Author: The Hinoeuma
Shutterbug Saturday: Beach Shots
We are fifteen days out from the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. It’s already cold and dark before the six o’clock news comes on. For some warmth, here are some shots from a beach trip I took back in 2011. ~Vic
Pine Knoll Shores
History
10-28-2011
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10-29-2011
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Visit NC
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FFTD: Spiraea
I believe this is a Nipponica, a shrub in the Rosaceae family that is native to Shikoku, Japan. ~Vic
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Flower for the Day
TV Tuesday: The Man Who Stroked Cats 1955
Sixty-five years ago, today, the black & white short drama The Man Who Stroked Cats appeared on BBCtv. Based on the short story The Young Man Who Stroked Cats by Morley Roberts, it was adapted and directed by Anthony Pelissier. It starred Tony Britton as the main character Tom Meredith, Josephine Griffin as The Girl, Dorice Fordred as The Daily Woman and John Gatrell as the Doctor.
There are no pictures or video clips associated with this TV short and IMDb has no written plot, summary or synopsis.
1907
Image Credit: Wikipedia & Wikimedia
From Scribd:
[Thomas] Meredith finds himself the recipient of a very mysterious and unexpected gift…[a] Persian kitten in a basket. More mysterious still, the note accompanying it only reads: For the young man who strokes cats.
Thomas is indeed a cat-lover and, is both delighted and intrigued by his new present. But, before long, things take another strange turn. He receives a mysterious anonymous phone call from a dying woman…and this turns out to be the start of a bizarre nightly telephone romance.
From BBC Genome/Radio Times Magazine (Issue 1672/November 25, 1955):
It has been said that the world is divided into two main classes of people […] those who love cats and those who don’t. Among those who do is Tom, a young man who can’t resist giving a friendly word and a quick stroke to every stray he meets on his way to work, with results that even the most superstitious of black-cat lovers couldn’t possibly have foreseen…
Additional Reading:
A Philosophy of Tramping: Morley Roberts (Cynical Reflections)
Audible Audiobook
BBC Genome Beta
HathiTrust Digital Library
Morley Roberts (Wikipedia)
Scribd Audiobook
POTD: The Doorway
Gnome home? Faerie house? Opening to another dimension? ~Vic
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Picture of the Day
Flashback Friday: Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade 1924
Ninety-six years ago, today, the very first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was held.
From History Channel:
As the United States prospered during the Roaring Twenties, so did New York City’s iconic department store, Macy’s. After going public in 1922, R. H. Macy & Co. started to acquire competitors and open regional locations. Macy’s flagship store in Manhattan’s Herald Square did such a brisk business that it expanded in 1924 to cover an entire city block, stretching from Broadway to Seventh Avenue along 34th Street.
To showcase the opening of the “World’s Largest Store” and its one million square feet of retail space at the start of the busy holiday shopping season, Macy’s decided to throw New York a parade on Thanksgiving morning. In spite of its timing, the parade was not actually about Thanksgiving at all but the next major holiday on the calendar…Christmas. Macy’s hoped its “Christmas Parade” would whet the appetites of consumers for a holiday shopping feast.
[Previously], the only Thanksgiving parade that had previously passed through the city’s streets was its peculiar, and to many annoying, tradition of children painting their faces and donning tattered clothes to masquerade as “ragamuffins” who asked “Anything for Thanksgiving?” as they begged door-to-door for pennies, apples and pieces of candy.
At [9:00am EST], on the sunlit morning of November 27, 1924, Macy’s gave the children of New York a particularly special Thanksgiving treat as a police escort led the start of the parade from the intersection of 145th Street and Convent Avenue. Macy’s had promised parade-goers “a marathon of mirth” in its full-page newspaper advertisements. While the parade route may not have extended over 26 miles, its 6-mile length certainly made for a long hike for those marching from Harlem to Herald Square.
Although the parade garnered only two sentences the following day in the New York Herald, […] it proved such a smash that Macy’s announced in a newspaper advertisement the following morning that it would stage the parade, again, the following Thanksgiving. “We did not dare dream its success would be so great.”
