This Is Your Life
An all caps graphic washes up on the digital shores from time to time. The author, and copyright status, are not known. It was not written here. Reading it can be a chore, even though it looks cool. It is also selfish… the only opinion that matters is the individual reading it. It doesn’t have a good beat, but you can dance to it. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
This is your life.
Do what you love, and do it often.
If you don’t like something, change it.
If you don’t like your job, quit.
If you don’t have enough time, stop watching TV.
If you are looking for the love of your life, stop:
They will be waiting for you when you start doing things you love.
Stop over analyzing, life is simple
All emotions are beautiful.
When you eat, appreciate every last bite.
Open your mind, arms, and heart to new things and people,
We are united in our differences.
Ask the next person you see what their passion is,
And share your inspiring dream with them.
Travel often, getting lost will help you find yourself.
Some opportunities only come once, seize them.
Life is about the people you meet, and the things you create with them
So go out and start creating.
Life is short. Live your dream, and wear your passion.
“Do you have to be a poet? If you don’t have to be a poet, be a prose writer. You’ll get further faster. Poetry — there’s probably more poetry published today than any time in the history of the world. Nevertheless, there is this — people think they have this blindness when they see a line in the typography of poetry, and it just blocks them. So if you can say the same thing in prose, you’ll probably be better off” Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Singers Who Wear Wigs
If you go to google, and type in “singers that wear wigs”, the first name to appear is Mary J. Blige. PG does not follow her closely, but went to youtube and found a video. This is probably not her real hair.
Dolly Parton is known for a lot of things, at least two of which are real. The hair is not. If you ask her “How long does it take to do your hair?”, she says “I don’t know, I’m never there”
If anyone is known for enhancing her natural attributes, it would be Cher. Her fondness for plastic surgery is well known, as is the way her head fits in a hairpiece. In this number, Mrs. Bono talks about some of her favorite people.
Grace Slick is basically retired these days. In her hey day, she never appeared in public in her real hair. PG saw her at the Omni once, and was horrified by her wig. (Grace sells her paintings these days. Her white hair is cut short. The wigs are in a museum.)
RuPaul is not really blonde. That is a part of her wardrobe. In this video, she co stars with Martha Wash, in a remake of “It’s Raining Men”. The working title for this video was Piggly Wiggly.
It is a bit of show business wisdom that you put the horses at the end of a parade. Deaundra Peek fills this important role today. Last year it was a remake of “Supermodel”, which has copyright issues. Today, it is a cooking lesson. The last three characters of the Youtube code are M2M.
This is a repost. Pictures, from The Library of Congress, model “Inter-city beauties, Atlantic City Pageant, 1927.” As a bonus to our reader(s), we will explore the issue, Does Lady Gaga wear a wig? The answers are a bit contradictory, which is somehow fitting. One page says she does not wear a wig, but does wear extensions in some videos. Another answer is that dying her hair is damaging to the hair, if she went to a salon the paparazzi would see her, so yes, she does wear a wig. If you have too much free time, here is a forum discussion on this subject.
Anita Aretha and Elton
In the early nineties, PG had too much free time. On March 25 of one year, he looked in the fishwrapper, and found a list of famous people with birthdays.
There was an unlikely trio celebrating that day. This would be (in order of appearance) Anita Bryant (1940), Aretha Franklin (1942), and Elton John (1947). All three have been paid for singing. The three have a total of five husbands, with Miss Bryant and Mr. John currently attached (Not to each other). Miss Franklin has good taste in hats.
Several other people have arrived on planet earth on March 25. They include , in 1911, Jack Ruby, the killer of Lee Harvey Oswald (d. 1967) (They don’t say alleged when it was on live TV). 1918 produced Howard Cosell, American sports reporter (d. 1995). Flannery O’Connor (d. 1964) arrived in 1925. 1934 gave us Gloria Steinem. In 1937 Tom Monaghan, founder of Dominos pizza, arrived. (The delivery was nine months, and twenty nine minutes, after the order was placed.) To make room for all this talent, Buck Owens died March 25, 2006.
