon. Her participation was considered in doubt, but Saudi Arabian Olympic committee head and President Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal Al Saud confirmed she would take part in the bout.

The two judokas shook hands after Hershko’s victory.

“With what happened today at the Nippon Budokan, once again judko makes history and helps to build a better world, where respect is the core value of human relations,” the IJF said in a statement. “”Saudi Arabia proves that, through sport, we can go beyond differences and make sport a force to unite the world.”

Earlier this week, Algerian judoka Fethi Nourine and coach Amar Benikhlef quit the men’s under-73 kg competition over the prospect of facing Israeli Tohar Butbul in the second round. Nourine told a television station in his home country he would not get his “hands dirty”.

The IJF suspended both and the Algerian Olympic Committee sent them home.

Then, Sudan’s Mohamed Abdalarasool also bailed out rather than take on Butbul.

In April, the IJF suspended Iran for four years after the nation told Saeid Mollaei to skip a match against an Israeli opponent at the 2019 worlds. Mollaei defected to Mongolia and produced a silver medal in the 81 kg weight class.

Hmong Americans are often obscured by model minority myth. Why Suni Lee's win means so much.

Kimmy Yam 

The family of Olympic gymnast Sunisa Lee, who’s Hmong American, erupted in hugs and cheers Thursday the moment she won gold in the women’s individual all-around gymnastics final, a reaction that reverberated across the Hmong community, a predominantly refugee group.

© Provided by NBC News
Experts say both the struggles and achievements of the Hmong community, an ethnic group with origins in Southeast Asia, have long been shrouded in decades of model minority stereotypes attached to the greater Asian American diaspora. So Lee’s win is far more than another addition to the nation’s medal count.

© Elizabeth Flores Image: Sunisa Lee's parents Yeev Thoj, left, and John Lee and other family and friends react as they watch Sunisa Lee clinch the gold medal in the women's Olympic gymnastics all-around at the Tokyo Olympics on July 29, 2021 in Oakdale, Minn. (Elizabeth Flores / Star Tribune via AP)

For many Hmong people, “there is no other country than the U.S.,” Kham Moua, director of national policy at theSoutheast Asia Resource Action Center, told NBC Asian America.

“We don't have any significant ties anymore, at least the population here, to really any other country. This is really our country. This is our home,” Moua, who woke up before dawn every day to watch Lee compete, said. “My Facebook has been just filled with posts about Suni from Hmong folks all over the country. It's super exciting.”

In the past, Lee has gushed about her tight-knit community in Minnesota, which boasts a Hmong population of roughly 66,000, many of whom ended up in the area due to refugee resettlement. Though the group’s origins in the U.S. began roughly a half-century ago, fleeing war and genocide, experts say its story has been obscured by tropes and images of wealthy Asian Americans who enjoy a much higher degree of privilege compared to that of the community.


Video 
Suni Lee talks about her gold medal win in women’s all-around

About 60 percent of Hmong Americans are low-income and about a quarter live in poverty, according to a 2020 SEARAC report. Compared to all other racial groups, Hmong Americans fare the worst across nearly all measures of income. When it comes to educational attainment, almost 30 percent of Southeast Asian Americans haven’t completed high school or passed the GED tests, compared to the 13 percent of the general population who have experienced the same, the report said.

Zoua Vang, associate professor of sociology at McGill University, in Canada, said many of these structural inequalities can be traced back to the United States' treatment of refugees following what has become known as the “secret war” of the 1960s. The U.S. had recruited many members of the Hmong community in Laos to fight on their behalf. Though the objective was to stave off communist control in the country, Laos fell to the Pathet Lao, communist national forces, in 1975. When U.S. troops pulled out, many Hmong fled for Thailand and various refugee camps before resettling across America.

 Jamie Squire Image: Sunisa Lee of Team United States poses with her gold medal after winning the Women's All-Around Final on day six of the Tokyo Olympic Games at Ariake Gymnastics Centre on July 29, 2021. (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)

“Certainly a lot of people, and I would count myself in this camp, feel that the government has let us down in terms of its obligations to help Americans, Hmong immigrants more generally, resettle and thrive in America,” Vang said. “The U.S. government has basically, like it does to most immigrants once they're here, stopped their responsibility to help these immigrants integrate into society.”

Hmong veterans continue to struggle with the lack of equal recognition and benefits for their sacrifices compared to U.S. vets, Vang said, which has become a “long-standing fight and struggle for people of that generation.”

