-
2009: Day 175

Six hundred thirty five years ago (1374) the streets of Aachen, Germany might have looked like a mad music video thanks to an outbreak of St. John's Dance. Hallucinations, twitching and jumping until they collapsed from exhaustion -- and the kids things raves are something new. Interestingly, the closest modern medicine's come to explaining it is ergot poisoning, though that doesn't account for the dancing mania element.

Cosmic ray discoverer Victor Francis Hess manifested this day in 1883, unwittingly enabling the creation of the Fantastic Four decades later.

Pablo Picasso's first public exhibition opened today in 1901.

Crime/mystery writer Lawrence Block (1938) turns 71 today. Somewhat more spectacularly, a meteorite estimated to be approximately 450 tons exploded roughly 12 miles over Chicora, Pennsylvania.

The Yardbirds' guitarist Jeff Beck (1944) turns 65 today.

Economist, writer and commentator Robert Reich entered the world's ledger today in 1946.

Robocop's partner, Anne Lewis -- okay, actress (and environmentalist/cancer activist) Nancy Allen (1950) turns 59 today. Coincidentally, so was Robocop (and Buckaroo Banzai) himself, Peter Weller, albeit three years earlier, in 1947. Sharing the day and year with Peter was Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac. This same day, as I suppose ardent UFO enthusiasts know, Kenneth Arnold made what has come to be seen as the first widely-reported UFO sighting. The media storm that followed saw the term "flying saucer" coined by the press.

Comics artist Mike Weiringo was born today in 1963.

Finally, fans of the U.S version of The Office may want to know that Mindy "Kelly Kapoor" Kaling turns 30 today.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

(TV/streaming video) New & Leftover Items, a Touch of 2024, and some Nostalgic Forensics

-
Image
    So much else calling out for attention, and with watchables already piled up, finding even more things to watch doesn't seem like much of a sane prospect. I'm not even fishing around for new things at the moment, as I need to get some other things done and make some attempt to round out my life a little.       This week on Paramount+, the fourth season of the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks came to a satisfying end. A manic pace of in-universe nods continues to give it the Star Trekiest of Trek feels with the casual, plot-essential trivia drawn from decades of Star Trek shows, woven throughout.       Also there, the contemporary Frasier series' first season hits its halfway point with episode five. I'm enjoying it, but it continues to walk a wobbly line as some of it works smoothly while other moments reek of formula, with some of each overlapping. I'd be very interested in seeing how well or not this new series works on its o...
Read more

Catching Up with Old Friends (Streaming media series)

-
Image
   I haven't done any blogging posts on current and streaming media since November 3rd, which broke a streak of weekly ones that had been going since September of 2019 - albeit as part of a different, group, blog. As with many such inactions, it wasn't intended as a formal stoppage, just a momentary delay, but here it is five weeks later. This post's linking theme is the return of fondly-remembered characters. It really should include the recent arrival to streaming of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny over on Disney+, but I haven't really mustered my reactions to that. Instead, I'll stick with two other nostalgic items that arrived this week.       Yesterday saw the arrival of the season finale, episode ten, of Kelsey Grammar's return of Frasier Crane in the 2023 iteration of Frasier , over on Paramount+.      The series picked up on the titular character in the present, whom we haven't seen since his 11-season first series wr...
Read more

Oct.13-19 - More Returns and Changes

-
Image
      Even though I've already watched the pair of debut episodes of Frasier (see next paragraph), and this week's Star Trek: Lower Decks (which continues to do a stellar job of mining  previous Trek series for character, episode and extraterrestrial culture lore and deftly applying them at breakneck speeds), I still have multiple things I'm looking forward to catching up on, including new eps of Gen V (Amazon Prime), Loki (Disney+), and both Archer and Welcome to Wrexham (both on Hulu), along with the first two episodes of a final six for Doom Patrol over on Max... and that's just off the top of my head, so getting this week's streaming post out of the way brings those one step closer for me.       I've watched the two episodes of the new Frasier series that arrived on Paramount+ this week, and while it was a mixed bag it was good to see the character back, with him attempting to move into his third act by returning to Boston, where...
Read more