Remembering... Jean de Brunhoff

On this day in 1937 Jean de Brunhoff, creator of Babar, died - aged only 38; that's, like, younger I am now, man. Makes you think...

It's a funny thing, but while I really liked Babar as a child, I hadn't thought about him for more than twenty years* when, this past summer, I was walking past a display of stuffed animals and saw a 10-inch tall Babar in amongst the others. Naturally, as I am a creature who is absolutely dominated by whim, I bought it and gave it pride of place on the shelf where I keep my books suitable for youngsters.

Then, mere weeks ago, The New Yorker ran an article by noted Canadian Francophile Adam Gopnik not merely about Babar and what he means but also about the man who created him - Jean de Brunhoff.

Well! Turns out I was quite the dupe even as a child; it would never have occurred to me then that what I was reading was a blatant propaganda in favour of colonialism. I mean, I certainly never got that out of it then, and to be quite honest I'm a bit afraid to revisit the books now out of the fear that yet another of those favoured things from my childhood should be rendered obsolete by politics.

*And had probably never given a thought to the man who created him, then or now.
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Günther Grass Is Always Greener On the Other Side

Every so often I come up with a title so compelling I feel the need to publish a post, even if it's about someone whose basic details are unknown to me*; well, it's not like I know nothing about Günther Grass - I know he wrote The Tin Drum, for which he won my most coveted literary prize, the Nobel - but other than that, as with a lot of the work that has appeared here, I'm learning about two steps ahead of you.

Born on this day in 1927 in the Free City of Danzig Grass experienced first hand the upheavals that beset Poland and Germany during his youth. His later admission that he'd actually served with the Waffen-SS in the dying days of World War II was met with criticism both from his allies on the left and his enemies on the right; Grass easily brushed aside these critics, claiming youthful stupidity and pointed to a lifetime of work spent at undoing any damage he might have done in the service of National Socialism**.

Grass' Danzig Trilogy is the most openly critical of the tyranny in whose thrall he was briefly held; consisting of The Tin Drum (1959), Cat and Mouse (1961), and Dog Years (1963), it chronicles the life of its protagonist Oskar Matzerath through his interactions with the people of Gdansk, and does so with a deft magic realism which was rare in Northern Europe at the time, when a kind of brutal naturalism was favoured.

Grass continues to write this day, and his list of publications is prodigious: novels, plays, poetry, essays, speeches, and criticism. Add to that a 2007 memoir Peeling the Onion, and Grass proves he's anything but green.

*Or even if, like this one, it doesn't necessarily fit.
**Also, there's no telling what effect such an admission would have had on his future success had it been revealed in the 50s, as opposed to 2006.
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Pop History Moment: The Death of Marie Antoinette

By the time of her death by guillotine on this day in 1793, the feel of cold steel on her neck might have seemed like a sweet release to Marie Antoinette, especially compared to the agony her life had become over the previous few years. That she should lose her head to the blade is only apt, as her reputation had by then already been the victim of a serious hatchet job for years...

Few stories fill me with such dread and loathing as those of the French Revolution, even when they're as well-written as they are in Antonia Fraser's excellent 2001 biography, Marie Antoinette: The Journey. In her book Fraser limns the life of the sheltered Austrian princess who again and again finds herself in over the head she would one day lose. It is a story told on a tumbrel of a woman who refused to believe in the depths of human evil, even as it was swallowing her whole.

At the birth of the Age of Reason there was an Age of Chaos: disguising mob rule as democracy, the newly 'freed' French went on a killing spree which at the time was unprecedented in the post-Renaissance era. It was only a matter of time, then, before the crowd caught up to its former Queen: both a foreigner and a woman, she would make a doubly good scapegoat. Utterly blameless and with no power to speak of, save the money she quietly distributed to orphanages and hospitals, Marie Antoinette was nothing less than a victim of her class, a martyr caught in the teeth of an unreasoning genocide...

Tales of her behaviour from those who knew her, even those who didn't like her, differ so greatly from the picture of her painted by scurrilous pamphleteers (none of whom had even met her) that only the most bigoted could believe the least of the allegations made against her. They are also testament to the corrosive effects of slander; 200 years later and her legend still calls out for understanding.

Yet xenophobia and misogyny are two of the oldest and therefore fondest of history's prejudices, and so might be the hardest ones to be overcome; Marie Antoinette faced them both with a poise that had been ingrained in her from birth. In fact, of her it could rightly be said she never once lost her head, right up until the moment she did.
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Oscar Wilde on "Monty Python's Flying Circus"

Here Graham Chapman plays Oscar Wilde, John Cleese plays James McNeill Whistler, and Michael Palin plays George Bernard Shaw in a somewhat anachronistic scene from Grandstand (aka Episode 39 of Monty Python's Flying Circus), given that Terry Jones is obviously playing Edward VII (they call him 'Your Majesty') even though the sketch is set in 1895, six years before the death of Queen Victoria.
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"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" by Oscar Wilde

Because of the length of The Ballad of Reading Gaol, I've decided to publish only the first part here; however, feel free to follow the link at the bottom of the post and read the rest. ~ MSM

I.