With little government support, responsibility fell on private organizations and religious institutions to help the refugees, Vang said. Many Hmong Americans were forced to turn to or create their own support networks.

“Suni is so different from all those narratives because, certainly, there are echoes of war and trauma in her family's narrative. Her narrative is not a war narrative; it's a narrative about success,” Moua said. “We are talking about her as an individual, as an American, and quite honestly, it's so different from what we've seen. It's a positive narrative, too.”

However, experts stress that though Lee’s story is one of achievement and grit, it’s important that her narrative does not further perpetuate the idea that such extraordinary accomplishments are inevitable by just “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps.” Lee’s success isn’t so much proof of the opportunities or meritocracy in the U.S. but more so a reflection of the resilience of her community, they said.

© Stephen Maturen Image: United States Olympic Gymnastics Viewing Event With Members Of The Hmong Community And Family Of Sunisa Lee (Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)

While Lee’s family couldn’t afford a balance beam, her father built one himself, installing it in the backyard where it sits to this day, she told NBC’s “TODAY” show. Each year, the community held a fundraiser for the gymnast, chipping in so she would be able to compete competitively in the sport.

“The community is always right behind her,” Lee’s father told the Star Tribune. “Without that, Sunisa wouldn't be here. They're so supportive of her."

Moua said the existence of so many people of color on Team USA is a testament to those communities themselves, like the Hmong. Government documents from the secret war era once interpreted the Hmong, an oral culture, as “preliterate,” “meaning that they just can't learn, can't acclimate, can't become accustomed to the U.S,” he explained. Fast-forward to Lee’s win, and a much different image is projected on the Olympic podium.

“I think it is amazing that the Hmong community, just 45 years ago, was considered too ‘preliterate’ to even be accepted into the U.S. And yet, here we are today, with a Hmong American representing our country on an international stage winning gold,” he said. “I think it speaks more to the power of our community to love and support each other.”

Of course, Vang said, amid conversations about Lee’s community, the gymnast’s own strength must not be forgotten.

“It would be remiss to not just mention the resilience of Suni herself, certainly embedded within her family and then the larger community, but it takes a lot to get to where she's at,” Vang said. “That is personal resilience, in addition to the community resources that she may have drawn upon, to get to where she is.”

Vang said she hopes when people see Lee’s story, they’ll be prompted to put more resources and investment into communities like the Hmong.

“If we put investments and resources, what amazing diversity can we see on the world stage representing America, and how many more unsupported untapped talent is in communities of color, and the Hmong community,” Vang said.

TRUMP AND MILLER PLANNED TO DEPORT THEM WHILE CLINT CAME TO THE RESCUE

Biden unveils picks for key religious freedom roles

President Joe Biden announced Friday that he was appointing Khizr Khan, a Gold Star father who drew then-candidate Donald Trump's ire when he spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

 WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 23: Gold Star father Khizr Khan participates in a panel discussion during the Muslim Collective For Equitable Democracy Conference and Presidential Forum July 23, 2019 in Washington, DC. The conference was organized by the Muslim Caucus Education Collective. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Khan, who endorsed Biden in 2020, said in 2016 that Trump "sacrificed nothing and no one," before raising a copy of the US Constitution, asking if Trump had ever read it. Khan's son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, died in Baghdad in 2004.

The White House on Friday recognized Khan, a founder of the Constitution Literacy and National Unity Project, as "an advocate for religious freedom as a core element of human dignity." The announcement said that Khan "devotes a substantial amount of his time to providing legal services to veterans, men and women serving in uniform, and their families."

It continued: "Today's announcement underscores the President's commitment to build an Administration that looks like America and reflects people of all faiths."

In addition to Khan, the White House nominated Rashad Hussain to serve as the first Muslim Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom and Deborah Lipstadt to serve as the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism.

© Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Khizr Khan looks on during a campaign rally with Democratic presidential nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at The Armory on November 6, 2016 in Manchester, New Hampshire.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday announced his picks for four key religious freedom roles, including Khzir Khan, the Muslim-American father of a slain U.S. soldier who became an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump throughout both of his campaigns.

Khan was appointed to be a commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a body that investigates and monitors religious freedom issues across the globe and makes recommendations to the administration on how to address abuses. He rose to national prominence during the 2016 campaign with his sharp critiques of Trump’s policies and rhetoric towards Muslims, ultimately speaking out against the Republican at the 2016 Democratic National Convention and sharing the story of his son, a U.S. Army captain who died in Iraq in 2004.