March 25 is after the spring equinox, and has been Easter. A few noteworthy events have gone down on this day. In 1894, Coxey’s Army departed Massillon, Ohio for Washington D.C. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire killed 146 garment workers in New York City. In 1939 Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli becomes Pope Pius XII, to the delight of Adolph Hitler. 1955 saw the United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” as obscene. In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono began their first Bed-In for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel.
HT and applause to wikipedia. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Page 123
It was a gray sunday afternoon. The sky drizzles onto the bright green baby weeds. Basketball dudes are dribbling before they shoot. If there was only a subject for a blog post, then all would be lovely.
One answer is to look in the archive. There was a post in 2008 about page 123. “Look up page 123 in the book that is nearest to you at this very minute. Look for the fifth sentence. Then post the three sentences that follow that fifth sentence on page 123.”
The book nearest to the work station is an outlet store edition of “Leaves of Grass,” by Walt Whitman. There are two problems here. The book only has 109 pages. It is also full of poems, which do not contain sentences. LOG is digitally available, easy to copy/paste, but does not qualify.
The book under LOG, and technically closer to the work station, is Quiet Days in Clichy, by Henry Miller. The last word, KLEE she, is a neighborhood in Paris. The book was purchased at a yard sale in 1978, read with little enjoyment, pulled off the shelf in 2014, and rediscovered.
Mr. Miller apparently thought about this story in French, and then transcribed it in English. It is a great story. Two men live in Paris, scrounging meals where they can, and screwing a lot of ladies. One has a name similar to Anais Nin, who was an extramarital pal of Mr. Miller in those days.
The copy of QDIC here is an Evergreen Black Cat paperback, which sold for $.75. It is the classic back pocket paperback, measuring 4″x7″x 3/8″. The bookmark is one page 79. The authorities came to visit the two men. There is a problem about screwing an underage girl. The authorities are impressed by the fact that the men write books, although not in French. The authorities leave. The men talk about the beauty of the under aged girl’s mother.
The one star reviews for QDIC are festive. Ivan Searcy I am a street photographer and have been living, 4 to 6 months a year in Paris, for the past 35 years. I was hoping that this book would reflect on the café and street life in Clichy during the 1930s, but all it did was to show that Miller is a psychopath that likes to abuse women. Even when he writes about sex, he is an amateur writer. I think that his claim to fame was that his books where ban in the US.
Stewart D. Isbell “photostew” I purchased this book for the new Kindle for iPhone app and the book is not formatted properly. There are an endless amount of pages that only have one sentence, sometimes only one word! To read this book you have to flip through a huge amount of pages. Great book, and yes, it was only .80 cents but still… pretty much useless. Captain Z You’ve reviewed the electronic formatting, but not the book. Your 1-star review is pretty much worthless. Jamie E. Skelly get over yourself Bibliophile People, PLEASE stop rating books based on their Kindle-friendliness! It’s misleading — reviews of works of art ought to address the aesthetic merit of the work, not tech issues associated with the (souless) Kindle.
Maybe we should get onto what comes after the fifth sentence. “Tahe your time and get what you can out of the old buzzard. I have nothing to do,” I added. “I’ll sit here and wait. You’re going to have dinner with me, remember that.” Pictures are from The Library of Congress. The event was “Bath Suit Fashion Parade, Seal Beach CA July 14, 1918”
The Six G-ds of Christianity
There is a discussion brewing in the Jesus Worship blogosphere on the question of “Is Christianity really monotheistic ”. This is in response to a post, on the subject of the unquestioning Christian .
There is a “motivational” poster, with the headline “Ten signs you are an unquestioning Christian”. One of these (either number one or ten) deals with monotheism. To wit: “You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of G-ds claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of your G-d.” Some writers are promising/threatening to write about all ten of these arguments, and the feature on monotheism is the first.
PG is a recovering Baptist, who is severely alienated from Jesus. He does suspect that there is a G-d, and is in no way an “atheist”. The tracts linked to above tend to break down the discussion to atheists vs. christians, which is highly misleading.
PG has been knocking around for some time the idea of a post about the six G-ds of Jesus Worshipers. The appearance of this series…at blogs that ban PG from commenting…has spurred him into action. Whether or not there will be more comments (from PG) remains to be seen.
