We’re visiting the Old City today, including the Dome of the Rock, the Western Wall, the Via Dolorosa, and other sites of touristic and mythical interest, so I have no time to prepare a Hili dialogue for today, and perhaps not even a picture-and-text account of our trip. So just enjoy the Hili dialogue, and I’ll catch up when I can.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili puts in a bid for some raw meat:
Hili: Do you want to spoil all this meat in the oven?A: No, I cut out a piece for you.
In Polish:
Hili: Czy to całe mięso chcesz zniszczyć w piekarniku?A: Nie, odkroiłem kawałek dla ciebie.
One photo from today: a soldier praying at the Western Wall:
On this day:
1666 – Great Fire of London ends: Ten thousand buildings, including Old St Paul’s Cathedral, are destroyed, but only six people are known to have died.
1698 – In an effort to Westernize his nobility, Tsar Peter I of Russia imposes a tax on beards for all men except the clergy and peasantry.
1791 – Olympe de Gouges writes the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen.
1793 – French Revolution: The French National Convention initiates the Reign of Terror.
1887 – A fire at the Theatre Royal, Exeter kills 186, making it the UK’s deadliest ever building fire.
1945 – Cold War: Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet Union embassy clerk, defects to Canada, exposing Soviet espionage in North America, signalling the beginning of the Cold War.
1945 – Iva Toguri D’Aquino, a Japanese American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist Tokyo Rose, is arrested in Yokohama.
1960 – Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) wins the gold medal in the light heavyweight boxing competition at the Olympic Games in Rome.
1969 – Mỹ Lai Massacre: U.S. Army Lieutenant William Calley is charged with six specifications of premeditated murder for the death of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai.
1970 – Jochen Rindt becomes the only driver to posthumously win the Formula One World Drivers’ Championship (in 1970), after being killed in practice for the Italian Grand Prix.
1972 – Munich massacre: A Palestinian terrorist group called “Black September” attacks and takes hostage 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. Two die in the attack and nine are murdered the following day.
1975 – Sacramento, California: Lynette Fromme attempts to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford.
1977 – Voyager Program: NASA launches the Voyager 1 spacecraft.
1978 – Camp David Accords: Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat begin peace discussions at Camp David, Maryland.
1980 – The Gotthard Road Tunnel opens in Switzerland as the world’s longest highway tunnel at 10.14 miles (16.32 km) stretching from Göschenen to Airolo.
1981 – The first women arrive at what becomes Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in the UK.
1984 – STS-41-D: The Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage.
1984 – Western Australia becomes the last Australian state to abolish capital punishment.
1991 – The current international treaty defending indigenous peoples, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989, comes into force.
2022 – Liz Truss is declared the winner of the UK Conservative Party leadership election, beating Rishi Sunak. [Then her period in office is outlasted by a lettuce…]
Births:
1735 – Johann Christian Bach, German-English viol player and composer (d. 1782).
1818 – Edmund Kennedy, Australian explorer and surveyor (d. 1848).
1826 – John Wisden, English cricketer and businessman (d. 1884).
1847 – Jesse James, American outlaw (d. 1882).
1867 – Amy Beach, American pianist and composer (d. 1944).
1883 – Otto Erich Deutsch, Austrian musicologist and scholar (d. 1967).
1899 – Helen Creighton, Canadian author and educator (d. 1989).
1902 – Jean Dalrymple, American playwright, producer, manager, and publicist (d. 1998).
1902 – Darryl F. Zanuck, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1979).
1904 – Vera Bradford, Australian pianist and educator (d. 2004).
1905 – Arthur Koestler, Hungarian-English journalist and author (d. 1983).
1912 – John Cage, American composer and theorist (d. 1992).
1928 – Joyce Hatto, English pianist and educator (d. 2006). [It isn’t known for certain whether she knew that her husband was releasing other pianists’ recordings as her own. She died a ten-minute walk from where I’m sitting.]
1929 – Bob Newhart, American comedian and actor.
1935 – Helen Gifford, Australian composer and educator.
1937 – Dick Clement, English director, producer, and screenwriter.
1939 – George Lazenby, Australian actor.
1940 – Raquel Welch, American actress and singer (d. 2023).
1942 – Werner Herzog, German actor, director, producer, and screenwriter.
1945 – Al Stewart, Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. [Played at the first-ever Glastonbury Festival in 1970, knew Yoko Ono before she met John Lennon, and shared a London flat with a young Paul Simon (who was collaborating with Bruce Woodley of The Seekers). Perhaps best known for “Year of the Cat”.]
1946 – Kyongae Chang, South Korean astrophysicist and academic
1946 – Freddie Mercury, British singer-songwriter and producer (d. 1991).
1946 – Loudon Wainwright III, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor.
1947 – Buddy Miles, American singer-songwriter and drummer (d. 2008).
1962 – Tracy Edwards, English sailor and coach.
1969 – Dweezil Zappa, American actor and musician.
1973 – Rose McGowan, American actress.
1974 – Lauren Jeska, British transgender fell runner convicted of the attempted murder of Ralph Knibbs.
1996 – Sigrid, Norwegian singer.
You must drink quickly as from a rapid stream that will not always flow.
1877 – Crazy Horse, American tribal leader (b. 1849).
1898 – Sarah Emma Edmonds, Canadian-American nurse, soldier, and spy (b. 1841).
