It’s Thursday, April 7, and I get to do a video interview with the estimable Gad Saad on his new show, which will eventually be posted (stay tuned). On this day in 1805, Beethoven premiered his Third Symphony (the odd-numbered ones are best) in Vienna, and, in 1829, Joseph Smith began his translation of the bogus “golden plates” that became the Book of Mormon. On April 7, 1994, the Rwandan genocide began, with the 100-day death toll ranging between half a million and a million citizens. Notables born on this day include William Wordsworth (1770), Billie Holiday (1915), and the great sitar player and composer (and, of course, influencer of rock music) Ravi Shankar (1920), and Jackie Chan (1954). The Google Doodle celebrates Pandit Shankar’s birthday (he died in 2012 at 92), and if you click on the Doodle screenshot below, you’ll go to an Independent article giving five little-known facts about the man:
Those who died on April 7 include El Greco (1614), P. T. Barnum (1891), Henry Ford (1947), and Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof-Cohen (2014).
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is pampered (as usual):
Hili: It’s great to bury onself in a still-warm bed after a night on the tiles.A: Shall I cover you?Hili: No, thank you, this is perfect.
Hili: To wspaniałe, po nocnych szaleństwach zagrzebać się w jeszcze ciepłym łóżku.
Ja: Przykryć cię?
Hili: Nie, dziękuję, jest optymalnie.
And in nearby Wroclawek, Leon is puzzled:
Leon: The birds are strangely timid.
Extra lagniappe: reader Amy sent a photo, taken from Facebook, of a snowy owl admitted to Raptor Rehab for a broken wing. Lovely, eh? (It looks a bit like Gus!)
re Beethoven symphonies, as an amateur player I would also include the even numbered symphonies 6 and 8. Number eight is, I think, unfairly neglected. Number six is a bit over the top however.
No love for #4?
People say the same about Mahler’s symphonies – that the even numbered are approachable and friendly and the odd are more difficult. The pattern doesn’t work any better there, though, in my opinion (1 and 5 being splendid).
With Bruckner, the best symphonies are the ones with positive numbers. Numbers 0 and 00 are not so good.
Lovely owl but Gus, I think, is a bit milder looking
You did not mention the Google Doodle for Ravi Shankar…
I just found out about it and have added it to this post.
Go to the top of the class! 🙂
I am off to a Linnean Society talk tonight which is about Evolutionary Medicine including Randolph Nesse. WEIT readers in or visiting London may like to know that the Linnean Society has lectures open to all. In Piccadilly. Worth a look – http://www.linnean.org/meetings-and-events/events
Here for some’s Northern Hemispheric April are these erudite words outta Verse 3, Mr Frost’s Two Tramps in Mud Time as of http://www.etymonline.com/poems/tramps.htm:
The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.
And thus as well from Frazz with my apology for the introduction into its humor of the not – so – erudite use of that other word, d*g! http://www.gocomics.com/frazz/2016/04/05
Blue
The owl is probably thinking why the mice are so timid.
Owls must have evolved from cats
Watched the Gad Saad interview yesterday. Really enjoyed it.