Christianity claims to be a monotheistic religion. This means, there is only one G-d. In contrast, the Romans and Greeks had G-ds and G-ddesses galore, and the Hindus have literally millions of deities. In what was claimed by some as an advancement, the Jews worshiped one G-d. (Zoraroastrians are said to be monotheistic, and did it before the Jews. There may be others.)
One of the sacred tracts of Judaism and Christianity is the ten commandments . The first three relate to the concept of monotheism, and the proper way to talk about G-d.
1-Thou shalt have no other G-ds before me.
2-Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy G-d am a jealous G-d, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
3-Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy G-d in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
As a side note, PG has heard something about the use of Lord as a name for G-d. The riff is that “Lord” was an expression for an English nobleman. When the Bible was translated by James I, his workers used the L word as a synonym for G-d. The words for G-d in the Greek and Hebrew texts that comprised the Bible do not translate as Lord…that word was inserted by the anglocentric workers of James I. This is something that PG read in a book by Tom Robbins, and has no other source for. It may, or may not be true. If it is, then it just might be a violation of the third commandment.
Getting back to monotheism, does Christianity live up to the first commandment? This may seem to be a silly question when you consider the concept of the trinity. At some point in the early days of Jesus Worship, a decision was made to split G-d into three parts. We now had the father, the son, and the holy ghost. (Which makes for a neat blessing…the father the son the holy ghost, whoever eats fastest gets the most) The first commandment is still in effect, but, well, you just have to understand. The Jews continued to worship one G-d, and when Mohammed started his franchise, he changed the name to Allah. In that version, there is no G-d but Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger.
Meanwhile, the Jesus Worshipers were good at converting and reproducing, and soon had a very popular religion. But was it one G-d only? The faith had a book of ancient texts that they call “the word of G-d”. The fact that it was written, copied, edited and translated by man did not stop folks. The first commandment would seem to prohibit this custom, but, you just have to believe.
PG is willing to concede the point that he doesn’t understand the concept of the Trinity. He thinks it is a concoction of the Council of Nicea, and a violation of the first commandment. This is something that seems to happen a lot with Christianity…to proclaim one thing as a rule, to apparently violate that rule, but have a clever explanation that few seem to understand.
This does not explain the other G-ds of Christianity. For this discussion, we will focus on three…the Bible, Satan, and Salvation.
The Catholic Church had a conference to establish a consistent canon for their church. This conference became known as the Council of Nicea. (This conference is where the concept of the Triune G-d was formulated.) The texts in use by the church at the time were collected in one book. Some texts were not used, and there is a good possibility that the texts that were used were edited. This committee effort became known as the Bible.
During the protestant reformation, the new churches needed a source for their authority over the people. It was during this time that the concept of the Bible as the “Word of G-d” became known. This in effect made a G-d out of a book. This is in direct defiance of the First Commandment, which teaches to have no other G-d before you.
The book has been interpreted into many languages, and the interpretations have been interpreted. The star of the New Testament, Jesus, spoke Aramaic. His words were recorded, in Greek, many years after he *died*. Any quote from Jesus has been translated at least twice. This is from texts that were written many years after he lived. And yet, people talk about what Jesus taught, and have confidence, that they know what they are talking about. (The only things we know about Jesus is what the Council of Nicea chose to tell us.)
At some point, the idea began to float around that the Bible was not only the word of G-d, but that it was inerrant…that is, without errors. This would presume that no body in the chain of production made a mistake. This includes a scribe copying a text, and a Catholic editor assembling a canon. Nobody translating ancient languages, from ragged source materials, made a mistake. The people who make this claim seem to assume that they have a perfect understanding of this text. Is it a coincidence that the spell check suggestion for inerrant is ignorant?
This one is too blatant to let slide. When you declare a text to be the “word of G-d”, you are making a G-d out of a book. There is a semantic argument to be made… you can say that this isn’t worship. Lets say it out loud… calling the Bible the “word of G-d” makes a G-d out of a book, in violation of the First Commandment. This is not monotheism.
A quick look at the way Satan is treated by the church shows a curious similarity to worship. Yes, it is backhanded worship, and lots of negative things are said about Beelzebub. He with the horns and tail is given credit for all kinds of powers, and needs to be fought (with human collateral damage). Yes, Jesus Worshipers give the Devil his due, and then some.
