Click on the “more” button for a free utility to clean your computer monitor … from the inside. Another public service from the non-blog.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. I love this guy.

Change is in the air this political season — in the ever-increasing likelihood that an African American will stand as the Democratic nominee for the presidency, and in the near-certainty that Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the Senate’s liberal lion, soon will exit the institution he has bestrode like a colossus for nearly 50 years.

Just as Barack Obama’s primary victories remind us that change often goes hand in hand with progress, so the sudden news of Kennedy’s illness is a somber reminder that change also is inevitably loss. Call it tragic wisdom.

Watching the outpouring of emotion from both sides of the aisle Tuesday at the news of Kennedy’s condition, it was clear that his senatorial colleagues already are stricken by his impending departure. Partly, of course, that’s because Kennedy’s tenure in that chamber spans one of the most tumultuous eras in this nation’s history. He will exit the Senate as its third-longest-serving member ever. When he first took his seat in 1962, Jim Crow and its de facto shadow were a fact of American life, and women’s rights barely extended beyond the franchise. This year, Kennedy enthusiastically endorsed and campaigned for Obama in his contest against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

A new world, surely, and one he helped usher in. But also one that seems to be unfolding without three qualities that distinguished Kennedy’s long service.

The first is empathy. It’s shocking just how tenuous belief in the possibility of empathy as a public emotion has become. Kennedy’s brother, Bobby, was fond of quoting the ancient Greeks. One of them, Thucydides, once was asked, “When will there be justice in Athens?” He replied, “There will be justice in Athens when those who are not injured are as outraged as those who are.”

If Ted Kennedy’s 46 years in the Senate have stood for anything, it is for the enduring power of that antique insight. He is a rich, wonderfully connected Boston Irishman, and yet his life’s labors have been on behalf of blacks and women and Latinos, for people who sweated for a minimum wage and couldn’t pay their sick child’s doctor’s bill and asked for nothing more than a public school good enough to give their child a fair foothold on the ladder’s next rung. Their slights and injuries were his own.

Today, increasing numbers of Americans and their politicians are lost to narcissism and its communal expression — identity politics. We believe that no one can feel our pain but us, and we care for none outside our tribe. Kennedy’s career has been a half-century reproach to that crabbed notion of the American condition. He believed unshakably in solidarity and the common good, and if that now seems quaint, the fault — and the loss — is ours and not his.

Child of privilege that he undoubtedly was, Kennedy also stood for a second quality that is fading: the belief that after the accumulation of wealth came an ambition — indeed, an obligation — for public service. It’s a notion this new Gilded Age finds slightly ridiculous, but not long ago we expected our national leaders to amass their fortunes before taking office and not during or immediately after. There is a meanness of spirit to an age that commoditizes elective office into an economic opportunity.

Finally, one of the reasons Kennedy’s Senate comrades will feel his departure so acutely is that he always stood for a civil partisanship. There was no more committed liberal Democrat in that chamber.

A struggle with Kennedy was a bare-knuckle fight to the finish, but always according to traditional politics’ version of the Marquess of Queensberry Rules. It was never personal, and differences never precluded friendship, which is why the senior Massachusetts senator could work with George Bush or John McCain or Orrin Hatch, and will leave office with a record as one of the most effective lawmakers of all time. Nothing deforms our contemporary politics in quite the way the loss of Kennedy’s old-fashioned civility does.

In his recently published memoir, Ted Sorensen, John Kennedy’s special counselor, recalled how the president secretly dispatched him, along with Bobby, to assist his youngest sibling in his first run for the Senate. Teddy’s opponent was the favorite nephew of Democratic House Speaker John McCormack, whose help JFK desperately needed, so it was necessary to maintain fictional neutrality.

Sorensen thought Teddy a callow candidate. But his brothers’ murders and personal tragedy changed that. For a time, it seemed he might become an American Parnell, a leader of vision and skill undone by personal appetites. That too was surmounted. Today, Sorensen judges him thus: “More respected and effective today than some presidents have been, Ted long ago came to terms with the fact that he need not be president to fulfill his portion of the Kennedy legacy. … I think he will ultimately die in the Senate. More active and at home in that body than either of his brothers, Ted was — and still is — the most relaxed campaigner of the three, with an easier style on the public platform, the best politician, better able to work with other senators in both parties.

