Tuesday: Hili dialogue

July 16, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Tuesday, July 16, 2019, and National Corn Fritters Day. What a delightful snack, especially with syrup!

Corn fritters!

It’s also Fresh Spinach Day and, for you herpers, World Snake Day. If you have a pet snake, celebrate it today. And, as you see below, it’s the 50th anniversary of when the Apollo 11 mission took off for the Moon. The mission lasted eight days, and we’ll celebrate the landing in a few days.

Stuff that happened on July 16 includes:

I tried looking up why it began on this day, and I can’t find an easy answer. Muhammad is said to have died on June 18, 1632, and his birth date is unknown, so please enlighten me.

Here is one of them from the Sveriges Riksbank site . They were accepted readily, but eventually the public lost confidence in them as they weren’t backed with any reserves, and the Banco in Stockholm failed:

  • 1769 – Father Junípero Serra founds California’s first mission, Mission San Diego de Alcalá. Over the following decades, it evolves into the city of San Diego, California.
  • 1861 – American Civil War: At the order of President Abraham Lincoln, Union troops begin a 25-mile march into Virginia for what will become the First Battle of Bull Run, the first major land battle of the war.
  • 1915 – Henry James becomes a British citizen to highlight his commitment to Britain during the first World War.
  • 1935 – The world’s first parking meter is installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

History.com adds that the Park-O-Meter cost 5 cents an hour, and was beloved by retailers as it forced turnover of cars—and customers. Here’s a Park-O-Meter (the first one is now installed in a museum in Oklahoma):

  • 1941 – Joe DiMaggio hits safely for the 56th consecutive game, a streak that still stands as an MLB record.
  • 1945 – Manhattan Project: The Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon near Alamogordo, New Mexico.
  • 1969 – Apollo program: Apollo 11, the first mission to land astronauts on the Moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Kennedy, Florida.
  • 1999 – John F. Kennedy Jr., piloting a Piper Saratoga aircraft, dies when his plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. His wife and sister-in-law are also killed.
  • 2004 – Millennium Park, considered Chicago’s first and most ambitious early 21st-century architectural project, is opened to the public by Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1723 – Joshua Reynolds, English painter and academic (d. 1792)
  • 1796 – Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, French painter and etcher (d. 1875)
  • 1821 – Mary Baker Eddy, American religious leader and author, founded Christian Science (d. 1910)
  • 1872 – Roald Amundsen, Norwegian pilot and explorer (d. 1928)
  • 1887 – Shoeless Joe Jackson, American baseball player and manager (d. 1951)
  • 1907 – Orville Redenbacher, American farmer and businessman, founded Orville Redenbacher’s (d. 1995)
  • 1924 – Bess Myerson, American model, actress, game show panelist, and politician, Miss America 1945 (d. 2014)
  • 1941 – Desmond Dekker, Jamaican singer-songwriter (d. 2006)

Do you remember Dekker’s reggae song “Israelite“, from 1969.  It’s catchy, but the lyrics are a bit hard to make out. (Here’s a transcription.) As for what they mean, well, here’s what Wikipedia says:

Dekker composed the song after overhearing an argument: “I was walking in the park, eating corn [popcorn]. I heard a couple arguing about money. She was saying she needs money and he was saying the work he was doing was not giving him enough. I related to those things and began to sing a little song: ‘You get up in the morning and you’re slaving for bread.’ By the time I got home, it was complete.” The title has been the source of speculation, but most settle on the Rastafarian Movement’s association with the Twelve Tribes of Israel. In the 1960s, Jamaican Rastafarians were largely marginalized as “cultish” and ostracized from the larger society, including by the more conservative Christian church in Kingston. Destitute (“slaving for bread”) and unkempt (“Shirt them a-tear up, trousers is gone”), some Rastafarians were tempted to a life of crime (“I don’t want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde”). The song is a lament of this condition.

Below is Dekker and company singing “Israelite” live on the BBC; you can hear the original release here.

Other births on this day:

  • 1956 – Tony Kushner, American playwright and screenwriter
  • 1963 – Phoebe Cates, American actress

Those who joined the Choir Invisible on this day include:

  • 1557 – Anne of Cleves (b. 1515)
  • 1882 – Mary Todd Lincoln, First Lady of the United States 1861-1865 (b. 1818)
  • 1953 – Hilaire Belloc, French-born British writer and historian (b. 1870)
  • 1981 – Harry Chapin, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1942))
  • 1985 – Heinrich Böll, German novelist and short story writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1917)
  • 1995 – Stephen Spender, English author and poet (b. 1909)
  • 1999 – John F. Kennedy Jr., American lawyer and publisher (b. 1960)
  • 2012 – Kitty Wells, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1919)
  • 2014 – Johnny Winter, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (b. 1944)

I learned to appreciate Johnny Winter only after his death. Here he is singing and playing “Mississippi Blues”:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is thinking about sleep:

Hili: It’s evening again, and I have to decide what to do with the night.
A: You can sleep with us in the bed.
Hili: I slept during the day so I’m in danger of a bout of insomnia.
In Polish:
Hili: Znów wieczór, trzeba zdecydować co robić z nocą.
Ja: Możesz spać z nami w łóżku.
Hili: Spałam w dzień, więc grozi mi krótka bezsenność.

A product seen on Facebook. Now you don’t have to wait for a miracle: you can see Jesus on your toast every day! Sadly, it’s “currently unavailable” at Amazon, and if you do some digging you’ll find out why.

