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The Milestone Mo-Tel today. Winners get one
free night. Losers get two. (That's the second
time we've used that joke today.) |
If the whole world loves a winner, we have a weekend full of love ahead of us. Let's get started!
The most obvious winners will be declared Thursday when either Clint Robertson or Brandy Kuentzel wins the right to become Donald Trump's latest Apprentice for one year. (We hope that the loser isn't stuck for two years ...) One of the three remaining teams on "The Amazing Race" will win a million smackers on Sunday. (Perhaps eating that sheep's head may have been worth it.) It's almost guaranteed that none of these winners will make Barbara Walters' list of the year's "Most Fascinating People," (most fascinating to her, anyway ...) but we’ll find out for sure Thursday. (Our guess for #1 on her list? The cameraman who smears the Vaseline all over the lens that photographs her.) And on Friday, they'll be handing out the Nobel Prizes. The Nobels aren't like the Oscars; everyone already knows who won and the winners have actually accomplished something that matters, rather than playing loveable oddballs.
Saturday we'll see some sports winners. In the afternoon, someone (Cam Newton? Andrew Luck? LaMichael James?) will win the Heisman Trophy as the nation's finest college football player, and in the evening, either Georges St-Pierre or Josh Koscheck will take the welterweight championship at UFC 124 in Montreal. We assume the combatants will not resort to wheeling around the ring in roller skates, but while it would be appropriate (given that Thursday marks the anniversary of their 1884 patent), we'd have to warn them that such a thing would be just plain dangerous.)
Sunday also marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore, which ensured that George W. Bush became the nation's 43rd president. Whether that made the country a winner or a loser, we'll leave up to you. Falling into a similar category is Larry King's retirement from his CNN talk show on Friday. (As with President Bush, we won't say whether that's a plus or a minus.)
Weary travelers were winners 85 years ago Sunday, when the Milestone Mo-Tel, the world's first motel (short for "motor hotel"), opened in San Luis Obispo, California.
If we stretch the definition of "winner" to include those whose birthdays fall this weekend, then we're lousy with winners. For example, Thursday sees the birthdays of both Margaret Hamilton (1902) and Redd Foxx (1922). Hamilton is best known for her role as the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 classic, "The Wizard of Oz." Despite her indelible portrayal of one of the screen's great villains, Hamilton loved children and was a lifelong advocate for charities that benefitted kids and animals. Foxx was someone whose work, on the other hand, was decidedly not for kids. A veteran of the black vaudeville entertainment venues known as the "Chitlin' Circuit," Foxx recorded a series of "party records" in the 1950s that were both filthy and hilarious. He reached a mainstream fame in the '70s when he starred in "Sanford and Son," where his frequent feigned heart attacks were one of the show's running gags. In a supreme irony, he suffered an actual heart attack while rehearsing for another television show, but no one believed was it real until it was too late.
Sunday would have been the 95th birthday of Frank Sinatra. The greatest popular singer of the 20th century, Sinatra was also an Oscar-winning actor, starred in numerous TV specials that consisted of nothing but him singing with his guests, and was the biggest attraction in Las Vegas when that title actually meant something.
Monday, we celebrate the 192nd birthday of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln who was criticized in her time for her extravagant and spendthrift ways, and committed to a psychiatric hospital by her son Robert. While she was undoubtedly depressed, wouldn't any woman who’d lived through the death of three sons and the murder of her husband (while sitting next to him) feel the same? She was eventually declared competent and released, but her health was broken, and she died three years later.
If birthday celebrants are winners, so too are those is show business who meet success, like performers and lovers of country music, who can celebrate the 83rd anniversary of the first broadcast of the Grand Ole Opry on Friday. The Opry has been a staple of radio and television in the decades since it debuted, highlighting the best in country, from Hank Williams and Minnie Pearl to Clint Black and Carrie Underwood. Someone who's appeared at the Opry (but has yet to be inducted into its member ranks) is Taylor Swift. Perhaps the Opry has been waiting for her to turn 21 - in which case, it need wait no longer! The Grammy-winning singer reaches her majority on Monday.
