Decades ago, Truman Capote invented a party game he called “International Daisy Chain.”

Politics, personality and time would have prevented them from ever becoming chums.

Kanye West has been a pioneer in the hip-hop industry, expanding his connections to collaborate with the famed Japanese artist Takashi Murakami.

How is the aviation pioneer, accused of being a Nazi sympathizer, connected to the Jewish newspaper mogul?

On June 21-22, Pete Seeger will perform at the Clearwater Festival, an annual environmental fund-raiser in Croton, New York, which he began more than 30 years ago to help clean up the Hudson River. That is the sort of activism that has defined Seeger’s life. So how could he be connected to Kahane, the right-wing rabbi and agitator?

The publisher of The New York Times is extremely well connected, but who knew he had ties to old-time Hollywood?

How are the Bad Boys from Boston connected to the Funny Face actress?

How is the inventor of the polio vaccine connected to the famed artist?

Bob Dylan hasn’t played doubles with Andre Agassi, and Agassi isn’t dueting with Dylan (to our knowledge.) So how are these icons connected?

Olympic Gold Medal Ice skater Sarah Hughes was a family friend and neighbor of the late borscht belt jokester Alan King. His estate in King’s Point was previously owned by iconic American lyricist Oscar Hammerstein, longtime collaborator of composer Richard Rodgers.

Novelist Salman Rushdie was married to Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi. Season 2 winner Ilan Hall’s bar mitzvah coach was Cantor Frieder who appeared in the Ben Stiller film Keeping the Faith.

How is the German fuhrer connected to the Chinese furor?

How is the media baron connected to the former British prime minister?

Turner’s ex-wife, Jane Fonda, is the daughter of Henry Fonda, who was married to actress Margaret Sullavan.

What does the svelte R&B diva have in common with the portly Food Network chef?

Although they’ve never been co-stars, Ricky Gervais can be connected to Billy Bob Thornton through a series of personal and business relationships.

How is the father of psychoanalysis connected to the founder of the Beatles?

Barbara Walters doesn’t usually hang with British rockers, but it’s a short, straight line connecting her to Eric Clapton.

If Hillary Clinton is a ninth cousin (twice removed) to Angelina Jolie, and Barack Obama is a ninth cousin to Brad Pitt, maybe the race for the Democratic nomination is just an ancient lovers’ quarrel, looping endlessly, one generation to the next.

Cascadilla Creek cuts through one of Ithaca, New York’s famously gorgeous gorges and then moseys through residential downtown. On its northern bank, as it passes under North Aurora Street, sits a large, slate-roofed, circa-1913 house. In the 1970s it was Teen Challenge, a faith-based drug treatment center. Then, it passed into the hands of the Sherman family (including this writer), who sold it to an architect, who sold it, indirectly to the Dalai Lama.

Like many political junkies, we’ve become addicted to MSNBC’s Morning Joe.