The Death of Sid Vicious

When, in October 1978, Sid Vicious awoke from a heroin-induced stupor to find his girlfriend Nancy Spungen dead on the floor of the bathroom in room 100 of New York's notorious Hotel Chelsea, he claims to have had no memory of what might have happened the night before... Nevertheless, he was arrested for her murder, and escorted forthwith to Rikers Island.

Eventually his mother, Anne Beverley, was able to raise the $50,000 needed for bail from Virgin (his record label) and he was released from jail on the first day of February. At a celebratory party at the home of his girlfriend Michelle Robinson his mother (herself a registered addict) had also managed to score some heroin.

Remarkably - miraculously even, all things considered - Vicious had been able to get clean while in jail; on the outside he lasted less than a day. Although he'd been off the stuff for some months, and knew that what he was getting was incredibly pure, the small amount he took was enough to kill him.

Despite attempts to revive him, Vicious succumbed to an overdose at just after 3 AM on this day in 1979.
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"The Ladies Who Lunch" by Elaine Stritch

Here we see the lady doing what she does best, namely belting Sondheim...

From his musical Company (1970), it's The Ladies Who Lunch, a paean to those poor neurasthenic women who have nothing to do all day but shop and look pretty, being sung here by the one who sung it first, birthday gal Elaine Stritch.
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Happy Birthday Elaine Stritch

Hers is the incongruously gravelly voice that wouldn't seem to lend itself to a career on the Broadway stage; backstage, maybe, working as a Teamster... Yet Elaine Stritch is a living legend in the Broadway community, a singer-dancer-actress whose appeal is immediately evident, and whose ballsy offstage demeanour has endeared her to three generations' worth of stage door Johnnies.

Born on this day in 1926, she made her Broadway debut at the age of twenty, in a revue entitled Angel in the Wings; her first big exposure came when she understudied Ethel Merman in Call Me Madam. Those were some mighty big lungs to fill, which Stritch ably did for months when the show went on its national tour. Her acclaim built with appearances in a 1952 revival of Pal Joey and a 1954 revival of On Your Toes. Emboldened, she took a non-singing role in the 1956 production of William Inge's Bus Stop.

Stage-wise, though, her greatest triumph came from Stephen Sondheim's grand Company, which allowed her the showstopper The Ladies Who Lunch.

Offstage, too, she's distinguished herself; on the small screen she originated the role of Trixie in The Honeymooners when it was still a sketch on Jackie Gleason's variety program Cavalcade of Stars*. From 1975-9 she appeared in the legendary British sitcom Two's Company opposite Sir Donald Sinden, playing a novelist with a personality not unlike her own. On the big screen she's appeared in dozens of films, including Woody Allen's sodden September (1987) as well as his more spritely Small Time Crooks (2000). She even made her presence felt on radio, when she was a panelist on the BBC comedy show Just a Minute with Kenneth Williams, Clement Freud and Barry Cryer.

Her one-woman show Elaine Stritch at Liberty ran to great fan response in 2002, and in 2007 she was awarded an Emmy for her portrayal of Colleen, the dragon-lady mother of Alec Baldwin's character Jack Donaghy in the hilarious 30 Rock. Proving, I guess, that even for a living legend life begins at eighty!

*Regular readers of this blog and pop culture vultures alike will know Stritch was later replaced in the role by Joyce Randolph, as Pert Kelton would be relieved of playing Alice Kramden by Audrey Meadows.
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World City-Zen: Buenos Aires

While it was Juan Díaz de Solís who first navigated the Río de la Plata in 1516 - and thus first saw the virgin land which Buenos Aires would one day cover - he was killed by Charrúa warriors up-river in what would become Uruguay before he could return to found any future megacities. It would take another twenty years for Pedro de Mendoza to establish Ciudad de Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre - on this day in 1536, in fact. The settlement Mendoza founded is now the city's San Telmo barrio; following an escalating series of attacks by the indigenous Querandís of the area the settlement was abandoned in 1541, at which point the few surviving settlers moved to Asunción.

