Friday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

October 4, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Friday, October 4, 2019, and National Taquito Day (I doubt I’ve ever had one of these; what’s the point of a tiny taco?).  It’s also Cinnamon Roll Day, World Animal Day, National Denim Day (I’m wearing jeans), National Vodka Day, and the beginning of World Space Week.

I’m writing most of this on Thursday morning, as tomorrow I leave early to travel to Albany and then fly back to Chicago—via Baltimore! Will any ducks be at Botany Pond when I return? Stay tuned.

As of Thursday night, there were three ducks swimming around: a lovely drake (probably not Ritz), an unknown hen, and . . . HONEY!!!! I hope to see her at least one more time before she heads down the Mississippi Flyway. Yesterday I have reports that Wounded Warrior, the injured hen, now seems to have completely recovered and is swimming normally and flying in and out of the pond. This makes me very happy.

Stuff that happened on October 4 includes:

  • 1535 – The Coverdale Bible is printed, with translations into English by William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale.

This was the first translation of the entire Bible into modern English, and here’s the frontispiece:

  • 1582 – The Gregorian Calendar is introduced by Pope Gregory XIII.
  • 1853 – The Crimean War begins when the Ottoman Empire declares war on the Russian Empire.
  • 1883 – First run of the Orient Express. 

Here’s a poster from 1888 or 1889 advertising that luxury train, which went from London to Istanbul; the regular runs stopped in 1977 though there’s still an expensive tourist train that does the run from Paris to Istanbul:

  • 1927 – Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting Mount Rushmore.
  • 1936 – The British Union of Fascists and various anti-fascist organizations violently clash in the Battle of Cable Street.

This was a famous pushback by the British public against Oswald Mosley’s “black-shirt” British Union of Fascists, who were Nazi sympathizers. I suppose you could call the protestors the first Antifa, but I like them a lot more than today’s Antifa. Here’s a short film:

  • 1991 – The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty is opened for signature.
  • 1997 – The second largest cash robbery in U.S. history occurs in North Carolina

The details of this one and and of the biggest cash robbery:

The Loomis Fargo Bank Robbery was a robbery of $17.3 million in cash from the Charlotte, North Carolina, regional office vault of Loomis, Fargo & Co. on the evening of October 4, 1997. .  This robbery was the second-largest cash robbery on U.S. soil at the time, as only seven months earlier, on March 29, 1997 in Jacksonville, Florida, Phillip Noel Johnson stole $18.8 million from the Loomis Fargo armored vehicle he was driving.

The perpetrators of both robberies were caught and most of the money recovered.

  • 2004 – SpaceShipOne wins the Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight.
  • 2006 – WikiLeaks is launched.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1542 – Robert Bellarmine, Italian cardinal and saint (d. 1621)
  • 1861 – Frederic Remington, American painter, sculptor, and illustrator (d. 1909)
  • 1880 – Damon Runyon, American newspaperman and short story writer. (d. 1946)
  • 1895 – Buster Keaton, American film actor, director, and producer (d. 1966)
  • 1923 – Charlton Heston, American actor, director and gun rights activist (d. 2008)
  • 1943 – H. Rap Brown, American activist
  • 1976 – Alicia Silverstone, American actress, producer, and author

Those who passed on on October 4 include:

  • 1669 – Rembrandt, Dutch painter and illustrator (b. 1606)
  • 1904 – Carl Josef Bayer, Austrian chemist and academic (b. 1847)
  • 1944 – Al Smith, American lawyer and politician, 42nd Governor of New York (b. 1873)
  • 1947 – Max Planck, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1858)
  • 1951 – Henrietta Lacks, American medical patient (b. 1920)
  • 1970 – Janis Joplin, American singer-songwriter (b. 1943)
  • 1974 – Anne Sexton, American poet and author (b. 1928)
  • 1982 – Glenn Gould, Canadian pianist and conductor (b. 1932)
  • 2004 – Gordon Cooper, American colonel, engineer, and astronaut (b. 1927)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili shows an unsual (but bogus) empathy:

Hili: This chair is not comfortable.
Sarah: So go on the bed.
Hili: I will lie here a moment in solidarity with cats who don’t have access to soft beds.
Photo: Sarah Lawson
In Polish:
Hili: To krzesło nie jest wygodne.
Sarah: To idź na łóżko.
Hili: Poleżę tu chwilę w ramach solidarności z kotami, które nie mają dostępu do miękkich łożek.

And in Wloclawek, Leon has clearly recovered from his illness:

Leon: Is supper ready yet?

In Polish: Jest już kolacja?

Would you get a tattoo like this? They are lovely, but I think my body shall remain unmarked:

Three tweets from Heather Hastie. Notice how the sneaky student hides the kitten from the teacher:

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1176267910400135168

A classic meme, this time with a bear:

A VERY hungry bird!