Biden is also appointing Sharon Kleinbaum, a rabbi at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York City and a prominent activist for LGBTQ rights, as a commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Biden’s nominations include Rashad Hussain, who would be the first Muslim American to serve as the U.S. ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom. Hussain previously served in the Obama administration as White House counsel, as well as U.S. special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, among other roles.

In addition, he’s nominating Deborah Lipstadt to be the special envoy to monitor and combat anti-semitism, a role that has the rank of ambassador, a position that’s part of the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs. The position was left unfilled during the first few years of the Trump presidency, but lawmakers from both parties and a number of leading Jewish organizations have urged Biden to fill the role to address a global rise in anti-semitism in recent years. Lipstadt is a professor of modern Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Emory University, and served on the State Department’s advisory committee on religious persecution abroad.

Alexandra Jaffe, The Associated Press

Inspired by 14th century poem, The Green Knight is latest Arthurian legend on big screen

Jenna Benchetrit 

© Eric Zachanowich Dev Patel stars in The Green Knight, a film adaptation of the 14th century epic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Arthurian legend is no stranger to the big screen and the latest in that line, The Green Knight starring Dev Patel, has already opened to rave reviews.

But some are hoping the 14th century epic poem it is inspired by — Sir Gawain and the Green Knight — becomes the real breakout star.

In A24's latest film, Patel stars as Sir Gawain, a nephew of King Arthur who sets out on a fantastical journey to challenge the Green Knight, a strange, towering figure with green skin and a seemingly indestructible exterior. The film hit Canadian theatres on Friday.
Appeal of Arthurian legends

Directed by David Lowery, the filmmaker behind Ain't Them Bodies Saints and A Ghost Story, the film is the latest in a long line of adapted Arthurian legends that has movie buffs and medievalists alike excited for its release.

"It's a story about an ambitious young person who maybe, in the beginning, bites off more than he can chew," said writer Robin Sloan, who each year performs a live virtual reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated into modern English by poet Simon Armitage.

"I hope I'll hear at least a few of those alliterative bouncing rhythms spoken by Dev Patel, or the narrator or someone else, because I think they're, for me, the most special part of the poem," said Sloan, who is also the author of the novel Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore.

The film was due to be released last May, Lowery said in a recent interview with The Globe and Mail. When the pandemic upset those plans, the director said it gave him a chance to "revisit it with fresh eyes."

If early reviews are any indication, the extra moments in the editing room paid off.

Justin Chang of The Los Angeles Times called it "a bewitching feat of revisionist mythmaking, the kind that implores you to look upon an old story with newly appreciative eyes." The New York Times' A.O. Scott said it's a movie "worth watching twice" while Alison Willmore at Vulture wrote that it is a "ravishing and unsettling fantasy."

"It's just — it's visual poetry," said Jeffrey Zhang, chief critic and editor of pop culture website Strange Harbours. "I think that's what this film really is."

Available in the public domain and holding wide appeal, Arthurian legends make for easy adaptations, Zhang said.
Poem was unknown for centuries

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an epic poem with a fittingly storied history. Written in the late 14th century by an unknown writer who has since been dubbed "The Pearl Poet," the text was virtually unknown until a 19th century British researcher came across it.

Only a single copy of the original manuscript has been discovered.

"It's not like it was a hit in the year 1427," Sloan said. "Instead, it basically sat unread, unknown in a library— it was passed around from collection to collection."

It was almost destroyed in a fire in London in the 1700s that claimed other manuscripts, he said.

"We'll never know what was on them or what stories were lost in that fire. But just by sheer luck, Sir Gawain in the Green Knight was spared," he said.

Alexandra Gillespie, a former English professor at the University of Toronto who has taught on Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, said that the "complex," "jewel-like" poem — along with other texts from the Pearl Poet — makes rich use of historical Middle English.

 

Jackson Weaver/CBC News Alexandra Gillespie taught a fourth-year capstone seminar on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight at the University of Toronto-Mississauga.

"They are alliterative poems," she said. "So the first letter of many words in a single line will be the same, though they also have patterns of rhyme and other kinds of meter and they're really, really intricate."

The text's recurring green motif is a symbol of sexuality, fertility, nature and abundance, Gillespie said.

"Green is also the death that encroaches on you, the decay that is always just around the corner," she said.

Sloan said that much of the poem's appeal is in its use of language paired with a narrative that can be surprising.

"I mean, it's an Arthurian quest, but it's not like the others," he said. "I truly believe this is -- it's not like the others. It's really a special piece of work in history."