“Always the liberal lion, he has proven to be a courageous battler on the cutting edge of issues both domestic and foreign, maintaining the liberal tradition of his brothers, even when others in the Democratic Party showed less courage. … Jack and Bobby would have been proud.”

– Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times, May 21, 2008

Get well soon, Senator … we need you more than ever.

Technorati tags: Ted Kennedy, Minimum wage

From the Vienna Staatsoper production of Gaetano Donizetti’s La fille du régiment, Juan Diego Flórez sings “Pour me rapprocher de Marie”.

For the last two years, the Metropolitan Opera has been offering HD broadcasts of some of its Saturday matinees in movie theaters, and I’m kicking myself that it’s taken me this long to check it out. I certainly chose a good way to start (but then again, my first three live Met performances were Leonie Rysanek and Jon Vickers in Fidelio, Christa Ludwig in Der Rosenkavalier and Luciano Pavarotti and Renata Scotto in La Bohème.) I can certainly report that it was well worth getting up early to take the bus to Century City for Flórez and Natalie Dessay in Fille.

The clips in this post are from the same Laurent Pelly production I saw yesterday, which originated at Covent Garden and has played in Vienna and Milan. Here, Dessay’s “Salut à la France”, complete with mosh pit:

On the opening night of the Met production, Florez did an encore (a “bis”, as they call it in opera-land) of his “money aria,” the Act I high-wire act “Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête!”, in which Tonio convinces the régiment to grant him their daughter’s hand in marriage:

Flórez’s bis at La Scala may have been the first since Toscanini forbade the practice in 1922. His nine high Cs inevitably invite comparison with possibly the most famous interpreter of the role, whose performances with Joan Sutherland at the Met in 1968 made him internationally famous. I was going to post a link to a pirate recording of Luciano Pavarotti’s performance in that role, but I think the comparisons are unfair, in a way, both to him and Flórez.

Is Flórez the next Pavarotti? Ask me in thirty years. In the meantime, I will be getting up early on Saturdays a lot more when the next Met HD season starts up again later this year.

Technorati tags: Metropolitan Opera, Gaetano Donizetti, La fille du régiment, Juan Diego Flórez, Natalie Dessay, Pour me rapprocher de Marie, Salut à la France, Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête!, Laurent Pelly, Marco Armiliato, Luciano Pavarotti

Above: Marie Dressler (foreground) and chorus girls from the Ziegfeld Follies picketing on Broadway, 1919.

My original screenplay Equity has been awarded a Silver Remi for Best Dramatic Screenplay at the 2008 WorldFest Houston International Film Festival.

I realized a long time ago that choosing a personal favorite from among my screenplays is like choosing which of your children you like best. Equity was the first script I seriously attempted to finish, and it had the longest and most convoluted gestation (during which time I set it aside to finish two other works).

So, even though people whose judgment I trust say I’ve written at least one better script, I freely admit that Equity has a special place in my heart.

Technorati tags: WorldFest Houston International Film Festival, Equity, Remi Award, Eighty-Eight Frequencies, Twin Bridges Screenwriting Salon

For the second year in a row, one of my screenplays has won a Remi Award from the WorldFest Houston International Film Festival.

This year’s award winner is Equity, my original script about the 1919 Actors Equity strike of Broadway performers, which will be honored in the category of Dramatic Screenplay.

Last April, I travelled to Houston to pick up my Platinum Remi for Eighty-Eight Frequencies. This year I’m not going to Houston, so I’ll have to wait until after the WorldFest awards banquet to learn the metallurgical level of my prize (bronze, silver, gold, platinum or the Grand Jury Prize a/k/a the Mithril Armadillo).

I was about to say that I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for these guys, but since I’m sitting at work at the moment and they had nothing to with that, I’ll just say once again how grateful I am for my Thursday night crew and their years of support.