Tweets from Matthew Cobb. The first is an interesting case of convergent evolution, and in species with bright colors. The “super black” plumage exaggerates the brightness of adjacent color patches.

Do you think this pig is blowing bubbles for the fun of it?

This shows two things: Matthew has been feeling down, and there are dolphins swimming in the Potomac. I’m amazed (by the latter):

The Tribune Tower, the world’s only Gothic skyscraper, was the former home of Chicago’s best newspaper, and my favorite building in the city. Now it’s being turned into luxury condos.

Here’s what the building looks like. Flying buttresses!

28 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)”

  2. Question from a non-biologist: why not simply assume that the pig is indeed amusing itself? If little piglets learn by having fun and jumping about or whatever they do to learn skills from parents, why shouldn’t the neurological reward system remain active in adulthood?

    Reply

    1. I say that piggy is definitely having fun, and it looks like fun. Think I used to do something like that when I was a kid, though not in a mud hole.

      Reply

  3. Stephanie Brown’s replica of the Audubon print on the woman’s leg looks better than the original print.

    Like Jerry I admire many of the tattoos I’ve seen, some gorgeous ones, but I’ve never had the desire to get one myself. This one, the Audubon print on a woman’s leg, is beautiful and the leg being a part of the medium is a big part of what makes it so.

    Reply

    1. The “most” gothic is the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh – taller than the Tribune Tower. It even has a large area of the ground floor which is true Gothic – not supported by a steel frame, unlike the purely ornamental buttressed on the Tribune.

      Reply

      1. Wow! That IS one enormous cathedral. It’s not an office building disguised as a cathedral. And made of stone? Amazing.

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      2. MMW: Thank you for beating me to that. The architect (Clauder, IIRC) was apparently inspired to the design by listening to Wagner, each segment soaring higher than the last.

        And inside, the ironwork is all by Samuel Yellin. It’s a magnificent mass of limestone, and there are peregrine falcons that nest up on the 38th or so floor.

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  5. I was curious if the Coverdale Bible was readable, and sure enough it is: “…And it fortuned the first daye of the eleuenth moneth in the fortieth yeare, that Moses spake vnto ye children of Israel acordinge vnto all as ye LORDE commaunded him.” My spell checker went bananas.

    Reply

  6. Sacrilege! The taquito, although holding a somewhat remote relationship with the taco, is a unique dish in itself – having a totally different flavour, texture and appearance from its remote cousin. It is NOT at all a “tiny taco”. The preparation of a taquito requires a deep fry cycle which creates an especially crispy enclosure for the various delicious fillings allowed inside. As for the salsas used to embellish the overall flavour, these are applied as DIPS… making it possible to vary the taste of one taquito from bite to bite. I fell in love with this particular dish because I grew up in East LA – a vibrant Mexican American enclave. This is where, in spite of my own Jewish background, I put aside all thought of delicatessen offerings forever and instead culturally appropriated absolutely everything to do with this wonderfully tasty cuisine.

    Reply

      1. I lived in Ventura but never encountered Taquitos. I would love to try some real ones but alas the only ones I’ve tried were factory produced frozen ones. They sucked like all such products do.

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        1. There is hope for you darelle. Salvation exists at Baja Fresh on Telegraph Road in Ventura. Very nice taquitos are to be found there with a wide range of salsas. I speak with particular authority on the matter, we have a second home in Oxnard

          Reply

          1. Alas, it was in the late 80’s that I lived briefly in Ventura. I am now on the opposite coast in Florida. There are some okay Mexican restaurants in the area, the kind that are decent fare at a good price, but nothing like what can be found just about anywhere in California or the Southwest.

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    4. I for one *like* small tacos sometimes, because it allows one to try different toppings in each!

      I did not know, however, taquitos were different from small tacos. I really should have learned more about Mexican food while I had the chance (when I lived in Pittsburgh).

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    1. I think the teeth of T-Rex tells a different story than gulping. Though I do like the imagery. And I slept well. 😉

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  10. I simply adore d e n i m.

    I have no idea why I do ( other than for
    its looks, its texture, its durability );
    but, as with the collections’ types of Others,
    I can upon any day of ~three seasons’ worth
    of months, don denim pencil skirt suits
    ( w / matching jackets )in ~eight individual
    colors.

    I would like to own of same .every. color imaginable.
    That, o’course, is so not necessary so
    I believe I am done … … collecting thus.

    Blue

    Reply

    1. Indeed, there is a je ne sais quoi about denim. If it’ll help you to appreciate denim, you might be interested to learn that Adolph von Baeyer, who achieved the first chemical synthesis of indigo, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1905. Listen for the announcement of the new prizwinner(s?) this coming week – Tues IIRC.

      Reply

        1. An interesting dude, Dr von Baeyer … …

          As with very many a mama, his own … …
          dead during the birthing of a seventh kiddo.
          So ( angeringly ) common … … that.

          Blue

          Reply

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