Not to worry you but ...

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - it's Friday the 13th during 2020.



In most large cities in the United States, many building don't have 13th floors. In Japan, they don't have 4th floors, because the word for four sounds similar to the word for DEATH! Some say that the modern basis for Friday the 13th phobia dates back to Friday, October 13, 1307.



On this date, the Pope Clement V in conjunction with the King Philip of France secretly ordered the mass arrest of all the Knights Templar in France. The Templars were terminated with extreme prejudice (burned to a crisp) for apostasy, idolatry, heresy, "obscene rituals" and homosexuality, corruption and fraud, and secrecy, never again to hold the power that they had held for so long.

Those wacky Knights were such party animals.



The first reference to an unlucky Friday the 13th came in an 1869 biography of the composer Gioachino Rossini who died on Friday November 13, 1868.



If it gives you some comfort, today is the last Friday the 13th of the year.


November 13, 1940 -
Walt Disney's third animated film Fantasia, opened in New York on this date.



Even after more than 70 years after its release, Disney still receives complaints from parents claiming the Night on Bald Mountain sequence terrified their children.


November 13, 1954 -
Looney Tunes first 3D cartoon, Lumber Jack Rabbit, starring Bugs Bunny, premiered on this date.



This was the only Warner Bros. cartoon filmed in 3D. It was intended for release with House of Wax, which was also filmed in 3D.


November 13, 1965 -
Get Off My Cloud by The Rolling Stones topped the charts on this date.



There was some of controversy over this song. Some U.S. radio stations refused to play the song because of the supposed drug references.


November 13, 1971 -
Steven Spielberg's first full- length film, Duel, starring Dennis Weaver, debuted on ABC-TV on this date.



During the chase, a parked sedan resembling a squad car is seen, briefly raising Dennis Weaver's hopes, but it turns out to be a service car for a pest exterminator named Grebleips... "Spielberg" in reverse.


November 13, 1975 -
Morris Albert's song Feelings went gold on this date.



In 1987, Morris Albert was found guilty of plagiarism, with a jury finding that this borrowed heavily from a French song from 1956 called "Pour Toi."

You can blame me later for this ear worm


November 11, 1976 -
Rod Stewart's Tonight's The Night, with some French cooing by his girlfriend Britt Ekland, hits #1 in America for the first of eight weeks.



The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section played on this song. They were a group of four musicians who started their own studio - Muscle Shoals Sound - in 1969 after doing sessions at FAME studios for Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, and many other popular soul acts. The famous story the musicians tell is that when Stewart arrived at the studios and saw them getting ready, he refused to believe they were the band - he was sure the guys he heard playing on those records were black, and had a hard time accepting that four white guys could deliver so much soul.


November 13, 1991 -
The first animated film to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast premiered in Hollywood on this date.



Angela Lansbury (Mrs. Potts) thought that another character would be better suited to sing the ballad, Beauty and the Beast. Directors Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise asked her to make at least one recording to have for a back-up; that one recording ended up in the movie.


It's 5 pm somewhere in the world. It's a good time to point this out.


Today in History:
While it is a particularly uneventful day in history, let us opine these words:

"The students are beyond control and their behavior is disgraceful. They come blustering into the lecture-rooms like a troop of maniacs and upset the orderly arrangements which the master has made in the interest of his pupils. Their recklessness is unbelievable and they often commit outrages which ought to be punishable by law, were it not that custom protects them."



People concerned about the pace of change in human affairs can find solace in knowing that these familiar sentiments were expressed about sixteen centuries ago by St. Augustine, who was born on November 13, 354 AD.



Like many other theological luminaries, Augustine began life as a debauched young man who sought his pleasures in wine, women, and song. Augustine admitted in his autobiography Confessions, that as a boy he "told lies to my tutors, my masters and my parents all for the love of games and the craving for stage shows." Eventually he became old and cranky and declared his youth wasted.



All of the things that occurred during the drunken orgies of his youth recounted in his Confessions do not hold a candle to the crap going on in the post-election debacle.


November 13, 1789 -
Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to a friend in which he said, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."



I would include, "please accept the results of an election when they are certified."


November 13, 1927 -

The New York Holland Tunnel officially opened today, the first underwater tunnel built in the United States, providing access between New York City and New Jersey beneath the Hudson River, ushering in a massive wave of Dutch immigration (and more fools them - The tunnel was named after its chief engineer, Clifford Milburn Holland, who died of a heart attack on the operating table while undergoing a tonsillectomy, as a posthumous honor, starting the trend for the NY/NJ interstate crossings to have names with no relation to their geographic locations).



Although most of the Dutch returned to Holland after learning that New Amsterdam had become New York.


November 13, 1947 -
The AK-47 assault rifle development by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the Soviet Union was completed on this date. The rifle was one of the first assault rifles to be created.



Today, it is the most widely-used assault rifle in the world — more AK-47 models have been made than all other assault rifle models put together.


November 13, 1955 -
Happy Birthday Caryn



Whoopi Goldberg (Caryn Elaine Johnson) actress, comedienne, and television host, was born on this day.


November 13, 1965 -
Appearing on a late night live satire program called BBC3, critic Kenneth Tynan becomes the first man to say “Fuck” on TV.

A national fit of apoplexy follows with one Tory MP suggesting that Tynan should hang!


November 13, 1966 -
Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first astronaut to successfully work in space without tiring, during the Gemini 12 flight. (Previous astronauts suffered from fatigue carrying out tasks during EVA).



Aldrin worked outside the Gemini craft for 2 hours and 6 minutes, demonstrating that astronauts could work outside their transport.


November 13, 1971 -
The American space probe, Mariner 9, becomes the first space probe to orbit another planet when it enters into orbit around Mars on this date. The probe’s mission was to return photographs that would map seventy percent of the surface while conducting a study of the planet’s atmosphere.



Analysis of the data returned by the probe revealed that the planet is covered in dried river beds. Two Soviet probes achieved the same orbit about a month later.


November 13, 1974 -
Karen Silkwood, a technician and union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Okla., was killed in a 'car crash' while on her way to meet a reporter on this date.



The Kerr-McGee nuclear fuel plants closed in 1975. The grounds of the Cimarron plant were still being decontaminated more than 40 years later.


November 13, 1982 -
Maya Lin's simple yet elegant Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on Veteran's Day to the veterans of the Vietnam War on this date (the memorial was opened to the public a few days earlier.) The memorial was built with polished granite, and it displays the names of over 60,000 veterans.



No federal funds were used to construct the wall. Private contributions from individuals, corporations, veterans and other organizations, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund raised almost $9 million.


It's that time of year: I still don't understand the concept of holiday long-form commercials in England. McDonald's UK released their annual holiday advert, concerning the Inner Child.



While it's nice to see a commercial ask if we're 'Reindeer Ready?', a better question could be, 'Are you ready to be Diabetes Prone?'.



I still can't imagine Americans sitting for more than a minute for a commercial, even for one from Amazon.



And so it goes.


Before you go - It is the fifth anniversary of the deadly Paris attacks, massacring 130 people in the bloodiest terror attack in years.



Please take a moment out of your day to remember the victims and their families.

69

Lies your teachers told you

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - The pilgrims may not have actually celebrated the 'first' Thanksgiving in American in 1621.

Three popular examples that are often referenced as the actual “firsts” and that pre-date the Pilgrims date include: (for reference, the Pilgrim’s Thanksgiving took place sometime between September and early October of 1621)

* September 8, 1565: This day of thanksgiving was celebrated by a group of Spaniards lead by Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilé, in Saint Augustine, Florida. Interestingly, Menéndez de Avilé even invited the Timucua tribe to dine with them on that Thanksgiving.
* 1598: In San Elizario, Texas, Spanish explorer Juan de Onate, on the banks of the Rio Grande, along with those with him held a Thanksgiving festival after they successfully crossed over 350 miles of Mexican desert.
* December 4th, 1619: Thirty-eight settlers landed on James River, on a ship called the Margaret, about 20 miles from Jamestown. Their charter required that the day of landing be set aside as a day of thanksgiving both on that first date and every year after. This tradition died out due to the “Powhatan tribe uprising of 1622” where many of the settlers were killed and most of the rest fled to Jamestown. (The Powhatan were the family of Pocahontas, who did not marry Captain John Smith but John Rolfe, but that's another story...)


One tree from Orange County is about to become a celebrity. Rockefeller Center has chosen its Christmas Tree for 2020.



The tree is a 75-foot Norway Spruce that Al Dick from Oneonta, New York, donated to Rockefeller Center. The 61 years old tree has a 46-foot diameter and weighs approximately 11 tons. The tree was cut down yesterday. It's the second time in recent years that a tree from the town of Oneonta has been chosen for Rockefeller Center. A tree owned by Angie and Graig Eichler was used in 2017.



The tree is making its way to New York City, arriving at Rockefeller Center on November 14. The tree lighting will be on December 2th - remember to avoid midtown at all cost on that date. After January 5th, the tree will come down and be donated to Habitat for Humanity for its lumber to be used to build homes.


It's National Pizza with the Works (Except Anchovies) Day. (Can we skip the pineapple?)

What's so wrong about anchovies?



(Well there is an old joke by George Carlin, but I'm not going to play it to you, you'll have to find it yourself, but I guess that would put me off anchovies.)


November 12, 1964 -
On his 19th birthday, Neil Young wrote Sugar Mountain, where he reflects on his fleeting youth ("You can't be 20 on Sugar Mountain"), the first formal release was a recording of the song made on November 10, 1968.



Joni Mitchell's The Circle Game was inspired by this song. As she explained to a live audience at The Paris Theatre in 1970, "Neil Young wrote this song that was called 'Oh to live on sugar mountain' which was a lament for his lost youth. And I thought, God, you know, if we get to 21 and there's nothing after that, that's a pretty bleak future, so I wrote a song for him, and for myself just to give me some hope. It's called 'The Circle Game.'"


November 12, 1976 -
Featuring a cast of 50 million, the very strange documentary All This And World War II, a collection of WWII newsreel footage, clips from other movies, and covers of Beatles songs, opens in US theaters on this date.



