Pop History Moment: "Animal Farm" Was Published

On this day in 1945 George Orwell's satirical novella Animal Farm was first published, in London, by Fredric Warburg; the book is a sterling condemnation of Stalinism - a condemnation made all the more sterling by the fact that it was published before most of the world had twigged to the fact that Joseph Stalin was even then one of history's worst villains. There's nothing so unusual about that in and of itself, of course, except it does underline the fact that the author was clearly gifted with considerable powers of insight*...

The story concerns a plot by animals to overthrow the rule of the humans who run Manor Farm, where they all live; since it's written in an allegorical style each character, naturally, represents an historical figure. Old Major, for instance, represents Karl Marx whereas the farmer Mr. Jones represents Tsar Nicholas II, and so on; still, it's clear where Orwell's sympathies lie - all the pigs are Communists**. Where Orwell's cynicism proves prescient is in how the utopian society initially desired by the animals is soon riven with class distinctions and generally destroyed by the same tensions it was meant to overcome - in the same way Leninism and Stalinism gave rise to the same sort of elites within the Politburo that Communism was supposed to eliminate.

Orwell encountered considerable reluctance when seeking a publisher for Animal Farm, since at the time he was writing it most of the Western powers were still aligned with the Soviet Union; one publisher was dissuaded from publishing the book by a supposed government official who was later revealed as a Soviet spy! In the United Kingdom, oddly enough, Orwell's preface to the book was more heavily censored than the book itself, probably because it didn't hide behind allegory, but directly addressed the censorious attitude of the British people and their press, which in his view was entirely self-imposed.

Animal Farm has been adapted for film twice: an animated version, made in 1954, which was Britain's first feature length animated film to receive an international release, and a live-action version in 1999 which was slightly rewritten to provide the story with a happy ending - in which Napoleon's regime collapses in on itself, a reflection of that happiest of all endings, the fall of European Communism in 1990. Additionally, the book has been the subject of many cultural references, including The Kinks' song Animal Farm, from their superlative 1968 album The Village Green Preservation Society.

*Another of Orwell's masterpieces, Nineteen Eighty-Four, is flat-out spooky in its perception of the future as a world controlled by the lies and propaganda of mass media, whose specious hatred shrieks - Fox News-like - out of viewscreens on every wall...
**Leading us to surmise that Orwell's view of Communists was equally porcine.
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"Mon coeur s'oeuvre a ta voix" by Mae West

Under normal circumstances one wouldn't expect to find Mae West - who was born on this day in 1893 - singing opera... Then again, as we're so fond of saying around here, there is no such thing as a normal circumstance at the Pop Culture Institute. The place is lousy with puppets, the receptionist is a cat... And that's just for starters!

In which case, the fact that the featured clip (from the 1935 film Goin' To Town) has one of the American cinema's greatest sex symbols playing one of the Bible's greatest sex symbols - namely that of the tonsorial temptress, Delilah - must seem downright normal by comparison. Of course, West doesn't play Delilah in the whole movie, just in the scenes shown above; the rest of the time she's Cleo Borden, a poor hoofer who strikes it rich and then sets her sights on the big time, in the person of Edward Carrington (Paul Cavanagh). Aspiring to class, West's character sashays her way through this famous piece of mezzo-bait, Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix (My heart opens itself to your voice, also known as Softly awakes my heart), from Camille Saint-Saëns's opera Samson and Delilah; her duet partner is Vladimar Bykoff.

Goin' To Town is available on DVD, just not on its own... Instead, it's been considerately bundled with four other Mae West classics for your viewing pleasure as Mae West: The Glamour Collection (along with her screen debut Night After Night (1932), my personal favourite I'm No Angel (1933), the under-rated Go West, Young Man (1936), and 1940's My Little Chickadee, which famously paired her with W. C. Fields); given the quality of her work specifically and the quality of movies from that era generally, this is one package that will not disappoint. If you know what I'm sayin...
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"My Old Flame" by Mae West

Here our birthday gal Mae West sings My Old Flame backed by Duke Ellington and His Orchestra in the 1934 film Belle of the Nineties.