Thursday will see the annual airing of the Rankin-Bass animated Christmas special, "The Year without a Santa Claus," which features memorable turns by Snow Miser and Heat Miser (who are also not members of the Opry).
Friday is also the 55th anniversary of the "Mighty Mouse Playhouse's" television premiere. In TV's early days, broadcasters were desperate for material to air, so old movies and cartoons were natural fodder, and Paul Terry's "Mighty Mouse" cartoons were some of the oddest programs to come to the screen. Mini operatic melodramas, they featured the eponymous rodent singing his was through battles with the villainous Oil Can Harry. Mighty made a brief comeback in the 80s in a brilliant TV series produced by Ralph Bakshi, but he's been in retirement since self-appointed censor Donald Wildmon mistook the mouse's flower sniffing for drug use. (No, really.) Wildmon isn't the only well-intentioned, if-misguided, protector we mention, though, since Thursday is the anniversary of the founding of the John Birch Society, which has been protecting Americans from the Communists lurking under their beds for 52 years.
Legitimate do-gooders have something to celebrate this weekend, too. Thursday is the U.N's annual International Anti-Corruption Day, dedicated to wiping out, well, corruption and promoting the rule of law, and Friday is both Human Rights Day and the beginning of Human Rights Week.
We end by noting a delightful juxtaposition on Thursday. December 9, 1792, saw the first cremation in America, when statesman Henry Laurens died at his plantation in Charleston, South Carolina, and per his will, his body was burned. On the same date in 1886, Clarence Birdseye, inventor of frozen food was born. We're reminded of the choice Curly Howard was given in a Three Stooges short: to be burned at the stake or to have his head cut off. He opted for the former, on the reasoning that a hot stake's better than a cold chop. Good night!
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Quite possibly the worst photo
ever taken of the Mona Lisa
(Taken by the author in 2009.) |
A new week presents new opportunities, new challenges, and new events to note. Let's begin, shall we?
Monday:
Last week we mentioned that Wednesday was anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci commission to paint the portrait that became known as the Mona Lisa. Well, today is the anniversary of the museum that is the painting's home. In 1793, the French government opened the Louvre to the public as a museum. Built as a fortress in the 12th century and gradually converted into a palace, following the French Revolution, it eventually became the most-visited art museum in the world (approximately 8.5 million visitors a year), with a collection of nearly 400,000 items - ranging from ancient Egyptian antiquities to 19th-century masterpieces– of which only 35,000 are on display at any one time.
Our birthday of note today is that of Edmond Halley, born in 1656. Halley (pronounced "Holly," not "Hal-ee," or "Hailey") was the English astronomer who realized that not only were the various celestial objects that had visited the earth since 466 BCE actually only one comet, but also that the comet was in such an orbit that it would return like clockwork every 76 years. In 1705, Halley predicted that the comet would return in 1758 – which it did. Unfortunately, Halley never actually saw his prediction confirmed, as he died in 1742.
Speaking of deaths, we note the 1965 passing of newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen. Kilgallen was nationally known for her "Voice of Broadway" column in New York's "Journal-American" as well as her weekly appearances on the "What's My Line?" game show. Always political, she became obsessed with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, doing extensive interviews and investigations, and coming to the conclusion that there had been a massive cover-up of the murder. She claimed to have evidence that would blow the lid off the case, but was found dead in her apartment under very mysterious circumstances. Apparently healthy only hours before, she was found sitting in bed in a bedroom she never used, fully made-up and dressed, with a book she had finished weeks earlier by her side, and her reading glasses nowhere nearby. Her husband claimed she had come home at midnight, but eyewitnesses had seen her out on the town as late as 2 a.m. All her research on the assassination had mysteriously vanished. The official verdict said that her death was due to either a heart attack or a drug overdose, but we have our suspicions.
