Almanac for August 25th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for August 25th: https://ko-fi.com/post/August-25-S6S71281RX

Bummer August 25th

August 25, 1823: Fur trapper Hugh Glass is mauled by a bear in what is now South Dakota and left for dead by his fellow trappers. Not dead, Glass sets his own broken leg and journeys more than 200 miles to reach the nearest European settlement on the Missouri River. 

Leonardo DiCaprio played Glass in the 2016 movie The Revenant and won his first Oscar for doing so.

August 25, 1914: During World War I, German troops occupying Leuven, Belgium, set fire to the city and destroying almost half of it. 300 civilians die. Included in the burning and destruction is the library of the Catholic University of Leuven, which loses approximately 230,000 materials, including priceless medieval manuscripts.

August 25, 1945: OSS (the forerunner to the CIA) agent John Birch is killed by Communists in China.

August 25, 1959: Miles Davis performs at the Birdland jazz club on Broadway and 52nd St. in New York City. Pausing for a cigarette break between sets, Davis is told to “Move along” by a police officer on patrol. Davis points out that he’s headlining the club and the two exchange words. Another officer, Donald Rolker approaches and hits Davis repeatedly with his blackjack before the two officers place Davis under arrest. Later cleared of all charges, Davis nonetheless needs five stitches for his head injury and remembers the incident bitterly.

August 25, 1984: Truman Capote dies of liver disease.

August 25, 1992: The National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina is destroyed by Serbian bombing during the Siege of Sarajevo.

August 25, 2001: Aaliyah Haughton, who sang and acted under the mononym Aaliyah, and eight others are killed when their Cessna 402 aircraft crashes and catches fire shortly after takeoff from Marsh Airport Harbour in the Bahamas. The artist and her crew had finished filming a music video for her song “Rock the Boat,” and the plane was loaded with video equipment. Smaller than the Cessna 404 they had originally planned to fly back to the U.S. on, the plane couldn’t handle the extra weight. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the overloaded aircraft to be 700 pounds too heavy for a safe flight.

August 25, 2014: 39-year-old Charles Vacca is accidentally shot and killed in White Hills, Arizona, while teaching a nine-year-old girl in how to shoot a Mini-Uzi submachine gun. The gun recoils and the child loses control of the gun, causing the barrel to be aimed at Vacca. Vacca suffers a gunshot wound to the head. Although airlifted to a hospital in Las Vegas, Nevada, he dies of his injury.

August 25, 2026: Sadly, I must report that this is the day on which the USA's beloved Dolly Parton passed away at the age of 80. 

Bummer Summer Part I: Awful Things That Happened in August

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

As I mentioned back in June, I've been working on a time-based project. A sort of almanac, if you will. That project was well underway as I sat in the Kan-Kan Cinema and Brasserie the other day, watching Jordan Peele's Nope. 

I'm not going to spoil anything major about the movie, but here's a minor spoiler that occurs in the first few minutes: Weird things fall out of the sky. 

This reminded me of a particular genre of reading I enjoyed as a young adult: Collections of short, weird, allegedly true paranormal happenings. These books would collect ghost stories beside tales of strange happenings like alleged cases of spontaneous human combustion, reincarnation, and rains of weird things such as frogs. 

It occurred to me that part of Jordan Peele's writing process was collecting bits of news, little ripples of anxiety that run through our American culture, and weaving them together into a story. This reminded me of my almanac project, which isn't specifically focused on cultural anxieties or weird happenings, but does mention some of them incidentally. For example, I was alive on September 11, 2001, and I've written about it; some of that writing made its way into my first almanac draft/work-in-progress.

I don't want the entire almanac to be a bummer. But this gave me an idea: What if I wrote a separate document, a companion almanac, a slimmer volume that was focused on the bummer parts of history and American culture?

This is the first little peek at what I'm tentatively--very tentatively--calling Erin O’Riordan’s Almanac of Bad Days. I'm me, so it's still a bit literary-focused.

August 2, 1973: Approximately 50 people are killed when the Summerland indoor amusement park catches fire. The building’s ceiling is constructed using a transparent acrylic material, which melts, raining burning-hot liquid acrylic down on the victims of the fire.

August 2, 1997: William S. Burroughs dies, having had a heart attack the previous day.

