Category: Leon monologue

Tuesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

December 31, 2019 • 6:30 am

Well, it’s New Year’s Eve: Tuesday, December 31, 2019. Today’s Google Doodle show the tradition of New Year’s fireworks; clicking on it below (or on the Google page) takes one to a listing of New Year’s Eve events in Chicago. In your location, the Google Page will certainly direct to your local festivities.

Sadly, Hanukkah and Coynezaa are over, but last night I cooked a big strip steak and washed it down with a fine bottle of burgundy (h/t: Mark). This evening the new decade will start, and we’ll be writing “2019” on our checks for a while—that is, if anybody still writes checks.

Oh, I forgot: it’s the Seventh Day of Christmas (Swans A-Swimming). We’re back to winter weather in Chicago, with a high of only 31° F (-1° C) today, but no snow predicted for at least a week.

Besides New Year’s Eve, it’s National Vinegar Day (??), but also National Champagne Day. I doubt I’ll be awake to see in 2020. Every year when I was a kid, my parents would bring out a bottle of Cold Duck (yech!) to celebrate New Year, but then would fall asleep before midnight. They’d put the bottle back in the fridge and try again the next year. I think they had the same bottle for years! Although now I have truly good bubbly at home and actually drink it on other days, with respect to New Year’s Eve bedtime I’ve become my parents!

It’s also Hogmanay in Scotland,  World Peace Meditation Day, and Make Up your Mind Day (probably referring to those New Year’s resolutions that are never kept).

Stuff that happened on December 31 includes:

  • 870 – Battle of Englefield: The Vikings clash with ealdorman Æthelwulf of Berkshire. The invaders are driven back to Reading (East Anglia), many Danes are killed.
  • 1759 – Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.
  • 1853 – A dinner party is held inside a life-size model of an iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London, England.

Now that would have been something! Waterhouse was famous for making life-size models of extinct animals that he put on display at the Crystal Palace in London.

  • 1857 – Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, then a small logging town, as the capital of Canada.
  • 1878 – Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, filed for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine, and he was granted the patent in 1879.
  • 1907 – The first New Year’s Eve celebration is held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in Manhattan.

Below you can see a short history of the Times Square celebrations in video. I was there on, I believe, New Year’s Eve, 1972, when I was living in the city. Everybody was drunk, and so there was a palpable sense of common humanity, bonhomie, and joy. I wouldn’t do it again, as it was so crowded, but I’m glad I went once.

  • 1946 – President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II.
  • 1955 – General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year.
  • 1992 – Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved in what is dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.
  • 1999 – The first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor.
  • 1999 – The U.S. government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties.
  • 2009 – Both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occur.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1514 – Andreas Vesalius, Belgian anatomist, physician, and author (d. 1564)
  • 1869 – Henri Matisse, French painter and sculptor (d. 1954)
  • 1917 – Wilfrid Noyce, English mountaineer and author (d. 1962)
  • 1930 – Odetta, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actress (d. 2008)
  • 1943 – John Denver, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor (d. 1997)
  • 1948 – Donna Summer, American singer-songwriter (d. 2012)

From The Great Cat, here’s a photo of Matisse at his apartment in Nice with his beloved moggie Minouche:

And Matisse’s painting The Cat with Red Fish (Le Chat Aux Poissons Rouges):

Notables who ceased existing on December 31 were few, but include:

  • 1691 – Robert Boyle, Irish chemist and physicist (b. 1627)
  • 1877 – Gustave Courbet, French-Swiss painter and sculptor (b. 1819)
  • 1980 – Marshall McLuhan, Canadian philosopher and theorist (b. 1911)
  • 1999 – Elliot Richardson, American lawyer and politician, 69th United States Attorney General (b. 1920)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is making New Year’s resolutions:

Hili: New Year is coming.
A: So what?
Hili: In 2020 I will rationalize less.
(Photo: Paulina R.)
In Polish:
Hili: Zbliża się Nowy Rok.
Ja: I co?
Hili: W 2020 roku będę mniej racjonalizować.
(Zdjęcie: Paulina R.)

And in nearby Wloclawek, Leon is sporting a bow tie!

Leon: Oh dear—a red one would suit me better.
In Polish: Eeeee, czerwona by mi bardziej pasowała.

From Rhymes with Orange by Hilary Price (h/t: Jon):

From Jesus of the Day:

From Simon’s Cat:

Okay, there has to be some training or trick in this. You tell me! More tomorrow.

Two tweets from Heather Hastie via Ann German. Look at that adorable duckling!

https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/1208457454469517312

I didn’t get this until I saw it was outside a library. How cool and clever!

Tweets from Matthew, beginning with the last morning exodus of 2019 from Marsh Farm Barn. The animals rush excitedly to the Salad Bar:

Rare ancient Chinese cat art:

Notice that the magnet doesn’t actually touch the copper:

https://twitter.com/science2_space/status/1211402804587352066?s=11

First a goat and then a llama. What a day!