On the big screen and beyond, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has proved to be particularly fruitful source material, with its hero appearing in a range of media.

There's the 1973 film Gawain and the Green Knight, and its 1984 remake, Sword of the Valiant; there's a BAFTA-winning 2002 animated short film that shares the poem's name. There is also a 2008 documentary that explores the hero's journey and the 2011 television series Camelot features Clive Standen as Gawain.

The 1991 opera Gawain is just one of many stage adaptations. And there's even the Green Knight-inspired video game, Chronicles of the Sword.

For Sloan, whose yearly readings of the poem draw in viewers from around the world, the film is an opportunity for people to appreciate the centuries-old text.

I hope that when people watch a movie like this and become aware of its source material, it connects them to a time scale that's a little bit broader than the one we're often sort of zoomed into and locked into," he said.

Still, many stories of Arthurian legend have received an underwhelming reception at the box office.

Most recently, 2017's King Arthur: Legend of the Sword lost a whopping $153.2 million US for Warner Bros. King Arthur, released in 2004, grossed only $203.6 million US against its $120 million US budget. And Sean Connery's 1995 film The First Knight was ill-received by audiences and critics.

So while Lowery takes a risk in adapting The Green Knight, its Arthurian origins could resonate with audiences who are excited by tales of swords and sorcery in the vein of The Lord of the Rings, or even the knight-like superheroes in franchises like the Avengers, Gillespie said.

Why scholars are drawn to the origins of new film The Green Knight Duration: 02:19

'The Green Knight' is the best medieval takedown since 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'

Noah Berlatsky 

Director David Lowery’s new film “The Green Knight,” out Friday, comes draped in lush visuals and the cultural caché of the medieval epic poem on which the story is based. But the movie’s modern, slyly deflationary approach to its material has as much to do with that classic film of antiheroism, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” as it does with high Arthurian legend.

© Provided by NBC News

Lowery doesn’t quite have the Pythons’ genius for nonsense and antistructure. But in his somewhat quieter, highbrow vein, he, too, manages to effectively fart in the general direction of noble sacrifice, honor and narrative. It may not be the greatest film to ever mock Arthurian legend, but it’s a solid and worthwhile second.

As most people who took high school English probably remember, “Gawain and the Green Knight” is set in the time of King Arthur. In the story, a giant green knight interrupts a Christmas feast of the knights of the Round Table and offers to take any blow one of the knights there can give him. In exchange, he will return the blow a year hence. It doesn’t seem like a great bargain, but brave Gawain accepts and promptly strikes off the knight’s head—at which point the green giant unexpectedly picks the severed head up and rides off. First, though, he tells Gawain he has to find him at his Green Chapel a year hence to fulfill his pledge and be beheaded himself.

In the original poem, Gawain is a typically heroic sort, filled to the top of his (temporarily attached) head with honor and nobility and bravery and all the other virtues. The movie version, where Gawain is played by Dev Patel, is a different matter. He’s the king’s nephew, and while he longs vaguely for glory, he spends most of his days drinking and fornicating. In this telling, Gawain impetuously accepts the challenge from the Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) less out of chivalry than to prove himself to the king (Sean Harris). A year later, Gawain shows understandably little interest in going to find the knight who has promised to behead him; the king has to badger him into it with vague rewards of greatness and honor.

It’s not just the King who badgers Gawain, however. The movie sometimes seems like a conspiracy against him, though a conspiracy by whom is hard to say. His mother, Morgan Le’Fay (Sarita Choudhury) performs some rituals which may or may not have to do with the Green Knight’s appearance, suggesting she’s plotting against her son to destroy him, or maybe test him, or maybe out of some unknown motivation. Other people Gawain meets along the way—like the mysterious, possibly dead Winifred (Erin Kellyman)—seem to know more than him about his quest.

All these shadowy manipulators make the narrative feel like a kind of put on, or a “game” as the Green Knight himself calls the Christmas challenge. Gawain has to go on a quest because in legends (and, not coincidentally, in Hollywood movies) the hero goes on a quest. Doing so demonstrates and inculcates heroism and other admirable qualities, supposedly. (As Gawain and other characters point out more than once, going to get your head cut off seems more foolhardy than admirable.)

Nor does Gawain ever come into his own bravery and generosity in the accepted Hollywood fashion. He never gets to show off his skills in swordplay, if he even has any; there’s less fight choreography in “The Green Knight” than in the ostentatiously low-budget “Holy Grail.”

