Sunday: Hili dialogue

May 26, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Sunday, May 26, 2019, and National Blueberry Cheesecake Day. Although I prefer my cheesecake sans fruit, I prefer cherries to blueberries. It’s also National Paper Airplane Day in the U.S. and National Sorry Day in Australia, dedicated to apologizing for the mistreatment of the aboriginal people.

It’s not a day marked by historical events. On May 26, 1822, 116 Norwegians died in the Grue Church fire, the biggest fire disaster in Norway’s history. In 1868, the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson ended when he was acquitted by a single vote. On this day in 1896, Nicholas II became Russia’s last Tsar. The Bolsheviks, of course, shot him along his family and retainers in 1918.  Exactly a year later, the novel Dracula by the Irish writer Bram Stoker was published. Seventy years to the day after that, the Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released. I still hold Revolver to be the best Beatles album, and let there be no dissent about this. 

Finally, on this day in 1998, Australia held its first “National Sorry Day“, with the reconciliation events across the nation attended by over a million people.

Notables born on this day include Al Jolson (1886), Dorothea Lange (1895), John Wayne (1907), Peggy Lee (1920), Miles Davis (1926), Levon Helm (1940), Stevie Nicks (1948), Sally Ride (1951), and Helena Bonham Carter (1966).

Lange was famous for photographing the American dispossessed, including farmers during the Depression and Japanese-Americans moved to internment camps during World War II. Here’s her at work atop her car:

Paul S. Taylor, Dorothea Lange in Texas on the Plains, ca. 1935© The Dorothea Lange Collection, the Oakland Museum of California

Those who expired on May 26 include Samuel Pepys (1703), Jimmie Rodgers (1933), Edsel Ford (1943), Martin Heidegger (1976), Sydney Pollack (2008), Art Linkletter (2010), and Zbigniew Brzezinski (2017; I once saw Brezezinski in a Chinese restaurant in Virginia, and his hair was perfect)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is acting as if she has free will (her next action is already determined):

Hili: I have to consider what to do next.
A: And what options do you have?
Hili: You are right, first I have to consider what the options are,
In Polish:
Hili: Trzeba rozważyć co dalej robić.
Ja: A jakie masz opcje?
Hili: Masz rację, najpierw trzeba rozważyć jakie mam opcje.

From Facebook, a thirsty and agile moggie:

Also from Facebook:

A tweet from Nilou; look at that pig!

https://twitter.com/MeetAnimals/status/1132187105998901249

And yet another pusillanimous puss, sent by Orli:

Tweets from Grania. The first one shows Hayao Miyazaki, anime artist and a co-founder of Studio Ghibli:

https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/1132070096183029761

Tweets from Matthew. This really happened, though the Ark replica wasn’t damaged:

One of Matthew’s beloved illusions. The words aren’t green, but a dark brown:

Turn the sound to maximum for this one:

The advantage of this tattoo is that you can grow your hair to cover it!

Oy! I’ll be inundated soon!

Capybaras are so chill. . .

4000 bee species! This is a new one on me:

 

23 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

      1. As an aside: as I recall there was also a restaurant in London called Ho Lee Fook (not kidding).

        1. That’s the one Warren was referencing in “Werewolves of London.” I guess there’s also a Trader Vic’s in London, too, although the most famous one was the original “tiki culture” joint in California.

  2. Yes, Revolver contained Eleonor Rigby, the greatest Beatles song ever, so I won’t argue.
    However,…. 🙂 🙂

    1. Our host’s is a heterodox view, to be sure, though not an insupportable one.

      1. I think the consensus among rock critics and music writers these days is that Revolver is the best Beatles album.
        But if you ask me, Sgt. Pepper is still the Beatles record that works best as an album, with Abbey Road not far behind.

        1. I think that’s about right. But as I remember it (and that is worth zilch), people weren’t quite sure what to make of Revolver when it came out. By the time Sgt Pepper was released, we were better attuned to where The Beatles were going, and therefore got on board quicker.

        2. I think I ODed on Sgt. Pepper. Would much rather listen to Revolver these days.

  3. That tattoo is awesome, and has the advantage it can be hidden if the hair regrows. In older age though, when baldness strikes….

    The rain-damage to Ham’s Ark is priceless. The Gods do not appear to be pleased with his, well let us call it what it is, hoax.

  4. I thought National Sorry Day would turn out to be Canadian. But then, every day is Sorry Day in Canada.

    1. Yeah. In the beginning I thought ‘great’ we need this. Now I find myself thinking that PM Trudeau reached the point where he has diluted the value of an official apology.

  6. “there are around 4000 bee species”

    I visited Smith Museum of Natural History at the College of Idaho recently and witnessed a man pinning bees from large boxes into smaller boxes. The museum had been given a private collection of hundreds, if not thousands, of bees. The collection had remained in an attic for years until his surviving family decided to donate it to the museum.

    1. Sadly, at the rate things are going, the only bees left will be on posters and in museums.

  8. A quibble. If we all see the letters as green, how is that an illusion? Green is a secondary color. If I mix blue and yellow paint together, I have green paint, not an illusion. We don’t say it is really blue and yellow. Isn’t this “illusion” just pixel mixing?

    1. In fact it is, mixing paint is mixing pigments. The colour of a pigment is by absorbing much of the other wavelengths. There blue and yellow will give green indeed.

      However, when we look at light it is nearly the opposite: eg. mixing green light and red light gives yellow, while dark blue light and green light gives sky blue.
      Things are complicated by the fact that we have no real ‘red’ receptors. The maximum absorption by the ‘red’ cones is in the yellow wavelength. One could argue -wrongly IMMO- that the colour ‘red’ is an illusion itself.

  10. Thanks for that nice clip from the Yorkshire Shepherdess. Swaledale is a very special place. It encompasses aspects of the old farming traditions, in this case sheep, with the remains of 19th century industry, in the form of the old lead mines, mostly up the side valleys. Looked at from our current perspective, the latter caused substantial environmental damage; but what’s left is hugely evocative of an era. Go.

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