Pop Culture Institute

"Too Shy" by Kajagoogoo

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:45:00 +0000

Before I was a blogger I was a pretty apathetic sort... Take this song as a for instance: I've been listening to it for more than 25 years now, and it wasn't until several minutes prior to writing this that I even gave a rat's ass who wrote it, who sang it, or what circumstances surrounded its creation. Say what you will about blogging, but it definitely has its plus side, especially when faced with a blank screen and a compulsion to write about pop culture.

Too Shy was recorded and released by Kajagoogoo in 1983 - in my humble opinion one of the greatest years in the history of British pop music; it was produced by Nick Rhodes (of Duran Duran fame) and that band's in-house producer Colin Thurston, responsible for Duran Duran's early sound (as in their first single Planet Earth). The song appeared on the Kajagoogo's debut album, White Feathers; it's being sung by Limahl, who was born on this day in 1958.
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Happy Birthday Michelangelo Signorile

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:40:00 +0000

I first read the work of Michelangelo Signorile way back in the day - back when gay press outlets like The Advocate were still relevant to the lives of most gay men outside of Chelsea and West Hollywood, which should give you some idea how long ago that was*. Of course, back then the gay community still existed largely in the shadows, and the cultural workers who toiled there did so in what looked like it would always be a niche market. Few could have foreseen how mainstream both the gay community and one of its mouthiest members would become, let alone how quickly...

The oppressive backlash gay men encountered due to AIDS then - like the ongoing demonization by evangelical Christians over our uppity insistence on equal rights today - has brought about unprecedented recognition and even political leverage to the gay community, for which we** owe bigots as far back as Anita Bryant and as current as Rick Warren our eternal gratitude. The same phenomenon also catapulted Signorile from his cozy corner as a scribbler on queer social issues to one of the foremost opinion-makers of our times, and all because of an encounter he had in 1988 with a particularly vile bigot named Joseph Ratzinger.

Currently host of The Michelangelo Signorile Show, on Sirius Satellite Radio's OutQ channel, he's also the author of four books, all of which arose from his work as a columnist for both The Advocate and Out Magazine. From the hot-button issue of outing, which was the first to give him national exposure as a major contributor to OutWeek, to the struggles experienced by gays in the military and even the casual homophobia we as gay men encounter daily, Signorile can be counted on to have his own take on any issue, and a deliciously liberal one as well. No doubt as he gets older, which he does by one year today, he'll have something to say about that and much more besides.

*Like, the early Nineties...
**And by 'we' I mean groups like ACT UP and Queer Nation (which Signorile co-founded) as well.
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"Love Me Or Hate Me" by Lady Sovereign

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:35:00 +0000

Birthday wishes go out today to Lady Sovereign, the pint-sized 'biggest midget in the game' whose appearance single-handedly revitalized the moribund hip-hop and UK Grime scene.

Love Me or Hate Me was released at Hallowe'en 2006 on the album Public Warning; it contains a sample from the 1992 single I Can't Dance by Genesis.
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Gratuitous Brunette: Jake Gyllenhaal

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:30:00 +0000

Born on this day in 1980 - obviously a very good year - Jake Gyllenhaal was not only the Pop Culture Institute's Hottie of the Year for last year, but also next year, the year after that, and any old year he wants really.

Now if only he'd show up in another movie...
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Bonus Video: "Wuthering Heights" by Kate Bush

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:25:00 +0000

Wuthering Heights appeared on Kate Bush's debut album, 1978's The Kick Inside, and was also her first single; it spent four weeks at Number 1 in the UK, a first for a female singer-songwriter.

This is just one of the videos that were made to accompany the song; because I felt this one was a) wackier, and 2) more colourful - plus seasonal, what with all that red - I chose it over the other one. Just in case you were wondering.

And of course, it's all in honour of Emily Brontë - author of the novel Wuthering Heights - who died on this day in 1848.
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Pop History Moment: Death Stalks Haworth Parsonage

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:20:00 +0000

When I first read about the Brontë brood - Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, Anne - I remember thinking how cool it must have been to grow up in a house full of writers... Then I met other writers. The real irony is that the parsonage in such a devout parish could be so thoroughly infested with these demons, with all their demons.