West, of course, was one of the most controversial cultural figures of the 20th Century; unlike many of her colleagues, who enjoyed the thrill of being shocking just for the sake of it, West was actually jailed for presenting plays such as Sex, which she'd also written. Not only did she walk the walk and talk the talk, she wiggled the wiggle and barbed the barbs as well.

While her attitudes towards social issues such as homosexuality and sex education seem rather quaint today, the fact that she not only held them but openly advocated them when she did have ensured that she is as remembered today for her advocacy of free speech as she is for the seemingly involuntary way she had with a double entendre.
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Remembering... Vivian Vance

While television audiences of the 1950s may have loved Lucy, they could also be said to have been inordinately fond of Ethel as well - at least as she was portrayed by Vivian Vance; yet, even as the viewing public embraced Ethel both instantly and enthusiastically, it would take a bit of convincing on the part of the woman who played Lucy...

It seems that Lucille Ball originally wanted her friend Bea Benaderet for the part, only she was unable to accept it due to a scheduling conflict; a visit to the theatre with Desi Arnaz to see Vance in The Voice of the Turtle helped to change her mind. Still, while the backstage story of I Love Lucy is nearly as entertaining as the show itself it's also in direct contrast to the warm chemistry between its four leads as shown on camera.

First there was the issue of Vance's appearance; considerable trouble had been taken to present 40-year-old Ball in the most flattering light possible*, while 42-year-old Vance had a more natural loveliness, owing to her inherent vivacity, that even the crudeness of early television couldn't disguise. The fear was that the second banana (Vance) would outshine the star (Ball) - an unthinkable possibility. To this end, Vance was given wigs and dresses to wear which played up the character's frumpiness at the expense of the actress' beauty; rumours abound that she was even padded, while Lucy herself was being cinched into corsets.

Vance also had trouble with her co-star William Frawley, who was not only 22 years older than her but a cantankerous, bitter alcoholic besides; despite their terrific onscreen chemistry, when the cameras stopped rolling they hated each other. Clearly, this gave the Mertzes - who'd only just met in real life - the same energy in their onscreen relationship as an old married couple. Still, when I Love Lucy went off the air in 1957, Vance flatly refused to appear in a proposed spin-off featuring herself and Frawley in their iconic roles. For all her trouble, though, Vance became the first winner of the Best Supporting Actress Emmy in February 1954, and would be nominated three more times in all.

Vance later appeared with her (by now) good friend Lucy in The Lucy Show from 1962-1965, as well as being allowed to appear more glamourous and playing a character with the same first name - she'd grown weary of being called Ethel for years; while the new show didn't have nearly the zing of its predecessor, it was still a big hit. It even gave Vance the opportunity for a second first: she became the first to play a divorcee on American television.

Her last public exposure was in a well-liked series of TV commercials for Maxwell House coffee.

Vivian Vance died on this day 1979 following a battle with breast cancer and a stroke, which had left her partially paralyzed; seeing as she had no children, the Pop Culture Institute would like to adopt her (in keeping with our long-standing policy) and so help to fulfill the primary role of offspring - namely, that of keeping her memory alive.

*Not only was it the first sitcom shot on film rather than videotape, I Love Lucy was also lighted like a movie and photographed by Karl Freund, who'd made his career making actresses 'of a certain age' look like the ingenues they thought they still were.
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Happy Birthday Ken Ryker

I have never made any secret of my abiding appreciation for porn, which feels for all the world like it was designed for someone like me - not just as a sexual outlet but for attaching some plot (however minimal) as well as the all-important aspect of art direction to what is (let's be frank) a rather clinical proceeding, especially when merely watching it. Yet for all that, porn is definitely flawed; for one thing, it sets up unreal expectations, and for another it seems to encourage those people it's intended to educate to engage in cookie-cutter sex - making it ultimately counter-productive. Still, I cannot help but think, after twenty years of consuming this unique consumer product, that in many ways sex (at least at the high level it's practiced in porn) is best left to the professionals*...

Gay porn is unique in that the expressions of male sexuality in it seldom adhere to the same narrowly defined categories the punditocracy would have one believe; whether straight, gay - or the one that makes the other two uncomfortable, bi - or whether top, bottom, or versatile, porn's variety reflects reality far better than the cliches would have one believe. Beyond even the charted universe of sexuality is the nebulous grey area inhabited by men who are known as 'gay for pay'.

