The subject of my Lunch Box Trivia today was this funny food invention by SF’s own Sean O’Connor.  Read the article in this morning’s Chron.

It’s Schubert’s birthday.  He was born in a suburb of Austria in 1797 and died a short 31 years later.  His deathbed request was to be buried next to his hero, Beethoven, and he was.  Hear Schubert’s lovely “Trout” Quintet tonight on the KDFC Classical Giant at 10.  (Right after the big “Lost” premiere!)

For many Superbowl Sunday fills different needs. It can be the culmination of a football season, sure, but for many others it is a “party fix”, another chance to eat, drink and be merry after the post New Years holiday downtime. So what if you’re not into the game or the party atmosphere. Well, there’s KDFC, a favorite beverage and a good book. If you still want time with the tube there are all sorts of interesting (one hopes) alternatives. Up for a good “chick flick”? TBS is featuring a collection of female-skewed films like 2005s “The Perfect Man“, the Mel Gibson, Helen Hunt vehicle from 2001, What Women Want or Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. A cool cable show The Myth Busters (filmed in the South Bay) will be on the Discovery Channel all day. If you like football with a twist how about Puppy Bowl IV on Animal Planet. It “kicks off at 3pm with puppies playing with each other on a small football field. I understand there’s even a kitty halftime show.

Tickets to an evening of Brahms with the Angelich-Capucon Trio went to Karen of San Francisco Thursday morning. She knew our neurotic composer in question was Gustav Mahler who once exclaimed “A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.” No pressure there. Good luck tomorrow at 6:30 am in the Commuter Quiz.

Weekday mornings at 8:30 is our musical “puzzler” called the Blind Date. Thursday we featured a piece from Spanish composer Jeronimo Gimenez called El Baile de Luis Alonso played by The Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. They’ll be one of the featured groups during KDFC in the Clubs Month (February). That music dates  from the year John Philip Souza composed “Stars and Stripes Forever”… 1896.

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Some more of the new words and expressions we touched on during the Morning Show today…
Post-party Depression – The January blues that ensue after the holiday season has ended and it’s  back to the old routine
BMWs – B—-ers, Moaners and Whiners. Example: “We’d get a lot more done around here if we didn’t have so many BMWs working here.”
Avalunche – An overwhelmingly large meal at mid-day. Example: “I think we’re gonna skip dinner. We had an avalunche this afternoon.”
Have any good new ones of your own?

In our Commuter Quiz at 6:30 today on Whiz Kid Wednesday we asked to fill in Groucho Marx reply to the Warner Brothers when they threatened to sue the Marx Brothers over the title A Night in Casablanca. Kathy from San Francisco knew Groucho said, “I’ll sue you for using the word “brothers”. Kathy will be our guest to hear the Angelich-Capucon trio at the Herbst this coming “Super” Tuesday night. More winning Tomorrow and Friday.

Do you know when the French Foreign Legion was founded? The same year as Chopin’ completion of the Waltz No. 1 in Eb…our Blind Date Year, 1831. Listen for another Blind Date piece tomorrow at 8:30am.

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Here’s the link to Cranky Girl Valentine’s Day stuff:

http://www.target.com/gp/search/601-5050755-2438534?field-keywords=cranky+girl&url=index%3Dtarget&ref=sr_bx_1_1

Lunch Box Trivia

Sources say she was the first person to conceive of lightweight luggage for air travel.  Who is this early adopter of the carry-on? 
(see answer below)

Just played part of the Queen Symphony.  No, not the one by Haydn but a modern symphony based on the music of the English rock group Queen.  Think Freddie Mercury.  Very cool.  Here’s a link to that CD if you’d like to learn more or even order it:

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Playlist?source=KDFC&song_id=6453

Answer: Amelia Earhart

Last week we covered some of the “best” excuses for calling in sick thanks to Careerbuilder.com. “Someone put LSD in my salad”. One I didn’t mention on the ear, “While at the circus, a tiger urinated on the employee’s ear, causing an ear infection”. Wow! and I thought I had an active imagination. I received email this morning from a listener named John, “I liked your list of excuses for calling in sick. I actually “call in well” — it is a beautiful day, I feel great, I’m not coming in!” Sounds great. I’ve never had a job where that was possible, but I sometimes wish I did. There are probably not too many of us who have that kind of boss, or work for that understanding a company. I also had email from Dick who works for Network Appliance in Sunnyvale who wrote, “Our management are very keen on philanthropy and gave every single US-based
employee 5 days of paid leave to work for non-profit organizations. The leave has been used for such things as assisting in distribution of Toys-for-Tots with the USMC , Junior Acheivement, Habitat for Humanity, and The Tech Museum in San Jose.” Nice.
So, what’s the best perk at your place of business?

Mark from San Jose (another first time winner, yay!) won our first pair of tickets this week to Sf Performances presentation of the Capucon-Angelich trio, Tuesday February 5th at Herbst Theater, San Francisco. He knew that we each consume, on average, 700 pounds of paper each year here in the U.S. Good luck the rest of the week in the Commuter Quiz at 6:30am

Our Blind Date year was the “miracle year” for an unknown patent application evaluator in teh Swiss Patent office. It’s been called the Annus Mirabulis for Albert Einstein. He published four papers dealing with Brownian Motion, the photoelectric effect, electrodynamics and the equivalence of matter and energy. Oh, and Manuel de Falla wrote the two act opera “La Vida Breve”, our Blind Date music from the year…1905.

