Still a little distracted by all the counting

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - For some reason May 29th is Put A Pillow On Your Fridge Day



Put A Pillow On Your Fridge Day is celebrated on the 29th of May each year, in Europe and the U.S. This bizarre holiday spans back to the early 1900s, where families would place a piece of cloth or linen within their larders. The piece of cloth would have typically been torn from something kept in their bedroom, such as a blanket or nightgown, before being put in their larder. They believed placing a piece of cloth from their bedroom into the place where their food was kept, brought about the possibility of plentiful food and rich fertility to their household.


November 5, 1932 -
Hollywood's love of Oriental Exoticism reached it full flower when MGM released the film The Mask Of Fu Manchu, starring Boris Karloff and Lewis Stone premiered on this date.



In filming the scene where Fu Manchu injects his mind control drug into Terry Granville's neck, Boris Karloff actually pushed the syringe into a baked potato, which was lying on the table next to Charles Starrett's head, out of camera range. However, each time Karloff pressed the plunger down, the potato would explode. This happened on several takes, until Karloff and Starrett couldn't do the scene without laughing. Director Charles Brabin finally gave up and dismissed the two actors for the day, saying, "Never mind! We'll shoot it tomorrow morning!"

November 5, 1938 -
A very funny (but very un PC) B and W Looney Tunes Cartoon, Porky in Egypt, premiered on this date.



The camel steals the cartoon. Unfortunately, the camel never followed up his star turn in this one.


November 5, 1943 -
Robert Siodmak first feature for Universal Studios, Son of Dracula, from a script by his brother Curt and starring Lon Chaney, Jr., premiered on this date.



This film features the first man-into-bat transformation ever seen on camera. In the 1931 film Dracula, no transformations were shown on screen. Both John Carradine and Bela Lugosi would get similar treatment over the next five years.


November 5, 1956 -
The Nat King Cole Show debuted on NBC-TV on this date. The Cole program was the first of its kind hosted by an African-American.



In the 1956 season, the show had a 15-minute running time. It was expanded to a 30-minute segment in 1957. The show originally aired without a sponsor, but NBC agreed to pay for initial production costs; it was assumed that once the show actually aired and advertisers were able to see its sophistication, a national sponsor would emerge.Unfortunately, none did. Cole famously said of the doomed series, "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark."


November 5, 1964 -
An unsung minor masterpiece, Seance on a Wet Afternoon, premiered in the US on this date.



In an early draft of the screenplay, Billy and Myra were both male, with Director Bryan Forbes planning to cast Alec Guinness and Tom Courtenay as the homosexual couple. Courtenay agreed to play the role but Guinness, however, turned it down. Forbes decided then to completely re-write the screenplay.



November 5, 1966 -
The Monkees' Last Train To Clarksville topped the pop-singles charts on this date.



This was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, a songwriting team who came up with many songs for the Monkees. They also wrote songs for Chubby Checker and Jay and the Americans. Boyce and Hart wrote this as a protest to the Vietnam War. They had to keep this quiet in order to get it recorded, but it is about a guy who gets drafted and goes to fight in the war. The train is taking him to an army base, and he knows he may die in Vietnam. At the end of the song he states, "I don't know if I'm ever coming home."


November 5, 1974 -
The Eagles hit, Best of My Love, was released on this date. It did not reach #1 spot until March 1, 1975.



This song is often played at weddings and anywhere else one wants to demonstrate affection, but it's really a breakup song: "You see it your way, and I see it mine, and we both see it slipping away." No happy ending here, just a guy who gave it his best, but things didn't work out.


November 5, 1993 -
James Ivory's masterful adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, Remains of the Day, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, premiered on this date.



Producer Ismail Merchant said of this movie: "Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) is a devoted man. He's very conscientious of his duties, but he never wants to express himself too loudly. He has been trained since birth to know his place, never to speak out. That is one of the things which is sad about the film. Stevens has lost the opportunity in life. He wanted Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson), but he never could come to express his feelings to her. If you are not ready to express yourself or grab the moment, you lose out."


Another court-ordered ACME PSA


Today in History:
On November 5, 1492, Christopher Columbus wrote in his journal that, in the interior of Cuba, there was a great deal of land "sowed with a sort of beans and a sort of grain they call Mahiz, which was well tasted, baked, dried, and made into flour."



Given how things worked out for them, the Native people should have kept maize to themselves.


November 5, 1605 -
Remember, remember the 5th of November



The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, or the Powder Treason, as it was known at the time, was a failed attempt by Guy Fawkes and a group of provincial English Catholics to kill King James I of England, his family, and most of the Protestant aristocracy in a single attack by blowing up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening on this date.



The conspirators had also planned to abduct the royal children, (who were surprisingly Protestant, as well) not present in Parliament, and incite a revolt in the Midlands. the conspirators were captured before the plot could take place. They were all drawn and quartered.



On November 5th each year, people in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries and regions celebrate the failure of the plot on what is known as Guy Fawkes Night, Bonfire Night, Fireworks Night, Cracker Night or Plot Night by getting drunk and setting things on fire.


November 5, 1895 -
George B. Selden was a lawyer and inventor who was granted the first U.S. patent (Patent No. 549,160) for an automobile, which he invented in 1877.

The idea of a horseless carriage was in the air during George's youth, but its practicality was uncertain. In 1859, his father, Judge Henry R. Selden, a prominent Republican attorney, moved to Rochester, New York, where George briefly attended the University of Rochester before dropping out to enlist in the Sixth U.S. Cavalry, Union Army. This was not to the liking of his father who after pulling some strings and having some earnest discussions with his son managed to have him released from duty and enrolled in Yale. George did not do well at Yale in his law studies, preferring the technical studies offered by the Sheffield Scientific School, but did manage to finish his course of study and pass the New York bar in 1871 and joined his father's practice. He married shortly thereafter to Clara Drake Woodruff, with whom he had four children. He continued his hobby of inventing in a workshop in his father's basement, inventing a typewriter and a hoop making machine.

Selden's father, Henry Selden, was chosen by Abraham Lincoln to be Vice President, but he turned it down (and in light of Lincoln's assassination, Henry Selden would have otherwise been the next American President).

He defended Susan B. Anthony in her 1873 trial for unlawfully voting as a woman (had she only voted as a honey badger, there would have been no problem.)

Who knew?


November 5, 1895 -
On that same day, the Prince of Wales, shortly to become King Edward VII and master of almost one-fifth of the land area of the planet, was roused from a nap after a long afternoon of whore mongering and a heavy lunch, remarks in a speech, 'We are all socialists nowadays'.

As anticipated, his mother Queen Victoria was not amused.


November 5, 1911 -
Roy Rogers, singing cowboy (Happy Trails, Roy Rogers Show), was born on this date.



He was born as Leonard Franklin Slye in Cincinnati where his father worked in a shoe factory. He died in 1998 at age 86.


November 5, 2007 -
China's first lunar satellite, Chang'e 1, was launched on October 24, 2007, and successfully entered the Moon orbit on this date.



It orbited the Moon for more than one year as part of the first stage of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program.


And so it goes

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