Raccoon’s got her back:

 

 

Monday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

December 30, 2019 • 6:45 am

It’s now Monday, December 30, 2019: the Sixth Day of Christmas (Geese a’-Laying), but, more important, the last day of both Hanukkah and of Coynezaa—the day on which Our Savior J.C. was born and, today, becomes officially old.

And oy, it’s National Bicarbonate of Soda Day, presumably meant to help you recover from holiday overeating. But it’s also Bacon Day (not kosher) and Falling Needles Family Fest Day, marking the senescence of the Christmas tree and symbolizing the enroaching decrepitude of our Savior J.C.

News of the Day: The Chinese scientist who created the two CRISPR babies has been sentenced to three years in jail (see the link, h/t: Matthew). He’s also been fined $425,000 and is banned for research on reproduction for life.

Stuff that happened on December 30 include:

  • 1066 – Granada massacre: A Muslim mob storms the royal palace in Granada, crucifies Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacres most of the Jewish population of the city.
  • 1916 – Russian mystic and advisor to the Tsar Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was murdered by a loyalist group led by Prince Felix Yusupov. His frozen, partially-trussed body was discovered in a Moscow river three days later.

Here’s the bizarre fellow:

With wife and daughter. As you may remember, he was a hard man to kill. First he was poisoned with both wine and cakes, and then shot. That didn’t do him in, so he was shot again and thrown into the river.

  • 1922 – The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is formed.
  • 1965 – Ferdinand Marcos becomes President of the Philippines.
  • 2006 – Former President of Iraq Saddam Hussein is executed.

Yes, my birthday marks the execution of two loons.

Notables born on this day include:

  • AD 39 – Titus, Roman emperor (d. 81)
  • 1865 – Rudyard Kipling, Indian-English author and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1936)
  • 1910 – Paul Bowles, American composer and author (d. 1999)
  • 1928 – Bo Diddley, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2008)
  • 1931 – Skeeter Davis, American singer-songwriter (d. 2004)

Davis, of course, was famous for her monster hit “The End of the World“, released in 1962 and produced by Chet Atkins. It made it to #2 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and country charts, thus being one of the first country crossover songs. (It was also recorded by The Carpenters.) It was played at both Atkins’s funeral (2001) and Davis’s funderal at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville (2004).

  • 1935 – Sandy Koufax, American baseball player and sportscaster
  • 1942– Michael Nesmith, American musician and songwriter
  • 1945 – Davy Jones, English singer-songwriter and actor (d. 2012) [JAC note: two Monkees were born on my birthday]
  • 1946 – Patti Smith, American singer-songwriter and poet
  • 1949 – Jerry Coyne, superannuated evolutionary biologist, your host
  • 1959 – Tracey Ullman, English-American actress, singer, director, and screenwriter
  • 1965 – Heidi Fleiss, American procurer
  • 1975 – Tiger Woods, American golfer
  • 1984 – LeBron James, American basketball player, producer and businessman

Those whose lives were quenched on December 30 include:

  • 1916 – Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic (b. 1869) [see above]
  • 1970 – Sonny Liston, American boxer (b. 1932)
  • 1979 – Richard Rodgers, American playwright and composer (b. 1902)
  • 2004 – Artie Shaw, American clarinet player, composer, and bandleader (b. 1910)
  • 2006 – Saddam Hussein, Iraqi general and politician, 5th President of Iraq (b. 1937)
  • 2012 – Carl Woese, American microbiologist and biophysicist (b. 1928)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, I am happy that Hili sent me birthday wishes!

Hili: Do you still have that delicious bacon in the fridge?
A: Why do you ask?
Hili: I will eat it to celebrate Jerry’s birthday.
(Photo: Paulina R.)
In Polish:
Hili: Czy w lodówce jest jeszcze ten pyszny bekon?
Ja: Dlaczego pytasz?
Hili: Zjem go, żeby uczcić urodziny Jerrego.
(Zdjęcie: Paulina R.)

And in Wloclawek, Leon is engaged in his usual activity: waiting for noms.

Leon: I could eat something.

In Polish: Zjadłbym coś.

Reader Rick tells me I’m featured on Anu Garg’s “A Word A Day” section of today’s Wordsmith (I don’t know that site); to wit:

I’ll Follow the Sun (cat version):

An oldie but a goodie from Literary Jokes and Puns (h/t: vanewimsey):

From Jesus of the Day:

A tweet from reader Barry. Is this a therapy fish or a therapy human?