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
"That fellow's got to swing."

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame
On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
Into an empty place

He does not sit with silent men
Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see
Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
With the yellow face of Doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste
To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes
Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
Fingering a watch whose little ticks
Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickening thirst
That sands one's throat, before
The hangman with his gardener's gloves
Slips through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear
The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the terror of his soul
Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air
Through a little roof of glass;
He does not pray with lips of clay
For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
The kiss of Caiaphas.

[To continue reading...]
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In Memoriam: Oscar Wilde

Novelist, poet, playwright, bon-vivant, and the foremost wit of the Victorian era, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on this day in 1854, in Dublin; his father was the noted ear and eye specialist William Wilde, his mother the successful writer Jane Francesca Elgee, an Irish nationalist who wrote under the name Speranza.

Wilde's precocity was evident from an early age; home-schooled until the age of nine, he was sent away to Portora Royal School first, then to Dublin's Trinity College. Having excelled at his schoolwork, Wilde was awarded a place at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied the classics and rowed crew.

At one time enamored of Florence Balcombe (who later married Bram Stoker), in May 1884 Wilde married Constance Lloyd; together they had two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan, who after their father's 1895 downfall would be known by the name Holland. Although Wilde had been aware of his attraction to men throughout his life (thanks to early liaisons with Frank Miles and Robert Baldwin Ross) it cannot be said for sure when he first engaged in 'the unspeakable vice of the Greeks', or with whom. However, it was his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas which was to prove both the apex of Wilde's homosexual life, even if their illicit love would also bring about the nadir of his reputation.

While it lasted, though, what a reputation it was! Built on such novels as The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and theatrical comedies of manners as Lady Windermere's Fan (1892) and An Ideal Husband (1895) their aesthetic flamboyance and (for the times, anyway) racy dialogue was nothing compared to Wilde's own patented affectations - principally a wardrobe of velvet and satin combined with a flair for caustic witticisms. In a society for which the best-suited adjective will always be 'stuffy' Wilde was a breath of fresh air... Alas, Victorian society was stuffy for a reason, and those who'd made it that way increasingly sought to keep it stuffy at whatever cost.

It was at the beginning of April 1895, at the pinnacle of his greatest success - as author of the hugely successful play The Importance of Being Earnest - that Wilde sued Douglas' father, the irascible* Marquess of Queensberry, for libel; before the trial was over, thanks in no small part to the legal maneuvering of Edward Carson QC, not only was Queensbury's libel disproven but Wilde and his quick wit would be vanquished. Encouraged by the few friends he had left to flee to the Continent, Wilde refused.By the end of the month he'd been arrested outside Knightsbridge's Cadogan Hotel and would soon thereafter be sent to jail - first to Pentonville, thence to Wandsworth, and finally to Reading Prison (wherefrom sprang his famous Ballad). Released in 1897 after two years imprisonment, his health ruined, Wilde settled in Paris (often under the assumed name of Sebastian Melmoth); he died 3 and a half years later, in November 1900, in room 16 of the Hôtel d'Alsace - his condition apparently aggravated by the decor**.

Initially buried outside Paris at Cimetière de Bagneux, his body was later moved to its current resting place, at Père Lachaise Cemetery, within a tomb designed by Sir Jacob Epstein: as proof of the rehabilitation of Wilde's memory, his final resting place is today covered with lipstick traces, and is among the most visited in that hallowed ground.

Oscar Wilde has been best played onscreen by Stephen Fry in the 1997 biopic Wilde, which was itself based on Richard Ellmann's definitive 1989 biography; interest in Wilde, though, remains high - as evidenced by recent works like Oscar Wilde Discovers America: A Novel by Louis Edwards.

*Which is putting it mildly... He was, in fact, a major league prick - yet his other accomplishment in life were rules for fair play in the pursuit of pugilism.
**He did, after all, famously quip from his death bed: 'My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go.' In truth, Wilde succumbed to cerebral meningitis.
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Happy Birthday Bob Mould

Contradicting the myth that all gay men are disco queens, Bob Mould broke the mould by forming Hüsker Dü; over the course of a dozen albums' worth of glorious noise, the band bridged the gap between punk and rock, their sound presaging alternative rock by a decade in a time dominated by hair metal...

Mould's solo projects have maintained the hallmarks of his work both with Hüsker Dü and Sugar, the band he formed in the 1990s, while showcasing his more experimental side. Walls of noise and outraged sentiment for diehard fans meet acoustic arrangements, introspective lyrics, and even the occasional foray into the dance and house sounds of his emerging oeuvre.

