June 21, 2005
Mixed Thinks
Today, in addition to being Summer Solstice, is Jean-Paul Sartre's centennial birthday.
George Orwell's 102nd birthday is on the 25th.
So, to commemorate both, let me mix up a couple of thinks:
Hell is other people, but some animals are more equal than others.
cheers!
August 16, 2004
Kallisti's Birthday!
Today is Kallisti's birthday, and I've assembled a bit of calendar trivia for her today.
People (besides Kallisti) born on this day:
1897 Robert Ringling, Circus Master
1913 Menachem Begin
1920 Charles Bukowski
1930 Frank Gifford
1930 Robert Culp
1930 Ted Hughes (Sylvia Plath's husband; he was a poet laureate in England, too, but being Sylvia's husband probably made him more famous.)
1931 Eydie Gorme
1935 Julie Newmar (best catwoman, save for Eartha Kitt)
1946 Lesley Ann Warren
1953 Kathie Lee Gifford
1954 James Cameron
1958 Angela Bassett
1958 Madonna
1958 Belinda Carlisle (Go-Go's)
1960 Timothy Hutton
______
Mammals who Died on this Day:
1948 Babe Ruth
1949 Margaret Mitchell (Gone With the Wind)
1956 Bela Lugosi
1977 Elvis Presley
1991 Shamu (one of the many killer whales named Shamu)
______
As for notable events that occurred on August 16th -- so many various things happened on this day, I'm just going to link to this long list of them on this site. There were too many I wanted to mention that I thought would tickle Kallisti -- many events from the the roller coaster being patented in 1898 to the Ramones' debut concert at CBGBs in 1974.
Yup, today must be Kallisti's Circus Day, all right, with the roller coaster and a Ringling Brother sharing her birthday.
_________
Detecting Some Actor Trivia
Just a few trivia tidbits about some of the actors who share her birthday, especially for Kallisti. (yes, yes, Kallisti, just laugh at me for what I've picked out as noteworthy ....)
Robert Culp, Lesley Ann Warren, and Julie Newmar all graced Columbo episodes. (Culp was in two of 'em, in fact.)
Robert Culp was born in Berkeley.
I thought I'd recalled hearing somewhere ages ago (I think from you, in fact!) that Timothy Hutton was a Berkeley native, too, but wasn't sure. So, I just did a quick look-up of the actor's bio. Said he'd been born in Malibu, but he grew up in Berkeley (and went to Berkeley High). Also, found out something else I'd never known about him -- namely, that he's the son of actor Jim Hutton!
Now, Jim Hutton was never on Columbo, but he did play Ellery Queen in the short-lived 70s TV series based on that detective series.
Hmm ... Timothy Hutton plays Archie in the more recent Nero Wolfe TV series. Is there a suspicious pattern here or just evidence of the longstanding cornucopia of detective series actors always could appear in?
_______
Oh, and (to borrow Columbo's line) -- JUST ONE MORE THING! -- A very Happy Birthday to Kallisti!
April 06, 2004
Baudelaire's Birthday
Today is Baudelaire's Birthday.
For a little trivia and whatnot about him, you can glance at this "mini-profile" I compiled some years ago. (It had been part of my long-defunct Dead Authors' pages).
December 17, 2003
Marquise du Chatelet's birthday
Today is Madame du Chatelet's birthday.
Gabrielle-Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Chatelet (1706-1749) was a mathematician and an expert on Newtonian physics (among her writings and translations, she translated Newton's Principia into French and it is still the only translation of it in French today). She had a huge influence on the French Enlightenment.
Oh, yeah. She also had a huge influence on Voltaire (and vice versa). Intellectually and presumably in other ways as they were long-term lovers.
She died in September 1749 days after giving birth to a girl (not Voltaire's nor her husband's, incidentally, but that's another story).
Here's how Voltaire described the scene of du Chaletet giving birth to her daughter: "The little girl arrives while her mother was at her writing desk, scribbling some Newtonian theories, and the newly born baby was placed temporarily on a quarto volume of geometry, while her mother gathered together her papers and was put to bed."
So. There. When silly people say girls are no good at or not interested in math and science (as they have occasionally been wont to do), just tell 'em about Madame du Chaletet.
And she was doing her work in the 18th century to boot!
November 21, 2003
Voltaire's Birthday
Today is Voltaire's birthday! Joyeaux anniversaire!