Tweets from Dr. Cobb, beginning with the daily egress of fowls from the Marsh Farm Barn. Sadly, I got no shout-out, though I asked. But there are four flying ducks (and a partridge in a pear tree):

And now a peacock has joined the menagerie:

Matthew and I both think this one is real, though I suppose it could be bogus:

https://twitter.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/status/1210839147658850306?s=11

I wonder if the cat does this to anyone who sings?:

Another lovely cat/staff interaction:

 

The battle of Wtaerloo, with this key from Matthew:

Blue = French
Solid block = infantry
Diagonal block = cavalry
“tour” in tweet = “tout”

A lot going on in these videos. First, an obstreperous young goat. And then a humorous mongoose/hornbill video. Make sure the sound is up for the second:

 

Saturday: Hili dialogue

December 28, 2019 • 6:30 am

Good morning on the last Caturday of the year: Saturday, December 28, 2019. It is the fourth day of Christmas (“calling birds”), the sixth full day of Hanukkah, and the fourth and antepenultimate day of Coynezaa. It’s National Boxed Chocolates Day, and thanks to the largesse of readers, I am now in possession of my favorite boxed chocolates (and America’s best commercial chocolates): See’s.

It’s also Call a Friend Day, International Jewish Book Day, and National Card Playing Day.

Stuff that happened on December 28 includes:

  • 169 BC – The menorah is lit to rededicate the Holy Temple of Jerusalem after two centuries of foreign rule and religious oppression and a seven-year revolt. The menorah burns for eight days without the sufficient fuel needed to do so, birthing the holiday Hanukkah.

I may be a secular Jew, but I don’t believe a word of it.

  • 1836 – South Australia and Adelaide are founded.
  • 1879 – Tay Bridge disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom collapses as a train passes over it, killing 75.

By all means read William McGonagall‘s poem on this incident, “The Tay Bridge Disaster.” McGonagall was one of the two worst poets in history (the other is Julia A. Moore, “the sweet singer of Michigan”), and this poem is a great specimen of his work.

  • 1885 – Indian National Congress, a political party of India, is founded in Bombay Presidency, British India.
  • 1895 – The Lumière brothers perform for their first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines.
  • 1895 – Wilhelm Röntgen publishes a paper detailing his discovery of a new type of radiation, which later will be known as x-rays.

For this Röntgen won the first Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded in 1901.

Here’s a 2.75-minute summary of that great game:

Finally,

  • 1973 – The United States Endangered Species Act is signed into law by Pres. Richard Nixon.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1856 – Woodrow Wilson, American historian and politician, 28th President of the United States, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1924)
  • 1882 – Arthur Eddington, English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician (d. 1944)
  • 1902 – Mortimer J. Adler, American philosopher and author (d. 2001)
  • 1903 – John von Neumann, Hungarian-American mathematician and physicist (d. 1957)
  • 1934 – Maggie Smith, English actress
  • 1944 – Kary Mullis, American biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2019)
  • 1954 – Denzel Washington, American actor, director, and producer
  • 1978 – Chris Coyne, Australian footballer and manager
  • 1979 – Noomi Rapace, Swedish actress

Those who ceased to exist on December 28 include:

  • 1937 – Maurice Ravel, French pianist and composer (b. 1875)
  • 1945 – Theodore Dreiser, American novelist and journalist (b. 1871)
  • 1983 – Dennis Wilson, American drummer, songwriter, and producer (b. 1944)
  • 1984 – Sam Peckinpah, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1925)
  • 1993 – William L. Shirer, American journalist and historian (b. 1904)
  • 2004 – Susan Sontag, American novelist, essayist, critic, and playwright (b. 1933)

The September 23 issue of The New Yorker has a free online review by Janet Malcolm of a new biography of Susan Sontag written by Benjamin Moser. It’s well worth a read to learn about this fiercely smart and deeply complex, self-deprecating woman. A quote:

“I loved Susan,” Leon Wieseltier said. “But I didn’t like her.” He was, Moser writes, speaking for many others.

  • 2016 – Debbie Reynolds, American actress, singer and dancer (b. 1932) [As I noted yesterday, Reynolds died just a day after her daughter Carrie Fisher.]

Speaking of Ravel, this is one of my favorite pieces by him: the “sunrise” (“Lever du Jour”) segment of his ballet Daphnis and Chloe Suite No. 2. Tell me if it doesn’t evoke all the emotions of watching the sun rise. In fact, it sounds like the sun rising, even thought that happens silently (the birds chirp, however, and you can hear them in the flutes). I’m no classical-music expert, but to me this is one of the most beautiful pieces of that music ever written. (Yes, others will disagree. Take a number. . . .. )

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,  Hili is taking it easy:

A: The holidays are over.
Hili: Not for everybody.
In Polish:
Ja: Święta się skończyły.
Hili: Jak dla kogo.

In Wloclawek, Leon and Mitek are cuddling again. They are best buddies! Mietek is recovering from his broken knee, and has completely healed from his abdominal injuries.

Leon: Is Christmas over already?

In Polish: Już po Świętach?

