What I’m Blogging

It was on this day in 1939 that the New York World’s Fair opened to the public. The theme of the fair was The World of Tomorrow. Planners built the fairground on Flushing Meadows, which had been a garbage dump.

It was at that fair that many Americans first saw the products they would enjoy after World War II, including television, long-distance phone service, air conditioners, refrigerators, FM radio, fluorescent lighting, and washing machines. There were prototypes of the early helicopter, called an autogiro, which was basically a plane with a propeller on top. There were dioramas showing model utopian cities of the future, where everyone would soon have fax machines and videophones. The most popular exhibit was General Motors’ Futurama, which was a scale model of an American city in 1960, with futuristic homes, cars shaped like flying saucers, and an advanced superhighway system with a speed limit of a hundred miles per hour. The Futurama exhibit popularized the term “aerodynamic.” Visitors to the exhibit were given a small blue-and-white pin that said, “I Have Seen the Future.”

It’s the birthday of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, (books by this author) born in Brooklyn, New York (1954). He helped create the TV show Seinfeld, which was one of the first American sitcoms that was totally free of morality. He had two rules for every episode: ““No hugging” and No learning.”

It’s the birthday of Harper Lee, born Nelle Harper in Monroeville, Alabama (1926). She’s the author of To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), a novel about a girl named Scout growing up in Alabama during the Great Depression. She, her brother Jem, and her best friend Dill spend all their time trying to uncover the mystery of Boo Radley, the recluse who lives down the street.

Harper Lee grew up in Monroeville, which had a population of about 7,000, and it was the model for the town of Maycomb in To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee wrote, “It was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.”

Today, To Kill a Mockingbird sells about a million copies every year, and it’s sold more than 30 million copies since its publication. In 1963, just three years after its publication, it was taught in 8 percent of U.S. public middle schools and high schools, and today that figure is closer to 80 percent. Only Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Huckleberry Finn are assigned more often.

It’s the birthday of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, born in Rome (A.D. 121). He rose through the ranks of the Roman Senate and became emperor when Antoninus died in A.D. 161. He wrote a philosophical work called Meditations, and he’s one of the few Roman emperors who is known as much for his writing as he is for his reign. He studied the Stoic philosophers, who believed in detaching yourself from everything in the universe that’s outside of your power to control.

It’s the birthday of Ella Fitzgerald, born in Newport News, Virginia, in 1918. She loved to sing and dance as a child; and when she was 16, she entered a contest at the Apollo Theater - at that time no more than a hip local club in Harlem. She had a dance routine worked out, but once she got on stage she lost her nerve. So instead of dancing, she sang. She won the contest and soon became a celebrity across all of New York. She joined Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington as the only performers who could draw audiences at the Apollo from south of 125th Street.

Marilyn Monroe was one of her biggest fans. Ella said, “I owe Marilyn a real debt. It was because of her that I played the Mocambo, a very popular nightclub in the ’50s. She personally called the owner of the Mocambo, and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night. The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again.”

From the Writer’s Almanac by Garrison Keillor
Available by e-mail daily.
Further harmonious reading available at Amazon.com

Time for an interesting little quiz. Haven’t done one for a while, but ran across this one on a friend’s Facebook entry and was curious about mine. Electronic sheep or what? More surprising still is the accuracy. I’ll leave you to sort out which parts. Enjoy.

Your Birthdate: February 14

You work well with others. That is, you’re good at getting them to do work for you. It’s true that you get by on your charm. But so what? You make people happy! You’re dynamic, clever, and funny. And people like to have you around. But you’re so restless, they better not expect you to stay around for long. Your strength: Your superstar charisma Your weakness: Commitment means nothing to you Your power color: Fuchsia Your power symbol: Diamond Your power month: May

Who will rid me of this troublesome hound? Man’s best friend has been taking some liberties of late, or more accurately “early”. It’s not enough that I house, feed, and clean up after this pooch, but for reasons surpassing all understanding, he has taken to requiring a potty break at approximately 5:00AM every day. It doesn’t matter when he last ate or drank, it has no bearing on when his last trip to the loo was. He is a creature of habit, and this particular habit runs like clockwork.

Having to let the creature out when barely awake is one thing, but when he takes your side of the bed after you let him back in is just insult upon injury. Worse still is that subtle realization growing in recesses of an overly tired mind that you are awake. It’s not the self realization that you are awake and that you should return to sleep, it is rather that sinking feeling knowing that you are awake, and that no amount of effort short of alcohol and/or narcotics will let you sleep. Crap.

Back in the prehistoric era when we humans domesticated these four legged fur covered bladders, it was not so much an issue. We lived in caves, dogs pretty much came and went on their own. Ten thousand years later, in our overly protective suburban environment with locked doors, dogs need our help to have a morning “constituational”. It’s high time I think, to start breeding the beasts with opposable thumbs. Then they could open their own @#%$ doors.

It’s the birthday of humorist Josh Billings, born Henry Wheeler Shaw in Lanesboro, Massachusetts (1818). He was a popular newspaper columnist and also published several books, including Josh Billings on Ice (1868) and Josh Billings’ Farmers’ Allminax (1870).

Billings said, “There are many people who are always anticipating trouble, and in this way they manage to enjoy many sorrows that never really happen to them.”

And he said, “Don’t take the bull by the horns, take him by the tail; then you can let go when you want to.”

From the Writer’s Almanac by Garrison Keillor
Available by e-mail daily.
Further funny reading available at Amazon.com

As if there already wasn’t enough time in my life… Now I’ve been facebooked; pressganged into the mother of all social networking sites. I thought that I could resist. I thought I could just say no, but I’ve got a techno-geeky monkey on my back, and new shiny web based tools for wasting time are my stock and trade. So if you’ve been facebooked too, I’ll see you there sometime.

…it was like a black tidal wave came down from the sky…

Today is the anniversary of Black Sunday, the day in 1935 when a windstorm hit a part of the Great Plains known as the Dust Bowl. When the day started, the weather was sunny and calm. People were on their way home from church, or out visiting friends for lunch, when they saw huge flocks of birds flying south, away from a dark black cloud on the northern horizon. As the cloud approached, people realized that it wasn’t a storm cloud, but a cloud of dirt, blown up by the wind. Witnesses said it was like a black tidal wave came down from the sky. It became as dark as night as soon as the cloud descended. Static electricity stalled cars and shorted out telephone lines. People standing a few yards away from their homes got lost in the darkness, and grabbed onto fence posts to keep from being blown to the ground. It was later estimated that the storm carried 300 million tons of soil through the air.