The film's director Susan Winslow was hired as she had been a researcher on the movie Brother Can You Spare a Dime which integrated film footage and 1930s newsreels with gramophone songs of that era. Her original role was as a researcher and to select footage but her contribution became so important she was named the film's director.


November 12, 1982 -
Robert Altman's low budget (and well received) adaptaion of Ed Graczyk's play, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, starring, Sandy Dennis, Cher, Karen Black, and Kathy Bates premiered in NYC on this date.



The film's one set was actually one double-set with two-way mirrors which were utilized for the flashback sequences. The two-way mirrored double-set was operated by computerized lighting modules which caused their own unique problems for the production.


November 12, 1993 -
Jane Campion's Oscar-winning film, The Piano starring Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel (and his penis), Sam Neill and Anna Paquin, was released in the US on this date.



Holly Hunter received three on-screen credits for the film, playing the character of Ada, playing the piano herself, and being a British sign language interpreter for Anna Paquin.


November 12, 2008 -
Danny Boyle's international hit, Slumdog Millionaire, starring Dev Patel and Freida Pinto went into limited release in the US on this date.



Longiness Fernandes was the choreographer of the dance sequence set to the song Jai Ho, which is played during the end credits. But his name was inadvertently left out in the credits of the film. Upset with this, Longiness skipped the preview parties. Danny Boyle was also upset over this mistake and promised Longiness that he would make it up to him, and did it in style. While accepting the Best Director Oscar, he admitted his mistake before the audience and thanked Longiness.


November 12, 2016 -
Kate McKinnon sang Hallelujah in character as Hillary Clinton to open Saturday Night Live the Saturday after the 2016 presidential election.



Still oddly powerful and moving.


Another court-ordered ACME PSA


Today in History:
King Cnut of England, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden died on this date in 1035. (Cnut is better known to most Americans as King Canute, which offers fewer typographical hazards.)



Cnut was the son of Svein Forkbeard, son of Harald Bluetooth, son of Gorm (now you know.) In 1013 Cnut's father conquered all of England from the Saxon King Aethelred but died anyway. This allowed Aethelred to take England back, which made it necessary for Cnut himself to reconquer England in 1016. He enjoyed this so much that he went on to conquer Scotland, Denmark, Norway, and part of Sweden, all of which came to be known collectively as Cnutland, perhaps explaining the region's subsequent popularity among European dyslexics.

This will be on the test.


November 12, 1859 -
The first flying-trapeze circus act was performed by Jules Leotard at the Circus Napoleon (later renamed Cirque d'Hiver) in Paris on this date.



His act caused a sensation in Paris, and soon other circus performers were trying out his technique. Leotard designed the garment that bears his name. Jules died at the age of 28 in Spain, leaving behind the famous Leotard and the art of flying trapeze.


November 12, 1912 -
The bodies of Captain Robert Scott and his men were found on the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica, frozen solid in one huge block of ice, on this date.



So he had literally become Scott of the Antarctic.


November 12, 1928 -
S. S. Vestris left New York November 10, 1928, with 129 passengers and 196 crew. The next day she ran into a severe storm and developed a starboard list, caused by a partially open coal port four feet above the water line



An SOS was sent out on November 12, some 200 miles off Hampton Roads, Virginia, and the ship was abandoned and after a few hours, the ship fell on her side and sank. Approximately 112 of the 325 onboard were lost (there was never a conclusive count - you know how it is during a disaster): all 13 children on board perished, as well as 28 of the 36 women.


November 12, 1933 -
Hugh Gray of the British Aluminum Company took five pictures of the Loch Ness Monster, the first known photos. Four the the five exposures were blank, and the remaining photo was later proven to be a hoax.

The brand of whiskey, Mr. Grey consumed has been lost in the ethers of time.


Early on the morning of November 12, 1942, Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, mob informer, then in protective custody, fell to his death from a hotel window. It is not known whether he was thrown or pushed out the window, or if he was trying to escape. The angle of trajectory suggests that he was, in fact, defenestrated (my favorite word.)

Because of his mob status as a stool pigeon and the circumstances surrounding his death, Reles gained another moniker after his passing. In addition to "Kid Twist," Reles became known as "the canary who sang, but couldn't fly."


November 12, 1945 -
When you're young, you don't have any experience - you're charged up, but you're out of control. And if you're old and you're not charged up, then all you have is memories. But if you're charged and stimulated by what's going on around you, and you also have experience, you know what to appreciate and what to pass by.







Happy Birthday Neil Percival Young !!! (I'm glad they resolved your citizenship issue.)


It was on this date in 1948 that former Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and seven others were sentenced to hang.



(This was back in the quaint old days, when the world considered it legal not only to have enemies, but to kill them after they tried to kill you.)


November 12, 1955 -
Today was one of the most event-filled dates in Hill Valley, CA history:

George McFly and Lorraine Baines kissed for the first time at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance on this date. One week earlier, George's 'friend' Marty, had been struck by a car driven by Lorraine's father, Sam Baines, and Lorraine looked after him during his recovery. Lorraine accepted Marty's invitation to go the dance. Marvin Berry and the Starlighters played popular music during the entire dance, such as Night Train and Earth Angel. But none of this is the point of the story



During the famous Hill Valley Thunderstorm, a bolt of lightning strikes the Clock Tower at precisely 10:04 p.m., and it hasn't rung since.


