|
|
|
Posts Archived Under Civil War
This may not be a pipe, but it
is the illustration for a Spark |
Two events earlier this week couldn't help but remind us of their historical precedents. First, the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton made us remember that Friday is the 63rd wedding anniversary of his grandparents, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. If you were thinking of sending Liz and Phil a present, it's probably not necessary; they're managing to squeeze by, even in this tight economy.
Tuesday's groundbreaking for the George W. Bush Presidential Center at Southern Methodist University in Dallas made us think of November 19, 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the cornerstone for the FDR Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York, on the grounds of the Roosevelt family estate. It was America's first official presidential library. Until then, executive papers were either distributed to the President's families, given to the National Archives, or tossed away. The result was a mess that plagued historians. For example, there are numerous drafts and handwritten copies of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, all of which differ slightly, so that today it's unclear exactly what he said on November 19, 1863, when he delivered the speech to mixed reviews. Democratic newspapers panned it as "silly, flat, and dishwatery," and Republican papers called it "tasteful and elegant." You pays yer money and you takes yer choice, we guess. (Good thing there isn't that kind of partisanship today ...)
Speaking of "paying yer money," we're guessing that more than a few people will be doing just that at the movies this weekend, as the first part of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" opens. We don't know if folks will be lining up for that, or to see the trailer for next summer's Green Lantern" movie, but we're willing to bet that there'll be some who are more interested in space opera than in teenage wizards.
"Green Lantern" is a movie about an interstellar police force. We don't know if their home planet of Oa (or even Mogo, the Green Lantern who is a sentient planet) would be visible using the Hubble Space Telescope, but we do know that Saturday would have been the 121st birthday of Edwin Hubble, the astronomer for whom the telescope is named, and is the 26th anniversary of the founding of the SETI Institute, which searches for extraterrestrial life.
Whether there's anyone else out there is a mystery that SETI is dedicated to solving, but that riddle pales in comparison to the one that gripped America over the summer and fall of 1980, when the country wondered who shot J.R. Ewing. Sunday is the 30th anniversary of the episode of "Dallas" that solved that mystery. It was estimated that 83 million people were tuned in that night, which is still the third-largest TV audience ever. Appropriately, Sunday is also World Television Day, dedicated to the boob tube and all its splendors. (It's also World Hello Day, during which you're supposed to say "Hello" to ten people. But if you're watching television, you probably won't get the chance. Of course, if you've spent Saturday night watching UFC 123 from Auburn Hills, Michigan, and Sunday afternoon watching the NASCAR Ford 400 from the Miami Homestead Speedway, you may be ready to get off the couch and socialize.
Crazed from too much TV? You might try sending birthday greetings to Belgian artist René Magritte. He was born on November 21, 1889, and died in 1967, but his art is so surreal - with trains rushing from fireplaces and apples replacing human heads - that he might appreciate the good wishes anyway. If you're still desperate to make a human connection, you can wish a happy 45th to Bjork, the surrealist Icelandic singer and swan fancier.
We close with week with two holidays: Sunday is Universal Children's Day, created by the United Nations in 1954 to encourage work that benefits and promotes the welfare of the children of the world, and Friday is World Toilet Day, which sounds funny, but promotes clean and sanitary conditions for everyone, child and adult. We are reminded on this day that a straight flush beats a full house.
Suggested Sites...
|
|
Directory categories:
Royalty, U.S. Presidents, Harry Potter Movies, Green Lantern Comics, Astronomers |
|
Archived under: 1950s, 1980s, 19th Century, Abraham Lincoln, Aliens, American History, Anniversaries, Artists, Astronomy, Buildings, Celebrations, Children, Childrens Health, Civil War, England, Events, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Bush, Harry Potter, Health, Libraries, Movie Trailers, Movies, Music, Musicians, Mysteries, Newspapers, Presidents, Royalty, Science, Scientists, Singers, Space, Speeches, Superheroes, TV, Texas, Toilets, Tourist Attractions, U.K. History, United Kingdom, United Nations, United States, Villains, War, Weddings |
| Post a comment (0) | Email this posting |
Well, that's what it all comes
down to, doesn't it? |
Welcome once more to The Spark, your source for a deep dig into the week's events. Let's begin, shall we?
