Good morning, and yes, it’s Monday again, the 13th of November, and the week I go to Puebla, Mexico for a meeting. It’s National Indian Pudding Day, celebrating one of the finest unknown desserts of America, whose best commercial version is at the restaurant Durgin-Park in Boston, where it’s served warm with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. Made with molasses and cornmeal, it’s earthy, grainy, and utterly delicious (a good recipe is here). In the U.S. it’s Sadie Hawkins Day, a day when women are supposed to ask out men.
On this day in 1940, Walt Disney’s animated movie Fantasia was first shown, at the Broadway Theater in New York. On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ended the Montgomery Bus Boycott by ruling that Alabama’s laws requiring segregation on buses were illegal. That was, of course, begun by Rosa Parks, who, on December 1 of 1955, refused to give up her seat to a white man. Here’s Parks’s mug shot after her arrest (she was convicted and fined $10 plus court costs, but of course appealed):
On this day in 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington D.C. I remember the big controversy about its design, but it’s proved to be a deeply moving and immensely popular site. Finally, just two years ago on this day, Paris experienced a set of coordinated terrorist attacks that killed 130 people (as well as 7 attackers), and wounded 7 others. Eighty-nine of the dead were killed in the Bataclan theatre. ISIS claimed responsibility for all of it.
Notables born on this day include Robert Louis Stevenson (1850), Louis Brandeis (1856), population geneticist Motoo Kimura (1924), Whoopi Goldberg (1955; real name Caryn Elaine Johnson) and Jimmy Kimmel (1967, former partner of Sarah Silverman). Those who fell asleep on this day include Prince Henry the Navigator (1460), Camille Pissarro (1903), Karen Silkwood (1974), Motoo Kimura (1994; yes, he died on his 70th birthday), and Leon Russell (last year; I’ll have a tribute here, and also in the next post).
This is my favorite Leon Russell song, and here he performs it live:
I couldn’t find any cat paintings by Pissarro, but his granddaughter, Orovida Camille Pissarro, painted many cats that you can see here.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the discourse between Hili, Andrzej, and Cyrus is getting ever more obscure. I asked Malgorzata what this one meant, only to get the reply, “I’m not sure what this means and no help from Andrzej or Hili was forthcoming.”
Hili: Have you considered the heart of the matter?Cyrus: Not today.
Hili: Czy zastanawiałeś się nad istotą rzeczy?
Cyrus: Dzisiaj nie.
Leon and his staff went hiking this weekend, and are looking forward to getting their wooden house moved up from Southern Poland next spring:
Leon: We should absolutely go in the opposite direction.
From Matthew, the worst food idea ever (save for pizza with anchovies):
Great news. Available in Lidl from 16th November @hackneyhaz @Aggerscricket pic.twitter.com/nitLgJH8ls
— keith flett (@kmflett) November 12, 2017
He also sent this, showing regional variation of the “kill two birds with one stone” phrase. Note the use of “flies” in central Europe and Scandinavia
Lovely unusual map by @JakubMarian: birds, flies, hares, rabbits killed with one stone, slap, shot, stick https://t.co/7Bzidek49M pic.twitter.com/XY7q88nvE7
— John Rentoul (@JohnRentoul) November 12, 2017
From reader Charleen; if you’ve had a cat, you’ll recognize this:
https://twitter.com/Elverojaguar/status/929650803190706176
Finally, this is a tweet from Heather Hastie herself, responding to the idiotic passage of new pro-gun laws in Michigan:
This is all I have to say on the subject of guns in schools … pic.twitter.com/GoRzXZPG6Y
— Heather's Homilies (@HeatherHastie) November 11, 2017
The Italian film-maker Bruno Bozzetto made a parody of “Fantasia” called “Allegro non troppo” back in 1976. Like “Fantasia”, it comprises a set of animated sequences accompanied by classical music, linked by comedy live-action sequences which purport to show the orchestra and the animator at work.
One animated sequence is inspired (somewhat loosely) by the theory of evolution, whilst another is a heartbreakingly poignant piece set to Sibelius’s “Valse triste” in which a cat roams the ruins of a house where it once lived, remembering its life with the former occupants.