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Several listeners have asked me recently what books (fiction) I’ve read lately.   I do keep a list and lately it’s come in handy as I’ve started several books and I get few pages in when I realize….oops, I’ve read this already.     As it turns out, I spent much of the past year reading some new work but more often, re-reading some old favorites.

First of all…thanks to Armistead Maupin for bringing back “Tales Of The City.”   I’ve missed my friends a great deal.  I went to the Ferry Building last June to hear Army read from his new book “Michael Tolliver Lives.”    In October I attended the Herbst Theatre event where “Lit Quake” honored Maupin.    Actress Laura Linney, who plays Mary Ann Singleton in the Tales films, even showed up. 

I’m also a big fan of Fannie Flagg.   I’ve been to the Midwest only once (Chicago)…twice if you include Oklahoma City.   As my in-laws tell me, Oklahoma is both the Midwest and the South.    I re-read “Welcome to the World Baby Girl,” “Standing In The Rainbow” and “Can’t Wait To Get To Heaven.”  

I also loved Thomas Spannbauer’s “Now Is the Hour,” Jeffrey Eugenitis’ “Middlesex, ” and “Short  History of a Prince” by Jane Hamilton.  I read Anderson Cooper’s “Dispatches From the Edge” and Augusten Burrough’s “Possible Side Effects.”   I also re-read some favorites including  Hemingway’s “Death In The Afternoon,”  “The Great Santini” by Pat Conroy, “Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole and Wallace Stegner’s poignant “Spectator Bird.”

But I most enjoyed re-reading Herb Caen.   KDFC’s Betsy O’Connor and I love to talk about our favorite Herb Caenisms.  I once had the honor of being mentioned in Herb’s column…back in 1996, not long before he died.   I have the item framed in my den.    If you’ve lived here long enough to remember Herb, I highly recommend reading some of his old books. 

I found all of them at various book sales and second hand stores.    “Baghdad 1951″ was especially fun as Herb has a number of items from the very neighborhood where the KDFC studios are now located (3rd and Howard, across from Moscone, Yerba Buena, the “W”and SFMOMA).  This was a rowdy ‘hood back in the day.   I remember in 1984, when the Moscone Center was opening (the Democratic Convention).   About the only thing around here in those days was St. Patrick’s Church which still stands between the new Jewish Museum and the Marriott Hotel.  Do you remember Herb’s nickname for the building on 4th and Mission???

This week I gave away tickets to see Quartet San Francisco which will be doing two shows at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square in Oakland on Wednesday, February 6th.   Their appearance is part of KDFC’s “In The Clubs” month of February. 

MONDAY (Holiday)

TUESDAY
20th Century Fox did a poll of movie goers’ favorite movie weapons.   The Star Wars Light Saber is #1.   Name one more from the Top-5.

DIRTY HARRY-MAGNUM 44, INDIANA JONES-BULL WHIP, KILL BILL-SAMURAI SWORD, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE-CHAINSAW
(Winner-John Bennett, Concord)

WEDNESDAY
Fortune Magazine is out with a list of America’s best companies to work for.  Three are in the Bay Area.   Name one.

GOOGLE/Mountain View, GENENTECH/South SF, CISCO SYSTEMS/San Jose
(Winner-Jason Kuuskraa, San Francisco)

THURSDAY
What event began in California on this day, January 24th, 160 years ago…that changed California forever?
GOLD RUSH (Discovery of gold flakes at Sutter’s Mill near Placerville)

(Winner-Astrid Voelker, Santa Rosa)

FRIDAY
$2,495 was the suggested retail price for the first one of these to go on sale this week in 1984.
APPLE MAC (Winner-Bruce Dupuis, San Francisco)

Check out Ladies in Lavender with both Dame Judi and Maggie Smith  (also a Dame!).  I mentioned the plot on the air.  They play sisters in Cornwall who come across a young man washed up on their beach from some foreign land who has lost his memory but not his ability to play the violin.  Joshua Bell plays the violin solos on the soundtrack.  It’s quite a sweet movie, nothing earth-shaking but those dames act their hearts out!  It came out a couple of years ago so look for it on DVD.

 Anyone have any suggestions for good DVD rentals for this rainy weekend?  A friend lent me the Martin Scorsese documentary, My Voyage to Italy, about the influence of Italian movies on him and his own films.   This is very long, almost 4 hours, and I’m just one hour in but it’s pretty neat for the serious film buff.

Aren’t they incredible?  According to Wiki-reality,  Guher and Suher Pekinal, the Turkish identical-twin pianists, are 58 years old!  Very inspirational.  True to form, their official website makes no mention of age, BTW.  So, is it true that identical twins are mirror images of each other?  So that Guher could be right-handed while Suher is a lefty?  I guess it doesn’t matter too much in piano-playing.  It’s not like baseball or water polo in that respect!