In happier news, Conan O'Brien will make his TBS debut tonight, with his new talk show, the eponymously-titled "Conan." We should probably make the nearly-obligatory joke about the barbarian of the same name, but haven't those been done to death?
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I'll trade you two railroads
and the waterworks for
Ventor Ave. and Oriental
(Photo by Andrea Allen)
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Friday:
We note the death of three show business giants today. First is George M. Cohan, who died in 1942. Cohan was the first Broadway star of the modern age, a quadruple-threat who acted, wrote, composed, and produced scores of plays and musicals. Unlike the energetically over-the-top Oscar-winning portrayal of him by James Cagney in "Yankee Doodle Dandy," Cohan's actual on-stage style was simple, warm, and intimate, contrasting sharply with the bombast of most other performers of the time.
In 1956, pianist Art Tatum died at the age of 47. Despite his near-blindness, Tatum was certainly the greatest jazz pianist who ever lived, if not the greatest musician, period. His dazzling runs and breathtaking virtuosity have never been equaled. Vladimir Horowitz, no mean piano player himself, was in awe upon hearing Tatum's unrivaled technique and improvisational skills, saying that if Tatum ever took up classical music, he'd quit the next day.
This day in 1960 saw the passing of Mack Sennett. In the 1910s and '20s, Sennett's film comedies were unsurpassed. He had a flawless eye for talent, discovering (among others) Harold Lloyd, Gloria Swanson, Roscoe Arbuckle, Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand, Ben Turpin, and Harry Langdon. Unfortunately, Sennett's vision did not include business acumen, and his career began a slow decline with the coming of sound in the late 1920s. He mostly retired in the mid-'30s, but spent the final quarter-century of his life making occasional cameos in other people's comedies and announcing projects that never quite got off the ground. His Keystone comedies remain the gold standard for early silent comedy.
Sennett retired in 1935, but we don't know if he ever played Monopoly, the board game that was introduced by Parker Brothers on this day in that year.
All this talk of movies has made us wonder just what’s opening today, and it’s actually a fair bunch of films (none of which are summer blockbusters, indicating it's probably the start of awards season). For example, there’s "Fair Game," starring Naomi Watts as exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame and Sean Penn as her husband Joseph Wilson; "For Colored Girls," directed by the ubiquitous Tyler Perry, and starring Janet Jackson; "Megamind," an animated superhero comedy starring the voices of Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, and Tina Fey; "127 Hours," with James Franco as hiker Aron Ralston, who was forced to amputate his own arm when it became trapped under a boulder; and "Client 9," a documentary about former New York governor Eliot Spitzer.
If motion pictures don't appeal to you, you might travel to England, to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night, which commemorates the 16th century plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament by burning scarecrow effigies of the "Gunpowder Plot's" alleged ringleader.
Saturday and Sunday:
Saturdays in the fall are college football day, and this is the anniversary of the day in 1869 when Princeton University (then known as the College of New Jersey) traveled to Rutgers College to play the first intercollegiate football game. (Rutgers won, 6-4.)
What more appropriate way to celebrate that anniversary than by watching a modern college football game? Perhaps you could make it better by watching that game in Forest Grove, Oregon (fifteen miles west of Portland) and indulging in the Verboort Sausage and Kraut Dinner. And then throw in some delicious nachos as a part of National Nachos Day. With all the resulting wind you'll be producing, you could pick up your saxophone and blow a tune; after all it is the 196th birthday of Antoine-Joseph (Adolphe) Sax, the inventor of both the saxophone and saxotromba, and hence, Saxophone Day.