Macy’s History (NYC Tourist)
FFTD: Loropetalum
Loropetalum Chinense, Chinese Fringe flower or Strap flower. ~Vic
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Flower for the Day
Music Monday: Membra Jesu Nostri 1680
Painting Author: Johannes Voorhout
Collection: Hamburg Museum
Image Credit: Wikipedia & Wikimedia
Three hundred, forty years ago, Danish-German Baroque composer and organist Dieterich Buxtehude composed Membra Jesu Nostri. Considered to be one of the most influential composers in Germany, his style is reflected in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, one of his students. [More] than 100 compositions of his survive […].
Membra Jesu Nostri [or The limbs of our Jesus], BuxWV 75, is a cycle of seven cantatas composed by Dieterich Buxtehude in 1680 and dedicated to Gustaf Düben. The full Latin title Membra Jesu Nostri Patientis Sanctissima translates to “The most holy limbs of our suffering Jesus”. This work is known as the first Lutheran oratorio. The main text are stanzas from the Medieval hymn Salve Mundi Salutare, also known as the Rhythmica Oratio, a poem formerly ascribed to Bernard of Clairvaux but, now thought more likely to have been written by Medieval poet Arnulf of Leuven […]. It is divided into seven parts, each addressed to a different part of Christ’s crucified body: feet, knees, hands, sides, breast, heart and face. In each part, biblical words referring to the limbs frame verses of the poem.
Sources:
Duke Vespers Ensemble (MSR Classics)
Salve Mundi Salutare (New Advent)
Buxtehude Composition List (Wikipedia)
Dieterich Buxtehude (Wikipedia)
Membra Jesu Nostri (Wikipedia)
The International Dieterich Buxtehude Society
POTD: Old Dodge
I believe this is a 1966 Dodge D100. ~Vic
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Picture of the Day
Throwback Thursday: Gettysburg Address 1863
One hundred, fifty-seven years ago, today, President Abraham Lincoln gave his famous speech at the dedication of the Soldier’s National Cemetery in Gettysburg. The Battle of Gettysburg had just been 4 1/2 months prior. Lincoln was in the early stages of a mild case of small pox.
Library of Congress
Photographer: Carol Highsmith 2007
Image Credit: Wikipedia & Wikimedia
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Additional Reading:
Speeches & Writings (Abraham Lincoln Online)
Britannica
History Channel
National Geographic
National Park Service
FFTD: Asteraceae
These cutie-pies are in the same family as these big daisies and these little daisies. I suspect this is in the Michaelmas group and possibly an Algar’s Pride. ~Vic
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Flower for the Day
Snapshots Sunday: Animal Friends 6.0
Shots of the locals. ~Vic
05-12-2018
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06-23-2019
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09-04-2019
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09-23-2019
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10-15-2019
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04-04-2020
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Veterans Day 2020
I did a post on the 100 year anniversary of the ending of WW I back in 2018. I did a post on my Vietnam Veteran in 2019. This year, I’m staying simple. ~Vic
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FFTD: Orange Eye
I had no clue about this one. Pl@ntNet certainly helps, assuming it is correct or that I chose properly. This is, possibly, a Buddleja Davidii or Summer Lilac and Butterfly-Bush. It is a flowering plant but, I thought the leaves were pretty, too. It’s native to Central China and Japan. ~Vic
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Flower for the Day
Song Sunday: Keep On Runnin’ (Journey)
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“Oh, it’s Friday night. Let’s run tonight, ’til the morning light…”
Returning to my Samsung playlist, this Sunday’s submission is Keep On Runnin’ by American rock band Journey, formed in San Francisco in 1973 out of former members of Santana and Frumious Bandersnatch. The fourth track from the album Escape (released in July 1981), it was co-written by Jonathan Cain, Steve Perry and Neal Schon and, was never released as a single, though the album, itself, reached #1 on the Billboard 200 on September 12, 1981. The song does show up in the Journey video game from Bally Midway, that came out in March of 1983, with this tagline (one of three):
“The hottest band in the country is about to take over the planet!”
The album got its own Atari 2600 video game in 1982. This album, and Frontiers after it, is a musical tapestry to my high school years.
July 2006
Co-Headliner Def Leppard
I got to see the band in concert, twice, in Texas and was lucky enough to get to meet them. This is the tour where Journey dropped Steve Augeri and picked up Jeff Scott Soto for a year. Neither could match Perry but, Augeri was close.
I’m on the far left next to Jonathan Cain. My buddy Monica is in between Cain & Neal Schon. My buddy Amy is in between Deen Castronovo & Ross Valory.
It’s a shame the members are embroiled in a lawsuit. ~Vic
Cosmic-Observation 