Sunday: Hili dialogue

December 22, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s December 22, 2019, the last Sunday before Christmas, which itself marks the official beginning of Coynezaa: the six-day period during which a Jewish savior with the initials JC was born. Sundown today also marks the official beginning of Hanukkah, which ends on December 30—also the end of Coynezaa.. We thus have a fortuitous conjunction of  three holidays this year, presaging the End Times.

Cuthbert the Goose says good morning (h/t: Matthew):

Cuthbert the Goose, the apparent star of the Marsh Hill Farm menagerie, has his own song on Apple Music, but I can’t be arsed to pay to hear it:

It’s National Date Nut Bread Day, a comestible far more common in my youth than now despite the toothsome nature of this food. It’s especially good when smeared with cream cheese. It’s also National Cookie Exchange Day, when you’re supposed to bake cookies and swap them with friends and co-workers. You might think that there would be a National Fruitcake Exchange Day as well, but as we all know there’s only one fruitcake in America, which circulates endlessly among people who don’t want it and “regift” it.

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates (?) the advent of winter, which began yesterday with the winter solistice and ends on March 19. When you click on the screenshot, you’ll see where Google takes you:

Stuff that happened on December 22 includes:

  • AD 69 – Vespasian is proclaimed Emperor of Rome; his predecessor, Vitellius, attempts to abdicate but is captured and killed at the Gemonian stairs.
  • 1808 – Ludwig van Beethoven conducts and performs in concert at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, with the premiere of his Fifth Symphony, Sixth Symphony, Fourth Piano Concerto (performed by Beethoven himself) and Choral Fantasy (with Beethoven at the piano).
  • 1885 – Itō Hirobumi, a samurai, became the first Prime Minister of Japan.

Hirobumi was not a samurai of the fighting sort, but the caste that had been turned into diplomats. He was assassinated by a Korean nationalist in 1909; here’s a depiction of his death (from Wikipedia), with a reference to his concupiscence:

A Japanese Cartoon describing the scene when Ito was shot to death. His shadow forms the kanji character for “woman”, referencing his alleged penchant for carnal pleasures.
  • 1894 – The Dreyfus affair begins in France, when Alfred Dreyfus is wrongly convicted of treason.
  • 1944 – World War II: Battle of the Bulge: German troops demand the surrender of United States troops at Bastogne, Belgium, prompting the famous one word reply by General Anthony McAuliffe: “Nuts!”
  • 1968 – Cultural Revolution: People’s Daily posted the instructions of Mao Zedong that “The intellectual youth must go to the country, and will be educated from living in rural poverty.”
  • 1984 – “Subway vigilante” Bernhard Goetz shoots four would-be muggers on an express train in Manhattan section of New York, United States.

Goetz was jailed for only six months, but also given probation and community service. In a subsequent civil trial, he was ordered to pay $43 million to one of the guys he shot, which of course Goetz didn’t have. He declared bankruptcy and I’m not sure where he is now. But I remember well the people who defended his actions; this was a famous case.

  • 1989 – Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East and West Germany.
  • 1990 – Lech Wałęsa is elected President of Poland.
  • 2001 – Richard Reid attempts to destroy a passenger airliner by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes aboard American Airlines Flight 63.
  • 2010 – The repeal of the Don’t ask, don’t tell policy, the 17-year-old policy banning homosexuals serving openly in the United States military, is signed into law by President Barack Obama.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1639 – Jean Racine, French poet and playwright (d. 1699)
  • 1858 – Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer and educator (d. 1924)
  • 1862 – Connie Mack, American baseball player and manager (d. 1956)
  • 1887 – Srinivasa Ramanujan, Indian mathematician and theorist (d. 1920)
  • 1903 – Haldan Keffer Hartline, American physiologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1983)
  • 1912 – Lady Bird Johnson, American beautification activist; 38th First Lady of the United States (d. 2007)
  • 1945 – Diane Sawyer, American journalist
  • 1949 – Maurice Gibb, Manx-English singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2003)
  • 1949 – Robin Gibb, Manx-English singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2012)
  • 1962 – Ralph Fiennes, English actor
  • 1970 – Ted Cruz, American lawyer and politician

Those who relinquished life on December 22 include:

  • 1867 – Jean-Victor Poncelet, French mathematician and engineer (b. 1788)
  • 1899 – Dwight L. Moody, American evangelist and publisher, founded Moody Publishers (b. 1837)
  • 1939 – Ma Rainey, American singer (b. 1886)
  • 1940 – Nathanael West, American author and screenwriter (b. 1903)
  • 1942 – Franz Boas, German-American anthropologist and linguist (b. 1858)
  • 1943 – Beatrix Potter, English children’s book writer and illustrator (b. 1866)
  • 1979 – Darryl F. Zanuck, American director and producer (b. 1902)
  • 1995 – Butterfly McQueen, American actress and dancer (b. 1911)
  • 2014 – Joe Cocker, English singer-songwriter (b. 1944)

Remember when John Belushi and Joe Cocker did a Double Cocker Act on Saturday Night Live in 1976? What a good sport Cocker was to allow that! Here it is:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili sees a spider on the windowsill. She’s afraid of them, and won’t eat them, but this one she talks to:

A: What are you doing?
Hili: I’m on the phone, talking with my spider friend.
In Polish:
Ja: Co robisz?
Hili: Rozmawiam przez telefon ze znajomym pająkiem.