Two more birthdays of note today. Thomas Ince (1882), who in a brief 14-year career, wrote, directed, produced, or acted in nearly 200 movies, and provided the fodder for one of Hollywood's first big scandals when he met his death on board the yacht of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. While the official story was that Ince died of heart trouble (at the age of 42), rumors have persisted that Hearst shot and killed Ince over the latter’s undue interest in Hearst’s mistress, Marion Davies. (This incident supposedly led to the long career of gossip columnist Louella Parsons, who was a witness to the alleged crime and given a lifetime contract to shut her up.)
In 1892, Harold Ross was born in Aspen, Colorado. After working in his teen years on various newspapers and serving as an editor on the Army’s paper "Stars and Stripes" during World War I, he settled in New York, founding and editing "The New Yorker" in 1925. For the last 85 years, it's been the gold standard of American magazines, hailed for its in-depth reportage, fiction, and cartoons.
Had Ross been near a television (still a relatively new invention) on his 55th birthday in 1947, he could have watched the inaugural broadcast of "Meet the Press," which began its reign as the longest-running television show in the world that day. After 63 years, the show can still make news, unlike Sunday's big event, the end of daylight saving time.
In spite of the fact that daylight saving ends every year, for reasons we'll never be able to figure, our evening commute home is always plagued with bumper-to-bumper traffic as people apparently forget how to drive in the dark. Since we expect traffic to be bad, we'd better take off now.
See you next time!
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"Curse you, King Tut!" |
Thursday:
We trade in coincidence again today. For example, it's the birthdays of two of the most beloved and trusted men in American history: Will Rogers (1879) and Walter Cronkite (1916). Rogers began his show business career as a vaudevillian, performing rope tricks that were soon combined with pithy comments on the day's events. He became so popular that he was signed by producer Florenz Ziegfeld to be one of the stars of his annual "Follies." A film career followed, as did a national newspaper column and radio programs, where his opinions were noted for the common-sense truths behind the quips. When he was killed in an Alaskan plane crash in 1935, the nation went into mourning. His hometown of Claremore, Oklahoma, still celebrates him at its annual "Will Rogers Days," which begin today and continue through Saturday.
Cronkite began working on newspapers in high school, and translated his print journalism skills onto radio in the mid 1930s. During World War II, he served as a correspondent for the United Press, often reporting from combat zones. In 1950, he joined the news staff at CBS, and in 1962, became the managing editor and anchorman for the "CBS Evening News," where his unbiased and in-depth reporting of the day’s events won him the title of the "Most Trusted Man in America."
But that's not our only birthday coincidence. On this day in 1946, both Robert Mapplethorpe and Laura Bush were born – and it's hard to imagine two people who could be less alike. Mapplethorpe was a photographer who tried to find art and beauty in the obscene. While his works were condemned for their frank sexual content, it was (and is) hard to deny the beauty of their composition and execution. Laura Bush is the former first lady, who despite the many polarizing opinions her husband's administration sparked, was generally respected for her championship of children's health, education, and literacy. It would be hard to imagine two people less likely to be in the same room blowing out candles on a birthday cake, though.
And tomorrow will mark the 47th birthdays of actors Andrea McArdle and Tatum O'Neal, two women who, despite their starts at child actors, took differing career paths. O'Neal began acting early, turning in an Oscar-winning performance in "Paper Moon" by the age of 10. It's been mostly downhill for her since, though, as she's lived through a busted marriage and various addictions. She still acts, but not at the level she once promised. McArdle also began at the top, when at the age of 14, she was pulled from the chorus to star in the original production of the Broadway musical "Annie" (losing the Tony Award to her co-star Dorothy Louden, who played Annie's nemesis, Miss Hannigan). In the years since, she's worked on- and off-Broadway, touring the country in numerous musicals and plays (and is even currently playing Miss Hannigan in Long Beach, California).
We’re not through, though. Thursday is King Tut Day, commemorating the 1922 discovery of the lost tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen by Egyptologist Howard Carter. The tomb itself was supposed to be cursed, meaning that all who dared to enter it would die horrible deaths, but of the 58 people who were present at the tomb's opening, only eight had died by 1934 – and Carter himself lived until 1939. So much for that "coincidence."
