A Gilded Age Thanksgiving

November 24, 1898: “Thanksgiving Day,–Up betimes to seek out my warmest cloathes and greate cloake with new striped orange cravatte, as well, wherein to deck me for this day’s sports betwixt ye rival colledges, and mighty glas to be so well rid of affairs at the office, the others toyling there very jealous. My wife would have it I should don a crimson neck cloth to do honor to my colledge, but I denied her, retayning the striped cravattem her that my father wore when he did go a schoolboy to Nassau Hall [at Princeton University], regardless of mine own colledge. But she very contray calleth me traitor and unnatural man, and prinketh her in her crimson gowne and red roses in very spite of me, and I not the hearte to chide her. So with manyfold furry skinnes and wrappes by coach to the playground, a tedious long drive but for the merry company on the same way with us winding loud horns, with wavying of motley ribands, untill getting to the very doors of ye empty field, we find a mighty mob with loud mouthed peddlars offering their wares,–play bills, pamphlets, passports, and fluttering banners, with many more ribands and horns and little footballs stuck on pinnes, very pretty.

“Then showed I my passports and coming in with the pushing crowde very glad to sit in our seat to behold the joyful antics and clamor of the colledge boys prancing on their benches, shouting their shouts, croaking as they were toades,* and singing ribald songs to lewd musique."

“*Allusion to Yale Freshman’s adaptation of the Frog Chorus from Aristophanes” [Edwin Emerson's note]

- from Pepys's Ghost: His Wanderings in Greater Gotham; His Adventures in the Spanish War; Together with his Minor Exploits in the Field of Love and Fashion; With his Thoughts Thereon; by Edwin Emerson Jr; 1899; Boston, R. G. Badger & Co. Public domain in the U.S.

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November

GUNPOWDER

Gun"pow`der, n. (Chem.)

Defn: A black, granular, explosive substance, consisting of an intimate mechanical mixture of niter, charcoal, and sulphur. It is used in gunnery and blasting.

Note: Gunpowder consists of from 70 to 80 per cent of niter, with 10 to 15 per cent of each of the other ingredients. Its explosive energy is due to the fact that it contains the necessary amount of oxygen for its own combustion, and liberates gases (chiefly nitrogen and carbon dioxide), which occupy a thousand or fifteen hundred times more space than the powder which generated them. Gunpowder pile driver, a pile driver, the hammer of which is thrown up by the explosion of gunpowder.

 -- Gunpowder plot (Eng. Hist.), a plot to destroy the King, Lords, and Commons, in revenge for the penal laws against Catholics. As Guy Fawkes, the agent of the conspirators, was about to fire the mine, which was placed under the House of Lords, he was seized, Nov. 5, 1605. Hence, Nov. 5 is known in England as Guy Fawkes Day.

 -- Gunpowder tea, a species of fine green tea, each leaf of which is rolled into a small ball or pellet.

Webster's Unabridged Dictionary by Various: Public domain in the USA.

“Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.” - traditional nursery rhyme

November 5, 1664: Samuel Pepys sees Macbeth: “Up and to the office, where all the morning, at noon to the ‘Change, and thence home to dinner, and so with my wife to the Duke’s house to a play, Macbeth, a pretty good play, but admirably acted. Thence home; the coach being forced to go round by London Wall home, because of the bonefires [for Guy Fawkes Day]; the day being mightily observed in the City. To my office late at business, and then home to supper, and to bed.”

I still find it incredibly charming and cute that "Pepys" is pronounced "Peeps," like the marshmallow candy. 

November 5, 1946: Disco, Gospel, and soul singer Loleatta Holloway is born in Chicago. I become aware of her when I check out the Madonna tribute album Virgin Voices from the South Bend public library; Holloway covered “Like a Prayer” (and in my opinion, it’s the best track on that album). 

She also provided vocals for the 1991 hit single “Good Vibrations” for Mark Wahlberg’s group Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. I knew that song in 1991, and although Holloway appears in the music video, I wasn’t aware of her at the time. 

Sunday, November 5, 2006, Mishawaka: On my way to Meijer to buy some groceries, I heard a story on NPR. Samuel Menashe had won the Poetry Foundation’s Neglected Masters Award. I heard his poem “The Shrine Whose Shape I Am.” It reads in part:

“There is no Jerusalem but this

Breathed in flesh by shameless love

Built high upon tides of blood

I believe the Prophets and Blake

And like David I bless myself

With all my might”

Later we visited my parents, and in the evening I was privileged to watch a new Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode. The first segment parodied The Blob, the second was based on the Jewish folktale of the golem, and the third parodied War of the Worlds. 

A Theatrical Flashback to the Year 2000

November 3, 2000, Mishawaka: Tit and I went out to dinner at Applebee’s. I had an Oriental chicken salad and a couple of strawberry daiquiris. They weren’t very strong.

At 8 p.m., we went to Bethel College. We saw the student performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s one of my very favorite plays of all. I loved the lively romantic comedy since I first read and performed in it. I loved it again last year when I saw the movie starring Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Rupert Everett. 

I really enjoyed this performance, too; it was full of laughs. My favorite was Puck, played by Michelle Host. Puck is traditionally played as a male character, but in this play she was played with joyful mischief by a women. The costumes for Puck, Titania, and Oberon were great.

The other fairies were a bit of a disappointment [wardrobe-wise]. They had on masks such as one might wear to a costume party. I much preferred the faces of Puck and Titania, painted with makeup and glitter but still looking human.

Another actor who was very enjoyable was Christopher Ference, who played Bottom. Bottom is a great role, what with the ass-head-wearing and the role-within-a-role of Pyramus. It’s hard work, and a good Bottom takes talent. This guy had talent and he got the biggest laughs. 

From the program: “The Bethel Theatre Arts Department welcomes you to our fall production of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Since it was first presented in 1594 this magical comedy of lovers and fairies and ‘rude mechanicals’ has delighted audiences worldwide. We trust you will enjoy the play, our eleventh production on the Everest-Rohrer Stage.”

Drawing of Shakespeare's character Puck, from A Midsummer Night's Dream, made by J. E. H. MacDonald for Roy Mitchell's book Shakespeare for Community Players (1919)