(Photo by Scott Liddell) (Editor's note: We originally ran this piece in 2006, but we felt its message about the holiday was as relevant now as it was then. Please enjoy it and thank you.) In anticipation of this year's commotion, we had planned to focus our Thanksgiving edition of The Spark on ways to beat holiday stress. But as I sat down to write, I couldn't stop thinking about what's missing this holiday. This will be my 14th Thanksgiving without my mother, who died of cancer when I was 14 years old. The loss caught up with me this year, and I joined a local grief group. Today, I'm thankful for the strong strangers I met there: a homeless woman mourning the loss of her son while trying to remain together with her husband in a transitional home; a woman who lost her stepfather only three weeks before is finally beginning to grieve for the little brother she'd lost nearly a decade ago; a man who shyly admitted that he sprays his wife's perfume in the bedroom every so often after recently losing her. Most of us will experience holidays of missing at some point in our lives. While I thank my group for sharing their stories and their strength, I have some colleagues to thank as well. One editor cherishes her Yahoo! Messenger conversations with her husband in Iraq. They turn on their web cams so they can see each other. And their daughter leaves palmprints on the monitor after touching the image of her dad's face. Another editor is afraid he can't carve the turkey like his dad used to. But as he shares his father's Thanksgiving traditions with his young daughters, he is sure they will learn all the great things about Grandpa... Through our memories and the stories we share, our loved ones can live on, during the holidays and beyond them. Thank you for reading. Happy Thanksgiving. Suggested Sites... How to Remember a Loved One at the Holidays - listen to their favorite music. Light a candle. Plant a tree, or establish a scholarship. How to Cope With Grief During the Holidays - ways to cope with loss of a loved one the holiday season.

Directory categories: Bereavement, Grief Groups, Thanksgiving Graces and Blessings, Thanksgiving, Holiday Stress

Archived under: Bereavement, Death, Health, Holidays, Mental Health, Thanksgiving

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"Here's looking at you, kid." On this weekend dedicated to two favorite American pastimes - shopping and food - we ask you to take a moment to think of Sylvan N. Goldman, as Saturday will mark the 26th anniversary of his death. Mr. Goldman was a major stockholder of the Piggly-Wiggly supermarket chain and invented the shopping cart. For various reasons, his customers didn't want to use the carts, so his solution was to hire fake shoppers to wheel them around the stores to show others how useful they could be. Obviously, it worked. The excitement of Thanksgiving has now passed, and while history tells us that Yahoo! will see search spikes today on both food poisoning and the location of your nearest pizza parlor, many of us will concentrate on the primary events of this season: shopping and not shopping. As consumers head to the disorienting wonderland that is the mall (and we note that Friday is the 145th anniversary of the publication of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"), both of these pastimes will make big headlines in the media. For those who are pro-shopping, today is "Black Friday," the day of the year that sees the highest number of sales transactions. Let it be noted, however, that the day the most money changes hands is the Saturday before Christmas (though with Christmas falling on a Saturday this year, it’s anyone’s guess what the biggest day that will actually be). Monday is, of course, "Cyber Monday," when workers will waste a good portion of the day shopping online, rather than doing actual work (like writing The Spark). On the other hand, Friday is also "Buy Nothing" Day, which reminds us all to not feed the corporate beast that drives this holiday frenzy and to concentrate on either the message of the season or home-made gifts. Consider a cake (since it's also National Cake Day), or even donuts to commemorate the 2002 passing of Verne H. Winchell, who founded the Winchell's Donuts chain in 1948, and was known as "The Donut King." Whatever you eat, be sure to brush afterwards - and celebrate Friday's National Flossing Day. Someone who’s probably doing all he can to ignore this weekend is Eldrick "Tiger" Woods, since Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of the car crash that sent his whole word spiraling. Perhaps he can use the occasion to get his aura read and see his future. Fortunately for him, Sunday is International Aura Awareness Day. Failing that, he may want to head to New York for the first preview of "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark." The musical, with a score by Bono and The Edge, has been plagued by budget problems (its estimated cost is $65 million, nearly four times the usual for a big Broadway show) and severe injuries to cast members. "Break a leg!" might not be the best thing to wish this particular cast, but their misfortunes so far might make Tiger feel better. A number of birthdays fall on this weekend. Saturday sees what would have been the 88th birthday of cartoonist and "Peanuts" creator Charles M. Schulz (who died in 2000 the night before his final strip ran), as well as the 67th "birthday" of the Slinky. The flexible toy was invented by engineer Richard James in 1943, and its initial lot of 400 units sold out in a mere 90 minutes. Despite its limited uses (just how many staircases can it walk down?), the Slinky has remained a perennial toyland favorite. Saturday would have been the 70th birthday of martial arts superstar Bruce Lee. It's also the 100th anniversary of New York's Pennsylvania Station. Penn Station was a grand and imposing structure that welcomed millions of visitors and immigrants to Manhattan in the days when train travel was king. In 1963, despite a vigorous campaign to save it, the station was torn down to make room for the fourth Madison Square Garden, a mistake many in the city have rued in the decades since. Monday sees the birthday of movie choreographer supreme Busby Berkeley (1895), and Sunday brings us a trifecta of masters of their craft: "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart turns 48; Randy Newman, the Academy Award-winning composer (and writer of the greatest song ever written about Los Angeles), turns 67 (he's as old as the Slinky!); and Paul Shaffer, David Letterman's longtime bandleader, who's personally played with pretty much every major rock performer of the century, and whose group is the house band for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony turns 61. For us, though, the most significant anniversary of the weekend is the November 26, 1942 opening of "Casablanca" at New York's Hollywood Theatre. Still considered one of the greatest films ever made, "Casablanca's" mixture of heroism, humor, and self-sacrifice, combined with indelible characters and lines has never been equaled in the many years since. They truly don't make 'em like that anymore. Suggested Sites... Lewis Carroll Society of North America - 'tis brillig. Doughnuts: A Definitive History - personally, we prefer "donuts." Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark - the first video. Dangerous or not, it looks interesting. Slinky.org - "the physics lab in a box." Roger Ebert: Casablanca - it amounts to a lot more than a hill of beans.