This dramatic sneeze of a deer was posted on Facebook by Beth:

A clever d*g photo from Jesus of the Day:

From Amazing Things:

Again we have a full set of tweets from Matthew. First, Smudge the Cat is impeding the rush hour at Marsh Farm Barn:

At last!:  the daily flight of the fowl from Marsh Farm Barn to the outside world. The birds get a lovely breakfast today:

And a special view of Marsh Farm ducks ducking:

Two “big cat” tweets. First, a jaguar on a camera trap:

Is this really the world’s biggest cat? See below the tweet for the answer.

Well, it’s the rarest subspecies of big cat in the world, not species. It is the Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis), a subspecies of leopard that has a population of about 90 individuals.

This is your cat on drugs:

https://twitter.com/mr_meowwwgi/status/1210493391575953409?s=11

And this is your cat at the barber:

It’s very sad that this species is now extinct; read more about it here (it hasn’t been seen in over a decade).

 

This tweet will take you to an amusing thread of bad places people had to sleep when visiting others at Christmas:

And another brain dump by the loon that we have to call our “President”:

Friday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

December 27, 2019 • 6:30 am

It’s Friday, December 27, 2019: the third day of Christmas (French Hens Day), the fifth full day of Hanukkah, and the third day of Coynezaa. It’s also National Fruitcake Day: the day when everybody circulates the world’s one existing fruitcake to somebody they’ve neglected (and want to punish). It’s also Visit the Zoo Day, though I’m not a big fan of zoos and won’t be going.  In North Korea it’s Constitution Day. Although I had no idea they had a constitution, you can find more information about it here, though I don’t see anything about The Right to Starve or about The Right to Put Three Generations of Relatives in a Labor Camps if One of Them Offends the State.

The weather is now predicted to be above freezing for at least a week: it’s an extraordinarily warm Coynezaa season in Chicago. The high today is predicted to be 44° F (7° C), and yesterday’s high—61° F or 16° C—set an all-time temperature record for December 26 in Chicago, beating the previous record by 6 full degrees Fahrenheit.

Stuff that happened on December 27 includes:

Read about the event: a group of non-Quaker citizens of Flushing (now in New York) petitioned governor Peter Stuyvesant to lift the ban on Quaker worship. It was a plea for religious tolerance, and it failed. Stuyvesant dissolved the local government and arrested the leaders. The Flushing Remonstrance articulated freedom of religion but did not create it.

The first is a big happening:

  • 1831 – Charles Darwin embarks on his journey aboard HMS Beagle, during which he will begin to formulate his theory of evolution.
  • 1845 – Ether anesthetic is used for childbirth for the first time by Dr. Crawford Long in Jefferson, Georgia.
  • 1911 – “Jana Gana Mana”, the national anthem of India, is first sung in the Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress.

The song, both lyrics and music, were written by the polymathic artist Rabindranath Tagore. Here are a number of famous Indian vocalists singing it. I have to say that it’s a good song—certainly far better than the U.S. National Anthem:

  • 1927 – Kern and Hammerstein’s musical play Show Boat, considered to be the first true American musical play, opens at the Ziegfeld Theatre on Broadway.

The movie version of Show Boat was filmed nine years after the play, and features this song, here sung by the great Paul Robeson. It’s a remarkably anti-racist song for its era, though the Broadway version of the song had the “n-word” instead of “darkies”. Robeson’s voice is ineffably thrilling:

  • 1929 – Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin orders the “liquidation of the kulaks as a class”.
  • 1935 – Regina Jonas is ordained as the first female rabbi in the history of Judaism.

Jonas was ordained as a rabbi in Germany. Being a woman, she couldn’t find a pulpit, but did religious work until she was sent to the internment camp Theresienstadt by the Nazis in 1942. There she worked in a a rabbinical capacity until 1944, when she was moved to Auschwitz and killed immediately at age 42. Here’s her photo:

How big? Wikipedia explains:

The Cave of Swallows, also called the Cave of the Swallows (Spanish: Sótano de las Golondrinas), is an open air pit cave in the Municipality of Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, Mexico. The elliptical mouth, on a slope of karst, is 49 by 62 m wide and is undercut around all of its perimeter, widening to a room approximately 303 by 135 meters (994 by 442 ft) wide.The floor of the cave is a 333-meter (1092 ft) freefall drop from the lowest side of the opening, with a 370-meter (1,214 ft) drop from the highest side, making it the largest known cave shaft in the world, the second deepest pit in Mexico and perhaps the 11th deepest in the world.

Here’s an Attenborough video segment about the cave that kicked off an episode of BBC’s “Planet Earth” i 2006.

  • 1968 – Apollo program: Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first orbital manned mission to the Moon.
  • 1978 – Spain becomes a democracy after 40 years of fascist dictatorship.
  • 2007 – Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in a shooting incident.