Instead, Gawain gets fooled, intimidated, robbed and seduced along his journey. He loses the scarf which is supposed to magically protect him. Winifred has to chastise him into doing something semi-heroic. (“A knight should know better!” she harrumphs.) Whenever he comes upon skeleton remains—hanging at a crossroads, sunken in a pond, coming upon him in a vision—his lips curl in disgust and horror.

Nor does Patel ever lose his look of hangdog confusion and misery; he always seems like he’d much rather be doing something else. The only time he seems truly happy is in the movie’s opening scene. There he radiates earthy bonhomie and goodwill, before his destiny seizes him by the nether regions.

But what is that destiny? The movie offers various speculations. Perhaps Gawain is meant to become king himself, and this is his trial by fire and sword. Perhaps the Green Knight is a symbol of death, and Gawain’s progress toward him is a progress toward the green moss that grows over a corpse: Wisdom is confronting the end of life on which more life grows in an endless cycle of rebirth, new heads sprouting from old shoulders, world without end.

Thanks in part to Patel’s subtle and not-so-subtle expressions of skepticism and irritation, these multiple explanations and possibilities come across less as ancient mystery than modern absurdity. Lowery reads a touch of Kafka back into the medieval legend, and the Green Knight’s magical bargain becomes a kind of bureaucratic hoop. Gawain signed a contract and now he has to fulfill the terms, however pointless or brutal, in the name of some abstract principle that everyone has decided is more important than his life.

The police don’t show up and take everyone away, as at the end of “Holy Grail,” but the conclusion is almost as blankly anticlimactic. Arthur and his knights remain a symbol of heroism and tragic nobility. As such, films about Arthur and his knights remain a good way to kick heroism in the shins, or to point out that tragedy is more often irritating and pointless than noble. Gawain is the butt of a joke, not a hero. And the joke is precisely that heroes are butts. The narrative shoves him here and there and he staggers along, toward whatever green fate awaits him.

Ottawa drummer squirrelled away 1968 Joni Mitchell tape recorded by Jimi Hendrix

OTTAWA — An Ottawa drummer with a passion for collecting reel-to-reel tapes deserves applause for the coming release of a Joni Mitchell performance recorded over half a century ago by none other than virtuoso guitarist Jimi Hendrix.© Provided by The Canadian Press

The impromptu 1968 recording session of blossoming singer-songwriter Mitchell at the national capital's Le Hibou Coffee House has long been the stuff of pop music lore, documented in Hendrix's diary.

But the tape's fate was a mystery for decades.

Mitchell announced this week that selections from the Ottawa gig would be included on a volume of archival recordings from 1968-71 to be released in October.

A 24-year-old Mitchell was in the middle of a two-week stint at Le Hibou on March 19, 1968, when Hendrix, playing the nearby Capitol Theatre, phoned the Alberta-born songstress, whom he would soon dub "fantastic girl with heaven words" in his diary.

"I think I'll record her tonight with my excellent tape recorder (knock on wood) ... hmmm ... can't find any wood ... everything's plastic," he wrote.

In liner notes from Mitchell's forthcoming release, posted on her website, she recalls the evening vividly.

"They came and told me, 'Jimi Hendrix is here, and he's at the front door.' I went to meet him. He had a large box. He said to me, 'My name is Jimi Hendrix. I'm on the same label as you. Reprise Records.'

"He said, 'I'd like to record your show. Do you mind?' I said, 'No, not at all.' There was a large reel-to-reel tape recorder in the box.

"The stage was only about a foot off the ground. He knelt at the edge of the stage, with a microphone, at my feet. All during the show, he kept twisting knobs."

The resulting tape was stolen from a vehicle a short time later. Hendrix died in 1970. And it seemed Mitchell's show would linger only in the memory of those who came out to Le Hibou.

More than 30 years later, drummer Richard Patterson, who had played in Ottawa band The Esquires, asked fellow musician Ian McLeish to digitize more than 300 tapes he had amassed over the years.

"Some were tapes sent to him by artists trying to get on the air, some were tapes of the groups and the artists he'd been involved with. And some were just tapes that he found hanging around in the studios," McLeish said in an interview.

After Patterson's death in 2011, his estate asked McLeish to go through the old recordings again.

"And I found a bunch of tapes Richard hadn't given me the first time. And one of them was Joni Mitchell at Le Hibou, March 1968, taped by Jimi."

McLeish digitized the tape, and the original, along with all the others from Patterson, were given to Library and Archives Canada.

