"Misguided Angel" by Cowboy Junkies

Birthday wishes go out today to Margo Timmins, for more than twenty years now the ethereal voice of her brother Michael's band, Canadian roots music pioneers Cowboy Junkies.

The song Misguided Angel (which Timmins herself believes is the best one she ever wrote) originally appeared on the 1988 album The Trinity Session - the band's second album, which was recorded live at Toronto's Church of the Holy Trinity, and which provided them with their breakthrough; the version released as a single in 1988 was recorded in one take, a testament to the artistry of all the musicians involved.
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Happy Birthday Ethan Mordden

To paraphrase the site near the top of my blogroll, 'why oh why' are most of the people I like best also the worst served by the Internet Photo Gods? But more importantly: 'why oh why' have those same deities forsaken me yet again, so soon after the last time*? Obviously, it's time to ritually sacrifice another issue of Life magazine in order to appease them.

Ever since I was introduced to his 'Buddies' cycle of novels shortly after the release of 1985's I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore - thus rendering me incapable of complete loathing for twinks** - I have eagerly followed the fictional exploits of Carlo, Dennis Savage, J. (formerly Little Kiwi), Cosgrove, and Bud with the same fascination I've followed the semi-fictional real-life archetypes upon whom they were based.

Mordden is more than a deft writer of fiction, though; his nonfiction works include histories of Broadway musical theatre and an adept perspective on classic film and the artists who made them, as well as a recent biography of Florenz Ziegfeld which somehow found its way into the collection of the Pop Culture Institute***.

Born on this day in 1949, Mordden lives in Manhattan, the city he has so eloquently described and inhabited lo these many years...

*I'm still reeling over the numerous House of Grimaldi bloodbaths of the past four weeks.
**Thanks a lot!
***In the interest of full disclosure: the book nearly caught fire like a comet entering the atmosphere, so quickly did I snatch it off the shelf in the store when I first saw it.
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POPnews - January 27th

[Although the ignition source of the fire which killed Grissom, White, and Chaffee on this day in 1967 was never conclusively identified, the astronauts' deaths were attributed to a wide range of lethal design hazards in the early Apollo command module - the kind of clusterfuck which that normally comes from accepting the lowest bid.]

661 CE - The Rashidun Caliphate ended with death of Ali.

1142 - General Yue Fei of the Southern Song Dynasty was executed on orders of Chancellor Qin Hui which may or may not have come directly from Emperor Gaozong; nevertheless, for his groundless act Qin Hui is today remembered as a traitor to the Han race whereas Yue Fei is still considered a paragon of loyalty.

1186 - King of Germany, King of Italy, and Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI (the son and heir of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I and Beatrix of Burgundy) married Constance of Sicily, who was herself the sole legitimate heir of Sicily's King William II - thus adding that crown to his already impressive collection.

1595 - Following a failed attack on San Juan, Puerto Rico, English privateer Sir Francis Drake died of dysentery off the Panamanian coast near Portobelo; he was 55.  Drake was later buried at sea in a lead coffin wearing his full armour - a treasure which continues to elude discovery to this day...

1606 - Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators went on trial in London's Westminster Hall for their role in the Gunpowder Plot.

1785 - The University of Georgia was founded, making it the first public university in the United States.

1870 - The Kappa Alpha Theta fraternity was founded at DePauw University.

1880 - Thomas Edison filed a patent for the electric-incandescent lamp, more commonly known today as a light-bulb.

1888 - The National Geographic Society was incorporated in Washington, DC, by Gardiner Greene Hubbard - having been founded two weeks earlier at the Cosmos Club.

1909 - The Young Left was founded in Norway.

1918 - The first hostilities occurred in the Finnish Civil War - pitting the White Guards and the German Empire against the Red Guards and the Russian SFSR.

1939 - The Lockheed P-38 Lightning made its first flight.

1944 - The 900-day Siege of Leningrad was lifted after the 13-day Leningrad-Novgorod Strategic Offensive saw Soviet forces rout the city's Nazi occupiers.

1945 - The Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz was liberated.

1951 - Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site began with a one-kiloton bomb dropped on Frenchman Flats.

1967 - Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee were killed when a fire broke out during a training exercise on the Apollo I spacecraft.

1973 - Colonel William Nolde was killed in action at An Loc eleven hours before the signing of the Paris Peace Accords officially ended the Vietnam War, making him the conflict's last recorded American combat casualty.

1996 - International Holocaust Remembrance Day was first celebrated in Germany.

2003 - The first selections for the National Recording Registry were announced by the Library of Congress; they included 50 diverse offerings such as those made by Thomas Edison when first exhibiting his phonograph in 1888, the Metropolitan Opera's Mapleson Cylinders, Ragtime piano rolls by Scott Joplin, Booker T. Washington's 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech, and a recording of Casey at the Bat as performed by vaudevillian DeWolf Hopper among others.