And so begins Act Three for Bob Mould, whose electronica-influenced Modulate was released under the name LoudBomb (an anagram of his name) to the usual mixed reviews that anyone with the willingness to try something new will often receive. Yet if there's one thing Bob Mould has proven time and again in his long career it's that he knows how to be ahead of the curve, and critics be damned.
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Pop History Moment: The Burning of Westminster

^{[The burning of the Palace of Westminster was painted from memory,
but witnessed first-hand by the painter J. M. W. Turner.]}

Most of the Palace of Westminster, seat of Britain's Parliament, burned to the ground on this day in 1834; as reported by Charles Dickens, the cause of the blaze was the burning of useless old tally sticks, which had formerly been used by both the Commons and the Lords in the tallying of votes. The only parts of the old Palace to survive were Westminster Hall, the Jewel Tower, the crypt of St. Stephen's Chapel, and the cloisters.

Rebuilding was begun in 1840, and continued officially until 1860, although further work would be done over the following decade as well; principal architect on the project was Charles Barry, aided by Augustus Pugin. The new Palace of Westminster, rebuilt in the Perpendicular Gothic style, is one of London's most popular and recognizable historic landmarks.
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POPnews - October 16th

[Since criticizing their country's abysmal progress with regards to civil rights at the Summer Olympics on this day in 1968, Tommie Smith and John Carlos have been labeled 'anti-American' and much, much worse - think n-words and lots of 'em! - more or less proving their original point.]

1841 - Queen's University was founded in Kingston, Ontario.

1859 - Abolitionist John Brown led an ill-fated raid on the Armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia.

1869 - The Cardiff Giant was 'discovered' near Cardiff, New York; the petrified prehistoric man was later discovered to be a hoax, perpetrated by George Hull.

1905 - India's Partition of Bengal took place at the behest of the British viceroy, Lord Curzon.

1916 - Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood.

1923 - The Walt Disney Company was founded by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney.

1934 - Chinese Communists began the Long March, which ended a year and four days later, by which time Mao Zedong had regained his title as party chairman.

1940 - The Warsaw Ghetto was established.

1946 - Ten war criminals were hanged at Nuremburg, including: Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Alfred Jodl, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberg, Fritz Sauckel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, and Julius Streicher. This is what's known these days as 'a good start'...

1949 - Nikolaos Zachariadis, leader of the Communist Party of Greece, announced a 'temporary cease-fire', effectively ending the Greek Civil War.

1951 - The first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated in Rawalpindi.

1962 - The Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than at any other time during the Cold War, began.

1968 - American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos were kicked off their team for performing a Black Power salute during a medal ceremony at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. The silver medalist, Australia's Peter Norman, wore a badge in support of them, but for obvious reasons did not perform the salute himself.

1970 - At the request of Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa and Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act to deal with the burgeoning October Crisis.

1972 - Emmerdale - originally known as Emmerdale Farm - debuted on Britain's ITV; the show was created by Kevin Laffan.

1978 - Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II.

1984 - Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1995 - The Million Man March converged on Washington, DC.

2002 - Cairo's Bibliotheca Alexandrina was inaugurated.
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Pop History Moment: The Death of Mata Hari

Behold, the temptress of the ages: Mata Hari...



Born Margaretha Zelle in August 1876, by 1903 (when she moved to Paris) she'd already been married, had two children, and contracted syphilis. Once in Paris she parlayed a career as an exotic dancer into life as a high-profile courtesan.

Alas, her taste for men knew no boundaries, at a time when those very same boundaries were being fought for by the same men with whom she shared her bed. Affairs with French, Russian, and German military officers gave France just the distraction it needed to take everyone's mind off of how badly they were losing the war.

She was arrested in March 1917, given one helluva show trial, after which no one was too surprised she was found guilty of treason; on this day in 1917 Mata Hari died at the hands of a firing squad. Documents regarding her imprisonment and death are due to be released by the French government in 2017, at which time the truth about Mata Hari may finally be known...
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In Memoriam: P. G. Wodehouse

In a country well-known for its humourists, P. G. Wodehouse may be the king of them all; over a career as a writer spanning an incredible 70 years (!!!) Wodehouse created many indelible characters of fiction, many of which are still renowned today...

The most famous of these, Jeeves and Wooster, present a subversion of class that is so delicious they've been embraced by hidebound Edwardians and post-ironic Gen Xers alike. Their portrayals on television by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie became instant television classics when they began appearing in 1990.

Sadly, Wodehouse's reputation was one of the foremost casualties of the Second World War; a series of broadcasts made while he was interned by the Nazis in Poland led to accusations by his countrymen of collaboration. Among Wodehouse's most outspoken critics was A. A. Milne; to his defense came Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell.

