Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for August 27th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac: https://ko-fi.com/post/August-27-Z8Z61282UV

Artist Birthday: Theodore Dreiser

January 24, 1926. From the East St. Louis Daily Journal by Gerald Miller

Bummer August 27

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 27, 1971: Lillian “Lil” Hardin Armstrong suffers a heart attack while playing the piano during a televised concert performed as a tribute to her late husband Louis Armstrong. She dies in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. She had been working on her autobiography in the months before her death; sadly, the manuscript has been lost.

August 27, 1990: Blues-rock musician Stevie Ray Vaughan takes a helicopter to get from Alpine Valley Music Theatre in East Troy, Michigan. The helicopter crashes into a ski hill shortly after takeoff, killing Vaughan, pilot Jeff Brown, tour manager Colin Smythe, agent Bobby Brooks, and bodyguard Nigel Browne.

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Here's the video I uploaded on August 27, 2025:

Almanac for July 11

Almanac for July 11: https://ko-fi.com/Post/July-11-Seven-and-Jerry-W7W01HQCVL

Bummer July 11

July 11, 1906: Pregnant, 20-year-old Grace Brown, a worker in the Gillette Skirt Factory, is intentionally drowned and murdered by her boyfriend Chester Gillette, nephew of the factory owner. Gillette is subsequently executed in the electric chair.

The murder inspires Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, which in turn inspires the 1951 film A Place In the Sun. The character based on Brown is played by Shelley Winters.

July 11, 1937: George Gershwin, age 38, dies of a brain tumor.

But if you don't want George Gershwin to die, you can listen to this fictional audiobook in which he doesn't.

Being Midwestern Rules! Pt. 2 ~ Indiana

On Mondays I hook up with Pinning! at A Night Owl Blog/Baxtron{Life}. 

On Wednesday, it's Oh, How Pinteresting! at The Vintage Apple. 

Being from the Midwestern United States is hella cool - I think I proved that with my Nebraska post. I'm not from Nebraska; I'm from Indiana. We've got some pretty cool people, too. If you lived through the '80s, you might think of him when you think of Indiana.

http://cheers.wikia.com/wiki/Woody_Boyd

No, this is not young Haymitch; it's the character Woody Boyd from Cheers. Woody Harrelson? Not actually from Indiana. Or even Midwestern - he's a native Texan.

But these people are actually from Indiana.

Probably the coolest, most sophisticated, urbane individual to come from the Hoosier state? Cole Porter. The moment you realize you're from Indiana and so is Cole Porter is a very good moment indeed.

James Dean was from Indiana. Here he's reading The Complete Poetical Writings by James Whitcomb Riley, a 19th century poet also from Indiana.

When I say I hope to die and ascend to bisexual heaven and sit at the right hand of James Dean, amen, you may think I'm being facetious. I'm not. (Religion - it's complicated.) This is Photoshopped, but still - James Dean kissing Marlon Brandon. 

Old Hollywood screwball comedy queen - and lost love of Clark Gable's life - Carole Lombard was from Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Fun Fort Wayne fact: its library system has the world's second-largest collection of genealogical records, after the Mormon collection in Salt Lake City, Utah. I visited FW's main downtown library once and had a bagel in its coffee shop.

Steve McQueen, so cool there's a Sheryl Crow song about him, was from Indianapolis. His grandson, Steven R. McQueen, plays Jeremy on The Vampire Diaries.

McQueen's hometown is also the hometown of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. If you can find a greater 20th century American writer, read him or her or them.

Other writers from Indiana include Phillip Jose Farmer (who sometimes wrote as "Kilgore Trout," a fictional writer invented by Kurt Vonnegut), Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries), and Theodore Drieser. Drieser wrote An American Tragedy, the basis for the movie A Place in the Sun.

Adam Lambert was born in Indianapolis. Probably the most well-known family to come out of Indiana, though? The Jacksons. Michael, Janet and their siblings were raised in Gary, a large city just to the east of Chicago.

See? Being Midwestern is awesome.