Clearly it would take more than harassment by the locals to put the idea of Buenos Aires down; in fact, the city was refounded in 1580* by Juan de Garay, who dubbed it Santisima Trinidad and its port Puerto de Santa Maria de los Buenos Aires. It's apt, then that the city of today derives its name from the port rather than the town, since for most of the next two hundred and fifty years the good porteños of the city set about living their lives by trading goods from upriver - from Asunción, Montevideo, and even as far away as Lima.

Spanish colonial rule was so callous, so arbitrary, so utterly colonial that it's amazing the New World's independence movements took as long as they did to develop... Even more amazing - that the Spanish had the utter temerity to act surprised when, after centuries of treating colonists like so much raw material that they began to chafe under the treatment. Ultimately it was the British invasions of the Río de la Plata in 1806 and 1807 - as much as the Peninsular War of 1810 - that led to the birth of an independent Argentina during the May Revolution. By 1816 the country was its own boss...

Of course, democracy would take a little longer - as would the status of Buenos Aires as the country's first city. It wasn't until 1880 that the city was federalized and the seat of government installed at the Casa Rosada that B. A. began to take on the aspect of a capital.

Of course, prior to beginning my research for this piece, what little I knew of Buenos Aires came from three sources: an incessant barrage of media stories in North America about corrupt dictatorships, crime, and economic mismanagement that all made me feel a little smug about Canadian politics, propaganda from the Falklands War era, and Evita**. Still, I feel like some day I'd like to get to know this city of 12 million they call the 'Paris of South America'. Just as soon as President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner does something about the villas miserias and all the kidnappings...

*July 11th, to be precise.
**Plus, I own one porno that has a non-sex scene which takes place in La Recoleta Cemetery.
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The Late, Great Gene Kelly Doing What He Did Best

To the instrumental accompaniment of You Wonderful You, Gene Kelly does what looks like an improvised dance in an old barn, using nothing more than his own whistle, a creaking floorboard, and a discarded page from an old newspaper. Oh yeah, and his own genius...

Of course, the genius of the man is that the hours of preparation and rehearsal that went into this simply do not show; nor do the charley horses, shin splints, or calluses - only the joy at having done it.

From MGM's undeservingly obscure Summer Stock (1950), here's the man himself...
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Best Of The Best: Gene Kelly

For Me and My Gal (1942) - In true passive-aggressive style, Hollywood couldn't just up and call for America's entry into World War II; instead, in the months leading up to the December 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor it released movies like this one - set during World War I when America, faced with a German menace, sang and danced for freedom. Subtle. Looking luminous in black and white (as photographed by William H. Daniels) and under the still-steady hand of director Busby Berkeley, Kelly and costar Judy Garland suit each other to a T.

Cover Girl (1944) - As good as he looked in black and white, Gene Kelly fairly glowed in colour; not that you'd know it from watching this filmic outing, seeing as whenever he's on camera he's standing too close to the supernova that is Rita Hayworth to be seen. Given almost complete creative control over the film, Kelly gave himself an opportunity to dance with his own reflection. With Phil Silvers and Eve Arden - on hand as much for comic relief as to cleanse the palate - Cover Girl is moodier and more atmospheric than the average musical, which makes it ideal for people who crave eye-candy but are uncomfortable with movie characters suddenly breaking into song. Directed by Charles Vidor, the film features songs by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin, including the classic Long Ago (and Far Away).

Anchors Aweigh (1945) - Generally speaking, Hollywood makes its great war movies beginning about seven years after the pertinent war has ended; usually this is because that's the normal turnaround for the entire process - from the time an idea percolates out of a writer's head, has been hung, drawn, and quartered by a clusterfuck of producers, sent into pre-production, production, post-production and then finally released. Yet World War II saw every sector of the US economy at maximum production, and Hollywood was no different. Co-starring Frank Sinatra, this massive, star-studded spectacle is today best remembered for Kelly's imaginative duet with Jerry Mouse.