Notables born on this day include:

  • 1822 – Louis Pasteur, French chemist and microbiologist (d. 1895)
  • 1901 – Marlene Dietrich, German-American actress and singer (d. 1992)
  • 1915 – William Masters, American gynecologist, author, and academic (d. 2001)
  • 1943 – Cokie Roberts, American journalist and author (d. 2019)
  • 1948 – Gérard Depardieu, French-Russian actor
  • 1963 – Gaspar Noé, Argentinian-French director and screenwriter
  • 1971 – Savannah Guthrie, American television journalist

Those who found eternal quietus on December 27 include:

  • 1834 – Charles Lamb, English essayist and poet (b. 1775)
  • 1938 – Calvin Bridges, American geneticist and academic (b. 1889)
  • 1950 – Max Beckmann, German-American painter and sculptor (b. 1884)
  • 2003 – Alan Bates, English actor (b. 1934)
  • 2012 – Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr., American general and engineer (b. 1934)
  • 2015 – Meadowlark Lemon, American basketball player and minister (b. 1932)
  • 2016 – Carrie Fisher, American actress, screenwriter, author, producer, and speaker (b. 1956)

Here’s Beckmann’s “Still Life with Cats” (1917). Beckmann did a fair few renditions of cats that you can see here.

The day after Carrie Fisher died, most likely from drug abuse, her mother, the actress Debbie Reynolds, also died. Wikipedia says this:

The day after Fisher’s death, her mother Debbie Reynolds suffered a stroke at the home of son Todd, where the family was planning Fisher’s burial arrangements. She was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she died later that afternoon.  According to Todd Fisher, Reynolds had said, “I want to be with Carrie” immediately prior to suffering the stroke. On January 5, 2017, a joint private memorial was held for Fisher and Reynolds. Fisher was cremated while her mother was entombed. A portion of her ashes were laid to rest beside Reynolds in a crypt at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills. The remainder of those ashes are held in a giant, novelty Prozac pill.

If you don’t believe that last bit, it’s true. Here’s a photo from The Hollywood Reporter of Carrie’s brother Todd carrying her ashes in the giant capsule:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is doing her job, such as it is, as editor of Listy:

Hili: What are you writing about?
A: About productivity.
Hili: Continue; I will just sit here.
In Polish:
Hili: O czym piszesz?
Ja: O wydajności.
Hili: Pisz dalej, ja sobie tu posiedzę.

And in nearby Wloclawek, Leon is catting:

Leon: Hmm, I would like to eat something.
In Polish: Hm, zjadłbym coś.

My college pal Stash Krod posted this Kliban cartoon on his Facebook page, and it is indeed a real Kliban cartoon. It reminds me of Hitchens’s famous “My own opinion is enough for me” remark:

From Jesus of the Day: a problem I always faced as a kid:

From Cole and Marmalade (I may have posted it before, but it’s a winner):

All our tweets today come from Matthew Cobb, mainly because no other regular has sent me any. Fortunately, Matthew has been generous with his “gifting” of tweets.

First, the Friday egress of the fowl from Marsh Farm Barn. Rush hour was slightly delayed because Smudge the Cat wouldn’t get off the door, and also played with the Christmas ornaments:

Friday Rush Hour finally began, with Bumblebee the Sheep coming out first, followed by Lucy the Goat. And, once again, Cuthbert the Goose gets a name check while most of the ducks are ignored.

 

The appointing of federal judges, which have a lifetime sinecure, is a particularly important job of the U.S. President. Unfortunately, we have a madman and a bull-goose loon conservative as President, and so we have the following. (You probably recall, if you’re an Arican, that Brown v. Board of Education prohibited segregation in the public schools.)

https://twitter.com/deepnotion2/status/1210158226232283136?s=11

Well, come January 1, recreational marijuana will be legal in Illinois. . .

The picture on the duvet cover below is, of course, from the movie American Beauty. This would make a great Christmas present!

I don’t know what Ms. Vosshall is on about: this is the natural order of things:

I love muscovy ducks (they’re not artificially selected mallards, but members of another species). They’re sweet and friendly, and wag their tails constantly.

I can’t remember if I posted this before, but it’s worth seeing again. Only in Paris could a general strike produce something like this (note that it’s Matthew’s own tweet):

Matthew’s comment:

A lovely pensive cat. According to translate, it is sitting watching its staff in the bath. My cats generally look more alarmed when I am in the bath, but that doesn’t happen very often.

I hasten to add that Matthew doesn’t mean that he doesn’t bathe often; what he means is that he usually showers rather than sitting in the tub. (I take about one bath a year; I don’t see the point of what my father called “sitting in your own schmutz.) And here’s the Google translation:

I’m sorry! Now bathing! That is this sight! I have been taking a bath with me since I was born, so this face on my side during my bathing. I sleep immediately after taking a bath m(_ _)m

Tuesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

December 24, 2019 • 7:00 am

Good morning on the day before Christmas: Tuesday, December 24, 2019. It’s National Eggnog Day, and I’ll avoid the libation since I never had a version I enjoyed.  It’s also the very last day you can buy holiday gifts, and I’m told that  Amazon is still offering one-day shipping. Good luck with that! It’s also the second full day of Hanukkah, and only one day before the beginning of Coynezaa, honoring the birth of the prophet JC (peace be upon him).