Death visited Haworth Parsonage often, and came for Emily on this day in 1848. Always frail - which the weather in Yorkshire did exactly nothing to ameliorate - she caught a chill while attending the funeral of her brother Branwell in September and three months later she was dead herself, of tuberculosis.

Emily Brontë wrote only one novel; that it should be Wuthering Heights more than excuses the paucity of her oeuvre. Reading it practically killed me, so I'm compelled to admire the fortitude of anyone who could write it - especially in longhand, several times over, by lantern light in a draughty house.

The following year Anne Brontë died, after which there was a six-year gap before the loss of Charlotte; of the six children sired by Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell following their marriage in December 1812, all of them (and his wife besides) died before the parson did, in June 1861.
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Remembering... Jean Genet

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:15:00 +0000

It was not too long ago - within the past 50 years - that the homosexual male was an outlaw, a rebel standing against all that was bourgeois and therefore contemptible about life. Well, Jean Genet could make the best of them look like powdered poodles; in fact, he even made the outlaws look like sell-outs...

Born on this day in 1910, he spent his first year of life in the brothel where his mother worked; given up for adoption he spent an idyllic childhood in the countryside. His idyll was shattered when, at the age of fifteen, he was sent to Mettray Penal Colony; initially intended to be lenient (not unlike the borstal system in England, with a focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment) by the time Genet was there - as chronicled in his novel The Miracle of the Rose (1946) - it was a pretty brutal place.

Upon his release he joined the French Foreign Legion, but was soon drummed out for committing a homosexual act - which to me pretty much seems the whole point of joining the French Foreign Legion in the first place, but the authorities obviously felt otherwise. Genet spent the postwar years whoring around Europe, as recounted in his book The Thief's Journal (1949); in the same year he wrote his most famous play, The Maids.

By 1950 Genet's work had, for some reason, been banned in America, which naturally made him a huge star in France; lauded by the likes of Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Jacques Derrida this should have been the most productive time of his life, and would have been had he not been depressed. When a relationship in the mid-1960s with a tightrope walker named Abdullah ended in suicide, Genet almost made it a double.

Instead, Genet became even more political (if such a thing is possible) than he was before, frequently appearing at rallies in support of that perennial French bugbear, immigrants. In 1970, at the behest of the Black Panthers, he spent three months in the United States, lecturing and writing; in 1982 he was in Beirut at the time of the massacre in the Sabra and Shatila camps, and visited shortly thereafter, later writing an essay called Quatre heures à Chatila (Four Hours in Shatila) about the experience.

Jean Genet died in Paris in April 1986, ostensibly of cancer, but a fall and subsequent blow to the head may have hastened his demise; he is buried in Morocco, in the Spanish Cemetery at Larache.
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"Milord" par Edith Piaf

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:10:00 +0000

From an appearance in 1959 on The Ed Sullivan Show, it's a song about a prostitute admiring a dapper gentleman walking past her; good thing most people in the Sullivan audience didn't speak French...

Milord, also called Ombre de la Rue (A shadow of the streets) was written in 1959 by Georges Moustaki (with music by Marguerite Monnot); according to Wikipedia (and, you know, they're always right) it was also sung by Cher, meaning I won't rest until I possess that version as well.
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In Memoriam: Edith Piaf

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:05:00 +0000

I think of her whenever I see a little sparrow hopping across the concrete in search of a few crumbs... Instead of food, though, the crumbs Edith Piaf (born on this day in 1915) was after were love. Her adopted surname, of course, meant 'sparrow'; certainly those qualities of frailty and doggedness must have been there when Louis Leplée - the nightclub owner - first laid eyes on her, singing in the street for coins, in 1935.