As might be expected, the whole 'gay for pay' thing is highly controversial. Identity politics being what they are, many professional homosexuals tend to scoff at the idea that straight men might have it off with each other without somehow being closet cases. These are usually the same people who think that any good-looking straight guy - especially if he's famous - is secretly gay. Straight men, too, can have their various insecurities sorely tested by the idea that they could have enjoyable sex with someone who doesn't arouse them visually because sex is about the interplay of all the senses, but most especially touch.

Honestly, given the trouble many straight guys have getting women into bed without the purchase of important jewellery and the playing of Olympic-calibre mind games - and given the aggressive nature of male sexuality - the solution seems elegant as well as purpose-built. No less a paragon of heterosexuality than Tim Allen has frequently stated in his stand-up act that if straight guys could only learn to give each other blow jobs the world would be a better place - guys would get what they want most from someone who knows how it's supposed to be done and women wouldn't have to do badly what they least wanted to do in the first place**. This is what is known as a win-win situation. Unfortunately, none of the straight men I know seem to feel the same way, but it doesn't stop me from making my argument now and again, when I have a clear escape route and they're too drunk to chase me.

Among the more famous of the 'gay for pay' pornstars is Ken Ryker - now retired - who for a number of years could be counted on to fulfill the popular gay male fantasy of getting banged by the quarterback. Although he also starred in bisexual and straight videos, Ryker's oeuvre consists mainly of all-male titles such as The Backroom, The Matinee Idol, and The Other Side of Aspen 4: The Rescue. This 6'4'' stunner - endowed with a compelling 11 inches - now works as a rep for Frixion Lube.

*Not that an amateur can't also have fun in the pursuit... The presence of a professional baseball league, for instance, doesn't affect the enjoyment of tossing a ball around.
**Forgive me if this passage smacks of casual misogyny, because that's not my intention; for both men and women sex is a biological function, but it seems that women are more often socialized to treat sex either like a business transaction or else as something more than it is, which is a biological function.
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"Through The Barricades" by Spandau Ballet

Today, in memory of Peter Fechter, it's the oddly appropriate song Through The Barricades; I say oddly appropriate because the band performing it, Spandau Ballet, has another connection to the day - namely that of the death of Hitler henchman Rudolf Hess on this day in 1987. The band was said to be named for the twitching done by Nazi war criminals when they hanged themselves in West Germany's Spandau Prison; whether or not the story is true, it suits my agenda, so I'm happy to repeat it.

Hess was the last prisoner in that facility, who killed himself* (coincidentally) on the anniversary of the murder of Fechter by East German soldiers as the 18-year-old bricklayer attempted to flee to safety in West Berlin across the Berlin Wall on this day in 1962. Currently there is a memorial to Peter Fechter at the spot where he died** - on the Zimmerstrasse, in the reunited Berlin; Fechter's friend Helmut Kulbeik, with whom he'd attempted the escape, was successful. Spandau, on the other hand, was razed following Hess' death, to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine; the Wall, of course, famously fell in November 1989.

Through the Barricades is the title track of a 1986 album by Spandau Ballet, and is seen here being performed live.

*Naturally, there is some disagreement whether Hess killed himself or was murdered. Like it matters.
**Fechter is recognized as the Berlin Wall's first victim.
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POPnews - August 17th

[Golden boy Michael Phelps rocked the Water Cube a record eighth time on this day in 2008, bringing his career Olympic medal total (so far) to 16 - the most ever for an American... Phelps' achievement tied one set by Russian gymnast Alexander Dityatin at the Moscow Summer Games in 1980 and his overall achievement (14 gold and two bronze over two Olympiads) has only been surpassed by the 18 (including nine gold, five silver, and four bronze) won by Russian gymnast Larissa Latynina during the 1956, 1960, and 1964 Games. Naturally, the Baltimore Bullet is poised to take on the world at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London - at which time my money is on him shattering even this extraordinary record!]
1807 - Robert Fulton's first American steamboat - originally called the North River Steamboat and later known as the Clermont - left New York City for Albany on the Hudson River (which is also known to New Yorkers as the North River) inaugurating the first such commercial service in the world.

