If you visit South Africa and get a craving for popcorn – be aware that popcorn isn’t always popcorn! In South Africa, it’s more common for what they call popcorn, to be roasted termites and ants.
One of the key paradoxes in Buddhism is that we need goals to be inspired, to grow, and to develop, even to become enlightened, but at the same time we must not get overly fixated or attached to these aspirations. If the goal is noble, your commitment to the goal should not be contingent on your ability to attain it, and in pursuit of our goal, we must release our rigid assumptions about how we must achieve it. Peace and equanimity come from letting go of our attachment to the goal and the method. That is the essence of acceptance. Reflecting - Dalai Lama
Every June 23, men in the northern Spanish town of Castrillo de Murcia don devil outfits and hurtle down the streets vaulting over newborn babies.
The Catholic celebration of El Salto del Colacho, which translates as "The devil's jump," has been going on in Castrillo every year since 1620. The baby-jumper represents the devil who is removing evil from the babies, who are all under one year old.
June 23, 1965 -
One of Frank Sinatra's best performances on film, Von Ryan's Express, premiered on this date.
Frank Sinatra was desperate to have Richard Burton as his co-star. Sinatra was not aware, however, that the studio, 20th Century Fox, were in the middle of a bitter court case with Burton and his wife, Elizabeth Taylor, over the massive cost overruns on Cleopatra, and wouldn't even entertain the thought of hiring Burton. Sinatra had made plenty of overtures to Burton in the hope he would sign on, and he was furious that he had wasted his time and effort.
June 23, 1965 -
One of the classic Motown singles, Tracks of My Tears by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, was released on this date.
Miracles members Smokey Robinson, Warren Moore, and Marv Tarplin wrote this song. Robinson penned the lyrics; Tarplin, The Miracles' guitarist, came up with the riff. Robinson recalled: "'Tracks of My Tears' was actually started by Marv Tarplin, who is a young cat who plays guitar for our act. So he had this musical thing [sings melody], you know, and we worked around with it, and worked around, and it became 'Tracks of My Tears.'"
June 23 1979 -
The rock group, the Knack released the ear worm, My Sharona on this date.
That's Sharona Alperin on the cover of the single holding the Get The Knack album. She posed for the art even though she and Doug Fieger weren't yet dating.
June 23, 1984 -
Duran Duran started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with The Reflex, the group's first US No.1, was taken from their third album, Seven and the Ragged Tiger.
At first, this song seems to have a very deep concept, but really the band just recorded it over a couple of bottles of wine. Simon Le Bon himself said he has no clue what it means.
June 23, 1989 -
Tim Burton's dark and brooding retelling of Batman, was released on this date.
Michael Keaton was unable to hear while wearing the Batsuit. He said that his claustrophobia helped get him in the proper mood to play Batman. "It made me go inward and that's how I wanted the character to be anyway, to be withdrawn," he said.
June 23, 1994 -
Life may or may not be a box of chocolate but Forrest Gump premiered in Los Angeles, on this date.
Tom Hanks was not paid for this film. Instead, he took percentage points which ultimately netted him in the region of $40 million.
June 23, 2000 -
Aardman Animations and DreamWorks Studios released the stop-motion film, Chicken Run, directed by Peter Lord and Nick Park (of Wallace and Grommit fame) and featuring the voices of Julia Sawalha, Mel Gibson, Timothy Spall, and Miranda Richardson, on this date.
There was a major push to get the film nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The failure to get the nomination, and the popularity of the film among Academy members led to the inclusion of Best Animated Feature for the next Academy Awards, which was won by the fellow DreamWorks film Shrek.
Today's moment of Zen
Today in History:
June 23, 1611 -
The mutinous crew of Henry Hudson's fourth voyage sets Hudson, his son and seven loyal crew members adrift in an open boat in what is now Hudson Bay; they are never heard from again.
June 23, 1868 -
Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent (US patent #79,265) for an invention he called a "Type-Writer" on this date.
June 23, 1894 -
Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, briefly Edward VIII, King of England and later to be known as the Duke of Windsor (making him both brother and uncle to successive monarchs), who abdicated his throne to marry American divorcee (and possible transvestite) Wallis Simpson, was born on this date.
Sometimes, it's very complicated to be the king.
June 23, 1931 -
Pilot Wiley Post (at the time in full possession of both his eyes) and navigator Harold Gatty took off from Roosevelt Field in New York, in the Winnie Mae, on this date, attempting to be the first to fly around the world in a single-engine plane.
The trip (which was 15,474 miles,) completed when the pair landed back at Roosevelt Field on July 1st, took a total of eight days, 15 hours and 51 minutes. Wiley later became the first pilot to fly around the world solo, beating the record he and Gatty originally set.
June 23, 1950 -
Northwest Airlines Flight 2501, a DC-4 propliner operating its daily transcontinental service between New York City and Seattle, crashed into Lake Michigan killing 58 people.
The wreckage has never been discovered and the accident was, at the time, the worst commercial airliner accident in American history.
June 23, 1953 –
Frank J. Zamboni was issued a patent (#2,642,679) for his ice resurfacer on this date. Mr Zamboni invented his Ice Resurfacing Machine in 1949.
June 23, 1972 -
Someone might want to introduce Mr Trump to the joys of a pitcher of very dry martinis (Nixon's problem: he did not take his martinis bone dry) and have him listen to this clip:
President Richard Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed a plan to use the CIA to obstruct the FBI's Watergate investigation. Revelation of the tape recording of this conversation sparked Nixon's resignation in 1974.
In the “smoking gun" tape Pres. Nixon told H.R. Haldeman, to tell top CIA officials that “the president believes this (in reference to Watergate) is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again." Nixon counseled Haldeman on how to use deception to thwart an FBI investigation on how Watergate was financed.
But then again, the president insisted that there are no tapes.
And on a personal note:
And so it goes
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