Leplee's murder the following year would be the first down in a career of ups and downs for Edith Piaf, as she was questioned by police in relation to the case; the mobsters who killed him were known to her and her involvement, however cursory, did not sit well with her new fans. She survived the scandal, as she would always do; in 1940 her new friend Jean Cocteau wrote her a role in his play Le Bel Indifférent. It was a success, and once more she was on her way.

Despite crippling stage fright, Piaf performed extensively throughout the war, but the song most often associated with the era (and her) - La vie en rose - would not enter her repertoire until 1946. Amazingly, she managed to escape the Nazi occupation with her reputation intact; so many, in the interest of self-preservation, either collaborated or gave the appearance of collaboration, and Piaf was no different. She would later claim to have aided the Resistance, but as they kept very inadequate records, the truth of that may never be known.

A post-war tour of the United States, undertaken with the then-unknown Charles Aznavour, saw both of them acclaimed across North America; naturally, she was on top of the world when, in October 1949, her lover Marcel Cerdan was killed in a plane crash. In 1951 she and Aznavour were in a car accident; although they survived, Piaf came away from it addicted to morphine, which was not helped by two subsequent crashes. In 1952 she married Jacques Pills, whose main job seems to be taking her to rehab; they divorced in 1956. She took a second husband, Théo Sarapo, in 1962, who performed with her towards the end.

Edith Piaf died of cancer in October 1963, the same day as her old friend Jean Cocteau; she was 47. In 2007 it was as if she'd come back to life when Marion Cotillard portrayed the singer in the hugely entertaining biopic, La Vie En Rose, for which its star was awarded a Best Actress Academy Award.
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"Ain't No Other Man" by Christina Aguilera

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:40:00 +0000

It's a couple of years old now - technically Ain't No Other Man was released in 2006 - but it remains one of my favourite songs in recent memory; I've even got it as a ringtone, although it's use is currently reserved specially for calls from Mr Eaton.

Not only is the video stylish in the extreme, but both visually and vocally Christina Aguilera is on top of her game here... From the album Back to Basics, here is our birthday girl rattling the rafters while slinking about in lingerie - in other words, something for everyone!
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The Death of Kirsty MacColl

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:20:00 +0000

Kirsty MacColl was riding high on this day in 2000; her album Tropical Brainstorm was being critically acclaimed and selling well, in an industry where the two are often mutually exclusive, while its single, In These Shoes, was turning into her biggest hit in fifteen years...

Taking a well-earned break in the Mexican resort of Cozumel with her partner James Knight and two sons, she decided to go scuba diving in an area which was restricted to watercraft. Emerging from a dive, MacColl saw a powerboat speed into the restricted area toward her son Jamie; she managed to push him out of its way, and he suffered only minor physical injuries. Kirsty, however, was struck and killed instantly.

The boat in question was owned by Mexican supermarket mogul Guillermo González Nova, who was aboard with his own family at the time, but not at the helm - or so he claims. An employee of his named José Cenyam readily confessed that he was piloting the boat at the time of the accident, but eyewitnesses disagree; they also disagree that he was, as he claimed, travelling at a speed of one knot when he collided with MacColl.

Cenyam was sentenced to a prison term of 2 years 10 months on a charge of culpable homicide, but paid a fine of $90 (and $2150 in damages to MacColl's family, an amount based on his wages) rather than serving time; there is every indication that Senor Nova paid his employee to take the fall. Ever since the accident the Mexican government has been 'unable' to find him for questioning.

Today marks the first day of the tenth year her family has been trying to get Justice for Kirsty; the BBC released a documentary by Olivia Lichtenstein entitled Who Killed Kirsty MacColl? in 2005, which featured new evidence and interviews with Kirsty's family, including her partner James, son Louis, and 80-year-old mother Jean. Like this blog post, it's all part of a concerted effort to keep this case in front of the public until there is, at last, some justice for Kirsty.
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Remembering... Chris Farley

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:15:00 +0000

It was on this day in 1997 that day the world lost one of its brightest comedic talents, when obesity, drugs, and alcohol finally got the better of Chris Farley...