August 7, 2016: 10-year-old son Caleb Schwab is killed while riding the Verrückt water raft ride at Schlitterbahn Water Park in Kansas City, Kansas. The tallest such ride in the world at the time, the ride had a screen over the top, held in place with a series of metal support rings, to keep guests from accidentally flying off the ride in the event that the raft should become airborn. Caleb, who was riding on the front of a raft with two unrelated women riding on the back, struck the metal support ring and was decapitated when his raft became airborne. 

August 10, 1978: Three teenage girls, all members of the Ulrich family, are killed in an automobile accident while riding in a Ford Pinto. The state of Indiana charges the Ford Motor Company with homicide, claiming that the company was aware of manufacturing defects that made the vehicle more likely to cause death in the event of certain types of accidents. Ford is found not guilty.

August 12, 1964: Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels and of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, dies.

No Time to Die

August 12, 1982: Japan Airlines Flight 123 crashes into a mountain after the pilots lose the ability to steer the plane. Of the 509 passengers and 15 crew members, only three passengers and one crew member survive. Rescue operations are delayed due to darkness and mountainous terrain, which means many people who may have initially had non-fatal injuries died of exposure, blood loss, and other conditions. 

August 13, 1521: Hernán Cortés and his small army of Spanish conquistadores conquer the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán after an extended siege that began in 1519. 

August 13, 1944: Lucien Carr, friend of Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, stabs and kills his acquaintance David Kammerer. Carr will serve two years in prison for manslaughter, then go on to father children who include novelist Caleb Carr. 

August 17, 1966: English race car driver Ken Miles is killed when the Ford Mk IV he is test-driving crashes at over 200 miles per hour.

August 21, 1986: A naturally-occurring limnic eruption of Lake Nyos in Cameroon releases poisonous carbon dioxide into the air, killing 1,746 people. 

August 25, 1984: Truman Capote dies of liver disease.

August 26, 2001: Tit and I got out of bed this morning and turned on the news to hear that the singer/dancer/actor Aaliyah had perished in a plane crash in the Bahamas. Born in 1979, she was only 22 years old.

August 27, 1883: Mount Krakatau (Anglicized as Krakatoa), which had begun to erupt on the 20th of May, intensifies in seismic activity with an eruption that destroys more than two-thirds of its island. The eruption is one of the loudest sounds ever heard by human ears, with the explosion being heard 4,800 miles away from the Indonesian site of the volcano. Pyroclastic flows, ash expelled into the atmosphere, and resulting tsunamis are estimated to have killed more than 36,400 people. Only the 1815 Mount Tambora explosion is thought to have been deadlier.

August 28, 2020: 43-year-old actor Chadwick Boseman passes away from colon cancer.

Musical Cliches in Katy Perry's Song "Roar"

I like "Roar." It's an empowering pop song with a catchy melody. I just don't love the lyrics, written by Katy Perry, Bonnie McKee, Dr. Luke, Max Martin, and Cirkut. According to Wikipedia, "'Roar' received generally mixed reviews from music critics; many appreciated its overall production, while others felt that its lyrical content contained 'clichés.'"

It contains numerous clichés, which I will attempt to illustrate below. Let me know if I missed any.

Katy Perry, Creative Commons image by Eve Rinaldi

I used to bite my tongue and hold my breath

Scared to rock the boat (1) and make a mess 

So I sat quietly, agreed politely

I guess that I forgot I had a choice

I let you push me past the breaking point (2)

I stood for nothing, so I fell for everything (3) 

1. "Rock the Boat" was a hit song for the group called Hues Corporation in 1974, but rocking the boat was already a musical cliché at the time. "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat" was a musical number in Guys and Dolls, which made its Broadway premiere in 1950. Aaliyah was a latecomer with her hit titled "Rock the Boat," released on her 2001 Aaliyah album.

Aaliyah, Creative Commons image by Aimee Taylor

2. Breaking Point was the name of medical drama in the United States that aired in 1963 and 1964 and the name of a movie from 1976 starring no one I've ever heard of. Musically, "Breaking Point" was a 2010 single performed and co-written (with Timbaland and others) by Keri Hilson.

Keri Hilson, Creative Commons image by Keith Hinkle

3. "If you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything" is a well-known quote attributed to British journalist Alex Hamilton in 1978. It's sometimes mistakenly attributed to U.S. president Alexander Hamilton, but that's only a name error. 

You held me down, but I got up (HEY!)

Already brushing off the dust (4)

You hear my voice, you hear that sound

Like thunder (5) gonna shake the ground 

You held me down, but I got up (HEY!)

Get ready 'cause I’ve had enough

I see it all, I see it now

4. Matthew 10:14: "And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet." That's the King James version of the Christian Bible. Perhaps Perry was thinking of her days as a gospel singer.

5. The metaphor of a voice like thunder is an even older Biblical reference, harking back to the Jewish Bible in Job 40:9. 

Chorus:

I got the eye of the tiger (6), a fighter (7), dancing through the fire (8)

'Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar

Louder, louder than a lion

'Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar

Oh oh oh oh oh oh (3x)

You’re gonna hear me roar

6. "Eye of the Tiger" was a 1982 hit for the group Survivor.

7. "Fighter" was Christina Aguilera's empowerment hit in 2002.

Christina Aguilera in a Creative Commons image by D.S.B.

8. "Dancing Through the Fire" was a song from a prog-rock group called Pallas' 1986 album The Wedge. That's an obscure reference, but the phrase also brings to mind Duran Duran's "A View to a Kill," the theme song from the James Bond film of the same name. The chorus includes the phrase "dance into the fire." The single was a #1 hit in the U.S. in 1985. If we really want to push it, we might even say that it calls to mind Leviticus 18:21: "And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD." 

Now I’m floating like a butterfly  

Stinging like a bee (9). I earned my stripes (10) 

I went from zero, to my own hero (11)

You held me down, but I got up (HEY!)

Already brushing off the dust

You hear my voice, you hear that sound

Like thunder gonna shake the ground

You held me down, but I got up (HEY!)

Get ready ’cause I’ve had enough

I see it all, I see it now...

(and then the chorus again)

9. Muhammad Ali, of course!

10. "To earn one's stripes," an idiom borrowed from the military (which uses stripes to denote rank on uniforms), is a favorite in hip-hop songs. Songs that use the phrase include "Thoughts on a Balcony" by Mac Miller, "Showin' Love" by Ab-Soul, "I'm So Hood (Remix)" by DJ Khaled, and "Outro" by Vince Staples.

Ab-Soul, in a Creative Commons image by comeupshow

11. "Zero to Hero" was a musical number in the 1998 Disney cartoon version of Hercules.

I like this song, but next time - Perry, McKee, Luke, Martin, and Cirkut, I'm talking to you - you might want to crack open A Dictionary of Clichés by Eric Partridge or The Dictionary of Clichés by James Rogers (preferably both) and avoid any phrase contained therein.

Note: Katy Perry is by far not the only musical artist guilty of this kind of atrocity against originality. Take, for example, "Why Don't You and I," the song Chad Kroeger wrote for Santana's 2003 album Shaman. It's just as bad, if not worse. 

Several Hours I Spent Reading Conspiracy Theory Blogs

Once upon a time, I used to host a link on this blog to Nibiru Planet X, a conspiracy theory blog. Its author, Ray Austin, contacted me and asked me if I wanted to host a link on my blog in exchange for a link on Nibiru. I put up his link, but I don't think he ever put up mine. But anyway...

Nibiru Planet X maintains a post about Illuminati symbolism in Kanye West's "Heartless" video.

Creative Commons

What caught my eye about the post mentioned in the link was that it was about Lady Gaga. I'm a fan. Why, only yesterday I was moved to express my support for Mother Monster on Mandy Nicole's blog Pretty Little Endeavors, when Mandy expressed the opinion that she much preferred Madonna to Gaga. But anyway...

I ended up spending a great deal of time reading over MK Culture. Its main premise seems to be that much of pop culture is directly related to, and influenced by, something called Project MKUltra, which a Wikipedia entry defines as "a covert, illegal human research program into behavior modification run by the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Office of Scientific Intelligence. The program began in the early 1950s, was officially sanctioned in 1953, was reduced in scope in 1964, further curtailed in 1967 and finally halted in 1973." Yeshua contends, however, that it still goes on, and that young pop stars all show signs of having been indoctrinated into a specific mind control program.

Creative Commons

Yeshua has a large number of posts related to Lady Gaga, dating back to 2009. One titled "Just Dance" also makes reference to Madonna, Beyonce, Rihanna, Ciara, Britney Spears, and Janet Jackson, among other pop cultural phenomena. Across several blog posts, Yeshua contends that the on-stage or on-record alternate personalities represented by pop stars (Beyonce's Sasha Fierce, Janet Jackson's Damita Jo, Madonna's Dita) actually represent alternate personalities caused by intentional personality-splitting through ritualistic abuse.

Public domain

It was an odd thing to read - and, like a supermarket tabloid, it was far too odd, disturbing and intriguing to stop reading. Here are a few highlights of the blog, in chronological order:

Pyramid symbolism in the Spice Girls' "Holler" video

Gnosticism in Shakira's videos

Connecting Madonna to Marlene Dietrich and Marilyn Monroe

Goddess symbolism in Ellen Page films, Aaliyah videos

Nicki Minaj, Alice in Wonderland and the Barbie doll persona

Creative Commons

I notice a lot of these female pop stars are people whose names are already listed in my tags, women I've already blogged about. What does this say about me? 

Branching off from Yeshua's blog, I read this intriguing post about the symbolism in The Prestige (the movie that caused me to fall in love with Christian Bale). Then I explored the blog Invoking Mother Spirit (now defunct). Some interesting stuff there, too, such as: Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and Amy Winehouse all died on the eve of major awards shows. To my chagrin, it didn't actually have much to do with mother spirit. I love my goddess symbolism, not because I belong to the Illuminati (or want to) but because I'm a witch. That's my spirituality. 

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with any of the theories presented in the posts I read. They were just something that caught my interest today.

SOC Sunday: Age Ain't Nothing But a Number

Stream of Consciousness (SOC) Sunday is the brainchild of Fadra N. at All Things Fadra. Post your 5-minute brain dump and link up there.

Today’s (Optional) Writing Prompt: Have you reached the prime of your life? What do you want to be your legacy?

I've been writing as far back as I can remember, but I didn't start writing for publication until 2005. I was 28. I had my first short story published for pay, making me a professional writer in my own mind, around my 29th birthday. Do I wish I had started earlier? Sure. I was still happy to be able to say I got started writing in my 20s.

Writers, it's said, hit their stride in their 40s and 50s. I've published five novels now, but I'm just getting started. By no means do I feel as if I've already made my major contribution to world art and literature. This is just the appetizer. The main course is still on its way.

Some writers start even later in life. Anne Patchett's mom has written several successful novels now, and she spent most of her professional life as a RN. She was in her 60s before she decided to follow in her daughter's footsteps.

I still hope my mom will follow in my footsteps and write her vampire late-life romance novel. I want her to call it You Can Have My Vampire When You Pry Me From His Cold, Dead Hands.

Remember what Aaliyah said: "Age Ain't Nothing But a Number."

Anne Patchett's mom is Jeanne Ray. I couldn't remember it during my free write, but I looked it up afterward. I should be ashamed, because I met Ray at a literary event at my local library.

Vamps for Valentines Winner + Love for The Tale of the Body Thief

As chosen by Random.org, the winner of the two paperbacks in my Vampires for Valentines is...Denise Z! I'll be e-mailing you with a request for the address to which the books should be sent. Anne, you won the romance paperbacks giveaway.

I was thrilled last week when I read Nola Cancel's article stating that Imagine Entertainment, Ron Howard's company, has optioned Anne Rice's fourth Vampire Chronicles novel, The Tale of the Body Thief for possible production. The word that comes to mind is "Squee!"

This has inspired me to watch the first two film based on the Chronicles. I enjoyed Interview with the Vampire - but not the Guns 'N Roses cover of the Rolling Stones classic "Sympathy for the Devil."

This should be the theme song instead:



Not quite as entertaining, but still interesting, is Queen of the Damned, starring Aaliyah and Stuart Townsend. I don't love all the music in this; I'm no more a fan of Korn (whose lead singer acted as composer) than I am of G&R. I do like one song, though: The Deftones' "Change." In "Oakley Falls," I used this as Oakley's intro music.

This clip won't play on this blog, but it does link to YouTube, and you can see it there.



BUT it does bother me a tiny bit that Stuart Townsend is clearly brown-eyed, while book-Lestat has gray eyes. I'm not sure if the first movie had Tom Cruise wear contacts, but he seems to have naturally blue eyes. Blue is much closer to gray than brown is.

The non-Queen of the Damned version of the "Change" video will play here.



More on Anne Rice tomorrow...

Sorry, Edward, but this is too good to resist. This comes courtesy of Rhiannon Mills.

September 11, 2001 Remembered

The following is my unabridged, uncensored journal entry from September 11, 2001.

Today will always be known as a black day in American history. I know that I will never forget it.

It began ordinarily enough. I had awakened at four thirty to pee, and found that I'd started my period. I went back to bed and woke up around 7. [Tit Elingtin] wanted to go for a walk, but I was feeling too lazy. Then we started fooling around, and he got up to take a shower. While he was in the shower, I was thinking about what I'd read of Susie Bright last night. I was thinking of making a list of some of the sex scenes I've read in books.

I turned on NBC, as usual.

But the news was not usual, not at all.

It started with a picture of a plane crash. They - the Today show anchors, Katie Couric and Matt Lauer - reported that a small private plane crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. Sad, I thought. Weird. I remarked jokingly, "At least we know it wasn't Aaliyah this time." An accident, it seemed.

That impression was shattered a moment later. I heard terror in the reporter's voice as there was a second impact. A second plane had hit the World Trade Center, striking the other tower. This was a deliberate act, a suicide mission. Later in the morning, both towers of the World Trader Center would collapse onto the streets of New York City, crushing rescue workers who went in after the first victims.

Soon we would learn that both planes were commercial airliners, full of passengers. They had been hijacked. And that was not the end of the terror.

Two more planes had been hijacked. Within the hour, one crashed directly into the south side of the Pentagon, killing perhaps hundreds of office workers as well as the plane's passengers. The fourth place was perhaps headed for the White House, but ended up crashing into a field in Pennsylvania. I heard that perhaps the military was forced to shoot it down. After the second plane hit, all commercial and private planes were grounded. Every airport in the country was closed, and only the military was allowed to be in the air.

No one knows yet how many died today. Many hundreds were wounded; New York's hospitals were so full they were using cafeterias as emergency rooms. Worse, no one has claimed responsibility for the horrible actions. Unlike after Pearl Harbor, we don't have anyone to declare war against.

The chief suspect, though, is Osama bin Laden, a known terrorist who is supported by the government of Afghanistan. He is thought responsible for the horrible bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and the destruction of the U.S.S. Cole.

[Tit Elingtin] and I sat, stunned, watching the news coverage. But we also managed to keep our 9:20 appointment to take Kitty to the vet. She had to get a checkup, some blood work to check for diseases, and a round of yearly vaccinations. She also had to have one of her anal glands cleaned out because it was blocked.

On our way home, we listened to the awful news as well as Kitty's meows. We were hungry, so we went to McDonald's. As we left Mickey D's, we saw Mikel [a friend] walking along, so we offered him a ride. He was worried about his uncle, who works in an office building near the now-destroyed World Trade Center.

We went home and ate. I had a fruit and yogurt parfait. I was really hungry, and it was pretty good: vanilla yogurt, crunchy granola with a hint of cinnamon, blueberries and delicious strawberries. I felt guilty to be enjoying it while so much horror was happening on the East Coast.

I went to work at 11:30, but I didn't stay as long as usual. The schools let out a little bit early, and most of our 3-5 and 3-7 kids got bussed home instead of bussed to [the mental health facility where I worked]. A few showed up, either because their parents weren't home or because of a miscommunication between school and bus driver. But we all went home at 5 instead of staying until 7 or 8.

When I got home, [Tit] was home too, watching news coverage. We decided we wanted to tape some of it, so we went to Osco to buy videotape and some mothballs. Our apartment was all infested with moths, and not the pretty moths that look like butterflies, either. We walked home from Osco and spent the rest of the night camped in front of TV, hearing about hijacking, plane crashes and fallen skyscrapers. We heard the agonizing news that New York City believed it lost over 200 firefighters and police officers. It was a truly sad, frightening, horrific day.

Image attribution: World Trade Center in March 2001 photo by Jeffmock, Creative Commons license. I took the other photo, of the actual notebook from which I took this entry.