It was extremely warm (for Chicago) yesterday, and will be warm through the whole week (today’s high will be about 51° F or 11° C), so we have zero chance of a white Christmas in Chicago. And although it will be even warmer tomorrow, we won’t approach the record for Chicago on Christmas Day, which was 64° F (18° C), set in 1982.

Riddle: When is a Ceiling Cat not a Ceiling Cat?
Answer: When it’s abed.

Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus) has caught a bug, and will be recumbent at home today. Therefore, posting will be light. But it’s the holidays and everyone should be celebrating anyway.

Here are some of the Christmas Eve festivities around the world:

And a nice article on what the people working in Antarctica are having for Christmas dinner. (Pizza, for one thing.)

Stuff that happened on December 24 includes:

  • 1737 – The Marathas defeat the combined forces of the Mughal Empire, Rajputs of Jaipur, Nizam of Hyderabad, Nawab of Awadh and Nawab of Bengal in the Battle of Bhopal.
  • 1777 – Kiritimati, also called Christmas Island, is discovered by James Cook.
  • 1826 – The Eggnog Riot at the United States Military Academy begins that night, wrapping up the following morning.

Have a read about this drunken kerfuffle at West Point. Nineteen cadets were found guilty, and most of those were expelled.

  • 1865 – Jonathan Shank and Barry Ownby form The Ku Klux Klan.
  • 1871 – The Opera Aida opens in Cairo, Egypt.
  • 1906 – Radio: Reginald Fessenden transmits the first radio broadcast; consisting of a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech.
  • 1914 – World War I: The “Christmas truce” begins.

There’s a lot of misinformation about this truce, which was the fraternization of German and US/UK soldiers during World War I, but some of it is true. From Wikipedia:

 In the week leading up to the 25th, French, German, and British soldiers crossed trenches to exchange seasonal greetings and talk. In some areas, men from both sides ventured into no man’s land on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to mingle and exchange food and souvenirs. There were joint burial ceremonies and prisoner swaps, while several meetings ended in carol-singing. Men played games of football with one another, creating one of the most memorable images of the truce. Fighting continued in some sectors, while in others the sides settled on little more than arrangements to recover bodies.

Here’s that “memorable” image from the Torygraph: a Christmas truce soccer game between Germans and Brits, with the photo from the Imperial War Museum (the Wikipedia article, by the way, is interesting):

  • 1943 – World War II: U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower is named Supreme Allied Commander for the Invasion of Normandy.
  • 1968 – Apollo program: The crew of Apollo 8 enters into orbit around the Moon, becoming the first humans to do so. They performed ten lunar orbits and broadcast live TV pictures.

And let us not forget Christmas Eve in Auschwitz in 1940. This tweet was forwarded by Matthew Cobb:

Notables born on Christmas Eve include:

  • 1809 – Kit Carson, American general (d. 1868)
  • 1822 – Matthew Arnold, English poet and critic (d. 1888)
  • 1905 – Howard Hughes, American businessman, engineer, and pilot (d. 1976)
  • 1907 – I. F. Stone, American journalist and author (d. 1989)
  • 1922 – Ava Gardner, American actress, most beautiful woman who ever lived (d. 1990)
  • 1923 – George Patton IV, American general (d. 2004)
  • 1946 – Jeff Sessions, American captain, lawyer, and politician, 44th Attorney General of Alabama and 84th Attorney General of the United States
  • 1960 – Carol Vorderman, English television host

Those who turned toes up on Christmas Eve include:

  • 1524 – Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer and politician, Governor of Portuguese India (b. 1469)
  • 1863 – William Makepeace Thackeray, English author and poet (b. 1811)
  • 1873 – Johns Hopkins, American businessman and philanthropist (b. 1795)
  • 1914 – John Muir, Scottish-American geologist, botanist, and author, founded Sierra Club (b. 1838)
  • 1984 – Peter Lawford, English-American actor (b. 1923)
  • 1994 – John Boswell, American historian, author, and academic (b. 1947)

Boswell (we called him “Jeb”) lived across the hall from me sophomore year at William & Mary, and already was a star headed for academic success. He later became a renowned professor of history at Yale, specializing in homosexuality and religion. He was gay, but back in college you kept such things under wraps. Boswell died of AIDS in the Yale infirmary on this day in 1994. He was only 47 years old.

Other deaths on Christmas Eve:

  • 2008 – Harold Pinter, English playwright, screenwriter, director, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1930)
  • 2016 Richard Adams, English author (b. 1920)

Do you remember the ending of Adams’s great book Watership Down, when Hazel dies. It’s sad but beautiful:

It seemed to Hazel that he would not be needing his body any more, so he left it lying on the edge of the ditch, but stopped for a moment to watch his rabbits and to try to get used to the extraordinary feeling that strength and speed were flowing inexhaustibly out of him into their sleek young bodies and healthy senses.