And the ever-popular cat cartoon:

One of the lost tweets of Grania, from October of last year. She called this one “a new version of clever Hans”:

A beautiful orchid mantis sent by reader Barry:

Reader BJ has a long explanation for his tweet:

it’s my favorite tweet I’ve seen in many months. Even though you’re not an ice hockey fan (I’m making an assumption from your general posting history), I’m sure you know how special the Stanley Cup is. And, of course, it’s even more special for Torontonians. When a team wins the Stanley Cup, every player gets to spend a day with the Cup so he can do whatever he wants with it. Many throw parties, take it in the swimming pool, drink out of it, eat cereal, etc. Michael del Zotto of this season’s Cup-winning St. Louis Blues brought it to downtown Toronto on his day, letting fans look at, touch, and even drink from it, walking through the streets with it and bringing it to random bars. Here’s a great clip of a woman getting to celebrate her 81st birthday by drinking a shot out of the Stanley Cup as it’s held by a veteran hockey player.
What a great moment. Hockey players are known for their kindness and community work off the ice, and this is a nice reminder of that. And how could you not love an octogenarian getting to celebrate her birthday by drinking out of something she probably never thought she’d have the honor of touching? Talk about a surprise party! To even touch the Cup is considered one of the greatest honors in sports (the person who is the keeper and presenter of the Cup has to wear white gloves any time he handles it), and we all know how much Canadians love their hockey. What a birthday present!
And here you go. I don’t see any white gloves here!!

Two tweets from Heather Hastie, who adds (to appeal to me), “This is a dog, but it’s a real tear-jerker. I can’t help thinking about her life before she was rescued. How can people be so cruel? I just don’t get it.

It is a tear-jerker.

This clever octopus was using a shell as a home, and managed to get back to the sea (via Ann German):

And some tweets from Matthew Cobb. First, another octopus. Look at that camouflage!

Avian bagpipes! It took me a minute to figure out what was going on here. You could make smaller duck bagpipes, too. . .

And a sneaky chipmunk:

https://twitter.com/Havenlust/status/1150488157898588160

 

25 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Sub

    Want to hear the fact about 622.

    Also it’s interesting to think that the Apollo 11 launched _today_, while we tend to emphasize the moment H. sapiens walked on the lunar surface. It’s funny because the launch itself is also a spectacular event, and both are captured in photographic or video form.

    Reply

    1. I always think of the moment the Eagle landed as being the significant bit. That was the hardest part (up until they had to take off again). Having landed safely, the stepping outside part was a piece of cake.

      Reply

  2. The old question – Where were you when the first steps were made on the moon? Sure, some were not even here yet. I was in the barracks, in the day room as I recall about 1 or 2 am. to watch on TV (Lakenheath 1969). Heather, you are killing us with those videos.

    Reply

    1. My parents got me out of bed and sat me in front of the telly. I was three and it’s one of my earliest memories even though I had no idea of the significance at the time.

      Reply

      1. Not a very convenient time over in Britain, especially if you were only 3. In my case I was probably just getting in.

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    2. I was in Lai Khe Vietnam a member of Company A, 227th Combat Aviation Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division, call sign Chickenman, as a first lieutenant UH-1H pilot. We were not impressed because the moon landing was a cold landing zone.

      Reply

      1. LOL Bob. I am remembering my uncle, who was in the navy and flew missions as the navigator in Vietnam. He would tell us how relieved they were when they got back over water, and he would say his call sign Dakota, and “feet wet”. That statement was part of our goodbye to him at his funeral. Miss you uncle Gene.

        Reply

  3. And today, one month ago, our beautiful Grania took her exit from this world. 
    Gisela Spingies

    Reply

    1. And life rolls indifferently onward…as it always does.

      But for some of us Grania’s untimely exit from the world continues to leave a significant hole in that world, and in life generally.

      Reply

    1. To me, this account is strongly evocative of Tolkien’s stories – specifically the detailed timelines, and events. I think they are in the LotR appendices, and also possibly in other writings.

      Reply

  6. Thanks for the Johnny Winter cut. That’s about the best I’ve heard of a simple blues in A.I’ve seen some cuts where he shows some brilliance but this one is long and straight forward. Lovely.

    Reply

  9. Haha, like I said, the gloves need to be worn by the keeper and presenter of the Cup. The players get to actually touch it and spend the day with it. They each take a go around the ice while hoisting in the air directly after winning, and then a schedule is made for each player to have the Cup for a day to do with it as they will. At one point many years ago, somebody’s baby may or may not have taken a dump in there (entirely by accident)…

    Of course, it’s cleaned every time. Here’s Tyler Bozak (from this year’s winning St. Louis Blues) and his family making margaritas in the Cup: https://twitter.com/StLouisBlues/status/1148043954425913346

    That’s a lot of salt.

    Reply

  10. Years ago, as a joke, someone gave me a plastic thingamabob that you could press into the buttered side of a grilled cheese sandwich and get a “jesus” image very much like that on the toaster. I have no idea where it has gone.

    Reply

    1. a plastic thingamabob that […] I have no idea where it has gone.

      That sounds like a good excuse to learn to design objects for 3-d printing.

      Reply

  11. As to the tearjerker…try looking at https://www.hopeforpaws.org/. This rescue organization makes a point of making a minidocumentary of all rescues. The transformations are amazing. Warning: you will be there a least 2-3 hours. Dogs, cats, rabbits, they save anything. No shelters. Absolutely fabulous people.

    Reply

  12. Desmond Dekker topped the bill at my Oxford college ball in June 1969.

    The first three acts were Deep Purple, Ten Years After, and Soft Machine.

    Those were the days.

    Reply

    2. Decades after your concert but before YouTube, I bought a CD just to listen to Israelites and to my great pleasure rediscovered My World Is Blue, Fu Manchu, You Can Get It If You Really Want.

      Unfortunately, he seems to have been forgotten by classic pop music stations.

      Reply

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