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Today in History
On February 12, 1912, Hsian-T’ung, the last emperor of China, is forced to abdicate following Sun Yat-sen’s republican revolution. A provisional government was established in his place, ending 267 years of Manchu rule in China and 2,000 years of imperial rule. The former emperor, only six years old, was allowed to keep up his residence in Beijing’s Forbidden City, and he took the name of Henry Pu Yi.
Pu Yi was enthroned as emperor in 1908 after his uncle, the Kuang-hsu emperor, died. He reigned under a regency and underwent training to prepare him for his coming rule. However, in October 1911, his dynasty fell to Sun Yat-sen’s revolution, and four months later he abdicated. The new Chinese government granted him a large government pension and permitted him to live in the imperial palace until 1924, when he was forced into exile.
After 1925, he lived in Japanese-occupied Tianjin, and in 1932 Japan created the puppet state of Manchukuo in Manchuria under his rule. In 1934, Henry Pu Yi was enthroned as K’ang Te, emperor of Manchukuo. Despite guerrilla resistance against his puppet regime, he held the emperor’s title until 1945, when he was captured by Soviet troops.
In 1946, Pu Yi testified before the Tokyo war crimes tribunal that he had been an unwilling tool of the Japanese and not, as they claimed, an instrument of Manchurian self-determination. Manchuria and the Rehe province were returned to China, and in 1950 Pu Yi was handed over to the Chinese communists. He was imprisoned at Shenyang until 1959, when Chinese leader Mao Zedong granted him amnesty. After his release, he worked in a mechanical repair shop in Peking.
Source: www.history.com
From Emperor To Citizen: The Autobiography Of Aisin Gioro Pu Yi
Georges Simenon, in full Georges-Joseph-Christian Simenon, was born on February 13, 1903, in Liège, Belgium. Belgian-French novelist whose prolific output surpassed that of any of his contemporaries and who was perhaps the most widely published author of the 20th century.
Simenon began working on a local newspaper at age 16, and at 19 he went to Paris determined to be a successful writer. Typing some 80 pages each day, he wrote, between 1923 and 1933, more than 200 books of pulp fiction under 16 different pseudonyms, the sales of which soon made him a millionaire. The first novel to appear under his own name was Pietr-le-Letton (1929; The Strange Case of Peter the Lett), in which he introduced the imperturbable, pipe-smoking Parisian police inspector Jules Maigret to fiction. Simenon went on to write 83 more detective novels featuring Inspector Maigret, as well as 136 psychological novels. His total literary output consisted of about 425 books that were translated into some 50 languages and sold more than 600 million copies worldwide. Many of his works were the basis of feature films or made-for-television movies. In addition to novels, he wrote three autobiographical works—Pedigrée (1948), Quand j’étais vieux (1970; When I Was Old), and Mémoires intimes (1981; Intimate Memoirs), the last after the suicide of his only daughter—and a critically well-received trilogy of novellas about Africa, selections of which were published in English as African Trio (1979).
Despite these other works, Simenon remains inextricably linked with Inspector Maigret, who is one of the best-known characters in detective fiction. Unlike those fictional detectives who rely on their immense deductive powers or on police procedure, Maigret solves murders using mainly his psychological intuition and a patiently sought, compassionate understanding of the perpetrator’s motives and emotional composition. Simenon’s central theme is the essential humanity of even the isolated, abnormal individual and the sorrow at the root of the human condition. Employing a style of rigorous simplicity, he evokes a prevailing atmosphere of neurotic tensions with sharp economy.
Simenon, who traveled to more than 30 countries, lived in the United States for more than a decade, starting in 1945; he later lived in France and Switzerland. At the age of 70 he stopped writing novels, though he continued to write nonfiction.
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Jules Maigret, fictional character, an unassuming, compassionate, and streetwise Parisian police commissioner who is the protagonist of more than 80 novels by Georges Simenon. Simenon’s books featuring Inspector Maigret include Pietr-le-Letton (1931; The Case of Peter the Lett), Le Chien jaune (1931; “The Yellow Dog,” Eng. trans. A Face for a Clue), Le Fou de Bergerac (1932; The Madman of Bergerac), Un Noël de Maigret (1951; Maigret’s Christmas), Maigret aux assises (1960; Maigret in Court), and Maigret et Monsieur Charles (1972).
Source: www.britannica.com
The Mystery Of Georges Simenon: A Biography
Event Date: February 14, 1779Location: Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii, USA
Captain James Cook, the legendary British explorer, was savagely murdered on this day after a confrontation with islanders at Hawaii who had mistaken him for a god.
Cook discovered and charted New Zealand and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – since noted as one of the world's most dangerous areas to navigate.
His voyages around the world helped guide other explorers for generations. He provided the first accurate map of the Pacific and many believe that he did more to fill the map of the world than any other explorer in history.
The son of a Scottish farm worker, Cook was born in 1728 and worked on the land alongside his father until he was 18, when he was offered an apprenticeship by a Quaker shipowner.
With seafaring blood soon coursing through his veins, he joined the Royal Navy and became ship’s master at the age of 29. In 1768, he took command of the first scientific expedition to the Pacific aboard his ship, the Endeavour, leading to the discovery of New Zealand and the Great Barrier Reef.
During Cook’s third major voyage, he became the first European to set foot on Hawaii, landing his ship Discovery at Kealakekua Bay. His arrival coincided with an annual festival in honour of the fertility god Lono.
The Hawaiian people had never seen white men before, nor anything like the huge sailing ship in which they arrived. The only explanation was that Captain Cook must be Lono himself and as a result he and his men were lavished with feasts and gifts.
Soon, however, one of Cook’s sailors died from a stroke, possibly brought on by over-indulgence. Whatever the cause, the Hawaiians realised that their guests were not immortal after all and relationships became strained.
Any doubts were removed for the Hawaiians after Cook set sail but had to return for repairs when his mast was broken in a storm. Such setbacks do not happen to gods.
While anchored offshore on this day, Cook was furious when told that one of his cutter boats had been stolen. He went ashore to confront the Hawaiian king.
Unfortunately, crew aboard the Discovery fired its cannons at another group of Hawaiians, which caused Cook to panic and flee to a waiting boat.
He didn’t make it. Staggering after being pelted by stones and struck by a club, the explorer was then stabbed in the back by a warrior brandishing a knife that had been a gift from Cook himself. When he fell into the surf he was repeatedly stabbed and pounded with rocks.
Ironically, the Hawaiians ritualistically prepared Cook’s corpse as they would that of a king. They preserved his hands in sea salt, then roasted the rest of his body in a pit before cleansing his bones.
Source: www.onthisday.com
Captain James Cook: A Biography
On February 14 around the year 278 A.D., Valentine, a holy priest in Rome in the days of Emperor Claudius II, was executed.Under the rule of Claudius the Cruel, Rome was involved in many unpopular and bloody campaigns. The emperor had to maintain a strong army, but was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. Claudius believed that Roman men were unwilling to join the army because of their strong attachment to their wives and families.
To get rid of the problem, Claudius banned all marriages and engagements in Rome. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.
When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Valentine was arrested and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. The sentence was carried out on February 14, on or about the year 270.
Legend also has it that while in jail, St. Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer’s daughter, who had become his friend, and signed it “From Your Valentine.”
For his great service, Valentine was named a saint after his death.
In truth, the exact origins and identity of St. Valentine are unclear. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “At least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under the date of 14 February.” One was a priest in Rome, the second one was a bishop of Interamna (now Terni, Italy) and the third St. Valentine was a martyr in the Roman province of Africa.
Legends vary on how the martyr’s name became connected with romance. The date of his death may have become mingled with the Feast of Lupercalia, a pagan festival of love. On these occasions, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed. In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius decided to put an end to the Feast of Lupercalia, and he declared that February 14 be celebrated as St Valentine’s Day.
Gradually, February 14 became a date for exchanging love messages, poems and simple gifts such as flowers.
Source: www.history.com
Mod
Under the rule of Claudius the Cruel, Rome was involved in many unpopula..."
He was born in Terni, close to Perugia, where I lived. He is in fact the Patron Saint of Terni!
“Beware the Ides of March!”The Roman leader Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times by a mob of mutinous senators in 44 B.C.
What's the origin of the phrase 'Beware the Ides of March'? From Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, 1601. 'Beware the Ides of March' is the soothsayer's message to Julius Caesar, warning of his death.The Ides of March didn't signify anything special in itself - this was just the usual way of saying "March 15th". The notion of the Ides being a dangerous date was purely an invention of Shakespeare's; each month has an Ides (often the 15th) and this date wasn't significant in being associated with death prior to 1601.
The Ides of March marks this anniversary. The Roman leader was stabbed to death shortly after being declared Dictator Perpetuus or “dictator for life”. The Roman historian Suetonius wrote: “He was stabbed with three and 20 wounds, uttering not a word, but merely a groan at the first stroke, though some have written that when Marcus Brutus rushed at him, he said in Greek, 'You too, my child?'
Source: www.history.com
Beyond the IDES: Why March Is The Unluckiest Month Of All
This Day in History (16-Feb-1659) – 1st known cheque (£400) (on display at Westminster Abbey)There are early evidences of using cheques. In India, during the Mauryan period (from 321 to 185 BC), a commercial instrument called adesha was in use, which was an order on a banker desiring him to pay the money of the note to a third person, which corresponds to the definition of a bill of exchange as we understand it today. During the Buddhist period, there was considerable use of these instruments.
Merchants in large towns gave letters of credit to one another. In early 1500s, the check first got widespread usage in Holland. Amsterdam in the sixteenth century was a major international shipping and trading center. People who had accumulated cash began depositing it with Dutch “cashiers,” for a fee, as a safer alternative to keeping the money at home. Eventually the cashiers agreed to pay their depositors’ debts out of the money in each account, based on the depositor’s written order or “note” to do so.
The first known handwritten cheque in Britain was signed in 1659 on this day. It was made out for £400, signed by Nicholas Vanacker, and made payable to a Mr Delboe and drawn on Messrs Morris and Clayton, scriveners and bankers of the City of London. The world “check” also may have originated in England in the 1700s when serial numbers were placed on these pieces of paper as a way to keep track of, or “check” on, them. As checks became more widely accepted, bankers encountered problem of collecting the money due from so many other banks.