Directory categories: Piizza Recipes, Leftover Turkey Recipes, Male Golfers, Cartoonists, Classic Hollywood Movies

Archived under: 1920s, 1940s, 1960s, 1980s, 19th Century, Actors, Alice in Wonderland, American History, Anniversaries, Artists, Athletes, Authors, Baking, Biographies, Birthdays, Books, Broadway, Bruce Lee, Buildings, Business, CIA, Cartoonists, Celebrations, Celebrities, Christmas, Comic Strips, Composers, Dance, David Letterman, Dead Celebrities, Directors, Donuts, Eating, Entertainment, Events, Fiction, Filmmaking, Food and Drink, Golf, Health, History, Holidays, In Character, Internet, Invention, Inventors, Late Night TV, Literature, Martial Arts, Movie History, Movies, Music, Musicals, Musicians, New York, Nostalgia, Paranormal, Performing Arts, Pizza, Restaurants, Rock and Roll, Scandals, Shopping, Spider-Man, Superheroes, Talk Show Hosts, Thanksgiving, The Spark, Trains, U.K. History, United Kingdom, Vintage, Writers, Yahoo!, marriage

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"Turkey good! Football good! Lip-synching in Macy's Parade bad!" There's lots to say about arts and entertainment over the next few days. Let's start at the top, with Boris Karloff, born November 23, 1887 . The erstwhile William Henry Pratt labored as a truck driver, farmhand, and occasional character actor until 1931, when he landed the role of the monster in "Frankenstein." Even though he went unbilled in the original release of the movie, he became an instant star whose name was linked with horror until his death in 1969. In a nice coincidence, Forrest J. Ackerman, the man who became one of Karloff's best friends and biggest boosters was born a day later (albeit in 1916). Ackerman was the longtime editor of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" magazine, and cultivated a love for monsters and psychological horror in a million youngsters in the 1950s and '60s. But we've only scratched the surface when it comes to entertainment. For example, in 1889, the first jukebox went into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. (We'll add that "juke" was slang for ... well, a "house of ill repute," and leave it at that.) This distant ancestor to the iPod contained a tinfoil phonograph with four listening tubes and a coin slot for each tube. So popular was it that it took in $1,000 in the first six months - a nickel at a time. Musical entertainment has evolved significantly in the century since. On Wednesday, we'll note the 142nd birthday of composer Scott Joplin. Joplin didn't invent ragtime music, but was one of its foremost composers, his "Maple Leaf Rag" virtually defined the era. Joplin isn't the only great artist who's an exemplar of his chosen genre. On Wednesday evening, PBS will broadcast an all-star concert celebrating the 80th birthday of Stephen Sondheim, composer and lyricist for some of the best - and most important - musicals in theatre history. And on November 25, 1949, Robert May and Johnny Marks'  "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" made its debut/ Gene Autry's recording of the tune eventually sold more than 25 million records. If those are the heights musical genres can reach, we note what some might consider the nadir, represented by tonight's episodes of "Glee" (featuring Carol Burnett) and the (tainted?) finale of "Dancing with the Stars." (And we mention the 1871 founding of the National Rifle Association purely in passing here - in case someone wants to emulate Steven Cowan.) Music can have an effect even in the world of science. Wednesday is the 36th anniversary of Donald Johanson and Tom Gray's discovery of the Australopithecus afarensis skeleton that they named "Lucy," after