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)

There Might Be Cupcakes Podcast Spooky Story: Red Death

The Masque of the Red Death, for Edgar Allan Poe’s “Tales of Mystery and the Imagination,” Chicago, 1895-96, Aubrey Vincent Beardsley, drawing (MET, 2021.16.17). This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. See the Image and Data Resources Open Access Policy

Bummer Halloween: Awful Things That Happened on October 31st

Continuing with the project I began after seeing Jordan Peele's Nope. Content warning for death, child death, drug overdose, murder, fire, explosion, car crash. 

On Today's Date

October 30, 2015: A fire inside the Colectiv night club in Bucharest, Romania kills 64 people, including four members of the band Goodbye to Gravity, whose pyrotechnics display had initiated the blaze. Guitarists Mihai Alexandru and Vlad Telea die at the scene; drummer Bogdan Enache and bassist Alex Pascu die in the hospital. Lead singer Andrei Gălu is badly burned but survives. 

Many of those who die in the hospital do so from infections, possibly because of inadequate disinfectant measures used in Romanian hospitals.

On Halloween

October 31, 1926: Harry Houdini dies of peritonitis due to a ruptured appendix. Houdini had visited Canada’s McGill University on October 22, when a student asked to punch Houdini in the stomach (which Houdini was famously able to withstand, when properly prepared), but then did so before the magician was ready. 

October 31, 1963: Spectators gather to watch a Holiday on Ice performance at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Indiana. A natural gas explosion starts in a storage area that food vendors use to store pre-popped popcorn. The explosion kills 81 people and injures an additional 400. 

For additional detail by a firefighter who lived in Indiana, listen to this podcast episode. 

October 31, 1974: Ronald Clark O’Bryan gives Pixy Stix candy straws laced with cyanide to his two children, two neighbor children, and a fifth child he knew from church. Only one of the children, O’Bryan’s 8-year-old son Timothy, eats the poisoned candy. After Timothy dies, police confiscate the other contaminated Pixy Stix, which O’Bryan claims to have gotten from a neighbor. 

O’Bryan is convicted of the murder, which he appears to have planned to collect insurance money, and executed by the state of Texas in 1984.

October 31, 1990: Magician Joseph “Amazing Joe” Burrus, age 32, attempts a Halloween night stunt at Blackbeard’s Family Fun Center in Fresno, California. He’ll attempt to escape from a coffin made of plastic and glass and buried under mud and wet cement. The weight of the cement and mud crushes the coffin, burying Burrus alive. Although he is quickly dug out of the grave, he can’t be revived.

October 31, 1993: 23-year-old actor River Phoenix is pronounced dead at 1:51 a.m. at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, after collapsing from an overdose of cocaine and morphine.

October 31, 2006: 18-year-old Nicole Catsouras dies immediately upon impact when the Porsche belonging to her parents, which the teenager is driving without permission, strikes a toll booth at over 100 miles per hour. 

The accident is terrible enough, but Catsouras’ family suffers further when gruesome crash scene photos taken by the California Highway Patrol are leaked on the Internet, allegedly by people who worked in the 911 call center. 

October 31, 2016: Natalie Babbitt, the author of Tuck Everlasting, dies of lung cancer.

Sunday, October 18, 2009: Treehouse of Horror

Sunday, October 18, 2009: The highlight of my day was watching the new Simpsons episode, “Treehouse of Horror XX (LABF14).” The first segment parodied an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Better still, the second story parodied I Am Legend. Krusty Burger’s new sandwich turns everyone into cannibal zombies. The Simpson family manages to survive and discover that Bart is immune to the disease. They get him to the safety zone, where Bart transfers his immunity to the other survivors by bathing in their soup.

The last segment was a musical one based on Sweeney Todd. After a gruesome accident, Moe the bartender discovers his beer is greatly enhanced by Homer’s blood. Moe schemes to get on Marge’s good side; he tells her Homer turned gay and ran off. Homer’s “The Gay Song” is rather funny:

“While turning gay the other day,

A thought occurred to me.

I'd like to try most every guy

From here to Timbuk-tee.

Oh, there's so many men around the world

Of every shape and size.

I want to nibble on Jamaican jerks

And teriyaki thighs.

I want to French-kiss a Frenchman

And spoon an English duke.

'Cause frankly, dear

To not be queer

Just makes me want to puke.

So find yourself a man

Who'll want you in the sack.

I recommend our dear old friend...

Bartender Moe Szyslak!”

https://amzn.to/3CyDGGk - this is an affiliate link

Bummer Summer Part II: Awful Things That Happened in September

Content Warning: Accidents, natural disasters, death, guns, mass death.

This is a second sneak peek at a very tentative, very early-stage work in progress I call Erin O’Riordan’s Almanac of Bad Days. Part I dropped on August 3, 2022. 

