Erin O'Riordan writes smart, whimsical erotica. Her erotic romance novel trilogy, Pagan Spirits, is now available. With her husband, she also writes crime novels. Visit her home page at ko-fi.com.
As you'll surely recall from Part 1, I've had a tremendous amount to say about Ernest Hemingway and Bob Dylan. Same deal with the Beatles, so they get their own post.
A 1964 photo of Harrison, McCartney, and Lennon in the Netherlands. Public domain.
Almanac Entries:
January 9 January 9, 1968: Look Magazine publishes Richard Avedon’s photographs of The Beatles.
January 12 January 12, 1963: The Beatles release their second single, “Please Please Me,” which goes on to be their first #1 single in the U.K. My Baby Boomer parents are each 10 years old on this date.
January 19 January 19, 1971: During Charles Manson’s murder trial, Manson’s defense attorneys introduce the Beatles’ song “Helter Skelter” into evidence. According to Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi, one of Manson’s delusion beliefs was that the song, written by Paul McCartney, referred to a coming race war. In reality, the lyrics refer to the literal meaning of a helter skelter, an English amusement ride consisting of a tower with a slide curling around it.
January 21 Friday, January 21, 1966: George Harrison and Pattie Boyd get married.
January 30 January 30, 1969: The Beatles perform a 42-minute concert on the roof of their Apple Corporation record company building in London, as documented in the concert film Let It Be. It will be their last public performance together.
January 31 January 31, 1967: On Johnny Rotten’s 11th birthday, John Lennon is shopping at an antiques store in Sevenoaks in the English county of Kent. He finds and purchases a vintage circus poster, the text of which becomes the basis for the Beatles song “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite.”
February 1 February 1, 1964: The #1 single in the U.S. is The Beatles’s “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
February 9 February 9, 1964: The Beatles play five songs on The Ed Sullivan Show.
February 12 February 12, 1964: The Beatles perform a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
“I saw nothing was permanent. You don’t want to possess anything that is dear to you because you might lose it.” - Yoko Ono
February 18, 1971: For her 38th birthday, John Lennon Ono gifts his wife a snow-white Steinway piano.
February 20 February 20, 1994, South Bend: My brother and I went to the Main Library. I checked out some books I needed for a research project, and also some Beatles CDs.
February 26 Sunday, February 26, 1995, South Bend: I went to the Morris Performing Arts Center and saw 1964: The Tribute, a Beatles tribute band. I recognized three people in the audience: a pair of sisters who went to the same grade school as me, and Mr. Thomas Gerencher.
February 26, 1997: At the 39th Annual Grammy Awards at Madison Square Garden, The Beatles won a Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal Grammy for “Free As a Bird.” Other winners included Tony Bennett, Tracy Chapman, Sheryl Crow, the Dave Matthews Band, and The Smashing Pumpkins.
February 29 February 29, 1968: At the 10th annual Grammy Awards, the Beatles win Album of the Year for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Beatles are not in attendance in Los Angeles that evening, as they are in India learning at the feet of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, along with Mia Farrow, her sister Prudence, Scottish folk singer Donovan Leitch, and Mike Love of The Beach Boys.
March 5 March 5, 1963: The Beatles record “From Me to You” at Abbey Road.
Sunday, March 5, 1995, South Bend: Having read The Plague, I turned to a library book titled The Worst Rock and Roll Records Ever Made: A Fan's Guide to the Stuff You Love to Hate by Jimmy Guterman and Owen O’Donnell [ISBN 0806512318 9780806512310].
Here’s a list of some of the songs and bands Guterman and O’Donnell love to hate: 1. “Dancing in the Street” by Mick Jagger and David Bowie 2. “Eve of Destruction” 3. “American Pie” 4. The Doors 5. Mick Jagger’s brother Chris 6. The U2 album The Unforgettable Fire (which includes “Pride (In the Name of Love);” see April 4) 7. Ringo Starr’s albums Stop and Smell the Roses and Old Wave 8. Really anything done by Ringo Starr and (especially) Paul McCartney after the Beatles 9. The 1981 live Rolling Stones album Still Life 10. Duran Duran
March 11 March 11, 1997: Paul McCartney becomes Sir Paul McCartney when he is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
March 13 March 13, 1965: “Eight Days A Week” by The Beatles hits #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
March 20 March 20, 1969: As chronicled in “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” John Lennon and Yoko Ono get married in the then-British territory of Gibraltar, near Spain.
March 29 March 29, 1994, South Bend: I drove my neighbors Jay and Ryan to school this morning. We heard Aerosmith’s “Come Together” on the radio. They knew the Beatles original but had never heard the Aerosmith cover before.
March 30 March 30, 1967: The Beatles photograph the album cover photo of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Artists Jann Haworth and Peter Blake have designed the image, which portrays the group in colorful pseudo-military uniforms, surrounded by wax sculptures of themselves and numerous cardboard cutouts of famous people. Among those depicted by the cutouts are Lenny Bruce, William S. Burroughs, Lewis Carroll, Stephen Crane, Bob Dylan, Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, Carl Jung, Marilyn Monroe, Edgar Allan Poe, Dylan Thomas, H.G. Wells, Mae West, and Oscar Wilde.
April 2 April 2, 1974: Barbra Streisand wins an Oscar for her song “The Way We Were,” beating out Paul McCartney’s James Bond theme “Live and Let Die.”
April 8 April 8, 1963: John and Cynthia Lennon’s son John Charles Julian Lennon is born in Liverpool, U.K.
April 9 April 9, 1965: The Beatles release “Ticket to Ride” as a single.
April 9, 1969: Bob Dylan releases his Nashville Skyline album, featuring Johnny Cash on “Girl From the North Country.” On the same day, Bruce McBroom photographs the Beatles in their second-to-last photo shoot as a group.
April 11 April 11, 1964: The Beatles have 14 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart hits, including “Can’t Buy Me Love” at #1 and “Twist & Shout” at #2.
April 14 April 14, 1963: The Beatles and the Rolling Stones meet for the first time. The Beatles are in Richmond, England, to film a TV appearance. The Rolling Stones are performing at a Richmond club; the two groups meet backstage.
April 16 April 16, 1971: Ringo Starr releases his single “It Don’t Come Easy.”
