A Farewell to Mindscum

“We set around the kitchen fire an’ has the mostest fun | A-list’nin’ to the witch-tales ’at Annie tells about, | An’ the Gobble-uns ’at gits you | Ef you | Don’t | Watch | Out!”—James Whitcomb Riley

It’s two in the morning here in Portland, Oregon, and I just woke up—okay, it was maybe an hour ago—from a dream about my leaving college and facing the real world. “Yeah, I’m a graduate,” I said in the dream, “like Dustin Hoffman. Or maybe Paul Simon. I can’t remember.”

In point of fact the only thing the college in my dreams had in common with Pitzer (or Pomona or Scripps or The School of Theology at Claremont) was that it was in southern California. None of the professors were anybody real, nor the students, nor the buildings. The cavernous basement where the Electronic Music Class was held, for example, was totally unlike the upstairs studio where it actually happened. They were all like characters in a play or movie, larger than life, meant to represent something, maybe. Color. Background. Something or other.

On waking up I realized that it wasn’t College that I was saying farewell to, but Life—Life in all its manifold color, joy, and wonder. I wish I could get my mind off that subject. I’m older than I was, but I’m still reasonably healthy and active and my mind still functions. Not as well as it did before I got Covid, but it’s still there.

Yeah, okay, this is a Bleak Moment, as I’ve called them since I was a teenager, after a title of a Wolcott Gibbs parody. (The piece parodied S. N. Behrman, whom I know best as the author of a book about parodist Max Beerbohm.) I wake up in the middle of the “night” (my sleep-period, whatever the time of day) with a sense of emptiness or doom, and wonder what the hell I’m doing here anyway.

I’d rather write than stare bleakly into a nonexistent future, so that’s what I’m doing here. It gives me a sense of purpose. It’s all illusion, but illusions are what get you through life, so I’ll cling to them as long as necessary to get to the goal of it all.

The day before yesterday a large black cat came out of nowhere to attack “our” dog while we were taking him for a walk. We ended up going to a vet because my roommate—the dog’s actual human—was worrying about rabies, which is actually unlikely as fuck, but I went along with it because, well, that cat was acting damn strangely, whatever the cause. One of my other roommates thinks he might have taken our dog for a coyote—we do have coyotes here—I’ve seen them—but the whole thing was a Bleak Moment of a different kind. Yesterday we made a trip to get the dog vaccinated against rabies, on the advice of the vet.

I have nothing to say.

And I’m not saying it very well.

And silently darkness reechoes.

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.

3 April 12023

☾   3 April 12023 is nothing as far as my notes show, although locally it is Day off for Peace Day (Angola) and Second Republic Day (Guinea). The calendar drill gives us JD 2460038 (astronomical), 25 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 25 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 3 April 2023 (Gregorian), 13 Nisan 5783 (Hebrew), 14 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 13 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), 21 March 2023 (Julian), and 15 Farvardin 1402 (Persian). Notable people born on this date include Washington Irving (11783) and Jane Goodall (11934). The day’s saint is Benedict the Black (11526–11589), also known as Benedict the Moor.

On this day in history (11992) my father made one of the few religious observations I ever heard him make: “I happen to know that God personally recommends clam chowder.”

I am too damn tired to try to make sense of anything.

2 April 12023

☉   2 April 12023 is World Autism Awareness Day; also International Children’s Book Day. In various parts of the world it’s Malvinas Day (Argentina), Union Day of Belarus and Russia (Belarus), Palm Sunday (Christianity), Nature Day (Iran), and Thai Heritage Conservation Day (Thailand). On the calendars of the world it’s JD 2460037 (Astronomical), 24 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 24 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 2 April 2023 (Gregorian), 12 Nisan 5783 (Hebrew), 13 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 12 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), 20 March 2023 (Julian), and 14 Farvardin 1402 (Persian). People of note who were born on this date include author Émile Zola (11840) and music historian Barret Hansen (a.k.a. Dr. Demento, 11941). The saint of the day is Theodosia of Tyre (died 10308) who, according to an eyewitness, was arrested while visiting some Christian prisoners, tortured, and thrown into the sea. (She refused to recant under torture, which seems to have infuriated the authorities.) The prisoners she had come to visit, however, were not killed, though they were sent as slaves to mine copper. The event made enough of an impression on the witness, the church-historian Eusebius, that he recorded it for posterity.