Finally, it's National Candy Day, and if you overindulge, you're likely to meet your dentist – not so coincidentally.
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Alfred Nobel: "Boom goes
the dynamite!" |
Welcome to this the very special Nobel Prize-week edition of The Spark! Let others bask in the sham glow of the Oscars and Emmys. The Nobels are the Big Prizes -- as we'll see as we travel through the week. We're too excited to wait, so let's begin!
Monday:
hile almost nothing can top the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which will be awarded today, we'd like to think that National Taco Day comes close. Celebrate medicine by clogging your arteries, we say!
That's not all, though. This week is also World Space Week, commemorating not only the 1957 launch of the Soviet Union's Sputnik I, (the world's first artificial satellite), but also landmarks like SpaceShipOne, which, in 2004, became the first private craft to fly into space, winning the Ansari X Prize.
And don't forget World Animal Day, a day to celebrate all our furry, feathered, and finned friends. (Many of whom them may be uninvited guests in the athletes' village at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India.
Athletes and animals vying for the same living space seems a scenario tailor-made for Buster Keaton, whose 115th birthday we note. Keaton was the greatest of the clowns who populated silent film in the 1910s and 1920s; his physical feats and creativity were seldom equaled. And although his personal life hit the skids in the early '30s, he never stopped working, and he lived long enough to see his films rediscovered in the 1960s, and his genius acknowledged.
Today is also the birthday of writer Damon Runyon (1880). Runyon started out as a street-wise sportswriter, reporter, and columnist in 1920s New York, and he came to know a vast number of characters from all strata of society, from gamblers and con men to socialites and evangelists. He portrayed them in a language all his own, in a series of short stories that paint the Big Apple as a giant amusement park. Those stories were adapted into the musical "Guys and Dolls," which opened in 1950 and became an instant classic.
For all the characters Runyon described, few had the colorful grotesqueness of the cast of "Dick Tracy," the venerable comic strip that made its debut in the Detroit Mirror this day in 1931. Created by writer and artist Chester Gould, Detective Tracy fought such oddities as The Mole, Pruneface, "Itchy" Oliver, and Flattop Jones (not to mention Flattop Jr.). Gould died in 1985, but the strip continues to this day with its unique mix of grotesque villains who meet gruesome deaths. Fun for the whole family!
Not as bizarre -- but with as colorful a cast of characters -- was the Orient Express, the luxury train that ran from Paris to Istanbul starting in 1883. In novels and films, the train's passengers are usually portrayed as committing espionage, blackmail, murder, or any number of other unsavory exploits. While the original train stopped running in 2009, a private company picked up both the route and the rail cars -- although nowadays the full route is offered only twice a year.
We were going to remark that, if any of those characters on the Orient Express gets too nefarious, the Supreme Court is back in session today and could take care of them. But of course, the Court has no jurisdiction in Europe, so the point is moot.
The Court does have jurisdiction in South Dakota, where, in 1927, the first carving began on Mount Rushmore. Over the decades, there have been calls for other presidents to join Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, but those petitioners are out of luck, since there's no more rock that can be sculpted.
Tuesday:
Today's Nobel category: physics. Who will follow in the footsteps of Einstein, Bohr, and the Curies?
Today's birthdays: Larry Fine (1902), the most valuable of the Three Stooges, who provided the necessary buffer between Moe and Curly, Shemp, Joe, and Curly Joe. Ray Kroc (also 1902), the milkshake-machine salesman who, became the head of McDonald's and terrorized untold millions of cows. In 1922, cartoonist Bil Keane was born. Keane created "The Family Circus." Even though the strip has long since been taken over by Jeff Keane (the red-haired, oval-headed one), it has spawned innumerable parodies and is both loved and loathed by millions.