The last “G-d” that we will look at today is Salvation, or the Christian scheme for life after death. Anyone living in the USA has heard this plan a thousand times, and many agree with it. Some do not agree with it. It is none of your business how PG feels. (Your guess is probably correct.)
What is undeniable is the importance placed on salvation in Christianity. It is discussed in every church meeting, often at top volume, and with dramatics that would shame a ham actor. Salvation is said to justify all the rudeness and verbal abuse that Jesus Worshiper inflict on their neighbors. If you do not agree with the concept of Salvation, you have no business belonging to a Christian Church.
Does this hysterical emphasis on Salvation make a G-d out of the concept? As with the Bible and Satan, it is a matter of perspective. A good argument could be made that Jesus Worshipers treat these three items with G-d like devotion, and make G-ds out of them.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Slavery And Global Warming
Have you ever wondered why your ancestors owned other human beings? How can you justify something this cruel? In an NPR interview to promote a new book, 1861: The Civil War Awakening, Adam Goodheart has an answer.
It was economics. “But I think we think of it differently when we realize that the value of slave property, some $4 billion, enormous amount of money in 1861, represented actually more money than the value of all of the industry and all of the railroads in the entire United States combined. So for Southern planters to simply one day liberate all of that property would have been like asking people today to simply overnight give up their stock portfolios, give up their IRAs.”
Mr. Goodheart compares it to the situation today with fossil fuels. “many of us recognize that in burning fossil fuels we’re doing something terrible for the planet, we’re doing something terrible for future generations. And yet in order to give this up would mean sort of unraveling so much of the fabric of our daily lives, sacrificing so much, becoming these sort of radical eccentrics riding bicycles everywhere, that we continue somewhat guiltily to participate in the system. And that’s something that I use as a comparison to slavery, that many Americans in the North, and even I believe sort of secretly in the South, felt a sense of guilt, felt a sense of shame, that knew that the slave system was wrong but were simply addicted to slavery and couldn’t give it up. “
When the economic pressure is there, people will find a way to justify their actions. Slavery was justified in a number of ways. Today, there are people who deny the ill effects of using fossil fuels, and they have an eager audience. The payback for the environmental horror is in the future. This is similar to the way people today are paying … with racial turmoil … for slavery.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Oreo
This feature was originally posted on the 100th anniversary of the Oreo. The cookie sandwich was first sold in New York on March 6, 1912. Over 491 billion Oreos have been sold.
About.com 20th Century History has a few details on this important anniversary. In 1898, several baking companies merged to form the National Biscuit Company (NaBisCo), the maker of Oreo cookies. By 1902, Nabisco created Barnum’s Animal cookies and made them famous by selling them in a little box designed like a cage with a string attached (to hang on Christmas trees).
In 1912, Nabisco had a new idea for a cookie – two chocolate disks with a creme filling in between. The first Oreo cookie looked very similar to the Oreo cookie of today, with only a slight difference in the design on the chocolate disks…
So how did the Oreo get its name? The people at Nabisco aren’t quite sure. Some believe that the cookie’s name was taken from the French word for gold, “or” (the main color on early Oreo packages). Others claim the name stemmed from the shape of a hill-shaped test version; thus naming the cookie in Greek for mountain, “oreo.” Still others believe the name is a combination of taking the “re” from “cream” and placing it between the two “o”s in “chocolate” – making “o-re-o.” And still others believe that the cookie was named Oreo because it was short and easy to pronounce. (This source says 362 billion Oreos have been sold.)
In the early sixties, Oreos had a great commercial. Youtube apparently does not have a copy. The song went “Girls are nice but oh what icing comes in oreos. Oreos, the best because it’s the grandest cookie that ever was. Little girls have pretty curls but I like oreos; Oreos, the best because it’s the grandest cookie that ever was…”
HT goes to the always entertaining site, The Field Negro. There is an unfortunate urban usage of Oreo, about people who are black outside, but white inside. Field lists ten people who qualify. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Murder Kroger
There was an interesting item in this report on the killing at Murder Kroger. Before we proceed with this story, it should be noted that this is a tragedy. A man with four children was killed. While jokes about the rebranding of Murder Kroger as Beltline Kroger have their place, the fact is that a family in Alabama is going to miss daddy.
