Les feuilles mortes

Today is the first day of autumn.



By happy coincidence, it's also the first day of fall.



Many people in the northern hemisphere are disturbed by the changes they see around them at about this time each year. It gets darker earlier, temperatures drop, leaves change color and die and the Red Sox tend to drop out of playoff contention (but not this year.)

There have been myths about the changing of the seasons as long as there have been children to lie to. Some primitive peoples believed that leaves changed color because Nature was pining for her abducted daughter; others blamed it on the seasonal absence of sunlight-fed chlorophyll, allowing xanthophyll, carotene, and antocyanin to determine leaf color. We may never know the truth.



The first day of autumn is sometimes also referred to as the Autumnal Equinox. Don't be alarmed by the title. It's just fall.



With courage and some heavy drinking, we can get through this thing.


Two giants of animation sharing the same birthday:

September 21, 1912 -
Chuck Jones, animator and director of Warner Brothers cartoons Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, was born on this date.



September 21, 1920 -
Jay Ward, cartoonist (Rocky & his Friends, Bullwinkle), was born on this date.




September 21, 1968 -
The police drama ADAM 12, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



The dispatcher voice on the program was played by Shaaron Claridge. Claridge was a real L.A. dispatcher. Producer Jack Webb thought using a real dispatcher for the voiceovers would lend authenticity to the program. Webb did the same thing for his later series, Emergency!, casting a real-life emergency dispatcher to voice the role.


September 21, 1975 -
Sidney Lumet's amazing film, Dog Day Afternoon, starring Al Pacino and John Cazale, premiered on this date.



After the initial title sequence (Elton John, Amoreena) there is no background or incidental music on the soundtrack (the start of the Looney Tunes opening music is heard after the TV/phone interview, but it's cut-off after a few seconds, and also Uriah Heap's Easy Living is heard briefly through a hand-held radio.).


September 21, 1957 -
Perry Mason starring Raymond Burr premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Godzilla, Perry Mason, Ironside, spokes model and owner of Raymond Burr Nipple Rouge - what couldn't he do?


September 21, 1993 -
The police drama NYPD Blue, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Dennis Franz (Detective Andy Sipowicz) is the only cast member to stay with the series throughout its entire run and the only actor to appear in all 261 episodes.


Today in History:
September 21, 1327 -
Former King Edward II had a particularly painful end on this date.

Edward had been overthrown by his wife, Isabella and her lover, Roger Mortimer. Edward had pissed off Isabella royally for among other things, sleeping with men. Isabella and Mortimer had Edward II imprisoned, after his abdication in favor of his son, Edward III.

It was rumored that Edward had been killed by the insertion of a piece of copper into his rectum (later a red-hot iron rod, as in the supposed murder of Edmund Ironside - King Edmund II was murdered in a lavatory; stabbed in the bowels when he sat down to relieve himself). Murder in this manner would have appeared a natural death, as a metal tube would have been inserted into the anus first, thus allowing the iron rod to penetrate the entrails without leaving a burn on the buttocks.

As I have said in the past, sometimes it is NOT good to be the king.


September 21, 1897 -
The New York Sun ran its famous editorial that answered a question from 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon: ``Is there a Santa Claus? "on this date.



Obviously, times were different back then given that The New York Sun was printing an editorial about Christmas in September.


September 21, 1915 -
With a winning bid of  £6,600, Mr. Cecil Chubb purchases Stonehenge and 30 acres of land at auction. He donates the monument to the British state three years later.



He donated the monument because he could not reset Stonehenge correctly.


September 21, 1975 -
Self-proclaimed revolutionary Sara Jane Moore attempted to kill President Gerald Ford as he walked from a San Francisco hotel on this date.



A bullet she fired slightly wounded a man in the crowd but once again President Ford walks away unscathed.


September 21, 1983 -
In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, on this date, Interior Secretary James G. Watt jokingly described a special advisory panel as consisting of 'a black ... a woman, two Jews and a cripple.'

Although Watt apologized, he later resigned .



And so it goes.