November 12, 1980 -
NASA's space probe Voyager 1 reached Saturn on this day and sent photos of the planet's rings back to Earth, nearly a billion miles (about 1.6 billion km) away.

This was the first photograph of Saturn's rings were transmitted to Earth. OK you can get the laugh out - the ring around Uranus were photographed in 1986.



And so it goes


Before you go -

70

May I blow your mind?

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - If you told the evil computer in the Star Trek episode The Wolf in the Fold, 'Pinocchio says “My Nose Will Grow Now”', it would destroy it much like calculating to the last digit of Pi..



The Pinocchio paradox arises when Pinocchio says "My nose grows now" and is a version of the liar paradox. The liar paradox is defined in philosophy and logic as the statement "This sentence is false." Any attempts to assign a classical binary truth value to this statement lead to a contradiction, or paradox.


At 5:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918 French Army clerk Henri Deledicq finished typing the peace treaty that would end World War I. He had put the carbon paper in backwards. Ten minutes later, in a railroad car in France, military leaders signed copies of an armistice that were completely unreadable. World War I ended on this date. -



It's Veterans Day in the United States and Armistice Day for many in Europe -



(and it's Singles Day in China, 11/11- it's considered China's Anti-Valentine's Day, but we're not going to discuss that now.)


November 11, 1943 -
The under-appreciated wartime-drama Sahara, starring Humphrey Bogart premiered on this date.



For much of production, the cast and crew were based in Brawley, California, a small town about 40 miles from the filming location. At the time, Brawley offered little in terms of evening diversions so Humphrey Bogart hosted many of his colleagues in his suite at the Planter's Hotel. Other cast members described Bogart as outgoing, generous, and an adept bartender, but the late night drinking meant that Bogart arrived on set hungover and quarrelsome. The behavior led to clashes with director Zoltan Korda.


November 11, 1947 -
Elia Kazan's searing expose of anti-Semitism, Gentleman's Agreement, starring Gregory Peck premiered in New York on this date.



When other studio chiefs, who were mostly Jewish, heard about the making of this film, they asked the producer not to make it. They feared its theme of anti-Semitism would simply stir up a hornet's nest about a problem which they preferred to handle quietly. Not only did production continue, but a scene was subsequently included that mirrored that confrontation.


November 11, 1958 -
The (relatively unknown) British-comedy The Horse's Mouth, starring Alec Guinness, opened in the US on this date.



Alec Guinness felt that an educated accent for Gulley Jimson would be suited to an artist, but was not right for an eccentric. "So I tried to find a voice in which no one would be able to detect an accent of any sort, a kind of gritty, rough manner of speaking. When I found it, I felt myself free to just relax on that and say the lines as they came."

Do yourself a favor and watch this one.


November 11, 1959 -
The beginning of American independent cinema can be traced to this date when Shadows, directed by John Cassavetes, premiered in NYC.



Shot with a 16mm handheld camera on the streets of New York. Most of the dialog was improvised, while all the crew were fellow class members of John Cassavetes or volunteers.


November 11, 1978 -
Donna Summer started a three week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with her version of Jimmy Webb's MacArthur Park, which was also a hit for actor Richard Harris in 1968, (made No.5 in the UK). (Sorry for the earworm.)



Jimmy Webb, whose songwriting credits include Up-Up and Away and By the Time I Get to Phoenix, wrote MacArthur Park in the summer of 1967. He offered it to Bones Howe, who produced The Association, for possible inclusion on the group's fourth album. Howe loved it, but The Association didn't want to devote that much space on the album to Webb's project, so they rejected it.


November 11, 1985 -
One of the first major films dealing with AIDS, An Early Frost, starring Aidan Quinn, Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara, and Sylvia Sidney, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Aidan Quinn remembers that NBC's Standards and Practices department were a constant presence on the set. They regulated matters such as Quinn appearing in bed with D.W. Moffett - they would not allow the two to be seen together in the characters' bed, only for Quinn to be in bed while Moffett sat, fully clothed, on its edge. Quinn remembered that the censors were not only adamant that the two men were never allowed to kiss, but also that any physical contact between them had to be "balanced" by Michael's contact with his parents.


Another failed ACME Product


Today in History:
November 11, 397 -
St. Martin of Tours, another in the series of anorexic visionaries is a patron saint of France, soldiers (he is known as the he man's saint), reformed alcoholics and winemakers. When the armistice fell on the Saint Martin’s Day, November 11, 1918, the French people saw it was a sign of his intercession in the affairs of France.

Martin, after another of his life long practice of fasting, has a dream about Jesus wearing the cloak he had recently given to a naked beggar. Pieces of Martin's actual 'cloak' were revered as holy relics and the derivation of the name of the priest who looked after these relics became 'chaplain'. (My father-in-law always reminded us that today is the day when the grapes you pressed and bottled turned into wine.)

And now you know.


November 11, 1215 -
The Fourth Lateran Council met on this date. They adopt the doctrine of Transubstantiation, meaning that bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ.

This means all Catholics are essentially cannibals on a feeding schedule, but who am I to judge a theology of which I am a nominal member.