“Richey (Joshua R. Richey, 38, of Hayden, AL) and Jason Shelton, from RG Williams Construction in Covington, were working at the store Tuesday afternoon, Shelton said, when Richey saw an unknown man inside their pickup truck. Shelton said Richey went up to the truck and hit the window of the cab, and the man inside shot through the window killing him. …
The Kroger where the shooting occurred is infamously known as the ‘“Murder Kroger” even as store officials are trying to have it rebranded in the minds of the public as “Beltline Kroger.” Shelton said the area’s old reputation had put him on guard and he recently asked his supervisor if he could borrow his handgun while working on the site. “He said, ‘(Richey) has a weapon so there should be nothing to worry about,” Shelton said. “Look what happened.” Shelton, who said he assumed the men were just trying to steal the truck, said he wasn’t sure whether Richey had his pistol on him or had left it in the truck. Hampton (Lt. Charles Hampton, Atlanta police homicide unit) could not confirm whether a handgun was found on Richey or in the truck.”
It is unlikely that a construction worker is going to take a handgun onto the jobsite. The weapon was probably in the truck. If you have a weapon in your vehicle, you want to have quick access to it. This means that a person breaking into your vehicle is likely to find it. And, when you come and slap your hand against the window, this person is likely to use the weapon to kill you.
The man who was killed at Murder Kroger might have been killed by his own gun. If he had not kept an easily accessible weapon in his vehicle, he would be alive today. While having a gun will make you more secure in some situations, it can have the opposite effect in others. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Pictures were made at “Inter city beauties, Atlantic City Pageant, 1925”
Poetry Saves Time
There is another Marilyn Monroe story floating around. “Someone told me that Marilyn Monroe once remarked that she enjoyed reading poetry “because it saves time.” I like this quotation so much that I’ve never dared to confirm it; I’d feel disenchanted to learn it was bogus.”
Poetry Daily seems to think the quote is legitimate. “That great aesthete and reader Marilyn Monroe once said: “I read poetry because it saves time.” In the age of Twitter, and other tweet-like utterances from all sorts of birdies, not to mention attention deficit disorder on an epidemic national scale, it’s refreshing to find poetry that both saves time and enlarges it. “
PG applied the wikiquotes test. Miss Monroe said in Look Magazine, March 5, 1957, “I’ve been on a calendar, but never on time.” Many people who worked with her agree.
Wikiquots also has a telegram, sent to Bobby and Ethel Kennedy. Marilyn was widely rumored to be seeing Bobby. This was a few weeks before her untimely death. “”I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle.” (Telegram from Marilyn Monroe declining a party invitation from Bobby and Ethel Kennedy. June 13, 1962.)
A google investigation into the poetry quote led to Did Marilyn Monroe really say all those philosophical quotes? This is in DataLounge, where you “… get your fix of gay gossip, news and pointless bitchery.” The question on top of the thread was “I notice that the must fucked up of my female friends absolutely worship Marilyn Monroe, and are forever quoting her. What’s up with that, and are all those quotes real?? by: Mrs. Johnstone”
There are 148 comments in the thread. Some say Marilyn was an airhead, and some say she was bright. There are some quotes, many of which are probably made up. There is a letter, supposedly written to Albert Einstein. Shelly Winters says the two might have had a special relationship.
“Were I to pursue physics instead of my first love, acting, I would attempt to solve these problems by understanding the reason for these discrete energy states, which are probably due to the fact that standing waves only exist at discrete frequencies. My theory would predict that energy exchanges will be discrete, as observed;… But as I said, I want to be an actress.”
Once, on the set of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell discussed embryological parallelism. Marilyn Monroe: Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Jane Russell: I was about to say the same thing.
One of the comments had a link to a fun story. Film legend Marilyn Monroe went to bed with fellow actress Joan Crawford – but the lesbian sexual experience only reaffirmed her attraction to men. Monroe left Joan gasping for more liaisons, much to Marilyn’s chagrin. Monroe described the encounter herself in conversations taped by her psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Greeson, recordings which were obtained by the Los Angeles Times newspaper from former prosecutor John Miner, who helped investigate her death. Monroe said, “We went to Joan’s bedroom… Crawford had a gigantic orgasm and shrieked like a maniac. “Next time I saw Crawford she wanted another round. I told her straight I didn’t much enjoy doing it with a woman.”