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Vintage Stand-Up: Ellen DeGeneres

Birthday wishes go out to Ellen DeGeneres, seen here in a 1989 episode of HBO's One Night Stand; watch as the Queen of Nice riffs on first impressions in her inimitable meandering, hilarious way.
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World City-Zen: Sydney

Although the first Sydney-siders arrived in the region as long as 30,000 years ago - drawn by the area's abundant natural charms - it was in 1770 that Lieutenant James Cook landed in Botany Bay on the Kurnell Peninsula and made first contact with an Aboriginal tribe known as the Gweagal. There he found an enormous archipelago-like natural harbour, balmy weather, and all the resources necessary to start a fledgling colony off right, albeit unnecessarily cluttered up by a whole lot of brown people who didn't speak any English.

Still, it took nearly a generation for Arthur Phillip to get the British government to allow him to establish a convict settlement there... Arriving at the helm of the First Fleet in January 1788 - which had left Portsmouth in May 1787 - 1373 British were left to deal with 4-8,000 natives whom they called Eora (despite the fact that they were actually the Cadigal people) - none of which boded well for the aboriginals.

On this day in 1788 Philip and his crew landed at Sydney Cove on Port Jackson and founded a town they named for their patron - Home Secretary Thomas Townshend, Lord Sydney; it didn't take long for those twin British advances - infrastructure and smallpox - to make themselves known. Most of the aboriginal resistance to colonization would be blunted by the latter, even as the colonials' decimation of the aboriginals would be aided by the former.

On its way to becoming the largest city in Australia, Sydney has exerted an enormous influence - cultural, political, economic - on the life of the country. As a repository of landmarks, it's home to the iconic Opera House and the Taronga Zoo among many others, world class night-life at Kings Cross, and the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. For nature lovers the beaches (such as Manly, Botany Bay, and Bondi) to the East*, the Blue Mountains to the West, the Hawkesbury River to the North and the Royal National Park to the South can't be beat.

In fact, after a life spent traveling the world on behalf of the Pop Culture Institute I can easily see settling down there myself, and enjoying my dotage turning as brown and wrinkly as an old scrotum amongst its palm tree-lined streets; I may even thrash about in the water a bit and see if I can catch me a lifesaver - although given my luck I'll probably only get a shark!

*As much as the bodies on them.
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What's The Occasion? Australia Day

Try as I might to entice Australian readers to this blog, statistically they are currently holding steady in eighth place, down from sixth place in 2009; although intellectually I can understand that most of my traffic would come from the the US, Canada, and the UK there are still more readers here from Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, and Brazil than Australia, which my Commonwealth heart finds irksome.

May I suggest this Australia Day that in the interests of national pride any Australians who happen upon this blog post tell all their friends about it and encourage them to visit here often; when they do, they shouldn't hesitate to leave comments suggesting what topics of interest I might include so as to keep them coming back. Strictly in the interests of Australian nationalism, mind you, and not selfishly motivated to give me more traffic...

Celebrating the arrival of the First Fleet at Port Jackson in Sydney Harbour in 1788, Australians today mark the occasion of Australia Day with barbecues, drunkenness, and gunpowder... So pretty much the same as every other day. Unique features of the day include the investment of new members into the Order of Australia as well as the Australian of the Year awards, and a televised address from the Prime Minister.
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POPnews - January 26th

[The disappearance of Jane (9), Arnna (7), and Grant (4) - collectively known as the Beaumont Children - marked a major loss of innocence in Australian culture, as previously that country's parents had considered their children safe from human predators; prompting the largest and most prolonged investigation in Australian history, and despite the identification of four plausible suspects - including Bevan Spencer von Einem, Arthur Stanley Brown, James O'Neill, and Derek Percy - no trace of any of the children has ever been found.]
1531 - An estimated 30,000 people died when Lisbon was hit by an earthquake.

1700 - The magnitude 9 Cascadia Earthquake took place off the west coast of the North America, as evidenced by Japanese records of a tsunami which struck the east coast of that country and the carbon dating of tree rings in the affected area.

1736 - Poland's King Stanislaus I abdicated his throne.

1788 - The British First Fleet, led by Arthur Phillip, sailed into Sydney Harbour to establish Sydney, the first permanent European settlement on the continent; today the event is commemorated as Australia Day.

1808 - The Rum Rebellion - the only successful (albeit short-lived) armed takeover of the government in Australian history - occurred twenty years to the day after the colony was founded, when Governor William Bligh was deposed by forces loyal to John Macarthur.

