Wednesday, May 9, 2012

National Lost Sock Memorial Day

Today is the day that we take a moment out of our busy lives to mourn the lost of a sock while we do the laundry.


Remember that they have left behind a sock that misses them.


 Maurice Sendak passed away yesterday. 



 I suppose his wild rumpus has just begun.


You probably lead a very busy life.  You don't have the time to watch dozens of movies with people getting slapped around.  Well wait no more, the internet always provides:



That was actually the second version, here's the first:



Well, now that it's over, you can get back to work.


Today in History:
May 9, 1671 -
File this under - Balls, said the queen ...: Adventurer and criminal, Colonel Thomas Blood attempted to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London on this date.



He and his accomplices were captured and the jewels rescued. Far from being punished, Blood was pardoned by the King himself and awarded a pension of £500 a year.


May 9, 1926 -
Explorers Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett made the first flight over the North Pole. Two teams of aviators competed to be the first to fly over the North Pole. American Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett claimed victory when they circled the North Pole.


On May 11, in spite of his disappointment, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen launched the dirigible Norge on its planned flight, not merely over the pole, but all the way across the Arctic to Alaska. Byrd and Bennett in the Josephine Ford briefly accompanied Norge in a gesture of goodwill. Amundsen reached Alaska on May 14, but even today experts suspect that faulty navigation caused Byrd to miss the North Pole.


May 9, 1949 -
William Martin Joel, Grammy Award-winning rock vocalist/singer was born on this date.





I can still remember when one used to eagerly await a new Billy Joel album as much as a Bruce Springsteen album.


May 9, 1950 -
L. Ron Hubbard publishes the first edition of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health on this date.

This follows on the heels of a feature article in the pulp sci-fi magazine Astounding Science Fiction.


A book review in the The New Republic describes the work as "a bold and immodest mixture of complete nonsense and perfectly reasonable common sense, taken from long-acknowledged findings and disguised and distorted by a crazy, newly invented terminology." The subsequent movement goes on to become one of the scariest, most powerful pseudoreligious cults in modern history.

But you didn't hear this from me.


May 9,1958 -
Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Vertigo starring James Stewart and Kim Novak premiered in San Francisco on this date.



Alfred Hitchcock was embittered at the critical and commercial failure of the film in 1958. He blamed this on James Stewart for "looking too old" to attract audiences any more (Stewart was nearly 15 years older than Barbara Bel Geddes and twice as old as Kim Novak.) Hitchcock never worked with Stewart, previously one of his favorite collaborators, again.


May 9, 1978 -
The body of former Italian premier Aldo Moro was discovered in the back seat of a Renault on this date. He had been kidnapped 54 days prior by the Red Brigades, who demanded the release of their incarcerated comrades.


When Italian authorities refused to give in, Moro's captors killed him, but not before forcing the hostage to hold a newspaper announcing his own death.


May 9, 1980 -
35 people are killed in Tampa, Florida when the Liberian cargo ship Summit Venture smashes into a supporting pier of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge on this date.



Seven vehicles, including a Greyhound bus, topple into the water 150 feet below.


May 9, 1983 -
Pope John Paul II retracts the Catholic Church's condemnation of astronomer Galileo Galilei, issued in 1633 by Pope Urban VIII. The Church had convicted the scientist of heresy, sentenced him to house arrest, and forced him to recant central scientific truths.


In the end, this error only took 350 years to correct. A speedy correction by church standards.


May 9, 1992 -
Final episode of Golden Girls airs on NBC-TV on this date.



That must have been some after party.


Before I let you go - Imagine if you will, that Martin Scorsese directed Taxi Driver for Disney:



Before you let the kids watch remember it rated WD - Wholesomely Disturbing.



And so it goes

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