Following the war, still stung by these accusations, Wodehouse moved to New York City, in whose vicinity he would remain for the rest of his life. He was granted US citizenship in 1955, and thereafter never returned to England.

Born on this day in 1881, when, at the age of 93, he found himself honoured with a knighthood and a waxwork at Madame Tussaud's, he said that he had no ambitions left; he died shortly thereafter, on Valentine's Day 1975.
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Larry Miller Explains "The Five Levels Of Drinking"

Birthday boy Larry Miller has long been one of my favourite comics, chiefly for the insightful brand of comedy he performs; the most famous of his bits is this classic - The Five Stages of Drinking, which he occasionally still hauls out as a party piece and perennial crowd-pleaser...

While he lost out on the plum role of George Costanza to Jason Alexander, Miller did get to voice the Pointy-Haired Boss on Dilbert in addition to many other movie and television roles stretching all the way back to the 1990 film Pretty Woman.
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Pop History Moment: The Rise Of Anwar Sadat

On this day in 1970 Anwar Sadat became President of Egypt, following the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser on September 28th; Sadat was the third to serve in this post following Muhammad Naguib and Nasser, all of whom had participated in the coup to overthrow King Farouk I during the Egyptian Revolution of 1952.

Sadat's presidency was remarkable chiefly for the changes undergone by Sadat himself throughout it; although he'd inherited a country demoralized by the loss of the Six-Day War in 1967, and one determined to see itself avenged by means of the October (or Yom Kippur) War in October 1973, for whatever reason Sadat quickly began to see himself as a peacemaker.

Sadat became the first Arab leader to visit Israel in November 1977, during which time he held high-profile meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and addressed the Knesset. For daring to suggest that peace is possible between the Arab world and Israel he'd effectively numbered his days, just as he'd assured his place in history.

It was the Camp David Accords (facilitated by US President Jimmy Carter, and signed in September 1978) that really put Sadat on the world stage as a leader; he and Begin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts at ending the state of total war that had existed in the Eastern Mediterranean since the creation of Israel in May 1948. For trying to broker peace in the region, Egypt was expelled from the Arab League in 1979, at which time that organization's headquarters were moved from Cairo to Tunis. Despite the all-around condemnation of Egypt by its traditional allies, the treaty signed on that day is still in effect. More extraordinarily, over the years countries such as Jordan and Morocco have also found their peace with Israel in their own ways...

Anwar Sadat was assassinated in October 1981 after a fatwa placed on him by Omar Abdel-Rahman was carried out by a radical cell within the Egyptian army led by Lieutenant Khaled Islambouli; he was temporarily succeeded by Sufi Abu Taleb, following which his Vice President Hosni Mubarak - who remains President of Egypt to this day - took over.

Sadat's killing had come after three years of increasing domestic tension within Egypt, during which time radical elements had carried out a campaign of terror against Western interests. They'd also begun a whispering campaign, suggesting corruption on the part of Sadat and his family. In an effort to contain the protest, Sadat ordered a roundup and imprisonment more than 1500 of the usual suspects - including many Jihad members, intellectuals and activists of all ideological stripes, communists, Nasserists, feminists, Islamists, homosexuals, Coptic Christian clergy, university professors, journalists and members of student groups. All to no avail...

Anwar Sadat was portrayed by Oscar-winner Louis Gossett, Jr. in a 1983 American television miniseries about his life; it wasn't until 2001 that Egypt made its own film, starring Ahmed Zaki, whose portrayal of Sadat has been universally hailed as the best of his career.
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POPnews - October 15th

[In The Great Dictator Charlie Chaplin played Adenoid Hynkel, a European tyrant who disguises his ambition with bigotry; Chaplin's was the first work from a serious artist to decry the rise of National Socialism in Germany, and its effort blazed a trail for subsequent generations of satirists to render the bad-guy impotent by means of mockery - a technique which last worked, to great effect, on Kim Jong-Il in the film Team America: World Police.]
1764 - Edward Gibbon was moved to write his six-volume masterpiece The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire during a stroll amongst the ruins of Rome, apparently.

1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled for a second time, to Saint Helena - a British holding in the South Atlantic.

1863 - The H. L. Hunley, the first submarine to sink a ship, itself sank during a test, killing its inventor, Horace L. Hunley.

1864 - The Battle of Glasgow was fought during the American Civil War, resulting in the surrender of Glasgow, Missouri - along with the Union garrison of Chester Harding, Jr. - to the Confederate forces of John Bullock Clark, Jr. and Joe Shelby.

1888 - The 'From Hell' letter, apparently sent by Jack the Ripper, was received by investigators; unlike the earlier Dear Boss letter, the Saucy Jack postcard, and their imitators, though, it wasn't signed by him - although most Ripperologists concur that the killer probably did write it.  So, obviously, does writer Alan Moore, whose Ripper-themed comic book series-cum-graphic novel (and the 2001 film starring Johnny Depp derived from it) is entitled From Hell.