Technorati tags: WorldFest Houston International Film Festival, Equity, Remi Award, Eighty-Eight Frequencies, Twin Bridges Screenwriting Salon

From the Tony Award telecast of June 3, 1990, Brent Barrett and Michael Jeter perform “We’ll Take A Glass Together” from the musical Grand Hotel:

Immediately afterward, Lily Tomlin presents the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical:

Jeter went on to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor - Comedy Series for his role in the sitcom Evening Shade, and he had memorable roles in features such as The Fisher King, Dead Bang and The Green Mile.

Last Sunday was the fifth anniversary of Michael Jeter’s death of AIDS-related complications at the age of fifty.

Technorati tags: Michael Jeter, Brent Barrett, We’ll Take A Glass Together, Grand Hotel, Tommy Tune, Tony Awards, Luther Davis, Robert Wright, George Forrest, Maury Yeston, Vicki Baum, Menschen im Hotel

This was originally posted on democrats.com.

George Bush has been tied to a prostitution ring involving as many as 50,000 women and girls and is expected to resign or be impeached, according to Congressional sources.

The prostitutes, some as young as 13, are among the 1.2 million desperate Iraqis who fled to Syria after Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to the U.K. Independent.

Bush’s invasion destroyed the Iraqi government and unleashed a wave of political and sectarian violence that has killed over 1 million Iraqis and forced 4 million to become refugees, according to the UN.

Facing starvation, as many as 50,000 women and girls have been forced into prostitution in Syria alone, according to Hana Ibrahim of the Women’s Will Association.

“70 percent to 80 percent of the girls working this business in Damascus today are Iraqis,” 23-year-old Abeer told the New York Times. “The rents here in Syria are too expensive for their families. If they go back to Iraq they’ll be slaughtered, and this is the only work available.”

According to the Times, “inexpensive Iraqi prostitutes have helped to make Syria a popular destination for sex tourists from wealthier countries in the Middle East. In the club’s parking lot, nearly half of the cars had Saudi license plates.”

Driving women and girls into prostitution violates numerous human rights agreements, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children. George Bush himself denounced sex trafficking at the United Nations in 2003.

Bush’s invasion of a country that posed no threat to the U.S. was illegal under both U.S. and international law, according to legal experts. Bush has been convicted of war crimes by citizen tribunals around the world, including New York, Paris, Tokyo, and Istanbul. Just las week, the towns of Brattleboro and Marlboro Vermont voted to indict and arrest Bush and Cheney.

In 2002 and 2003, Bush led a propaganda campaign to defraud Congress, the American people, and key allies into believing Iraq was a threat. Bush claimed Iraq had stockpiles of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons to use against the U.S., and was sharing them with Al Qaeda.

Speaking near Rochester NY, Bush later admitted, “See in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”

According to a recent study by the Center for Public Integrity, top Bush Administration officials told at least 935 lies about Iraq on 532 separate occasions. These included 259 lies by Bush, 254 lies by Secretary of State Colin Powell, 109 lies by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, 109 lies by Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, 56 lies by National Security Advisor Condi Rice, and 48 lies by Vice President Cheney.

The lies about Iraqi WMD’s were manufactured by the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), which included the most senior White House staff: White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, Condi Rice, Stephen Hadley, Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, Jim Wilkinson, Nick Calio, Michael Gerson, and Vice President Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby.

In July 2003, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson exposed Bush’s lie that Iraq sought uranium from Niger in a New York Times op ed. Libby secretly sought retribution against Wilson by revealing the name of his wife, covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, to several reporters. The scandal led to the appointment of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who won conviction of Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice. Libby was sentenced to to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000, but his jail sentence was commuted by President Bush at the urging of Vice President Cheney to prevent Libby from telling Fitzgerald the truth.

According to George Mason, the “father of the Bill of Rights,” it was unquestionably an impeachable offense for a President (or Vice President) to “pardon crimes which were advised by himself.”