Not that he didn't try to battle his demons; in the last four years of his life he is said to have entered 31 programs to combat his alcoholism and help him get a handle on his weight. None of them worked, of course; an autopsy revealed that when Chris Farley died his system contained quantities of cocaine and heroin. He was found in his Chicago apartment, already dead, by his brother John.

Farley joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in the fall of 1990, and was almost immediately lauded for his fearlessness; his were neither quiet nor subtle characterizations - my personal favourite is ersatz motivational speaker Matt Foley - and quickly his larger-than-life appeal was translated onto the silver screen. Following his departure from SNL Farley (along with fellow castmember David Spade) made Tommy Boy (1995) and Black Sheep (1996), which remain cult classics to this day.

For my money, though, it's those old SNL classics that take me back to those halcyon days of my early 20s when I'd spend my Saturday nights... At home, watching television.

Now you know why there isn't more sex on this blog; all those nights when I shoulda been out getting some play I was home watching this guy. Oh well, at least I wasn't living in a van down by the river!
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"A Day in the Life" by The Beatles

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:10:00 +0000

As is usually the case, the story behind the song is every bit as interesting as the song itself...

On the day in his life when John Lennon wrote A Day in the Life (as luck would have it, on this day in 1966) he happened to be glancing through a copy of the Daily Mail when he spotted an article about the death, in a South Kensington car crash, of Guinness heir Tara Browne. Lennon then incorporated some of the details of that tragedy into part of the song.

As an aside: also in the Lotus Elan Browne was driving was his girlfriend Suki Potier, the model, who was uninjured; Potier soon found solace with a new boyfriend, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. She was living with him in July 1969 at the time he was found - dead - at the bottom of the swimming pool under mysterious circumstances.

The song was later included on The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
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In Memoriam: Robert Moses

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:05:00 +0000

As an admirer of Manhattan I cannot help but hold Robert Moses in awe; more than any other individual, he created the city as it exists today. The infrastructure of roads, tunnels, and bridges whose construction he oversaw is a truly awesome feat, yet I cannot celebrate it (or him) unreservedly. As opposed as I am to the automobile - which it was built to accommodate - his is ultimately a legacy of that ugliest of urban blights: sprawl.

There are other troubling aspects of his legacy as well, namely blatant racism; in the 1930s, when the rest of Manhattan (and Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and The Bronx) were being remade with parks, playgrounds, and public pools there was one part of the city being sorely underserved by these amenities - namely Harlem.

Born on this day in 1888, Robert Moses spent the first nine years of his life in New Haven, after which his family moved to New York City. He returned to New Haven for university, graduating from Yale University before continuing his studies at Wadham College, Oxford; he completed his education with a Ph.D from Columbia University, and timed it all perfectly so that following the election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt he was in line to grab massive cash infusions from the Works Progress Administration.

It was Moses who had the idea to put tolls on the bridges and tunnels, with which he amassed a vast capital building fund to pay for his projects; because this money didn't come from taxpayers, Moses wasn't answerable to either the state or federal governments over how it was spent. Well into the 1960s he was the single most powerful person in New York City, although fortunately not powerful enough to build his dream project, shown above, the Brooklyn Battery Bridge; he was forced instead to build a tunnel, and so was spared the wide open space of New York Harbor.

By the 1960s Moses was approaching 80, and the new byword of government - not his favourite - was accountability. His unpopular razing of the elegant old Penn Station, the costly 1964 New York World's Fair, and The Power Broker, Robert Caro's 1974 biography of him (among many other controversies) finally managed to chase him from office.

Robert Moses died in July 1981; he was 92.
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POPnews - December 18th

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:01:00 +0000

[The fact that ignorant pagan savages could be capable of such an engineering marvel as Mesa Verde without knowing anything about Jesus might give certain people cause to think, and maybe even to see beyond their hateful mythology, but somehow I doubt it.]
218 BCE - During the Second Punic War - at the Battle of the Trebia, in fact - Hannibal's Carthaginian forces defeated those of the Roman Republic, commanded by Tiberius Sempronius Longus.