I removed the Fantasia clip I’d put in this post originally because it wasn’t from the original movie.
Love those cats and the items from Heather. I’m for the reduction in religion but more guns in the churches? Maybe give them rocks like they use to do.
You think rocks will do better? There is already a religion using rocks, I doubt it would be a progress …
When was religion interested in progress? I just thought they might want to stay with the familiar.
I think i saw somewhere about Kevlar armour back backs for American school kids ,problem solved .
Heather’s poster is great, it should be placed in front of each town hall or building of the
district government.
I agree. Because having weapons handy is just the thing in case there is an altercation of some sort.
You could replace the saying, “opportunity makes thieves” with “guns are the easiest opportunity to become a murderer”.
In honor or the anniversary of the end of the Montgomery bus boycott, how about the Neville Brothers’ “Sister Rosa”:
Huh, I’ve never come across that song before. Thanks for posting it.
Watching Fantasia as a young kid made a lasting impression on me. I didn’t like it. It seemed rather creepy and disturbing.
The annual Sadie Hawkins dances in HS were a welcome respite from the norm for me. I was typically terrified to ask a young lady on a date, or even to dance a single dance. Much easier to leave the asking to them. Luckily for me my wife asked me to get married. Otherwise it may never have happened.
Yeah, till she started f*ck*ng Matt Damon.
If that ain’t the funniest damn song video evah, I’d sure as hell like to know what is. (Unless maybe it’s the sequel Jimmy Kimmel did with Ben Affleck.)
(Sigh…) yep. My alarm goes off at 5:45, the cat goes off at 5:30. Even on weekends.
As for the marmite peanuts…yes, please!
And when a cat sticks it.s nose in your ear can make for a rude awakening .
Interesting map about two animals killed in the same time. I do not know how reliable it is though. I live in Hungary as a native and I am pretty sure I never heard that version of the phrase before (“hit two flies with one stone”) and that would not make any sense anyway, because nobody goes after flies with stones.
The Hungarian version of the phrase “két legyet egy csapásra” means two flies with one strike/slap, so pretty much the same as all the other versions that use flies.
If you open the link https://jakubmarian.com/kill-two-birds-with-one-stone-in-european-languages/ there’s a bigger map with “hit two flies with one blow” instead of “with one stone”.
Under the map there is the original expression in Hungarian, which is “két legyet üt egy csapásra”.
In folktales from the region the protagonist kills 7 (or even 12) flies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brave_Little_Tailor
I want to hold Parks up as a hero, but wikipedia sort of ruined it for me: apparently there were many other black Americans who refused to surrender their seats as well. But Parks was adjudged to be the best person to build a PR case for.
As a kid, I always thought she was first and she was unique.
That Indian Pudding recipe sounds delicious. Think I’ll make some tonight and curl up on the sofa with a bowl of pudding and read “Disbelief in Belief.”
I’ll have my pudding, not with ice cream, but with warm, unwhipped whip cream.
It’s strange, I definitely have more important things to point my face at, but this :
“HIli”
… is the spelling in the email subscription post of this Hili Dialogue, yet, now it reads “Hili”, and I noticed PCC(E) must have changed it because he (PBUH) removed the Fantasia link.
I guess it’s called “procrastination”.
…. oh, and the font is different between the email and the comments, but what’s more is, the fonts are different between entering a comment, and the final published comment. So the “I (eye)” looks like a straight line in the email and comment compose box, yet, when published, appears as a good ‘ol capital I (eye) with horizontal bars at top and bottom.
It’s very jarring.
Have you considered getting a life? 😉
I suppose I asked for it…
Though I was hoping it’d serve to emphasize the idiocy of the gun law described, as a long discourse on an innocuous, incontestable fact that appeared in the same Hili Dialogue, without ever using the terms.
Your description of Sadie Hawkins day is short of the misogynistic intent. Sadie Hawkins Day is a day when it is acceptable for a woman to ask a gentleman out. The other 364 days of the year, back in the box, ladies.
I once killed two birds when I was stoned (joke I heard on the radio many years ago).