Latest news with #AndSoItGoes


The Independent
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Billy Joel says Christie Brinkley ‘was a muse' for his music
The HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes delves into the relationship between Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley, from their 1983 meeting to their 1994 divorce. Joel described Brinkley as his muse, stating she inspired many of his songs and made him feel like a teenager experiencing romance again. Brinkley initially found their romance 'just so much fun' but noted a turning point in 1989 with Joel's 'I Go to Extremes' single, which reflected his internal conflict as a family man and 'tortured artist'. A significant $90 million fraud lawsuit filed by Joel against his former manager in 1989 further strained their marriage, as it necessitated extensive touring that kept him away from his family. Despite their separation, the former couple maintain a close relationship, with Brinkley considering Joel a 'soulmate' and naming her memoir after his hit song 'Uptown Girl,' partly inspired by her.


New York Post
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
The beauty of Bill Joel? Unlike with so many stars, there's no myth-building
Normally, if you see someone's four wives all speaking about them on TV, it's a safe bet you're watching a 'Dateline' murder mystery. So it's astonishing to witness all three of Billy Joel's exes appear as well as his current wife in the documentary 'And So It Goes,' the second episode of which premieres Friday at 8 p.m. on HBO. Heck, even his former bandmate Jon Small is a frequent voice in the film. Small was married to Elizabeth Weber when the Piano Man and Weber fell in love. Advertisement The fallout from that triangle led Joel to attempt suicide, and he says he felt like a 'homewrecker.' But Small 'finally got over it' — and even went on to direct the music video for 'Uptown Girl.' 8 Last summer, Billy Joel ended his long running residency at Madison Square Garden. Getty Images I cannot account for his personal interactions and how he's still on good terms with all these people, but it says a lot about the man. Forgiveness is complicated. Advertisement And so is self-examination. But Joel, who has an inherent likability, seems to be well-practiced in the art. Not that he didn't give the women in his life agita. Much of his marital strife was fueled by alcohol abuse, and much of that was well documented in the press over the years. 'Some of the stupid stuff I did, that's painful to talk about,' the 76-year-old recently told People magazine, adding that directors Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin 'asked me for some thematic guidance. I said, 'Just tell the truth.'' 8 HBO's two-part documentary 'And So It Goes' explores the life and music of Billy Joel. Advertisement What's interesting is not just his story but the way he tells it, and the way he let the filmmakers have free rein. Lacy said they were given 'complete and utter independence' by the singer-songwriter. Unlike with so many stars, there's no myth-building at play. There's no artifice. As told in the documentary, his remarkable life can be summed up by the opening anecdote. Joel, who grew up in Hicksville, Long Island, recalls working on an oyster boat as a young man. He'd look up a sprawling mansion and sneer at the 'rich bastards' who lived there. 8 In the 1980s, Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley were the biggest celebrity power couple — and she was his muse. Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images Advertisement 'Well, I own that house now,' he said. It doesn't come off as an arrogant mic drop, but rather a 'pinch me' moment. And while he famously has a song called 'Angry Young Man,' it's the fact that he remained a man of the people that's been the key to his success. He is not, as Bruce Springsteen notes in the film, 'an angry activist man. He never directly goes there. Which is part of why the material hasn't dated.' 8 Billy Joel started taking piano lessons as a young boy in Hicksville, Long Island. Photograph by Billy Joel Archives/HBO 'Say Goodbye to Hollywood' was written when Joel and Weber were living in California — and he realized that the Empire State was a better personality fit. Relieved to be back, he literally wrote 'New York State of Mind' while on a Greyhound bus heading to Highland Falls, where Weber had found them a home. With 'Goodnight Saigon,' he wove a beautiful narrative through the tales of his friends who had returned from Vietnam. Advertisement 8 Billy Joel's first wife, Elizabeth Weber, was also his manager. She is interviewed in 'And So It Goes.' AFP via Getty Images 'Lullaby' was written for his daughter Alex Ray Joel as he was splitting with second wife Christie Brinkley. 'Piano Man' is rightfully praised in the documentary by rapper Nas as a 'mirror facing the mirror.' There's themes of love, loss and searching for his absentee father. Joel found him living in 'Vienna.' Advertisement But he has never truly told people how to think — a rarity these days. 8 Billy Joel performing in the 1970s. Photograph by Art Maillet/Sony Music Archives/HBO As critic Steven Hyden remarks in the film. 'He writes about people. Not causes or concepts.' Joel has said he knows people don't want to hear him on his soap box. Advertisement Appearing on 'Club Random,' he recently told Bill Maher he has no time for woke scolds. 8 In 2015, Joel married his fourth wife, Alexis Roderick, and the pair share two daughters, Della and Remy. Wireimage 'On the other hand, I'm always trying to find out the other point of view. What's, you know, not my point of view — somebody else's point of view,' Joel told Maher. 'OK, I'd like to understand why they think that way.' It's obvious why people connect with the guy. He's one of us, only with six Grammies and a spot in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. Advertisement The father-of-three was recently diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus, a brain disorder that causes, among other things, issues with cognition and balance. This week, he told Maher that he 'feels good' save for his balance: 'It's like being on a boat.' 8 On a recent episode of 'Club Random' Billy Joel told Bill Maher that he 'feels good' despite his diagnosis of normal pressure hydrocephalus. Youtube / Club Random w/ Bill Maher He also promised that he isn't done yet. Music to my ears.


Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Billy Joel reveals the harsh comment that ended his 10-year marriage to Christie Brinkley - when she couldn't tolerate his alcoholism any longer
Never more comfortable than with a keyboard at his fingertips, Billy Joel was holidaying on the exclusive island of St Barts in 1983 when he happened upon a piano at the local bar. Pink from sunburn and dressed in a garish Hawaiian shirt, his playing had started to attract a crowd at the same time as a nearby fashion photoshoot wrapped. Billy suddenly found himself faced with the vision of not only supermodel Christie Brinkley, but also her fellow supermodel Elle Macpherson, who was 'draping this gorgeous body all over the place to try and get his attention,' as Christie puts it. A third young woman approached the piano, saying, 'I can sing too,' only for Billy, busy chatting up both Elle and Christie, to brush her off with a, 'Hey, don't bother me, kid.' As he later found out, the young woman could indeed sing. 'It was,' he says, somewhat chastened, 'Whitney freaking Houston.' Although he briefly dated Elle, Billy eventually got together with Christie, who memorably starred in the video to his platinum-selling 1983 hit Uptown Girl. However despite their idyllic meeting in the lavish setting, the end of their romance was far more brutal - as the harsh comment that ended their 10-year marriage has now been revealed. But while the supermodel and the self-confessed 'schlub' (loser) got married in 1985 and went on to become one of the most famous celebrity couples of the 80s, a new documentary goes beyond the glitz to lay bare the complex and at times tortured soul of the Piano Man. Alcohol abuse, suicide attempts, infidelity and financial mismanagement all feature in Billy Joel: And So It Goes – a gripping two-part portrait of his life. And as he acknowledges in the film, speaking from the security of his piano stool throughout, 'everything I've lived through has somehow found its way into my music'. Growing up in Hicksville, on Long Island in New York, Billy was four when he started playing the piano, following in the footsteps of his father Howard, an accomplished amateur classical pianist. He was just eight when Howard left the family, and Billy recalls the struggles his mother Rosalind faced raising him and his sister Judy alone. 'We were kind of outcasts,' he says. 'We didn't have a new car, we didn't have a dad, we were the Jews. We didn't have any money. Sometimes we didn't have any food.' Rosalind drank to assuage her loneliness and her unpredictable moods cast an occasional pall over the family. 'We knew that there was something very wrong, that she was most likely bipolar,' says Judy. 'We just didn't know the word at the time.' Yet despite their struggles, Rosalind always ensured that there was money to pay for Billy's piano lessons. 'Mom was my cheerleader,' he says. 'She never gave up.' Billy was 20 when he formed the band Attila with his good friend Jon Small and promptly moved in with him, Jon's wife Elizabeth Weber and their young son Sean. But when Billy and Elizabeth began an affair, the trio imploded. 'I felt very, very guilty about it,' Billy admits. 'They had a child. I felt like a home-wrecker.' When the affair was revealed, Elizabeth took off without either man, and with his relationship with Jon in tatters, Billy slept in launderettes, drinking heavily to erase the pain. 'Tomorrow is going to be just like today and today sucks,' he surmised, 'so I just thought I'd end it all.' When his first attempt to die by suicide with sleeping pills landed him in a coma (Judy had unwittingly given him the pills to help him sleep), he tried again by drinking furniture polish. It was Jon who took him to the hospital and who, says Billy, 'saved my life'. After a brief stint in a psychiatric observation ward, Billy vowed thereafter to channel all his emotions into music. And what music it turned out to be. The documentary – co-executive produced by Tom Hanks and split into two films, each two-and-a-half hours long – charts the stories behind hits such as Tell Her About It and The River Of Dreams. Fans such as Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney and Pink marvel at the 76-year-old's musical range, and at one point Billy even plays Uptown Girl in the style of a Mozart piece. Yet by his own admission, 'I couldn't recognise a hit if