1620 - The 120 passengers on board the Mayflower, having discovered the placid waters of Plymouth Harbor, prepared to establish their Plymouth Colony in present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts; although the exact date for their landing on Plymouth Rock has been lost to history - if, that is, history ever had it, since the event isn't mentioned in either William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation or that other contemporary account of the Pilgrim voyage, Mourt's Relation, and in fact wasn't mentioned at all until 1741 - we do know this was their first full day in their new home.

1642 - Abel Tasman became the first European to visit New Zealand when he came ashore at Golden Bay.

1787 - New Jersey became the third state to ratify the US Constitution, making it the third US state.

1793 - French royalists surrendered the frigate La Lutine to the Royal Navy's Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, on the final day of an occupation known as the Fall of Toulon; renamed HMS Lutine, in October 1799 she was sunk in a storm, and became a famous treasure wreck.

1865 - The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution was declared ratified in a proclamation by Secretary of State William Henry Seward.

1888 - Richard Wetherill and his brother in-law discovered the ancient Anasazi Indian ruins of Mesa Verde in Colorado; now both a national park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the 13th Century cave city features a treasure trove of pre-Colombian architecture, including the Cliff Palace.

1892 - Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker premiered at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.

1898 - Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat set the first land speed record by going as fast as 39.245 mph (63.159 km/h), in a Jeantaud electric car; not only was this the first recognized land speed record but many modern-day commuters would give their right arm to match it.

1912 -The Piltdown Man (later discovered to be a hoax) was found by Charles Dawson in the Piltdown Gravel Pit.

1915 - US President Woodrow Wilson married Edith Bolling Galt.

1935 - The Lanka Sama Samaja Party was formed in Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon.

1961 - The government of India undertook Operation Vijay with the intention of retaking the Portugese colonies of Goa, Daman and Diu, and the Andjiv Islands; it took one day to accomplish.

1966 - Richard L. Walker discovered Epimetheus, one of the more than 60 moons of Saturn.

1971 - Capitol Reef National Park was established in Utah.

1988 - The Liberal government of Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa passed Bill 178.

1996 - The school board of Oakland, California, declared Ebonics a language.

1999 - NASA launched into orbit the Terra platform, carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.

2006 - Donald Rumsfeld resigned as US Secretary of Defense.
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"There Ain't No God For Dogs" by Milla Jovovich

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:25:00 +0000

Birthday wishes go out today to Milla Jovovich, the Ukraine-born, London-raised triple hyphenate: model-actor-singer. Despite an early controversial appearance in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991), plus roles in such high profile films as Chaplin (playing real-life Mildred Harris) and the perennial stoner classic Dazed and Confused, it wasn't until her appearance, opposite Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman, in The Fifth Element that Jovovich was catapulted into superstardom.

Which brings us to this video... There Ain't No God For Dogs may be the weirdest song I've ever heard, yet I found it oddly moving. Here she is, performing it for Carson Daly on Total Request Live.
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Eugene Levy: Man Of A Thousand Characters

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:20:00 +0000

Some of the finest moments I've ever spent watching television have been spent watching SCTV; the iconic sketch show - filmed entirely in Edmonton! - was anarchic enough to ensure a constant supply of hilarity, but also had a kind of cohesion that was absent from other shows of its ilk, in that the sketches functioned as shows within a show.

Life in Melonville would have been pretty dull indeed, had it not been for the comedic talents of one Eugene Levy (born on this day in 1946); responsible for dozens of that show's characters, Levy honed his craft with the Second City troupe before making the jump to television and then to movies.

A stand-out in just about any role he assays - from 1986's Club Paradise to 2006's Over the Hedge, and everything in between - he was especially good in one of the Pop Culture Institute's favourite shows, the little-seen cult classic sitcom Greg the Bunny.
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Happy Birthday Craig Kielburger

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:15:00 +0000

It was the 1994 murder of Iqbal Masih which turned Canadian Craig Kielburger from a student into an activist; in 1995 Kielburger founded Free The Children, an international relief agency dedicated to ending the practice of child labour. Free The Children also builds schools and provides health care in developing nations, especially in rural areas. That he founded the organization in the first place is grounds enough for kudos... That he was only thirteen when he did is nothing short of a marvel.