1883 - The Dominican Republic's national anthem, Himno Nacional, was first performed; an immediate success musically, lyrically the song left much to be desired. It was rewritten to be more historically accurate in 1897, which version is still in use today.

1907 - Pike Place Market - the longest continuously-running public farmers' market in the US - opened in Seattle.

1908 - The very first animated cartoon, Émile Cohl's Fantasmagorie, was first shown.

1915 - Leo Frank was lynched in Marietta, Georgia, for allegedly murdering Mary Phagan after his death sentenced was commuted by Governor John Marshall Slaton.

1945 - The Indonesian Declaration of Independence was first read, sparking the five-year Indonesian National Revolution against the colonial rule of the Netherlands and eventually bringing about the abdication of Holland's Queen Wilhelmina.

1947 - The Radcliffe Line - the border between Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan - was revealed; it was named for Sir Cyril Radcliffe, the man who drew it.

1953 - The first documented meeting of Narcotics Anonymous was held in Southern California.

1959 - Quake Lake was formed by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake centred in Yellowstone National Park near Montana's Hebgen Lake.

1960 - Gabon gained its independence from France; the country's first president was Léon M’ba.

1962 - East German Peter Fechter became the Berlin Wall's first victim, when he was shot trying to cross it into the West.

1969 - The Category 5 Hurricane Camille made landfall along the Mississippi coast near Bay St. Louis, killing 248 people and causing $1.5 billion in damage.

1970 - The Soviet Union launched Venera 7 as part of its Venera Program; the spacecraft would later become the first to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet (in this case, Venus).

1978 - Double Eagle II became the first hot-air balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it landed in Miserey, outside of Paris, 137 hours after leaving Presque Isle, Maine. (Honestly, if I had to spend 137 hours in a hot-air balloon I'd be in Miserey too...)

1980 - Ten-week-old Azaria Chamberlain disappeared during a family vacation to Uluru - likely taken by a dingo - leading to what was then the most publicized trial in Australian history, and later providing Meryl Streep the opportunity to blow movie audiences away yet again.

1987 - Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess was found dead in his cell in Spandau Prison.

1988 - Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and US Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Raphel were killed in a plane crash near Bhawalpur.

1998 - US President Bill Clinton admitted in taped testimony to an 'improper physical relationship' with White House intern Monica Lewinsky; later that day he went on TV to confess to the nation that he 'misled people' about the true extent of their relationship.

2008 - Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal at the Beijing Summer Olympics, surpassing swimmer Mark Spitz's 1972 record for the most gold medals won by an American in a single Olympiad.
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Pop History Moment: The Death of Elvis Presley

For years I have struggled to understand the hold that Elvis Presley had (and indeed, still has) over his legion of fans; while I've always admired his music - and accept his movies for the slight if entertaining fare they are - you'll never find me at a service of the Church of Elvis, for instance*. Then again, I'm sure there are those of you who routinely shake your heads at whichever of my cockamamie obsessions you might find here. Fandom, like stardom, is a funny thing...

It took Elvis Presley's death - on this day in 1977 - to turn his life and career into the cautionary tale it has since become; because of it, it's impossible to look at any fresh-faced newcomer now and not imagine what twenty years of egomania and deference (as much as the vicious cycle they co-create) might do to them.

Certainly, not all entertainers end up grossly overweight, drug-addicted, and exploited, but to a certain extent fame forces anyone it touches to eventually become a caricature of themselves, which cannot be good for the psyche. Coming as it did so soon before the culture of rehab really took off, one wonders how this particular story would have turned out if Elvis could have held on until 1982 and become one of the first success stories of the Betty Ford Clinic.

*Unless I'm researching a blog post, of course!
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The DuMont Television Network Is On The Air!

In the beginning there was NBC - Blue and Red on radio but black and white on television; they were the ones to broadcast FDR's historic speech from opening day at the 1939 World's Fair, the occasional sporting event, and the like... Then there was DuMont (pronounced DOO-mont) - an affiliate of DuMont Laboratories, which produced both television broadcasting and receiving equipment, including TV sets.

Beginning on this day in 1946, the Dumont Network managed to struggle through the first decade of broadcast television - airing such high profile and quality programming such as Cavalcade of Stars (the show on which Jackie Gleason first aired The Honeymooners) and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's weekly devotional program Life Is Worth Living*, which routinely beat Milton Berle's ratings powerhouse Texaco Star Theater - only to fold just ten days before their tenth anniversary. Outdone in every way by stalwart NBC, upstart CBS, (and even the mongrel ABC, which was really just NBC's divested Blue), DuMont effectively ended production on June 1st, but limped along for ten weeks more before calling it quits, in August 1956, following its broadcast of a prize-fight at New York City's St. Nicholas Arena.

Much of DuMont's legacy was destroyed when the network went off the air; almost everything else - kinescopes mainly - had been lost by the 1970s**, and of the scraps which have survived, many are similar in nature to this clip. Most of the surviving DuMont stations are Fox affiliates now, and TV historians generally agree that DuMont and Fox are kindred spirits.

*As well as the show mentioned in the above clip - Captain Video and His Video Rangers - which is the first science fiction program to ever air on American television, and which was wildly popular in those sci-fi crazy days!
**When they were - according to early TV legend Edie Adams' testimony before a panel of the Library of Congress - trucked from the warehouse where they were stored over to Upper New York Bay and unceremoniously dumped therein!
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Pop History Moment: India Gained Its Independence

On this day in 1947 was born the world's largest democracy when India managed to shake off the colonial rule of its most recent occupiers. Nevertheless, the British Raj (effortlessly embodied by Lord Mountbatten) had the last laugh when it partitioned the country into a secular India and a Muslim Pakistan - the source of considerable tension in the region ever since, especially once Pakistan developed nuclear capabilities under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. The two countries have been rattling increasingly dangerous sabres at each other over Kashmir ever since, providing the rest of the world with precisely the kind of invigorating stress it could do without.

Leading India into the brave new world of modern nationhood were Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the country's spiritual father, Mahatma Gandhi; it would be 1950 before Rajendra Prasad was elected India's first President, despite the fact that Nehru favoured another candidate, Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari, who had previously replaced Lord Mountbatten to serve as the country's second and final post-independence Governor-General.

The events surrounding Indian independence and the country's early years are pithily recounted by Sir Salman Rushdie in his 1981 novel Midnight's Children, which in 2008 was again voted the best Booker Prize-winning novel of them all on the fortieth anniversary of the prize, as it was in 1993 on the lucrative award's twenty-fifth anniversary. No work of fiction has ever come more highly recommended by the Pop Culture Institute...
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POPnews (US) - August 15th

[In addition to one of the most accomplished inventors in history, the so-called 'Wizard of Menlo Park' was a master showman.]
1877 - Legend has it Thomas Edison made the first sound recording, of himself reading Mary Had A Little Lamb; then again, it may have been made on August 12th, or in December of that year. Despite keeping careful diaries, Edison was as notoriously cagey when it came to relating the facts surrounding his discoveries as he was ruthless in the elimination of his competitors.

1914 - Julian Carlton - the handyman of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright - set fire to the living quarters of Wright's Wisconsin home, Taliesin, then murdered seven people on the property with an axe - including Wright's lover Mamah Borthwick Cheney, her two children John and Martha, the foreman Thomas Brunker, a draftsman named Emil Brodelle, landscape gardener David Lindblom, and Ernest Weston, the son of Wright's carpenter William Weston. Two victims survived the spree - William Weston and another draftsman named Herb Fritz. While the elder Weston helped to put out the fire that almost completely consumed the residential wing of the house, Carlton hid in the unlit furnace. He would survive the fire but died in jail six weeks later; his wife Gertrude (hired as Wright's cook) also survived, having escaped the burning building through the basement. She later denied having any foreknowledge of her husband's murderous intent. Wright was spared because he was at work on the Midway Gardens project in Chicago (an innovative apartment building which was demolished in 1929).

1965 - The Beatles played to nearly 60,000 fans at New York City's Shea Stadium, marking the birth of stadium rock.

1977 - The Big Ear - a radio telescope operated by The Ohio State University as part of the SETI project - received a radio signal from deep space; the event was named the 'Wow! signal' for a notation made by a volunteer on the project.