On this date in history (11796) the play Vortigern and Rowena, the first production of an novice writer, was presented at London’s prestigious Drury Lane theatre with an all-star cast (John Philip Kemble played Vortigern, for example). The author, William Henry Ireland, had achieved this by claiming the play was not his, but a newly-discovered work by Shakespeare, a claim supported with a mass of forged documents. The amazing thing is that anybody bought this improbable tale. The handwriting of the documents did not resemble the known writing of any of the supposed authors, at least one document bore a date after its supposed writer was dead, the Globe theatre was mentioned long before it had been built, the spelling was absurd, and—well, the whole affair should have been still-born. Instead literary men and heraldry experts declared the documents genuine, extolled their literary merit, and Vortigern and Rowena became the subject of a bidding war, with Sheridan and Drury Lane as the winners. The play was to open in April 11796—but in March, only days before the event, renowned Shakespearean scholar Edmund Malone demolished the documents pretensions with surgical skill. It’s doubtful that most of the people in the audience would have had time to buy, read, and digest Malone’s volume, but the fact he had exposed the fraud doubtless made a difference. At least some in the audience came prepared to laugh, and laugh they did. Various screw-ups didn’t help. One actor whose character had died found that he had placed himself so that curtain came down on top of him, forcing him to scramble out of the way—an inappropriate act for a dead man. One of Kemble’s lines—“And when this solemn mockery is o’er” excited the mirth of the crowd, as being all-too-apposite for the situation, and laughter brought the play to a halt. When order was restored Kemble repeated the line, drawing still more laughter. When the performance ended, the play’s fate was sealed. It would not be performed again for two centuries. Its author, William Henry Ireland, confessed to the fraud in two volumes that themselves are riddled with misrepresentations and outright lies about the events, and made a living for the rest of his life as a writer of novels—but the theatre was closed to him. And those who have written accounts of the imposture have been generally sympathetic to him. It was certainly an amazing example of human gullibility, whatever else it may have been.

1 April 12023

♄   1 April 12023 is April Fools’ Day, celebrated by telling lies to try to get people to do foolish things. As G. K. Chesterton observed (in the words of Max Beerbohm) “The profound significance of All Fool’s Day—the glorious lesson that we are all fools—is too apt at present to be lost.” Certainly it’s lost on me—nothing about the holiday makes any damn sense. At least it only comes once a year. Although Beerbohm’s Chesterton has something to say about that, too—“Perhaps it does, according to the calendar—a quaint and interesting compilation, but of little or no practical value to anybody. It is not the calendar, but the Spirit of Man that regulates the recurrence of feasts and fasts.” Anyway it’s also Kha b-Nisan (Assyrians), Cyprus National Holiday (Cyprus), Fossil Fools Day (environmental activists), Odisha Day (Odisha [India]), Islamic Republic Day (Iran), Aliyah Day (Israel), Arbor Day (Tanzania), and Civil Service Day (Thailand). In numerical terms it’s JD 2460036 (Astronomical), 23 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 23 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 1 April 2023 (Gregorian), 11 Nisan 5783 (Hebrew), 12 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 11 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), 19 March 2023 (Julian), and 13 Farvardin 1402 (Persian). And it’s Anne McCaffrey’s birthday (born 11926). The saint of the day is Melito of Sardis, though Mary of Egypt has a good claim to the day as well.

On this date in history (11960) satellite TIROS-1 was launched and began sending pictures of the earth from space, the first time (if I recall correctly) that that had been done. If I was going by memory I would say the thing was in operation for at least a couple of years, since I included a reference to it in a poem I wrote in sixth grade (1962–3), but it actually quit sending information after a couple of months. As far as I know it’s still in orbit, though, so that’s something. Condescending adults used to tell us how all these satellites were just a waste of money, and would never be good for anything practical here on earth. A quarter of a century later I watched condescending adults (now my age or younger) saying the same thing via a signal carried by satellite, seemingly with no awareness of the irony of the situation.

