Friday, November 29, 2013

No pushing, no shoving please.

As most of you know, the Friday after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day of the year in the US.



I'm not quite sure you're going to get the best deals in the world today,



so why not sleep in (after you finish reading the blog of course.)


Last night was the second night of Hanukkah -

On a more festive note, here are some more songs

Chanukkah Song Part 2 - Oy Cappella




Light Up the Night - Fountainheads




Hanukkah Medley - Luisa Tedoff Cohen



At this point, you finished eating both a meal for Hanukkah and Thanksgiving, I'm not quite sure you going to make it for another six nights.


November 29, 1940 -
I'm very fond of children. Girl children, around eighteen and twenty.


W.C. Fields at his peak, The Bank Dick, premiered on this date.



Mahatma Kane Jeeves (the pseudonym used by W.C. Fields as screenwriter) is a play on words from stage plays of the era. "My hat, my cane, Jeeves!"


November 29, 1945 -
Remarkable for it frank portrayal of alcoholism (for it's day), The Lost Weekend, opened in Los Angeles on this date.



The outdoor filming was done in New York City and the interiors were done in Hollywood. The latter included an exact duplicate of a Third Avenue bar, P.J. Clarke's, on Stage 5 at Paramount Pictures, complete down to the dusty stuffed cat on the top of the payphone. Ray Milland, who starred in the film, tells that for one week every afternoon at five o'clock the door of the set would open, a man would walk up to the bar (whether filming was going on or not), order a straight bourbon, chat about the weather, plunk down fifty cents, and stroll out. It was the writer Robert Benchley, who was homesick for New York.


November 29, 1950 -
Jean Cocteau's beautifully magical, Orphee, opened in the US on this date.



The part of Orphee was played by Cocteau's former lover Jean Marais, while the part of Cegeste was played by his then current lover, Edouard Dermithe. Both Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo were approached about playing the mysterious Princess. Both declined.


Today in History:
November 29, 1777
-
José Joaquín Moraga proved that he knew the way to San Jose on this date,

when he established, for Spain, el Pueblo de San Jose de Guadelupe, the first civil settlement in California.


November 29, 1864
-
The Sand Creek Massacre occurred, on this date, when Colorado volunteers led by Colonel John Chivington, in retaliation for an Indian attack on a party of immigrants near Denver, massacred at least 400 Cheyenne and Arapaho noncombatants (mostly children, women, physically- and mentally-challenged, and elders) inside Colorado Territory.



It also generated two Congressional investigations into the actions of Chivington and his men. The House Committee on the Conduct of the War concluded that Chivington had "deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre which would have disgraced the varied and savage among those who were the victims of his cruelty."

The American Government has so much to be proud of with their dealings with the Native Americans.


November 29, 1929 -
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd (on a break from his experiments with frozen vegetables) radioed that he'd made the first airplane flight with pilot Floyd Bennett, over the South Pole: "My calculations indicate that we have reached vicinity of South Pole."



After briefly loitering around the Pole, Byrd and his crew headed back to their home base, Little America and more intense testing of frozen zucchini.


November 29, 1951 -
The United States set off the first underground nuclear explosion named "Uncle" at Frenchman Flats in Nevada on this date.



It was a great success, except for the giant spiders, ants, grasshoppers and other insects left in the aftermath.


November 29, 1961 -
The US sends the chimpanzee Enos into space, aboard the Mercury Atlas 5 capsule from Cape Canaveral on this date.



Enos returns to earth safely but died less than a year later before he can sign with the William Morris Agency.


November 29, 1972 -
Pong
, the first commercially successful video game, was released on this date by Nolan Bushnell (who was also the co-founder of the video game company, Atari.)



Pong is similar to digital tennis or ping-pong, and its great success was a big part of the early beginnings of the video game industry.


November 29, 1986 -
I do not think Cary Grant was a homosexual or bisexual. He just got carried away at those orgies - US congressman Bob Dornan, spoken on the House floor 
(I love that quote.)



82 year old Archibald Leach, better known as Cary Grant, died on this date.


November 29, 2001 -
Without looking out of my window I could know the ways of heaven



The "quiet" Beatle George Harrison was silenced by cancer on this date.


November 29, 2004 -
Godzilla
received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on this date.

In honor of the event, the Toho star was allowed to run rampant through Little Tokyo that afternoon.


And on a personal note:
Oh yeah, millions of years ago (or at least more than half a century ago) the earth cooled and formed a hard crust, huge dinosaurs ruled the land and John was there to see it all. Happy Birthday John.

About a decade later, vast plains with wildflowers sprung up and Mary skipped along them all. Happy Birthday Mary.



And so it goes


There are 26 days until Christmas.

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