At first, each bank sent messengers to the other banks to present checks for collection, but that meant a lot of traveling and a lot of cash being hauled around. The solution to this problem was found at a British coffee shop. The story goes that a London bank messenger stopped for coffee and noticed another bank messenger. They got to talking, realized that they each had checks drawn on the other’s bank, and decided to exchange them and save each other the extra trip. The practice evolved into a system of check “clearinghouses”—networks of banks that exchange checks with each other—that still is in use.
The use of cheques peaked in 1990 but has dropped significantly since being partly replaced by electronic payment systems. Today two-thirds of under 25s have never written a cheque.
Source: www.mukundsathe.com
On February 17, 1600, Giordano Bruno, the Italian philosopher, occultist, and mathematician, was burnt at the stake on charges of heresy and blasphemy.Go to Campo dei Fiori in Rome on 17 February and you will find yourself surrounded by a motley crowd of atheists, pantheists, anarchists, Masons, mystics, Christian reformers and members of the Italian Association of Free Thinkers, all rubbing shoulders with an official delegation from City Hall.
Every year, this unlikely congregation gathers to lay wreaths at the foot of the 19th-century statue that glowers over the piazza from beneath its friar’s cowl; flowers, candles, poems and tributes pile up against the plinth whose inscription reads: ‘To Bruno, from the generation he foresaw, here, where the pyre burned.’ In the four centuries since he was executed for heresy by the Roman Inquisition, this diminutive iconoclast has been appropriated as a symbol by all manner of causes, reflecting the complexities and contradictions inherent in his ideas, his writings and his character.
Giordano Bruno was born in Nola, at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, in 1548, a soldier’s son who joined the prestigious Dominican convent of San Domenico Maggiore in nearby Naples at the age of 17. He excelled in philosophy and theology, but his precocious intellect proved as much a liability as an asset; he was constantly in trouble with his superiors for questioning orthodoxies and seeking out forbidden reading material. In 1576, he was forced to flee the convent under the cover of darkness to avoid an interrogation by the local Inquisitor after being discovered reading Erasmus in the privy (he had thrown the book down the hole to hide the evidence, but someone was determined enough to fish it out).
So began an itinerant life that saw Bruno progress north through Italy to France, transforming himself along the way from defrocked friar (he was excommunicated in absentia for his unauthorised flight), to university teacher, to personal tutor to King Henry III of France, all in little more than five years.
This remarkable rise illustrates Bruno’s audacity and charisma but, although he began to move in influential circles, gaining a reputation for his prodigious memory and the artificial memory system he devised, his position always remained precarious; he made enemies with as much alacrity as he attracted admirers, and was thrown into prison in more than one city for giving offence in his public lectures. He published books that further consolidated his notoriety as a dangerous thinker …..
… Perhaps the Inquisition is still with us, in different shapes, and each new generation he foresaw must not take its freedom of thought for granted. For as long as there are those who dare to voice their ideas aloud and are imprisoned or exiled for it, Bruno persists as a symbol of intellectual courage. Long may his flame burn.
Source: AEON - https://goo.gl/gr9aNS
Giordano Bruno: Philosopher/HereticP. S. I live just few miles away from the place where Bruno was born. In this ancient historic valley, at the foot of volcano Mount Vesuvius, we are all proud of him ...
Today in the History of publishingPilgrim’s Progress Published February 18 1678
The date taken as that when John Bunyan ’s The Pilgrim’s Progress was published is February 18 1678, the day when the book was listed in a Term Catalogue. There is still much scholarly debate as to when Bunyan wrote the first part of his great work, often coming down to which spell in prison for his preaching outside the established church saw him begin the book.
For modern readers without any great religious affinity the book is now in truth a very difficult read, a tale of righteous progress beset with difficulties, the great morality tale. But while the whole is hard to swallow, the parts are often delightful: Bunyan was a plain poet with a gift for language, many of his phrases part of our lives just as Shakespeare before him informed our common idiom: how many of us have used the terms ‘slough of despond’ and ‘the straight and narrow’? And how many of us sang at school the hymn taken from Pilgrim’s Progress, ‘He who would valiant be”? It had wider impact too in our culture: John Buchan chose Mr Standfast as the title of one of his thrillers; and the magazine Vanity Fair is a Bunyanism.
A tinker turned preacher, Bunyan the author became enormously successful in his own time, in demand as a speaker and preacher around his native Bedford and throughout the country; and his book has never been out of print since it first appeared.
Source: www.information-britain.co.uk
The Pilgrim's Progress: By John Bunyan - Illustrated
February 20, 1909 - Words in Freedom: FuturismThe “Manifesto of Futurism,” written by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and published on the front page of the French newspaper Le Figaro on February 20, 1909, proclaimed the burning desire of the author and his fellow Futurists to abandon the past and embrace the future.
Tired of Italy’s reliance on its classical heritage and disdainful of the present, these artists called for a new aesthetic language based on industry, war, and the machine. In addition to their prolific output of drawings, photographs, films, performances, and paintings and sculptures (examples of which are on view in the fifth-floor Painting and Sculpture galleries), the Futurists (1909–1944) published countless manifestos, leaflets, and art and poetry periodicals.
The Futurists wrote countless manifestos and distributed them in cities around the world to communicate their aesthetic, social, and political ideals. Through this entrepreneurial method of mass promotion the artists expressed their ideas about visual art, literature, music, dance, cinema, politics, and contemporary life, among other subjects. In visual, typographic, verbal, and aural attacks on the academic and bourgeois classes, the past, and the conservative institutions that represented it, the Futurists freed expression from the bounds of tradition and propriety.
F. T. Marinetti. “Manifeste du futurisme” [Manifesto of Futurism]. February 20, 1909. One of the most well-known and representative declarations of this manifesto, first published on February 20, 1909, in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro, is a cornerstone of Futurist thought: “We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed.” ….(cont.)
Sources: www.moma.org
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Aphorisms on Futurism
BY MINA LOY
DIE in the Past
Live in the Future.
THE velocity of velocities arrives in starting.
IN pressing the material to derive its essence, matter becomes deformed.
AND form hurtling against itself is thrown beyond the synopsis of vision.
THE straight line and the circle are the parents of design, form the basis of art; there is no limit to their coherent variability.
LOVE the hideous in order to find the sublime core of it.
OPEN your arms to the dilapidated; rehabilitate them.
YOU prefer to observe the past on which your eyes are already opened.
BUT the Future is only dark from outside.
Leap into it—and it EXPLODES with Light.
FORGET that you live in houses, that you may live in yourself—
FOR the smallest people live in the greatest houses.
BUT the smallest person, potentially, is as great as the Universe.
WHAT can you know of expansion, who limit yourselves to compromise?
HITHERTO the great man has achieved greatness by keeping the people small.
BUT in the Future, by inspiring the people to expand to their fullest capacity, the great man proportionately must be tremendous—a God.
LOVE of others is the appreciation of oneself.
MAY your egotism be so gigantic that you comprise mankind in your self-sympathy.
THE Future is limitless—the past a trail of insidious reactions.
LIFE is only limited by our prejudices. Destroy them, and you cease to be at the mercy of yourself.
TIME is the dispersion of intensiveness.
THE Futurist can live a thousand years in one poem ...
Other sources:
www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/694...
Futurism: An Anthology
https://markdyal.files.wordpress.com/...
Futurism
Futurist Manifestos
Mod
http://turismo.comune.perugia.it/poi/...
http://www.gerardodottori.net/index.p...
Some of his paintings have been exposed at the Moma some years ago and lately in Belarus.
His most famous works, both in Perugia, are the "Triptych of speed" and "Fire in town". If someone happens to be in the neighbourhood of Perugia, do come and give it a look: I assure you, it is really worth seeing!
LauraT wrote: "In Perugia, right in the museum I work with, we have a full collection of paintings by Gerardo Dottori, one of the closest friend of Marinetti. He was the one "inventing" aeropaintings. When we've ..."Thanks LauraT, precious information!
February 21, 1907 – Birthday of W. H. AudenWystan Hugh Auden was born on February 21, 1907, in York, England. He was considered to be one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. In 1925 he entered Christ Church College, University of Oxford, where he became the center of a group of young leftist writers, the so-called “Oxford Group,” who were influenced by literary Modernism, in particular by the artistic principles adopted by T. S. Eliot. Rejecting the traditional poetic forms favored by their Victorian predecessors, the Modernist poets favored concrete imagery and free verse. Auden had wide-ranging intellectual interests, technical virtuosity in a variety of metrical forms, and was a winner of the Pulitzer Prize. He died in Vienna in 1973. Modern audiences are perhaps most familiar with his poem “Funeral Blues:”
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
“Funeral Blues” has an interesting composition history. It originally appeared as a song in a play Auden cowrote with Christopher Isherwood called The Ascent of F6. In this form the last two stanzas were not included, and three others followed instead. The characters in the play were specifically invoked, and the play was an ironic statement on how “great men” are lionized after their deaths.
Selected Poems
The book "The Dialogue" was published on February 22 in 1632. It was written by Galileo Galilei and summarizes his ideas and views on questions from the field of astronomy.The book discusses the two rival astronomical theories - the Ptolemaic, according to which the earth is the center of the world, and the Copernican, which assumes that the sun is immobile and that the planets revolve around it. Galileo examines the two theories in terms of their ability to explain the actual phenomena observed in the heavens, and their correspondence with known terrestrial phenomena. As part of the astronomical discussion, the book also discusses such physical laws as the laws of motion.
The book was written in Italian as a dialogue, i.e., a conversation between three persons, Salivati who represents Galileo's position, Simplicio who represents the Aristotelian philosophers who hold the earth to be immobile, and Sagrado, a Venetian nobleman presented as a layman (i.e., a non-expert) who is willing to learn from the other two speakers. The dialogue weighs the plausibility of the two models of the structure of the universe. It's official aim is the understanding and the joy of the debate itself rather than to judge which theory is true. However, it is obvious that the book accepts the Copernican theory and rejects the Ptolemaic theory. Following the book's publication, Galileo was accused by the Inquisition of belief in the movement of the earth and of teaching that theory, contrary to the explicit prohibition of the Church.