Not realy "birthdays," but also making their debuts today were "Monty Python's Flying Circus" (which premiered on the BBC in 1969) and the first of the James Bond films, "Dr. No," which opened in 1962. (Let it be noted that Sean Connery was not the first Bond, though. Barry Nelson portrayed American secret agent "Jimmy Bond" in a 1954 television adaptation of "Casino Royale.")
And not exactly a "debut," but something to be noted is that October 5 is the most common birthday in the United States. That makes sense, since it would mean that most of those children were conceived on New Year's Eve. (We'll let you do the rest of the math ...)
All those children need education, so it's appropriate that Tuesday is also World Teachers Day.
Wednesday:
This time of year, it's hard to not think of baseball, especially with the Major League playoffs beginning today, so it's fortunate that there are two baseball-related events. In 1880, the Cincinnati Red Stockings were kicked out of the National League for selling beer. (Hard to imagine any franchise today going without beer sales.) And speaking of "going without," in 1945, restaurateur Billy Sianis and his pet billy goat were ejected from Wrigley Field during Game 4 of the World Series. Sianis took the occasion to curse the team, which went on to lose the Series -- to which the team has never since returned. (The Cubs, of course, won their last world championship in 1908.)
A winning team needs chemistry, which is perhaps why the Nobel Committee chose today to award the prize for that discipline. (We're hoping to win the Nobel for strained transitions.)
For those not so interested in baseball, but who are still looking for a pastime, we offer Balloons Around the World, dedicated to those artists who twist and sculpt inflated rubber bladders. If balloons don't tickle your fancy, you might head to Dallas, where the Fall Toy Preview opens, giving consumers and retailers a clue as to what will be the hot toys this holiday season. We have to wonder what will be this year's Cabbage Patch Kid, the red-hot can't-get-it doll that debuted 27 years ago tomorrow.
If toys and balloons aren't your speed, you might screen "The Jazz Singer," to commemorate its 1927 opening. The film wasn't the first talking picture by any means, but the combination of Al Jolson and its story proved a powerhouse that was the death-knell for silent movies. If musicals aren't your speed, how about a movie starring Bette Davis? Davis may well have been the greatest actress in the history of the movies, garnering 11 Academy Award nominations (winning two), whose career spanned the decades from 1931 until her death on this day in 1989.
Davis did a couple of Broadway musicals (which is unfortunate, given her overall lack of a voice), but neither of their scores made the "Great American Songbook," so you’'ll have to depend on Michael Feinstein, whose PBS series on the Songbook begins airing tonight.
Thursday:
Birthdays of the day:
1859: Thomas J. Wise. Wise was one of England's foremost bibliographic experts, who made a fortune selling rare books and first editions for outrageous prices. The books Wise sold were rare and first editions, but not in the way he alleged. The fact was that he forged most of them. (None of them, of course, would have been alleged to be by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, which will be announced today.)
Rssian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin turns 58 today. We assume he'll pose shirtless and perform feats of strength, as is his wont. We further assume he won't don a black t-shirt and try to make his biceps look huge, as does today's other birthday boy, Simon Cowell, born in 1959.
And please, if you would, take a moment on this, the ninth anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan, to reflect on all the lives lost and changed forever.
Friday:
The late Harvey Pekar would have turned 71 today. Pekar's comic series "American Splendor" gave new life to the independent comics movement, as he turned his mundane daily life into art.
Not so arty are the books of R.L. Stine, who was born in 1943. Stine and his innumerable ghost writers have turned out scores of young adult horror novels designed to scare kids and throw parents into throes of agony because their children aren't reading better books.
In movies, actress Sigourney Weaver turns 61 (and it's a damn fine-looking 61, we may add), and the biopic of Secretariat opens, just four days after the 21st anniversary of his death. Secretariat was probably the greatest racehorse of all time, whose athleticism and personality won him millions of fans -- and many of whose racing records still stand, decades after they were set.
One of the few awards Secretariat did not receive was the Nobel Peace Prize, which will be announced today.