1894 - Alfred Dreyfus was arrested for spying, beginning 'L'affaire Dreyfus'.

1928 - The Graf Zeppelin landed in Lakehurst, New Jersey, having completed its first trans-Atlantic flight.

1939 - New York's Glenn H. Curtiss Airport was rededicated by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, giving the place its more familiar name.

1940 - Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator premiered.

1944 - The Arrow Cross Party, which was similar to Hitler's NSDAP, assumed power in Hungary.

1946 - On the eve of the Nuremberg Trials, Hermann Göring committed suicide by taking potassium cyanide.

1951 - I Love Lucy made its television debut.

1956 - Fortran - the first modern computer language - was shared with the coding community for the first time, apparently.

1966 - The Black Panther Party was created by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.

1970 - Thirty-five construction workers were killed when a section of Melbourne's West Gate Bridge collapsed.

1987 - The Great Storm of 1987 hit France and England.

1989 - Wayne Gretzky became the all-time highest scoring player in NHL history, apparently.

1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

2003 - The Staten Island Ferry Andrew J. Barberi collided with a pier, killing 10 instantly and injuring 71; an eleventh victim would die of her injuries later that year.
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Pop History Moment: The Publication of "Winnie-the-Pooh"

On this day in 1926 the English humourist and poet A. A. Milne published a book of stories for children concerning the antics of a honey-mad bear and his woodland friends; illustrated by E. H. Shepard (with whom Milne worked at the satirical publication Punch) the stories of Winnie-the-Pooh have been amusing and enlightening children and adults alike ever since...

Beginning with Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and continuing in The House at Pooh Corner (1928), there is also a poem about the character in When We Were Very Young (1924) and many more in Now We Are Six (1927). David Benedictus has recently published another collection of Pooh stories, Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, with illustrations by Mark Burgess in the style of E. H. Shepard. In the intervening years, of course, Pooh has hit the big screen courtesy of Disney and the vocal talents of Sterling Holloway.

Thrillingly (for me, at least) there is a Canadian connection to these charming characters... Winnie, a Canadian black bear rescued as a cub by Lieutenant Harry Colebourn, was a resident at the London Zoo and one of Winnie's frequent visitors was none other than Christopher Robin Milne. Among the minor changes the elder Milne made in adapting Winnie was a change in colour; also, the real Winnie was female!
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Rufus Wainwright Talks With Isaac Mizrahi

The scene is taken from The Isaac Mizrahi Show, which appeared on Oxygen from 2001-2003. Isaac Mizrahi is here because it's his birthday; Rufus Wainwright is here because...  Well, because he's Rufus Wainwright. This is what's known in the business as 'win-win-win'.
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POPnews (UK) - October 14th

[It is two seconds of footage and a revolution all in one... Captured on celluloid strip film at 12 frames per second on location at Oakwood Grange - the Yorkshire home of Joseph and Sarah Whitley (themselves the parents of the photographer's wife Elizabeth) and featuring not only the Whitleys and their other daughter Harriet but young Adolphe Le Prince as well - surely no one at the time could have predicted the modern-day marvels to which the so-called Roundhay Garden Scene would one day lead. Down the garden path indeed...]
1066 - The opening engagement in the Norman Conquest, the Battle of Hastings was fought on Senlac Hill (actually seven miles from Hastings) where the forces of William the Conqueror defeated the English army and killed King Harold II.

1586 - Mary, Queen of Scots, went on trial for conspiring against England's Queen Elizabeth I.

1812 - Work began on London's Regent's Canal.

1888 - Louis Le Prince filmed the first motion picture, Roundhay Garden Scene.

1913 - An explosion at a colliery in Senghenydd, Wales, killed 439; in terms of loss of life, it's the worst such disaster in history.

1926 - The children's book Winnie-the-Pooh, by A.A. Milne, was first published... Featuring charming illustrations by E. H. Shepard, the stories concern the adventures of a bear and his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood (itself based on Ashdown Forest in East Sussex) and quickly lodged themselves into the consciousness of children around the world - in the process seemingly engendering a great deal of resentment in the boy for whom they were written, Christopher Robin Milne. It was the younger Milne's Alpha Farnell teddy bear Edward who partially served as the model for the hapless hero, although a Canadian black bear called Winnie (short for Winnipeg) at the London Zoo provided his nickname.

1939 - The Nazi U-Boat U-47 sank the British battleship HMS Royal Oak: of the ship's complement of 1,234 men and boys, 833 were killed that night or died later of their wounds.

1940 - The Balham tube disaster killed at least 65 (and as many as 68) besides injuring a further 70 during the Blitz when a 1400kg semi-armour piercing fragmentation bomb exploded above what was, in fact, a makeshift air raid shelter - filling the tunnel with debris and water from broken mains. The site of the tragedy is today marked by a plaque, while the flooding is briefly portrayed in Ian McEwan's novel Atonement, as well as in the film based on the book.