the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." The fine arts are also represented this week. Tuesday is the 118th birthday of Romain de Tirtoff, who, under the name Erté (taken from the French pronunciation of his initials) virtually defined the Art Deco style of the early 20th century, and Wednesday is the 146th birthday of French illustrator Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec captured the lives of the Parisian demimonde of the late 19th century. And while it's not exactly "art," the first issue of "Life" magazine was published in 1936. Over the next 36 years, the photojournalism magazine featured some of the finest photography in the world - though none of its photographers could have used a zoom lens until it was invented this week in 1948. In performing arts, Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play "The Mousetrap" opened in London's West End in 1952, and has been running ever since, making it the longest continuously-running play in history. (There was even a recent controversy over whether the surprise ending should be revealed on Wikipedia. It was, so if you go over there, consider yourself warned.). Pity movie producer John Woolf, who bought the movie rights to the play, on the condition that he not film it until it closed. Woolf died in 1999, but the play runs on. It sounds like a disaster almost profound enough to be filmed by producer Irwin Allen, king of such disaster movies as "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno," and whose 94th birthday would have been Wednesday. It could be a disaster, but not a cosmic mystery suitable for solving by Doctor Who, the venerable BBC television series that began broadcasting this week in 1963. Crime and criminals also figure into this week (like every week, probably). On November 24, 1971, D.B. Cooper skyjacked a Boeing 727, collected $200,000 in ransom, and parachuted out over southern Washington state, never to be seen again. We mention an odd birthday coincidence in passing. Wednesday is the 122nd birthday of motivational author Dale Carnegie, and Thursday is the 175th birthday of industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Dale (whose last name was originally spelled "Carnagey") wrote the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" (which is still a best-seller on the self-help charts, nearly 75 years after it was published). Andrew made his fortune in the steel business and ended up giving most of it away, endowing libraries, schools, universities, along with numerous charities and foundations. By 1919, he had given away over $350 million (about $4.3 billion in 2010 dollars), with the remaining $30 million distributed after his death that year. In animal events, President Obama is scheduled to give an executive pardon to a turkey on Wednesday, and Thursday (in addition to everything else) is the National Dog Show in Philadelphia. Lastly, we mention what is, for many, the most notable event of the week: Thanksgiving, with its attendant gorging, football. T-Day also brings us the Macy's Parade, which gives television viewers across the country the chance to watch b-list actors and singers lip synch to lousy music, and this year will feature such traditional holiday entertainers as Jessica Simpson, Jimmy Fallon and the Roots, and Kanye West. Truly a Thanksgiving smorgasbord! Suggested Sites... Karloff.com - the Master of Horror -- and the nicest guy in Hollywood, by all accounts. Biography of Scott Joplin - the King of Sedalia, Missouri. The Discovery of Lucy - and we don't mean Mrs. Ricardo. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - the complete works. Top 10 Disaster Movies - the more stuff blows up, the more we love 'em!