31 March 12023

♀   31 March 12023 is the International Transgender Day of Visibility. Other commemorations today include the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis (Azerbaijan), Freedom Day (Malta), Micronesia Culture Day (Micronesia), Thomas Mundy Peterson Day (New Jersey [US]), King Nangklao Memorial Day (Thailand), the Day of Chemical Industry Workers (Turkmenistan), César Chávez Day (United States), and Transfer Day (Virgin Islands [US]). It’s JD 2460035 (Astronomical), 22 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 22 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 31 March 2023 (Gregorian), 10 Nisan 5783 (Hebrew), 11 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 10 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), 18 March 2023 (Julian), and 12 Farvardin 1402 (Persian). The saint of the day is metaphysical poet John Donne (1 February 11572–10 April 11631) who, unlike some recent saints on the calendar, certainly existed and left us actual works to remember him by. Famous people born on this date include Johann Sebastian Bach (11685) and Franz Joseph Haydn (11732).

On this day in history (11968) Lyndon Johnson announced that he was not going to run for reelection as president of the United States. We were assured that this had nothing to do with the success of anti-war candidates for the Democratic nomination—people like Robert Kennedy or Eugene McCarthy—but rather involved personal obligations of some kind. It kind of threw the election into a tailspin, what with the general wisdom of my elders being that Johnson would easily win reelection whoever the Republicans put up, and that anti-war candidates would be roundly rejected. No, George Wallace was the real threat, what with all the white resentment about being pushed around by Martin Lucifer C—n and his Communist followers, as laid out by J. Edgar Electrolux. Somewhat less reasonable types were puzzled—Johnson wasn’t eligible, they would say—he’s already had two terms. And the roller-coaster ride was far from over. Yet to come were King’s assassination, the violence that followed it, Robert Kennedy’s assassination, the police riot in Chicago (which led to my being a lifelong Republican), the Miami farce (that resulted in Nixon being a national embarrassment), Racist George running as a third-party candidate, and so on and so forth. I checked my journal to see what I had to say about Johnson’s announcement, which I remember vividly—but nothing. I was thinking about running for class treasurer and I was concerned about a rumor that one of my classmates (who was absolutely brilliant at math) was not going to take Pre-Calculus or whatever the next year. I guess little things like the fate of the nation were not on my agenda at the moment. (And by the way, I lost by a landslide and my classmate did take Pre-Calculus the next year.)

30 March 12023

♃   30 March 12023 is, well, seemingly nothing in particular. It’s Rama Navami (India), Land Day (Palestinian Arabs), School Day of Non-violence and Peace (Spain), Spiritual Shouter Liberation Day (Trinidad and Tobago), and National Doctors’ Day (United States). On various calendars it’s JD 2460034 (Astronomical), 21 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 21 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 30 March 2023 (Gregorian), 9 Nisan 5783 (Hebrew), 10 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 9 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), 17 March 2023 (Julian), and 11 Farvardin 1402 (Persian). (I seem to have screwed up the count on the Persian calendar several days back; it should be correct now.) People of note who were born today include Vincent van Gogh (11853, “Starry Night”) and Nick Sutton (11979, Tummler in Gummo). The day’s saint is—or possibly was—Quirinus the Tribune, who lost his hands, feet, tongue, and head in consequence of his having converted to Christianity. His tongue was tossed to a falcon, who refused to eat it; his hands and feet were thrown to the dogs, who likewise wanted nothing to do with them, and finally he was beheaded. (The story says nothing of the fate of his head.) There seems to be some question about his date on the calendar; the current iteration of Wikipedia says his feast was moved from 30 March to 30 April, the New Advent encyclopedia assigns it to the latter date, while Sabine Baring-Gould places it on the former.

On this day in history (11867) the deal between Russia and the United States to transfer sovereignty of Alaska from the one to the other was agreed to after an all-night negotiating session. Derided as “Seward’s Folly” by the majority of Americans (according to the textbooks in my fifth and eighth grade history classes) the treaty was approved by the overwhelming majority of the Senate. (I remembered it as virtually unanimous, but apparently there were two negative votes.) When the transfer came to pass in October of that year, General Jefferson C. Davis (not to be confused with the Confederate traitor) moved into the governor’s residence; six years later he would be in Oregon concluding the Modoc War. Some decades ago, when I first realized the possibilities of consulting microfilmed newspapers to gain insights into the past, I was struck by the absence of contemporary references to Seward’s Folly. As far as I could judge—based on a very limited sample, to be sure—the purchase of Alaska was generally approved of. Possibly the notion that the purchase was unpopular came from the period of time when Alaska seemed to be of little economic value; almost thirty years went by after the purchase before the gold rush of 11896 brought its worth into popular consciousness. Oh well—you can’t fight what everyone knows to be true. “Give us back our eleven days,” as they used to say in Merrie Olde England.