"But I kept the digitized versions of everything," said McLeish, who releases vintage Canadian recordings through Mousehole Music.

"And I was hoping that this Joni thing might be of interest to somebody someday. But I didn't really think, being an old tape, that it was that important."

McLeish heard last year that Mitchell had begun issuing some early performances. "And I said, well, this would be right up her alley."

He got in touch with the performer's management and sent along the digital file.

"They passed it on to Joni and, from what I understand, she freaked out. She had thought this stuff was lost forever, and so was really, really pleased to hear this set."

McLeish said he looked into retrieving the tape from Library and Archives because Mitchell expressed interest in having the original, but COVID-19 restrictions complicated matters.

Richard Green, now retired from the archives, was manager of the music section when Patterson's tapes were offered to the institution. He recalls accepting them even though there was a freeze on such acquisitions at the time.

"I essentially took it upon myself to bring the material in when I wasn't supposed to, and to hide it away in the backlog."

A full inventory was not done at the time, so Green didn't know the Mitchell tape was among the recordings.

The mystery is how it got into Patterson's collection in the first place, McLeish said.

"I don't really know, because Richard's gone now, how he got a hold of it. But I assume because he was always picking up tapes and adding them to the collection, either somebody gave it to him because they knew he was archiving stuff. Or he saw it somewhere and said, 'Hey, can I take this?'"

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 30, 2021.

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press

APPOLO LORD OF THE LYRE
Swirling Gases on the Sun's Surface Make it Sing, Say Scientists

Joseph Golder, Zenger News

Astronomers say the sun does more than just shine. It sings as it spins, emitting low frequencies that would make musical sounds if they didn't occur in the vacuum of space.

 NASA/SDO/AIA/LMSAL The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured its 100 millionth image of the sun on Jan. 19, 2015. The dark areas at the bottom and the top of the image are coronal holes — areas of less dense gas, where solar material has flowed away from the sun.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the University of Göttingen in Germany discovered "deep low musical notes" using data from NASA.

Scientists discovered higher musical notes coming from the sun in the 1960s. "The sun rings like a bell," the Planck Institute researchers said.

The Planck team said they spotted "very slow swirling motions" on the sun's surface — a 3 mph churn that seem linked to the 27 days it takes to rotate around once. The speed is "about how fast a person walks", said scientist Zhi-Chao Liang.


But computer models established that since the sun is made of gas, not solids, different parts rotate at different speeds. This phenomenon, called "differential rotation," leads to the different regions resonating with each other, emitting vibrations at regular, predictable speeds.

The faster vibrations measured more than a half-century ago — the "high" notes — came from cycles that lasted about five minutes, not 27 days.

Gaseous turbulence near the surface of the sun causes these shorter acoustic "oscillations." Millions of them are trapped in the sun's interior, tracked by scientists called helioseismologists.

"These 5-minute oscillations have been observed continuously by ground-based telescopes and space observatories since the mid 1990s," the Planck researchers said in a statement, "and have been used very successfully by helioseismologists to learn about the internal structure and dynamics of our star — just like seismologists learn about the interior of the Earth by studying earthquakes."

Helioseismologists have managed over the years to map how the sun's gases rotate, both on the surface and deep beneath it.

In order to work out why the "musical" vibrations occur, the team compared NASA's observational data to computer models.

 MPS/L. Gizon, Z.-C. Liang/Zenger Observations from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory show giant waves of solar material traveling at the Sun’s surface. Note: This image is a screen capture from video. MPS/L. Gizon, Z.-C. Liang/Zenger

"The models allow us to look inside the sun's interior and determine the full three-dimensional structure of the oscillations," graduate student Yuto Bekki said.

"All of these new oscillations we observe on the sun are strongly affected by the sun's differential rotation," said scientist Damien Fournier.

Laurent Gizon, lead author of the new study, said her team's discovery of a "is very exciting" because it allows them to calculate the strength of the convection currents that "control the solar dynamo."

Researchers said they made the discovery using 10 years' worth of observations from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The study was published in the journal "Astronomy and Astrophysics."

Saginaw Grant, noted Native American character actor, dies




HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Saginaw Grant, a prolific Native American character actor and hereditary chief of the Sac & Fox Nation of Oklahoma, has died. He was 85.


Grant died peacefully in his sleep of natural causes on Wednesday at a private care facility in Hollywood, California, said Lani Carmichael, Grant’s publicist and longtime friend.