1837 - Michigan became the 26th US state.

1856 - The first Battle of Seattle occurred when US Marines from the USS Decatur - commanded by Guert Gansevoort and anchored in Elliott Bay - fired upon Suquamish and Duwamish attackers after an all day battle with settlers; the Native Americans reported 28 dead and 80 wounded. Part of the Puget Sound War, the battle occurred one year to the day after Washington Territory governor Isaac Stevens imposed the Point No Point Treaty on the S'Klallam, the Chimacum and the Skokomish tribes at Point No Point, on the northern tip of the Kitsap Peninsula. Stevens had only recently declared a 'war of extermination' against all the indigenous peoples of the region.

1861 - Louisiana seceded from the United States to join the Confederate States of America.

1905 - The Cullinan Diamond was discovered; it was later presented to King Edward VII and has been incorporated into the British Crown Jewels.

1911 - Richard Strauss' opera Der Rosenkavalier received its debut performance at the Dresden State Opera.

1934 - Harlem's Apollo Theater was reopened.

1950 - The Constitution of India was adopted, and India became a republic; the date is now celebrated in that country as Republic Day.

1966 - The Beaumont Children went missing from Glenelg Beach near Adelaide, South Australia, during a family picnic on that year's Australia Day.

1988 - Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera debuted on Broadway at the Majestic Theatre; it is currently the longest-running show in the history of the Great White Way, with more than 9,500 performances in that location alone, surpassing Lloyd Webber's other monster hit Cats in January 2006.

1993 - Vaclav Havel was elected President of the newly created Czech Republic.

1998 - During a televised press conference from the White House, US President Bill Clinton insisted he 'did not have sexual relations' with Monica Lewinsky; it was later revealed, however, that she'd had sexual relations with him, which is (regardless of what your definition of 'is' is) still none of our damn business - and hardly on a par with forcing the President to resign over the discovery that he'd authorized the burglary of the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate hotel, for which it was retaliation.

2001 - On India's Republic Day, an earthquake centered at Gujarat killed 30,000 and injured 55,000 more.

2004 - President Hamid Karzai signed the new constitution of Afghanistan.

2005 - Condoleezza Rice was sworn in as US Secretary of State.
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"No One" by Alicia Keys

Her performance of this very song at the Inauguration of Barack Obama only served to underline what her fans already knew about birthday gal Alicia Keys - that no one* can deliver an inspirational lyric with the same gusto she can.

Speaking of No One - which originally appeared on her third album, 2007's As I Am - it has become her most successful single to date, which bodes well for the talented singer and pianist, as it means her career is not in a long downward trajectory from her first smash hit Fallin', but rather moves upwards from strength to strength as she does.

*'No One', get it? Like the title of the song?
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Gratuitous Brunette: Robinho

Seeing as this portion of the day is all about Brazil, I thought I'd take the opportunity to bolster my sports coverage with a photo of the footballer and noted paulista, Robinho, the Manchester City footballer born on this day in 1984 in the coastal city of São Vicente, in the state of São Paulo. Often called 'the new Pelé', Robinho was actually mentored by the football great both as a youth and when he played for Santos; his transfer from Real Madrid was the richest in history, worth a reported £32.5 million.

Robinho's success has brought the issue of São Paulo's robust gang culture into the world's headlines, as his mother Marina de Silva Souza was kidnapped from her home in Praia Grande in November 2004. She was released unharmed six weeks later after he paid a substantial ransom.

Oh, and by the way... The trademark thumb-sucking he does whenever he scores a goal is a tribute to his infant son; while it seems to draw considerable ire to him, in the opinion of the Pop Culture Institute it's quite sweet.
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World City-Zen: São Paulo

On this day in 1554 two Jesuit missionaries named Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta founded a mission, with the intention of 'saving' the area's indigenous Tupi-Guarani people; from its humble beginnings as the village of São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga, São Paulo became what is today the second most populous city in the Americas, and one of the five largest in the world. Given its prime location in the Brazilian Highlands close by the Tietê River - at the mid-point between the resource rich interior of the country and the port at São Vicente, overlooking the port city of Santos - São Paulo has always played a crucial role in the life of the country.

Formally recognized as a city in 1711, São Paulo's early economy was born from coffee; in 1822 it was also the birthplace of the country's independence, when the Prince of Beira defied his father João VI's order to return from exile to Portugal by declaring Independencia ou morte (Independence or death!) to became Pedro I.