In 1999 - still aged only 17 - he cofounded Leaders Today, a youth leadership training organization that has helped more than 350,000 young people worldwide to achieve their potential.

In 2007, at the age of only 24, Craig Kielburger was inducted into the Order of Canada for his efforts, which then amounted to half his life; by the age many people are only just figuring out what they want to become, Kielburger not only has it figured out but is an old hand at it.

The Pop Culture Institute is watching the career of this extraordinary young man with great anticipation...
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"Elevator Rock" by Tommy Steele

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:10:00 +0000

Birthday wishes go out today to Britain's original teen idol, Tommy Steele, who's seen here performing one of his more obscure hits, Elevator Rock, in the 1957 film The Tommy Steele Story; Steele rose to prominence playing at various Soho coffee bars - including The 2i's Coffee Bar and The Cat's Whisker - both as a solo act and as part of such ensembles as Wally Whyton's Vipers Skiffle Group and The Steelmen.

Following a long career as a singer, actor, author, and sculptor, in April 2008 Steele felt the need to add fabulist to his resume, after an unlikely tale about a visit to the UK by Elvis Presley 'some time in 1958' came to light during an interview showbiz impresario Bill Kenwright gave to Ken Bruce on his popular BBC Radio 2 program in a segment called Tracks of My Years; Steele later confirmed the story in an interview with the Daily Mail. Presley famously made only one visit to the UK during his lifetime - a short stopover at Scotland's Prestwick Airport in March 1960 on his way home from a well-publicized hitch with the US Army in West Germany.

Given that in 1958 Elvis Presley was one of the most famous people on the planet, and would have been mobbed by hysterical women wherever he went, it seems unlikely that any disguise* would have been able to conceal him long enough to travel from Scotland to London and back - let alone while touring the capital for the day with Tommy Steele, including a visit to the Houses of Parliament - and not be spotted. As much as the Pop Culture Institute would like the story to be true, we're very much with Paul Merton** in doubting that it is. Lamar Fike - a former member of the so-called Memphis Mafia who was at the time Elvis' roommate - later claimed on a fan site that he was the man Steele showed around London on that day.

*Even an American military uniform and regulation short haircut.
**Who devoted considerable time debunking the story on Have I Got News for You, albeit with considerable aplomb; the discussion in the clip begins around the 6:30 mark...
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Pop History Moment: The Wright Brothers Take Flight

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:05:00 +0000

Orville and Wilbur Wright's Wright Flyer I, which made its iconic maiden flight over the dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, wasn't the first heavier-than-air craft to fly, nor was this the first flight by the Wright Brothers, nor even the first flight by them in the Wright Flyer I; three days earlier at the same location Wilbur took off, pulled up too sharply, stalled the engine, and crashed after about three seconds, causing minor damage to their flimsy, kite-like airplane.

Having repaired the machine, they returned to try again on this day in 1903, and this time found success; the real innovation on display that day, though, was not the flight itself but the three axis-control which enabled the pilot to actually pilot the plane and not merely serve as its ballast. In addition to the Wright Brothers themselves, the flights were witnessed by five people: Adam Etheridge, John Daniels and Will Dough of the coastal lifesaving crew, area businessman W.C. Brinkley, and Johnny Moore, a boy from the village.

The brothers each made two flights that day; first, Orville, who flew 120 feet in 12 seconds at a speed of 6.8 mph (as seen in the above photograph), then Wilbur who went 200 feet. On his second attempt of the dayOrville went 175 feet; finally, it was Wilbur who took the aircraft a whopping 853 feet before the front elevator supports snapped. This final flight, like the others, achieved a maximum altitude of ten feet and resulted in a bumpy landing.