1954 - Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie made an historic visit to the United Kingdom, wherein he was hosted by The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.

1969 - The new 7-sided 50p piece - intended to replace the 10-shilling note in advance of the impending decimalisation of British currency - was introduced amidst confusion and controversy. Although it was the third decimal coin to be introduced (the 5p and 10p had previously entered circulation, with the 2p, 1p, and half-pence coin to soon follow) it was thought to be too easily confused with the 10p, despite its heptagonal shape; at the time of its release, Britain's 50p was the only seven-sided coin in the world. Some 120 million were minted during this introductory period, making for the largest ever issue of a coin in history. So prevalent is it that there are even several of them in the collection of the Pop Culture Institute.

1983 - Conservative Cabinet Minister Cecil Parkinson resigned following the revelation of his affair with his secretary Sara Keays, which had resulted in the birth of a child; despite all the blather over 'family values' made by the Thatcher government, Parkinson has never met his daughter...
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"She Blinded Me With Science" by Thomas Dolby

Birthday wishes go out today to Thomas Dolby who, as far as I know, never blinded anyone with science; he did, however, get us dancing to science, as a pioneer of electronic music during the British New Wave in the early 1980s. She Blinded Me with Science originally appeared on his 1982 album The Golden Age of Wireless; not only does the song's video star Dolby himself in a Tintin-esque get-up, it also showcases television presenter Magnus Pyke as the mad scientist.

If you ask me, the real science involved here is how this song just never gets old...
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"why must itself up every of a park" by e e cummings

why must itself up every of a park
anus stick some quote statue unquote to
prove that a hero equals any jerk
who was afraid to dare to answer "no"?
quote citizens unquote might otherwise
forget(to err is human;to forgive
divine)that if the quote state unquote says
"kill" killing is an act of christian love.
"Nothing" in 1944 AD
"can stand against the argument of mil
itary necessity"(generalissimo e)
and echo answers "there is no appeal
from reason"(freud)--you pays your money and
you doesn't take your choice.Ain't freedom grand
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e e cummings: a capital poet

Two things that will always serve a poet well are a surreal outlook on life and a willingness to put words into orders they've never been in before. It also doesn't hurt if, when looking at society, its foibles and injustices alike strike you as ridiculous...

By these parameters alone, E. E. Cummings - born on this day in 1894 - more than qualifies as a poet. Even now, his garbled syntax conveys so much more even in its muddled condition than it ever could conforming to some old rules in a dusty old book somewhere. Sarcastic - but seldom cynical - Cummings viewed the world as a work-in-progress.

Rare among 20th Century poets, Cummings was wildly popular in his lifetime; whenever he gave readings they were to packed houses and rapturous applause. He also wrote plays and novels; his first book was a memoir, written in 1922 when he was just 28. The Enormous Room details the time during World War I he spent in a French prisoner of war camp, suspected of espionage.

Despite this, Cummings remained an avowed Francophile, and would return there often over the rest of his life.
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In Memoriam: Lillian Gish

Of all the great Hollywood careers, no doubt the one with the greatest lifespan belongs to Lillian Gish; from her first movie, An Unseen Enemy (1912), to her last, The Whales of August (1987), her physical delicacy contrasted with a steely resolve made her one of the world's best loved actors.

Early in her career, Gish appeared in many of the films of D. W. Griffith, including his notorious The Birth of a Nation (1915) in which she plays Elsie, the flower of white womanhood the heroic Ku Klux Klan are trying to protect from... I just threw up in my mouth a little bit, so I'd better not finish that sentence; but you get the point.

During the transition from silent to talking pictures, many of Gish's roles were on the stage. She was quite proud of having played a lewd Ophelia; not only did her portrayal stray from the typical way the role was acted, but it was a departure for Gish as well, always having played helpless virgins before this. Among her most memorable film roles from this era is The Night of the Hunter (1955) in which she portrays a heroic woman saving two children from a menacing Robert Mitchum.

Gish maintained close friendships throughout her life to her sister Dorothy (also an actress), Mary Pickford, and Helen Hayes. For her final film role she was nominated for an Academy Award, but lost to Cher, whose politics were more in line with the Academy's; Gish was a lifelong Republican.

Born on this day in 1893, Lillian Gish died in February 1993, approaching her 100th birthday; she is buried in New York City, in St. Bartholomew's Episcopal.
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POPnews (US) - October 14th

[Here we see a special message from the President and the First Lady, who on this day in 1982 declared a War on Drugs - another one of those nutty wars Republican presidents like to declare on concepts or other nebulous foes. Just Say Yes!]
1863 - At the Battle of Bristoe Station Confederate General Robert E. Lee's forces failed to drive the Union Army out of Virginia.