Modern São Paulo - from its name alone, the most logical capital of the State of São Paulo - is centred on Avenida Paulista; a paulista, of course, is the name for a person from the state of São Paulo, while a resident of the city is both a paulista and a paulistano. The avenue is the location of some of the tallest buildings in Brazil, and has frequently been compared to Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. Among the other tourist attractions the city boasts are its highest point, Pico do Jaraguá, Ibirapuera Park, and the São Paulo Museum of Art - which was opened by Elizabeth II in November 1968. Tourists also flock to the city for the São Paulo Gay Parade, which makes its way down Paulista Avenue each June.
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"At Last" by Etta James

Birthday wishes go out today to Etta James, whose best known song made the news in 2009 when it was performed by Beyonce* at the Neighborhood Ball following the Inauguration of Barack Obama, during which performance the new president shared a romantic dance with First Lady Michelle Obama.

Here we see James herself performing the title track to her breakthrough album in a fairly recent clip, since old school footage of her is tragically rare. Yet her 1961 version of the ballad At Last, while far and away the most famous**, wasn't its debut; the song was first performed in the 1941 Sonja Henie vehicle Sun Valley Serenade, whereas it was first sung by Ray Eberle and Pat Friday in the same year's film Orchestra Wives, with music in both instances supplied by Glenn Miller.

*Who played Etta James in the 2008 film Cadillac Records opposite Adrien Brody, and somehow or other managed not to screw up the arrangement when she sang it.
**IMHO.
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What's The Occasion? Burns Night

For most of us our birthday is a private occasion, into which we occasionally invite a few friends; still others of us are needy lucky enough to have the anniversaries of our birth noted in media, even (horror of horrors!) exploited as the subject of posts on obscure blogs. The rare few, however, are still having their special day celebrated centuries after it's technically been rendered redundant by death...

Born on this day in 1759, Robert Burns definitely falls into the final category; not only was the Bard of Ayrshire wildly successful in his life, his fame continues to grow apace since his early death in July 1796, at the age of 37.

An excellent example of a person born at the right place and the right time, Burns' legacy has not only grown in his native Scotland but was transplanted all over the world thanks to that country's invasion of the world following the Highland Clearances; they called it the British Empire, but let's be realistic... The English left just as soon as they could, took all the money they made and went back to London, leaving Scots and Irish in their wake.

Which is why there's no worldwide celebration of St. George's Day, but there are Burns Night suppers throughout the Scottish Diaspora on or around January 25th throughout North America, in Australia and New Zealand, and many other places besides. Even more startling is that Burns' fame has grown despite the fact that he was a poet, a profession whose death knell has been sounding for years.
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POPnews - January 25th

[From a sleepy village located in the Brazilian Highlands beneath the Serra do Mar cliffs and centred around the Colégio de São Paulo de Piratininga (from whence the Roman Catholic Church would systematically rob the indigenous Tupi-Guarani people of their religion and way of life) São Paulo has grown into the richest, most populous city in the country - with a population above 11 million - as well as making itself home to many of the tallest buildings in Brazil.]
41 CE - After a night of negotiation, Claudius was accepted as Roman Emperor by the Senate.

1494 - Alfonso II became King of Naples.

1533 - England's King Henry VIII secretly married his second wife, Anne Boleyn.

1554 - The Brazilian city of São Paulo was founded by Jesuit missionaries Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta.

1573 - At the Battle of Mikatagahara Takeda Shingen defeated Tokugawa Ieyasu.

1792 - The London Corresponding Society was founded.

1858 - After the Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn was played at the marriage of Victoria, Princess Royal (Queen Victoria's eldest daughter) to Frederick of Prussia, it became the de rigeur recessional at most subsequent weddings.

1879 - The Bulgarian National Bank was founded.

1881 - Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell formed the Oriental Telephone Company.

1890 - Nellie Bly completed the round-the-world journey she'd begun '72 days, six hours, eleven minutes and fourteen seconds' earlier, in November 1889.

1909 - Richard Strauss' opera Elektra premiered at the Dresden State Opera.

1919 - The League of Nations was formed.

1924 - The first Olympic Winter Games were held at Chamonix, France.

1937 - The soap opera The Guiding Light made its debut - on NBC radio!

1949 - The first annual Emmy Awards were presented at the Hollywood Athletic Club.

1971 - Charles Manson - along with 'Family' members Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, and Leslie Van Houten - were found guilty of the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders.

1993 - Following a shooting outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, two employees - Lansing H. Bennett and Frank Darling - were killed and three others wounded by Mir Aimal Kasi; Kasi was executed for his crimes in November 2002.

1994 - The Clementine space probe was launched, with the intention of studying the Moon and the near-Earth asteroid 1620 Geographos.

1995 - During what has been rather blandly dubbed the Norwegian Rocket Incident Russia almost launched a nuclear attack after it mistook Black Brant XII, a Norwegian research rocket, for a US Trident missile.
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Standup by Jimeoin

Birthday wishes go out to Ulster-style comedian, Jimeoin, whose low-key delivery has been yielding big laughs since the early 90s, shortly after he moved to Australia. Originally working as a landscape gardener, his absurdist take on life naturally leant itself more to comedy clubs than hydrangeas, and he was off. He still enjoys the great outdoors, however, and combines extensive touring with opportunities to golf and fish - expeditions he now often films for TV specials.

Already a well-known fixture in the Australian domestic film and television market, with appearances in the films The Craic (1999) and The Extra (2005) - which he co-wrote and starred in with longtime collaborator Bob Franklin - Jimeoin has also become a legend for his eponymous television program, which ran for three seasons (1994-95). He's also become well-known for the sets he's performed at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, as well as appearing on television in America, Canada, and the UK.
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Happy Birthday Maria Tallchief

Maria Tallchief was the first American woman to achieve the vaunted status of prima ballerina; this was all the more amazing since she was also the first Native American to be acclaimed in ballet. Gaining her start in 1942 with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, she later moved to the New York City Ballet, during which time she had a six-year childless marriage with famed choreographer George Balanchine, and where she danced until she was 40.

Born on this day in 1925, Tallchief trained in California under Bronislava Nijinska, who encouraged her to live every part of her life as though she were a ballerina. This early form of creative visualization would prove wildly successful...

During her marriage to Balanchine Tallchief acted as his muse, dancing the lead in his ballets The Firebird and his own distinctive staging of The Nutcracker, which has become the standard; following their divorce she married the aviator Elmourza Natirboff and subsequently builder Henry 'Buzz' Paschen, with whom she had a daughter, poet and educator Elise Paschen.

Maria Tallchief has been honoured by the name Wa-Xthe-Thomba ('Woman of Two Worlds'), which was granted to her by the Governor of Oklahoma, her birth state. She was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors in 1996, at the same time as Johnny Cash, Jack Lemmon, Edward Albee, and Benny Carter and received the National Medal of Arts from the National Endowment of the Arts in 1999. She is also honoured in the statue The Five Moons - alongside Yvonne Chouteau, Rosella Hightower, Moscelyne Larkin and Marjorie Tallchief - located in the garden of the Tulsa Historical Society.
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In Memoriam: Farinelli

While the famed castrato Farinelli may be the first man ever featured on the Pop Culture Institute with no balls*, one should never mistake the lack of testes for a lack of manhood**; not only was Farinelli an acclaimed operatic singer, he was also a kind of a human bed warmer, taken to more aristocratic bosoms than perfume and/or diamonds, specifically because he practiced the ultimate form of contraception...

Born on this day in 1705, as a boy he moved with his family moved to Naples where he attended the Conservatory of Santa Maria di Loreto; there, under the tutelage of Nicola Porpora, it was intended that the boy would study to be a composer. However, his father's early death seems to have prompted his castration, whereby he could become a singer to support his family. In that era, as many as 4,000 boys a year underwent the procedure in hopes that they would become famed singers, which puts the whole boy band mania of our times into perspective.

Farinelli's career trajectory was steep; he moved from Rome to Vienna to München, and all around Italy in the process, during which tours he was hailed by fans and composers alike, and even received by royalty. In very real terms, Farinelli was the first rock star; everyone wanted to work with him for his virtuosity, which is the same reason so many others seemed to want to sleep with him.

One person who perhaps fit into both categories was the composer and noted whoopsie George Frideric Handel, whose attempts to lure Farinelli to London were intermittently successful; still, the divo seems to have preferred Paris and Madrid, where he settled in the court of Philip V in order to try and cure the King's serious depression. In August 1737 Farinelli was named a criado familiar (an honorary member of the Royal Family) and thereafter never sang in public. Nine years later, Farinelli's influence at court increased upon the accession of Ferdinand VI; following the subsequent accession of Charles III in 1759, music fell from favour at the Spanish court, and suddenly Farinelli was out of a job. He retired to Bologna with a generous pension and, while he received many famous visitors there, grew lonely - having outlived most of his contemporaries.

Farinelli died in September 1782, following which his remains moved around a bit due to the vagaries of war; he was last disinterred in 2006 so scientists could study his vocal mechanism via bone structure and DNA. A 1994 biopic, Farinelli directed by Gérard Corbiau and starring Stefano Dionisi (voiced by Derek Lee Ragin), was released to much art-house acclaim, just as a resurgence in the countertenor was occurring; the countertenor voice is the closest to the castrato, and the spontaneous appearance of numerous performers skilled in it in the 1990s allowed for a rebirth of interest in Baroque opera, although it meant that the women who had been playing these so-called 'trouser roles' had to go back to playing female characters.

*Even though, in saying so, I've passed up an awesome opportunity to slander Canadian Prim(e) Minister Stephen Harper who, it should be noted, must have a Hell of a pair to have even tried a tenth of the crap he has.
**Since we all know it's the cock that determines manhood - which is why it's called 'the manhood', duh!
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"Simple Man" by Klaus Nomi

Klaus Nomi's early death cut short a recording career which bordered on performance art. That his performance career was also out there is a given; by putting a New Wave twist on the Weimar-era's Brechtian theatrics (looking like a cross between the MC from Cabaret and Max Headroom) Nomi was something American audiences at that time were unused to seeing.

A fixture in the rich cultural life of Manhattan's East Village in the 1970s and early 1980s - alongside such towering figures as Charles Ludlam, Joey Arias, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf - Nomi's greatest renown came when he was chosen by David Bowie to appear with him on a December 1979 episode of Saturday Night Live.

Nomi was one of the first celebrity casualties of AIDS; I stood over his panel when the Quilt came to Ottawa, and even though I'd never heard any of his work at that point, I was well aware of who he was. I have since enlightened my ignorance, and I can say his influence is both quite thorough and entirely deserving. His countertenor/falsetto lives on aurally in the work of Jimmy Somerville and his aesthetic (as well as his sound) can be detected in the work of Tiger Lillies.

He may have called his album Simple Man, but Klaus Nomi was anything but; born on this day in 1944, he died in August 1983.
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POPnews - January 24th

[Caligula, Rome's third Emperor, began his reign in March 37 CE promisingly enough; after a couple of years, however, something hastened his descent into depravity. Possibly the job went to his head, or he may have developed some kind of mental illness. Whatever the reason, he comes down to us through history as a right perv, as famously portrayed by Malcolm McDowell in the 1979 film Caligula - aka 'the most expensive porno ever made'.]
41 CE - Caligula was assassinated by his Praetorian Guards.

1742 - Prince-elector Charles VII Albert of Bavaria became Holy Roman Emperor.

1848 - Gold was discovered by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill, near Sacramento, California.

1857 - The University of Calcutta was formally established, making it the first full-fledged university in south Asia.

1859 - Following the political union of Moldavia and Wallachia, Alexandru Ioan Cuza was elected the first Domnitor or ruler of the aptly-named United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia.

1887 - At the Battle of Dogali Abyssinian troops under Ras Alula Engida defeated an Italian force commanded by Colonel Tommaso De Cristofori.

1907 - The Boy Scout movement was founded by Robert Baden-Powell.

1916 - In Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad, the Supreme Court of the United States declared the federal income tax constitutional.

1924 - Petrograd, formerly St. Petersburg, was renamed Leningrad; Leningrad, formerly Petrograd, has since been renamed St. Petersburg.

1927 - The Pleasure Garden - the first film directed by Alfred Hitchcock - opened in London, following the success of The Lodger, which was made after but released before.

1936 - Albert Sarraut began his second term as Prime Minister of France.

1943 - At the height of World War II US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill concluded a 10-day conference in Casablanca.

1961 - A B-52 Stratofortress bomber carrying two hydrogen bombs broke up and crashed over Goldsboro, North Carolina; one weapon nearly detonated, and its uranium core is still lost.

1966 - An Air India Boeing 707 jet named Kanchen-junga and piloted by J. T. D'Souza crashed into Mont Blanc, on the approach to Geneva airport, killing 117; among those killed was Dr. Homi J. Babha, who had recently been named chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission.

1977 - At the Massacre of Atocha in Madrid - during the Spanish transition to democracy - 5 were killed and four injured by members of the far-right group Alianza Apostólica Anticomunista.

1984 - The first Apple Macintosh was sold.

1986 - NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft passed Uranus; the usual jokes were made that are inevitably made whenever anyone mentions Uranus, most of them by me.

1993 - Turkish journalist and writer Uğur Mumcu was assassinated by a jihadist car bomb in Ankara.

2003 - The US Department of Homeland Security began its first day of business.
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Happy Birthday Richard Dean Anderson

An honorary Vancouverite if ever there was one, Richard Dean Anderson is one of the pillars upon which our local film industry is built; thanks largely to him, legions of technicians get the chance to make good money* working on third-rate cable dreck while standing in a torrential downpour. The fact that they are forced to suffer the barbs of Hollywood protectionists to do so is just an added bonus...

Most famous for playing Angus MacGyver in MacGyver - a show so iconic it's been verbed, as in 'I can't afford to fix that properly, so I'll have to MacGyver it' which is something we've all  had to do at least once I'm sure - Anderson also appeared for many years in Stargate SG-1 in which he portrayed Jack O'Neill.

