Once again it's Small Business Saturday -

Small Business Saturday is still somewhat new – the first one was in Roslindale Village, Massachusetts in 2010 as a counterpart to Black Friday (which features big box retailers, and its anti-consumerist counterpart, Buy Nothing Day targets big business).

American Express used to give their customers discounts or incentives to support small businesses across America; this year, double points on selected purchases. Since AMEX isn't sponsoring me, you'll need to figure out if your favorite local business is covered.


... as it must to all men, death came to Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz....

Fidel Castro, one of the last Cold War Icons, has finally giving up the ghost.


November 26, 1922 -
The Toll of the Sea, starring Anna Mae Wong, the second two-strip Technicolor feature (it was the first one able to be projected through a normal movie projector and consequently the first to be given a wide release) was released on this date.



The film's story is a variation of Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, which premiered in 1904; except, the film takes place in China and the opera is set in Japan.


November 26, 1942 -
One of the classic films of the 40s, Casablanca, premiered in NYC on this date.



Because the film was made during WWII they were not allowed to film at an airport after dark for security reasons. Instead they used a sound stage with a small cardboard cutout airplane and forced perspective. To give the illusion that the plane was full-sized, they used little people to portray the crew preparing the plane for take-off.


November 26, 1952 -
In Thrilling Color!

The first modern 3-D movie Bwana Devil, viewed with special glasses, premiered in Hollywood (remember to have your 3D glasses available to watch the preview.)



Arch Oboler, the director, traveled to Africa in 1948 to make audio recordings of native peoples. While in Africa, Oboler met William D. Snyder, a 16mm cameraman with his own industrial filmmaking company in Fargo, North Dakota. During their travels throughout Africa, Mr. Snyder shot the African footage that appears in Bwana Devil. Willian Snyder company Bill Snyder Films produced over 800 films over the years.


November 26, 1953 -
MGM released the first musical in 3-D, Kiss Me Kate on this date.



Even though Hermes Pan is the credited choreographer on the film, the steamy duet between Bob Fosse and Carol Haney in From This Moment On (which includes Fosse doing a complete back-flip) was choreographed by Fosse himself, and lasts only 66 seconds. But it is the sequence that made critics take notice of the future award-winning choreographer and director.


Today in History:
November 26, 1789 -
The first national Thanksgiving Day was observed in the United States in 1789, when recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress on this date, but we spoke all about this yesterday.

The holiday wouldn't become an annual event until 1863 and wouldn't be signed into law until 1941 when US President Franklin D. Roosevelt made it an official, national holiday.


November 26, 1865 -



Oxford Don and nude child photographer, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, sends the manuscript for the psychedelic novel Alice in Wonderland to his 12 year old special friend Alice Liddell as an early Christmas present.



For some reason her parents did not notify the authorities.


November 26, 1965 –
Arlo Guthrie was arrested in Stockbridge, Mass., for dumping some trash following a Thanksgiving feast at a restuarant run by Alice Brock, on this date.



He wrote a song about the event that became a folk classic and was turned into a movie in 1969.



Yes kids, it really happened.


November 26, 1976 -
Anarchy in the UK, (as a single) by the Sex Pistols is released.



The song later appeared on Never Mind the Bollocks.



And so it goes