November 11, 1634 -
Following pressure from Anglican bishop John Atherton, the Irish House of Commons passes "An Act for the Punishment for the Vice of Buggery". Seven years later, the good Bishop Atherton is himself is found well hanged under the Act.

I guess the religious right has always been a little loose on this issue.


November 11, 1821 -
Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.



Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Russian novelist who wrote Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, was born on this date.


November 11, 1862 -
Joe Green's (stage name - Giuseppe Verdi) Opera, La Forza Del Destino premiered in St Petersburg, Russia on this date.



La Forza Del Destino is an opera that many old school Italian singers felt was "cursed" and brought bad luck. The very superstitious Luciano Pavarotti avoided accepting a role in the opera for this reason.


November 11, 1920 -
One of the most famous tombs in Westminster Abbey is that of The Unknown Warrior. A tomb of an unknown British soldier who was killed on the battlefield during World War I. He was buried in Westminster Abbey on this date. (Another unknown soldier was buried on this date at the Arc de Triomphe in France.) The tomb is in the far western end of the nave and is covered by a slab of black Belgian marble. It is the only tomb in the abbey on which it is forbidden to walk.



One year after unknown soldiers were simultaneously buried at Westminster Abbey, London, and the Arc de Triomphe in France, President Warren G. Harding dedicated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (a white marble sarcophagus in Arlington National Cemetery.)



The tombstone itself, designed by sculptor Thomas Hudson Jones, was not completed until 1932, when it was unveiled bearing the description “Here Rests in Honored Glory an American Soldier Known but to God.” The World War I unknown was later joined by the unidentified remains of soldiers from America’s other major 20th century wars and the tomb was put under permanent guard by special military sentinels.


November 11, 1920 -
According to James Bond's authorized biography, the fictional Secret Service agent was born on this date. James Bond’s father was Andrew Bond, a Scottish businessman. His mother was Monique Delacroix, from Switzerland.



Both of his parents were killed in a mountain climbing accident during a holiday in the French Alps when he was only 11. He was educated at Eton, like his creator Ian Fleming.


November 11, 1925 -
Well, the most terrible fear that anybody should have is not war, is not a disease, not cancer or heart problems or food poisoning - it's a man or a woman without a sense of humor.



Jonathan Winters, the great improvisational comedian and actor, was born on this date.


November 11, 1978 -

A perennial favorite suicide location, the renovated Hollywood Sign was unveiled, due in large part to the public campaign to restore the landmark by pornographer Hugh Hefner and shock rocker Alice Cooper.

The original sign was built in 1923, and said "Hollywoodland".



And so it goes

71

Once in a lifetime.

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - During your lifetime, the average human produces 25,000 quarts of saliva.



An average human produces about a liters of saliva each day, which works out to more than 300 liters per year. The average life expectancy is just over 70 years, which gives one enough saliva produced in an average lifetime to fill two swimming pools.


November 10, 1942 -
The third 'Road' movie, the Road to Morocco, starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, and Anthony Quinn, premiered in NYC on this date.



For one special-effects shot a magic ring was supposed to turn Bob Hope into a monkey. When director David Butler instructed Bing Crosby to keep perfectly still so his position wouldn't change while Hope switched places with the monkey, the singer quipped, "Don't worry, Dave. You're making a monkey out of Ski Nose, and you think I won't stand still for that? Try me, brother. I'll be a real statue."


November 10, 1953 -
Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom was an educational Adventures in Music animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions, and originally released to theaters by Buena Vista Distribution on this date.



This was a "sequel" of sorts to 1953's Adventures in Music: Melody. This was originally meant to be an ongoing series (note the "Adventures In Music" in the opening titles of this short), but no others were produced.


November 10, 1956 -
Billie Holiday returned to the stage at Carnegie Hall after a three-year absence on this date.



The concert was called, by some, a high point in jazz history.


November 10, 1967 -
The Moody Blues released their hit, Nights in White Satin, on this date. This was written by Justin Hayward, who joined the band the previous year. He got the idea for the song after someone gave him a set of white satin sheets - yes, sometimes, it's just that inane.



This song introduced a new sound for the band. When they formed, they were more of a Blues band, and had a hit in 1965 with a cover of Bessie Banks' Go Now. With the songs on Days of Future Passed, they distinguished themselves with original songs in a more psychedelic/orchestral sound.


November 10, 1969 -
Come and play. Even at 51, everything's still A-OK (even on HBO.)



Sesame Street premiered on PBS-TV on this date.


November 10, 1969 -
Just four months after the Apollo 11 moon landing, Columbia Pictures released the thriller Marooned, directed by John Sturges and starring Gregory Peck and Gene Hackman, in U.S. theaters on this date.



The Film Ventures International re-edit of this film (retitled Space Travelers) was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. This was also the only film featured on the show to have won an Academy Award.
 

November 10, 1974 -
Bob Fosse's devastating bio-pix about Lenny Bruce, Lenny, starring Dustin Hoffman and Valerie Perrine premiered in NYC on this date.



The character of Sherman Hart (played by Lucille Ball's last husband, Gary Morton) is based on Milton Berle. His real name wasn't used because Berle was still alive and there were fears he would sue for libel. The character uses all of Berle's mannerisms and trademark shtick, including sticking a cigar under his top lip.


