Sunday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)
Good morning on Sunday, July 12, 2020: National Pecan Pie Day. Protip: Pecan pie is one of the best pies around, but in its apogee the pecans go throughout the filling rather than forming only a thin layer atop a gelatinous Karo-syrup goo.
Here’s a good pecan pie:
Here’s a bad pecan pie. If you see this in a diner or restaurant, pass it up.
It’s also National Eat Your Jello-O Day (no thanks), Simplicity Day, (Henry David Thoreau, the great advocate of simplicity, was born on this day in 1817), Different Colored Eyes Day (do any readers here have heterochromia?), and Paper Bag Day (treat your cat!).
News of the Day: Over at the Washington Post, Robert Mueller has a mealymouthed op-ed about Roger Stone, mentioning that Stone “remains a convicted felon, and rightly so,” but saying nary a word about Trump’s pardon. Why did Mueller bother to write this, except to defend himself?
I was surprised to read that many defeated American Southerners fled to Brazil after the Civil War, and there’s still a lively pro-Confederate culture there, with the Stars and Bars everywhere. Now the controversy over the flag has spread to that country.
Despite the resurgence of coronavirus in Florida, Disney World reopened yesterday, and, according to the New York Times, “thousands of giddy visitors” streamed in. Good God! Is there no end to the madness? Even at our duck pond, where the University put up signs advertising the new rule that all visitors must wear masks and socially distance. When I ask people politely to put masks on, many of them just laugh at me. I’d like to tell them: “It’s people like you who are keeping the pandemic going,” but I keep my silence.
Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 134,577, an increase of about 700 deaths over yesterday’s report. The world death toll now stands at 564,531—an increase of about 5,400 from yesterday.
Stuff that happened on July 12 includes:
1543 – King Henry VIII of England marries his sixth and last wife, Catherine Parr, at Hampton Court Palace.
1776 – Captain James Cook begins his third voyage.
It was on this voyage that Cook was clubbed and speared to death in Hawaii. As Wikipedia reports:
The esteem which the islanders nevertheless held for Cook caused them to retain his body. Following their practice of the time, they prepared his body with funerary rituals usually reserved for the chiefs and highest elders of the society. The body was disembowelled, baked to facilitate removal of the flesh, and the bones were carefully cleaned for preservation as religious icons in a fashion somewhat reminiscent of the treatment of European saints in the Middle Ages. Some of Cook’s remains, thus preserved, were eventually returned to his crew for a formal burial at sea.
They baked him!
1862 – The Medal of Honor is authorized by the United States Congress.
I have met one winner of this prized medal: Lou Millett, a friend of my father’s in the Army. Millett lead the last major bayonet charge of the Army during the Korean War.
1943 – German and Soviet forces engage in one of the largest armored engagements of all time.
1962 – The Rolling Stones perform their first concert, at London‘s Marquee Club.
As UCR reports:
The Stones played 16 songs that night, an impressive collection of cuts by Robert Johnson, Jimmy Reed, Elmore James, Fats Domino and a whole lot of Chuck Berry. They must have made a good impression, because shortly thereafter they were invited to hold down a residency at the competing Crawdaddy Club by Russian promoter Giorgio Gomelsky. Shortly after that, they found themselves back performing regularly at the Marquee before signing a deal with Decca and cutting their first record. The rest, as they say, is history.
1963 – Pauline Reade, 16, disappears in Gorton, England, the first victim in the Moors murders.
1975 – São Tomé and Príncipe declare independence from Portugal.
I’ve been to Sao Tomé several times, but not in a decade or so. Here are two pictures I took on our last field trip there (we were studying the altitudinal zonation of two sister species of Drosophila). First, a view down to the sea from the peak of the volcanic island, altitude 2024 meters.
And some schoolkids in the capital, all in pink.
Notables born on this day include:
1849 – William Osler, Canadian physician and author (d. 1919)
1884 – Louis B. Mayer, Russian-born American film producer, co-founded Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (d. 1957)
1895 – Buckminster Fuller, American architect and engineer, designed the Montreal Biosphère (d. 1983)
1904 – Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and diplomat, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
1908 – Milton Berle, American comedian and actor (d. 2002)
1917 – Andrew Wyeth, American artist (d. 2009)
Here’s an Andrew Wyeth painting, “Cat in a Window”:
1934 – Van Cliburn, American pianist and composer (d. 2013)
1937 – Bill Cosby, American actor, comedian, producer, and screenwriter
1943 – Christine McVie, English singer-songwriter and keyboard player
Those who attained quietus on July 12 include:
1804 – Alexander Hamilton, American general, economist, and politician, 1st United States Secretary of the Treasury (b. 1755)
1966 – D. T. Suzuki, Japanese philosopher and author (b. 1870)
1979 – Minnie Riperton, American singer-songwriter (b. 1947)
Riperton, who died at only 31 of cancer, had a five-octave range, amply displayed in her most famous song, “Loving You”. Those high notes are for real!
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, we have a two-part interaction between Hili and Szaron today. First, Hili takes the veranda shelf but Szaron sasses her:
Hili: I agree to co-habitation but this shelf is mine.
Szaron: I will jump on it anyhow when you go away.
In Polish:
Hili: Zgadzam się na kohabitację, ale ta półka jest moja.
Szaron: I tak tam wskoczę jak sobie pójdziesz.
But. . .
Szaron: She’s gone!
In Polish: Poszła sobie
And in nearby Wloclawek, Leon is famished (as usual):
Leon: The sun went down and I haven’t had dinner yet.(Photo: Marta Wierzbicka)
(In Polish): Słońce zaszło,a ja jaszcze nie jadłem kolacji.
From Zach Weinersmith’s SMBC, an optical illusion (h/t Rick). Count the dots in the middle panel:
From Jesus of the Day:
A new MAAG hat sent by reader Charles, who added, “A reasonable hat, given inaction by Trump. The mutated, now dominant, strain of SARS-CoV-2 with a spike protein that seems to increase its R0 suggests 200,000 deaths by 11/2020 will be a lowball estimate.”
An overheated squirrel:
This is supposed to be bad?
Two tweets from Simon: First, a new lip syncher to go alongside Sarah Cooper. Meet Meggie Foster doing an incident at the last Democratic Socialists of America convention. (Note that she’s also reading Titania’s latest book.) The incident is real, and you can see it on video here (note the jazz hands).
Where was the line editor on this one?
From reader Barry, a physics lesson:
Tweets from Matthew. First: Cowlift!
Holy cow! 🐮 👀 An unusual RAF rescue mission has been underway to airlift a cow which had got itself trapped near a waterfall in Cumbria. The crew airlifted the animal to safety and she is now recovering. #OperationMoove pic.twitter.com/0Gwm1n2Ixi
— ITV News Border (@ITVborder) July 10, 2020
It took me a minute to figure this one out:
A H R B Q D W E F L M N S X G I J K O P C T V Y U Z
—the alphabet in alphabetical order (via @gray)
— Christian Bok (@christianbok) July 10, 2020
This would have been better as a video: