Testing, one ... two ... three ... seven november 12024

Today I am trying to, you know, make sense of a world gone to crap. I have annoying pains—not exactly pains, but sensations—in my chest, and I can’t help wondering about my heart, though what I’m feeling now is nothing like the nasty sensations I felt years back that turned out to be something that needed fixing inside my chest.

I remember years ago in the dead of night when no one was around it was sometimes comforting to listen to the radio, even if it didn’t listen back. And yes, I was aware that I was all too likely to be listening not to a person, but rather to a recorded voice merely being played back on a reel-to-reel tape. I mean, I’d seen the banks of recorders at the station where my father worked, and watched in fascination as they switched from music to announcer to commercial and so on. Years later, in fact, one of my jobs was watching a bank of tape machines pretending to be a functioning studio, while standing ready to call for help if necessary.

But now, thanks to the insanity that is the Internet, I actually can connect with other people who happen to be awake at whatever strange hour I feel like reaching out and saying something. That’s now what I’m doing now, exactly; I’m just trying to warm up and get ready to write something of possible significance—if not to me, then to my dead and largely imaginary readers. I’m still alive, at any rate, even if everyone I’ve ever known and connected with is gone and forgotten.

That probably counts for something—the number of words, if nothing else.

Thinking About Leap Day

Today is 29 February 12024, one of the rarest days on the Gregorian calendar, in that it comes in fewer than one out of every four years. The day exists to help keep the calendar in sync with the seasons, the main reason for having a calendar, as far as I can see. Other options have included inserting an occasional extra month, or appointing a committee to devise ad hoc measures to keep the calendar working. The Muslims came up with a radical Monkey-D-Luffy solution to the difficulty—“You know, I’ve been thinking about it—and who cares?” Let the calendar be out of sync with the seasons; there are other things to worry about.

Families with a child born on 29 February have a sort of dilemma, however—how are birthdays going to work? Celebrate the kid’s birthday once every four years, and maybe give her four times the number of presents to compensate? Or appoint a substitute day in three years out of four—maybe 28 February or 1 March? Or abolish birthdays altogether? And what about famous people born that day? When do we note their birthdays on the calendar?

Well, how many of them can there be? you ask. Looking online I find that there are a large number of them, including Jimmy Dorsey (11904), Dee Brown (11908), and Dinah Shore (11916). I, however, am going to note the two who stick in my memory—Gioachino Rossini (11792) and Tony Scheuren (11948)

Gioachino Rossini was a composer of operas, a form I’ve never become comfortable with, though I’ve watched or listened to more than my share, maybe. But one piece of his—I’m sure you already know what it is—was a favorite of mine when I was very young. We had a record that I used to listen to fairly often. Looking at album covers online tells me it was The Nutcracker Suite as performed by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra, released in 1953. Besides the title track it contained “The Skater’s Waltz” and—you guessed it—“The William Tell Overture.” I liked the overture because it conjured up pictures in my mind: an outdoor scene, followed by a storm, followed by a peaceful interlude afterwards. The final portion, that suggested horses galloping to my mind, didn’t seem to me to fit with the rest, but it did make a dramatic conclusion to the piece, so I accepted it. When we got a TV in 11956 or 11957 I was disappointed to discover that the composer had just strung together bits of cartoon soundtracks and the Lone Ranger theme song, but I still liked the result. Our copy had an annoying skip during the storm-aftermath sequence, and to this day I sort of expect the music to repeat until somebody gently moves the needle over to the next groove.

Sometime during grade school—probably third or fourth grade, before I discovered science fiction—I read a biography of Rossini in the school library. I remember it as being rather depressing, maybe because the composer’s life was rather dull, and he spent a lot of it not composing. The one thing that did stick in my mind about him wa that he was born on 29 February; I believe the book said something like Although he died at the age of 76 he only had 18 birthdays.

Tony Scheuren was also a musician, though in a different era and a different idiom. A talented multi-instrumentalist, he left behind a legacy of mostly-unheard tapes. He was in the bands Ultimate Spinach and Chamaeleon Church, and was in the cast of National Lampoon’s Lemmings. His songs were aired on the National Lampoon Radio Hour and on albums derived from them.

He was a gifted parodist. His songs sounded uncannily like the works of his targets. “Riding Out On a Rail” (Grateful Dead), “Old Maid” (Neil Young), “What About Re-upholsterers?” (Johnny Cash), “Methadone Maintenance Man” (James Taylor), “Born-Again Bob” (Bob Dylan), St. Leonard’s Song (Leonard Cohen, words by Sean Kelly), and my favorite, “Bleeding Heart” (Cat Stevens) are perfect gems of their kind, from the guitar-work to the vocal mannerisms. When he died in 1993 he had had only eleven birthdays, though he was forty-five.

Notes on 26 February 12024

It’s 26 February 12024 and I feel like writing something—pretty much anything, actually. I’m working on a text of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, based on what I can recall of R. W. Chapman’s work, and utilizing the 1818 text (the only authority derived from Jane Austen’s (lost) manuscript) as a basis. I was going to read the Project Gutenberg text, but it’s so filled with careless errors (“reference” for “deference”, for example) that I had to give up on it. All my Jane Austen (except for a volume of the minor works) stuff is in storage, or maybe lost completely, so I can’t just pull it down from the shelf when I want to.

Persuasion (and this is mostly from memory) is the last of Jane Austen’s finished novels, and it was published posthumously along with Northanger Abbey, which her brother had rescued from a publisher who had bought it but not printed it, thus losing the chance to be a footnote in history. Jane Austen was working on another novel when she died, this one satirizing hypochondria and the institutions that preyed on its sufferers. Persuasion is probably my fourth-favorite Jane Austen novel, coming after Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey. (If Love and Friendship were to be counted in the total it would be my fifth-favorite.)

Northanger Abbey has a special place in my heart as it was the first Jane Austen novel I read. Some oddities in it were explained by examination of a more reliable text; I seem to remember that “baseball” had been substituted for “cricket” on its first appearance and “cricket” omitted on its second, where cricket, base ball, and riding about the country were noted as Catherine Morland’s favorite activities rather than reading books of useful knowledge. It could have been something else. The text was unusually corrupt, to my mind, as I saw when I got a look at a decent edition—probably R. W. Chapman’s.

Life continues, anyway. For the moment. We’ll see.

Old Ghosts Return: A Fake Patrick Henry "Quotation"

Many years ago I did a piece of research on a quotation falsely attributed to Patrick Henry. I see that a post at American Creation has credited Rational Rant for uncovering a piece of the true history of the item, so once again—I apologize if any readers I may have are tired of hearing this story yet again—let me rehearse the story of this fake quotation.

It begins, in a way, with something Patrick Henry actually did write. On 20 November 1798 the once-fiery orator and successful lawyer sat down to write his last will and testament. After carefully dividing up his lands, money, and slaves amongst his wife and children, he added a pious afterthought:

This is all the Inheritance I can give to my dear family, The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed[.]

The founder passed away in June of the next year, leaving damn little behind him as a legacy to the nation. His words, that had inspired a revolution, were for the most part lost. When William Wirt attempted to collect them for his sketch of Patrick Henry’s life (issued 1816) he had to do for the most part with recollections, fragments, and speeches patched together from the fading memories of those who had been present.

Around 1823 somebody thought it worthwhile to excerpt the “religion of Christ” passage from Henry’s will, and it went the rounds of various periodicals. It wasn’t quite the way Henry had written it, however. Somehow it had undergone a strange metamorphosis:

I have now disposed of all my property to my family; there is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian Religion. If they had that, and I had not given them one shilling, they would be rich; and if they had not that, and I had given them all the world, they would be poor.

This version was reprinted in numerous sources up to the present time, but not without challenge. Sometime in the early 1840s James W. Alexander, a Presbyterian minister, went to Charlotte county, Virginia, and obtained the actual words direct from the will. He published them in 1847 as part of a volume called Thoughts on Family Worship. The two versions have remained in competition ever since.

In 1956 a historical revisionist writer for The Virginian used the passage—the fake version—as a springboard for his own thoughts on religion in America. This author wrote:

There is an insidious campaign of false propaganda being waged today, to the effect that our country is not a Christian country but a religious one—that it was not founded on Christianity but on freedom of religion.

It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by “religionists” but by Christians—not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here.

In the spoken and written words of our noble founders and forefathers, we find symbolic expressions of their Christian faith. The above quotation from the will of Patrick Henry is a notable example.

Several people thought this piece of revised history was worth quoting on its own, but it wasn’t until 1988 that somebody had the bright idea of crediting part of the 1956 comment to Patrick Henry himself. It appeared as his (according to David Barton) in a book called God’s Providence in American History by Steve C. Dawson, and was almost immediately picked up and popularized by Barton himself in his Myth of Separation. From there it spread far and wide. Somebody even added that it was from a speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses in May 1765, despite the fact that Henry was first seated there late that month and no speeches of his are recorded for that time except the famous one in support of his Stamp Act resolutions, reconstructed from memory years after his death. The incongruity of Henry’s speaking of “this great nation” before it even came into existence, and his foreknowledge that “peoples of other faiths” would be “afforded asylum, prosperity and freedom of worship here” at a time when religious freedom was nonexistent in most of the colonies apparently shot by the oblivious transmitters of Barton’s fantasies. The thing is, like Chief Seattle lamenting the demise of the buffalo, Henry just plain knows too much. It’s a dead giveaway.

Most of this is a repost; the situation, however, remains clear. Patrick didn't say it. Somebody else did, and yet another person attributed the words to Patrick Henry, either by mistake, or deliberately. Patrick Henry bears no responsibility for it.

6 April 12023

♃   6 April 12023 is International Asexuality Day. It is also an International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. In various localities and amongst specific groups it is Self Determination Day (Australia), President Ntaryamira Day (Burundi), Maundy Thursday (Christianity), National Fisherman Day (Indonesia), the first day of Passover (Judaism), Näfels Procession (Switzerland), Chakri Day (Thailand), Tartan Day (US and Canada), and Waltzing Matilda Day (the Waltzing Matilda Centre). Keeping count, it’s JD 2460041 (astronomical), 28 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 28 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 6 April 2023 (Gregorian), 15 Nisan 5783 (Hebrew), 16 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 15 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), 24 March 2023 (Julian), and 17 Farvardin 1402 (Persian). The day’s saint is Xystus, bishop of Rome, who died about 10125, and about whom virtually nothing is known. It’s Phil Austin’s birthday (born 11941).

Tomorrow I have to go get my eyes examined to see what else may be wrong with them than what I already know; it’s routine. I do have to be up for it though.

5 April 12023

☿   5 April 12023 is the day before Passover or, thanks to days on the Hebrew calendar beginning at sunset, the beginning of Passover itself. Whatever. It looks like it’s Arbor Day in South Korea and Bak Full Moon Poya Day in Sri Lanka, but anything is possible. I am having serious trouble focusing, and I’m not sure of anything. It may well be JD 2460040 (astronomical), 27 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 27 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 5 April 2023 (Gregorian), 14 Nisan 5783 (Hebrew), 15 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 14 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), 23 March 2023 (Julian), and 16 Farvardin 1402 (Persian). It’s possibly Algernon Charles Swinburn’s birthday; also Robert Bloch’s.

I’m really not feeling well; maybe it’s allergies or something.

4 April 12023

♂   4 April 12023 is Peace Day (Angola), Mahavir Jayanti (India), Independence Day (Senegal), and Children’s Day (Taiwan). I’m going to hope that I haven’t lost count and it really is JD 2460039 (astronomical), 26 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 26 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 4 April 2023 (Gregorian), 14 Nisan 5783 (Hebrew), 15 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 14 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), 22 March 2023 (Julian), and 16 Farvardin 1402 (Persian). People of note who were born on this date include slavery opponent Thaddeus Stevens (11792), poet Maya Angelou (11928), and actor Kenneth Mars (11935). The saint of the day is Martin Luther King.

On this day in history (11841) John Tyler became president of the United States, the first time a vice-president had achieved the position by virtue of the death of his predecessor. As the Constitution was not specific on this point, there was at first some confusion whether Tyler was actually president in his own right, or was merely acting as Harrison’s stand-in or substitute. Tyler made it clear that as far as he was concerned he was president himself, not acting president or just the guy charged with carrying out Harrison’s policies due to his incapacity through death. Tyler had himself sworn in and refused to accept any communications addressed to him as anything other than “president”. This was one of those peculiar moments in history where one person may make a significant difference—had John Tyler handled things differently, had he set different precedents, the presidential succession might look very different today. Had he conceived his job to be merely fulfilling Harrison’s intentions, rather than beginning an administration of his own, the shadow he cast over history might have altered the actions of his successors. And, sadly, that may have been the most significant move the man made in his life. His administration was undistinguished, and he became a traitor to his country when the Civil War broke out. Still, it’s more than most of us get in leaving footprints on the sands of time.