Last night, I watched my favorite movie for what must have been the hundredth time. It is “Singin’ in the Rain,” with Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor. I think it is very close to the perfect Hollywood musical (except for the song where Kelly and O’Connor ridicule the elocution teacher).

So, as I watched, I began googling sites about “The Making of Singin’ in the Rain”) and discovered some startling facts. (By the way, autocorrect hates it when you write the word “Singin’, and tries to make it “Singing”).

I already knew that Debbie Reynolds was a 19-year-old gymnast who did not have any dance training and was taught on the set by Gene Kelly. I knew that she cried and her feet were bleeding after the hours of making the famous number when they sing “Good Morning, Good Morning, It’s Great to Stay Up Late.”

In the climactic scene in the movie, Debbie (Kathy Selden) stands behind a curtain and dubs a song for the leading lady Lina Lamont (played by Jean Hagen), who has a horrible screechy voice.

What I didn’t know and just discovered was that Debbie Reynolds’ voice was dubbed in that famous last scene when she was supposedly dubbing for Jean Hagen! The actual singer of the song at the end, when Debbie was supposedly singing for Lina Lamont, was Betty Noyes.

Betty Noyes dubbed Debbie Reynolds’ voice in “Would You?” and “You Are My Lucky Star” and the final number “Singin’ in the Rain.”

Furthermore, when Kathy Selden dubs the line that Lina Lamont speaks (“Until the stars turn cold”) in the movie-within-a-movie called “The Dancing Cavalier,” the actual voice that was dubbed was Jean Hagen’s real voice.

So Debbie was dubbed by Betty Noyes, and Debbie was dubbed in the speaking line for the movie-within-the-movie by the woman she was allegedly dubbing.

Irony! The woman who was dubbing in the film was also dubbed.

This is a gem for those of us who love this movie.

And I still love Debbie, Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, and “Singin’ in the Rain.”

I will be speaking on Wednesday April 4 at University of Washington in Seattle. The lecture will be given at Kane Hall, Room 120.

I hope Bill Gates sends someone from his organization as I have some very good ideas for future funding.

On April 11, I will be speaking in Santa Fe. I will have details in a few days. I am sponsored by the Lannan Foundation. Jesse Hagopian will speak also.

On April 18, I will speak at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

If you live in the vicinity, please plan to attend.

I felt like sharing a slice of my life, 24 hours of it.

For 25 years, my partner and I lived next door to a wonderful family in brownstone Brooklyn. She is German-born; he is Irish. They are Catholic. They have three beautiful daughters. They were children when we moved onto the block, now they are beautiful young women. The oldest daughter married a man of Irish descent. The middle daughter married a Chinese-American man. The third daughter was married last night to a French man who is Jewish. Their actual wedding was held in Cambridge last May, but their family wedding was held last night in Brooklyn on the waterfront, with the Statue of Liberty in the background.

The groom’s extended family–sixty of them!–flew over from France. A score of the bride’s maternal family flew in from Germany. People of many nationalities joined together to celebrate their nuptials. The ceremony was a traditional Jewish wedding, with a Chupah (a ceremonial cloth) stretched over the couple, a cantor singing in Hebrew, and a klezmer band playing Yiddish music. The wedding was followed by dinner and dancing and toasts. Some of the toasts were in French, and the French clan laughed heartily at jokes the rest of us could not understand. Then the French clan surrounded the happy couple and sang a song in English from the American musical “Fiddler on the Roof.” They sang, “To Life, to Life, L’Chaim, L’Chaim, L’Chaim to Life. And if your good fortune never comes, here’s to whatever comes, drink l’chaim to life!” (I remembered that many years ago, my husband and I bought a house in Pound Ridge, New York, from the man who wrote that music.)

A D.J., played dance music, most of it written and performed by African American singers. The dancing was spectacular, although it didn’t include me, because my knees are too fragile for dancing. Swaying, yes, not dancing.

For a moment, life was the way it should be. I felt as though this young couple and their family and friends were repairing the world.

Tonight, my partner Mary and I went to a cabaret–Feinstein’s 54 Underground–to hear Christine Ebersole, the wonderful actress and singer, perform. The room was packed. There was joy in the air.

Life goes on.

A good 24 hours.

Phyllis Bush is coping with cancer. She received the diagnosis six months ago. She meets each challenge as it comes.

In this post, she reflects on the latest twist of fate, thinking about the tragedy in Las Vegas.

How well I remember that sense of disproportion when my own 2-Year-Old child was dying of leukemia. He was in and out of the hospital six times, sicker each time, enduring dreadful treatments. About three months into this nightmare, a friend and her two children were killed instantly in a terrible car crash. One of the children was my son’s playmate.

There is no sense in any of this suffering. When bad things happen to good people, when the good die young, when tragedy strikes at the hands of a madman, don’t look for reason. There is none.

This is indeed a new world. When I was in my early 20s, and probably long after, the word “cancer” was not mentioned, especially to the patient. The protocol, for some reason, was to lie to the patient as long as possible.

Phyllis Bush, dear friend, founding board member of the Network for Public Education, and a retired teacher in Indiana who also founded the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education, has been fighting cancer head on. She may have fears, but she deals with them by writing about them. She holds nothing back.

Her courage gives all of us courage.

Kisses and hugs to Phyllis and her loyal friend Donna.

Happy Mother’s Day to all you Moms out there!

I hope you enjoy the day and have the chance to see your child or children.

I had three sons. One died of leukemia at the age of two.

My sons are my treasure.

Though I must admit that I am sorry that I did not have a daughter.

My two sons each have two sons. They add to my treasure.

Enjoy your day!