I stepped on it.' When he eventually got back together with Elizabeth, marrying her in 1973, he wrote numerous songs about her – including one he dismissed as 'too mushy'. Elizabeth pushed him to release it as a single and the resulting smash hit Just The Way You Are marked a big turning point in his career. Paul McCartney describes it as the song he always wished he'd written. Elizabeth became Billy's manager and his career went from strength to strength, but their relationship started to suffer. A woman in the man's world of 70s rock, the formidable Elizabeth was charged with not only having to keep Billy and his unruly band to schedule, but also to protect her son Sean. 'There was a lot of alcohol use and eventually a lot of drug use,' says Elizabeth of that period. 'It was just out of control in a way that I was frightened.' Sean was a teenager at the time and he admits, 'I was a very young user of drugs and alcohol. 'I was going down the very same roads that all those guys were because I looked up to them.' When Billy was involved in a near-fatal motorbike accident in 1982, breaking his leg, arm and wrist, Elizabeth left her house key on his hospital tray and walked out. 'There was no way that I could stand by and watch him kill himself,' she says. A devastated Billy looked at the key and lamented, 'She's not going to be there to hear my music any more.' By the following year, however, Billy had found himself a new muse in Christie Brinkley – but while her appearance in the video for Uptown Girl is very well-known, what is more notable is the fact that the video was produced by Jon Small – the man whose wife Billy had stolen. 'I finally got over it,' says Jon. The early days of Billy's marriage to Christie were, in her words, 'so much fun, so great'. Their happiness was heightened by the arrival of their daughter Alexa in 1985. 'I wanted to be the dad I didn't have,' says Billy. A wealthy star by this point, Billy was planning to buy a house, but was shocked to be told that funding the purchase would be a problem. Frank Weber, Elizabeth's brother, had taken over from her as his manager and as Christie says in the film, she believed Frank was ripping Billy off. 'Billy did not want to hear that,' she says, crying as she recalls how Billy trusted his former brother-in-law 'more than he trusted me, which of course hurt me'. In 1989, Billy sued Frank for $90 million (£67 million). He was eventually awarded $2 million by the court in a partial judgment against Weber, but had to go back on the road to recoup his earnings. Eventually, the stresses of touring and being away from his family started to take their toll and he began drinking heavily once more. 'He couldn't really remember what he did when he was drinking,' says Christie. 'So he didn't really know how he could hurt people.' When, after almost ten years of marriage, Christie told him she couldn't take any more, Billy replied with a cursory, 'Yeah, fine. Go.' Underneath, however, he was 'devastated'. As a man seemingly more comfortable expressing himself in song than in everyday life, the pain of not seeing his daughter enough led him down a new musical path. Eschewing words to focus purely on music, in 2001 he released the album Fantasies & Delusions, which topped the US Billboard classical charts for 18 weeks. Three years later he embarked on a third marriage, to chef Katie Lee, 32 years his junior. She encouraged him to enter the Betty Ford Clinic to deal with his alcohol issues. 'I didn't want to do it,' he admits. They divorced after five years and, having finally made back the money he had lost, Billy said to Jon over dinner one night, 'I've got a half a billion dollars and nobody to love.' He remedied that in 2015 by marrying his current wife, Alexis Roderick, 43, with whom he has two daughters, Della, nine, and Remy, seven. Billy missed the film's premiere in New York last month after being diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), a treatable condition in which fluid builds up on the brain and causes mobility and cognitive problems. Susan Lacy, who directed the documentary with Jessica Levin, insists he's 'going to be fine'. Certainly Billy has managed to weather more challenges in his life than most. 'I think music saved my life,' he remarks at the end of the film. 'It gave me a reason to live.' Billy Joel: And So It Goes, Saturday 2 August, Sky Documentaries/NOW.