Monday:
The week begins with the anniversaries of the deaths of a couple of prominent Southerners. It's hard to determine which was the more notable, though. Obviously, Elvis Presley dying in 1977 got more ink (and the good people at FTD had more orders for flowers to be delivered to Graceland than for any other event or place), and his effect on pop culture is incalculable, but in 1888, John Pemberton died in Atlanta, three years after inventing Coca-Cola. Memphians will note the anniversary with Elvis Week, but we don’t think Atlantans will be celebrating Pemberton Week, so Mr. Presley may get the nod.
But Elvis and Dr. Pemberton aren’t the only prominent folks who died on this date. In 1956, Bela Lugosi died. Lugosi was so identified with Count Dracula that he resented the way the role had typecast him, so it was odd that he chose to be buried in the Dracula cape he had worn on stage and screen. In 1948, baseball legend Babe Ruth died. Had he lived another six years, he might have made the cover of "Sports Illustrated," the first issue of which hit the newsstands in 1954.
In birthdays today, we note two creators and an icon (of sorts). In 1884, Hugo Gernsback was born. Gernsback is all but unknown today, but in the 1920s, he nurtured not only the genre of science fiction (which he called "scientifiction"), but also created what has come to be known as fandom by printing names and addresses of readers in his science fiction magazines. (Coincidentally, the World Science Fiction Convention opens tomorrow in Reno, NV.) 1892, Otto Messmer was born. Messmer was an artist and animator who may or may not have created Felix the Cat, who, until the advent of Mickey Mouse in the late 1920s, was the biggest animated star in movies. The icon is Fess Parker, who was born in 1924. In the 1950s, he played frontiersman and Congressman Davy Crockett (whose own birth in 1786 we note tomorrow) on television, causing a mania for coonskin caps. In the 60s, he played frontiersman and legislator Daniel Boone.
In the oddity file, we see that Chang and Eng Bunker, the original "Siamese Twins," arrived in Boston in 1829. Though they were joined at the sternum, the Bunkers married sisters and fathered 21 children between them. We needn't dwell on the details. And it's the 90th birthday of bohemian writer Charles Bukowski, who managed to turn a life of dissipation and alcohol into poetry.
Tuesday:
Last week, we mentioned that "The Wizard of Oz" had had its world premiere in Oconomowoc, WI. Well, on August 17, 1939, it finally reached New York, opening at the Capitol Theatre on Broadway. Speaking of things reaching the Big Apple, it was on this day in 1790, that the U.S. capital moved from New York to Philadelphia (the government would open shop in Washington DC in 1800.)
Speaking of things leaving New York, Robert Fulton's steamboat, The Clermont, left New York for Albany in 1807. (That route later became notorious in the early 20th century, as philandering husbands and wives used it to follow through on trysts. "Taking the night boat to Albany" became shorthand for having an affair.)
And speaking of illicit affairs, how could we forget that, on this day in 1893, Mae West was born? West was an actor an playwright who traded in the power of sex to scandalize, so much so that a number of her plays were shut down for their scandalous plots and she herself was arrested more than once.
Some musical events of note today. In 1954, Billy Murray died. Murray is all but unknown today, but he was a staggeringly popular recording artist in the first quarter of the 20th century, becoming the first person to sell a million records. In 1959, Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue" was released. It marked a new type of cool jazz that hadn't been widely heard before, and Miles struck gold, with the album being generally considered to the best-selling jazz album of all time. Beach Boys frontman Brian Wilson will release an album of his arrangements of songs by George Gershwin today. It’s also the 27th anniversary of the death of George’s brother Ira, though we don't know if the though of Wilson messing with the Gershwin songbook is what killed him.
Wednesday:
Today is a day for all types of women's events. In 1587, Virginia Dare became the first child of European parents to be born on American soil. She was born in the Roanoake colony in North Carolina, an outpost from which every resident mysteriously vanished soon after. In 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women the right to vote. And today, the Miami Dolphins cheerleaders will release a swimsuit calendar. Whether this is a step forward or backward, we leave to you, dear reader.
In three completely unrelated events, we note than, in 1227, Genghis Khan, who created the largest empire the world has ever known, died; that today is International Homeless Animals Day; and that an expedition to create the first 3D map of the wreckage site of RMS Titanic will begin.
Thursday:
Not a good day for witches or those suspected of being witches. In 1612, three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury, England, were put on trial, for allegedly practicing witchcraft, and eighty years later, in 1692 in Salem, MA, one woman and four men ere executed after being convicted of witchcraft.
Following the death of Elvis earlier in the week, the death of Groucho Marx in 1977 didn't cause much of a ripple, but to fans of classic comedy, it was a bigger event.
Thanks to the efforts of birthday boy Philo T. Farnsworth (1906), who invented the television, news travels faster than ever -- or certainly faster than it did in 1848, when the news of the California Gold Rush finally reached the New York Herald, a mere seven months after gold had been discovered. Had airplanes been around in those days (and today is National Aviation Day, to commemorate the 1871 birth of Orville Wright), the east coast might have gotten the word sooner, though.
Friday:
Speaking of getting the word late, it was on this day in 1866 that President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over, a mere 16 months after the surrender at Appomattox.
(We might also mention in this context that in 1858, Charles Darwin first published his theory of evolution in "The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London," alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory, though there are still some folks who either haven’t gotten that news, or who choose to ignore it.)
In musical anniversaries, in 1882 Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" debuted in Moscow and in 1885, Gilbert and Sullivan’s "The Mikado," opened in New York.
Some sports stuff today, too. It's the 90th birthday of the National Football League, founded in Canton, OH, as well as the being the openings of the World Series of both mahjong and Little League baseball. A less happy reminder of football also occurs today, when "The Tillman Story" opens; it's a documentary investigating the life and the cover-up of the death of NFL star and Army Ranger Pat Tillman.
On a (much) lighter note, a "Twilight" convention opens today in Parsippany, NJ. Why Parsippany, we have no idea.
Saturday:
In 1878, the American Bar Association was founded. We'd make a joke here, but we don't want to get sued.
Speaking of theft, it was on this day in 1911 that the Mona Lisa was stolen by an employee of the Louvre Museum (There must be something about art thefts this weekend. Sunday is the sixth anniversary of the thefts of two paintings by Edvard Munch from the Munch Museum in Oslo.)
And speaking of exaggeration, it's Wilt Chamberlain’s birthday. Wilt was born in 1936, and while he was one of the most prolific scorers in NBA history, he also claimed to be one of the most prolific scorers off the court, boasting in his autobiography that he had slept with over 20,000 women (nearly as many as his 31,419 career points).
In other birthdays today, piano legend Count Basie, who lead the swingingest big band ever, was born in 1904; Oscar-winning animation director Friz Freleng was born in 1906; Christopher Robin Milne, who inspired (and resented) the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, was born in 1920; and in 1938, country singer Kenny Rogers was born. We're not quite sure when his face was born, however.
And on this day in 1959, Hawaii became a state -- just in time to either be or not be the birthplace of Barack Obama.
Sunday:
In 1485, King Richard III was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field. Shakespeare's play of 100 or so years later painted him as an utter villain, but contemporary historians have rehabilitated him somewhat. Guess history will also be written by the victors.
Speaking of writers, we close the week by noting that, in 1893, Dorothy Parker was born. Mrs. Parker was generally considered to be the wittiest woman in America in the 1920s and '30s, with a pen dipped in poison and a tongue to match. In her later years, she tried to renounce her fame and wit, but any woman who could say, "If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised" had something going on.
Earlier, we mentioned how Hugo Gernsback more or less created science fiction fandom, and one of those early fans celebrates his 90th birthday today: Ray Bradbury. Bradbury wrote more than just science fiction, but that's what he's best known for. "If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder," he once said. Over nearly a century, that"s a heck of a lot of wonder.
See you next time!