On the Town (1949) - One of my favourite movies of all time, On the Town reteams Kelly with his Anchors Aweigh costar Sinatra, in addition to Ann Miller, Betty Garrett, Jules Munshin, and Vera-Ellen, which doesn't merely add to the talent but multiplies it, or possibly does some of that algebra stuff to it. The point is, the whole adds up to so much more than the sum of its parts. The real star of the film, of course, is New York City; many principal scenes were shot on location there - a major innovation for the time - including at the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Bridge, and Rockefeller Center.

Summer Stock (1950) - Judy Garland's last movie for MGM also proved to be one of her most troubled and, fortunately, one of her best. While her health woes held up production and inflamed tempers, though, Kelly kept his cool while he chose to worry about his friend's health. While the film is not gifted with an especially original plot - hey kids, here's a barn, let's put on a show! - the end result doesn't merely rise above the cliché but soars.

An American in Paris (1951) - With a glittering score by George Gershwin, the full MGM design team on overdrive, and dances choreographed by Gene Kelly, how could this movie be anything but sublime? Fortunately, we'll never have to answer that because a) it's a rhetorical question, and b) it really is sublime. Kelly's love for French culture is evident in every frame, and surely Paris - even at its loveliest - could never have been this lovely.

Singin' in the Rain (1952) - MGM's cheeky look at Hollywood's transition from silents to sound features many of the most popular songs from the late 1920s; while co-starring Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds, though, it's Jean Hagen who walks away with the film, giving a Judy Holliday-esque performance which, seen once, will inspire laughs from memory for years to come.

Brigadoon (1954) - As musicals go, Vincente Minnelli's Brigadoon doesn't; where musicals are supposed to be bright and frothy and tow the establishment line, Brigadoon is dark and downbeat and subversive. Mean-spirited even. Which must be why the lovers of musicals with a cynical bent have always treasured the story of the Scottish town that only comes to life once every century.

Les Girls (1957) - There's something about this film that makes it special, beyond the direction of George Cukor and the presence of Gene Kelly (both guaranteed to up the special-ness factor on anything); I believe that something is the peculiar chemistry created by equal parts Kay Kendall, Mitzi Gaynor and Taina Elg. As the titular girls (and, at least in Gaynor's case, I do mean tit-ular!) they provide enough variety for any actor to spark off. The film also provides the ideal bookend to both this post and Gene Kelly's career at MGM; 15 years earlier, in 1942, he made his debut at the studio with For Me and My Gal. Whereas what seems like fifteen years ago I wrote its blurb at the top of this post...
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Remembering... Gene Kelly

Gene Kelly was a late-bloomer in show business terms; he didn't make his Broadway debut until he was 26 - an age when many of his younger costars would have already been grizzled veterans; the year was 1938, and he'd been cast to support Mary Martin at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway in Cole Porter's Leave It to Me! during her big number, My Heart Belongs to Daddy.

Perhaps that's why he always seemed so fresh-faced, so innocent in his later film roles; certainly a tendency towards boyishness helped, but I think having been allowed to spend his youth as a youth instead of growing up fast and hard might on the road may have just as easily been the reason...

From the bottom of the bill in 1938 Kelly had a supporting role in William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama The Time of Your Life in October 1939, then went straight to the top of the bill in his next show - appearing as the lead in Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey which opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Christmas Day 1940. It was there that Kelly wowed audiences and critics alike with an entirely fresh style of dancing, which eschewed technique in favour of mood. In a very real way, Gene Kelly may have been the first person to marry dancing with acting - in a manner that is commonplace nowadays in every genre from rock video to ballet, but which in those days represented nothing short of a revolution.

By this time Hollywood wasn't just beckoning, it was begging, and Kelly went West; his first film was the superlative For Me and My Gal (1942) with Judy Garland. Over the next decade he made a string of musicals, many of which are considered the finest ever made: Du Barry Was a Lady (1943) opposite Lucille Ball, Cover Girl (1944) with Rita Hayworth, and the uber-patriotic Anchors Aweigh (1945) in which he danced with the animated cat-and-mouse Tom and Jerry. The Pirate (1948) was a bit too avant-garde for the bourgeois moviegoers of the 1940s, and was one of the only 'bombs' of Kelly's early career; the movie is now considered not merely a classic but among his finest, and also showcases The Nicholas Brothers at their prime.