“You needn’t worry about them,” said his companion. “They’ll be all right—and thousands like them. If you’ll come along, I’ll show you what I mean.”

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is helping prepare for the holidays. (Note her tongue is out.)

Hili: It’s tidied up, we can start the holiday.
A: Who did the tidying up?
Hili: It’s not important, the important thing is who was overeeeing it.
(Photo: Paulina R.)
In Polish:
Hili: Posprzątane, możemy zaczynać święta.
Ja: Kto posprzątał?
Hili: Nie ważne, ważne kto pilnował.
(Zdjęcie: Paulina R.)

In Wloclawek, Leon wishes people a good holiday:

Leon: Merry Christmas!

In Polish: “Wesołych i spokojnych Świąt!”

A cartoon by Jim Benton, sent in by Mark Sturtevant:

From Jesus of the Day:

Also from Jesus of the Day: a fantastic invention:

A tweet from reader Barry, who describes it like this: “I love how the cat knows that, despite the bounty, something’s not right.”  Indeed!

The cat is very beautiful; does anybody know what breed it is?

https://twitter.com/BestVideosviral/status/1208421891775619072

Also from Barry, a tweet about Ohio’s new “can’t-penalize-religious-answers” law:

Six tweets from Dr. Cobb. It’s a busy Christmas Eve rush hour at Marsh Farm Barn. Cuthbert and all the fowl are looking forward to a good feed tomorrow!

And this is just awesome:

Monster cats!!

I’m not British enough to understand the humor here, but explanations are welcome:

Live and learn (I sure didn’t know this!):

And Matthew’s new book will soon be out; I’m reading a proof copy. It’s good!

Sunday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

December 15, 2019 • 6:30 am

Good morning on Sunday, December 15, 2019. We have a chance of snow today, and it’s a bit chilly (22° F, -6° C). Botany Pond is frozen over, but Honey is down at the Mississippi Delta with her feet up, enjoying the warmth and eating grain.

But oy gewalt: it’s National Gingerbread Latte Day, celebrating the creeping candification of coffee (Coyne’s Fourth Law of Life: all snacks and drinks gravitate asymptotically towards candy), but also National Lemon Cupcake Day.

It’s also Bill of Rights Day, celebrating Virginia’s 1791 ratification of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which officially made enough states to make the Bill effectively part of the Constitution.  It’s also International Tea Day and Cat Herders’ Day,  celebrating those with difficult jobs, like these cowpokes (this is, by the way, the best commercial ever made, bar none):

There’s a scant nine shopping days left until the onset of the season’s best holiday: Coynezaa.

Stuff that happened on December 15 includes:

  • 1791 – The United States Bill of Rights becomes law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly.
  • 1890 – Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull is killed on Standing Rock Indian Reservation, leading to the Wounded Knee Massacre.
  • 1933 – The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution officially becomes effective, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol.
  • 1939 – Gone with the Wind (highest inflation adjusted grossing film) receives its premiere at Loew’s Grand Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
  • 1961 – Adolf Eichmann is sentenced to death after being found guilty by an Israeli court of 15 criminal charges, including charges of crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, and membership of an outlawed organization.
  • 1973 – The American Psychiatric Association votes 13–0 to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the DSM-II.
  • 1978 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will recognize the People’s Republic of China and sever diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
  • 2001 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 spent to stabilize it, without fixing its famous lean.

Notables born on this day include:

Here’s Guardroom with Monkeys by David Teniers. Wikipedia “unpacks” it:

Teniers combined the genres of singerie [JAC: Money scenes!] and guardroom scene in the composition Guardroom with monkeys (Private collection). At a first glance, the Guardroom with Monkeys is no different from other guardroom scenes. It is clear from the round moon above the door that the scene is set late at night. The off-duty monkeys have removed their armor, stowed their pikes and rolled up their company flag and placed it against the far wall. Like their human counterparts, the monkey soldiers are loitering about, some of them are drinking and smoking, others are playing games. At the door a cat wearing respectable civilian clothes is led into the room by two monkeys who restrain it. The contrast between the properly dressed cat and the bizarre outfit of the monkey soldiers, one of which is wearing a funnel on his head while another has an upturned pot on his head, raises doubt as to the legitimacy of the monkeys’ authority. As was customary in singeries, the dress and behaviour of the monkeys highlight the foolishness of human undertakings. Teniers may also have intended to criticize the bloated military in the Southern Netherlands in the 1630s.