"Le Lever de Voltaire" by Jean Huber (c.1765)
(Voltaire dictating to his secretary
while dressing).
"Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats." - Voltaire
Of course, Voltaire also said "Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung."
October 16, 2003
On This Day in 1854 ...
October 16, 1854: Oscar Wilde was born.
drawing from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, January 1882
Incidentally, a few other literary notables share Oscar's birthday, including Noah Webster (1758), Eugene O'Neill (1888), and Gunter Grass (1927).
___________
Also in 1854, on October 20, another of my personal favorite poets was born:
Arthur Rimbaud.
drawing of Rimbaud by Verlaine
August 21, 2003
It's My Birthday, and I Can ....
It's MY birthday today. Although I know quite a bit of the calendar trivia for my birthday, of course, I did learn of a new one today by visiting Today in Rotten History. Namely, that today in 1614 was the day Countess Elizabeth Bathory died. She was that infamous person who had hundreds of virgins slaughtered so she could bathe in their blood -- she thought bathing in the blood of young virgins would keep her young.
I share my birthday with Jules Michelet (1798), Aubrey Beardsley (1872), Count Basie (1906), Friz Freleng (1906), Nancy Kulp (1921), Princess Margaret (1930), Wilt Chamberlain (1936), Kenny Rogers (1938), Clarence Williams III (Mod Squad actor, 1939), Peter Weir (1944), Joe Strummer (1953), Budgie of Siouxsie & the Banshees (1957), and Hawaii, which became a state on this day in 1959.
August 12, 2003
Love That Emperor Norton
Today in Rotten History (rotten.com) had a nice piece of calendar trivia for today:
Aug 12 1869 -In San Francisco, Emperor Norton I issues a stern edict outlawing both the Republican and Democratic political parties. Violators face a prison term of five-to-ten years.
July 27, 2003
Happy Birthday to the Marquis Déjà Dû
Today happens to be the Marquis Déjà Dû's birthday. Earlier today, I started to compose him a simple email happy birthday message and decided to compile him a quick little list of interesting calendar trivia that had happened on his birthday. But as I looked through the usual historical trivia reference materials I regularly use to find interesting calendar trivia, I collapsed into peals of laughter as I could hardly believe what I saw: even the Marquis' birthday, like the cur himself, would end up being ever so "terminally french."
Let me explain about "terminally french" (intentional lowercase "f'). It's something I called the Marquis some years ago when I was asked to come up with a short description for him. It does not refer to nationality nor ancestry nor lineage, but more to a state a mind. The Marquis liked the description quite a bit and even once wrote about in his old Intimate Diary.
Certainly, he will like his birthday calendar trivia very much as well. Because -- well -- it is just so him.
Thus, with tiny fanfare and in honor of the Marquis' birthday, I do now present the best highlights for July 27th, the Day of the Terminally French:
Terminally French Notable Birthdays (besides the Marquis')
Alexandre Dumas fils, born July 27, 1824. His most famous work "Camille" is most definitely terminally french. Cough, cough, cough.
Charlotte Corday, born July 27, 1768. Famous French Revolutionary figure who acquired her fame for terminating Marat. And for allegedly blushing after her head was cut off. Now, that's terminally french.
(See Décolleté ~ The Terror & The Guillotine for more about Corday and Marat. It's the best gallery of beheadings ever, but of course I'm biased as the gallery is by my other Sepulchritude co-editor, Kallisti.)
Terminally French Deaths for July 27th.July 27, 1844
Guilbert de Pixérécourt dies. Pixérécourt was famous for writing dozens of melodramas for the théatres des boulevards, which if you think about it could kinda be seen as the dive clubs of his day. Okay, so I'm stretching this one a bit. But it's still terminally french.July 27-29, 1890
Vincent Van Gogh commited suicide (in France) by shooting himself in the chest on July 27th. He died from the infected wound two days later. Tardy and terminal, n'est-ce pas?July 27, 1946
Gertrude Stein died (in France) with Alice B. Toklas by her side. Their reputed final conversation was Stein apparently inquiring of Toklas about the meaning of life by saying "What is the answer?" When Toklas couldn't or wouldn't reply, Stein then asked "In that case, what was the question?"
____Ah, what indeed is the question? Je ne sais pas.
But this I do know:
Violà, this entry is for you, my dear Marquis! Je t'embrace and Merry Merry!
June 28, 2003
Rousseau's Birthday
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in 1712 on this day.
___
I made a quickie animated tribute (sorta) in honor of the occasion this morning and posted it online.
However, if you are unacquainted with my Polar Opposites farce animation, I must offer a little disclaimer that this "birthday card" isn't really to Rousseau as Rousseau but to satire penguin Rousseau character in the animation I'm doing.
And yet even more of a disclaimer -- as admittedly, Polar Opposites is pretty difficult to be well-acquainted with even if you've seen it. It's rather one of my more off-the-deep-end projects and not for those easily irritated at semi-pointless silly things.
Actually, should take this opportunity to mention that I'm currently working on the animation series and should have some more pieces of it online in the near future. (Puffins and penguins and philosophes! Oh, my!)
So, for the sake of a little amusement (or possibly bemusement), I present the Flash animation I did up this morning:
June 27, 2003
Disjointed Literary Bits
Stumbled upon this lovely web site called Literary Locales. It's a collection of more than a thousand picture links of places mentioned in famous literature or that are associated or notable in various authors' lives.
Speaking of authors, shall segue into a little calendar trivia now and mention that today is the birthday of Frank O'Hara (1926-1966).
George Sand (1804-1876) has her birthday coming up this Tuesday (July 1st). Wrote up a short piece on George Sand a couple of years ago that's tucked away on my defunct Dead Authors section.
The Dead Authors section was one of those weird ideas I got one day some years ago that sounded like it'd be an absorbing side project to tinker on but I realized that the idea I had would really be far too unwieldy and time-consuming to undertake if I wanted to try to do it right. So I decided to scrap it as a project to attempt, as I had (and still have) quite enough half-finished project experiments already, indeed. Left the pieces I initially wrote up, though, for what they're worth and just because they contained a few possibly noteworthy tidbits that might be of use to someone sometime.
One of those pieces was this page that goes a little bit into George Sand and has an interesting graphic of an old fan of hers that had been painted by Charpentier, illustrating Sand's "salon."
Always meant to do a little piece on Frank O'Hara for that Dead Authors section, too, but never got around to it.
And I can tell you exactly why. Because I just now did what I always did when I attempted to write my mini-profiles and pieces. Would go look up a little bit on an author to get a quote right, a factoid confirmed and instead end up on a mini-celebratory rereading of the author's work. Sometimes, for DAYS. Heh.
Yup. And this is what just happened penning this. I thought to go find a simple little quote from one of Frank O'Hara's poems to maybe end this entry with. Now, an hour and some minutes later, after collapsing happily into Frank O'Hara's poetry, rereading and rereading many of my favorites of his -- I have a lot of favorites with him --I emerge reluctantly to just finish off this entry so I can go reread him some more ....
So. No quick quote will suffice because I want to quote all of his lines. I have been a fervent admirer of O'Hara ever since a friend pressed a book of his poetry into my hands about twenty years ago and said "Read this. He's great." And I did. And he was.
So, I guess I'll just close out this somewhat disjointed entry by doing like that old friend did. Please allow me to press into the (virtual) hands of those unfamiliar with this poet a link or two and say: "Go read him. He's great."
____
A Frank O'Hara site (where you can find some links to some of his poems online; same one I recently mentioned, incidentally, when I quoted an O'Hara poem.)
Frank O'Hara books from Amazon
Also filed under: calendar trivia ; george sand
May 13, 2003
B Movies
Oh, here's a goody: the Lifetime Movie Title Generator. (link via Daze Reader)
When I first got cable hooked up some years back, I assumed from the listings, the Lifetime channel was the B Movie channel, and I was amused to see an entire channel devoted to bad movie-of-the-week rerurns. Not too long after that, I was a tad peeved to find out the channel billed itself (and apparently proudly to boot) as the entertainment for women channel.
Oh, c'mon. Puh-leeeze.
I think watching Tiffany Amber Thiessen wander around stupidly with amnesia or Cheryl Ladd search for her kidnapped kids through bad plots certainly must transcend gender. I really think it terribly unfair that women get the blame both for original sin AND the Lifetime Channel.
It's simply too much to bear.
Sigh.
But I do like B movies. I admit it. I especially like classic old B movies, which somehow can seem a bit redeemed by the passage of time. Bad film noir movies and 60s romps.