Suggested Sites...
|
|
Directory categories:
Inventors, Vampires, Big Bands, Science Fiction Authors, Music History |
|
Archived under: 17th Century, 18th Century, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 19th Century, Actors, American History, Ancient History, Animal Rights, Animation, Anniversaries, Art Museums, Artists, Asia, Athletes, Authors, Babe Ruth, Baseball Players, Basketball, Beach Boys, Biographies, Birthdays, Calendars, Cartoons, Celebrations, Celebrities, Charles Darwin, Cheerleaders, China, Civil War, Classical Music, Coca Cola, Coincidence, Comedians, Composers, Conjoined Twins, Country Music, Creationism, Crime, Dead Celebrities, Death, Directors, Dorothy Parker, Elvis Presley, England, Entertainment, Games, Government, Graceland, History, Humor, Invention, Inventors, Jazz, Law, Literature, Louvre, Media, Mickey Mouse, Movie History, Movie Theatres, Movies, Museums, Music, Music History, Musicians, NBA, NFL, New York, News, Newspapers, Plastic Surgery, Poetry, Presidents, Regional, Royalty, Science, Science Fiction, Scientists, Sex and Sexuality, Shipwrecks, Singers, Society and Culture, Sports, TV, Technology, Theatres, U.K. History, Underwater, United Kingdom, United States, Vintage, War, Weird Stuff, William Shakespeare, Winnie the Pooh, Witches, Women, Writers, Writing |
| Post a comment (0) | Email this posting |
The cover to the first edition
of "Huckleberry Finn" |
When no less an author than William Faulkner cites you as "the father of American literature," you know you've done something right. And, to be sure, Mark Twain did a lot of things right. He was an inventor, a fearless traveler, a celebrated lecturer, one of America's foremost humorists, and the teller of some of the most beloved tales ever told. His was a life peppered with tragedy, bouts of depression, and financial turmoil, but it was also full of adventure, strange and unexplainable occurrences, and great friendships, all of which found their way into his unforgettable stories.
In November of 1835, two weeks after Halley's Comet made its closest approach to the Earth, Samuel Langhorne Clemens came into the world. He spent the better part of his childhood in Hannibal, Missouri, a port town situated on the Mississippi River, which would inspire much of his later literary work. His work as a typesetter and printer took him to New York City, but he was soon drawn back to the Mississippi where he enjoyed a two-year stint as a steamboat captain, until the Civil War broke out in 1861. Clemens headed west, working as a miner and local journalist, until he gained national acclaim for his story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," which the New York Saturday Press published in 1865 under the pen name "Mark Twain." Doors began to open for Clemens: He traveled extensively and was published frequently.
Twain's body of work is vast and varied. He wrote travelogues, humorous verse, literary reviews, and even an autobiography, but it's his novels and short stories that have earned him his place among the great writers of history. Memorable works like "The Prince and the Pauper" and "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" are shining examples of Twain's humor and unique grasp of narrative. But it's his "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (conceived as a sequel to his popular novel "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer") that is considered his masterwork. Published in the U.S. on this day in 1885, Huck Finn stirred up controversy from the start. Some hailed it as a brilliantly scathing commentary on racism and values of the antebellum South, while others deemed it coarse, crude, and insufferably inelegant. Several libraries banned the book from the outset, and it's still one of the most challenged books taught in the American school system.
With "Huck Finn," Twain explores issues of racism and hypocrisy, and notions of morality and social responsibility in America -- not only in the pre-Civil War days in which the story is set, but also, by implication, in the supposedly desegregated and unified post-Civil War America that he witnessed while writing the novel -- issues that this country is still fighting with today. We are all Huck, struggling to reconcile what we've been taught with what our own conscience and experience tell us, just as we are all Jim, seeking shelter from that which oppresses us and yearning for the right to live free.
In 1909, Twain was famously quoted as saying, "I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'" Add that prediction to the long list of things he got right: Mark Twain passed away from a heart attack on April 21, 1910, a day after the comet made its closest approach to Earth. He left behind a wealth of fantastic stories, a great many friends and admirers, and an iconic symbol of the brash and hopeful spirit that embodies the American experience: Huckleberry Finn.