April 16, 1973: ABC broadcasts the tv special James Paul McCartney, on which McCartney debuts “Live and Let Die.”
April 19 April 19, 1998, South Bend: Mom, Stephanie, and I saw City of Angels at University Park Mall. I liked it because it was a celebration of why it’s good to be human. Afterward we went to Denny’s and had pie and coffee. Later, sitting in my room reading a People magazine with Tammy Wynette on the cover, I heard on the radio that Linda McCartney had died. She and Paul had been together for the past 30 years.
April 26 Sunday, April 26, 1998, St. Mary’s College: I spent most of the day writing papers and working on a Sculpture project. In the evening I saw the 200th Simpsons episode, “Trash of the Titans” (production code 5F09). Bart and Homer crashed a U2 concert; best guest voices ever. The episode was dedicated to another previous guest voice, Linda McCartney.
May 9 May 9, 1964: Louis Armstrong’s “Hello, Dolly” becomes the #1 song on the U.S. popular music charts, ending the Beatles’ 14-week streak of having the #1 single. Three Beatles songs (“Can’t Buy Me Love,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and “She Loves You”) contributed to the streak.
May 13 May 13, 1970: The Beatles documentary Let It Be, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, premieres in New York.
May 14 May 14, 1968: John Lennon and Paul McCartney appear on The Tonight Show to talk about the newly-formed Apple business venture. While Johnny Carson is on vacation, the show is co-hosted by Tallulah Bankhead and pro baseball catcher-turned-tv personality Joe Garagiola. (Neat guy, Joe Garagiola. He was an honorary member of the Akimel O’otham tribal community because he helped bring badly-needed resources to the deeply impoverished Gila River Indian Reservation.)
May 22 May 22, 1965: The Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride” hits #1 on the singles chart.
May 27 May 27, 1967: Tit Elingtin is born in Pontiac, Michigan, one day after the Beatles had released their album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (in the U.K.; its U.S. release date was June 2nd).
June 4 June 4, 1969: The Beatles release “The Ballad of John and Yoko” in the U.S. In the U.K. it came out on May 30th.
June 16, 2001, South Bend: Once upon a time, South Bend had a summer festival called the Ethnic Festival. Tit and I, living in a downtown apartment near where the festival took place, visited it both yesterday and today. On this day we ate lunch while listening to a reggae band named Indika.
We went home for a while, but came back out after dinner to have a funnel cake and listen to a Beatles tribute band. They wore the full Beatles suits and wigs even in the heat. They played many lesser-known songs such as “Boys” and “Taxman.” For a free concert on a beautiful night in the park, it was great. We watched the fireworks afterward.
June 17 June 17, 1974: John Lennon is in a New York recording studio working on his album Walls and Bridges when Elton John pays him a visit. Elton John hears the potential in the track “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” and agrees to play piano on the song.
June 18 June 18, 1942: Paul McCartney and Roger Ebert are born.
June 18, 1973: John Lennon-Ono and Yoko Ono-Lennon attend the Watergate court hearings and hear John Dean testify. They sit beside Nixon adviser Elvin Bell in the second row, behind Dean’s wife Maureen.
July 1 July 1, 1968: John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s collaborative art exhibit You Are Here (To Yoko from John Lennon, With Love) opens in London.
July 18 July 18, 1995, South Bend: I dropped Mom off at work. When I came home, I turned on the tv to see Yoko Ono and beautiful, 19-year-old Sean Lennon on the Today show.
I had stuffed crust pizza for supper. Ringo Starr stars in those commercials. He says, “I’d do it in a second. The fans will dig it. They’ve been waiting long enough. I think I can convince them. I’ll say, ‘Lads, the time has come...to eat our pizza crust-first!” And then The Monkees show up and Ringo says, “Wrong lads.”
August 15 August 15, 1965: The Beatles perform at Shea Stadium, home field of the New York Mets, in front of a crowd of 56,000.
August 26 August 26, 1968: The Beatles release their single “Hey Jude” in the United States. The B-side track is “Revolution.” Between September and November 1968, it will be the #1 single in the U.S. for nine straight weeks.
August 29 August 29, 1966: The Beatles play their last public performance together at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.
August 30 August 30, 1968: The Beatles single with “Hey Jude” on one side and “Revolution” on the reverse is released in the U.K.
September 9 September 9, 1971: John Lennon releases the single “Imagine” in the U.S.
September 20 September 20, 1974: David Bowie and John Lennon meet for the first time at Dean Martin’s 21st birthday party for Martin’s son Ricci. Ringo Starr, Elton John, and Elizabeth Taylor are also there.
September 24 September 24, 1941: Linda McCartney is born, as Linda Eastman, in Scarsdale, New York. Her Jewish family’s name is Epstein before her father Anglicizes it to Eastman, but she’s not related to Beatles manager Brian Epstein. It’s entirely coincidental that the eventual Sir Paul marries this beautiful, talented photographer who happens to be an Epstein. She was the first woman to shoot the cover photograph for Rolling Stone magazine.
September 26 September 26, 1969: The Beatles release Abbey Road.
September 27 September 27, 1967: George Martin oversees the recording of the orchestral score of The Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus.” The Mike Sammes Singers record their backing vocals for the track.
October 9 October 9, 1940: John Winston Lennon is born in Liverpool, England, U.K. at Liverpool Maternity Hospital.
October 9, 1971: On her husband’s 31st birthday, Yoko Ono Lennon’s solo art exhibition This Is Not Here opens in New York City. Among the guests who attend opening night is Allen Ginsberg.
October 24 October 24, 1975: Apple Records releases Shaved Fish, a compilation album by John Lennon with the Plastic Ono Band, in the U.S.
October 31 October 31, 1994, South Bend: I went to school dressed all in black. In the hall before classes, Kristen gave me a lemon Pez from a witch Pez dispenser. In Media we began learning about the Beatles. After school, I watched a lot of TV, including the Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” episode (7F04), with “The Raven” read by James Earl Jones.
November 1 November 1, 1968: George Harrison releases Wonderwall Music, the first solo album by any of the Beatles.