A longtime fan of The Simpsons, Anderson played himself on an episode entitled Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore in which he is kidnapped by Selma and Patty Bouvier, who've long been obsessed with him. The cross-promotion continued when Dan Castellaneta appeared on Stargate SG-1. Not all of his fans are yellow or green**, though; some are blue. Anderson was made an honorary Brigadier-General in the US Air Force for his part (as the show's producer) in promoting a positive image for the USAF throughout its run.

*Although not as good as they'd be making in LA, but still better than what they pay in Utah.
**Vancouverites all have a distinctly greenish tinge, caused by the moss that grows on them.
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"J'attenderai" by Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt - born in Belgium on this day in 1910 - was yet another musician ill-served by his own lack of longevity; although hugely important in his time, as much for bringing the rhythms of his Romani heritage as the distinctive tone of the guitar into the mongrel form of jazz, his death in May 1953 from a sudden brain hemorrhage suffered on a train station platform at Avon - near Fontainebleau, outside Paris - meant that he would not be around to shepherd his own legacy through the seismic upheavals of 20th Century music.

Although it can be argued that his legend was kept alive by a legion of fans, it was so pretty much done so on the q.t.; the full-scale resurrection of Django Reinhardt began with Woody Allen's 1999 film Sweet and Lowdown... At the time I was working in the record store, and used to get people coming in asking for anything by Emmett Ray; Emmett Ray was the character played by Sean Penn in the movie. What a thrill it was to be able to put the Django Reinhardt CD in their hands and send them on their way.

Here we see Reinhardt (with frequent collaborator Stéphane Grappelli) performing J'attenderai.
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In Memoriam: Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg

As is often the case with the most successful monarchs, Luxembourg's Grand Duchess Charlotte was never meant to rule in the first place; it was only her sister Marie-Adélaïde's meddling in politics during the First World War* that brought about the abdication which would usher Charlotte onto the throne in the first place... Once there, though, she would remain for forty-five years, until abdicating - retiring, really - in favour of her son Jean in November 1964.

Born at Schloss Berg on this day in 1896 to the future Guillaume IV and his Portugese wife Marie Anne, Charlotte's life changed forever in November 1905 when her father succeeded to the grand ducal throne following the death of his own father Adolphe. Seeing as His Grand Ducal Highness had six daughters - and seeing as the only male in the family who could conceivably inherit was the product of an unsuitably morganatic marriage - the succession law was changed in 1907 to accommodate the situation. Marie-Adélaïde became the first female ruler of that country in February 1912, as well as being the first ruler of the Grand Duchy born there since 1296. It was the same law that allowed Charlotte to succeed her sister in January 1919; Charlotte's heirs have ruled ever since...

The first challenge of Charlotte's reign came that September, when a referendum upheld the Grand Ducal monarchy and approved a new constitution, severely curtailing her powers in the process. Wisely, she chose to obey the will of the people, proceeded not to meddle in politics, and was rewarded with loyalty and popularity for it, quelling nascent revolutionary tendencies in the country into the bargain. Two months later, in November, she married her maternal cousin Felix of Bourbon, Prince of Parma, and with him would have six children: Jean, Elizabeth, Adélaide, Gabriele, Charles, and Alix.

Exiled in London during World War Two, like other monarchs-in-exile Charlotte became a potent symbol of resistance for her people during the valiant battle against Fascism thanks in part to the radio**; upon her return she had another generation in power before stepping aside in favour of her son. She died of cancer at Schloss Fischbach in July 1985 and was interred in the Ducal crypt of Notre-Dame Cathedral in the city of Luxembourg.

*And possibly her chumminess with the country's German occupiers during that war...
**During which time she came to be known as the 'propagandist in pearls'!
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"Beale Street Blues" by Chita Rivera

Birthday wishes go out today to Chita Rivera, shown here dancing her way through Beale Street Blues with Jack Cole - as introduced by Sid Caesar, whose best answer to his own question 'What is jazz?' is 'Jazz is a beautiful woman whose older brother is a policeman'...

Most amazing to me is how she manages to not only dance (in her typically vigourous, kicky style) but also perform an on-pitch rendition of the song - simultaneously! Meaning without the aid of lip-sync! What better day than today to remind ourselves why the lady is a star...
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Happy Birthday Your Royal Highness

Under normal circumstances, the difficulties I've encountered in bringing this post to you ought to have condemned it to that mental in-box I use called 'Next Year', which I use chiefly for the purpose of procrastination; first, it was a headache challenge finding a suitable image - either online or in the voluminous collections of the Pop Culture Institute. This despite the fact that from the early 1970s forward Monaco's Princess Caroline was one of the most written about (and photographed) women in the world... Secondly, there was more reading involved than I care to admit in order to clarify the muddy matter of why Her Serene Highness is now Her Royal Highness and how she came to be that way.