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. HT to Andrew Sullivan.
Douche
Backstory recently presented a feature, Rinse and Repeat: Cleanliness in America. As the title might suggest, it is about cleanliness. The location of this concept with regard to G-dliness was not discussed. While researching this story, a listener named Micheal Gambil sent a letter to the studio. This letter was read as part of the broadcast.
“This one is going to be great! My comment/suggestion may sound a little strange, but I was having a talk with my 70 year old aunt regarding female hygiene recently. She is still a believer in what is known as doucheing. YUCK! It got awkward…but it really made me think about the history of “lady products”. Flower scented sprays etc…I think there has been change on this issue. Or not…maybe it is just me and my quasi-hippy friends!”
Douching became popular in the nineteenth century. It was originally thought to be useful as contraception. As other methods of controlling fertility became available, douching became more of a cosmetic item. The corporate marketers are good at creating demand for a product.
More recently, the dangers of using this product have come to light. This awareness came into public consciousness at roughly the same time that douche started to be used as an insult. No one knows if the two developments are connected.
This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is written like David Foster Wallace.
Millard Fillmore And Oscar Wilde In Atlanta
This afternoon’s post at chamblee54 noted an 1854 visit by former President Millard Fillmore. This was brought to the attention of another history minded blog, Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub. The result was some details about the visit, Millard Fillmore, live on Peachtree Street, 1854. The material below is borrowed from that post.
Two years after the Whigs refused to nominate Fillmore for a term of his own, he was out touring the country? Several accounts explain that Fillmore and his wife Abigail wanted to tour the U.S. after his presidency. Unfortunately, she died shortly after he left office. He pined through the rest of 1853, but by February 1854 had decided to tour by himself, without his children, accompanied by friends he could persuade to join him.
That same month, Fillmore decided to take the trip southward that he and Abigail had not been able to take. Given the timing, some observers believed that Fillmore had a political motive in making the journey. They suspected that he might be planning to speak out against the Nebraska Bill [proposed by Illinois’s U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas]. Others were convinced that it was a leisure tour. But whatever Fillmore’s intentions may have been, his speeches to southern audiences were relatively neutral. He restated his faith in the [Missouri] Compromise, but he spent mos tof his time enjoying a series of receptions, dinners, and parades in his honor throughout the region. A marching band escorted him through the streets of Louisville, Kentucky. Girls scattered his path with flowers in Montgomery, Alabama. A row of trains blew their whistles in greeting in Atlanta, Georgia. Fillmore returned home refreshed and with renewed faith in his fellow Americans. (This paragraph is from Alison Behnke, Millard Fillmore (a child’s history of the man), 2005, page 92.)
By late February 1854 Fillmore had resumed his plans to travel. He perceived that a southern trip would do him good and that the journey would divert his mind from the loss of Abigail. … Fillmore hoped Francis Granger, John P. Kennedy, and Washington Irving would go with him on the trip. Granger lost interest, and Irving was in no mood for politics. …
En route to Atlanta from Augusta on the Georgia Railroad, they stopped at Greensboro where a large crowd of teachers and students of the Female College greeted Fillmore and Kennedy. They dined at Madison. At Stone Mountain an escort committee from Atlanta met them.
At the Atlanta Depot a novel reception welcomed them. A large number of locomotives were present with their steam up. When the Augusta engineer signalled their arrival they all opened up their valves and whistled out a welcome the like of which, reported a newspaper, “no mortal man had heard before.” The shouts from the crowd and locomotive whistles were deafening to one reporter. By carriage the party went from the depot to the Atlanta Hotel where a reception was held.
Fillmore had become hoarse. Nonetheless, he managed to say that he was impressed by the large population and that he had heard that it was a beautiful village in the center of the state. He also admonished the state legislature to to take note “of the array of female loveliness before me” seated at the reception. If they did so, he joked, they wouldn’t hesitate to locate the state capital at Atlanta. At that time the capital was at Milledgeville. Atlanta became the capital in 1877. (This section is from Robert J. Scarry, Millard Fillmore, 1982, pages 247-252 variously.)