The book is divided into four days (chapters). Each day, the conversation centers on a different issue. On the first day, Galileo speaks against the Aristotelian physics which had been accepted up to his time. According to Aristotle, the supra-lunar world is composed of a special material which is different from earthly material. Ether is a very hard material, but lighter than anything known on earth. The main quality of ether is its circular motion, and thus all the stars, by their nature move in circles. Galileo shows that there is no difference between the material in the heavens and on earth, and thus claims that the stars are not made of ether. The stars and the bodies on earth obey the same laws of nature. Galileo devotes the second part of the dialogue to the law of inertia and shows that there is no difference between movement and rest, and thus that the movement of the earth is possible without any sensation of motion. The third part is devoted to the analysis of astronomical phenomena in order to show that there are formation and destruction in the heavens too, and that not everything on the moon is as eternal and permanent as Aristotle claimed. The fourth day is devoted to the Copernican explanation of the solar system and ebbs and tides on earth. It is interesting to note that in this description, Galileo describes the movement of the planets as circular, although Kepler had already shown twenty years earlier that the orbits of the stars are elliptical.
Source: http://muse.tau.ac.il/museum/galileo/...
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
23 February 1821. Despite his death at the age of 25, John Keats is one of the greatest English poets and a key figure in the Romantic movement. He has become the epitome of the young, beautiful, doomed poet. Keats died in Rome on 23 February 1821. He was buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.Ode To A Nightingale
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness, –
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
And mid-May’s eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain –
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: – Do I wake or sleep?
– John Keats
Ode to a Nightingale
February 24, 1920 – Nancy Astor became the first woman to speak in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom following her election as a Member of Parliament (MP) three months earlier. Extract of Lady Astor’s Maiden Speech in the House of Commons – 24 February 1920 Viscountess ASTOR:
I shall not begin by craving the indulgence of the House. I am only too conscious of the indulgence and the courtesy of the House. I know that it was very difficult for some hon. Members to receive the first lady M.P. into the House. [HON. MEMBERS: “Not at all!”]
It was almost as difficult for some of them as it was for the lady M.P. herself to come in. Hon. Members, however, should not be frightened of what Plymouth sends out into the world. After all, I suppose when Drake and Raleigh wanted to set out on their venturesome careers, some cautious person said, “Do not do it; it has never been tried before. You stay at home, my sons, cruising around in home waters.”
I have no doubt that the same thing occurred when the Pilgrim Fathers set out. I have no doubt that there were cautious Christian brethren who did not understand their going into the wide seas to worship God in their own way. But, on the whole, the world is all the better for those venturesome and courageous west country people, and I would like to say that I am quite certain that the women of the whole world will not forget that it was the fighting men of Devon who dared to send the first woman to represent women in the Mother of Parliaments.
Now, as the west country people are a courageous lot, it is only right that one of their representatives should show some courage, and I am perfectly aware that it does take a bit of courage to address the House on that vexed question, Drink…. Do we want the welfare of the community, or do we want the prosperity of the Trade? Do we want national efficiency, or do we want national inefficiency? That is what it comes to.
So I hope to be able to persuade the House. Are we really trying for a better world, or are we going to slip back to the same old world before 1914? I think that the hon. Member is not moving with the times... He talks about the restrictions. I maintain that they brought a great deal of good to the community. There were two gains. First, there were the moral gains. I should like to tell you about them. The convictions of drunkenness among women during the War were reduced to one-fifth after these vexatious restrictions were brought in.
I take women, because, as the hon. Member has said, most of the men were away fighting…. I do not think the country is really ripe for prohibition, but I am certain it is ripe for drastic drink reforms. [HON. Members: “No!”] I know what I am talking about, and you must remember that women have got a vote now and we mean to use it, and use it wisely, not for the benefit of any section of society, but for the benefit of the whole. I want to see what the Government is going to do…
(Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 125 10 Feb 1920 to 27 Feb 1920 (p 1623-1631).
Source: The speech of Lady Astor - https://goo.gl/4dNE8c
Nancy: The Story of Lady Astor
On this day February 25 in 1956, Sylvia Plath meets her future husband, Ted Hughes, at a party in Cambridge, UK. The two poets fell in love at first sight and married four months later.Plath was born in 1932, the daughter of an autocratic German father who taught biology and was a leading expert on bumblebees. Plath’s father died at home after a lingering illness that consumed the energy of the entire household and left the family penniless. Sylvia’s mother went to work as a teacher and raised her two children alone.
Plath was an outstanding student. She won a scholarship to Smith, published her first short story, “Sunday at the Mintons,” in Mademoiselle while she was still in college, and then won a summer job as “guest managing editor” at the magazine. After the job ended, she suffered a nervous breakdown, tried to commit suicide, and was hospitalized. She returned to school to finish her senior year, won a Fulbright to England, and went to Cambridge after graduation, where she met Hughes.
Plath took a job teaching at Smith, which she kept for a year before quitting to write full time. She and Hughes lived in Boston, and she attended poetry workshops with Robert Lowell, whose confessional approach to poetry deeply influenced her. Hughes won a Guggenheim fellowship in 1959, and the couple returned to England, where Plath had her first child.
Her first poetry collection, Colossus, was published in 1960 to favorable reviews. The couple bought a house in Devon and had a second child in 1962, the same year that Plath discovered that her husband was having an affair. He left the family to move in with his lover, and Plath desperately struggled against her own emotional turmoil and depression. She moved to London and wrote dozens of her best poems in the winter of 1962. Her only novel, The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical account of a college girl who works at a magazine in New York and suffers a breakdown, was published in early 1963, but received mediocre reviews. With sick children, frozen pipes, and a severe case of depression, Plath took her own life in February 1963, at age 30. Hughes edited several volumes of her poetry, which appeared after her death, including Ariel(1965), Crossing the Water (1971), and Collected Poems (1981), which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982.
Source: www.history.com
Grief of Influence: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes
February 26, 1987: Synod says 'yes' to women priests. The Church of England's General Synod has voted by a huge majority to clear the way for the ordination of women priests. The Church of England has been debating the issue for 10 years and the final go-ahead is still some years away.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie, supported the yes vote but was careful to point out the Church would study an inquiry to be carried out by a committee of bishops before it reached a final decision.
He also said those who warned the issue would cause a split the Church were suffering from "premature panic".
The Bishop of London, Dr Graham Leonard, who is against the move retracted earlier threats to leave or divide the Church.
But talk of a split in the Church dominated the debate today in the Synod.
The Government Junior Agriculture Minister John Gummer, a lay member, said: "It would no longer be the church into which I was born, which I love and in which I pray to die.
"That is not a threat, it's a statement."
Sister Carol, a nun from Worcestershire, told those present women had a right to become priests.
She said: "Am I called to walk tall in society and to walk small in the Church?"
A spokesperson for the Movement for the Ordination of Women said members would be "absolutely delighted" by the vote.
The synod is divided into three houses - bishops, clergy and laymen. Overall 317 (68%) voted for and 145 against.
Only the House of Clergy had less than the significant two-thirds majority. The final vote will require a two-thirds majority in all three houses.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
Women Priests: Obstacle To Unity?: Documents And Correspondence Rome And Canterbury 1975 1986
Born on February 27, 1807, in Portland, Maine, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow became a Harvard scholar versed in several European languages. He was heavily influenced by Romanticism and made a name as a poet and novelist with works like Hyperion, Evangeline, Poems on Slavery and The Song of Hiawatha. He was also known for his translation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Longfellow died on March 24, 1882, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
A Psalm Of Life - Poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
The Divine Comedy
David Herbert Lawrence died today 2 March 1930. He was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter. His collected works represent, among other things, an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. Some of the issues Lawrence explores are sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity, and instinct.
Although he’s best-known for novels such as Sons and Lovers and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and for short stories such as ‘The Rocking-Horse Winner’, D. H. Lawrence was also a prolific poet whose work ranged from formally conventional poems to sprawling free verse influenced by Walt Whitman. What follows is one of his poems I like most:
Piano
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
The Complete Poems
It happened on March 2, 1978In one of history’s most famous cases of body-snatching, two men steal the corpse of the revered film actor Sir Charles Chaplin from a cemetery in the Swiss village of Corsier-sur-Vevey, located in the hills above Lake Geneva, near Lausanne, Switzerland, on this day in 1978.
A comic actor who was perhaps most famous for his alter ego, the Little Tramp, Chaplin was also a respected filmmaker whose career spanned Hollywood’s silent film era and the momentous transition to “talkies” in the late 1920s. Chaplin died on Christmas Day in 1977, at the age of 88. Two months later, his body was stolen from the Swiss cemetery, sparking a police investigation and a hunt for the culprits.
After Chaplin’s widow, Oona, received a ransom demand of some $600,000, police began monitoring her phone and watching 200 phone kiosks in the region. Oona had refused to pay the ransom, saying that her husband would have thought the demand “ridiculous.” The callers later made threats against her two youngest children. Oona Chaplin was Charlie’s fourth wife (after Mildred Harris, Lita Grey and Paulette Goddard) and the daughter of the playwright Eugene O’Neill. She and Chaplin were married in 1943, when she was 18 and he was 54; they had eight children together. The family had settled in Switzerland in 1952 after the controversial Chaplin–whom his enemies accused of being a Communist sympathizer–learned he would be denied a reentry visa to the United States en route to the London premiere of his film Limelight.
After a five-week investigation, police arrested two auto mechanics–Roman Wardas, of Poland, and Gantscho Ganev, of Bulgaria–who on May 17 led them to Chaplin’s body, which they had buried in a cornfield about one mile from the Chaplin family’s home in Corsier. That December, Wardas and Ganev were convicted of grave robbing and attempted extortion. Political refugees from Eastern Europe, Wardas and Ganev apparently stole Chaplin’s body in an attempt to solve their financial difficulties. Wardas, identified as the mastermind of the plot, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years of hard labor. As he told it, he was inspired by a similar crime that he had read about in an Italian newspaper. Ganev was given an 18-month suspended sentence, as he was believed to have limited responsibility for the crime. As for Chaplin, his family reburied his body in a concrete grave to prevent future theft attempts.
Source: www.history.com
Sir Charlie: Chaplin, the Funniest Man in the World
The first issue of TIME, dated Mar. 3, 1923, lacked the distinctive red border for which the magazine has come to be known. The cover subject was the now-obscure Joseph G. Cannon (the former House Speaker). The whole thing was only 32 pages, including the front and back covers. There are only a few photographs or illustrations, and nary a chart or graphic in sight.
And yet it’s recognizable as what it still is today: a look at the week’s news, from a serious look at national affairs to pages of arts reviews to a tongue-in-cheek wrap-up of weird local tidbits. The magazine contains word of the first helicopter, a possible change in divorce laws, the release of the film Adam’s Rib, a new one-cent cigarette tax in Indiana and the latest figures in German reparation payments—not to mention a critical trashing of The Waste Land.
TIME subscribers can always access that issue, and every other one, complete with the original layouts, art and advertisements — but today, Mar. 3, that issue can be read in its entirety by non-subscribers as well.
Source: www.time.com
The Face of History: Time Magazine Covers 1923-1991
Antonio wrote: "It happened on March 2, 1978In one of history’s most famous cases of body-snatching, two men steal the corpse of the revered film actor Sir Charles Chaplin from a cemetery in the Swiss village of..."
I have never heard this before! Very interesting, thank you for sharing.
Evelyn wrote: "Antonio wrote: "It happened on March 2, 1978In one of history’s most famous cases of body-snatching, two men steal the corpse of the revered film actor Sir Charles Chaplin from a cemetery in the ..."
Thanks for reading. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Evelyn, Than are dreamt of in our philosophy ..."
On March 4, 1952 Ernest Hemingway completes his short novel “The Old Man and the Sea”. He wrote his publisher the same day, saying he had finished the book and that it was the best writing he had ever done. The critics agreed: The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and became one of his bestselling works.
Old Man and the Sea.
Perseverance Quotes
I could just drift, he thought, and sleep and put a bight of line around my toe to wake me. But today is eighty-five days and I should fish the day well. Just then, watching his lines, he saw one...
Suffering Quotes
All my life the early sun has hurt my eyes, he thought. Yet they are still good. In the evening I can look straight into it without getting the blackness. It has more force in the evening too. But...
Strength and Skill Quotes
The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks....
Pride Quotes
"Thank you," the old man said. He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride. (1.36)
Memory and the Past Quotes
"How old was I when you first took me in a boat?" "Five and you nearly were killed when I brought the fish in too green and he nearly tore the boat to pieces. Can you remember?" "I can remember t...
Defeat Quotes
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days wi...
Isolation Quotes
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days wi...
Man and the Natural World Quotes
Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated. (1.3)
Hunger Quotes
There was no cast net and the boy remembered when they had sold it. But they went through this fiction every day. There was no pot of yellow rice and fish and the boy knew this too. (1.59)
Respect and Reputation Quotes
No one would steal from the old man but it was better to take the sail and the heavy lines home as the dew was bad for them and, though he was quite sure no local people would steal from him, the o...
Luck Quotes
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days wi...
Friendship Quotes
"Santiago," the boy said to him as they climbed the bank from where the skiff was hauled up. "I could go with you again. We’ve made some money." (1.4)
Source: www.shmoop.com
The Old Man and the Sea
March 5, Winston Churchill - March 5, 1946 - "The Iron Curtain"Less than a year after the end of World War II, the great wartime leader of Britain, Winston Churchill, delivered this speech in which he first coined the term "iron curtain" to describe the ominous postwar boundary in Europe between self-governing nations of the West and those in Eastern Europe which had recently come under the powerful grip of Soviet Russia.
During the war against Hitler, Russian troops had advanced far beyond their own borders into Europe, smashing Nazi Germany from the east while the Americans, British, Canadians and other allies attacked Hitler from the west. After the war, the Russians gave no indication they intended to withdraw and instead began installing puppet governments throughout Eastern Europe.
In this speech, Churchill begins by acknowledging America's newfound power in the world, and then offers a blunt assessment of the threat of Communism from Russia. Churchill gave the speech at Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, after receiving an honorary degree and was introduced by Missourian, President Harry Truman, who attended the event out of pure admiration for Churchill. (listen to his speech here)
Source: www.historyplace.com/speeches/ironcur...
Our Supreme Task: How Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech Defined the Cold War Alliance
International Women's Day (8 March)8 March has been celebrated as International Women's Day since 1975, the year declared as “International Women´s Year” by the UN.
Women's Day Quotes
Harriet Beecher Stowe
So much has been said and sung of beautiful young girls. Why don't somebody wake up to the beauty of old women?"
Brett Butler
I would like it if men had to partake in the same hormonal cycles to which we're subjected monthly.
Maybe that's why men declare war -- because they have a need to bleed on a regular basis.
Katherine Hepburn
Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.
Carolyn Kenmore
You have to have the kind of body that doesn't need a girdle in order to get to pose in one.
Anita Wise
A lot of guys think the larger a woman's breasts are, the less intelligent she is. I don't think it works like that. I think it's the opposite. I think the larger a woman's breasts are, the less intelligent the men become.
Arnold Haultain
A woman can say more in a sigh than a man can say in a sermon.
Ogden Nash
I have an idea that the phrase "weaker sex" was coined by some woman to disarm some man she was preparing to overwhelm.
Oliver Goldsmith
They may talk of a comet, or a burning mountain, or some such bagatelle; but to me a modest woman, dressed out in all her finery, is the most tremendous object of the whole creation.
Aristotle Onassis
If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning.
Gilda Radner
I'd much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they're the first to be rescued off sinking ships.
George Eliot
A woman's hopes are woven of sunbeams; a shadow annihilates them.
Mignon McLaughlin
A woman asks little of love: only that she be able to feel like a heroine.
Stanley Baldwin
I would rather trust a woman's instinct than a man's reason.
Simone de Beauvoir
One is not born a woman, one becomes one.
Ian Fleming
A woman should be an illusion.
Stephen Stills
There are three things men can do with women: love them, suffer for them, or turn them into literature.
Germaine Greer
Women have very little idea of how much men hate them.
William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak.
Mignon McLaughlin
Women are never landlocked: they're always mere minutes away from the briny deep of tears.
Robert Brault
Through sources, we have obtained the following alien assessment of the human species: The male wants to be valued for what he pretends to be. The female wants to be overvalued for what she truly is.
Voltaire
I hate women because they always know where things are.
Hermione Gingold
Fighting is essentially a masculine idea; a woman's weapon is her tongue.
Joseph Conrad
Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.
Janis Joplin
Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.
Martina Navratilova
I think the key is for women not to set any limits.
Rosalyn Sussman
We still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and wants to belong exclusively in the home.
Virginia Woolf
As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.
Mae West
When women go wrong, men go right after them.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.
Source: Source: www.thoughtco.com
Women Building The World: A Poetic International Women's Day Collection
March 10, 1926 First Book-of-the-Month Club selection is published.Lolly Willowes, or The Loving Huntsman, the first Book-of-the-Month Club selection, is published by Viking Press.
The book was written by English novelist Sylvia Townsend Warner, who had intended to become a musicologist, not a writer. To that end, she edited a 10-volume work called Tudor Church Music.
Warner claimed she became a poet and fiction writer accidentally when she ran across a piece of paper with “a particularly tempting surface.” She was intensely interested in established religions and the occult and used her knowledge of witchcraft in Lolly Willowes, a story about a widow who scandalizes her relations by moving to a town involved in witchcraft.
The Book-of-the-Month Club’s 4,000-plus members were not pleased with the novel. However, Warner was used to being controversial. As an openly gay woman in the early 1900s, she was the object of much hostility throughout her life. Warner later published 144 short stories in the New Yorker, as well as more novels, poetry, and translations. She died in 1978 in Dorset, England.
Source: www.history.com
A Feeling for Books: The Book-Of-The-Month Club, Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire
March 11, 1818 Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is published. The book, by 21-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, is frequently called the world’s first science fiction novel. In Shelley’s tale, a scientist animates a creature constructed from dismembered corpses. The gentle, intellectually gifted creature is enormous and physically hideous. Cruelly rejected by its creator, it wanders, seeking companionship and becoming increasingly brutal as it fails to find a mate.
Mary Shelley created the story on a rainy afternoon in 1816 in Geneva, where she was staying with her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and their friend Lord Byron. Byron proposed they each write a gothic ghost story, but only Mary Shelley completed hers. Although serving as the basis for the Western horror story and the inspiration for numerous movies in the 20th century, the book Frankenstein is much more than pop fiction. The story explores philosophical themes and challenges Romantic ideals about the beauty and goodness of nature.
Mary Shelley led a life nearly as tumultuous as the monster she created. The daughter of free-thinking philosopher William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, she lost her mother days after her birth. She clashed with her stepmother and was sent to Scotland to live with foster parents during her early teens, then eloped with the married poet Shelley when she was 17. After Shelley’s wife committed suicide in 1817, the couple married but spent much of their time abroad, fleeing Shelley’s creditors. Mary Shelley gave birth to five children, but only one lived to adulthood. Mary was only 24 years old when Shelley drowned in a sailing accident; she went on to edit two volumes of his works. She lived on a small stipend from her father-in-law, Lord Shelley, until her surviving son inherited his fortune and title in 1844. She died at the age of 53. Although Mary Shelley was a respected writer for many years, only Frankenstein and her journals are still widely read.
Source: www.history.com
Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus
March 12, 1922 Jack Kerouac is born in Lowell, Massachusetts. Kerouac was the son of French-Canadian parents and learned English as a second language. In high school, Kerouac was a star football player and won a scholarship to Columbia University.
In World War II, he served in the Navy but was expelled for severe personality problems that may have been symptoms of mental illness. He became a merchant seaman. In the late 1940s, he wandered the U.S. and Mexico and wrote his first novel, The Town and the City. It was not until 1957, when he published On the Road, an autobiographical tale of his wanderings, that he became famous as a seminal figure of the Beat Generation. His tale of a subculture of poets, folk singers, and eccentrics who smoked marijuana and rejected conformist society was written in just three weeks. The book is filled with other Beat figures, including Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs.
Kerouac wrote five more books before his death in 1967 in St. Petersburg, Florida. However, none gained the mythic status of On the Road.
Peace of Mind
While rollerblading hurriedly through peaceful quiet suburbia,
as is my habit in the prime of spring,
I came to realize what I was made for.
On similar spring skates from years past,
I would think of how much I love suburban innocence and tranquility,
and eventually how I once loved suburban innocence and tranquility.
