Hope you like jammin' too

Kansas winter. That tree, were it still alive, would be standing in a lake. I thought the image was poignant.

It's a big day in music history: Alban Berg, Carmen Miranda, and Gypsy Rose Lee all share a birthday (1885, 1909, and 1914, respectively). And The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, in 1964.

And in 1913, a group of three or four luminous bodies with tails moved across the sky with a 'peculiar majestic deliberation', according to the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Another one followed, and another. There were 30 or 32 in all, according to one observer, in strict formation. Some compared them to a fleet of battleships in the air. They were seen in Canada, USA, Bermuda and from the sea. There was another procession over Toronto the next day, only this time there were seven or eight dark non-luminous bodies, which moved across the sky and back. I repeat: 1913.

In the news today

Still got it

Happy Birthday to Jacob Praetorius, Jules Verne, and John Williams!

I've been sewing, yes. It's so meditative, that my mind is still in that state, even after sleep. It's all I can do to type coherent sentences. Five pounds of flax!

Charles Dickens and the earthquake

Building this bad boy was one of our first home improvements. It takes up the whole wall (we like our books). It's not a new picture by any means, but I've been busy doing things that don't photograph well, so I don't have any new pictures.


It's John Deere's birthday, though (1804).

And in 1812, the strongest in a series of earthquakes centered near New Madrid, Missouri, struck. The Mississippi River flowed backwards for part of the day. Charles Dickens was also born that day.

One hundred years later, Roy Cleveland Sullivan was born. He became a ranger in Shenandoah National Park, and was struck by lightning seven times: in 1942 he lost a big toenail to lightning; in 1969 his eyebrows were blown off; his shoulder was seared in 1970; his hair set on fire in 1972; the 1973 bolt hit him on the head through his hat, set fire to his hair again, knocked him ten feet out of his car, went through both legs and knocked his left shoe off; there were two further strikes in 1977 and 1978. He committed suicide in 1983.

Fishy carpet

grrr no picture today.

On this day in 1843, the new show "The Virginia Minstrels" opened at the Bowery theater in New York, the first minstrel show in the U.S.

Fifty-two years later, George Herman "Babe" Ruth was born. Bob Marley followed fifty years later.

And in 1989, thousands of tiny dead sardines came down in a heavy rainstorm about lunchtime in Rosewood, near Ipswich in Queensland, Australia. 'It was quite frightening. We didn't know what was happening. All I heard was a noise I though was hail,' said Debra Degen. When her husband Harold called her to go out onto the veranda, she saw the fishy carpet stretching for 50 yards between the house and their mailbox. There were more coming down, some bouncing off Harold's head. They gathered a bowlful for their cat and to keep as a souvenir; the rest were 'gobbled by kookaburras.'

Blue skies

It's Hank Aaron's birthday, as well as William Burroughs's. It's also Super Tuesday, and Fat Tuesday. Does that make it Obese Tuesday?

This picture was taken at the very nice Newport (OR) Aquarium.

The road is long...

It's Rosa Parks' birthday today (1913). Happy birthday, wherever you are.

Beginnings and endings

Today marked the beginning of Felix Mendelssohn (in 1809) and the end of Buddy Holly (as well as Richie Valens and J.P. "the Big Bopper" Richardson, in one very fell swoop in 1959).