I just rewatched a classic 60s romp a couple days ago: What's New Pussycat? This movie is actually an early Woody Allen film (not to be confused with his other early offering, What's Up, Tiger Lily?) Allen didn't direct this one, but he did write the screenplay. It was supposed to be a semi-biographical farce about "You're So Vain" Warren Beatty, but Allen's screenplay played up the other bizarre characters more than the character based on Beatty, so Beatty declined to do the film. So, instead, they got Peter O'Toole to star in it. Co-stars include Peter Sellers (who seems to sport a sort of Lord Fauntleroy outfit while being chased by his Valkyrie-costumed wife throughout parts of the film), Paula Prentiss, and Woody Allen (his acting debut, apparently). Oh, yeah, then there's the bit where Ursula Andress gratutiously falls from the sky.
All to Burt Bacharach's title song to the movie. Whoa-whoa-whoa-uh. Love that damn song. Bacharach's birthday, was told coincidentally, just happened to be yesterday, May 12th. Happy Birthday, Pussycat.
I double dog dare Lifetime to run that movie sometime. Oh, but it's not a women-in-peril/women-empowered-by-peril flick. But I think given how their programming rationalizations seem to go, they could actually justify it by noting how many women Peter O'Toole imperils by calling them Pussycat.
You and your pussycat nose.
March 12, 2003
Burning From the Inside
Ah, yes, it'd be timely now to warn of the approaching Ides of March (the 15th), which just happens to mark a famous day in history for extispicy.
An Etruscan haruspex named Spurinna came up with the phrase "Beware the Ides of March," the famous warning given to Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. that said the 15th of March would be very unlucky for him and he should not leave his home. These soothsayers, Caesar's official priests, had actually divined this omen by using extispicy as the method of augury. Two oxen had been sacrificed by the priests for guidance, but when they put the sacrificed animals into the ritual fire, the oxen were consumed by the fire completely and much too quickly than was normal. This abnormality the priests saw as a decidedly bad omen.
Did Caesar listen to his priests? Nope. He ventured out to the Senate's steps, where he was subsequently skewered himself -- almost perhaps to the point where his entrails could have borrowed for a little divination had anyone dared presume upon him right then. (Human entrail reading happens to be called anthropomancy. Hmm. How about reading a Caesar's entrails? Well, that was one divinatory method that they didn't apparently attempt .... at least that we know of.)
The methods and types of divination in Caesar's day were numerous.* Entrail-reading could take many forms and had many "subspecialities." For example, hieromancy or hieroscopy refers to the general practice of divination via sacrificing animals while the actual examination of the liver and entrails of the animal is known as haruspicy. Any abnormalities in the viscera observed were considered especially significant and interpreted as signs. And examination of just the liver itself was yet another divinatory method called hepatoscopy.
Extispicy was a fairly involved hieromantic ritual with several different parts to it. Extispicy rituals started with the actual sacrifice and evisceration of the animal, followed by the entrail examination, and after that the entrails and the rest of the animal's carcass would be put onto a ritual fire. (burnt offerings.) The extispieces would carefully examine the entrails at each point throughout the entire process for certain signs and omens. When the animal and its entrails were in the fire, any signs and omens observed as they burned would fall under the term pyromancy or maybe even more precisely, causimomancy -- the latter being the practice of watching how an object in the fire reacts. (It was considered a good omen when something typically combustible did not ignite -- thus, probably why the opposite effect of the two oxen burning to a crisp so alarmed Caesar's priests that long ago day.)
If the priests had wanted to look at and interpret the cracks in the scapulas of the animals' bones as they burned -- that would be called scapulomancy. And, finally, after the fire has burnt out, they could always have indulged in a little tephromancy -- divination by looking at ashes from burned sacrifices.
Yup. They had about as many different ways of slicing up the viscera, peering into it, and barbecuing it as we in the modern day have specialty cable channels.
So, take that as your omen this day -- to beware the Ides of the March and watch out for TVs. Or at least examine your TV carefully for any abnormalities or ill omens if you deign to watch it this wicked day .... it might be trying to tell you or trying to sell you something portentous.
