Welcome to the new normal

(I'm happily esconsed in my childhood manse, having fled the biohazard that the hovel, I call a home, had become. Access to the interweb is scant but we are all soldiering forward. I'll try to catch up with posting as I can)

Here's the line of people trying to get accross the bridge into Metropolis, I mean Manhattan this morning, outside the Barclay Arena:

Getting home is going to be a pip!


Today is All Saints Day, the feast celebrated on November 1 in Western Christianity, honoring all the saints, known and unknown.

It's also the first day of celebration The Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos in Spanish), a holiday celebrated mainly in Mexico and by people of Mexican heritage (and others) living in the United States and Canada.

The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and relatives who have died. The celebration occurs on the 1st and 2nd of November, in connection with the Catholic holy days of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day.


Happy November!

According to the Gregorian calendar, November is the eleventh month of the year. In the early Roman calendar, it was the ninth month. The Roman Senate elected to name the eleventh month for Tiberus Caesar and since Augustus time, it has had only 30 days. Originally, there were 30 days, then 29, then 31. This is what comes from too much of a good time - poor calendar making.

November's Birthstone is the Topaz or Citrine.

November's Flower is the Chrysanthemum.

November comes between the fall and winter months. The leaves are almost completely gone from the trees, and the rest have lost most of their color. The Anglo-Saxons referred to November as the 'wind month' and the 'blood month' - probably because this is the month they killed their animals for food.



Lots of activities come to a halt in November. The crops have been harvested and either put in storage, or sent to processing plants or mills. Farmers already know if their year has been successful or not. Football is the main sport of the month. The weather is usually beautiful for this kind of sport.



November is:

Adoption Awareness Month, Alzheimer's Disease Month, Apple Month, Aviation History Month, Change the Batteries In Your Vibrator Month, Christmas Seals Month, Denounce your local Rotarian Month, International Dental Dam Month, Epilepsy Month, Hospice Month, Native-American Heritage Month, Peanut Butter Lovers Month, Real Jewelry Month (and not Real Jewry Month) and Uvula Cleaning Month.

Oh yeah, Thanksgiving occurs during November as well.


November 1, 1967 -
Warner Brothers released one of Paul Newman's signature films, Cool Hand Luke on this date.



A Southern prison camp was built for this movie just north of Stockton, California. A dozen buildings were constructed, including a barracks, mess hall, warden's quarters, guard shack, and dog kennels.


Today in History:
November 1, 1512 -

Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) finally stops milking the job and the Sistine Chapel ceiling was finally exhibited to public.




This was a very big day for William Shakespeare.

On November 1, 1604, his tragedy Othello was first presented.



On November 1, 1611, his romantic comedy The Tempest was first presented.



Unless, Edward DeVere wrote these plays. Then it would have been a big day for him.


November 1, 1870 -
In the United States, the Weather Bureau (later renamed the National Weather Service) makes its first official meteorological forecast -



darkness approaching as night falls with a gradual increase of daylight as dawn comes on in the morning.


November 1, 1896 -
A picture showing the unclad (bare) breasts of a (Zulu) woman appears in National Geographic magazine for the first time,

http://betheink.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Zulu-Marriage-NGM-Nov-1896.jpg
starting a trend of providing masturbation material to youth for decades.


November 1, 1918 -
The worst accident in the history of the New York subway system—the Malbone Street wreck of 1918, which killed at least 93 people, occurred on this date. Motormen of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers went on strike against the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, the forerunner of the BMT. BRT officials decided to keep the trains running, using nonstriking workers to drive them.

An inexperienced strikebreaker drove a train too fast and the train derailed in tunnel underneath Malbone Street in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, shearing off the sides and roofs of four of the five cars. Dozens of passengers died immediately, many of them decapitated or impaled by shards of wood and glass. Rescuers rushed to the station, to help the dazed and injured and to carry away the dead. The power failure in the tunnel posed a problem for rescuers that was partially solved when automobiles pulled up near the entrance to the station to illuminate the ghastly scene.


November 1, 1939 -
The first animal, a rabbit, is conceived by artificial insemination on this date.



History does not record why anyone felt that rabbits needed any help in the procreation department.


November 1, 1951 -
US Soldiers are exposed to an atomic explosion for the first time in training exercises, at Desert Rock, Nevada.



Participation was not voluntary and served both to train and indoctrinate. Your tax dollars at work in 1951.


November 1, 1975 -
Italian film director, screen writer, essayist, poet, critic and novelist, Pier Paolo Pasolini was violently murdered on this date.

The circumstances surrounding Pasolini's death remain a mystery. A young male prostitute was tried and convicted for the murder in 1976. But it was widely believed that Pasolini was murdered by the Mafia because of his investigation of their involvement in the prostitution business.



And so it goes.


Before I let you go: Remember, the people outside today aren't as calm and collected as you are - try to have a little patience with them. Don't give yourself a heart attack.

Just in case you needed some light reading on your way home.