This April 23, however was filled not with joyful rememberance,
but with hope and curiousity about what sort of peace of mind I can obtain.
I'm tired of quiet decomposition and pretended indifference.
Constant hate and dislike.
The time has come to embrace the finer things,
to appreciate the warmth of security and smiles.
The sprinkler does it's whirrrrr, tick-tick-tick-tick.
Jesus, they should make pie flavors with pictures of this on the cover.
I slowed down, enchanted by the artificialy lovely neighborhood.
Skated on past bar-b-que on front lawn of a pretty house.
Men with polo shirts look up from their beer and smile pleasantly.
Moms look over with concern to see that their happiness isn't run over by unruly teenagers.
Boys on 13 inch tired bikes that read 'mud slinger' and 'power rangers' pedal galantly after me.
Girls around 13 smile inocently and wonder if they know my little brother.
The climate's ideal, and so are the people.
Reached a dead end of sorts that looked quiet enough to sit down and give my feet some rest.
7 year old with dark skin pedals thoughtfuly down his drive way.
The Bar-B-que is taking place only a couple of yards away.
He looks over at me with a lonely questioning look,
and as I skate back the way I came, I wonder why he isn't involved in the charred animal flesh consumption.
It could be his skin color, but that seems too petty for such a pleasant place.
Perhaps it's his parent's religious views, their funny accent, or more likely an overwhelming sense of isolation.
It seems that there must be some sort of 'just think pleasant thoughts' conspiracy around here and the standards are slow to change.
As I skate by once more, I look long and hard at the happy suburbanites.
They still looked really content and warm, but I noticed not one of them was anything but white.
What does it matter, I'm white, anyways.
The Jack Kerouac Collection
13 March 2018 - 13 March 2013, five years of Pope Francis.Five years on, Pope Francis has failed to deliver on his promises. If there is something the Roman Catholic church does supremely well, it is the spectacle of an election. From the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel voting and the white plumes announcing the election of a new pope, to the new man stepping onto the balcony of St Peter’s to greet the crowds, it is one moment of high drama after another.
Now such a huge global figure, it is hard to believe that when Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires first greeted the crowds on 13 March 2013, and announced he would be called Pope Francis, most of the world – including Catholics – asked, “Who’s this?”
As Francis quipped on the day, the cardinals went to the ends of the earth to find a new pope. They made their decision based partly on the troubles the Catholic church faced, troubles that had so overwhelmed Benedict XVI that he had resigned. These troubles included the decline in Catholic numbers in the west, the mess of the church’s finances and evidence of money-laundering and corruption, the Vatican’s bureaucracy, the child sexual abuse scandals and the fading influence of Catholic sexual morality in the face of more secular influence.
And just as Francis had pleased the cardinals, he quickly won over the world. His modest lifestyle, his ready engagement with ordinary people, his desire for reform of the church’s structures and more compassionate attitudes to divorced, remarried and gay people, made him hugely popular. At the Vatican, he quickly took action, setting up a group of progressive cardinals to investigate how to reform it.
Five years on, Francis’s efforts at reforms have got stuck. The pope recognises the problems of overhauling the unwieldy structure of the Vatican bureaucracy: he has likened it to cleaning the Egyptian sphinx with a toothbrush. Then there is his calling of synods to discuss the family, especially the treatment of divorced and remarried Catholics. They have won him huge support among millions of people in the pews, but have led to open hostility from conservative prelates … (continued)
Source: The Guardian https://goo.gl/zf6T7k
The Future of the Catholic Church with Pope Francis
March 14th 1883: Karl Marx diesOn this day in 1883, the Prussian philosopher Karl Marx died in London aged 64. Born in Trier in 1818, Marx’s father was a successful lawyer who imparted his activist leanings onto his children.
The young Marx was educated at the University of Bonn, where he enjoyed the frivolities of student life, and the University of Berlin, where he took his academic studies more seriously. At this time, he was influenced by the work of G.W.F. Hegel and the radical reformist movement his writings inspired. Marx received a doctorate in philosophy in 1841, but his radical politics barred him from a teaching job, so he briefly worked in journalism.
In 1843, Marx and his wife moved to Paris, where his ideology matured, aided by his friendship with Friedrich Engels. After being expelled from France for his radicalism, Marx moved to Brussels were he was introduced to socialism. In 1848, Marx and Engels published their hugely influential ‘The Communist Manifesto’. The main ideas expressed in the manifesto are chiefly that capitalism and class struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie have been the chief concerns of society throughout history.
Marx and Engels theorised that capitalism would be replaced by socialism and then communism, fulfilling their vision of global communism. Marx soon moved to London, as few European countries tolerated his revolutionary politics. Despite financial struggles, illness, and the loss of his wife and daughter, for the rest of his life Marx worked diligently on his magnum opus: ‘Das Kapital’.
Karl Marx died of pleurisy in London in 1883, and was buried at Highgate Cemetery. Few individuals have had such a monumental impact on political thought as Karl Marx. Communism remains a major political ideology, and his view of the world continues to infuence scholarship on areas including history and literature.
Source: www.todayinhistory.tumblr.com
Karl Marx: His Life and Environment
March 16, 1850 in the History of publishing. “The Scarlet Letter” is published. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story of adultery and betrayal in colonial America.Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804. Although the infamous Salem witch trials had taken place more than 100 years earlier, the events still hung over the town and made a lasting impression on the young Hawthorne. Witchcraft figured in several of his works, including “Young Goodman Brown” (1835) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851), in which a house is cursed by a wizard condemned by the witch trials.
After attending Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, Hawthorne returned to Salem, where he began his career as a writer. He self-published his first book, Fanshawe (1828), but tried to destroy all copies shortly after publication. He later wrote several books of short stories, including Twice Told Tales (1837). In 1841, he tried his hand at communal living at the agricultural cooperative Brook Farm but came away highly disillusioned by the experience, which he fictionalized in his novel The Blithedale Romance (1852).
Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody in 1842, having at last earned enough money from his writing to start a family. The two lived in a house called the Old Manse, in Concord, Massachusetts, and socialized with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Branson Alcott, father of writer Louisa May Alcott.
Plagued by financial difficulties as his family grew, he took a job in 1845 at Salem’s custom house, where he worked for three years. After leaving the job, he spent several months writing The Scarlet Letter, which made him famous.
In 1853, Hawthorne’s old college friend, President Franklin Pierce, appointed him American consul to England, and the family moved to England, where they lived for three years. Hawthorne died in Plymouth, New Hampshire, in 1864.
Source: www.history.com
The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne
On this day March 17 in 461 A.D., Saint Patrick, Christian missionary, bishop and apostle of Ireland, dies at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland.Much of what is known about Patrick’s legendary life comes from the Confessio, a book he wrote during his last years. Born in Great Britain, probably in Scotland, to a well-to-do Christian family of Roman citizenship, Patrick was captured and enslaved at age 16 by Irish marauders. For the next six years, he worked as a herder in Ireland, turning to a deepening religious faith for comfort. Following the counsel of a voice he heard in a dream one night, he escaped and found passage on a ship to Britain, where he was eventually reunited with his family.
According to the Confessio, in Britain Patrick had another dream, in which an individual named Victoricus gave him a letter, entitled “The Voice of the Irish.” As he read it, Patrick seemed to hear the voices of Irishmen pleading him to return to their country and walk among them once more. After studying for the priesthood, Patrick was ordained a bishop. He arrived in Ireland in 433 and began preaching the Gospel, converting many thousands of Irish and building churches around the country. After 40 years of living in poverty, teaching, traveling and working tirelessly, Patrick died on March 17, 461 in Saul, where he had built his first church.
Since that time, countless legends have grown up around Patrick. Made the patron saint of Ireland, he is said to have baptized hundreds of people on a single day, and to have used a three-leaf clover–the famous shamrock–to describe the Holy Trinity. In art, he is often portrayed trampling on snakes, in accordance with the belief that he drove those reptiles out of Ireland. For thousands of years, the Irish have observed the day of Saint Patrick’s death as a religious holiday, attending church in the morning and celebrating with food and drink in the afternoon.
The first St. Patrick’s Day parade, though, took place not in Ireland, but the United States, when Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City in 1762. As the years went on, the parades became a show of unity and strength for persecuted Irish-American immigrants, and then a popular celebration of Irish-American heritage. The party went global in 1995, when the Irish government began a large-scale campaign to market St. Patrick’s Day as a way of driving tourism and showcasing Ireland’s many charms to the rest of the world. Today, March 17 is a day of international celebration, as millions of people around the globe put on their best green clothing to drink beer, watch parades and toast the luck of the Irish.
Source: www.history.com
The Confession of Saint Patrick
On March 20th, 1916, Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity.General relativity (GR, also known as the general theory of relativity or GTR) is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916 and the current description of gravitation in modern physics. General relativity generalizes special relativity and Newton’s law of universal gravitation, providing a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of space and time, or spacetime. In particular, the curvature of spacetime is directly related to the energy and momentum of whatever matter and radiation are present. The relation is specified by the Einstein field equations, a system of partial differential equations.
Some predictions of general relativity differ significantly from those of classical physics, especially concerning the passage of time, the geometry of space, the motion of bodies in free fall, and the propagation of light. Examples of such differences include gravitational time dilation, gravitational lensing, the gravitational redshift of light, and the gravitational time delay. The predictions of general relativity have been confirmed in all observations and experiments to date. Although general relativity is not the only relativistic theory of gravity, it is the simplest theory that is consistent with experimental data. However, unanswered questions remain, the most fundamental being how general relativity can be reconciled with the laws of quantum physics to produce a complete and self-consistent theory of quantum gravity.
Einstein’s theory has important astrophysical implications. For example, it implies the existence of black holes—regions of space in which space and time are distorted in such a way that nothing, not even light, can escape—as an end-state for massive stars. There is ample evidence that the intense radiation emitted by certain kinds of astronomical objects is due to black holes; for example, microquasars and active galactic nuclei result from the presence of stellar black holes and black holes of a much more massive type, respectively. The bending of light by gravity can lead to the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, in which multiple images of the same distant astronomical object are visible in the sky. General relativity also predicts the existence of gravitational waves, which have since been observed directly by physics collaboration LIGO. In addition, general relativity is the basis of current cosmological models of a consistently expanding universe.