WHIG was chaired by Bush’s propaganda mastermind Karl Rove, who admitted under harsh questioning at the University of Iowa on Monday, “I fully expect to be indicted by the end of the year.”

After the invasion, 1,400 experts in the Iraq Survey Group scoured Iraq for WMD’s but found none. Charles Duelfer wrote the ISG’s final report in September 2004 and concluded Iraq ended its WMD program in 1991.

This publicly confirmed what the CIA had privately known since 1995, when Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law, Gen. Hussein Kamel, defected to Jordan and told the CIA he had personally overseen the complete destruction of Iraq’s WMD after 1991 Gulf War.

In May 2005, the Times of London published the “Downing Street Memo” which revealed Bush’s pre-war intelligence was a deliberate fraud, according to Sir Richard Dearlove, head of Britain’s MI6 spy agency, who met with George Tenet in July 2002. “The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” of invading Iraq, Dearlove told a secret meeting of Tony Blair’s war cabinet on July 23, 2002, eight months before Bush invaded Iraq.

This publication of the “Downing Street Memo” led to widespread calls for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. John Conyers and other Democrats held preliminary impeachment hearings in the basement of the Capitol on June 16, 2005. In 2006, Conyers published his explosive findings in “George W. Bush Versus the U.S. Constitution: The Downing Street Memos and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, Coverups in the Iraq War and Illegal Domestic Spying.”

After Democrats won Congress in 2006, Conyers became Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and has met repeatedly with impeachment advocates. Despite widespread reports that Speaker Pelosi is blocking Conyers from starting impeachment, Conyers recently declared, “I don’t know who’s ever stopped me before, I don’t know why Pelosi’s going to stop me now.”

In 2007, Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced three Articles of Impeachment against Dick Cheney for his role in the Iraq War lies. Kucinich’s bill, H.Res. 333, has 26 co-sponsors.

The bill was debated on the House floor; last November the House voted 251-162 to refer it to the Judiciary Committee for further action, rather than kill the bill. (The bill was renamed to H.Res. 799.)

Last December, Rep. Robert Wexler and two other members of the House Judiciary Committee urged Conyers to begin hearings on the impeachment of Vice President Cheney. Wexler posted an online petition and collected over 230,000 signatures.

Rep. Kucinich ran for President in 2007 and his calls for impeachment were enthusiastically received by voters. Last week, Kucinich fended off a primary challenge in his Congressional district and is expected to introduce the first Articles of Impeachment against George Bush.

But some in Congress believe Bush and Cheney will resign before they are impeached. “When the American people finally learn the truth about Bush’s crimes, Bush and Cheney will have to resign, just like Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew,” said a key Congressional Democrat. “The pressure on Eliot Spitzer is nothing compared to what we’ll see for Bush and Cheney,” he added.

The latest polls by Newsweek and AP-Ipsos put Bush’s approval rating at 30%, a record low. His disapproval rating is over 60%, a record high, and suggests more Americans now favor Bush’s impeachment than in earlier polls which showed strong support for impeachment.

– Bob Fertik 

The last of the great 20th-century Italian tenors, the man whom Luciano Pavarotti called a role model, has died at the age of eighty-seven.

Here he is with his one-time lover and most famous soprano partner, Maria Callas, in a 1953 recording of one of his most famous roles, Turiddu in Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. Rolando Panerai as Alfio, Anna Maria Canali as Lola and Ebe Ticozzi as Mamma Lucia, with the Teatro alla Scala chorus and orchestra conducted by Tullio Serafin.

Technorati tags: Giuseppe di Stefano, Cavalleria rusticana, Pietro Mascagni, Maria Callas, Rolando Panerai, Anna Maria Canali, Ebe Ticozzi, Teatro alla Scala, Tullio Serafin

Not like in the good old days …

… I would be a lot more enthusiastic about him …

Thanks to Joe Bratcher for the links.

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Derrick Ashong

Eleanor Steber, that is, singing “Depuis le jour” from Gustave Charpentier’s Louise.

The (possibly apocryphal) story is that she recorded this for HMV because she was too hung over to sing the Mozart arias she had been hired to perform.

