Elvis Singing Latin Is A Case Of Quid Pro Quo

Loose talk

Bo Diddley to an audience member who tried to join his act during a recent Boston concert: “Don’t play with me. I’ll kick your face in.”

Ah, the 1950s. A time when we whistled along to Elvis Presley singing “Nunc hic aut numquam.” Or, as you Americans say, “It’s Now or Never.”

Finnish professor Jukka Ammondt, a literature instructor at the University of Jyvaskyla, has translated a number of Elvis songs into Latin. The songs, sung by Finland’s Eurovision choir, have been collected on a CD.

Other Finnish hits include “Tener me ama” (“Love Me Tender”) and “Non adamare non possum” (Can’t Help Falling in Love”).

So why did Ammondt do it? “I was going through a bad patch and began dreaming a lot about Elvis,” said the 50-year-old scholar, who received a papal medal in 1993 for recording Finnish tangos in Latin.

“The pope was very grateful for the Latin tangos,” Ammondt said.

His penalty? One hundred years of solitude

Gabriel Garcia-Marquez turns 67 today.

CBS didn’t care for Greene’s tone of voice

If you were one of the people who listened to NARAS president Michael Greene’s diatribe about arts funding during Wednesday’s Grammy broadcast, rest assured that CBS had nothing to do with it. In fact, the network heartily disapproved of Greene’s five-minute talk, which urged viewers to call a special 800 number. Network officials refused to screen the number and even turned off the teleprompter. Greene pushed on and later reported that 30,000 call were made to the 800 number.

And how much is his allowance? Only a …

Here’s the latest Roseanne report: Her baby-to-be with Ben Thomas is a boy and will be named Buck after his paternal grandfather.

She’s wrong, and regardless, we printed it first

Former White House spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers says the press has four basic rules in covering government. “No. 1,” she says, “Be first rather than right. No. 2: Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story. No. 3: When in doubt analyze, and No. 4: Good news is no news, so create conflict.”

They act well AND push the popcorn

Forget the Academy. According to the National Association of Theater Owners, Tom Hanks and Demi Moore are the top stars of 1994.

Dave showed up because Pamela Anderson was busy

Showing that his life is more than a day at the beach, “Baywatch” star David Hasselhoff joined President Clinton in a three-mile run Tuesday.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Compiled by staff writer Dan Webster