Saturday:
Something for everyone today. It's the birthday of Lt. Col. Alfred Dreyfus (1859), the French Army officer who was falsely convicted of treason, and whose imprisonment on Devil's Island sparked international outrage and exposed a vast strain of anti-Semitism running through France's government and society.
For the more sensationally-minded, it's the 120th birthday of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. "Sister Aimee" was a circus in herself, exhibiting equal measures of religious fervor and a genius for self-promotion -- to the point where she faked her own kidnapping in 1926. Over the decades, though, her fame faded, and she died of an accidental overdose of Seconal in 1944. (And, coincidentally, a television film was made about her fake kidnapping that starred Bette Davis as her mother.)
As loud and boisterous as McPherson was, Jacques Tati (1909) was silent. Tati was a French writer/actor/director who achieved worldwide fame with his comedies featuring himself as the befuddled Monsieur Hulot, a gentle and quiet man who was baffled by the modern world. In December, "The Illusionist," based on an unproduced screenplay of his, will open in the U.S. -- starring a animated version of Tati.
For the adventurous, Kona, Hawaii, will today feature the Ironman Triathlon World Championships, wherein competitors will take on a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike race, and a 26.2-mile run -- and then ask for more.
If that sounds too strenuous, you might want to take a trip to Manhattan, where the ice rink at Rockefeller Center will open. Seems a bit early to be taking part in winter sports, but we suppose anything is possible in New York.
Of course, even skating may seem a bit much for some, so we'll just remind them that it's Moldy Cheese Day, devoted to the tasting and enjoyment of smelly fromage -- the smellier and moldier, the better.
Lastly, we note with sadness that, had history run a different course, we'd be celebrating the 70th birthday of the late Beatle John Lennon and the 30 years of music we've been robbed of because of his untimely murder.
Sunday:
To end the week, we suggest you dig out your fancy duds to celebrate Tuxedo Day, which marks the anniversary of the tuxedo dinner jacket making its debut in New York City in 1886. The coat got its origins when the members of the exclusive Tuxedo Club in Tuxedo Park, NY (and you wondered how the coat got its name ...) began looking for a new style of jacket that was less formal than a cutaway but was still dressy.
If you’'re in a mood to travel, you might take your tux and head to London for the grand reopening of the Savoy Hotel. The Savoy originally opened in 1899 and was the last word in luxury and opulence, featuring electric lights and elevators, and bathrooms with hot and cold running water inside most of the room. The hotel's been closed since 2007 while it's undergone a $350 million renovation, which promises to bring it into the 21stst century and beyond.
If London sounds a bit expensive, you might try traveling to Pyongyang to celebrate North Korea's Party Foundation. After all, it's the 65thth anniversary of the founding of Workers Party of Korea. If you run into Kim Jong Il, you might give him a lovely cake (since it's National Cake Decorating Day) -- though you might likelier be reminded that it's World Mental Health Day. But the Dear Leader isn't the only reminder of the varying degrees of mental well-being. For example, today would have been the 86thth birthday of film director Ed Wood. Wood is generally considered to be the worst director who ever lived, and his masterpiece, "Plan 9 from Outer Space," is thought to be one of the worst movies ever made. (We've seen worse, personally.) Wood was less mentally unstable than he was incompetent, so who else might we think of when speaking of poor mental health?
How about the good citizens of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, who bought and dismantled London Bridge, moved it to their desert town, and reopened it on this day in 1971? Or the well-meaning folks who'll be traveling to Ashton, England, for the World Conker Championships? What is conkers?, you may ask. It's a game where two players take horse-chestnut seeds, run stringa through them, and then swing them at an opponent's conker. The first player to break the other's seed wins. We don't get it, but they love it.
Our final note for the week is to call attention to the day's date: 10/10/10.
10+10+10=30, and "-30-” is the old newspaperman's code for the end of a story, which we'll take as our cue.
See you next time!
-30-
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