1995 - Shannon Faulkner became the first female cadet matriculated at The Citadel military academy in South Carolina, but dropped out in less than a week due to the savagery of the misogyny she encountered there. Many pundits at the time had the nerve to be shocked that the US military seemed to be harbouring violent men with dangerous attitudes about women which were then hastily covered by the claim that their opposition to Faulkner's attendance was based on 'tradition'.
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Now Showing: Will Rogers and Wiley Post

In conducting a routine search for a video to include alongside the previous post - about the deaths of Will Rogers and Wiley Post, on this day in 1935 - I ran across this snippet of documentary about the pair, culminating in their fatal flight between Fairbanks and Point Barrow in Alaska.

Despite the cumulative effect of ancient technology, less than perfect archival techniques, and YouTube's puny bandwidth, I think this goes a long way towards putting the careers of both Rogers and Post into their proper perspective. Both men were giants of their day, and had they not died when they did I am certain they'd have been even more famous than they are today.
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Pop History Moment: The Final Flight of Wiley Post and Will Rogers

At the time of their deaths on this day in 1935, Wiley Post was as beloved for his aeronautical derring-do as his friend Will Rogers was for his insights into world affairs. As seen here, that's Rogers in the hat and tie, standing on the wing.

They died just outside Barrow, Alaska in an entirely preventable disaster, at the outset of a flight around the world. There are three monuments to the friends there; the airport in Barrow is named for them, and there are a pair of markers closer to the crash site, one of which they share with Alaska's victims of World War II.
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Happy Birthday Your Royal Highness

The hardest working royal in the business, The Princess Royal today turns 60; often criticized for her brusque manner - which the more diplomatic amongst us* might refer to as 'no-nonsense' - Her Royal Highness has spent her entire life in the service of the Nation, the Commonwealth, and indeed the world through various charitable patronages, most notably Save The Children.

She even represented the United Kingdom at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where she competed in an equestrian event riding the Queen's horse Goodwill. Her attendance of the Games sparked a minor controversy, however, when it was announced that she would be the only competitor who didn't have to submit to a sex test; then again, as the first royal to ever compete in an Olympic Games, and seeing as she'd spent every single day of her life in the public eye, she was in a unique position of scrutiny none of her fellow athletes could claim for themselves.

The Princess Royal was also the first member of the Royal Family to have been the subject of a kidnapping attempt, in March 1974; Her Royal Highness was instrumental in thwarting Ian Ball, her would-be captor, an event which drew headlines around the world.

Seemingly combining the slavish attention to duty of her mother with the facility for controversy of her father, the Princess Royal was first married (at Westminster Abbey, to Captain Mark Phillips) in November 1973 with all the pomp befitting the only daughter of the Queen. The marriage produced two children, son Peter and daughter Zara (herself an accomplished equestrian), and ended semi-amicably in 1992, following which Her Royal Highness quietly married Timothy Laurence. They reside at Gatcombe Park, which under her stewardship has developed into a centre for equestrian excellence.

The Princess Royal has had several notable brushes with the tabloid press... Her heavy-footededness behind the wheel has resulted in fines and the loss of points on her driving license. In 2002 she was convicted under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 for the anti-social behaviour of her bull terrier Dotty, who attacked two boys while the Princess and her husband were walking through Windsor Great Park; Dotty also killed one of the Queen's prized corgis, possibly Pharos, during the Royal Family's annual Christmas holiday at Sandringham.

Recent years, however, have seen several far more positive events; in December 2006 her daughter Zara was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year, the same title The Princess Royal herself earned in 1971, and in May 2008 she was the beaming mother of the groom when her son, Peter Phillips, married Candian-born Autumn Kelly at St George's Chapel, within the historic walls of Windsor Castle.

*In other words, brown-nosers.
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"Woodstock" by Joni Mitchell

In honour of Woodstock - the three day rock festival which opened at Max Yasgur's farm on this day in 1969 - here's Joni Mitchell, performing a latter-day version of her song Woodstock, which is widely considered the festival's theme; the festival itself, of course, is considered one of the defining moments of the Baby Boom generation.

The song first appeared on her 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon, and was later a big hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young after it was included on their 1970 album Déjà Vu*. Mitchell had been dating Graham Nash at the time, and heard about Woodstock from him; she didn't attend it herself - a decision she later regretted - having been told by her manager that an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show would be better for her career.