Source: www.thepandorasociety.com
The Einstein Theory of Relativity
World Poetry Day March 21Held every year on 21 March, World Poetry Day celebrates one of humanity’s most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expression and identity. Practiced throughout history – in every culture and on every continent – poetry speaks to our common humanity and our shared values, transforming the simplest of poems into a powerful catalyst for dialogue and peace.
UNESCO first adopted 21 March as World Poetry Day during its 30th General Conference in Paris in 1999, with the aim of supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression and increasing the opportunity for endangered languages to be heard.
World Poetry Day is the occasion to honour poets, revive oral traditions of poetry recitals, promote the reading, writing and teaching of poetry, foster the convergence between poetry and other arts such as theatre, dance, music and painting, and raise the visibility of poetry in the media. As poetry continues to bring people together across continents, all are invited to join in.
Source: www.unesco.org
Spring
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
----
In Perpetual Spring
Gardens are also good places
to sulk. You pass beds of
spiky voodoo lilies
and trip over the roots
of a sweet gum tree,
in search of medieval
plants whose leaves,
when they drop off
turn into birds
if they fall on land,
and colored carp if they
plop into water.
Suddenly the archetypal
human desire for peace
with every other species
wells up in you. The lion
and the lamb cuddling up.
The snake and the snail, kissing.
Even the prick of the thistle,
queen of the weeds, revives
your secret belief
in perpetual spring,
your faith that for every hurt
there is a leaf to cure it.
Amy Gerstler
On this day in 1832: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, celebrated statesman, scholar and author of Faust, dies Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in Frankfurt on 28 August 1749. By the date of his death, on 22 March 1832, he was a statesman, novelist, poet, playwright, critic, artist, and Germany’s greatest modern literary figure.
Goethe grew up comfortably, and was educated at home. At 16 he followed his father’s wishes and read law at the university of Leipzig. It was there he began writing seriously, before returning to Frankfurt after three years with a broken heart, tuberculosis, and no degree.
Ill health saw him experiment briefly with evangelical Christianity and alchemy, but he abandoned both, and when he submitted his doctorate in Strasbourg querying the Ten Commandments, it was the first of many occasions when he would shock with his modern views.
He had another brief but passionate affair before settling down to a legal practice in Frankfurt, but was soon enticed into writing his first real play, becoming a critic, and joining the Sturm und Drang movement that venerated nature, feeling, and individualism.
A summer romance with an engaged woman, then the suicide of another Frankfurt lawyer for love, inspired him to write The Sorrows of Young Werther in 1774, which won him immediate European fame and popularity. For the next two years he produced a wealth of poetry and other writings, much of it amorous, challenging accepted notions of matrimonial propriety, and all of it aspiring to represent a truly German literature.
His reputation was strong enough for the young Duke Charles Augustus of Weimar to summon him to court in 1776, where he took up a position as a Privy Councillor. He stayed for 10 years, working on the duke’s aspiration to build a truly Enlightenment court. From a humble start managing mining, he rose to look after highways, war, and eventually the exchequer.
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
Wandrers Nachtlied; Wanderer’s Night Song
You who hail from heaven,
Who stills all suffering and pain,
Who doubly refreshes
He who is doubly miserable,
O, I am tired of this business!
What’s the point of all this pain and lust?
Sweet peace,
Come, O come into my breast!
----
Der du von dem Himmel bist,
Alles Leid und Schmerzen stillest,
Den, der doppelt elend ist,
Doppelt mit Erquickung füllest,
Ach, ich bin des Treibens müde!
Was soll all der Schmerz und Lust?
Süßer Friede,
Komm, ach komm in meine Brust!
---
Over all hilltops
Is peace,
In all treetops
You sense
Hardly a breath;
The little birds are silent in the wood.
Wait, soon
You shall rest too.
---
Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.
These two poems form a pair. In the first night song, the tormented ‘I’ asks for peace, but has not found it.
In the second night song, the logical structure of the poem reinforces the idea that a state of rest is inevitable. The stillness descends vertically through space, from hilltops to treetops, from birds to the wanderer below. The poem simultaneously moves upwards through the orders of nature: from mineral, vegetable, animal to human. According to Elizabeth M. Wilkinson, this order means that the poet is embraced within nature ‘as the last link in the organic scale of being’ (see reading list below, also quoted in Goethe, Werke. Hamburger Ausgabe in 14 Bänden, ed. by Erich Trunz, vol. 1, p. 556).
It is worth noting that ‘rest’ in the final line is expressed as a verb (ruhen) and not a noun (Ruhe); this verb form suggests that even in ‘rest’ there is movement. The last word of the poem is ‘auch’ (too, also) which further emphasises the kinship between humans and the natural world. The poem’s final ‘ch’ sound is pronounced as in the word ‘loch’ (Scottish word for lake). This ‘ch’ sound is called a voiceless velar fricative; ‘voiceless’ because it is made without using the vocal chords, by constricting air flow (fricative) using the back of the tongue (velar). Try making this sound at home and you will see that it is indeed voiceless and mysterious, like the sound of a shell.
Source: German Literature https://goo.gl/zH81E2
On this day March 23 in 1839, the initials “O.K.” are first published in The Boston Morning Post. Meant as an abbreviation for “oll korrect,” a popular slang misspelling of “all correct” at the time, OK steadily made its way into the everyday speech of Americans.During the late 1830s, it was a favorite practice among younger, educated circles to misspell words intentionally, then abbreviate them and use them as slang when talking to one another. Just as teenagers today have their own slang based on distortions of common words, such as “kewl” for “cool” or “DZ” for “these,” the “in crowd” of the 1830s had a whole host of slang terms they abbreviated. Popular abbreviations included “KY” for “No use” (“know yuse”), “KG” for “No go” (“Know go”), and “OW” for all right (“oll wright”).
Of all the abbreviations used during that time, OK was propelled into the limelight when it was printed in the Boston Morning Post as part of a joke. Its popularity exploded when it was picked up by contemporary politicians. When the incumbent president Martin Van Buren was up for reelection, his Democratic supporters organized a band of thugs to influence voters. This group was formally called the “O.K. Club,” which referred both to Van Buren’s nickname “Old Kinderhook” (based on his hometown of Kinderhook, New York), and to the term recently made popular in the papers. At the same time, the opposing Whig Party made use of “OK” to denigrate Van Buren’s political mentor Andrew Jackson. According to the Whigs, Jackson invented the abbreviation “OK” to cover up his own misspelling of “all correct.”
The man responsible for unraveling the mystery behind “OK” was an American linguist named Allen Walker Read. An English professor at Columbia University, Read dispelled a host of erroneous theories on the origins of “OK,” ranging from the name of a popular Army biscuit (Orrin Kendall) to the name of a Haitian port famed for its rum (Aux Cayes) to the signature of a Choctaw chief named Old Keokuk. Whatever its origins, “OK” has become one of the most ubiquitous terms in the world, and certainly one of America’s greatest lingual exports.
Source: www.history.com
------
There have been numerous attempts to explain the emergence of this expression, which seems to have swept into popular use in the US during the mid-19th century. Most of them are pure speculation. It does not seem at all likely, from the linguistic and historical evidence, that it comes from the Scots expression och aye, the Greek ola kala ('it is good'), the Choctaw Indian oke or okeh ('it is so'), the French aux Cayes ('from Cayes', a port in Haiti with a reputation for good rum) or au quai ('to the quay', as supposedly used by French-speaking dockers), or the initials of a railway freight agent called Obediah Kelly who is said to have written them on documents he had checked.
A more likely explanation is that the term originated as an abbreviation of orl korrekt , a jokey misspelling of 'all correct' which was current in the US in the 1830s. The oldest written references result from its use as a slogan by the Democratic party during the American Presidential election of 1840. Their candidate, President Martin Van Buren, was nicknamed 'Old Kinderhook' (after his birthplace in New York State), and his supporters formed the 'OK Club'. This undoubtedly helped to popularize the term (though it did not get President Van Buren re-elected).
The only other theory with at least a degree of plausibility is that the term originated among Black slaves of West African origin, and represents a word meaning 'all right, yes indeed' in various West African languages. Unfortunately, historical evidence enabling the origin of this expression to be finally and firmly established may be hard to unearth.
Source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com
March 24, 1955Tennessee Williams’ play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opens in New York, two days before his 44th birthday. The play would win Williams his second Pulitzer Prize.
Williams had been an award-winning playwright since 1945, when his first hit play, The Glass Menagerie, opened, winning the Drama Critics Circle Award. Two years later, he won his first Pulitzer Prize, for A Streetcar Named Desire.
Williams led a colorful and tragic life. Born in 1911 in Columbia, Mississippi, he was a sickly child terrorized by his violent traveling-salesman father. When he was seven, the family moved to St. Louis, where his father became manager of a shoe company. Persecuted and taunted by his father, he took refuge in reading and writing and in a close relationship with his beloved sister Rose. At 14, he won a prize in a national writing competition and three years later sold a short story to Weird Tales magazine.
Williams studied at the University of Missouri at Columbia but left to work in his father’s shoe warehouse for three years. He later attended Washington University in St. Louis and finally graduated from the University of Iowa at age 27. Sadly, his sister Rose, who suffered severe mental disturbances that Williams blamed on his father’s violence, was lobotomized during this time.
Williams started writing plays during college and continued when he moved to New Orleans in the 1930s, where he changed his name from Thomas to Tennessee. In 1939, he won an award for a small production of his one-act collection American Blues. He worked briefly in Hollywood as a screenwriter and later turned a failed screenplay into The Glass Menagerie. The play launched Williams to critical success, which he maintained until the 1960s, when the critics turned on him. However, he continued writing until his death in 1983, when he choked on a medicine-bottle cap.
Source: www.history.com
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Other Plays
March 25th 1969: ‘Bed-In for Peace’ beginsOn this day in 1969, the newly married John Lennon and Yoko Oko began their first ‘bed-in’ to promote world peace during the Vietnam War at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel.
Lennon was one of the founding members of possibly the most successful band in history: the Beatles. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr achieved worldwide fame and critical acclaim for their music.
Lennon was the man behind Beatles hits such as ‘All You Need is Love’, ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, and ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’. After the band broke up in 1970, Lennon had a successful solo career, releasing iconic songs like ‘Imagine’ and ‘Instant Karma!’.