Following these preliminary flight tests, the plane was being taken for repairs when a gust of wind picked it up and rolled it end-over-end, damaging it to such an extent that it was never flown again; although it was further damaged during the Great Dayton Flood of March 1913, in later years the Wright Flyer I was restored and, after much bureaucratic wrangling, came to the Smithsonian Institution in 1948, where it resides to this day.
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POPnews - December 17th

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:01:00 +0000

[That the Simpsons have evolved over their record-breaking run is evident in this image of them from their earliest appearances.]
920 CE - Romanos I was crowned co-emperor alongside the underage Emperor Constantine VII; he then married his daughter Helena Lekapene to the pre-teen monarch over the objections of the boy's mother, Zoe, who was so formidable she went from the concubine of Leo VI to Empress and thence to being the regent of the Byzantine Empire on her son's behalf.

942 CE - Normandy's Duke William I was assassinated by supporters of Arnulf I, Count of Flanders.

1538 - Pope Paul III excommunicated England's King Henry VIII.

1586 - Go-Yozei became Emperor of Japan following the abdication of his grandfather Emperor Ōgimachi.

1600 - France's King Henry IV married Marie de' Medici following the annulment of his marriage to Marguerite de Valois.

1807 - Napoleon issued the Milan Decree in order to enforce the Berlin Decree, which had initiated the Continental System, whereby the French Emperor hoped to ruin England's economy by forcing the rest of Europe to undertake a trade embargo against them. The entire thing backfired, not only hurting Europe but strengthening the British Empire into the bargain.

1819 - Simón Bolívar declared the independence of the Republic of Gran Colombia in Angostura - now the Venezuelan city of Ciudad Bolívar.

1862 - Union General Ulysses S. Grant issued General Order No. 11, expelling all Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky; although he issued the order to stop the smuggling of cotton - which he blamed on the Jews - he later disowned it, claiming it had been drafted by an underling and that he had signed it without reading it.

1865 - The first performance of Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 (best known as his Unfinished Symphony) was given in Vienna, under the direction of Johann Herbeck - 37 years after its composer's death.

1918 - During the the so-called Darwin Rebellion as many as 1000 members of the Australian Workers' Union, led by Harold Nelson, marched on Government House in the capital of Australia's Northern Territory, Darwin; once there they burnt an effigy of John Gilruth, demanding his resignation from the post of Administrator of the Northern Territory. Gilruth later fled the town onboard HMAS Encounter.

1935 - The Douglas DC-3 airplane - engineered by a team led by Arthur E. Raymond - made its maiden flight; the DC-3 would revolutionize cross-country commercial aviation in America, reducing the east-west flight from more than 32 hours in 1934 to under 15 by 1936, as well as providing sleeping berths and an onboard kitchen.

1967 - Australia's Prime Minister Harold Holt went for a swim near Portsea, Victoria - and never came back; while there are numerous theories as to what happened to him, for a satirical take on the tragic event, only Shaun Micallef's The Micallef Program will do.

1969 - The US Air Force closed its investigation of UFOs, called Project Blue Book, after 17 years of study found no credibility in thousands of sightings.

1973 - 30 passengers were killed in an attack at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport when Palestinian terrorists threw phosphorous bombs onto Pan-Am's Flight 110; the plane had been destined for Beirut.

1978 - The Workers Party of Jamaica was founded by Trevor Munroe; the anniversary is only pertinent because the party is now defunct, its founder has since renounced Marxism, and I felt like gloating over a failed Marxist movement because that's what I'm like.

1981 - US Brigadier-General James L. Dozier was kidnapped by Italy's left-wing Red Brigade in Verona; he was rescued during a raid on an apartment in Padua 42 days later.

1983 - Harrods was bombed by the IRA, killing six and injuring 90.

1989 - Originally a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show (beginning in April 1987) The Simpsons characters were given their own show on Fox; that show's first episode, Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire, debuted on this day. Currently in its twentieth season, it is both the longest-running animated series in American prime-time, as well as the longest-running sitcom in American history.

1999 - The United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 54/134 designating November 25th thereafter as the annual International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women.
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"Rasputin" by Boney M

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:55:00 +0000

From their 1978 album Nightflight to Venus, it's Boney M's classic song Rasputin.

Because how could I not post this today?
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The Death of Rasputin

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:50:00 +0000

If all you knew about the life of Grigori Rasputin was that he had spooky eyes and held the Russian Royal Family in a kind of a thrall - and even that you learned from the 1978 song about him by Boney M - that would be all you needed to know. The details of his life, influence, and especially death have all been muddied to the extent that sorting the truth out of the lies may well be impossible at this late date.

While initially engaged by the Tsaritsa Alexandra to heal her ailing, hemophiliac son, the Tsarevich Alexei, he soon came under the scrutiny of the court for his profligate ways, some or even all of which rumours may have been slanderous. After a dozen years as confidante to Tsar Nicholas II and his family, other nobles at court had had enough, especially one Prince Felix Yusupov (who presumably was jealous that the Romanovs were lavishing so much attention on a peasant).

Luring Rasputin to Yusupov's Moika Palace near Saint Petersburg on this day in 1916, they plied him with wine and cakes laced with 'enough cyanide to kill five men' by Vasily Maklakov, to no effect. Yusupov then got a gun and shot Rasputin in the back; when even this didn't kill the monk he got his friend (and, some say, lover) Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich to handcuff Rasputin and throw him into the icy Neva River, which seems to have done the trick.

Of course, Yusupov's subsequent versions of these events varied to the extent that no two accounts match, which makes him an unreliable source at worst, and a talented fabulist at best; a 2004 autopsy of Rasputin located no active poison in his stomach, nor any water in his lungs. He'd obviously been stabbed, shot, and assaulted, but even this evidence contradicts reports given by Yusupov in 1916, 1917, 1927, 1934, and 1965.

All in all it was the perfect crime; despite numerous admissions that he had shot and killed Rasputin, Prince Felix Yusupov was never charged with any wrongdoing in connection with his death.
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Do Electric Sheep Dream of Philip K. Dick?

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:45:00 +0000

My first exposure to the work of Philip K. Dick - like a lot of people's, I guess - was Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner, which was itself based on Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

While I occasionally dabble in writing sci-fi and spec-fic, I try to avoid the dystopianism inherent in such pastimes, mainly because I realize how draining they are to my psyche, which desperately wants to be happy despite what often seems like lengthening odds.

In fact, the same thing seems to have happened to PKD; born on this day in 1928, he seems to have driven himself at least to the brink of sanity (if not beyond it) by worrying about things over which he had no control... Namely a vast, all-controlling government, greedy corporate monopolies, environmental degradation, and the proliferation of artificial life forms.

Whereas these are all the things I love to mock... I don't want to mock them, understand, I have to mock them - for my own sanity's sake. So I don't end up like Philip K. Dick - a paranoid drug addict whose mind shorted out in March 1982, at the age of 53.
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"Beethoven (I Love To Listen To)" by Eurythmics

noreply@blogger.com (michael sean morris) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:40:00 +0000

This song doesn't have much to do with Beethoven - aside from his name in the title and a snippet from one of his famous melodies in the tune - but I can't help myself at this point; I'm a blogging fool. It must be all that banging my head on the desk I do for inspiration.

From my personal favourite Eurythmics album, Savage, it's Beethoven (I Love to Listen to). The video was directed by Sophie Müller as part of a movie-length project which I first saw in 1990 and have never forgotten; this particular video occurs at the beginning of a three-video arc - alongside I Need A Man, and You Have Placed A Chill In My Heart.

Watch as a drab housewife (played to the hilt by famed hilt-player Annie Lennox) who is haunted by her childhood self and inner glamazon and - either loopy from the fumes of household solvents or else ready to check herself into the Laughing Academy - wigs out (quite literally) and breaks her shackles with a persona not unlike Courtney Love, only not scary.

It's still only available on VHS, though. To which I say: if those responsible don't soon put this amazing piece of work out on DVD I may have a breakdown like the one in this video, find those responsible, and have words with them. And as good a look as this is on Annie Lennox, well, that's how awful it looks on me. You've been warned.
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