1975 – Alice Catherine Evans, American microbiologist (b. 1881).
1982 – Douglas Bader, English captain and pilot (b. 1910). [Joined the RAF in 1928, and was commissioned in 1930. In December 1931, while attempting some aerobatics, he crashed and lost both his legs. Having been on the brink of death, he recovered, retook flight training, passed his check flights and then requested reactivation as a pilot. Although there were no regulations applicable to his situation, he was retired against his will on medical grounds. After the outbreak of the Second World War Bader returned to the RAF and was accepted as a pilot. He became a flying ace, credited with 22 aerial victories, four shared victories, six probables, one shared probable and 11 enemy aircraft damaged.]
1993 – Claude Renoir, French cinematographer (b. 1914).
1997 – Georg Solti, Hungarian conductor and director (b. 1912).
1997 – Mother Teresa, Albanian-Indian nun, missionary, and saint, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1910). [Hitch had her number, though…!]
“Year of the Cat,” my earworm today. A pretty good one, actually, thanks, Jez!
And a reminder when songs had beautiful melodies, poetic lyrics, colorful and varied harmonies, luscious arrangements, virtuosic performances, and other good things.
Gary Wright died; so “Dream Weaver” is stuck in my head (and driving my wife crazy).
Just saw that sad news: :o(
I always say even the forgettable tunes from the 60s and 70s are like g.d. Mozart compared to the simplistic stuff that is mainstreamed today.
I don’t agree with this rhetoric (I’m heterodox on this site concerning those nostalgic musical times of true rock and pop grandeur encompassed by The Beatles and nowadays the musical world is limp lazy shit and their is nothing here fitting of StephenB’s cornucopia of grandiose phrases. Cry and sigh…Plus, Rap sucks!
First off, tastes differ and the music you grew up with starts the taste, also gets augmented and reinforced by your culture/experiences, etc. and ‘your music’ will always be “the best.” No surprise there; it was the first thing you remembered as great music. Brains change yet music keeps them sane. (I think I made that up.) Anyway, I get tired of the trope…it’s very “get off my lawn.” And I don’t care about “data” showing popular songs not hitting great melody, no harmonies, multiple note yada, yada. It’s out there, and when Jerry posts laments on the subject, I’ve seen many readers supply many bands that got nothin’ on the 60’s scene. ‘Nuff said.
I own all of Al Stewart’s early LPs and was an active fan back in the day. I still play and enjoy them all.
I note that he still tours, usually in the US I believe.
That’s a lot of cat food.
The line about Peter Lorre is great verbal imagery.
Each cat spends a lot of time thinking about food.
I do not think our five spend a lot of time thinking about food, but they certainly do spend a lot of time eating it.
We must be doing something right and they all have individual likes and dislikes.
I read here that several big shots, including Obama, Trump, and Pence inserted notes into the wailing wall. According to this, Obama’s note said
He and his family are well, so the first part must have worked out — don’t know if the rest did. But if there isn’t a divine presence in the wall, why would so many people go there? I recall the brilliant Dinesh D’Souza arguing, along similar lines, for the existence of God.
I don’t know what Trump wrote, but it looks like Yahweh doesn’t like him. Maybe He will change his mind and let Trump off the hook — too early to tell. Or maybe it’s all a trial by Yahweh to see if Trump is a good instrument.
I can see Pence writing: ‘Please God, make him lose the election and go away. I can’t take this anymore.’
If they give the wall an address, we could all post our notes to it.
In other recent news, there is intel that Putin and Kim Jung il are going to meet, possibly in N. Korea, to talk about trade deals. It’s possible the Putin is seeking another source of weapons.
And meanwhile the folks at Burning Man are finally being allowed to leave.
I guess you meant Jong Un as Jong-il has been dead for some years😄
But still General Secretary of the party and the Chairman of the National Defence Commission.
A model necrocracy.
Although Kim Jong-il is Eternal leader of the Workers’ Party of Korea, of course (amongst similar “Eternal leader” titles).
When I went to Wickham Festival at the beginning of August, I had to wait two hours and then pay a farmer £5 to tow my car out of the mud bath that served as a car park with a tractor. So I know exactly what they are going through.
PZ Myers wrote an article yesterday about Burning Man. It was too mean spirited even for many of his followers and there was considerable push back.
Where do these dialogs come from? How are the words conveyed to you for later transcription? Inquiring minds need to know. I used to be able to interpret the desires of our cats pretty well, but their actual verbal musings? Never. How did you get to be so good at it?
I believe the meeting of these pathetic excuses for human beings is going to be in east Russia. The Un will probably use his armoured train but he is supposedly so paranoid that this is so obvious, easy to track, he may call the whole thing off.
If Puks wants ammunition from the Nth Koreans apparently their existing stockpile is old, it’s hard to say what use it will be, how the Russians can use it.
Maybe they just want to hold hands and tell each other how great they are.
According to the attending physician of Congress, poor Mitch ‘did not suffer a stroke or a seizure disorder when he froze during a press conference last week’. I think he just got bored and fell asleep while he was actually talking, like the chap Basil Corbett replaced in The Devil You Know, Yes Minister.
Yes, Minister/Prime Minister is one of (two of?) the greatest shows ever made.
Fucking hell I love Nigel Hawthorne so damn much. Everyone is brilliant — including the writers — but he’s just. so. good.