Summer Stock (1950) is a minor classic well worth the watch if for no other reason than it is Judy Garland's last picture for MGM, and features her in top form (despite the turmoil her psyche was in while making it); Kelly's poise was remarked upon throughout the industry as he managed to keep both the production - and Garland - on track. An American in Paris (1951) is a tad bloated, and thus a delight for movie gourmands. Kelly's masterwork, though, is Singin' in the Rain (1952); it represents nothing less than the glory of glories (and I haven't even mentioned Thousands Cheer (1943), On the Town (1949), or Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949) to name just three).

With nowhere to go but down that's where he went, but his natural class and aplomb made it a gentle ride; he still had a few good performances left, such as in the disturbing, beautiful, and thus disturbingly beautiful, Brigadoon (1954). Yet even as the musical was evolving into a distended parody of itself, Kelly managed to find it in himself to make one more great one; Les Girls (1957) featured moody photography, ambitious subject matter, and all the charm of the man himself.

By the time of his death, on this day in 1996, Gene Kelly was one of the most beloved performers in the world; people whose parents weren't alive when he was creating his legendary dance numbers flocked to his side whenever he appeared in public. The French, whose culture he idolized, reciprocated his affection with ardour, lavishing him with critical praise and awards, including the Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur. A lifelong supporter of progressive causes, it can be truthfully said that all his considerable energy was devoted to the improvement of the things he loved.
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"Diva" by Dana International

Birthday wishes go out to Israeli pop superstar Dana International, whose 1998 hit Diva (written by Tzvika Pick) handily won that year's Eurovision Song Contest; she'd been inspired to enter the competition ever since her idol Ofra Haza represented Israel in 1983.

Dana was discovered by legendary Israeli DJ and producer Offer Nissim, who produced her first album, Danna International, in 1993; it was followed by 1994's Umpatampa, E.P. Tampa in 1995, and 1996's Maganuna.

Conservatives were naturally outraged that she was chosen to represent Israel at Eurovision, clearly without ever having seen it; if ever there was a perfect blending of event and participant it's Eurovision and Dana International*.

*Although Ukraine's Verka Serduchka comes a close second!
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POPnews - February 2nd

[Punxsutawney Phil is not only the world's foremost weather forecaster he is the most famous resident of Gobbler's Knob; he only lives there the part of the year, though, around Groundhog Day believe it or not. He spends the rest of the year in the town's library with his 'wife' Phyllis, supervised by Ben Hughes and John Griffiths.]
962 CE - Pope John XII crowned Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor in nearly 40 years.

1536 - Spanish conquistador Pedro de Mendoza founded Buenos Aires.

1542 - Portuguese forces under Christovão da Gama captured a Muslim-occupied hill fort in northern Ethiopia during the Battle of Baçente.

1653 - The colony of New Amsterdam - later to achieve some renown as New York City - was incorporated.

1709 - Alexander Selkirk was rescued by William Dampier having spent four years on the Juan Fernández Islands as a castaway by the same captain; his story would go on to inspire Daniel Defoe to write his famous Robinson Crusoe, which was one of the earliest novels.

1769 - Pope Clement XIII died; he was succeeded by Clement XIV, who was elected on May 19th.

1848 - The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War; the treaty ceded California, Nevada, Utah in their entirety, along with parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming to the United States in exchange for $15 million; the rest of Arizona and New Mexico would follow in December 1853, with the Gadsden Purchase.

1876 - The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball was formed.

1887 - The first observation of Groundhog Day was held in - where else? - Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

1901 - Queen Victoria was buried at Frogmore Mausoleum in Windsor Great Park, following an elaborate State Funeral.

1922 - James Joyce's scandalous novel Ulysses was published in Paris by Sylvia Beach.

1957 - President Iskander Mirza of Pakistan laid the foundation stone of the Guddu Barrage, which crosses the River Indus near Sukkur.

1971 - Idi Amin seized power from Milton Obote following a coup in Uganda the previous week.

1972 - The British Embassy in Dublin was destroyed in retaliation for Bloody Sunday.

1974 - The F-16 Fighting Falcon made its maiden flight.

1976 - The Groundhog Day gale hit the north-eastern United States and south-eastern Canada.

1982 - Syrian government forces attacked the town of Hama in what became known as the Hama Massacre, killing as many as 20,000 people.

2002 - Crown Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands married Argentinian-born Maxima Zorreguieta.

2007 - Four tornadoes hit Central Florida, killing 21 people.
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"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" by Whitney Houston

Following the end of the First Gulf War in 1991, Whitney Houston sang The Battle Hymn of the Republic at a star-studded gala called Welcome Home Heroes; the song, written by Julia Ward Howe in November 1861 and first published in The Atlantic Monthly on this day in 1862, has never rung truer, neither has Black History Month ever seemed as apt as it has done during the Obama Administration.
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POPnews (US) - February 1st

[The summary execution of Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem by South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan in Saigon on this day in 1968 - at the start of the Tet Offensive - was taken by AP photographer Eddie Adams; the image helped build opposition to the Vietnam War and earned Adams the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography in 1969.]

1856 - Auburn University was chartered as the East Alabama Male College.

1861 - Texas seceded from the United States, but didn't join the Confederate States of America until March 2nd - at which time its governor, Sam Houston, was replaced for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy.

1862 - Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic was published for the first time in the Atlantic Monthly.

1865 - President Abraham Lincoln signed the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, which outlawed slavery; it also banned involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. Sadly, this highlight of Lincoln's life occurred on the 15th anniversary of the death of his second son by First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, Edward Baker Lincoln.

1893 - Inventor Thomas Edison completed work on the world's first motion picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey; films produced at the facility were supervised by William Kennedy Dickson.

1913 - New York City's Grand Central Terminal - the world's largest train station - was opened.

1922 - Film director William Desmond Taylor was found murdered in his bungalow at the Alvarado Court Apartments in the Westlake Park area of downtown Los Angeles; so popular in life was he that there were a dozen possible suspects, including his former manservant Edward Sands, his current manservant Henry Peavey, actress (and possible lover) Mabel Normand, Faith Cole MacLean (the wife of actor Douglas MacLean, who were his neighbours), Charles Eyton (General Manager of Paramount Pictures and therefore Taylor's boss), actress Mary Miles Minter (whose career Taylor guided in and out of the bedroom), Minter's mother Charlotte Shelby, and Margaret Gibson - who, on her deathbed in 1964, confessed to having committed the murder. Gore Vidal's 1990 novel Hollywood features a fictionalized account of the Taylor murder, and for those who prefer an even more lurid and yet less accurate perspective, try Kenneth Anger's 1959 book Hollywood Babylon. Despite the impressive line-up of suspects the case remains unsolved.

1960 - Four black students - Ezell A. Blair Jr. (now known as Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain - staged the first of the Greensboro Sit-Ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.

1968 - The New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad merged to form the ill-fated Penn Central Transportation.

1978 - Film director Roman Polanski skipped bail and fled to France following his arrest and guilty plea for the statutory rape of 13 year-old Samantha Gailey.

1979 - Patty Hearst was released from prison, having had her sentence commuted by President Jimmy Carter.

1982 - Late Night with David Letterman began airing on NBC; the show would air for 11 years, after which Letterman - and his show - moved to CBS, where it has been ever since.

1988 - Child actress Heather O'Rourke - famous for portraying Carol Anne Freeling in the Poltergeist film trilogy and for her role on Happy Days as Heather Pfister - died; she was 12. Misdiagnosed with Crohn's disease, she died en route to hospital of a heart attack brought on by septic shock which was itself a result of intestinal stenosis, although at the time it was announced in the press that she'd died of influenza.

1992 - A Chief Judicial Magistrate in India declared Warren Anderson, the ex-CEO of Union Carbide, a fugitive under Indian law for failing to appear in the Bhopal Disaster case.

1996 - Congress passed the Communications Decency Act, protecting Americans from the kind of smut that makes life worth living.

1999 - 22-year-old former White House intern Monica Lewinsky gave a deposition that was videotaped for senators weighing impeachment charges against President Bill Clinton.

2003 - The Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas upon re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts onboard, including Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Michael P. Anderson, Laurel B. Clark, and Ilan Ramon.

2004 - Janet Jackson's breast was exposed during the half-time show of Super Bowl XXXVIII, resulting in US broadcasters adopting a stronger adherence to FCC censorship guidelines; the ensuing shit-storm was just one of the so-called 'scandals' which gave brilliant cover to the ongoing malfeasance of the Bush Administration in its early days.

2009 - The Pittsburgh Steelers won their record sixth Super Bowl with a 27-23 victory over the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII.
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Pop History Moment: Khomeini Returns To Iran

When, in 1964, the Shah of Iran had the chance to kill his most outspoken opponent - Ruhollah Khomeini - he chose the more merciful path, and instead sent him into exile in Turkey; hindsight has shown that while the Shah's decision may have been morally right, it was political suicide.

After a year in Bursa, the exiled Ayatollah made his way to the holy city of Najaf, in Iraq, and from there began to develop his ideas on Islamic government. Both cruel and paranoid, his teachings were recorded on audio cassettes and distributed amongst fundamentalists; in most of them he denounced the Shah as 'a Jewish agent' and 'a snake'. Having already ordered the execution of Iranian Prime Minister Hasan Ali Mansur, by 1979 it was clear that Khomeini would stop at nothing to achieve his delusions.

Although he'd been invited back to Iran, Khomeini refused to return while the Shah was there. When the Shah left at the end of January the stage was set; more than 6 million people attended the homecoming of the Ayatollah just two weeks later, on this day in 1979.

The Iranian Revolution was complete, or so it seemed...

Yet upon his return Khomeini moved swiftly to consolidate his power, first by appointing his own Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan over Dr. Shapour Bakhtiar (who had been responsible for inviting Khomeini back), and then by ordering scores of executions among the old regime, including former Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveida and Bakhtiar himself (who had escaped to Paris) - a number which eventually amounted to more than 60.

In October 1979 the Shah was admitted to the United States for the treatment of his cancer; this act of mercy so outraged certain followers of Mohammed that within a week students belonging to the militant group Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and took 52 hostages. The ensuing crisis, which lasted 444 days (and remains a contentious issue between the two countries today) was merely the beginning of Khomeini's Cultural Revolution which has left moderate Muslims and Westerners alike fearful of confronting Islamic fundamentalism to this day.
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"The Weary Blues" by Langston Hughes

I needed a video to fill in this spot, and a cursory search of the name Langston Hughes yielded this exemplary rendition of his 1923 poem The Weary Blues, recited by Harvard professor Allen Dwight Callahan to the accompaniment of Cab Calloway.
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"Harlem" by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore -
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over -
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?
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In Memoriam: Langston Hughes

As one of the many talented writers to emerge from the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes was as influenced by his contemporaries as he influenced them, illustrating the kind of cultural foment that was present during that unprecedented era; in many ways, though, Hughes was always slightly out of place. Early in his career he was too proud to be black when most black writers were trying to be white, and during the Black Power movement which emerged towards the end of his life he was too reasonable when those emerging were angry or vindictive.

Born on this day in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, Hughes was raised far from the lights of Manhattan; after an unsettled childhood spent throughout the Midwest, and a few years of restless travel, he eventually settled for a time in Washington, DC, where he worked as assistant to Carter G. Woodson at the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. While there he met the poet Vachel Lindsay who 'discovered' him, on the eve of the publication of his first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, in 1926.

Although Hughes briefly attended Columbia, he soon left owing to the bigotry he encountered there; his education continued at Lincoln University. Yet there are those who would say his real education came from the extensive travels he had undertaken before, during, and after his university career. Following on from his restless youth, he was later to see Mexico, Europe (living for awhile in Paris), North Africa, the Soviet Union, central Asia, China, and Japan. Yet despite the terrible racism that'd been visited upon him there, he kept returning to the United States.

Although initially drawn to the promise of change offered by Communism, the closer he got the more illusory those promises seemed; when he was called upon to testify before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations by the notorious Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1953 like many others whose Depession-era hopes for the Party were soured by the subsequent outrages of Stalinism, Hughes had already soured on his more radical inclinations.

He was one of the grand old men of African-American letters by the time he died in May 1967, having written steadily and in every form for more than fifty years. Since then much of his reputation has rested on his presumed heterosexuality; yet it was and is a false presumption, as his work contains many coded as well as many blatant references to the contrary. Such is the power of the closet, however, that we may never have the full picture of the life of Langston Hughes.
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"Jazz Crimes (Live)" by Joshua Redman

Birthday wishes go out today to Joshua Redman, the internationally acclaimed saxophonist and composer. The son of fellow jazzman Dewey Redman and Renee Shedroff, from an early age he was exposed to a broad gamut of music; these influences are readily evident in his work.

Jazz Crimes originally appeared on Joshua Redman's 2002 album Elastic; it is shown here being performed live, with Redman on tenor sax and with accompaniment by Brian Blade on drums and Sam Yahel on organ - the same personnel, it should be said, who played it on the album.
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What's The Occasion?: Black History Month

Black History Month - that month-long celebration of the culture and achievements of people of African descent - is celebrated in both Canada and the United States in February*. To my mind it always seemed passive-aggressive of white North America to give the descendants of those brought here by force an entire month to celebrate their considerable contributions to the dominant culture, only to give them the shortest month in which to do it...

It turns out that way of thinking is little more than received pissiness, which is so often the case with me. Carter G. Woodson (shown, at left) originally chose the second week in February - which embraced the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln - for Black History Week in 1926; any sinister motives one might ascribe to denying Black History that extra two or three days it might have during any other month says far more about the paranoia of the accuser than it does about the event itself or the motives of its progenitor.

Black History Month was first celebrated in 1976, after fifty years in which Black History Week grew steadily in popularity, among both blacks and whites; whereas in its first year most whites would probably not have known who to celebrate, apart from George Washington Carver, by the Seventies enough consciousness had been raised during the Civil Rights Movement alone to add a few more names to the roster - chief among them Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Dr. King, and Malcolm X. Thirty subsequent years have not seen any abatement of scholarship into Black History but indeed an exponential increase, both by black and white scholars.

Woodson's hope was always that one day his own event would become obsolete; once blacks had been given their rightful place in the history from which they had been excluded, he reasoned, the event would no longer be of need. The Pop Culture Institute whole-heartedly supports this ideal, and strives today as ever to write the people's history by believing in one race - the human race - and in the unity which is possible if we can only learn to embrace our shared humanity.

*The UK celebrates its own Black History Month in October.
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POPnews - February 1st

[Fronted by Lisbon's Tagus River, the Terreiro do Paço was completely rebuilt as part of the Pombaline Downtown after an earthquake in November 1755 ruined the Portugese capital during the reign of José I, whose statue now dominates the square; it was here, on the way home from the Vila Viçosa, that Carlos I was murdered by Alfredo Costa and Manuel Buiça. Of the four royals in the carriage, only Queen Maria Amélia escaped death or injury.]

1327 - England's Edward III was crowned, although it would be nearly four years before the teenaged king would be rid of his regents (his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer) who had already successfully conspired to depose her imprisoned husband Edward II, and were likely plotting his death on that day as well.

1662 - The Chinese general Koxinga seized the island of Taiwan after a nine-month siege.

1691 - Pope Alexander VIII died; he would be succeeded by Innocent XII on July 12th.

1713 - The Kalabalik, or Tumult in Bendery, resulted from the Ottoman sultan's order that his unwelcome guest, Sweden's King Charles XII, be seized.

1814 - The Mayon Volcano in the Philippines erupted, killing around 1,200 people; it was the most devastating eruption in the volcano's history.

1880 - The first edition of London's theatrical newspaper The Stage was published.

1896 - Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème premiered at the Teatro Regio Torino conducted by the young maestro Arturo Toscanini.

1908 - Portugal's King Carlos I and his son, Prince Luis Filipe, were assassinated by Republican terrorists in Lisbon's Terreiro do Paço; he was succeeded by his injured son, who became Manuel II, Portugal's ill-fated last king.

1920 - Canada's Northwest Mounted Police and Dominion Police merged to form the Royal Canadian Mounted Police - better known as the RCMP, or the Mounties.

1942 - Vidkun Quisling was appointed Premier of Norway by the country's Nazi occupiers.

1953 - An unprecedented storm lashed northern Europe, devastating dikes up and down the coast of Holland and wreaking havoc on the coastline of Britain; in addition to sinking the car ferry MV Princess Victoria (under the captaincy of James Ferguson, while en route from Stranraer in Scotland to Larne in Northern Ireland, with the loss of 130 lives in one event alone) the North Sea Flood of 1953 would end up claiming 1,835 lives.

1965 - The Hamilton River in Labrador was renamed the Churchill River by Newfoundland premier Joey Smallwood.

1968 - Canada's three military services - the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force - were unified into the Canadian Forces.

1974 - A fire in the 25-story Joelma Building in São Paulo killed 189 and injured 293.

1979 - The Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran after nearly 15 years of exile.

1982 - Senegal and The Gambia formed a loose confederation known as Senegambia.

1984 - Britain's half penny coin was removed from circulation.

2004 - 251 were trampled to death and 244 injured in a stampede at the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

2005 - Nepal's King Gyanendra dismissed Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba in an attempt to curb a Maoist insurgency in the remote Himalayan kingdom. It didn't work...
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"Stone Cold Sober" by Paloma Faith

Although it's not yet Paloma Faith's birthday - that would be on July 21st - I've posted the video for her debut single Stone Cold Sober (coincidentally from her 2009 debut album Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful?) today in honour of Sophie Muller, who not only directed the clip but celebrates another milestone by blowing out candles*.

Muller, of course, is most famous around the Pop Culture Institute (and, possibly, even the world) for the stylish, innovative work she's done with Annie Lennox - both in and out of Eurythmics - as well as some of our favourite bold-faced names including Sade, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Rufus Wainwright, Nelly Furtado, and Gwen Stefani; to date her resume includes over a hundred such films, making Sophie Muller a true master of this most modern form of cinematic art.

*Candles which have no doubt been exquisitely photographed!
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Gratuitous Brunette: Minnie Driver

Ah, what is there to say about Minnie Driver... After subjecting the sizable portion of my readership who are straight men to a steady parade of hot guys, every so often one feels the need to give them something in return; she seemed like the right woman at the right time, and it is her birthday. I suppose it helps that I've always liked her, so at least I don't feel like a total sell-out...

From the first big notices she got in 1995's Circle of Friends to the antic romp of Grosse Pointe Blank to the Academy Award nomination she received for 1997's Good Will Hunting, from her early appearances on Lovejoy to her portrayal of Lorraine Finster on the classic sitcom Will & Grace to her bravura turn opposite Eddie Izzard in The Riches, Driver has leant her exotic looks and contrasting posh air to everything she's done. She's even played the hilariously over-the-top Carlotta Giudicelli in Joel Schumacher's film of The Phantom of the Opera, making herself a one-woman highlight of that bombastic mess in the process.

Romantically linked over the years to any number of fellow thespians - including John Cusack, Josh Brolin, and Matt Damon, most of them former co-stars - as of September 2008 the most important male in her life is her son, Henry Story Driver.
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