September 1, 2019: Spanish dancer Joana Sainz Garcia is killed while performing during a music festival when a pyrotechnics display malfunctions. A faulty cartridge strikes the 30-year-old in the abdomen.

September 2, 1900: A tropical hurricane formed over the Atlantic Ocean makes landfall in the Dominican Republic. This storm is among the deadliest in U.S. history, with a large number of fatalities coming from Galveston, Texas. Meteorologists of the time, and in particular Isaac Cline, didn’t believe that a significant hurricane was possible in Galveston, and so rejected requests from the townspeople that the city should build a sea wall. As many as 8,000 people in the Caribbean, the U.S., and the Maritime Provinces of Canada are thought to have lost their lives in this storm, including Cline’s wife and some of his children.

September 3, 1991: Fire breaks out inside the Imperial Food Products chicken processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina. Some workers are unable to escape due to locked doors, including one door labeled as a fire exit. The building had no sprinkler system or fire alarm. Of the 90 workers in the plant at the time of the fire, 25 died and an additional 54 were injured. Plant owner Emmett Roe pleads guilty to manslaughter and serves nearly four years in prison. 

September 4, 2006: Wildlife expert, zookeeper, and filmmaker Steve Irwin is filming a dive in shallow water near the Great Barrier Reef. He is struck in the chest by a stingray’s tale. The barb of the tale pierces his heart, killing him.

September 5, 1983: Canadian stunt performer Ken Carter is killed when the rocket car he’s using to jump over an Ontario pond overshoots the landing ramp, flips, and lands on its roof. 

September 6, 1951: Joan Vollmer is shot and killed in an American-owned bar in Mexico City by her husband, William S. Burroughs. Both were intoxicated. Vollmer is alleged to have placed a glass on top of her head, and Burroughs was supposedly trying to shoot the glass off her head with a pistol. Instead he shot Vollmer in the head and killed her instantly.

This is portrayed in the film Beat (2000). Vollmer is played by Courtney Love and Burroughs by Canadian actor Kiefer Sutherland. 

Courtney Love attending Life Ball in Vienna, Austria, May 31, 2014. Public domain image.

September 7, 2018: Rapper Mac Miller, aged 26, dies of an overdose of alcohol, cocaine, and fentanyl. 

September 11, 1987: Reggae artist Peter Tosh and two friends are shot and killed when Tosh’s home is invaded by a street gang demanding money.

September 11, 2001: The World Trade Center, Pentagon, and a third target are attacked by commercial jets hijacked by terrorists. Nearly 3,000 people are killed.

September 13, 1996: Rapper and actor Tupac Shakur dies from gunshot wounds in Las Vegas.

September 14, 1899: Real estate developer Henry H. Bliss becomes the first person killed in the U.S. from a motor vehicle collision. The previous day, he had stepped off a trolley car and been struck by an electric taxi cab, knocking him to the ground and crushing his chest. 

September 14, 1927: Dancer Isadora Duncan is killed in Nice, France, when her scarf becomes entangled in the open-spoked wheel and axle of the car she’s riding in, breaking her neck.

September 16, 1977: T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan, who never learned to drive, is the passenger in a Mini 1275GT automobile when it crashes into a fence post and then a tree, killing Bolan instantly.

September 16, 1985: Aerobatic pilot Arthur “Art” Scholl crashes his plane and is killed while filming spin footage for the movie Top Gun. He crashes into the Pacific Ocean; his aircraft is never recovered.

September 18, 1970: 27-year-old Jimi Hendrix dies of asphyxiation at St. Mary Abbots Hospital in London. He appears to have aspirated vomit after taking an overdose of barbiturates, presumably his girlfriend’s sleeping pills.

September 19, 1902: One hundred fifteen members of the Shiloh Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, are killed in a stampede after one of them called out “Fight!” and this was misheard as “Fire!” 

September 20, 1997: Musician Nick Traina, the son of author Danielle Steel, passes away from an overdose of the prescription medication lithium. He is 19 years old.

Link80fan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

September 22, 1978: Stunt performer A.J. Bakunas dies from his injuries after a failed stunt fall from Lexington, Kentucky’s Kincaid Towers the previous day. Bakunas lands on the air bag as planned, which splits, allowing his body to hit the ground at approximately 115 miles per hour.

September 27, 1986: Metallica bassist Clifford (Cliff) Burton dies in a tour bus accident in Sweden. The bus skids off the road while members of the band are sleeping in their bunks. Burton is thrown out of his bunk and through the window; the bus falls on top of him. 

September 30, 1997: Post-modern writer Kathy Acker, age 50, dies of breast cancer while undergoing alternative treatment in Tijuana, Mexico.

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