“He loved both Oklahoma and L.A.,” Carmichael said. “He made his home here as an actor, but he never forgot his roots in Oklahoma. He remained a fan of the Sooner Nation.”

Born July 20, 1936, in Pawnee, Oklahoma, Grant was a U.S. Marine Corps veteran.

He began acting in the late 1980s and played character roles in dozens of movies and television shows over the last three decades, including “The Lone Ranger,” “The World’s Fastest Indian” and “Breaking Bad,” according to Grant's IMDB filmography.

Grant was active for years in the powwow circuit in California and traveled around the globe to speak to people about Native American culture, Carmichael said.

“His motto in life was always respect one another and don't talk about one another in a negative way," she said.

Grant was also active in the Native American veterans community and participated for years in the National Gathering of American Indian Veterans, said Joseph Podlasek, the event's organizer.

“He thought it was important for Native people to get recognized as veterans," Podlasek said. “He was kind and gentle, and very humble."

A memorial for Grant will be held in the Los Angeles area, but details haven't been finalized, Carmichael said.

The Associated Press

Grassy Narrows funding pact for mercury-poisoning care home spurs joy and bitter memories
Logan Turner 

© Logan Turner / CBC After signing the framework agreement on the Mercury Care Home in Grassy Narrows First Nation on Monday, Chief Randy Fobister and Indigenous Services Canada Minister Marc Miller walk around the powwow grounds.

Sitting in the bleachers around the powwow grounds of Grassy Narrows First Nation, dozens of community members gathered for a feast on Monday. The smell of freshly fried walleye poured out from under the aluminum foil keeping them warm.

With smoke from nearby wildfires hanging around the northern Ontario community, children ran through the grounds, kicking soccer balls and dancing to keep new hula hoops above their hips.

It was, as Chief Randy Fobister would later call it, a "historic day" for the Treaty 3 First Nation, which has about 1,000 members living on the reserve located 80 kilometres north of Kenora.

As mid-afternoon approached, community members young and old watched Indigenous Services Canada Minister Marc Miller hop out of a car, flanked by aides.

He was there to announce nearly $69 million in funding to provide long-term care and services at a treatment centre that, once built, will provide specialized treatment to people in the First Nation suffering from mercury poisoning. That's in addition to the $19.5 million previously announced in April 2020 to build the facility, which is targeted to open in 2023.

After feasting side by side and with the community watching, Miller and Fobister signed the Mercury Care Home Framework Agreement, committing the federal government to providing necessary health care to the First Nation.

As pens glided on paper, applause broke out. Cameras flashed and selfies were taken, capturing faces with relieved smiles.

© Logan Turner / CBC Youth volunteers in Grassy Narrows serve walleye during a community feast on the First Nation's powwow grounds as they celebrate the signing of the framework agreement committing Ottawa to fund the construction and operation of a specialized treatment centre for mercury-poisoning patients.

Fobister and Miller then stood from the folding tables and walked beside one another, circling the drum beating from the heart of the powwow grounds. Community members followed behind.

"It's a big milestone, getting the next steps toward the ultimate goal, which is trying to get the people healthy, those who are affected by mercury," Fobister told CBC News. "It's a long time coming."
Home decades in the works

It's an announcement that's been decades in the making.

During the 1960s and early '70s, the Dryden chemical plant at the Reed Paper mill upstream of Grassy Narrows dumped 9,000 kilograms of mercury into the English-Wabigoon River. The fish were full of poison, and the people from Grassy Narrows, who relied on the fish as a staple in their diet, were found to have the chemical element in their bodies.

Ingested mercury "bioaccumulates," meaning it can pass from one generation to the next — from mother to child — through the placenta. Mercury poisoning causes a range of physical and mental health impacts, including tremors, headaches, neuromuscular effects, memory loss and others.

So while the recent funding announcement for the home was reason for celebration in the First Nation, it also served as a reminder of the long, hard fight for access to necessary health care and the lives lost along the way.

]© Logan Turner / CBC The Grassy Narrows Men's Singers beat the drum in the centre of the First Nation's powwow grounds as the community celebrates the funding announcement.

Top of mind for many was Steven Fobister Sr., a former Treaty 3 grand chief, skilled hunter and devoted advocate for his community. Even while suffering severe mercury poisoning symptoms, he went to the front lawn of Queen's Park in 2014 and held a hunger strike to bring attention to the contamination issue.

His hunger strike generated momentum for the mercury-care home. In 2017, then federal Minister of Health Jane Philpott committed to building and operating the specialized treatment centre, and negotiations with Ottawa continued in 2019 and 2020, before the framework agreement was finalized this year.

