A brief note to our neighbor in the North.

It's time to go home.  The party's over when you acknowledge the rumor.



Take a page from Marion Barry: there could always be a second act.


November 6, 1948 -
Sylvester in his prime - Kit for Cat, premiered on this date.



The actors in the radio drama, Mel Blanc and Bea Benaderet, call each other by their real first names, Melvin and Beatrice.


November 6, 1981 -
One of Terry Gilliam's critically acclaimed features, Time Bandits, premiered on this date.



Ruth Gordon was cast as Mrs. Ogre but was injured before production. Katherine Helmond was originally slated to play the role in heavy make-up to look like her husband, but then decided it would be funnier if Mrs. Ogre was an ordinary person. Terry Gilliam agreed.


Today in History (There will be a quiz at the end) -
November 6, 1860 -
US President Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican to be elected President on this date. He beat out three other candidates and won 40 percent of the popular vote.

By the time he was inaugurated in March of 1861, however, seven states had seceded from the Union and had elected Jefferson Davis as their president. The American Civil War began about a month later.


November 6, 1893 -
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the greatest Russian composer of all time, was having the worst month in his life. Rumors of his homosexuality had become so well known that a coterie of his former classmates got together and forced him to drink choleria tainted (arsenic) water. Shortly after meeting with his 'old friends', Tchaikovsky suffered from acute diarrhea and stomach pains.



Tchaikovsky refused to call a doctor, and tried to carry on with his day, taking cod liver oil in an attempt to ease his stomach. Within days he was much worse, and a doctor diagnosed him with cholera. The mortality rate for cholera at that time was more than 40%, but he seemed to get better, then he would get worse again with more pains and cramps. Eventually his kidneys failed, a priest was called, and he died on this date.

The take away lesson from this is: avoid reunions with 'old friends'.


On November 6, 1911, Maine became a dry state on this date.

How a state with 3500 miles of shoreline could dry out in a single day is beyond me, but I can't always expect to understand the historical information I gather. It may just have been a really low tide.


November 6, 1917 -
Hey kids here another episode of the wacky Russian Revolution:

For some reason, Lenin and Trotsky take control of Petrograd to direct the October Revolution (even though it's November in most of the world.)


On November 6, 1923, the price of a loaf of bread in Berlin was reported to be about 140 billion German marks.

And yet when we think of fine baking, we tend to think of France —

clearly, we have done the Germans wrong.


November 6, 1989 -
St. Kitty, the patron saint of the victims of long draw out campaign battles (see Pat Nixon, the Methodist saint.)

Kitty Dukakis, wife of Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, was hospitalized after ingesting rubbing alcohol on this date.


With 88 days between the equinox on September 23 and the solstice on December 21, we are considered halfway through the relevant seasons



(autumn or fall in the northern hemisphere; spring in the southern hemisphere) on this day.  While you are considering that, keep this in mind:

There are 23 days until Thanksgiving and the start of Hanukkah.
There are 49 days until Christmas.
Make your plans, as you see fit.



And so it goes