_____
*Note for real sticklers: I am not sure if all of the descriptions of the entrail-reading divination "sub-specialties" I cited are completely definitive or exact -- as the various sources I consulted tend to vary a bit on some of them. Nor is this necessarily a historically accurate description of these divination methods as they had been practiced in Rome during Julius Caesar's day -- as some of the sources I used to devise the explanations and check on the terms were referring to the rituals as they had been practiced by the Etruscans or Babylonians.
Also filed under: arts + culture ; calendar trivia
February 06, 2003
February 6th
Okay, yesterday may have been the birthday of Dada, but I swear today IS Dada. Look at the people who were born today and tell me why, why, why were all these people born on this date?
Christopher Marlowe
Aaron Burr
Babe Ruth
Ronald Reagan
John Lund
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Patrick Macnee
Sixten Jernberg
Rip Torn
Francois Truffaut
Mamie Van Doren
Mike Farrell
Tom Brokaw
Fabian
Bob Marley
Natalie Cole
Axl Rose
Robert Townsend
Kathy Najimy
Barry Miller
Rick Astley
And if that wasn't enough to make my hair stand up on end, Laszlo's birthday happens to be today. I gave him the list of people whose Aquarian birthday he shares and can see how he fits on this list for certain. If only because he's as weird a juxtaposition as any o' them.
And I tell you, it's an odd thing to live with a juxtaposition.
Happy Birthday, Laszlo!
February 05, 2003
Happy Hobbyhorse Day
Notable birthdays today:
- Mme de Sevigne
J.-K. Huysmans
William S. Burroughs
and .... as Cabaret Voltaire opened on February 5, 1916 in Switzerland, today is also considered to be the birthday of Dada.
go fish merry!
January 19, 2003
Happy Poe Day
Also filed under: calendar trivia ; site updates
December 07, 2002
An Infamous, Infamous Day
A post on Dr. Weevil's blog notes that not only is today the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but it's also the anniversary of the day Cicero was murdered.
He quotes Livy's full gory description of it. Cicero's murder that is, not Pearl Harbor. Oh, I didn't really have to clarify that, now really, did I?
Come to think of it, though, an account of the attack on Pearl Harbor by Livy would be something, wouldn't it?
November 16, 2002
Today is the 50th anniversary
Today is the 50th anniversary of Irish Coffee's invention.
Saw this article this morning.
I knew about the drink having been invented at the Buena Vista in San Francisco -- used to work across the street from the Buena Vista years ago. But I had no idea before that there was on record an actual date of inspired mixology.
So, in tribute, I popped out to the corner store, bought a bottle of Irish whiskey, and made this little celebratory beverage "still life" pictured here:
A little Irish coffee and a little trivia is a pleasant way to start the morning (as long as I do not instead dwell on everything else that I noticed in the news this morning, that is).
Hmm. Three or four of these drinkies could probably aid me quite well in not dwelling. But as tempting as that sounds, can't indulge in that as I've got some other things to attend to today. Drat. And more drat.
As for any tendency towards dwelling, I could try to follow the advice of one of Oscar's lines:
"Sympathy with joy intensifies the sum of sympathy in the world, sympathy with pain does not really diminish the amount of pain."
But I'm not sure I could believe that wholeheartedly without really, really dwelling on it. Not to mention a whole lot more whiskey in my coffee ...
But what the hell. I'll take a stab at it this minute.
Joyous Irish Coffee Day. Cheers!
uh-huh.
March 19, 2002
Painful Calendar
Why am I not terribly surprised to hear that William Shatner and Andrew Lloyd Weber share the same birthday? (this Friday, the 22nd). But I feel a bit uneasy to note that next week (on the 26th) there's another Star Trek actor birthday, namely, Leonard Nimoy. He shares his birthday with Tennessee Williams. AND Diana Ross.
Even more discomfiting is the 30th: Vincent Van Gogh and Celine Dion.
(oh, Melusine!!!)
Damn it. This is rather a painful calendar to regard. It is not mine -- just something in my field of vision at this very listless moment.
Get thee back, foul tempus.
_________________
Going to New Orleans in early April for a week and a half.
Speaking of Tennessee Williams.
Was I?
Yes.
Am rereading "Suddenly, Last Summer."
I'm feeling decrepit already.
Maybe I should see if there's an "In Search Of ...." rerun on. Maybe it'll be the Vincent Van Gogh episode.
It's a lesser-banishing-cultural metaphor kinda day apparently. Either that, or it's going to rain.