In his later years Lennon, along with his second wife Yoko Ono, became peace activists, especially in their opposition to America’s involvement with the Vietnam War. The most famous expression of their activism came with the Amsterdam ‘bed-in’, and the couple remained in the bed until March 31st, allowing press into their presidential suite in order to publicise their efforts.
John and Yoko’s second ‘bed-in’ took place in May in Montreal, where they and others recorded the song ‘Give Peace a Chance’. The ‘bed-in’ has since become an iconic moment in both Lennon’s life and the increasing opposition to America’s involvement in Vietnam, and has been commemorated and copied by later advocates of world peace.
Source: http://todayinhistory.tumblr.com
John Lennon and Yoko Ono: The Playboy Interview
March 26th 1995: Schengen agreement comes into effect.On this day in 1995, the Schengen agreement - which allowed for the free movement of people in European countries - came into effect. Schengen is a town in Luxembourg where the agreement was signed on June 14th 1985. Initially, its members were Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. The agreement abolished internal borders within the Schengen zone, creating a single external border and allowing for citizens to travel without passport controls. The Schengen zone continued to grow, coming to incoporate 26 countries including Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Austria, as well as some Nordic and Eastern European states. Four Schengen countries - Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein - are not part of the European Union. Six EU states remain outside the Schengen zone, including the United Kingdom and Ireland, who opted-out. The Schengen agreement is particularly pertinent at this crucial moment in European history, as the unprecendented flow of migrants - over one million people, mostly Syrian refugees, arrived in 2015 - has brought the basic principles of borderless movement under scrutiny. The economic uncertainties and issues of overpopulation that accompany mass migration have been compounded by fears of terrorist plots, especially in the wake of devastating attacks on Paris and Brussels. Schengen has come under fire from nationalists and Eurosceptics, and some members of the Schengen zone, including Hungary, France, Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Belgium, have reimposed border controls in response to the crisis.
Source: http://todayinhistory.tumblr.com
International Travel Documents: Passport, Schengen Agreement, Schengen Area, Identity Document, Permanent Residence, Visa
On this day March 27 in 1998, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves use of the drug Viagra, an oral medication that treats impotence.Sildenafil, the chemical name for Viagra, is an artificial compound that was originally synthesized and studied to treat hypertension (high blood pressure) and angina pectoris (a form of cardiovascular disease). Chemists at the Pfizer pharmaceutical company found, however, that while the drug had little effect on angina, it could induce penile erections, typically within 30 to 60 minutes. Seeing the economic opportunity in such a biochemical effect, Pfizer decided to market the drug for impotence. Sildenafil was patented in 1996, and a mere two years later–a stunningly short time compared to other drugs–it was approved by the FDA for use in treating “erectile dysfunction,” the new clinical name for impotence. Though unconfirmed, it is believed the drug was invented by Peter Dunn and Albert Wood.
Viagra’s massive success was practically instantaneous. In the first year alone, the $8-$10 pills yielded about a billion dollars in sales. Viagra’s impact on the pharmaceutical and medical industries, as well as on the public consciousness, was also enormous. Though available by prescription only, Viagra was marketed on television, famously touted by ex-presidential candidate Bob Dole, then in his mid-70s. Such direct-to-consumer marketing was practically unprecedented for prescription drugs (now, sales and marketing account for approximately 30 percent of the pharmaceutical industry’s costs, in some cases more than research and development). The drug was also offered over the internet–customers needed only to fill out an “online consultation” to receive samples.
An estimated 30 million men in the United States suffer from erectile dysfunction and a wave of new Viagra competitors, among them Cialis (tadalafil) and Levitra (vardenafil), has blown open the market. Drug companies are now not just targeting older men like Dole, but men in their 30s and 40s, too. As with many drugs, the long-term effects of Viagra on men’s health are still unclear (Viagra does carry warnings for those who suffer from heart trouble), but its popularity shows no signs of slowing. To date, over 20 million Americans have tried it, and that number is sure to increase as the baby boomer population continues to age.
Source: www.history.com
The Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America
Eugène Ionesco died on March 29, 1994, at the age of 84, and is buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, in Paris, France. Absurdist playwright Eugène Ionesco was born on November 26, 1909, in Slatina, Romania. The following year, he moved with his family to Paris where he lived until 1925, at which time his parents divorced and he returned to Romania with his father. In 1928, he began studying French literature at the University of Bucharest and two years later published his first article in the Zodiac review.
A volume of poetry, Elegy of Miniscule Beings, followed in 1931, and in 1934 he published a collection of essays entitled No. In 1938, he received a fellowship from the Rumanian government to write a thesis on the subject of death in modern French poetry. He moved to Paris and began his research, but the German invasion (1940) soon forced him to relocate to Marseilles. He returned to Paris five years later, after its liberation from the Germans, and found work as a proofreader and translator.
It was not until 1948 that Eugène Ionesco finally wrote his first play. Having decided at the age of 40 that he ought to learn English, Ionesco acquired an English primer and set to work, conscientiously copying whole sentences from the text for the purpose of memorizing them. Rereading them, he did not learn English as he had intended, but rather became aware of some astonishing truths—that, for example, there are seven days in the week, something he already knew; that the floor is down, the ceiling up, things he already knew as well, perhaps, but that he had never seriously thought about or had forgotten, and that seemed to him, suddenly, as stupefying as they were indisputably true.
As the lessons advanced, two characters were introduced—Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Ionesco was astonished when Mrs. Smith informed her husband that they had several children, that they lived in the vicinity of London, that their name was Smith, that Mr. Smith was a clerk, and that they had a servant, Mary, English, like themselves. What he found remarkable about Mrs. Smith was the precise, methodical procedure she followed in her quest for truth. It was then, as Ionesco later explained, that “A strange phenomenon took place. I don't know how—the text began imperceptibly to change before my eyes. The very simple, luminously clear statements I had copied so diligently into my notebook, left to themselves, fermented after a while, lost their original identity, expanded and overflowed. The clichés and truisms of the conversation primer, which had once made sense ... gave way to pseudo-clichés and pseudo-truisms; these disintegrated into wild caricature and parody, and in the end language disintegrated into disjointed fragments of words.”
Ionesco set about translating his experience into a play, The Bald Soprano, which was staged on May 11, 1950, at the Théâtre des Noctambules, under the direction of Nicolas Bataille. Like many of the other “anti-plays” which would soon pour forth from Ionesco’s mind, The Bald Soprano rejected the logical plot, character development, and thought of traditional drama, instead creating a new anarchic brand of comedy meant to convey the meaninglessness of modern man’s existence in a universe ruled entirely by chance. Ionesco’s initial offering went unnoticed until (ironically, by chance) a few established writers and critics stumbled upon it and threw their combined literary weight behind the strange little play, throwing the spotlight on the now middle-aged Ionesco who soon found himself in a position of international renown. He followed this remarkable success with a string of critically acclaimed plays including The Lesson (1951), The Chairs (1952), and Jack or The Submission (1955). Ionesco’s comedies caused such a stir that, in the summer of 1958, dramatic critic Kenneth Tynan launched an attack against him in the pages of the London Observer, referring to the dramatist as the “messiah” of the enemies of realism in the theatre. The public debate which followed between Tynan and Ionesco over the value of anti-realism in the theatre forced the writer to elucidate his dramatic theories. He maintained that, contrary to Tynan’s assertions, he did not believe that communication through language was impossible. “The very fact of writing and presenting plays,” he wrote “is surely incompatible with such a view.” Instead, he insisted, his plays were an attempt to revitalize a dead form of communication, to renew the language by attempting to say new things in a new way. Some congratulated Ionesco on refuting the current theory of “social realism.” Others quipped that if he could put some of this “clarity and wisdom into his own plays, he might yet become a great playwright!” But regardless of which side of the argument they took, everyone was talking about it.
On January 25, 1960, Rhinoceros premiered at the Odéon under the direction of Jean-Louis Barrault. Reflecting Ionesco’s personal experiences with Fascism, Rhinoceros depicts the struggle of one man to maintain his identity and integrity alone in a world where all others have succumbed to the “beauty” of brute force. It is considered by many to be Ionesco’s finest play.
In 1962, in what would be one of the defining moments of his career, Ionesco was identified by Martin Esslin as one of the primary dramatists of what he called the “Theatre of the Absurd.” Esslin’s terminology resonated in a world still numbed by the senseless violence of World War II, and the label would affix itself to Ionesco until his death, forever joining him in the mind of the public with other “absurdist” writers such as Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov, and Harold Pinter.
His other plays include The Killer (1959), Exit the King (1962), Hunger and Thirst (1966), Macbett (1972), and Journeys Among the Dead (1981).
Source: www.theatrehistory.com
Theatre of the Absurd: Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, Tom Stoppard, Waiting for Godot, Vaclav Havel, Eugene Ionesco, ACT Without Words I
Poet and novelist Maya Angelou-born Marguerite Johnson-is born today April 5 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents divorced when she was three, and she and her brother went to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. When she was eight, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. When she revealed what happened, her uncles kicked the culprit to death. Frightened by the power of her own tongue, Angelou chose not to speak for the next five years.
From this quiet beginning emerged a young woman who sang, danced, and recorded poetry. After moving to San Francisco with her mother and brother in 1940, Angelou began taking dance lessons, eventually auditioning for professional theater. However, her plans were put on hold when she had a son at age 16. She moved to San Diego, worked as a nightclub waitress, tangled with drugs and prostitution and danced in a strip club. Ironically, the strip club saved her career: She was discovered there by a theater group.
She auditioned for an international tour of Porgy and Bess and won a role. From 1954 to ’55, she toured 22 countries.
In 1959, she moved to New York, became friends with prominent Harlem writers, and got involved with the civil rights movement. In 1961, she moved to Egypt with a boyfriend and edited for the Arab Observer. After leaving her boyfriend, she headed to Ghana, where a car accident severely injured her son. While caring for him in Ghana, she took a job at the African Review, where she stayed for several years. Her writing and personal development flourished under the African cultural renaissance that was taking place.
When she returned to the U.S., she began publishing her multivolume autobiography, starting with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Four more volumes appeared during the next two decades, as well as several books of poetry. In 1981, Angelou was appointed Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. She has been nominated for several important awards and read a poem written for the occasion at President Clinton’s inauguration.
