THE RETURN OF MARILYN MONROE

              From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

    DAY   USA  WORLD    Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9     1093     4732         1185        246       82

July    22      1205     7128         1293      1120     572

Aug    12      1504     6556        1242        835     130

Sept     9      1208      6222       1136       1168       82

Oct     21      1225      6849         571        703       85

Nov    25       2304    12025        620        518      118

Dec    30       3880    14748       1224       299      465

Jan     14       4142      15512        1151        189      712

Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398

Mar      2       1989     9490        1726       110      194

April     6        906    11787         4211       631       37

May     4        853     13667        3025      3786     59 

June    1        287    10637         2346      3205      95

 July    7         251      8440        1595        817      411

Aug     4         656    10120        1118        532      423 

Sept   22      2228      9326          839       279     124

Oct      6       2102      8255          543       315       59

Nov    3        1436      7830         186        458       23

Dec     1       1633      8475          266        477       28

Jan     7        2025      6729         148         285     140

Feb     2        2990   12012          946        991      175

Mar     2        1778     7756          335         173       28 

Apr     1         439      4056         290         52        12

May    5         225      2404        151            ?        64 

June    2        216      1413          130          10        31 

July    7         320       1958        297          38         9 

Aug   4         311        2138          258          70         ? 

         11         290       1994         173          49         ?

        18          264      1950         202           ?         ?

        25          245      1909         197          68        ?

        31          403      1989         115           37        ? 

Sep    1          272       1732          39            ?         ? 

          8          287       1676          99          13        ? 

        15          249        1418          79          23       17

        21          375        1330         87          26        ? 

        22          222        1219         69          20        ?

        28          370        1220         48          27        ? 

        29          226        1218         49          18       16

Summary:

• The USA still leads in new deaths with 226.  Germany was #2  at 140 and Japan #3 137.
• I've noticed for the past couple of months that the Wednesday (shown on Thursday) new deaths figure for the USA is near or over 400, but the Thursday (shown on Fridays) number drops into the 200's.  This has to be more than mere coincidence, but the deaths/day rate for the USA has not changed in 6 months.
• In any case, the USA is only #18 in new deaths/million population for the week at 0.7, with South Korea #15 at 0.9, Japan #11 at 1.0, five countries such as Taiwan, Australia and Germany at around 2, Chile #2 at 3, and Channel Islands #1 at 6.
• A useful statistic is weekly case change/million population, for these are locations where the outbreak is high.  That is, don't go there
• #1      St. Helena  65,392
• others near the top are all tiny, like Montserrat, Seychelles and Martinique.
• #6      Austria  2960
• #13    Germany  1730
• #16    Australia  1280
• #17    France  1129
• #23    Singapore  683
• #34    Taiwan  87
• #58    South Africa  2
• #65    China  0.3
• #105  Philippines -4
• #113  Brazil  -8
• #127  UAE  -25
• #163  USA  -311
• #166  Canada  -390
• #169  Japan  -417
• #176  New Zealand  -739
• #179  South Korea -1300
• The higher the number, new infections are increasing.
• Negative number, the new infections are decreasing.
• The larger the negative number, the quicker new infections are decreasing.

Today, I look at the sudden re-rise of Marilyn Monroe.  A little more than 60 years after her shocking death at the age of 36, Marilyn Monroe has recently resurfaced.  In May, Kim Kardashian wore to the Met Gala celebrating America:  An Anthology of Fashion, the dress Marilyn wore in 1962 to sing Happy Birthday to JFK.  She committed suicide that year and he was assassinated in 1963.

Had a tough beginning life with a mentally unstable mother, orphanage and first marriage at 16.  Paid $50 posing nude in 1949 for a calendar.  In time the photos were obtained by Hugh Hefner.  Began acting in 1950, tolerating a few sexual assaults by people who ran the business.  Began to do well and dated Elia Kazan, Yul Brynner and Peter Lawford.  Her Joe DiMaggio romance began in 1952.  In December of 1953 came the first Playboy, featuring her and those photos she had taken in 1949.  Can't use her centerfold in this blog, but you can see it all at this site.  She was never paid by Hefner, but they became close friends.  So much so that when he passed away in 2017, he was buried in a plot next Marilyn's in Los Angeles's Westwood Village Cemetery.

A bit unclear as to exactly how many, but she is today credited with 29 films, the breakthrough being Niagara in 1953.  Perhaps, her top ten films, which grossed the equivalent of $2 billion today.  She was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.  The American Film Institute ranked her as the sixth greatest film actress in 1999. 

So this week, Blonde was recently made available by Netflix as it's first film with an NC-17 rating.  The consensus seems to be that the production is too vulgar, miserable and exploitative.  There is a view from inside her vagina.  

The movie is based on the 700+-page novel written by Joyce Carol Oates in 2000, and is 2 hours and 47 minutes long.  Australian Andrew Dominik directed, and while distinguished, is known as a trickster.  Ana de Armas is hailed for her Monroe performance.  

Rotten Tomatoes panned it, with  47/37 ratings.  Three review statements:

It’s a towering achievement, just not a pleasant one -- a maelstrom of emotions and effects, like trying to look through a kaleidoscope while being thrown about in a dodgem car.

Andrew Dominik’s pseudo-biography is one long slog into sadness and more-than-predictable tragedy, despite a touching portrayal by Ana de Armas and the deliberately artful and often startling filmmaking of Mr. Dominik.

So was Raging Bull, a film with which it 

bears comparison. Where Scorsese 

embraced violence as a metaphor for 

America, Dominik replaces it with

sexual dystopia.

Bobby Cannavale plays one of her husbands, Joe DiMaggio, and Adrien Brodie (above, is playwright Arthur Miller), another.  Then there was that encounter with President JFK, followed by her birthday ballad to JFK when she was 36 and he was soon to turn 45.  Below is supposedly the only photo taken of them, during the evening of her birthday salute.

Yet another recent Monroe exposure was the selling of Andy Warhol's Shot Sage Blue Marilyn for an American art record of $195 million, also in May.  This was only one of the five versions in different color schemes Warhol painted in 1964, two years after her death.  The buyer was not identified.  An orange version was sold earlier to Ken Griffin for over $200 million.  The portraits were based on a photo of Marilyn from the film Niagara.  This clip showed her singing Kiss.

Don't know that song, but here are songs I do:

• River of No Return
• A Fine Romance
• My Heart Belongs to Daddy
• Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend
• I Wanna Be Love By You

Here is something you might not have known, or forgot.  You are familiar with Candle in the Wind as Elton John's homage to Princess Diana in 1997.  But did you know the song was originally written in 1973 about Marilyn Monroe, thus the original Goodbye Norma Jean was changed to Goodbye England's Rose.  Monroe was born Norma Jean Baker.

There are other songs involving Marilyn.  Madonna's Vogue has as a bridge:  ...Greta Garbo and Monroe/ Dietrich and DiMaggio/ Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean/ On the cover of a magazine/ Grace Kelly, Harlow, Jean/ Picture of a beauty queen/ Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire/ Ginger Rogers, dance on air...

Below, her 26-foot statue from the 1955 film, The Seven Year Itch, unveiled in Chicago in 2011.  It moves around, and has been to Australia.  Eventually, Forever Marilyn will be permanently located at the Palm Springs Art Museum, for she was born in Southern California.  In 2011 her white dress from the film was sold for $4.6 million.

As I write this posting, Hurricane Ian made landfall over South Carolina as a Category 1.  At this time 2 million Floridians are without electricity and 21 have perished.

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