1910 - English aviator Claude Grahame-White landed his Farman biplane on Executive Avenue near the White House.

1912 - President Theodore Roosevelt was shot by John Schrank at a campaign stop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. With the bullet embedded in his chest, the Progressive Party candidate proceeded to give a vigourous 90-minute speech before seeing a doctor about his wound. Unable to remove the bullet safely, it was decided to leave it there, where it stayed for the remaining seven years of his life.

1947 - Chuck Yeager flew a Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound, making him the first man to do so in level flight.

1960 - Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy suggested formation of a Peace Corps during a talk at the University of Michigan - three years after Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr. (D-Minnesota) suggested something similar.

1962 - The Cuban Missile Crisis began when a U-2 flight over Cuba took photos of Soviet nuclear weapons being installed.

1964 - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr became the youngest person ever awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

1968 - American Jim Hines became the first man ever to break the ten second barrier in the 100 metres Olympic final at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City with a time of 9.95 seconds; he would be the only man to do so until 1977.

1979 - The first Gay & Lesbian March on Washington drew between 100,000 and 200,000 participants.

1982 - President Ronald Reagan declared a War on Drugs, apparently.

1987 - Baby Jessica McClure fell down a well; her 58-hour plight, and the challenges presented by her rescue, captivated the American news media.

1998 - Eric Robert Rudolph was charged with the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996.

2003 - John Allen Muhammad pleaded innocent to murder in the Washington-area sniper case. (He was later convicted and sentenced to death, which duly took place in November 2009.)
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Happy Birthday Your Imperial Majesty

Farah Diba originally set out to be an architect; even after she married Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, in December 1959, she continued in her chosen profession, eventually designing Iran's elegant and innovative Carpet Museum, which opened in 1976.

In exile since January 1979, the Shahbanou currently divides her time between Cairo, Paris, New York City, and Washington, DC, where her oldest son leads a movement to restore the Iranian monarchy and overthrow the illegal occupation of the mullahs.

Perennially one of the world's most glamourous women, Empress Farah Pahlavi published her memoirs in 2003. Entitled An Enduring Love: My Life with the Shah - A Memoir, it was a bestseller around the world.
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Remembering... Katherine Mansfield

Out of a lonely childhood springs many a writer, and Katherine Mansfield was no exception...

Born into a well-to-do family in Wellington, New Zealand, on this day in 1888, Mansfield's first short stories - the form at which she excelled - appeared in a school magazine when she was only 10. At 14 she went to London for school; then her passions were more musical than literary. In any event, she returned to New Zealand when she was 18.

Two years later she returned to London, where she threw herself into the Imperial capital's bohemian lifestyle. She married a man named George Bowden almost on a whim, but became pregnant by another man named Garnet Trowell, later suffering a miscarriage at a sanitorium in Bavaria where she'd been sent by her mother.  It was during this time that Mansfield also cultivated a friendship with D.H. Lawrence.

In 1911 she published her first collection of short stories, entitled In a German Pension, whose lack of success dismayed her. She also contracted gonorrhea which, in addition to being a terrible stigma in those days, caused her painful bouts of arthritis for the rest of her short life.

The relatively happy event of falling in love and marrying John Middleton Murry was marred by her brother's death on the battlefields of World War I, and so it went; each happiness seemingly marred by a successive tragedy. Although her ill-health and private income gave her plenty of time to write - she wrote her most famous works while recovering from a bout with tuberculosis in 1918-19 - she was also plagued by depression.

Katherine Mansfield died in France in January 1923; she was 35. In the years following her death, much of her work was published by her widower, and in the years since it has accrued much acclaim for the delicacy of its prose and the sensitivity of its insights into the timeless struggles of its characters.
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The Death of Errol Flynn

He was a handsome and charming actor, who had won the hearts of millions with his portrayals of pirates and derring-doers; Errol Flynn was also a hard drinker who enjoyed life and fame and all that both had afforded him.

A few days before his death the 50 year-old matinee idol flew into Vancouver, with the intent of selling his yacht Zaca to millionaire George Caldough; he was accompanied by his 16 year-old girlfriend Beverly Aadland.

The deal having been sealed, Flynn was all set to leave the city when he said he didn't feel well. Rather than taking him to the airport, Caldough took him to the apartment of a friend, Dr. Grant Gould, at 1310 Burnaby (near the corner of Jervis) in Vancouver's West End neighbourhood. As often happened in his midst a party sprang up around Flynn, who seemed to rally, at least for a time.

Once more feeling ill, Flynn retired to a bedroom for a nap; when Aadland went to wake him a half an hour later he was dead of a massive heart attack. The rumour is that after his death he was taken to the Hotel Georgia in downtown Vancouver and propped up in a chair in the lobby, so that well-wishers could file past and pay their respects.