Joni Mitchell first performed Woodstock at the Big Sur Folk Festival in September 1969, a performance captured in the film Celebration at Big Sur; this performance is taken from the 2003 documentary Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind.

 *In fact, that whole sentence was a kind of deja vu...
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POPnews - August 15th

[Queen of Georgia in her own right from 1184 to 1213, Tamar
was later made a saint of the Georgian Orthodox Church.]

778 CE - The Battle of Roncevaux Pass occurred, during which the heroic Roland - foremost among the paladins of Charlemagne - was killed; the story of his demise was later chronicled in the epic poem Song of Roland, which became the favoured chanson de geste of medieval troubadours.

1040 - Scotland's King Duncan I was killed in battle by his cousin and closest rival Macbeth; in an interesting coincidence Macbeth also died on the same day in 1057, when he was himself killed at the Battle of Lumphanan by Malcolm III, one of Duncan's sons. As interesting as the actual story is, though, it wasn't interesting enough to stop that noted bullshit artist William Shakespeare from distorting the facts beyond all recognition for his play Macbeth.

1185 - Queen Tamar of Georgia consecrated the cave city of Vardzia.

1248 - The foundation stone of Cologne Cathedral - reputed to contain sacred relics of the Three Wise Men - was laid by Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden; the impressive edifice was finished in August 1880, 632 years less one week later.

1261 - Michael VIII Palaeologus was crowned Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople alongside his infant son Andronikos II Palaiologos, having recovered the city from the Latin Empire earlier that day.

1461 - The Empire of Trebizond surrendered to the forces of Sultan Mehmet II, marking the real end of the Byzantine Empire; Emperor David, who had effected the handover, was exiled forthwith and later murdered.

1517 - Eight armed Portuguese vessels led by Fernão Pires de Andrade met officials of the Ming Dynasty at the Pearl River estuary, marking the first direct contact between Europeans and Chinese.

1519 - Panama City was founded by Pedro Arias de Ávila.

1534 - Saint Ignatius of Loyola and six classmates took their initial vows - in the crypt of Paris' Chapel of St. Denis - that would lead to the creation of the Society of Jesus in September 1540.

1537 - The city of Asunción, in Paraguay, was founded by Juan de Salazar de Epinosa.

1540 - Arequipa, today the second city of Peru, was founded by Garcí Manuel de Carbajal, an emissary of Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro.

1843 - Tivoli Gardens - one of the world's oldest extant (and still-intact) amusement parks - opened in Copenhagen; founded by Georg Carstensen, it had been granted a charter by King Christian VIII, who had the good sense to realize that a contented populace doesn't engage in rebellion.

1914 - The Panama Canal was officially opened - nearly two years ahead of schedule - with the passage through its locks of the ship Ancon.

1945 - The Empire of Japan - in the person of Emperor Hirohito - formally surrendered in accordance with the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, bringing the War in the Pacific to a close, and an end to World War II; the event was celebrated for years in Allied countries as V-J Day.

1948 - The Republic of Korea was established, south of the 38th Parallel north.

1961 - Cheered on by spectators from the West, Conrad Schumann successfully fled from East Germany while on duty at the corner of Ruppinerstraße and Bernauerstraße where he'd been guarding the construction of the Berlin Wall (which was then just a low fence topped with barbed wire).

1962 - James Joseph Dresnok defected to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, running across the Korean DMZ to do it; Dresnok still resides in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

1974 - Yuk Young-soo, the First Lady of Korea, was assassinated by Mun Se-gwang with a bullet intended for the President, Park Chung-hee.

1975 - During a military coup in Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was killed along with all of his family members, except Haseena Wajid, who later served as the country's Prime Minister.
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"Dentist!" by Steve Martin

Since the definitive video record of Steve Martin's only charted pop hit King Tut was on Saturday Night Live (and is therefore being zealously kept off of YouTube by Lorne Michaels' web-crawling minions) I've decided to go with my second choice of Steve Martin's best performances to fill this video slot; still, as these things go, this is a pretty sensational number to have to settle for.

Dentist! is just one of the many entertaining, Fifties-esque numbers in the 1986 musical Little Shop of Horrors; as funny as the song is, though, Martin's even funnier subsequent scene with Bill Murray is just showing off. In the film Martin plays a sadomasochistic dentist* named Orin Scrivello DDS, whose torment of his girlfriend Audrey (Ellen Greene) spurs Seymour (Rick Moranis) to try to kill him; in the end of course...

Well, I'd hate to ruin the ending for you by providing the spoiler in case you're one of the unlucky few who have yet to see the film, but suffice it to say, the phrase 'die laughing' is entirely apropo on several levels.

*Or is that a rhetorical tautology?
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Happy Birthday Steve Martin

If ever a guest host of Saturday Night Live was in danger of becoming an honorary cast member Steve Martin would be; he's hosted a record 15 times, tied with Alec Baldwin and three times more than John Goodman. Unlike his two rivals, though - who both entered the Five-Timers Club in 1994 - Martin passed that landmark during the show's third season, as long ago as 1978.

Yet for all his success as an actor and stand-up comedian, Martin considers himself a writer first, as evidenced by his recent work, including several high-profile pieces for The New Yorker and the novels Shopgirl (2001) and The Pleasure of My Company (2003).

(For the record, I have no idea who Wendell is; I just liked the photo, and thought the odd inscription added a touch of whimsy. Because if there's one thing this proceeding needs, it's more whimsy... ~ MSM)
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In Memoriam: Alice Ghostley

One of the most distinct faces (not to mention voices) in the history of television belonged to Alice Ghostley, a veteran character actress whose career spanned the first fifty years of the medium; from her early appearances on shows like Bewitched and Mayberry R.F.D. to the defining role of her career - that of Bernice Clifton on Designing Women - Ghostley was less an actor than a brand, and if one had a role which called for a slightly befuddled older lady with a tart tongue she was your go-to gal...

Naturally enough, Ghostley's talent was too large to remain confined to such a small screen; she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 1965 for her role as Mavis Parodus Bryson in Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, and in 1978 replaced Dorothy Loudon as Miss Hannigan in the original Broadway run of Annie. Among her many movie roles was a memorable turn in Mike Nichols' 1967 film The Graduate, in which she appeared with Marion Lorne, the actress she was hired to replace in Bewitched following Lorne's death in May 1968. She was also in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) - playing Stephanie Crawford, the fussy aunt of Dill Harris - and had a small but funny part as Mrs. Murdock (the shop teacher) in Grease. Ghostley even got the chance to accept an Academy Award - albeit on behalf of her friend Maggie Smith, who was awarded Oscar gold in 1970 for her performance of the title role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Ghostley's reward for years of yeoman service on sitcoms - including Good Times, Maude, One Day at a Time, The Odd Couple, What's Happening!!, The Golden Girls, and Evening Shade among many others - was the coveted feature role on Designing Women, an opportunity rife with potential for hit-and-run wisecracking previously filled by Meshach Taylor's Anthony Bouvier . She took to it with her usual elan, earning herself an Emmy nomination in 1992.

Alice Ghostley - born on this day in 1923 - finally fulfilled the promise of her surname in September 2007, four years after the death of her husband of fifty years, Felice Orlandi.
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"Filthy/Gorgeous" by Scissor Sisters

Birthday wishes go out today to Ana Matronic, the female component of Scissor Sisters; here she's given more to do than usual, with amazing results. While the accompanying video doesn't clearly show whether or not she's filthy, it definitely does show how gorgeous she is!

Filthy/Gorgeous originally appeared on the band's eponymous debut album, released in 2004*; the track was the fourth and final single from the album, and released in January 2005. Two videos were made by pseudo-pornographer John Cameron Mitchell - a raunchy one and a tame one; thanks to the heroic quantities of porno I've watched, I can't tell which one this is. I suspect even his raunchy version would leave me as nonplussed as though I were watching a soap opera. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it for what it was, even though it bears a better resemblance to sci-fi than porno.

Alas, this version eliminates Ana Matronic's spoken monologue in the middle of the song, which has always been my favourite bit of it; try though I might, I've been unable to find a video with it in...

All of which leaves me wondering: Is there a plot to silence Ana Matronic?

*February 2nd in the UK, July 27th in the US...
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