Directory categories: Movie Genres, Ragtime Musicians, TV Series, Paleontology, Thanksgiving Recipes

Archived under: 1910s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1970s, 19th Century, Actors, Africa, Agatha Christie, American History, Ancient History, Animals, Anniversaries, Archaeology, Artists, Arts, Authors, Balloons, Barack Obama, Biographies, Birds, Birthdays, Black History, Books, Boris Karloff, Broadway, Celebrities, Christmas, Coincidence, Composers, Concerts, Crime, Criminals, D.B. Cooper, Dancing With the Stars, Disappearances, Doctor Who, Dogs, Eating, Entertainment, Events, Food and Drink, Football, Guns, History, Holidays, Horror, Horror Films, Jazz, Journalism, Journalists, London, Magazines, Men, Millionaires, Monsters and Creatures, Movie History, Movies, Music, Music History, Musicals, Musicians, Mysteries, NFL, New York, News, Parades, Performing Arts, Pets, Philanthropy, Photography, Rap and Hip-Hop, San Francisco, Science, Scientists, Songs, Sports, Stephen Sondheim, TV, Talk Show Hosts, Thanksgiving, The Beatles, Turkey, Wikipedia, Writers

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Darn right we're thankful for Mister Rogers. Wanna make somethin' out of it? Thanksgiving is, for better or worse, a holiday identified with abundance. It's only appropriate, then, that the week leading up to Turkey Day is chock-a-block with events, anniversaries, and just plain oddities. But what are we waiting for? Let's go! We begin Monday with a couple of icons of the 1930s. In 1899, composer Hoagy Carmichael was born. Though musically untrained, Carmichael became enamored of ragtime and jazz at an early age, and went on to write such standards as "Stardust," "Georgia On My Mind," "The Nearness of You," and "Heart and Soul." In 1980, Mae West died at the age of 87. West was an actress who specialized in a shocklingly overripe and aggressive sexuality - in fact, she was arrested in 1927 on morals charges for her Broadway play, "Sex." To her dying day, she insisted that she was as sexually alluring as ever, even starring as an octogenarian sex symbol in 1978's "Sextette." On the opposite end of the sexual spectrum was the gentle and avuncular Fred Rogers, who donated one of his "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" sweaters to the Smithsonian Institution on this date in 1984. There's no report on what happened to his sneakers. Perhaps they were stolen by one of the host of shady characters we'll note over the next two days. For example, Monday is the anniversary of the 1718 death in battle of Edward Teach - better known as the notorious pirate Blackbeard, who terrified the West Indies. If not Teach, perhaps the culprit was Henry McCarty (aka William Bonney), who terrorized the American West as the thieving Billy the Kid (born November 23, 1859). Or maybe it was William "Boss" Tweed, the uber-corrupt boss of Tammany Hall who ran New York City in the 1850s and '60s, and was arrested and returned to Manhattan in 1876 after fleeing to Europe. If one were of such a mind, one might see the death of Blackbeard or the jailing of Tweed as evolutionary "thinning of the herds;" an appropriate thought, since Monday is the 141st anniversary of  the publication of Charles Darwin's book, "On the Origin of Species." Darwin's ideas are pretty deep, and are best contemplated by either a Rhodes Scholar or a comics geek – both of whom are in luck Monday, as not only will the 2010 Rhodes Scholarships be announced, but (following a computer meltdown earlier this month), tickets for next summer's San Diego Comic-Con will go on sale. If history is any indication, they'll sell out within minutes, so you've probably already missed your chance. (Or you could have, if the computers hadn't crashed again.) If that's the case, you may want to salve your hurt feelings with some television, perhaps even sinking to watching tonight's premiere of "Skating with the Stars." (Because there's nothing we need more than another eccentric actress falling on the ice in another phony reality competition.) On a serious note, for those of us of a certain age, November 22 will always signify the 1963 death of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. Forty-seven years later, most of us still remember where we were when we heard the news. Suggested Sites... Hoagy Carmichael - an American original. Treasures of American Television - hi ho! It's where Kermit the Frog ended up. Crime Library: Henry McCarty: "Billy the Kid" - the Tru(TV) history. San Diego Comic-Con - maybe you can still get a ticket. National Archives: JFK Assassination Records - official documents related to the case.