Source: www.history.com
#6 Alone
Published: 1975
Excerpt:-
Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
The Heart of a Woman
Today April 6, 1895 writer Oscar Wilde is arrested after losing a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry.Wilde had been engaged in an affair with the marquess’s son since 1891, but when the outraged marquess denounced him as a homosexual, Wilde sued the man for libel. However, he lost his case when evidence strongly supported the marquess’s observations. Homosexuality was classified as a crime in England at the time, and Wilde was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to two years of hard labor.
Wilde was a well-known author by this time, having produced several brilliant and popular plays, including The Importance of Being Ernest (1895). Born and educated in Ireland, he came to England to attend Oxford, where he graduated with honors in 1878. A popular society figure known for his wit and flamboyant style, he published his own book of poems in 1881. He spent a year lecturing on poetry in the U.S., where his dapper wardrobe and excessive devotion to art drew ridicule from some quarters.
After returning to Britain, Wilde married and had two children, for whom he wrote delightful fairy tales, which were published in 1888. Meanwhile, he wrote reviews and edited Women’s World. In 1890, his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was published serially, appearing in book form the following year. He wrote his first play, The Duchess of Padua, in 1891 and wrote five more before his arrest. Wilde was released from prison in 1897 and fled to Paris, where his many loyal friends visited him. He started writing again, producing The Ballad of Reading Gaol, based on his experiences in prison. He died of acute meningitis in 1900.
Source: www.history.com
April 7th 1770: Wordsworth was born.On this day in 1770, the English poet William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth in Cumbria. He had a difficult adolescence, being orphaned by aged fifteen, though Wordsworth still gained a place at Cambridge University. A long-time lover of nature, partly inspired by his upbringing in rural Cumbria, he increasingly focused on capturing natural beauty and other topics in poetry. His most famous poem, and one which is still recited by schoolchildren across Britain and is one of the nation’s favourite poems, was ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ (also known as ‘Daffodils’), which he wrote in 1804 at his cottage in the Lake District. While penning poetry, Wordsworth remained interested in foreign affairs, and despite being an initial supporter of the French Revolution became increasingly conservative with the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. Wordsworth became a major figure in the English Romantic poetry scene, and was Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850. He is buried in the churchyard in Grasmere, Cumbria, where he lived from 1799 onwards.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
William Wordsworth: Complete Works
April 9th 1865: The American Civil War ends.On this day in 1865, 150 years ago, Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union general Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia, thus ending the civil war that had ravaged America since 1861. Sectional tensions over slavery, which had existed since the nation’s founding, came to boiling point with the election of the anti-slavery Republican Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860. The outraged Southern states feared the government would attempt to emancipate their slaves, whose labour provided the basis for the Southern economy, and thus seceded to form the Confederate States of America. Hopes for peace were dashed when shots were fired upon the Union Fort Sumter in April 1861, and the nation descended into civil war. The Confederacy, largely led by General Lee, initially had great success and defeated the Union in key battles including at Manassas and Fredericksburg. However, the Union’s superior resources and infrastructure ultimately turned the tide of war in their favour, crushing the Confederates at Gettysburg and with the destruction of Sherman’s march to the sea. Lee surrendered to Grant when hope of Confederate victory was lost, though Grant - out of respect for Lee and his desire for peaceful reconciliation - defied military tradition and allowed Lee to keep his sword and horse. While more armies and generals had yet to surrender, Lee’s surrender essentially marked the end of the deadliest war in American history, which left around 750,000 dead. Union victory ensured the abolition of slavery, opening up questions about what was to be the fate of the four million freedpeople. These debates, as well as how to treat the seceded states and how to negotiate their readmission into the Union, defined the challenges of the postwar Reconstruction era. The Civil War remains a pivotal moment in American history and in many ways, 150 years later, the nation is still struggling to unite the sections and cope with the legacy of slavery.
“The Confederates were now our countrymen, and we did not want to exult over their downfall.” - Grant upon Lee’s surrender
Source: www.todayinhistory.com
Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War
On 10 April 1912 the Titanic set sail from Southampton dock, heading for New York with thousands of passengers and crew on board. No one could predict the disaster about to befall the ‘unsinkable’ ship.RMS Titanic, then the largest ship in the world and widely believed to be unsinkable, left Southampton dock on 10 April 1912, bound for New York with more than two thousand passengers and crew members on board.
Tickets ranged from £715s for steerage to £870 for the most impressive suites, which included two bedrooms, sitting room, private bathroom and a room for the servants, as well as a private balcony, the latest thing.
Titanic’s provisions for the journey included 75,000 lbs of fresh meat, 35,000 eggs, 40 tons of potatoes, 1,000 lbs of tea and 15,000 bottles of ale and stout.
The day after the Titanic set off on her maiden voyage, the Guardian’s leader writers marvelled at how far removed such first class travel was from ‘old-fashioned people’s ideas of a sea voyage’. Titanic was fitted out with luxurious lounges, squash courts, top restaurants and concert halls.
It was a maiden journey that was to end in disaster for the Titanic’s passengers and crew. On 14 April 1912, at 11.40 pm, the Titanic struck an iceberg; three hours later, at 2.20 am, she sank, claiming over 1,500 lives. Little more than 700 passengers and crew survived the tragedy.
One survivor, a Mr. Beesley, told the Press Association when he reached New York that ‘there was no panic or rush to the boats, and there were no scenes of women sobbing hysterically, such as one generally pictures happening at such times.’
The British inquiry held in the wake of the disaster found little fault with the Titanic’s Captain, EJ Smith; though the ship was travelling at too high a speed they determined he was merely following an accepted method of navigation that had, until then, resulted in no loss of life.
The inquiry did however criticise Stanley Lord, then master of the Californian, for failing to respond to Titanic’s distress signals, suggesting that his ship may have ‘saved many, if not all, of the lives that were lost’ if he had done so. Lord was dogged by the accusation for the remainder of his life.
Source: www.theguardian.com
Voyage on the Great Titanic: The Diary of Margaret Ann Brady, R.M.S. Titanic, 1912
Tom Stoppard's “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” debuted in its full form in 1966 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe before making its London premiere at the Old Vic on 11th April 1967.Acclaimed as a modern dramatic masterpiece, “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead” is the fabulously inventive tale of Hamlet as told from the worm’s-eve view of the bewildered Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Shakespeare’s play. In Tom Stoppard’s best-known work, this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy finally get a chance to take the lead role, but do so in a world where echoes of Waiting for Godot resound, where reality and illusion intermix, and where fate leads our two heroes to a tragic but inevitable end.
Tom Stoppard was catapulted into the front ranks of modem playwrights overnight when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead opened in London in 1967. Its subsequent run in New York brought it the same enthusiastic acclaim, and the play has since been performed numerous times in the major theatrical centers of the world. It has won top honors for play and playwright in a poll of London Theater critics, and in its printed form it was chosen one of the “Notable Books of 1967” by the American Library Association.
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“A masterpiece, not unlike Shakespeare’s plays; it’s artfully, imaginatively written, multidimensional, and hilarious.” —New Yorker
“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead . . . has proved its sturdiness and power to endure . . . It is, after all, the most performed, most studied, most earnestly analyzed and strenuously anatomized of all Mr. Stoppard’s plays: the foundation of his international career and the inevitable starting point for anyone wanting to appreciate him.” —Benedict Nightingale, New York Times
“A coruscatingly brilliant, endlessly thought-provoking masterpiece.” —Wall Street Journal
“In making Rosencrantz and Guildenstern . . . Stoppard mixed the poetic melodrama of Shakespeare with the doom-laden minimalism of Samuel Beckett and topped it with the slapstick of the Marx Brothers.” —Rolling Stone
“Very funny. Very brilliant. Very chilling. It has the dust of thought about it and the particles glitter excitingly in the theatrical air . . . This is a most remarkable and thrilling play. In one bound Mr. Stoppard is asking to be considered as among the finest English-speaking writers of our stage, for this is a work of fascinating distinction.” —Clive Barnes, New York Times
“Astonishing—a youthful prank bursting with theatrical mischief and literary flair.” —Washington Post
“A tour de force . . . Fascinating . . . A triumph.” —Roger Ebert
“Tom Stoppard’s lively twist on Hamlet . . . [A] metapharcical romp . . . Stoppard’s philosophizing playfulness is clearly indebted to the music hall absurdism of Waiting for Godot . . . Stoppard’s fertile wit keeps this three-act drama pulsing along . . . A subtle pathos, along with the playwright’s verbal sophistication, prevents the play from degenerating into a collegiate vaudeville . . . The language remains spry . . . It attains a comic lyricism that’s as funny as it is piercing.” —Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times
Source: www.groveatlantic.com
Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead
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Tragically, although Ada Leverson, one of Oscar Wilde’s closest friends, insisted that he cared little for any of his plays except Salomé since it most fully ‘expressed himself,’ Wilde never saw Salomé performed. Refused a licence by the English Examiner of Plays, it was staged during Wilde’s lifetime by Aurélien Lugné-Poe, founder of the Théâtre de l’Oeuvre, but its author was in prison at the time.
When Lugné-Poe visited London after Wilde had been sentenced to two years hard labour, he was shocked at how apathetic and powerless the playwright’s supporters appeared to have become. In an act of solidarity, he staged the world premiere of Salomé in his Théâtre de l’Oeuvre in Paris on 11 February 1896, performing the role of Herod himself and casting Lina Munte, a trained dancer, as Salomé.
Several French newspapers reported on the performance and critics were unanimous in their praise for Munte; La Matin reported that she ‘was absolutely remarkable with her ferocious sensuality,’ while Francisque Sarcey of Le Temps noted that she imitated the diction of Sarah Bernhardt, the actress Wilde had originally intended for the part.
A number of critics noted the sympathy expressed for Wilde by the French public. L’Événement described the staging of Salomé as ‘a protest against English morality’. The Journal des Débats reported that when the curtain fell, the audience responded to the name of the playwright with rapturous applause.
Wilde, who received no payment for the performance, assured his lover Lord Alfred Douglas: ‘All I want is to have my artistic reappearance, and my own rehabilitation through art, in Paris, not in London. It is a homage and a debt I owe to that great city of art’.
Source: www.eafitzsimons.wordpress.com