November 2 November 2, 1994, South Bend: In our continuing exploration of the Beatles in Media, I learned that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is not about LSD at all, but rather about a drawing that Julian Lennon drew when he was quite small.
November 2, 1973: John Lennon releases his fourth solo album, Mind Games, and Ringo Starr releases (in the U.S.) his third solo album, Ringo. Ringo features songs written with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison. Studio musicians on Ringo include Marc Bolan and Billy Preston.
November 2, 1987: George Harrison releases his final album, Cloud Nine.
November 16 November 16, 1974: The #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart is “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” from John Lennon’s fifth solo album, Walls and Bridges.
November 17, 1980: Yoko Ono and John Lennon Ono release their Double Fantasy album, the second album ever released on Geffen Records.
November 24 November 24, 1993, South Bend: American Literature class began with one of classmates (Jessica or Nicole) asking Mr. Gerencher “Who is the other Beatle in this picture with John Lennon?” It was Yoko Ono. We then got around to discussing Edgar Allan Poe.
December 10, 1995, St. Mary’s: I read three stories from my soon-to-be-returned literature book: Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” Donald Barthelme’s “The Sandman,” and Leo Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilých.”
At 8 p.m. I went to Lessons and Carols in the Church of Loretto. Sister Jean read “Christmas Calls a Community,” which was Lesson #8. I liked it, because the music was great and it had dancing. This is a Roman Catholic community, so we don’t usually have liturgical dancing.
After the service, I made hot chocolate and watched the classic ‘80s movie Space Camp with Charmaine and some of the other women from our floor. While we were watching it, Kara came by and asked me if I had the Beatles’ White Album, because she wanted to listen to “Rocky Raccoon,” but that’s not one I have.
December 20 December 20, 1980: Twelve days after the artist’s death, “(Just Like) Starting Over” by John Lennon becomes the first #1 hit for Lennon as a solo artist.
December 26 December 26, 1963: The first Beatles singles to be released in the U.S., “I Saw Her Standing There” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” are...released...in the U.S. Sorry, I couldn’t think of a more clever way to word this clearly.
December 31 December 31, 2010: Tit and I celebrated the New Year at Tom and Melissa’s house again. We ate, drank some mixed drinks, and hung out, talking. Melissa’s brother Andrew and I played Beatles Rock Band together. After midnight, I switched to drinking soda so I could be our designated driver.
On Tuesday, April 15th, the husband and I did worked a gig at a chiropractor's office (hi, Dr. Josh!), hanging a tv and some signs. The music playing inside the office was classic rock. I heard "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel.
Since I wrote about literary references in 3 songs in the previous post, I wondered if there was any crossover with "We Didn't Start the Fire."
This Tumblr post (not by me) links every reference in the Billy Joel song to the corresponding Wikipedia page. I won't replicate that work. Let's see what we've got here in the lyrics:
"We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel and Mick Jones (Michael Leslie Jones, guitarist for Spooky Tooth and Foreigner)
[Verse 1] Harry Truman, Doris Day Red China, Johnnie Ray South Pacific [1] Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon Studebaker [2], Television North Korea, South Korea Marilyn Monroe [3]
Rosenbergs, H-Bomb Sugar Ray, Panmunjom Brando [4], The King And I [5], And The Catcher In The Rye [6]
Eisenhower, Vaccine England's got a new queen Marciano, Liberace Santayana goodbye
[Chorus] We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it But we tried to fight it
Verse 1 Footnotes:
1. April 7 almanac entry: April 7, 1949: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific premieres on Broadway. 2. That Time I Tried Out for Jeopardy! We visited a former Studebaker showroom in Chicago. It hasn't come up on this blog yet, I don't think, but at least three generations of my family worked for the Studebaker automobile company in South Bend. One of my great-grandmothers was a seamstress there. 3. Monroe is, of course, on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. That's our first crossover with the previous post. 4. March 27 almanac entry: March 27th, 1973: Liza Minnelli wins a Best Actress Academy Award for her role in Cabaret. She beats out Diana Ross, nominated for her role as Billie Holiday in Lady Sings The Blues.
At this same Academy Awards ceremony, Marlon Brando wins an Oscar for his role in The Godfather. He turns down the award, having boycotted the ceremony to bring awareness to Native American rights and representation in film. In his place, actress and activist Sacheen Littlefeather, a self-reported member of the Apache and Yaqui nations, declines the award on Brando’s behalf. According to legend, John Wayne has to be physically restrained from attacking Littlefeather as she is speaking. She is escorted off the stage by the award presenter, Roger Moore.
[After Littlefeather’s death in 2022, journalists investigating her claim of indigenous North American ancestry uncovered that Littlefeather was most likely of European and Mexican descent, with no ties to the Yaqui or Apache peoples. Of course, people who are indigenous to Mexico are native North Americans, but this does not excuse Littlefeather from making a claim to ancestry that she had no legitimate status to claim.] (end of almanac entry)
Brando is also on the Sgt. Pepper's cover with Marilyn Monroe. 5. February 22 almanac entry: February 22, 1930: Soprano Marni Nixon (in full, Margaret Nixon McEathron) is born in California. Her voice can be heard singing on behalf of the non-singing leading ladies in musical films including West Side Story, The King and I, and My Fair Lady. (end of almanac entry)
My Fair Lady is based on the stage play Pymalion by George Bernard Shaw, who is on the Sgt. Pepper's cover.
May 23 almanac entry: Saturday, May 23, 2009: Weekend trip to Milwaukee! We chose Milwaukee because it’s one of the settings of my novel Midsummer Night and we needed intimate details. We drove there in about four hours, taking a stop for a bathroom break in the northern suburbs of Chicago.
We arrived in Milwaukee around 7 p.m. and checked into the Hyatt Regency hotel downtown, right across Kilbourn Avenue from the stadium where the Bucks play. We rode the glass elevator to the 18th floor. As we settled in, I called author and Milwaukee native Barbara Vey, one of my Facebook friends. We made plans to meet up. Then Tit and I ate dinner at a Thai restaurant, The King and I. 6. Banned Books Week: Is The Catcher in the Rye Morally Destructive? February 22 almanac entry (again): February 22, 1995, South Bend: Having finished its course of studying Dante’s Inferno, Miss Fox’s Novel class began studying J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. July 16 almanac entry: July 16, 1951: J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye is published.
[Verse 2]
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov Nasser and Prokofiev Rockefeller, Campanella Communist Bloc Roy Cohn, Juan Peron Toscanini, Dacron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, "Rock Around the Clock" [1] Einstein, James Dean [2] Brooklyn's got a winning team Davy Crockett, Peter Pan Elvis Presley [3], Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev Princess Grace, Peyton Place Trouble in the Suez [4]
[Chorus] We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it But we tried to fight it
Verse 2 Footnotes:
1. May 10 almanac entry: May 10, 1954: Bill Haley and the Comets release “Rock Around the Clock,” written by Max Freedman and James Myers. It becomes the first rock and roll single to reach #1 on the Billboard singles charts. 2. You might think that James Dean should be on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's, but he isn't.
February 8 almanac entry: February 8, 1931: James Dean is born in Marion, Indiana. May 2 almanac entry: May 2, 1991: Paula Abdul’s single “Rush, Rush” is released. Its music video is an homage to the classic James Dean film Rebel Without a Cause with Abdul in the Natalie Wood role and Keanu Reeves in the Dean role. October 10 almanac entry: October 10, 1956: The film adaptation of Edna Ferber’s novel Giant premieres, one year and 11 days after its star, James Dean, was killed in a traffic accident. December 9 almanac entry: December 9, 1994: I spent the day on a college visit to St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana. I sat in on an Introduction to Literature class, which discussed a short story about the Day of the Dead. I went on a guided tour, then had a one-on-one interview designed to see if I would be a good fit for St. Mary’s College.
After my interview, Mom and I had lunch in the dining hall. We went to the college’s bookstore. She asked me if I wanted a Maya Angelou book, and when I said yes, she bought it for me. I then met my hostess for the evening, a student named Susan who’d gone to Marian High School in Mishawaka. She showed me her room and then I went to her Intro to Spanish class with her. She had to study for a History exam after that, so I sat in her room with her, reading my new Maya Angelou book. I found that I recognized some of the poems because they’d been in the movie Poetic Justice*.
She took me to dinner at the dining hall with five of her friends and another visiting high school student. As “Monkey Man” by the Rolling Stones played in the background, the college students had a discussion of the Chipmunks cartoon and whether Dave was hot. In another dorm room, I helped Susan with a community project, making “Santa-grams” for St. Mary’s students to sent to one another. Susan ushered me out of there as soon as some of the women started mixing drinks.
We went to her friends’ room and watched Newsies with these musical-obsessed young women. I went to sleep in a comfy makeshift bed on Susan’s floor with all of her pictures of James Dean looking down upon me. *Footnote to the footnote: This '90s movie starring Tupac Shakur and Janet Jackson features a brief, early appearance by Clifton Collins, Jr. 3. I have the hardest time getting myself to be interested in anything to do with Elvis Presley. His music and movies are simply not to my taste. But he's pretty much culturally ubiquitous in the U.S., so he does merit a few almanac mentions. September 23 almanac entry: September 23, 1994, South Bend: Mr. Gerencher got sent to a convention in Indianapolis, so our substitute in Media showed us a movie about Elvis Presley. September 26 almanac entry: September 26, 1992: Marilyn, Therese, and I went to the Centreville, Michigan, County Fair. Despite the rain, Therese and I rode the rides, played carnival games, and won a lot of cheap, plastic toys. We ate fried mushrooms, caramel apples, and German almonds. We also bought tickets to the Ricky Van Shelton concert.
The warmup act was a sounds effects artist who made noises such as a doorknob falling down a flight of stairs. I’d have preferred another musician. Now, most of Ricky Van Shelton’s songs I didn’t recognize; Marilyn is the country music fan. But he did the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” a Patsy Cline song called “She’s Got You” (he changed the “she” to a “he”), and an Elvis Presley song called “Wear My Ring Around Your Neck.” I recognized those. October 12 almanac entry: October 12, 1994, South Bend: In Media, Mr. Gerencher told us the tragedy of how early rock ‘n roll almost fizzled out in the 1950s: Buddy Holly was dead, Little Richard entered one of his religious phases, Chuck Berry went to jail, Jerry Lee Lewis had a nervous breakdown, and Elvis Presley joined the army. He also told us an anecdote about meeting the Everly Brothers while working as a bellhop. December 15 almanac entry: December 15, 1994, South Bend: Mrs. Haas’s senior Brit Lit class watched part of the Wuthering Heights film starring Ralph Fiennes as Heathcliff. After school I watched a tribute to Elvis Presley that featured Bono and Melissa Etheridge. Etheridge performed “Burnin’ Love.” December 31 almanac entry: December 31, 1992, South Bend: “You were a pretty good year, 1992. I laughed and cried, I looked and listened, I lived and breathed. I bled, I read, I wrote and sneezed and told jokes and drank water. I came in 14 and went out 15. Elvis Presley is still dead, and I don’t really miss him. But in old 1992 talk is cheap. Thus I leave you with one word: Goodbye.” 4. A different trouble in the Suez happened again in 2021.
[Verse 3] Little Rock, Pasternak Mickey Mantle, Kerouac [1] Sputnik, Zhou En-lai Bridge On The River Kwai Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle California baseball Starkweather Homicide Children of Thalidomide
Buddy Holly [2], Ben-Hur [3] Space Monkey, Mafia Hula Hoops, Castro Edsel is a no-go
U-2, Syngman Rhee Payola and Kennedy Chubby Checker, Psycho [4] Belgians in the Congo
Belgians in the Congo not only committed shocking historical atrocities but continue to cause problems into the 21st century.
[Chorus] We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it But we tried to fight it
January 14 almanac entry: January 14, 1995, South Bend: Uncle Paul installed a modem on our computer. I went to the library and checked out Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums.
On the same day, Ernest Hemingway’s sister Madelaine “Sunny” Hemingway Miller died at the age of 90. [Ernest Hemingway's coming up in Verse 4.] February 8 almanac entry, again: February 8, 1926: Beat Generation writer Neal Cassady is born in Salt Lake City. In On the Road, Jack Kerouac referred to him as “Dean Moriarty.” February 24 almanac entry: Friday, February 24, 1995, South Bend: In study hall, I finished reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. This wasn’t an assignment; this was for fun. March 12 almanac entry: March 12, 1922: Jack Kerouac is born. “Jack Kerouac so closely entwined his dream world with his writing that it is almost impossible to separate the two. His Books of Dreams, published in 1961, contains nearly 250 dream reports, ranging from very brief accounts to lengthy descriptions ‘scribbled after I woke from my sleep...sometimes written before I was even wide awake.’ Aware that many of his dream events were similar to events in his novels, he actually provided a key in his preface, indicating which characters in his dreams had appeared, with different names, in such books as On the Road and The Dharma Bums.” - Our Dreaming Mind by Robert L. Van de Castle July 17 almanac entry: July 17, 1947: Jack Kerouac embarks on his first cross-country road trip. August 13 almanac entry: August 13, 1944: Lucien Carr, friend of Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, stabs and kills his acquaintance David Kammerer. Carr, 19 years old at the time, will serve two years in prison for manslaughter, then go on to father children who include novelist Caleb Carr. August 15 almanac entry: August 15, 1968: According to a (fake) plaque hung in Lowell, Massachusetts (as a marketing gimmick), “...authors Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) and William S. Burroughs (1919-1997) came to blows over a disagreement regarding the Oxford comma. The event is memorialized in Kerouac’s ‘Dr. Sax’ and in the incident report filed by the Lowell Police Department. According to eyewitnesses, Burroughs corrected the spelling and grammar of the police report before passing out. The report is now in the permanent collection of the Mogan Center.”
According to Atlas Obscura, “The plaque, one of a few faux historical markers at Mill No. 5, is a marketing creation of Constantine Valhouli and Jim Lichoulas III, to help promote their commercial venture, a conversion of old industrial space into a hive of new businesses, galleries, studios, and tech labs. The developers really intended it as a lark—little did they anticipate how quickly two dead writers could create an online viral ruse.” August 23 almanac entry: August 23, 1949: Jack Kerouac writes in his diary, “It’s about time for me to start working on On the Road in earnest. For the first time in ages, I want to start a new life.” September 5 almanac entry: September 5, 1957: Jack Kerouac’s On the Road is published. October 2 almanac entry: October 2, 1958: The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac is published. October 7 almanac entry: October 7, 1955: Allen Ginsberg gives the first public reading of his poem “Howl” at Six Gallery in San Francisco. The emcee of the poetry reading event was Kenneth Rexroth. Other poets who read their work that day included Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Philip Lamantia. Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Neal Cassady were all in the audience. October 20 almanac entry: October 20, 1923: Poet Philip Whalen is born in Portland, Oregon. In The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac called him “Warren Coughlin.” 2. 2013 blog post: Imbolc, Buddy Holly, and Human Sacrifice 2016 blog post: J.K. Rowling, Writing as Robert Galbraith, Doesn't Fear the Reaper 2025 blog post: Bummer February
January 23 almanac entry: January 23, 1986: The first members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are inducted. They are all men. They include Ray Charles, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, and Little Richard. January 31 almanac entry: January 31, 1959: 17-year-old Robert Zimmerman, the future Bob Dylan, sees Buddy Holly perform at the Duluth Armory. This will be one of Holly’s last performances before his plane crash death in the early morning hours of February 3rd. February 3, 1959 almanac entry: February 3, 1959: “The Day the Music Died,” when early rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson were all killed in a plane crash outside Clear Lake, Iowa. The musicians had performed at Clear Lake’s Surf Ballroom and were on their way to their next show in Minnesota. This accident is remembered in poetic form through the Don McLean song “American Pie,” recorded on May 26, 1971. September 7 almanac entry: September 7, 1936: Rock and/or roll pioneer Buddy Holly is born in Lubbock, Texas, as Charles Hardin Holley. 3. 2014 blog post (brief mention): Currently Reading: Vampyres of Hollywood by Adrienne Barbeau and Michael Scott
April 10 almanac post: April 10, 1827: Ben-Hur author Lewis (Lew) Wallace is born in Brookville, Indiana. His father, David, was the governor of Indiana from 1837-1840, during which time the family lived in Indianapolis. Today if you want to visit General Lew Wallace Study & Museum, you’ll find it in Crawfordsville, Indiana.
As a Union general, Wallace defended Washington, D.C. from Confederate attack. When Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ was published in 1880, Lew Wallace was the governor of New Mexico Territory, not yet a state, appointed by President Rutherford B. Hayes. Among his dubious accomplishments as territorial governor was, allegedly, offering outlaw Billy the Kid a full pardon if The Kid agreed to testify against the murderers of a Lincoln County lawyer. When his governorship ended in 1881, Lewis was appointed U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire, a diplomatic post. He retired to Crawfordsville in 1885 and is buried there. July 1st almanac entry: July 1, 1902: German-Jewish-American film director William Wyler is born in Mülhausen, Alsace-Lorraine, German Empire. (It’s part of France now.) He directed Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights, Charleton Heston in the remake of Ben-Hur, Audrey Hepburn in The Children’s Hour (from the play by mayonnaise non-inventor Lillian Hellman [Simpsons reference]) and Roman Holiday, and Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl. He won the Oscar for directing three times and was one of the most frequently nominated directors in Oscar history. 4. 2019 blog post: 'A Stir of Echoes' by Richard Matheson - Mid-Century Spooky Story 2023 blog post: Unfortunate (Mostly Literary) Happenings of Past Septembers
April 10 almanac entry, again: April 10, 1959: R&B singer, songwriter, and producer Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds is born in Indianapolis, Indiana. On the same day, Robert Bloch’s Psycho is published, and NBC airs Benny Goodman’s Swing Into Spring tv special featuring Ella Fitzgerald, Lionel Hampton, and Peggy Lee. October 10 almanac entry: October 31, 2019, Indianapolis: Tit and I were at Hilbert Circle Theatre listening to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra perform the Psycho film score live while the film played. We had popcorn and beer, and then later, decafs. This may have been the most fun I’ve ever had at the symphony.
[Verse 4] Hemingway [1], Eichmann Stranger in a Strange Land Dylan [2], Berlin Bay of Pigs invasion Lawrence of Arabia British Beatlemania [3] Ole Miss, John Glenn Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X British Politician sex J.F.K. blown away What else do I have to say?
[Chorus] We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it But we tried to fight it
January 14 almanac entry: January 14, 1896: Novelist John Dos Passos is born in Chicago. Ernest Hemingway broke Dos Passos's arm in 1930.
“A novel is a commodity that fulfills a certain need; people need to buy daydreams like they need to buy ice cream or aspirin or gin.” - John Dos Passos February 7 almanac entry: The Key West Diaries March 3 almanac entry: March 3, 1911: Harlean Harlow Carpenter is born in Kansas City, Missouri. She’ll be known to the world as Jean Harlow. She’ll star in such movies as Hell’s Angels (1930), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932) and be name-checked in Madonna’s song “Vogue” (1990).
“Maybe it is like those dreams you have when someone you have seen in the cinema comes to your bed at night and is so kind and lovely. He’d slept with them all that way when he was asleep in bed. He could remember Garbo still, and Harlow. Yes, Harlow many times. Maybe it was like those dreams.” - For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway March 4 almanac entry: March 4, 1952: Ernest Hemingway finishes writing The Old Man and the Sea. May 8 almanac entry: Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Museum July 8 almanac entry: July 8, 1918: Ernest Hemingway is wounded while serving as a volunteer ambulance driver for the Red Cross during World War I. July 21 almanac entry: July 21, 1899: Ernest Hemingway is born.
“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.” - Ernest Hemingway in Esquire magazine, December 1934
July 21, 1959: A U.S. District Court in NYC rules that D.H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover is not pornographic.
On the same day, Ernest Hemingway’s 60th birthday, Hemingway’s fourth wife Mary Welsh Hemingway threw him a birthday party in Málaga, Spain. Guests included Lauren Bacall and bullfighter Antonio Ordóñez. The menu included sweet-and-sour turkey and a cake with 90 candles, 60 for Ernest and 30 for Antonio’s wife Carmen. The celebration’s fireworks display sets fire to a palm tree, so the local fire department has to come out. Legend has it that after the blaze was quelled, the firefighters joined the party. September 1st almanac entry: September 1, 1952: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway is published. October 15 almanac entry: October 15, 1937: Ernest Hemingway’s fourth novel, To Have and Have Not, is published. October 21 almanac entry: October 21, 1940: Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls is published. November 1st almanac entry: November 1, 1930: Ernest Hemingway crashes his car while returning home from a hunting trip he took with John Dos Passos, breaking his arm. November 10 almanac entry: November 10, 1957: CBS airs The World of Nick Adams, based on the short stories by Ernest Hemingway, adapted into a play by A.E. Hotchner, featuring incidental music written by Aaron Copland, directed by Robert Mulligan, and starring Steven Hill as Nick Adams. 2. Bob Dylan is on the Sgt. Pepper's cover.
January 17 almanac entry: January 17, 1975: Bob Dylan’s album Blood on the Tracks is released. Some of its memorable tracks include "Shelter From the Storm" and "Tangled Up in Blue." February 5 almanac entry: February 5, 1972: Neil Young releases the single “Heart of Gold,” with backing vocals by James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt. It will be the Canadian artist’s only single to reach #1 on the charts in the U.S. Bob Dylan will say of the song, "Shit, that's me. If it sounds like me, it should as well be me." March 8 almanac entry: March 8, 1996, St. Mary’s: My Jazz and Pop course opened up the discussion of folk music by focusing on Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and Bob Dylan. March 29 almanac entry: March 29, 2017: Bob Dylan agrees to accept the Nobel Prize in Literature he’s been awarded six months before. April 9 almanac entry: April 9, 1969: Bob Dylan releases his Nashville Skyline album, featuring Johnny Cash on “Girl From the North Country.” On the same day, Bruce McBroom photographs the Beatles in their second-to-last photo shoot as a group. April 11 almanac entry: April 11th, 1961: Bob Dylan plays his first gig at Greenwich Village’s Gerde's Folk City, opening for John Lee Hooker. He plays “Blowin’ In the Wind.” April 24 almanac entry (it's not in the published version yet, but it will be there once I update this entry): April 24, 1961: Bob Dylan plays on his first record, Harry Belafonte’s “Midnight Special,” as the harmonica player. He’s paid $50 for the recording session. April 27 almanac entry: April 27, 2012: Bob Dylan receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. May 12 almanac entry: May 12, 1950: Gabriel Byrne is born in Dublin. He’s the first of his parents’ six children, three boys and three girls. All the girls sleep in one bed and all the boys in a second bed. Byrne won’t have a bed to himself until age 11, when he goes away to seminary school in England. His father is a cooper, making barrels at the Guinness factory.
“I’ve never fallen out of love with books like Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre. When I read them both for the fourth time, I absorbed them whole and unquestioningly. Jane Eyre was the first book I ever read. It was read to me by my mother and we went to see the movie of it, Orson Welles’ Jane Eyre. I think I was 8 or 9 at the time. I can still see the image of that black horse on the heath, rearing up in the half-darkness, from that angle, with Jane looking up in the mad eyes of Orson Welles. It gave me nightmares for years and years afterwards.” - Gabriel Byrne
Do you know who else, besides the Byrne parents, has three daughters and three sons? Bob Dylan. When he married Sara Lowndes, she had Maria, whom Bob adopted. Bob and Sara had Jesse, Anna, Sam, and then Jakob together. After they divorced, he married Gospel singer Carolyn Dennis; Bob and Carolyn have Desiree. Maria, Anna, Jesse, Sam, and Jakob’s younger half-sister Desiree is a lovely Black Jewish queer woman whose wife’s name is Kayla.
May 17 almanac entry: May 17, 1964: Bob Dylan gives his first public concert in the U.K. at the Royal Festival Hall in London. May 24 almanac entry*: May 24, 1941: Bob Dylan is born (as Robert Zimmerman) in Hibbing, Minnesota, USA. His Traveling Wilburys names are Lucky and Boo. June 9 almanac entry: June 9, 1964: Bob Dylan and producer Tom Wilson record 14 songs: The entire Another Side of Bob Dylan album, “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and two others. July 20 almanac entry: July 20, 1965: Columbia Records releases Bob Dylan’s single “Like a Rolling Stone.” July 25 almanac entry: July 25, 1965: Bob Dylan shows up at the Newport Folk Festival, sets up electronic equipment, and plays a rock-based set with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band as his backing band. The audience, expecting an acoustic folk music set, boos and jeers so loudly they can barely hear “Maggie’s Farm” and “Like a Rolling Stone.” August 9 almanac entry: August 9, 1962: Bob Zimmerman legally changes his name to Bob Dylan. August 26 almanac entry: August 26, 1970: Joan Baez, Miles Davis, The Doors, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell and a variety of other performers perform at the Isle of Wight Festival. August 30 almanac entry: August 30, 1965: Bob Dylan’s album Highway 61 Revisited is released by Columbia Records. September 7 almanac entry again: September 7, 1965: Bob Dylan releases the stand-alone single “Positively 4th Street.” September 22 almanac entry: September 22, 1985: The first of the Farm Aid concerts organized by Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Neil Young is performed in Champaign, Illinois. Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, B.B. King, and Loretta Lynn are among the performers. More than $9 million is raised for the benefit of American family farmers who are in danger of losing their land and homes to mortgage debt. September 27 almanac entry: September 27, 1997: Bob Dylan performs “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” at the World Eucharist Congress for an audience of 300,000 people that includes Pope John Paul II. October 13 almanac entry: October 13, 2016: Bob Dylan wins the Nobel Prize for Literature. October 16 almanac entry: October 16, 1992: At The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration, Madison Square Garden, Bob Dylan and a variety of other musical artists performed in recognition of Dylan’s 30 years in the music industry. A live double album was recorded from that performance. It features Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Lou Reed, Kris Kristofferson, Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson, Tracy Chapman, and Richie Havens, among others. October 21st almanac entry again: October 21, 1970: Bob Dylan’s album New Morning is released. It features the title track and a song called “Father of Night,” which had originally been intended to be used for an adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét’s The Devil and Daniel Webster produced by poet Archibald MacLeish. The collaboration was cancelled due to creative differences. October 24 almanac entry: October 24, 1975: Bob Dylan records his song “Hurricane.” October 26 almanac entry: October 26, 1963: Bob Dylan plays a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall. November 6 almanac entry: November 6, 1967: Bob Dylan records “All Along the Watchtower.” November 22 almanac entry: Bob Dylan 1996 (the time I attended a Bob Dylan concert) December 7 almanac entry: December 7, 1997: Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, Charlton Heston, Jessye Norman, and ballet dancer Edward Villella all receive Kennedy Center Honors for their contributions to the performing arts at a ceremony at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, D.C. President William Jefferson Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton preside. December 27 almanac entry: December 27, 1967: Both Leonard Cohen’s debut album and Bob Dylan’s album John Wesley Harding are released. 3. Hemingway and Dylan were a lot. Let's save Beatlemania for another day.
*Footnote to the footnote: May 24th is also the birthday of Pedro Gonzales Gonzalez. The grandfather. Of Clifton Collins, Jr.
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh Richard Nixon back again Moonshot, Woodstock Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine Terror on the airline Ayatollahs in Iran Russians in Afghanistan Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride Heavy metal suicide Foreign debts, homeless vets AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz Hypodermics on the shores China's under martial law Rock and Roller cola wars I can't take it anymore
[Chorus] We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire But when we are gone It will still burn on, and on And on, and on
[Outro] We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it But we tried to fight it We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it But we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it But we tried to fight it
What song is Erin obsessed with right now?
I've been very into the Swedish band Ghost, fronted by one Tobias Forge in various Satanic incarnations. I recently discovered this Shakespears Sister [that is the correct spelling of the band name, without the "e" and without an apostrophe] cover featuring actor Patrick Wilson (husband of Polish-American actor/novelist Dagmara Dominczyk) from the horror movie Insidious: The Red Door (which Wilson also directed).
The original:
Shakespears Sister is American musician Marcella Detroit and English girl group veteran Siobhan Fahey, formerly of Bananarama. The name comes from a 1929 essay by Virginia Woolf.
Derived from a digital capture (photo/scan) of the book cover (creator of this digital version is irrelevant as the copyright in all equivalent images is still held by the same party). Copyright held by the publisher or the artist. Claimed as fair use regardless. Fair use.
In this handy alphabetical guide, I'll tell you which song rings a bell in my brain when these authors are mentioned. Bonus: I'll also mention if they're pictured on the cover of the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
April 8, 1994, South Bend: On my last real day of spring break, I woke up rather late in the morning, then had some leftover Taco Bell for breakfast. I took Maggie the dog for a walk without incident, which was a shame because I was hoping there would be incident. When I got back I turned on MTV and involuntarily learned that Kurt Cobain had been found dead at his home in Seattle. Very sad, not only that he left behind a wife and a very young daughter but also that Nirvana only had time to record four albums.
April 8, 1997: 49-year-old singer/songwriter Laura Nyro dies of ovarian cancer. Nyro’s mother Gilda Mirsky Nigro had also died of ovarian cancer at the age of 49.
April 10, 1931: Lebanese-American novelist Kahlil Gibran dies at age 48 of cirrhosis and tuberculosis.
April 10, 1962: Stu Sutcliffe, the 21-year-old Scottish musician and original Beatles bass player, dies of a cerebral hemorrhage. This internal injury, a ruptured aneurysm, may have been related to a head injury Sutcliffe suffered in 1961 as a result of a street fight in which John Lennon also suffered minor injuries.
April 10, 2003: When the United States invades the Iraqi capital of Baghdad to depose Saddam Hussein, officials at the Iraqi National Library and Archives fear that its archives of papers related to Hussein and his Ba’athist Party will incriminate them. They hire local people, many of them poor and likely motivated by the money, to loot and set fire to the library. These acts destroy about 60% of the archives and 25% of the library materials, including one of the oldest known copies of the Koran.
April 12, 1204: Christian Crusaders turn on the Christian capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, in three days of looting and burning. The rampage destroys the Library of Constantinople and other priceless works of art and ancient artifacts.
April 14, 1865: U.S. president Abraham Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth.
April 14, 1922: Shortly after she hears a radio program on which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle describes his Spiritualist beliefs, a New Jersey woman named Maude Fancher decides she wants to live in the spirit world with her 2-year-old son Cecil. She kills Cecil, then attempts to kill herself by drinking a bottle of Lysol cleaning solution. Maude Fancher survives.
April 14, 1965: Perry Edward Smith and Dick Hickok are executed by hanging by the state of Kansas for the murders of the Clutter family on November 15, 1959.
April 15, 1865: After being in a coma for eight hours, Abraham Lincoln dies from the bullet wound inflicted on him by John Wilkes Booth.
April 15, 1888: English poet Matthew Arnold dies. He has suffered a heart attack while chasing after a streetcar.
April 16, 1689: Playwright Aphra Behn dies. She is 48 years old.
April 17, 1998: Linda McCartney dies of breast cancer that has spread to her liver. She’s 56 years old.
April 18, 1906: The Great San Francisco Earthquake strikes Northern California. About 80% of the city is destroyed. The collapse of so many buildings and subsequent fires are responsible for around 3,000 deaths. Fire chief Dennis T. Sullivan was among the victims of the earthquake, so the interim fire chief requested help from the U.S. military. Both psychologist Henry James and writer H.G. Wells (on his first visit to the United States) remarked on the positive attitude and general helpfulness of the survivors in the rebuilding effort.
April 18, 1966: A fire at the Jewish Theological Seminary library in Manhattan destroys 70,000 books. Fortunately, most of these were additional copies of books housed on the ground floor of the library, which was not damaged in the fire. The library’s collection of rare manuscripts is also unharmed.
April 19, 1824: George Gordon, Sixth Lord Byron, dies of malaria while fighting in Greece for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire. He is 36 years old.
April 21, 1910: Mark Twain dies in Redding, Connecticut, as Jill Badonsky writes in The Awe-manac, “just one day after Halley’s Comet’s perihelion.” The author born Samuel Langhorne Clemens is quoted as having said, “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year and I expect to go out with it.”
April 21, 1978: English folk-rock singer Sandy (Alexandria) Denny dies at age 31 from head injuries sustained from a fall down some stairs at her home. Denny, who had bipolar disorder, was known to use falls as a form of self-harm and had sustained a previous head injury from another fall down the stairs. Denny was being treated for headaches with a medication known to mix poorly with alcohol, so it’s unclear if Denny’s ultimate fall was an act of self-harm or an accident precipitated by mixing her medication with alcohol.
April 21, 2016: The musician who performs as Prince (Prince Rogers Nelson) is found dead in an elevator inside his home. He has apparently passed away from taking pills of the opioid medication hydrocodone, to which he was addicted, which were counterfeit and laced with fentanyl. He is 57 years old.
On the same day, true crime writer Michelle McNamara dies in her sleep of an accidental overdose of street drugs and prescription medication. McNamara’s husband, actor Patton Oswalt, has acknowledged that McNamara was addicted to opioids. Her health condition was caused, in part, by her harrowing research on her book I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer (this is an affiliate link). The book tells the story of a serial rapist and murderer who was not caught until 2018, two years after McNamara’s death.
April 22, 1915: 27-year-old poet Rupert Brooks dies of sepsis due to wounds he received fighting for the British Royal Navy during the First World War.
April 22, 1987: 52-year-old Ruthie Mae McCoy, who lives in the Grace Abbott Homes public housing project in Chicago, called the police to report that, “...some people next door are totally tearing this down, you know–” When the dispatcher pressed her for clarification, McCoy said, “Yeah, they throwed the cabinet down...I’m in the projects, I’m on the other side. You can reach—can reach my bathroom, they want to come through the bathroom.”
What the dispatcher didn’t know was that in the Grace Abbott Homes, the contractors who built the building had left the apartments’ back-to-back bathrooms connected by a narrow tunnel, which had made access easier for the plumbers. Neighborhood residents intent on burglary had discovered that by removing the bathroom mirror of one apartment, they could crawl through the narrow tunnel and reach the bathroom of the apartment on the opposite side.
This is what happened to McCoy: would-be burglars came through the space where her bathroom mirror had been and shot her to death. A second 911 call from a neighbor reported the sound of gunshots coming from McCoy’s apartment. Police knocked on McCoy’s door that night, but when they received no answer, they left without entering the apartment. Apparently they were unwilling to break down the door due to the prospect of being sued.
McCoy’s lifeless body is found the next day; she has been shot four times. The tragic story of urban neglect and the intruders who entered the apartment through a bathroom mirror inspired the movie Candyman.
April 22, 2000: Playing Judas in an Easter play in Rome, Renato Di Paolo dies by accidental hanging. His death is caught on film by a member of the audience.
April 22, 2012: Brazilian actor Tiago Klimeck is taken off life support and dies. He has been in a coma since accidentally hanging himself while performing as Judas Iscariot in an Easter passion play in Itarare, Brazil. Klimeck is 27 years old. He may have accidentally gotten some of his clothes tangled in the safety harness meant to give him the illusion of hanging by his neck.
April 22, 2021: 57-year-old Gregory Jacobs, the musician who rapped under the name Shock G and other aliases, dies of an apparently accidental overdose of fentanyl, alcohol, and methamphetamine.
April 25, 2002: Rapper Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes is driving an SUV in La Cieba, Honduras, where she’s filming a documentary while on a spiritual retreat with her two siblings. She swerves to avoid an oncoming vehicle, only to swerve into the path of another vehicle, causing her to swerve sharply to the left. She strikes two trees, throwing her and three passengers from the SUV. Lopes, who is only 30 years old, dies instantly of severe head trauma. Her passengers are injured, but survive.
April 27, 1932: Poet Hart Crane, age 32, dies by suicide by drowning in the Gulf of Mexico. He jumps off the steam ship on which he’s traveling from Mexico to New York. Crane is believed to be heavily intoxicated when he jumps and had recently been badly beaten when he made advances on a male crew member. His body is never recovered.
April 27, 2000: Broadway actress and dance music singer Vicki Sue Robinson dies of cancer at the age of 45.
April 29, 1986: A fire at the Los Angeles Public Library’s Central Library destroys 400,000 books and other circulating materials.