November 10, 1990 -
John Hughes' classic holiday film, directed by Chris Columbus, Home Alone, starring Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, and Daniel Stern, premiered in Chicago on this date.



The picture Kevin finds of Buzz's girlfriend was a picture of a boy made up to look like a girl, because director Chris Columbus thought it would be too cruel to make fun of a girl like that. The boy that was used in the photo was art director Dan Webster's son.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
November 10, 4004 BC -
Are you having that , "Gee, I'm feeling rather shamed about my engorged genitals today", here's the reason why:

Adam and Eve, all our forebearers, were driven from Paradise on this date, according to our good old friend Rev. Ussher.


November 10, 1871 -
New York Newspaperman Henry M. Stanley finally found Scottish explorer Dr. Livingstone at Ujiji near Lake Tanganyika (helpfully identified by some sources as being "near Unyanyembe"), and remarked, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?", on this date.



This was extremely witty and therefore historical.


November 10, 1903 -
U.S. patent no. 743,801 was issued to Mary Anderson, a resident of Birmingham, Alabama. She tried to sell her invention to a manufacturing firm in Canada, but the offer was rejected as having no practical value.



Others belittled her creation as well, insisting it would distract drivers and result in accidents. In the end, her patent expired before she was able to profit from her invention.


November 10, 1911 -
The following entry was made by George Levick, a surgeon and the medical officer on Scott's famous 1910-1913 expedition to the South Pole: This afternoon I saw a most extraordinary site - A Penguin was actually engaged in sodomy upon the body of a dead white throated bird of its own species.

How I know this and why I though it important to note it in this blog speaks volumes to my education and general mental state.


(Bunkies, there is a theme for the rest of today's posting. Your task is to figure it out:)

November 10, 1925 -
Richard Burton was born on this date.



No, not the Victorian international man of mystery, self-circumcisor and male brothel frequenter but Welsh actor with the greatest voice of the 20th Century.


November 10, 1928 -
Playing against Army at Yankee Stadium, Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne gave what is considered the greatest locker room speeches of all time by saying "Win one for the Gipper."



There is a clear through line to the theme in all of this.


November 10, 1928 -
Michinomiya Hirohito was crowned the 124th Emperor of Japan, Emperor Showa on this date.

Somehow the theme shows up here, as well.


November 10, 1938 -
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, one of the most extraordinary men of the 20th Century, statesman and first President of Modern Turkey, died of cirrhosis of the liver on this date.



Will Durant had said, "men devoted to war, politics, and public life wear out fast, and all three had been the passion of Atatürk."


November 10, 1940 -
Walt Disney begins serving as a secret informer for the Los Angeles office of the FBI, to report back information on Hollywood subversives. He was made a "Full Special Agent in Charge Contact" in 1954.

We should note that Disney was also atheist, Neo-Nazi, racist and possible child pornography collector, thus subversive in his own little way. Also remember that he reported in directly to a cross-dressing, homosexual who would never make left turns in his car.

The theme shows up clearly here as well.


November 10, 1954 -
The Iwo Jima Memorial, also known as the US Marine Corps (USMC) War Memorial, was dedicated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Arlington National Cemetery on this date.



The Marine Corps War Memorial is dedicated to all Marines who have served and given their lives in the defense of the United States since a resolution of the Second Continental Congress, on this date in 1775, ordered their formation.


November 10, 1975 -
The 729-foot-long freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank during a storm on Lake Superior, killing all 29 crew on board



and unfortunately is the subject of Gordon Lightfoot's annoying hit song, The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald.


And so it goes.

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Tips for the upcoming holidays

(An unedited version of this post accidentially posted last night, sorry for the confusion)


Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - Staying safe this holiday season.



Tip no. 384: Zombies love farms and open land so avoid that old abandoned barn


November 9, 1946 -
Another classic, yet surprisingly controversial Bugs Bunny outing, Rhapsody Rabbit, premiered on this date (We'll talk about the controversy later.)


(sorry for the quality)

A long-standing controversy exists between the previous cartoon and the Tom and Jerry short, The Cat Concerto.



Both sides (WB and MGM) claim that theirs was the original, and the other was a rip-off. Nobody knows for sure who is correct and it is, of course, entirely conceivable that the similarities are pure coincidence.

November 9, 1951 -
The zenith of Hollywood Musical film making (I'll let you argue about whether this or Singing in the Rain is better), An American in Paris, opened in California on this date.



A major reason Gene Kelly suggested Leslie Caron as the female lead was because he felt this movie needed a "real" French girl playing Lise, not just an American actress playing one. Gene Kelly discovered Leslie Caron while vacationing in Paris where he saw her perform in a ballet.


November 9, 1964 -
Another under-appreciated film that you should see, The Pumpkin Eater, opened in the US on this date.



This movie never explains its title, which refers to a traditional children's rhyme: "Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater/Had a wife, but couldn't keep her;/So he put her in a shell/And there he kept her very well." This serves as the epigraph of Penelope Mortimer's original novel.


November 9, 1972 -
The adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, 1776, starring William Daniels, Howard Da Silva, John Cullum, Ken Howard and Blythe Danner, premiered in NYC on this date



While it is a running gag of the film that John Adams is considered "obnoxious" and is "disliked" by the other members of the Continental Congress, in David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize winning biography John Adams, McCullough said he had examined the written recollections of all the members of the Congress and none of them had anything but praise for Adams--except for John Adams himself.


November 7, 1984 -
Wes Craven's iconic horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street, starring Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Robert Englund and Johnny Depp, opened in limited release in the US, on this date.



Wes Craven's original concept for Freddy Krueger was considerably more gruesome, with teeth showing through the flesh over the jaw, pus running from the sores, and a part of the skull showing through the head. Make-up Artist David B. Miller argued that an actor couldn't be convincingly made up that way, and a puppet would be hard to film, and wouldn't blend well with live actors, so these ideas were eventually abandoned.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
November 9, 1906 -
Teddy Roosevelt went against more than a century of tradition and became the first American president ever to leave the country while in office, on this date. He went to view the construction site of the Panama Canal.



Before Roosevelt, it was assumed that a President of the United States couldn't oversee the country effectively if he traveled abroad. It would take too long for him to communicate with government officials back home. But with the invention of the telegraph and then the telephone, high speed communication had grown much more feasible.



So on this day in 1906, Roosevelt and his wife climbed aboard the U.S.S. Louisiana and sailed south. The journey to Panama made Roosevelt happier than he'd been in a long while. He strolled the decks with his wife, read a stack of books he'd brought with him, including Tacitus and Milton, and the captain even let him steer the ship at one point. When he got to Panama itself, he was so impressed by the jungle and the tropical wildlife that he didn't even mind the torrential rains.



The chief engineer had the incredibly difficult task of accompanying Roosevelt everywhere he went. He said, "I have blisters on both feet and am worn out - Scaling a hill with Roosevelt is like taking a fort by storm." They took a train to the construction site, but when Roosevelt saw the first 95-ton steam shovel, he ordered that the train be stopped so that he could hike through the mud to see the steam shovel up close. It was a new invention at the time, and Roosevelt spent a half an hour asking about its operation. He then took a turn at the controls.

Although, King Louis (Mel Brooks) said, "It's good to be the king", it must have been a blast to be Teddy.

Bully, bully.


November 9, 1938 -
Today is the anniversary of Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass, literally, "Night of Crystal",) when waves of violent anti-Jewish pogroms took place throughout Germany and surrounding German territories. The incident was sparked after Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish Jew, killed Ernst vom Rath, a Nazi diplomat, on November 7, 1938.



The Nazis began burning and vandalizing Jewish businesses, homes, synagogues and schools. More than 100 Jews were killed, and Nazi forces arrested more than 30,000 Jewish men over two days, sending most of them to concentration camps; many of the men were later released after promising to leave the country. The violence marks the unofficially beginning of the holocaust.


November 9, 1953 -

Dylan Thomas finally accomplished his goal of drinking himself to death (having had 18 straight whiskies at the White Horse Tavern, in Greenwich Village, several days previously) on this date.



Sometimes it is not good to be a drunken Welsh poet.


November 9, 1965 -
The Northeast Blackout of 1965 was a major power outage affecting parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, New Jersey in the United States and portions of Canada on this date.



Around 25 million people and 80,000 square miles were left without electricity for up to twelve hours. Although human error was the official blame, there is another theory that UFO's visiting the Northeast were to blame.

That explains so much.


November 9, 1967 -
First issue of Rolling Stone Magazine was published on this date.

In the very first edition of the magazine, Jann Wenner wrote that Rolling Stone "is not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces."


When a government statement that crossing of the border would be permitted was broadcast on November 9, 1989, masses of East Germans approached and then crossed the wall, and were joined by crowds of West Germans in a celebratory atmosphere.



The Berlin Wall was subsequently destroyed by a euphoric public over a period of several weeks, and its fall was the first step toward German reunification, which was formally concluded on October 3, 1990.

The French are still casting a leery eye at their reunified neighbor.


November 9, 2346 -
Romulans commit an atrocity now known as the Khitomer Massacre, slaughtering over 4,000 Klingons on an agricultural colony on this date.



Worf and Kahlest are the only two to survive.

And so it goes


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My Fair Lady

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - The original London Bridge is now in Arizona.



London Bridge, erected in 1831, was one of London’s most recognizable landmarks, hadn’t been designed for the weight of automobile traffic, and by the mid-1960s it was sinking into the ground at the rate of an inch a year. London officials needed to replace it. In 1968, businessman Robert P. McCulloch bought the London Bridge and moved it from England to Arizona to create a tourist attraction in the desert. In 1971, the bridge was dedicated at a ceremony attended by London’s lord mayor, Sir Peter M. Studd, and 25,000 spectators. McCulloch died in 1977, but his gambit paid off. Lake Havasu City has developed into a tourist magnet that attracts 775,000 visitors a year.


November 8, 1962 -
Lewis Milestone's second major Hollywood telling of the Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard and Richard Harris, premiered on this date.



Marlon Brando, wearing his naval uniform, was widely booed and jeered at the New York City premiere, while Trevor Howard received thunderous applause. Brando walked out of the cinema after the audience started laughing at his English accent.


