Forks: An Ancient Faux Pas

Unless there’s a notorious silverware heist or a brutal spork attack in the news, flatware is rarely the cause of controversy. And yet, Forks evolved by taking a different path than the practical ones of knives and spoons.

Forks were considered a sacrilege and quite rude, because they were “artificial hands” and as such was considered to be sacrilegious. Even as late as the sixteenth century the English were still ridiculing those who would dare to use those spiked spaghetti-twirling instruments, “forks”. At that time one used their hands or a pointed knife to pick up their food.

So now you know.


May 19, 1934 -
The very truly perverse horror film from Universal, The Black Cat, premiered in NYC on this date.



This film was made just before the Hays code went into effect. It is chockablock filled with Satanism, black mass orgies, necrophilia, pedophilia, sadistic revenge, murder and incest.

Oh, I forgot to mention Bela Lugosi slices off Boris Karloff's face.


May 19, 1951 -
The first in the series of the transvestite Bugs Bunny, the ever clueless Daffy Duck and bestiality minded Elmer Fudd's "Hunting Trilogy", Rabbit Fire was released on this date.



Hank Azaria has cited the scene where Bugs and Daffy imitate each other as Mel Blanc's greatest achievement in voice acting.


May 19, 1958 -
The iconic B movie classic, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, broke out on this date.



The movie was shot in eight days for $89,000, which was $10,000 under budget. Director Nathan Juran insisted on being billed as "Nathan Hertz" (Hertz was Juran's middle name), apparently because he was embarrassed by this film's low budget and poor quality.


May 19, 1978 -
The disco film Thank God It's Friday, starring Donna Summer, and The Commodores, (Jeff Goldblum and Debra Winger, somehow appear in this as well,) premiered in New York City on this date



The movie was released about six months after Saturday Night Fever. The picture is considered as being a studio programmer cashing in on the success of that movie as the film's title featured the other big day of the week-end (Friday rather than Saturday) in which people go out at night.


May 19, 1994 -
After eight seasons, the final episode of LA Law aired on NBC-TV on this date.



The series ended their last day of shooting their final episode the morning of May 10, 1994. Actor Corbin Bernsen called into the Howard Stern Show about a half hour before they wrapped for the last time.


May 19, 1999 -
The much-anticipated movie prequel, Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace opened on this date.



Sets were built only as high as the tops of the actors' heads, and computer graphics filled in the rest. Liam Neeson was so tall that he cost the set crew an extra $150,000 in construction.


May 19, 2005 -
Mr. Lucas needed more money to electronically remake the previous five Star Wars movies, so he released Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith on this date.



The original cut of this movie ran nearly four hours. The opening battle/Palpatine rescue alone ran over an hour. The extra footage of the Palpatine rescue scene is shown in the video game for this movie, however.


May 19, 2009
Theater club kids around the world rejoiced - the pilot episode of Glee premiered on Fox on this date.



In her audition for the role, Lea Michele sang On My Own from Les Miserables. However, the pianist cut the second verse without telling her. She stopped singing and told him "We have to go back and do the verse!" The writers laughed, and later said she definitely had the Rachel role down.


Another failed ACME Product


Today in History:
May 19, 1296 -
Pietro di Murrone, former Pope Celestine V, died in the castle of Fumone, on this date.



He had been imprisoned there by his successor, Boniface VIII. But what the help do you care about any of this, you quisling.


May 19, 1536 -
In the first public execution of an English queen, Anne Boleyn was beheaded on this date. In her speech, Boleyn has nothing but good things to say about her husband, Henry VIII: "I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never: and to me he was ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord."



Except of course for this whole beheading thing.


May 19, 1885 -
“Professor" Robert Emmet Odlum of Washington, D.C., a well known swimming instructor and author of pamphlets on diving, jumped from Brooklyn Bridge, on this date.

He entered the water feet first (as was the accepted diving position at the time) and shattered every bone in his frame from heel to skull. He was pulled from the river unconscious and died a half hour later. Mr. Odlum was the first person to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge, and was the first to died doing so.