In the end, of course, royalty stories always get more leeway - partly because with them I can aspire to a future rife with privileged sycophancy of which the average brown-noser can only dream, but also because I'm just really interested in royalty. As a writer it helps to be expert in something, so I've decided that in my case it might as well be something that interests me.

The Grimaldis, in particular, have always interested me; even after I first heard them speaking in interviews - sounding for all the world like they could be from Cleveland as opposed to Monaco, that fairytale principality on the Mediterranean my regular readers have been learning a lot more about in recent years. Maybe it's the association with Hollywood (via their mother Grace Kelly) or maybe it's the fact that, in the English-speaking press, at least, they are relatively obscure.

Nevertheless, today is the birthday of Princess Caroline, eldest daughter of Princess Grace and Rainier III, ex-wife of the gigolo Philippe Junot, widow of the much-loved Stefano Casiraghi, and still the current wife of the legendarily uncouth Ernst August V, Prince of Hanover*. She's also the mother of three dishy children with Casiraghi - Andrea, Charlotte, and Pierre - as well as a daughter, Princess Alexandra of Hanover, by the Prince. As the Hereditary Princess of Monaco herself - and therefore Heiress Presumptive, Princess Caroline and her offspring stand to one day inherit the Monegasque throne if the current ruler, Albert II, doesn't smarten up and produce at least one legitimate heir**.

*Ah, but for how long...?
**A situation His Serene Highness seems, at long last, ready to deal with; his marriage to South African Charlene Wittstock is scheduled to take place on July 2nd (civil) and July 3rd (religious) 2011.
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POPnews - January 23rd

[The Ålesund Fire actually had a positive outcome for the town; the original city centre was both over-crowded and served by only rudimentary sanitation, whereas after being rebuilt it had such improved 'mod cons' that it was able to better handle the influx of tourists that have been flocking there ever since.]

393 CE - Theodosius I - the last to rule the Eastern and Western Roman Empires jointly - proclaimed his nine-year-old son Honorius to be co-emperor.

1368 - In a coronation ceremony Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne as the Hongwu Emperor, supplanting the Yuan Dynasty with the Ming Dynasty, which would rule China for the next three centuries.

1556 - An earthquake in China's Shaanxi province may have killed as many as 830,000 people (about 60% of the region's population); its epicenter was near Mount Hua. It's been estimated that the quake was an 8 on the Richter Scale, and remains the deadliest earthquake in human history.

1570 - The assassination of James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, at the hands of James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh precipitated a civil war in Scotland; for his good governance on behalf of James VI, the infant son of Mary, Queen of Scots (then imprisoned in England) he was known as 'The Good Regent'. Which is why they killed him, obviously...

1571 - London's Royal Exchange was opened by Elizabeth I.

1579 - The Union of Utrecht formed the Protestant Republic of the Seven United Netherlands in Holland, although the new nation would not be recognized by its former Spanish overlords until the Twelve Years' Truce in 1609.

1656 - Blaise Pascal published the first of his Lettres provinciales.

1719 - The Principality of Liechtenstein was created within the Holy Roman Empire; its first prince, Anton Florian, never even visited.

1789 - Georgetown College - the first Roman Catholic university in the United States - was established in Washington, DC.

1855 - The first permanent bridge over the Mississippi River opened in what is now Minneapolis, a crossing made today by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge.

1870 - US cavalrymen in Montana led by Maj. Eugene Baker killed 173 Piegan Blackfeet Indians - mostly women and children - in the Marias Massacre.

1897 - Elva Zona Heaster was found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia; the resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only case in US history where the alleged testimony of a ghost helped secure a conviction.

1904 - The Norwegian coastal town Ålesund was devastated by fire, leaving 10,000 people homeless and one person dead; it was Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II - a frequent visitor to the town - who not only funded the rebuilding of the town in Jugendstil style but sent the first relief ships even as the embers were still smoldering.

1958 - The government of Venezuelan President Marcos Pérez Jiménez was overthrown by the commander of that country's Navy, Wolfgang Larrazábal.

1973 - US President Richard Nixon announced the Paris Peace Accord which brought an end to the Vietnam War.

1977 - The miniseries Roots, based on the best-selling book by Alex Haley, began on ABC.

1986 - The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted its first members: Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.

2002 - John Walker Lindh - the so-called 'American Taliban' - returned to the US from Afghanistan in FBI custody.

2003 - NASA made its last contact with Pioneer 10, when it was 7.5 billion miles from Earth.
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