November 8, 1971 -
Led Zeppelin released their untitled fourth album, on this date.



And kids remember, according to the Consumer Protection and Toxic Materials Committee of the California State Assembly, if you play Stairway to Heaven backwards, you can hear:



So, don't play you albums backwards (many of you have no idea what albums are.)


November 8, 1978 -
Richard Attenborough's masterful adaptation of William Goldman's thriller, Magic, starring Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margret, and Burgess Meredith premiered in the US on this date.



Gene Wilder was the original choice for Corky, and director Sir Richard Attenborough and writer William Goldman wanted him, but producer Joseph E. Levine refused, on the grounds he wanted no comedians in the movie to distract from the serious nature of the story.


November 8, 1979 -
The program, The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



The show was planned to be temporary, but it evolved into Nightline in March of 1980.


November 8, 1989 -
Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of William Shakespeare's play, Henry V, starring Kenneth Branagh, Paul Scofield, Derek Jacobi, Ian Holm, Emma Thompson, Alec McCowen, Judi Dench, Robbie Coltrane, Brian Blessed, and Christian Bale, premiered on this date.



The famous London costume house Angels and Bermans provided most of the costumes for this movie, just as they had done for Laurence Olivier's Henry V.


Bunkies, I'm wiped out. I've gone back to read the classics


Today in History:
November 8, 1431 -
Vlad III the Impaler (Vlad Dracula), Transylvanian prince, inspiring the name of the vampire in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, was probably born on this date.



People had better things to do back then (like find something to eat or keep warm) than keep track of the birth date of some sadistic royal person.


November 8, 1519 -
The Aztecs and their leader, Moctezuma, foolishly welcomed Hernando Cortez and about 300 Spanish soldiers, 18 horses and thousands of Mexico's native inhabitants who had grown resentful of Aztec rule marched unmolested into Tenochtitlán, the capital city of the Aztec empire, on this date.



The Aztec ruler Moctezuma, believing that Cortez could be the white-skinned deity Quetzalcoatl, whose return had been foretold for centuries, greeted the arrival of these strange visitors with courtesy--at least until it became clear that the Spaniards were all too human and bent on conquest.

Oops.


November 8, 1789 -
Elijah Craig, a Baptist minister, from Georgetown, Kentucky, distilled the first sour-mash whiskey for public sale on this date.

His customers from the surrounding area called his product Bourbon County Whiskey - after the county of its origin.


November 8th, 1895 -
Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays on this date, when he discovered treated cardboard he was using in routine experiments glowed in certain situations – the result of radiation hitting the surface.



During subsequent experiments he found that objects of different thicknesses interposed in the path of the rays showed variable transparency to them when recorded on a photographic plate.


November 8, 1923 -
Adolf Schicklgruber, failed artist and World War I veteran, launched his first attempt to seize power with a failed coup in Munich, Germany, that came to be known as the Beer-Hall Putsch. He proclaimed himself chancellor and General Erich Ludendorff dictator.



No one really taken him too seriously at the time. Unfortunately, he wasn't joking.


November 8, 1950 -
The world’s first battle in which a jet plane shoots down another jet plane took place on this date, early in the Korean War during a raid near the Yalu River, which separates Korea and China. A group of about ten Soviet MiG-15 jet fighters approach the American bombers and were confronted by the four U.S. fighter jets escorting the bombers, Lockheed F-80 “Shooting Stars.”



Within about five minutes one MiG was destroyed, another was damaged, and the rest were in retreat. None of the U.S. jets were damaged. U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Robert Brown was credited with being the first pilot to take down another jet fighter.


November 8, 1949 -
I've been lucky enough that I can gather all sorts of experiences and find inspiration by traveling around and by spending time with people I admire.







Bonnie Raitt, American blues singer, guitarist, songwriter, was born on this date.


November 8, 1954 -
I always felt like my future was at stake every time I stepped on stage and that was kind of hair-raising. At some point I just went, don't be frightened, you can't do anything wrong, it's your show.







Rickie Lee Jones, The Duchess of Coolsville, two-time Grammy Award-winning vocalist, musician, songwriter and producer, was born on this date.


November 8, 1957 -
Britain tested its first hydrogen bomb, called Operation: Grapple X, over Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, on this date. (The U.K. had become an actual thermonuclear power with the detonation of Grapple X.)



It was a bit more powerful than they expected and caused infrastructure damage and destroyed some buildings on the island. I'm guessing this finally answers the question for me: No, I do not wish to spend Christmas (or any time for that matter) on Christmas Island.


November 8, 1994 -
Making people laugh is the lowest form of comedy.



Michael O'Donoghue writer for National Lampoon magazine and the first head writer for Saturday Night Live, died on this date, of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 54, after a long history of what were thought to be chronic migraine headaches.


(As usual, counting down the days until a holiday is driving me crazy - Hanukkah starts at sundown on the 10th of December at 4:28 pm, in NYC. I believe if I were a child I would eagerly count the evening of the 10th as the start, so that's what I'm going with.)

There are 47 days until Christmas, which as any small child who has ever waited for the arrival of Santa knows, begins at midnight.



And so it goes.


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