Back in the summer of 2006, my friend Bob was so scornful of bloggers, that to avoid his snark I told him the only reason I was setting up a … well, a non-blog … was to promote my writing projects.

By my calculation, this is my six hundredth non-post on my non-blog, representing at least one post per day pretty much without fail since I started.

Especially in recent months, almost half of those posts have been repeats, and even then I have found the tail wagging the dog, as the non-blog often seemed to become more important than what I started it to promote.

I’m very happy to say that I have started on a new and rewarding writing project. While I’m busy at it I will probably be non-posting no more than an average of once every ten days or so.

There is, and will continue to be, a sizable library of “my favorite things” available in the archives of this blog, sorted by subject under the “Not my tags” header in the sidebar.

If you’re one of those who regularly checks my blog, save yourself some effort by setting up an RSS feed by scrolling down this page to “Not my feeds”. It’s an easy way to keep up with this and all the other blogs you’re reading.

This is not the end of the non-blog. At some point in the indeterminate future I will be back to regular non-posting, maybe even daily, more verbose and unfocused than ever. The non-blog lives!

From Sun Valley Serenade (1941), an intro by the Glenn Miller Orchestra segues into …

“Chattanooga Choo Choo” by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon, with the delicious Dorothy Dandridge and Harold and Fayard, the amazing Nicholas Brothers.

One reason the Nicholas Brothers never made it past the level of a novelty act in the movies was that there weren’t any black women performers in Hollywood who could even pretend to keep up with them as dancers. Dandridge comes closest, and who cares if she couldn’t tap very well if she could strut like that?

You may remember that Halle Berry performed a snippet of this number in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. Dandridge and Harold Nicholas married a year after this movie; they divorced in 1951.

Technorati tags: Sun Valley Serenade, Glenn Miller Orchestra, Chattanooga Choo Choo, Dorothy Dandridge, Harold Nicholas, Fayard Nicholas, Harry Warren, Mack Gordon

A year after Sun Valley Serenade, Glenn Miller, the Nicholas Brothers and Harry Warren and Max Gordon continue their survey of songs about American cities with funny names …

… performing “I Got A Gal In Kalamazoo” from Orchestra Wives.

Technorati tags: Nicholas Brothers, Harold Nicholas, Fayard Nicholas, Orchestra Wives, Glenn Miller Orchestra, I Got A Gal In Kalamazoo, Harry Warren, Max Gordon

From The Black Network, a 1936 short, fifteen-year-old Harold and twenty-two-year-old Fayard Nicholas perform “Lucky Numbers” by Cliff Hess.

Technorati tags: Lucky Numbers, Harold Nicholas, Fayard Nicholas, Cliff Hess, The Black Network

From 1935, the VitaPhone short “An All-Colored Vaudeville Show” …

• The song playing over the Three Whippets’ acrobatics is “Nagasaki” by Harry Warren and Mort Dixon.

• Adelaide Hall sings and dances the song “To Love You Again”

• The Nicholas Brothers perform in the penultimate spot, which was traditionally the headliner position in vaudeville.

• Eunice Wilson sings “I Don’t Know Why” by Fred E. Ahlert and Roy Turk, accompanied by The Five Racketeers …

• followed by the Racketeers’ rendition of “Tiger Rag” by Edwin B. Edwards and Nick LaRocca.

Adelaide Hall (1901-1993) made her Broadway debut in 1921 in the chorus of Eubie Blake’s Shuffle Along, and she costarred with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson in Blackbirds of 1928 in which she premiered “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby”.

She married a British sailor, moved to London in 1938 and spent the rest of her like in the U.K., achieving the status of a British Josephine Baker without the latter’s ups and downs. Her final stage appearance was at Carnegie Hall in 1992 at the age of ninety-one, a year before her death.

Technorati tags: An All-Colored Vaudeville Show, Nicholas Brothers, Harold Nicholas, Fayard Nicholas, the Three Whippets, Adelaide Hall, To Love You Again, Nagasaki, Harry Warren, Eunice Wilson, I Don’t Know Why, Fred E. Ahlert, The Five Racketeers, Tiger Rag, Edwin B. Edwards, Nick LaRocca, Vitaphone

Somebody involved with Janet Jackson’s 1990 music video Alright had a nice sense of cultural history …

Can you spot the cameos from Cab Calloway, the Nicholas Brothers and Cyd Charisse?

Technorati tags: Janet Jackson, Alright, Cab Calloway, Harold Nicholas, Fayard Nicholas, Cyd Charisse

This clip from Stormy Weather (1943) features Calloway and his orchestra, and the amazing Nicholas Brothers (Harold and Fayard).

Technorati tags: Cab Calloway, Jumpin’ Jive, Stormy Weather, Nicholas Brothers, Harold Nicholas, Fayard Nicholas

From the 1996 Met tribute to James Levine, tenor Roberto Alagna and baritone Bryn Terfel, conducted by Levine.

And if that wasn’t good enough, my favorite recording of the aria … hell, just about my favorite recording of any aria, ever. Jussi Björling and Robert Merrill.

It’s true – Georges Bizet wrote an opera that isn’t called Carmen. This may be the most popular duet of all time from an opera that no one I know has ever seen produced. There’s a reason Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers) isn’t done very often, and it sure isn’t because of the music. For starters, the characters who sing this duet are named Zurga and Nadir …

Technorati tags: Au fond du temple saint, Les pêcheurs de perles, The Pearl Fishers, Georges Bizet, Roberto Alagna, Bryn Terfel, James Levine, Jussi Björling, Robert Merrill

Maybe not exactly forgotten, but if all you know of Lerner and Loewe’s first Broadway hit is the lousy MGM movie or even the disappointing abridged original cast album, check this out.

In 1991, the year after a successful West End production, EMI assembled a dream cast to record the first complete recording. Here’s the overture …

And here’s a synopsis if you need it.

The chorus numbers, in particular, come off much better in superior recorded sound. That’s Judy Kaye as Meg Brockie:

Although the original 1947 production ran for a year and a half and it’s been revived three times on Broadway, none of the revivals lasted more than a few performances. Brent Barrett as Tommy and Rebecca Luker as Fiona:

Virtually the entire cast is American, which is amazing considering how well they got the brogues. John Mark Ainsley as Charlie:

The original cast album is very well performed, but it’s almost an hour shorter. Here, again, are Barrett and Luker:

At the intermission, Harry Beaton has run away, threatening to leave Brigadoon and end the magic that keps the town alive. In yet another number not heard on the OBC album, the second act opens with the Tommy, Jeff and the villagers chasing him:

Any musical would fortunate to have one love duet as memorable as these — Brigadoon has three:

In his book Beautiful Mornin’: The Broadway Musical in the 1940s, Ethan Mordden notes how perfectly Lerner’s escapist book fit the post-Hiroshima age of paranoia and blacklisting. Which is exactly why a good production would be an almost surefire hit on Broadway.

Obviously influenced by the success of Oklahoma!, this 1944 musical featured two of that show’s stars, Celeste Holm and Joan McCracken, and its choreographer Agnes De Mille, in a show with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Yip Harburg, the team best remembered for The Wizard of Oz.

I’d like to see the kinescope of the 1956 TV version starring Barbara Cook, and it was concert-staged by Encores! in 2001, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for a full-scale revival. The show’s politics, progressive for the time, are more than a bit outdated today (the same reason you don’t see Finian’s Rainbow revived) and the score as a whole isn’t up to the best of Arlen and Harburg.

My favorite number from Bloomer Girl is this show-stopper performed by Dooley Wilson, who will always be best remembered as Sam in Casablanca. That movie’s producer, Hal Wallis, was either misquoted or very mistaken when he said that Wilson “couldn’t sing” and was dubbed. Sam’s piano playing was dubbed, but you’ll instantly recognize Wilson’s voice in “The Eagle And Me,” in which the escaped slave Pompey sings about freedom to his former owner:

Technorati tags: Bloomer Girl,