Directory categories: Thanksgiving Recipes, Songwriters, Piracy, Evolution, U.S. Presidents

Archived under: 18th Century, 1920s, 1930s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 19th Century, Actors, American History, Anniversaries, Assassinations, Awards, Birthdays, Books, California, Celebrities, Charles Darwin, Children´s TV, Comic Books, Comics, Composers, Contests, Conventions, Crime, Criminals, Dead Celebrities, Education, Events, Evolution, History, In Character, Legal Cases, Murder, Museums, Music, Music History, New York, Old West, Pirates, Presidents, Reality TV, Science, Sex and Sexuality, Sweaters, TV, Texas, Thanksgiving, The West

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Frank W. Buckles, the oldest living veteran of World War I, at the age of 16 On Tuesday, we noted Hedy Lamarr's patent of a communications system, but on this day in 1930, a scientist you'd expect to get a patent got one -- but for an invention you wouldn't associate with him. It's no surprise that Albert Einstein would be granted a patent, but what is surprising (to us, anyway) is that he and fellow physicist Leo Szilard (who devised the nuclear chain reaction that made the atomic bomb possible) were granted patent number US1781541 for a refrigerator. As you might expect, it’s a special refrigerator that uses no electricity, has no moving parts, and needs only a heat source to operate, but still – Einstein invented a fridge? As we think about refrigerators, we’re reminded that we'd better start making room in our own for Thanksgiving (and just how in the world did it get to be November already?). Contemplating Turkey Day, brings the pilgrims to mind, and today is the 290th anniversary of the Puritans sighting land off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Something that would have utterly baffled those pilgrims is Pee-wee Herman, so we don’t expect to see any puritans at the Broadway opening of "The Pee-wee Herman Show" tonight. But, Pee-wee's fan base being what it is, you never know ... Someone we think might have appreciated Pee-wee, or, at least, appreciated his anarchic spirit, was novelist Kurt Vonnegut, born on this day in 1922. Vonnegut used black humor and satire in such novels as "Slaughterhouse-Five," "Mother Night," and "Cat's Cradle" to eviscerate modern American society, politics, and organized religion. We don't know if Mr. Vonnegut ever traveled Route 66, the "Mother Road" that ran (according to Bobby Troup's song) "from Chicago to L.A.; more than 2,000 miles along the way." The highway was established on this day in 1926, and until its decommissioning in 1985, carried millions of travelers though the heart of America, allowing them (for the first time in many cases) to see peoples they never would have met, eat strange local foods, and become more acquainted with the mosaic that was pre-war America. It's still possible to drive Route 66, but in many cases, the road is untended and in bad repair, and many of the small towns and businesses that thrived fin its heyday shut their doors when it was replaced by gleaming new interstate freeways. The most notable events of this day are inextricably linked. In 1918, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, World War I finally ended after more than four years of senseless battle, with 16 million soldiers and civilians killed and another 21 million wounded. Starting in 1919, November 11 has been designated either Armistice Day (in honor of the cause of peace) or Veterans Day (honoring all who have served in the armed forces). Suggested Sites... Einstein's Refrigerator - a solution to global warming? The Pee-wee Herman Show - today's secret word is "Broadway." The Political Wisdom of Kurt Vonnegut - notable quotes. Legendary Route 66 - how to travel (what's left of) the Mother Road. History of Veterans Day - from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Directory categories: Physicists, Kitchen Applicances, Thanksgiving Recipes, Novelists, Veterans

Archived under: 17th Century, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1980s, Actors, American History, Anniversaries, Authors, Biographies, Birthdays, Books, Broadway, Celebrations, Celebrities, Creativity, Driving, Entertainment, Events, Fiction, Green Products, History, Holidays, In Character, Invention, Inventors, Literature, Men, Military, Performing Arts, Physics, Science, Scientists, Thanksgiving, Tourist Attractions, Travel, United States, Veterans, Veterans Day, WWI, Writers, Writing

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