A kitten GIF:

A squee from Jesus of the Day. Pity these pigs can’t look like this forever:

From Amazing Things. I’ll be getting plenty of this kind of exercise during Coynezaa:

A technological marvel:

Two tweets from reader Barry. Could this be. . . toxoplasmosis?

And this is just obstinance:

Two tweets from Heather Hastie via Ann German. I hope Diana MacPherson will caption this one:

https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/1207744504788221952

Well, it’s not that much vandalism:

Three tweets from Matthew, beginning with the morning rush hour at Marsh Farm Barn, which Matthew characterizes today as “sedate”:

Re the above: Matthew calls the next tweet the Anti Rush Hour. (It also shows that ducks are not stupid.)

I read the article, but I still don’t know where the money came from. Can people really be this stupid?

20 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

  1. but as we all know there’s only one fruitcake in America, which circulates endlessly among people who don’t want it and “regift” it.

    That happened to me once, but it was a jar of orange marmalade instead of fruitcake lol.

  3. Anyone who’s only familiar with the Joe Cocker cover of Feeling Alright should hunt down the Traffic original. Really good tune.

  4. Is there guidance on deliveries to the WEIT headquarters?…

    for instance, what days will it be best to get Coynezaa gifts to JC, the PCC(E), and the WEIT-meister (Paws Be Upon Xim)?.. the X is from Spanish language influence…

    apologies for the zealous attempt at humor..

  6. Does toxoplasmosis infect people as well as mice and cats? It appears so as reported in Wikipedia:

    “Up to half of the world’s population is infected by toxoplasmosis, but have no symptoms. In the United States, approximately 11% of people are infected.”

    Perhaps the widespread occurrence of ailurophile can be attributed to this micro organism. 😎

    If you are pregnant and own a cat wash your hands after handling the litter box.

    1. Better yet, if you possibly could become pregnant, and there is a man in the household, it is absolutely his obligation to clean the litter box.

    1. I join you on the defense. Store fruitcake has ruined the great comestible’s reputation. Our family has been making our own for generations. Rum-soaked wonders of culinary art. I’ll provide our recipe if anyone wants it.

      1. Fruitcake should not be judged by the colour of its fruits, but by the content of its ingredients — MLK

        Please post your recipe — MJEF

        1. Posted December 25, 2015 at 7:26 pm | Permalink

          DARK FRUITCAKE

          1C oil, 1 1/3 C sugar, 4 eggs, 1/4 C molasses, 3 C flour, 1 t baking powder, 2 t salt, 2 t cinnamon, 1 t nutmeg, 1 C orange or other fruit juice, 15 oz raisins, 2 C (1 lb) chopped dates , 2 C (1 lb) candied fruit, 1 C nuts (large pieces).

          Heat oven to 275 F.
          Line and grease 2 loaf pans with aluminum foil (or paper).
          Mix oil, sugar, eggs, molasses.
          Mix 2 C of the flour with baking powder, and other dry stuff, and add to above with juice.
          Mix 1 C flour with fruit and nuts.
          Combine all and mix well.
          Pour into pans and bake 2 – 2 1/3 hr.
          Cool and glaze with corn syrup and wine or rum.

          This cake is very rich and moist. Make any substitutions you think would be interesting. It can be kept wrapped and refrigerated for many months. Improves with time. Expiration date unknown.

  8. I have an Apple Music account so I went and listened to “Cuthbert the Goose”. Well, half of it, anyway. It would go over well with the preschool crowd.

  9. The video of the mouse chasing and biting the cat is really scary! It’s just a matter of time before mice start attacking people!

    1. The reason they “attack” cats is so they can be eaten by the cat – which in many cases would happen. We humans have no desire to eat mice, so, I think we’re safe for now.

  10. I think hanging the “IMPEACHED” sign around the animatronic Trump at Disney World qualifies as good-natured political protest rather than vandalism.

    Seems a throwback to the pranks that were pulled by the old Situationist International.

  11. Battle of the Bulge…

    The response “Nuts” has gone down in American lore, but I have read that the response was probably something stronger and NSFW.

    Gen. McAuliffe was second in command of the 101st, but its commander Gen. Taylor was not with the division when it moved out to Bastogne. He missed his division’s finest hour.

Comments are closed.