It is April 13, but not a Friday. On this day in 1919, the British committed the Jalianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar, shooting down hundreds of unarmed and trapped Indians; it was a decisive step toward Indian resistance to colonialism. In 1964, Sidney Poitier became the first African-American man to win an Oscar (for “Lilies of the Field”); do you know who the first black woman was (it was a long time before Poitier)? Notable births on this day include Catherine de’ Medici (1519), Thomas Jefferson (1743, one of my fellow William and Mary alumni), Butch Cassidy (1866), Samuel Beckett (1906), Eudora Welty (1909), Madelyn Murray O’Hair (1919), Seamus Heaney (1939), and Christopher Hitchens (1949). Those who died on April 13 include Muriel Spark (2006; read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie), and Günter Grass (2015).
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the beasts are plotting:
Hili: We have to do something.
Cyrus: But what?
Hili: That’s what I don’t know.
Hili: Musimy coś zrobić!
Cyrus: Ale co?
Hili: Właśnie nie wiem.
And here are two bonus photos of Cyrus and Hili, with the caption “The valley is green all over, and the cherry trees have another week before flowering”:
And in Winnipeg, Gus gives his box the coup de grace:
Hattie McDaniel, Best Supporting Actress, for Gone with the Wind, 1939.
By thy way, I enjoyed your talk in Houston last weekend, and thanks for the cat picture.
Didn’t GWTW beat out Citizen Coyne … er, Citizen Kane for the best picture Oscar that year?
Naw, looked it up; CK lost to Wizard of Oz in ’41.
Keep trying – eventually you will get it right. Oz lost to GWTW in 1939.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Picture
Citizen Kane was beaten out for best picture Oscar in 1941 by “How Green Was My Valley”. It is a great movie, unfairly tarnished because it beat out Citizen Kane for best picture.
Thx George; I’m a little rusty.
Uhoh. Is Cyrus going to lick that book? I am continually telling our dog to smell my books with her nose, not her tongue.
” do you know who the first black woman was …?”
Don’t know nuthin’ ’bout dispensin’ no Oscars. Sorry.
Sorry, wrong actor: that’s a quote sort of taken from Butterfly McQueen.
You’re about the quote, of course, and it’s a great segue to briefly mention Butterfly McQueen here. She was a publically vocal atheist in a time when that was a difficult public stance to take. The Freedom from Religion Foundation awarded her with its Freethought Heroine Award in 1989.
Gus must have very clean teeth.
Remembering Hitchens….
Gus makes me want to buy an Ikea lamp just so I can see what the box tastes like. It must be delicious!
One of my favourite (‘favouritist’, as Del Trotter would say) exchanges between the characters in Only Fools And Horses was when Rodney and Grandad were watching a film.
Grandad: “I do like that Sidney Potter”
Rodney: “it ain’t Potter, it’s Poitier”
Grandad:”It’s Potter”
Rodney: “It’s bloody Poitier!”
This goes on until Del enters the room.
Rodney: “Del, how do you pronounce that actors name?”
Del: “‘arry Belafonte”.
On this day in 1970 an oxygen tank in the command module of Apollo 13 ruptured.
One of my great-great-grandfathers was Thomas Jefferson’s brother-in-law, making the third president my great-great-uncle. I’m not sure just how many “greats” should be in there, but my ancestor, Thomas Stephens, was born in 1735, making him in his 40’s when he fought in the Revolutionary War.
Go, Gus!
Does Gus actually eat any of the cardboard, or just rip it off?
I’ve always wondered, does Cyrus and Hili really care about each other? I mean, do they feel anxious if the other is not there, and seem to like being together?