He is buried at Forest Lawn in Los Angeles.
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Pop History Moment: The Battle of Hastings

Late in September, 1066, William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, decided it was time to act in support of his claim to the throne of England*. To his mind, the current King, Harold Godwinson, was a usurper, despite having the support of the Witenagemot.



Having spent the summer amassing an army (600 ships and 7000 men) at Saint-Valery-sur-Somme in Normandy and staring across the English Channel at a similarly powerful Saxon force, intelligence reached him that the English militia had begun to retreat so as to take in the harvest, and that Harald III of Norway had just landed in the North of England, drawing most of the remaining English troops out of the area.

William waited for the last of the summer's storms to pass, and then set out...

His force landed in England between Hastings and Bexhill, then marched a few miles east to the area near Pevensey Bay, where he built a wooden castle for a garrison. Harold, having been victorious in the North, rushed south to defend his realm yet again, arriving in the area on the evening of October 13th.

With Harold's troops poised on Senlac Hill, and William's opposite on Telham Hill, the fateful Saturday dawned... The battle lasted all day, and early on it looked like the tight ranks of the similarly-sized but weaker Saxon force might win the day. However, by the afternoon, some of Harold's men broke ranks to pursue retreating Normans (possibly a tactical ploy) and William charged his knights up into the remaining ranks.

Volley after volley of arrows followed; in one of these King Harold fell, and with it England's Anglo-Saxon age...

The events of the Battle of Hastings are most evocatively rendered on the Bayeux Tapestry, images of which are available here online.

*William insisted he'd been promised the throne by Edward the Confessor, although that promise might have been wrought with coercion; Edward had also taken as his queen Edith of Wessex, daughter of the powerful noble Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and sister of Harold Godwinson, which to many indicated his desire to keep the House of Wessex both alive and English. Alas, the one thing he never did do was specifically name his heir while actually on his deathbed...
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POPnews - October 14th

[For all its propitious beginnings - having been opened in person by The Queen herself! - Canada's 23rd Parliament was otherwise a wash... Consisting of a single session, and presided over by the minority government of John Diefenbaker, it would be the second shortest such gathering in Canadian history.]
1758 - Austria's Marshal Leopold Josef Graf Daun defeated the Prussian army of Frederick the Great at the Battle of Hochkirk during the Seven Years' War.

1773 - The first recorded Ministry of Education, the Komisja Edukacji Narodowej (Polish for Commission of National Education) was formed in Poland; the event is still commemorated there as Teachers' Day.

1805 - At the Battle of Elchingen, France's Marshal Michel Ney defeated the Austrian forces of Graf Johann von Riesch.

1806 - The Battle of Jena-Auerstädt pitted France's Emperor Napoleon and his commander Louis Nicolas Davout against Prussia's Frederick William III; the German loss to France was likely hard on Gebhard von Blücher and the Prince of Hohenlohe but a third Prussian commander, the Duke of Brunswick, got the worst of it - he died in battle.

1882 - The University of the Punjab was founded in present-day Pakistan.

1916 - Perm State University was founded in Russia.

1920 - Part of Petsamo province was ceded to Finland by the Soviet Union under the terms of the Treaty of Tartu.

1942 - A German U-boat sank the ferry SS Caribou in Newfoundland's Cabot Strait, killing 137.

1943 - Prisoners at the Sobibor death camp in Poland revolted, resulting in the death of 11 SS officers; about half of the camp's 600 prisoners escaped, of whom some 50 survived the war.

1944 - Nazi Field Marshal Erwin Rommel committed suicide rather than face Roland Freisler's People's Court and potential implication in the bomb attack of July 20th that nearly succeeded in assassinating Hitler.

1956 - Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, leader of India's Untouchable (or Dalit) caste, converted to Buddhism along with 385,000 followers, sparking the Neo-Buddhism movement.

1957 - Canada's 23rd Parliament was opened in Ottawa by Elizabeth II in her role as Queen of Canada, marking the first time a Canadian sovereign had delivered Her Government's Speech from the Throne in person.

1959 - Tasmanian-born action hero Errol Flynn died while on a business trip in Vancouver.

1964 - Leonid Brezhnev became General Secretary of the CPSU and de facto leader of the Soviet Union, ousting Nikita Khrushchev.

1966 - The Montreal Metro opened for business.

1968 - A 6.9 magnitude earthquake destroyed the Australian town of Meckering in under 40 seconds, rupturing all major roads (including the Great Eastern Highway) and railways nearby in the process.

1973 - During Thailand's Thammasat student uprising over 100,000 people protested against the Thanom military government; 77 are killed and 857 are injured by soldiers.

1981 - Vice President Hosni Mubarak was elected President of Egypt, one week after the assassination of his predecessor Anwar Sadat.

1994 - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres shared the Nobel Peace Prize.
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