May 19, 1890 -
Nguyen Tat Thanh was born in central Vietnam on this date. After World War I he devotes his life to the Communist cause, adopting a series of pseudonyms along the way. Finally he settles on "The Enlightener," that being the English translation of Ho Chi Minh.



As a birthday present, the US decides to bomb Hanoi in 1967 on this date. (There is the tiniest cognitive dissonance in the fact that we have been supporting Viet Nam in their argument with China over islands in the South China Seas.)


May 19, 1897 -
Oscar Wilde was finally released from jail, literally a broken man. Wilde had been jailed when he lost his libel case against the Marquis of Queensberry and was charged with "gross indecency" (homosexuality.) His health deteriorated while in jail; he had become emotionally exhausted and was flat broke.



When he was released, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol. A recurrent ear infection, caused by a fall in jail, became serious several years later, meningitis set in, and Oscar Wilde died on November 30, 1900.


May 19, 1935 -
Thomas Edward Lawrence died after an motorcycle accident on this date. Lawrence was a British officer who rose to prominence during the Arabian campaigns of the First World War. Clad in the magnificent white silk robes of an Arab prince ... he hoped to pass unnoticed through London.

Alas he was mistaken.



He can also be seen in The Lion in Winter, Becket, What New, Pussycat and My Favorite Year.



One of the doctors attending Lawrence in hospital was the neurosurgeon, Hugh Cairns. As a result of Lawrence's death, Cairns began a long study of what he saw as the unnecessary loss of life by motorcycle dispatch riders through head injuries and his research led to the use of crash helmets by both military and civilian motorcyclists.


May 19, 1945 -
Peter Townshend, Rock Singer/guitarist/vocalist/composer, was born on this date.



After he was rated as the 50th greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone, Mr. Townshend fell into a deep depression and was reduced to appearing with another old time rocker, Roger Daltrey at benefit concerts.

How sad.


May 19, 1951 –
When I was a kid growing up in the '60s, music was an outlet for enlightenment, frustration, rebellion. It was more about individualism. Today it's just like a big business.



Joey Ramone, (Jeffrey Ross Hyman) punk rocker, songwriter and countercultural icon was born on this date.


May 19, 1952 (or 1948 - it's not for us to question a woman about her real age) -
I don't like people who hide things. We're not perfect, we all have things that people might not like to see, and I like to show my faults.





Grace Jones, singer, model, and actress was born on this date. Try to rent the documentary about Grace, Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami.


May 19, 1962 -
Democrats staged a fund-raiser in New York's Madison Square Garden that was billed as a birthday salute to President John F. Kennedy on this date.



JFK thanked Marilyn, saying, “I can now retire from politics after having had ‘Happy Birthday’ sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way.” It takes a certain kind of balls, and a major addition to pain killers, to have your mistress, Marilyn Monroe, performed a sultry rendition of Happy Birthday to You in front of your wife and the nation.


May 19, 1996 -
It makes me feel wonderful that people still care for me... that I have so many fans among young people, who write to me and tell me I have been an inspiration.

Kermit the Frog gave the commencement address at Southampton College's graduation ceremony after being awarded an honorary doctorate in Amphibious Letters for his contributions to environmental awareness and education.

If a piece of felt can earn a degree; you may someday get a diploma.


May 19, 1994 -
What is sad for women of my generation is that they weren't supposed to work if they had families. What were they going to do when the children are grown - watch the raindrops coming down the window pane?



In one of life's most bitter ironies, former first lady Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer in New York City on this date.


May 19, 2010 -
The Opportunity Rover broke the record for the longest Mars surface mission of 2307 days (formerly held by Viking 1) on this date. Opportunity was the second of the two rovers launched in 2003 to land on Mars and begin traversing the Red Planet in search of signs of past life.



Opportunity landed on Mars the following year to begin missions planned to last three months, but has far exceeded expectations and and remains active.



And so it goes.