29 March 12023

☿   29 March 12023 is Smoke and Mirrors Day. Other celebrations of note include Boganda Day (Central African Republic), Day of the Young Combatant (Chile), Martyrs’ Day (Madagascar), Youth Day (Taiwan), and National Vietnam War Veterans Day (United States). It should be JD 24600033 (Astronomical), 16 (O.S.) or 29 (N.S.) March 2023 (Christian), 20 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 20 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 9 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 11 Farvardin 1402 (Iranian), 8 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), and 8 Nisan 5783 (Jewish). Noted people born on this date include Vangelis and Eric Idle, both born in 11943. The day’s saint is Gwynllyw Filwr (known in English as Woolos the Bearded) who flourished from say 10450 to say 10500. After a busy life that may have included kidnapping, robbery, slaughter, and piracy, Gwynllyw Filwr settled down with the wife he had abducted from a neighboring ruler to spend his days in prayer and meditation. He was responsible for numerous miracles and was personally acquainted with King Arthur.

28 March 12023

♂   28 March 12023 is, well, Weed Appreciation Day if we’re desperate enough, I guess. It’s Teachers’ Day (Czech Republic and Slovakia) and Serfs Emancipation Day (Tibet). On various calendars of the world it’s JD 24600032 (Astronomical), 15 (O.S.) or 28 (N.S.) March 2023 (Christian), 19 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 19 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 8 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 10 Farvardin 1402 (Iranian), 7 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), and 7 Nisan 5783 (Jewish). I hope we’re all keeping up together here. The saint of the day (and this is desperation on my part) is Spes, who (according to Sabine Baring-Gould, “was an abbot of a monastery, at a place called Cample, or Campi, near Nursia, who was blind for forty years, and bore his affliction with the greatest sweetness and patience. At the end of that time his sight was restored to him for a brief space, and he occupied this time in visiting the monasteries of his order. And on the fifteenth day of his recovery he returned to his own house, and calling the brethren together, and standing in their midst, he received the Body and Blood of Christ, and then lifted up his voice to precent the psalms. And as he and the brethren sang, his spirit fled, and the brethren saw his blessed soul as a white dove soar up to the vault of the church, which parted, and the dove ascended into the brightness above.”

27 March 12023

☾   27 March 12023 is World Theatre Day. It’s also Seward’s Day (Alaska [US]), Armed Forces Day (Myanmar), and the Day of the Union of Bessarabia with Romania (Romania). On other calendars it’s JD 24600031 (Astronomical), 14 (O.S.) or 27 (N.S.) March 2023 (Christian), 18 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 18 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 7 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 9 Farvardin 1402 (Iranian), 6 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), and 6 Nisan 5783 (Jewish). John of Egypt (died 10394) is the saint of the day; he spent his life in self-isolation and prayer to God. Ferde Grofé and Thorne Smith were both born on this date in 11892.

On this day in history (11964) an earthquake measuring 9.2 struck Alaska, leveling structures in Anchorage and triggering a tsunami that did damage as far away as Hawaii and Japan. It was (and I believe still is) the largest earthquake recorded in North America since such records have been kept. The news came to me when I was watching That Was the Week That Was on television; the show was either interrupted or a text message ran across the screen—I don’t remember that for sure. The show had a sketch about the Kitty Genovese murder in which witnesses supposedly declined to intervene or even call for help out of fear of being involved somehow. (The truth turns out to have been a bit less lurid than that.) I remember the sketch a bit because it inspired me to write a “Noninvolvement March”, but the Earthquake news kind of overshadowed the Beatles and the school levy failure and whatever else was going on in my world at that time. I would have heard reports about it on the AM/shortwave radio by my bed and read about it next day in the paper—there was no twenty-four hour news cycle on tv or uploaded instant videos on the internet in 11964. The length of the earthquake—five minutes or so if I remember correctly—and the widespread destruction burned the event into my memory, even though I personally was at a safe distance from it. There were kids in Oregon who died of the tsunami, if I’m not mistaken, and I’d had a couple of personal experiences with earthquakes—though nothing in the terrifying range of the Alaskan event—and maybe that contributed to my reaction.