Sydney Morning Herald
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
What to stream this week: The Mitford sisters and five more picks
This week's picks include a period romp about the British aristocracy in the 1930s, a documentary about Billy Joel, and a soap-tinged melodrama starring Brittany Snow and Malin Akerman. Outrageous ★★★½ (BritBox) Told with a giddy energy that matches the bottles of champagne repeatedly being popped, Outrageous is a period romp about the British upper class that traverses the fine line between farce and tragedy. The show's historic subject is the Mitford sisters – six daughters of the aristocracy who became a microcosm of Europe's ructions in the 1930s. Influencers in a tabloid headline era, they were the closest of siblings who eventually became adversaries. You couldn't make this story up if you tried. Really, really tried. It's 1931 and Nancy (Bessie Carter) serves as wry narrator – she's a budding novelist whose own family will provide irresistible material. Diana (Joanna Vanderham) is 'the beauty', soon to leave her Guinness heir husband for Britain's leading fascist, Sir Oswald Mosley (Joshua Sasse). Unity (Shannon Watson) will go beyond that – she befriends Adolf Hitler. Jessica (Zoe Brough) becomes an ardent communist. Pamela (Isobel Jesper Jones) loves her Angus cattle herd. Deborah (Orla Hill) simply wants a husband and a nice country house. Loading Put two or more of the sisters in a scene and the dialogue has screwball pace and droll retorts. In adapting Mary S. Lovell's 2001 biography, The Mitford Girls, creator Sarah Williams has captured solidarity as a kind of accelerant. Growing up together – their father, Baron Redesdale (James Purefoy), believed girls shouldn't go to school – the young women pushed at boundaries and ached for agency and purpose. Everything is a lark, until it very much isn't (hint: when Unity fangirls Hitler). There's frivolity, some truly sketchy male suitors, and ominous headlines; imagine Wes Anderson adapting Hilary Mantel. The six episodes roll through five years. The budget struggles with the sweep of history – a Nuremberg rally is done with merely dozens of extras – but the personal dynamics are fascinating. It's ultimately a story of how you respond when someone you love crosses a line you never imagined existed. There's a scene between Unity and Jessica, the sadness tinged with memories of joint silliness, that's quietly heartbreaking. Tellingly, the conundrums the Mitford sisters impose on each other couldn't be more timely. The appeal of fascism is debated at family meals, while opposing criticisms are righteously written off as propaganda and misinformation – free speech as an absolute defence is repeatedly invoked, political street violence threatens to become the norm. It's both entertaining and horrifying, as living in the moment often proves to be, with the Bright Young Things insouciance serving as a Trojan horse. The first season concludes in 1936, and I hope there's another – their story has earnt a reckoning. Billy Joel: And So It Goes ★★★(HBO Max) Consisting of two episodes each the length of a sizeable feature film, this documentary about Billy Joel, one of the biggest-selling artists in the history of popular music, will hold an obvious appeal to fans. His music is prominent throughout and Joel discusses his life with pugnacious candour. But it's also of interest to novices, because Joel has long been contradictory: a populist suspicious of his own hits, a superstar who struggled to fit in. 'The most original thing I've done in my life is screw up,' Joel tells directors Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, and while they don't tug too hard on the many tangled threads of Joel's life and art this comprehensive documentary is a reminder that anyone with such a gargantuan career – over 150 million albums sold, a residency at Madison Square Garden that lasted 10 years – has an intriguing psychological set-up. The 76-year-old, who recently shelved all touring plans because of a normal pressure hydrocephalus diagnosis, was primarily a storyteller with his lyrics, and talking about them takes him back into the highs and lows – but mostly lows – of his own life. The likes of Pink and Bruce Springsteen offer input, but Joel's real foil here is his former wife and manager Elizabeth Weber. They've been divorced since 1982, but her read on him remains essential. Very unlikely, very Billy Joel. The Hunting Wives ★★½ (Stan) Hightown creator Rebecca Cutter returns with this soap-tinged melodrama about switching from one side of America's cultural divide to the other. When a fresh start transplants Sophie O'Neill (Brittany Snow, The Night Agent) and her family from the East Cost to Texas, she becomes fast friends with the cadre of desperate housewives commanded by the wife of her husband's new boss, Margo Banks (Malin Akerman, Billions). The desire for female friendship is an intriguing lens, but the story is taken up with mildly outrageous behaviour and the growing shadow of a murder enquiry. Riff Raff ★★½ (Amazon Prime Video) This American crime-comedy, informed by far better movies from the Coen brothers and Quentin Tarantino, is less than the sum of its parts: Bill Murray, Jennifer Coolidge, Ed Harris, Pete Davidson, Gabrielle Union, and Lewis Pullman all have roles in the ensemble cast. Directed by Dito Montiel (A Guide to Recognising Your Saints), the move struggles to lay out the many circumstances required to explain how an unexpected family gathering at the Maine cabin belonging to Harris' Vincent is soon crashed by Murray and Davidson's vengeful gangsters. Nothing really cuts through. Somebody Feed Phil (season 8) ★★★ (Netflix) One of Netflix's longest-running shows, this culinary travel show continues to take Everybody Loves Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal from one tasty global locale to the next. More a chatty enthusiast than sombre gourmand, Rosenthal is visibly delighted by good food – his face finds the most delightfully idiosyncratic shapes when he bites into something he enjoys. Phil's format is quick-fire stops, and this latest season fills a major gap in his planner by finally featuring an Australian episode that covers Sydney and Adelaide. The outside perspective makes for a refreshing change. Sold! ★★★½ (Binge) Loading Mark Humphries has been many things on our TV screens, from sketch satirist to game show host, but he may well have found his defining purpose with this tragicomic documentary about Australia's housing crisis. As a self-deprecating truth-seeker working with long-time collaborator Evan Williams and The Chaser 's Craig Reucassel, Humphries manages to cut through the unsettling numbers, partisan policies, and grim ramifications of a housing market that, over the course of this century, has flipped from inclusive to exclusive. The explanations are concise and bittersweet – it's your choice to laugh or cry.

The Age
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
What to stream this week: The Mitford sisters and five more picks
This week's picks include a period romp about the British aristocracy in the 1930s, a documentary about Billy Joel, and a soap-tinged melodrama starring Brittany Snow and Malin Akerman. Outrageous ★★★½ (BritBox) Told with a giddy energy that matches the bottles of champagne repeatedly being popped, Outrageous is a period romp about the British upper class that traverses the fine line between farce and tragedy. The show's historic subject is the Mitford sisters – six daughters of the aristocracy who became a microcosm of Europe's ructions in the 1930s. Influencers in a tabloid headline era, they were the closest of siblings who eventually became adversaries. You couldn't make this story up if you tried. Really, really tried. It's 1931 and Nancy (Bessie Carter) serves as wry narrator – she's a budding novelist whose own family will provide irresistible material. Diana (Joanna Vanderham) is 'the beauty', soon to leave her Guinness heir husband for Britain's leading fascist, Sir Oswald Mosley (Joshua Sasse). Unity (Shannon Watson) will go beyond that – she befriends Adolf Hitler. Jessica (Zoe Brough) becomes an ardent communist. Pamela (Isobel Jesper Jones) loves her Angus cattle herd. Deborah (Orla Hill) simply wants a husband and a nice country house. Loading Put two or more of the sisters in a scene and the dialogue has screwball pace and droll retorts. In adapting Mary S. Lovell's 2001 biography, The Mitford Girls, creator Sarah Williams has captured solidarity as a kind of accelerant. Growing up together – their father, Baron Redesdale (James Purefoy), believed girls shouldn't go to school – the young women pushed at boundaries and ached for agency and purpose. Everything is a lark, until it very much isn't (hint: when Unity fangirls Hitler). There's frivolity, some truly sketchy male suitors, and ominous headlines; imagine Wes Anderson adapting Hilary Mantel. The six episodes roll through five years. The budget struggles with the sweep of history – a Nuremberg rally is done with merely dozens of extras – but the personal dynamics are fascinating. It's ultimately a story of how you respond when someone you love crosses a line you never imagined existed. There's a scene between Unity and Jessica, the sadness tinged with memories of joint silliness, that's quietly heartbreaking. Tellingly, the conundrums the Mitford sisters impose on each other couldn't be more timely. The appeal of fascism is debated at family meals, while opposing criticisms are righteously written off as propaganda and misinformation – free speech as an absolute defence is repeatedly invoked, political street violence threatens to become the norm. It's both entertaining and horrifying, as living in the moment often proves to be, with the Bright Young Things insouciance serving as a Trojan horse. The first season concludes in 1936, and I hope there's another – their story has earnt a reckoning. Billy Joel: And So It Goes ★★★(HBO Max) Consisting of two episodes each the length of a sizeable feature film, this documentary about Billy Joel, one of the biggest-selling artists in the history of popular music, will hold an obvious appeal to fans. His music is prominent throughout and Joel discusses his life with pugnacious candour. But it's also of interest to novices, because Joel has long been contradictory: a populist suspicious of his own hits, a superstar who struggled to fit in. 'The most original thing I've done in my life is screw up,' Joel tells directors Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, and while they don't tug too hard on the many tangled threads of Joel's life and art this comprehensive documentary is a reminder that anyone with such a gargantuan career – over 150 million albums sold, a residency at Madison Square Garden that lasted 10 years – has an intriguing psychological set-up. The 76-year-old, who recently shelved all touring plans because of a normal pressure hydrocephalus diagnosis, was primarily a storyteller with his lyrics, and talking about them takes him back into the highs and lows – but mostly lows – of his own life. The likes of Pink and Bruce Springsteen offer input, but Joel's real foil here is his former wife and manager Elizabeth Weber. They've been divorced since 1982, but her read on him remains essential. Very unlikely, very Billy Joel. The Hunting Wives ★★½ (Stan) Hightown creator Rebecca Cutter returns with this soap-tinged melodrama about switching from one side of America's cultural divide to the other. When a fresh start transplants Sophie O'Neill (Brittany Snow, The Night Agent) and her family from the East Cost to Texas, she becomes fast friends with the cadre of desperate housewives commanded by the wife of her husband's new boss, Margo Banks (Malin Akerman, Billions). The desire for female friendship is an intriguing lens, but the story is taken up with mildly outrageous behaviour and the growing shadow of a murder enquiry. Riff Raff ★★½ (Amazon Prime Video) This American crime-comedy, informed by far better movies from the Coen brothers and Quentin Tarantino, is less than the sum of its parts: Bill Murray, Jennifer Coolidge, Ed Harris, Pete Davidson, Gabrielle Union, and Lewis Pullman all have roles in the ensemble cast. Directed by Dito Montiel (A Guide to Recognising Your Saints), the move struggles to lay out the many circumstances required to explain how an unexpected family gathering at the Maine cabin belonging to Harris' Vincent is soon crashed by Murray and Davidson's vengeful gangsters. Nothing really cuts through. Somebody Feed Phil (season 8) ★★★ (Netflix) One of Netflix's longest-running shows, this culinary travel show continues to take Everybody Loves Raymond creator Phil Rosenthal from one tasty global locale to the next. More a chatty enthusiast than sombre gourmand, Rosenthal is visibly delighted by good food – his face finds the most delightfully idiosyncratic shapes when he bites into something he enjoys. Phil's format is quick-fire stops, and this latest season fills a major gap in his planner by finally featuring an Australian episode that covers Sydney and Adelaide. The outside perspective makes for a refreshing change. Sold! ★★★½ (Binge) Loading Mark Humphries has been many things on our TV screens, from sketch satirist to game show host, but he may well have found his defining purpose with this tragicomic documentary about Australia's housing crisis. As a self-deprecating truth-seeker working with long-time collaborator Evan Williams and The Chaser 's Craig Reucassel, Humphries manages to cut through the unsettling numbers, partisan policies, and grim ramifications of a housing market that, over the course of this century, has flipped from inclusive to exclusive. The explanations are concise and bittersweet – it's your choice to laugh or cry.