Singerie avec chat!
  • 1852 – Henri Becquerel, French physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1908)
  • 1892 – J. Paul Getty, American-English businessman and art collector, founded Getty Oil (d. 1976)
  • 1916 – Maurice Wilkins, New Zealand-English physicist and biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2004)
  • 1919 – Max Yasgur, American dairy farmer and host of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair (d. 1973)
  • 1942 – Dave Clark, English drummer, songwriter, and producer
  • 1981 – Michelle Dockery, English actress. [I watched Downton Abbey only a couple of times at the behest of friends, but couldn’t get into it. I was, however, much taken with Lady Mary.)

Those who croaked on December 15 include:

  • 1683 – Izaak Walton, English author (b. 1593)
  • 1890 – Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa Lakota tribal chief (b. 1831)
  • 1943 – Fats Waller, American singer-songwriter and pianist (b. 1904)
  • 1944 – Glenn Miller, American bandleader and composer (b. 1904)
  • 1950 – Vallabhbhai Patel, Indian lawyer and politician, 1st Deputy Prime Minister of India (b. 1875)
  • 1958 – Wolfgang Pauli, Austrian-Swiss physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1900)
  • 1966 – Walt Disney, American animator, director, producer, and screenwriter, co-founded The Walt Disney Company (b. 1901)
  • 2011 – Christopher Hitchens, English-American essayist, literary critic, and journalist (b. 1949)

Here’s a 60 Minutes piece on Hitchens, produced when he was undergoing cancer treatment:

And a collection of Hitchens in confrontational moments:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is resting in the basket where they normally keep the firewood:

A; Are you comfortable in this basket?
Hili: No, but I have to show somehow that I am in possession of it.
In Polish:
Ja: Wygodnie ci w tym koszyku?
Hili: Nie, ale muszę jakoś zaznaczyć, że objęłam go w posiadanie.

And in nearby Wloclawek, the loving brothers Mietek and Leon await their noms:

Leon: Do you think they are preparing our supper?
In Polish: Myślisz,że szykują nam kolację?

Another photo of the pair with Elzbieta’s caption: “The big brother washes the ears of the baby brother.”

In Polish: Starszy brat umyje uszka.

Two “cat memes” from Jesus of the Day:

His eyes may be lit up now, but destruction is in them, too. . .

And this one contributed by Merilee:

 

Larry the Cat, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, who lives at 10 Downing Street, weighs in on the election:

From Matthew we have three tweets about his major source of solace: Marsh Farm and its beats. First, the daily egress of animals from the Marsh Farm barn, with Smudge the cat supervising:

And the farm ducks demonstrating their name. Can you spot the smart one?

And a look back when Smudge, the farm cat, was a kitten:

From reader Barry. I may have published this before, but it’s always good to get an evolution refresher:

Cat kung fu from Heather Hastie:

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1205274246940725248

Also from Heather. I wish there was a sound track on this one, as I bet you’d hear some kitten-growling:

https://twitter.com/AwwwwCats/status/1204399100432658432

And the last word goes to Titania. Some readers don’t find her—or rather, Andrew Doyle—funny, but I think this is great:

Oh, here’s another. She’s a gold mine, I tell you! And look at Boris Derangement Syndrome:

Sunday: Hili dialogue, Mietek and Leon monologue, farm rush hour and some winter morning tweets

December 1, 2019 • 2:59 am

by Matthew Cobb

Good morning! This is the ultimate Cobb morning post – The Boss will be back at the controls tomorrow, full of penguins.

In Poland, Hili is pen-sive (sorry not sorry):

A: Hili, where is my pen?
Hili: Under your desk.
In Polish:
Ja: Hili, gdzie jest mój długopis?
Hili: Pod biurkiem.

 

Mietek the kitten is healing nicely, and has become great friends with Leon. Malgorzata sent a picture and a report:
Here is a picture of Leon and Mietek sitting on the same armchair. Elzbieta wrote to me that Leon had just very thoroughly washed the whole kitten. They are friends!
And Elzbieta converted it into a Leon Monologue:

Leon: I washed his ears and he fell asleep.

In Polish: Umyłem mu uszy i zasnął.
Down on farm it’s, well – you know:

 

Because it’s 1 December, we have set up our advent calendar. No chocolate, just little pictures. For the last few years, we have bought one from painter and printmaker Angela Harding:

Here’s a more traditional view of December, taken from the UK children’s Ladybird book series:

 

In Macclesfield, Abi Gilmore caught morning’s minstrel, dawn’s delight. Sound on:

A wintry reintroduction:

A wintry web:

A wintry scene by one of Jerry’s favourite singers:

 

Tweets sent in by The Boss:

If you think Twitter is bad, have a look at the comments on YouTube:

From Heather Hastie – ‘tweet of the week’:

And in a similar vein:

 

A reader asked Jerry this question, who asked me, who asked Twitter. There doesn’t seem to be a simple answer, though if you have any recommendations, chip in below:

Finally, to link with Jerry’s recent amazing trip, here’s a reminder that today is the 60th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty. Some lovely pics in Emma Johnston’s thread: