10 for 10 (9th entry): A Quote from Jazz Great Herbie Hancock

Greetings to our blog readers in Austria, Dubai, and Singapore....

Tonight, we continue marking our tenth anniversary of blogging with an inspiring quote from noteworthy person.

The Quote of the Week and a series of quotes from people in a given, such as playwrights (Arthur Miller and Neil Simon) or punk rockers (Lou Reed of Iggy Pop) used to be standards on our two blogs, so hence we are quoting jazz great Herbie Hancock ("Watermelon Man," "Rockit") with one of his vintage quotes:

"It's a part of life to have obstacles. It's about overcoming obstacles that's the key to happiness."

SIDEBAR: We want to welcome Pope Francis to the United States, and we hope he enjoyed his time in Washington, DC, today. Somehow, we can't imagine that he will go to the 9:30 Club while he is in the nation's capital.

Quote of the Day- Neil Simon

We continue with our series of quips from famous playwrights this month with a quote from Neil Simon. Though "The Odd Couple" is my favorite Simon play, "Barefoot in the Park" appears to be the most popular one. There is a great audio version of the play with Laura Linney (tv's "The Big C") from Los Angeles Theatre Works (LATW).

Here is the quote:

"If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor."

SIDEBAR ONE: Various sources have said that the following joke from stand-up comic Nick Helm was considered to be the funniest one at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland: "I need a password eight characters long, so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

SIDEBAR TWO: Though I am a human secularist, as the son of a late Muslim Turkish immigrant, I want to wish everyone in the greater Muslim community in the United States, Turkey and around the world a Happy Eid ul-Fitr, which falls on August 30th this year. Eid ul-Fitr, also known as Seker Bayrami (Sugar Holiday) in Turkey, marks the end of the 30-day Ramadan period. We imagine those who faithfully followed the fast in places like Austin, Tex., which was very hot this week, were tempted to go for the Dasani or Gatorade.

The alt weekly "C'ville Weekly" in Charlottesville, Va., has an interesting story about how Ramadan is being celebrated by Muslim inmates in Virginia prisons, which agreed after pressure from the Virginia ACLU to adjust dinning schedules for Ramadan for those following Islam.

And, irregardless of one's faith, Turkish food is always among the finest cuisine one can have. In the Philadelphia area, Divan Turkish Kitchen is considered to be among the best Turkish restaurants in the City of Brotherly Love.

Oscar Predictions Teaser

Tomorrow, in case life returns to normalcy (well one can always hope, right?!), I am hoping to start posting my Oscar predictions. We intend to post them over six entries on our two collective blogs ("Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" is our other blog. Check out the Oscar the Grouch t-shirt on our entry there today---presuming the hotlink goes through, ok!).

Walter Matthau played Oscar Madison in the film version of Neil Simon's hilarious play "The Odd Couple." I saw the play performed at The Wayside Theatre in Middletown, Va., near Winchester and Strasburg (an hour and a half south of Washington, DC), where Susan Sarandon once performed in a play before she became famous_ we presume it wasn't "The Odd Couple." The playhouse is now producing "Southern Crossroads: The New Orleans Adventure" with stage actor Robbie Limon in the lead.

Though I'm not one to make personal confessions on this blog, I must reluctantly profess to 'being a bit of an Oscar Madison myself.' As it turns out, there really is a group called Clutterers Anonymous, which I had first heard about the other day.

In fact, and perhaps one can insert the 'only in America' cliche here, they have a rival/complimentary group called Messies Anonymous!

Quote of the Week- Neil Simon

Since last week marked the eight anniversary of Septermber 11th, I thought I would continue the annual tradition of quoting famous New Yorkers to mark the occasion.

Today, we have quips from playwright Neil Simon and film director Martin Scorsese on our two respective blogs.

This quote is from Simon, I wonder if he was talking about Woody Allen:

"He's too nervous to kill himself. He wears his seat belt in a drive-in movie."