A few months later, on October 16, 1854, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland. On July 4, 1882, Mr. Wilde gave a talk at De Give’s Opera House in Atlanta GA. What happened next is described on page 201 of Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann.
Mr. Wilde was accompanied by his agent, J.S. Vail, and a valet, W.M. Traquair. Mr. Vail bought three train tickets for Savannah, the next stop on the tour. The Pullman agent told Mr. Wilde that black people were not allowed to ride in sleeper car berths. Mr. Wilde said that Mr. Traquair had traveled with him throughout the South without incident. The Pullman agent said the next stop was in Jonesboro GA. If people in Jonesboro saw a black man in the car, then they would attack the train. Mr. Wilde gave in, and Mr. Traquair traveled inanother part of the train.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Handist And Offensive
As saturday morning turned into afternoon, PG was looking for text. Twitter had an entertaining entry. @DangerMindsBlog Hunter S. Thompson’s typical daily intake of drink ‘n’ drugs. The comments were charming. “It’s funny how everyone is obsessed with the truth of this absurd itinerary. This article made me smile and love HST more than ever. It’s what he stood for or symbolized that I respond to. We need more crazy fucking lunatics in this world and fewer anal-retentive fact-checking pussies.”
Maybe that is not a good idea for a post. There is always something in the archive. There were two stories in 2009 about word lists. Ten words was based on a story at YOU ARE REMARKABLE, where the last post was published November 21, 2014. “here are 10 of the most beautiful words in the human language. try sprinkling them throughout your next conversation & admire the way they feel rolling off your lips. watch how the listener’s eyes light up.”
The 10 words are: 01. adroit: dexterous, agile 02. adumbrate: to very gently suggest 03. aestivate: to summer, to spend the summer 04. ailurophile: a cat-lover 05. beatific: befitting an angel or saint 06. beleaguer: to exhaust with attacks 07. blandiloquent: beautiful & flattering 08. caliginous: dark & misty 09. champagne: an effervescent wine 10. chatoyant: like a cat’s eye.
Adroit is also the first word on the list. When PG was young enough to think it was funny, he read MAD magazine. There was a poem: Tigers Tigers fighting bright/In the ballparks of the night /Your pitchings fair, your fields adroit/So why no pennant for Detroit. (PG felt really stupid when he read
“The Tyger” By William Blake. Maybe Allen Ginsberg read MAD magazine.)
A commenter at the original post begs to differ: “I take issue with the top word on your list. Adroit comes from the French word for “right”, as in “right handed”. It is the direct antonym of gauche, both in English and in its native French where it means “left”, as in “left handed”. As a non-right-hander I find both of these words to be handist and offensive.”
If this is enough text for you, it is all right to skip ahead and look at the pictures. These fine images are from The Library of Congress, taken at “Annual “Bathing Girl Parade”, Balboa Beach, CA, June 20, 1920.” The second rerun today is 12 Funny Words. It is based on a post at alpha dictionary, which is still producing. The post was sponsored by Chinese Lady #1 Most Trusted Dating Service in China.
As you may have noticed, the list posted yesterday was not the ten most beautiful words in english. It was merely the first ten, in alphabetical order. The fact that 01 rhymes with Detroit tells you more than you need to know. The second list….the 100 funniest words…. is also an a-z affair. The reality is that the last word is yahoo, and no z words made the cut. PG decided to edit the list for the convenience of the reader. It occurred to him that perhaps this said more about PG than about the list…what words did he choose, and why? Here is the list:
09 bloviate To speak pompously or brag. 23 crapulence Discomfort from eating or drinking too much. 24 crudivore An eater of raw food. 31 fatuous Unconsciously foolish. 32 fenestration Putting in windows. 39 fuddy-duddy An old-fashioned, mild-mannered person. 57 klutz An awkward, stupid person. 59 la-di-da A saying indicating that something is pretentious. 61 logorrhea Loquaciousness, talkativeness. 73 osculate To kiss. 83 rhinorrhea A runny nose. 92 troglodyte Someone or something that lives in a cave. Spell check suggestions: crapulence/corpulence, crudivore/divorcee.
leave a comment