Chrissy Isaacs was thinking of Fobister Sr., the former chief of Grassy Narrows, as she watched, with tears in her eyes, the signing of the agreement.

© Logan Turner / CBC Chrissy Isaacs, a resident of Grassy Narrows First Nation and a longtime activist for 'mercury justice,' had tears in her eyes as she watched the signing of the framework agreement for the Mercury Care Home.

Now 40, Isaacs has spent more than half her life fighting for mercury justice. Since she was a teenager, she's organized marches, gone on speaking tours and participated in blockades.

Isaacs says she's also suffered symptoms of mercury poisoning, including depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation.

"Mercury poisoning robbed us from having a good, happy, healthy lifestyle because of what it's done to our minds, our brains and even physically how we function in our daily lives," Isaacs told CBC News.

Before the mercury dumping, Grassy Narrows was a largely self-sufficient community steeped in culture and with 95 per cent employment, according to a release from the First Nation. After the poisoning, employment dropped to five per cent.

"It started to create social issues like addictions, alcohol, drugs and a hopelessness," said Isaacs. "It's just become the way of living, you know, it's become the norm."
1st step to 'mercury justice'

That's also why Grassy Narrows sees the care home as just the first step in what it calls "mercury justice."

"Our young people know that what's been done here is wrong … and they're educated and they speak out," said Isaacs.

Speaking to Miller and his community, elder Tommy Keesic said the agreement was just the beginning. He spoke of the need to teach the children of Grassy Narrows the language, to restore relationships with the land and waters of the First Nations traditional territory.

© Logan Turner / CBC Residents of Grassy Narrows circle the powwow grounds following the signing of the agreement with Ottawa.

Keesic also called for a coroner's report to investigate premature deaths in Grassy Narrows.

The First Nation is still waiting to see cleanup of the industrial pollution in the rivers.

They're calling for compensation for all community members to address the wide-ranging effects of mercury poisoning, and are demanding an end to logging and other industrial activities on their traditional territory.

"Today is an important step, but you know, there's a lot more work to be done," Fobister said.

Chief walking 500 kilometres to Ottawa to raise awareness of residential schools' impacts, protest Indian Act

Chief Vern Janvier has walked nearly 200 kilometres in a 500-kilometre journey to Parliament Hill to raise awareness of the residential school system’s impacts on Indigenous communities and protest the Indian Act. He is walking with 12 community members and supporters. After starting his journey in Sudbury on July 18, he has already worn out a pair of shoes.

“My hope is to finish the walk,” said Janvier in a Wednesday interview from Mattawa, a town of 2,000 people in northeastern Ontario. “But it’s up to the journey. It’s not like you are taking a car, there are just a lot of factors that add to the experience.”

This is the second awareness walk he has done, after a 300-metre walk on Canada Day turned into a seven-day, 130 kilometre memorial walk from the Chipewyan Prairie Dené First Nation to Fort McMurray earlier this month.

This journey is on less familiar ground. The group chose Sudbury as a starting point because of the 500-kilometre distance from Ottawa. The goal is to consistently walk 20 kilometres daily along Highway 17, which connects the two cities. Janvier hasn’t set a firm date for when they will arrive in Ottawa.

“Today we walked straight through some hills and on some of those hills it feels like your lungs are going to blow up,” said Janvier. “We are walking on the gravel and on the side of the road, not on the asphalt, so our feet are getting the damage from the gravel.”

The group sleeps in two recreational vehicles, while a third vehicle takes the lead and prepares a meal at 3 p.m. One of the vehicles displays a banner with the name of the walk, Blinding Light Walk—Tiger Lily. Janvier said the blinding light in the title represents the truth as “an energy so strong that it’s blinding.” The tiger lily is an homage to the multilayered plant.

“It has six or seven layers that you can peel back and there has been a lot of peeling back of the layers of the residential school system,” said Janvier. “You add the government, the Indian Act and the antiquated policies from the colonial days that still run Canada. All of these layers are slowly being peeled back piece by piece today.”

The group has received support from communities they’ve walked through, including water, supplies and food. Janvier said people driving by have honked horns in support, while others have stopped to share their own stories of the residential school system.

“The amount of people we have seen on this road that either went to a residential school or has family that went to residential school is remarkable,” said Janvier. “It’s a lot of sorrow, a lot of pain that we are hearing.”

smclean@postmedia.com

Scott McLean, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Fort McMurray Today