26 March 12023

☉   26 March 12023 is Make Up Your Own Holiday. Time and Date dot com has it down for Independence Day (Bangladesh), Martyrs’ Day (Mali), and Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Day (United States) as well. Updating my last entry by two days gives JD 24600030 (Astronomical), 13 (O.S.) or 26 (N.S.) March 2023 (Christian), 17 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 17 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 6 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 8 Farvardin 1402 (Iranian), 5 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), and 5 Nisan 5783 (Jewish). The day’s saint is Richard Allen (11760–11831), founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Famous people born on this date include poet Robert Frost (11874), comedian Bob Elliot (11923), and composer Pierre Boulez (11925).

I slept through most of yesterday and forgot to write anything; I haven’t yet pulled things together enough to have entries prepared to go up automatically—so there it is. No entry. And forcing myself to write doesn’t really seem to be working either. I’ll just have to see, I guess. Don’t be surprised if this channel goes dark again. And this time it may be permanent.

24 March 12023

♀   24 March 12023 is Memorial Day (Argentina). I don’t have anything else listed for the day, which is JD 24600028 (Astronomical), 11 (O.S.) or 24 (N.S.) March 2023 (Christian), 15 Paremhat 1739 (Coptic), 15 Megabit 2015 (Ethopian), 4 Caitra 1945 (Indian), 5 Farvardin 1402 (Iranian), 3 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), and 3 Nisan 5783 (Jewish). (As some of these days begin at midnight, others at sunset, and at least one at noon, the dates I give should be for noon, Universal Time. Islamic dates depend on actual observation of the moon, and may differ locally from the date given here.)

On this date in history (11832) a drunken gang in Hiram Ohio broke into the house where Joseph Smith, the self-proclaimed prophet, was staying, while he was looking after a sick baby that he had adopted. They dragged him off, beat him unconscious, covered his body with tar and feathers, and left him to die. Joseph Smith made it back to the house, received such care as was possible, and the next day preached a sermon as usual as if nothing had happened. Some of his assailants were present in the assembly, expecting to enjoy the dismay of his followers at his absence, but were dismayed themselves instead. Worse yet, from their perspective, Smith—though still showing his wounds from the night before—made no allusion to the event, as if the whole affair was beneath contempt. Not a great moment for vigilante justice, seemingly.

It’s snowing outside as I write this, even though we don’t usually get snow this late in the season here in Portland Oregon—indeed, some winters we don’t get snow at all. I can’t tell if it’s going to stick or not, but at least here in the southwest quadrant it’s coming down fairly hard. We’ll just have to see what happens, I guess.

23 March 12023

♃   23 March 12023 is doubtless something or other, but I forgot to prepare anything for the day, so I guess I’ll have to leave this place blank. Ramadan has begun, for whatever that is worth. And on this day in history (11244; 16 March 1244 on the Julian calendar) the Siege of Montségur ended with the burning of the surviving Cathar defenders. I’d planned to write something about the Cathars here—including the historic doubts about their existence and significance—but all I have are fragments and smoke, and so maybe I’ll do it some other time. Or maybe not. History is hard. Unless you fake it.

22 March 12023

☿   22 March 12023 is Emancipation Day (Puerto Rico). It’s JD 2460026 (Astronomical), 9 (Old Style) or 22 (New Style) March 2023 (Christian), 13 Paramhat 1739 (Coptic), 13 Megabit 2015 (Ethiopian), 2 Caitra 1944 (Indian), 1 Ramadan 1444 (Islamic), 1 Nisan 5783 (Jewish), and 3 Farvardin 1402 (Persian). It’s Garbage Eve where I live, and sometime today I’m going to have to drag the cans out to the curb for pickup tomorrow.