Suggested Sites...
|
|
Directory categories:
Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Literature, Slavery in the U.S., Banned Books |
|
Archived under: 18th Century, Authors, Biographies, Books, Civil War, Halley's Comet, Huckleberry Finn, Journalists, Literature, Mark Twain, Writing |
| Post a comment (0) | Email this posting |
Controversial or not, Griffith's
artistry still rated a stamp |
The film industry of 1915 was far different from today's. Movies were short -- rarely more than ten minutes -- and turned out in a matter of days -- director D.W. Griffith made nearly 150 films in 1911 and 1912. Performers were rarely billed (producers were afraid that if actors became well-known, they'd ask for more money), and no one looked at film as an art; it was cheap entertainment as disposable at yesterday's newspaper.
Almost no one thought of film as an art -- except for Griffith. Seizing upon the popularity of Thomas Dixon's novel and play, "The Clansman," he determined to create the first film epic; a movie about the Civil War and Reconstruction that would ultimately clock in at more than three hours and change the way Hollywood and the world would think of, and make, movies. Griffith used "The Clansman" -- which he re-titled "The Birth of a Nation" -- to basically invent modern film grammar, using jump cuts, a moving camera, and, most importantly, the close-up to tell his story. In spite of the unprecedented production costs ($112,000 -- about $2.5 million today) and admission prices ($2 -- or about $45 in 2010), the film was a smash hit, grossing $10,000,000 (nearly $250 million in current dollars).
Unfortunately, "The Birth of a Nation" has a not-so-small problem: it's arguably the most racist film ever made by a major director -- not that any movie that glorifies the founding of the Ku Klux Klan could be expected to be anything else. Griffith may or may not have been a racist himself -- he grew up in Kentucky just after the Civil War, and his father was a colonel in the Confederate Army -- but he also used many of his films to decry current social conditions, including a 1911 film that painted the Klan as villains. Regardless, the imagery in "The Birth of a Nation," with its white actors made up in blackface committing every form of stereotypical debauchery, is today a red-hot potato. As recently as 2004, the Silent Movie Theatre in Hollywood had to cancel a planned screening of the film because of protests by many groups, including the NAACP.
In spite of the film's controversial content, its importance in the canon is undeniable. In 1998, the American Film Institute ranked it the #44 American film of all time (though it was dropped when AFI reconsidered the list in 2007). Regardless, it's still readily available for the home viewer, and, because of its innovation and importance, is still taught in film history classes.
Griffith, on the other hand, didn't fare as well. In spite of the blockbuster status of "Birth," he spent almost all of his profits financing his follow-up film, "Intolerance," which decried the very intolerance he'd been accused of. While the film was well-received by both the public and critics, it was too expensive to turn a profit. Griffith's reputation still had power, though, and he founded the United Artists company with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks (the biggest stars in the world). But despite some hits in the early '20s, by 1924, his box-office failures had mounted and he left United Artists.
He made a brief attempt at a comeback with two unsuccessful talkies, and was basically out of the business by 1931. He still looked for work, but his style, once the most innovative in the world, was thought to be old-fashioned. Even the Directors Guild of America, which had named its annual award for him in 1953, dropped his name in 1999. 95 years ago today, though, there was no one who had a greater vision for the possibilities of what film might be than D.W. Griffith.
Suggested Sites...
|
|
Directory categories:
D.W. Griffith, Birth of a Nation, Silent Movies, Movie History, Race and Racism |
|
Archived under: 1910s, 1920s, Anniversaries, Civil War, D.W. Griffith, Directors, Entertainment, Filmmaking, History, Movie History, Movies, Silent Movies, Society and Culture |
| Post a comment (1) | Email this posting |
|
Lincoln
Choose a Car from Millions of Listings - New, Used or Certified.
AutoTrader.com
|
Lincoln Clearance
Lincoln Dealers Cut Prices To Make Sales - Get Low Internet Specials.
Lincoln.DealersClearin...
|
|
