On this day in 1964, Jean Paul Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. He refused the award because he felt that literature was a tool of the bourgeois used against the masses. Sartre was known for views not so much controversial as they were jaw-droppingly surreal. His works Nausea, The Wall and Being and Nothingness will go down in history as literary masterpieces; their author will go down in history as a raving French lunatic…
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On this day in 1934, Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd was shot down by FBI agents in a cornfield outside of East Liverpool, Ohio. The legendary bank robber, in between robbing legendary banks, was experiencing car trouble when he was spotted by local authorities. Floyd had a reputation for being a sort of “Robin Hood” in the Midwest; however, FBI attempts to lure him into the open with an archery contest were unsuccessful…
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On this day in 1966, The Supremes became the first all-girl group to have a number one album. Mary Wilson, Florence Ballard and Diana Ross hit number one with their Supremes a Go-Go album. Four years later, Diana Ross started a solo career and the Supremes went from relevant to campy to tragically campy with astonishing rapidity. The remaining Supremes held their final concert in 1977; then, they were each separated into elemental components and those components were scattered onto the ocean floor near Indonesia…
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Preacher William Miller foretold that the world would end and Christ would come back on October 22nd, 1844. His followers, called “Millerites” by some and “gullible” by others, waited with great anticipation for the predicted cataclysm. When the sun came up the next day, Millerites suffered what was known as the “Great Disappointment”. This was followed by the “Great Explanation for Why I wasn’t at Work, Yesterday”…
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Actress Joan Fontaine was born on this day in 1917. Known for her performances in Hitchcock’s Rebecca and Suspicion and for eating an entire lamb at a picnic, Fontaine has made dozens of films and appeared on stage. The Academy Award winning actress is the sister of actress Olivia De Havilland, who she loves like an eye infection. Fontaine made her final movie in 1994 and now shoots songbirds just outside JFK airport…
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Psychologist Timothy Leary was born on October 22 1920, tuned in, turned on and slapped on the buttocks. Leary is best known for his studies into applications for psychedelic drugs and his ability to calm an imaginary rhinoceros. Leary was called “the most dangerous man in America” by Richard Nixon, who had probably confused Leary with Spiderman nemesis, Dr. Octopus.
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Mel Tillis fans rejoice! International Stuttering Awareness Day is upon us again. Created in 1998, ISAD’s purpose is to raise awareness of stuttering, stutterers and atonal scat artists. Central Michigan University has extended its observance of ISAD to an entire week, presumably to allow keynote speakers to finish…
Potatoes and the Promise of More Potatoes 
Well that made the 22nd of October worth living 😊
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Here’s hoping we both get there…
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Bit touch and go at my end 😑
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I know what you mean…
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Hey have you ever been to Canada?
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No… not Mexico, either. Bermuda is the only foreign country I’ve been to and I don’t even remember that…
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Yeah but you still have trump 😊
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For another year… I’d like to say that I’ve lived under worse presidents, but that would be a lie… and I lived under Nixon and Ford…
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Calming an imaginary rhinoceros isn’t as easy as it sounds….
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I use imaginary Xanax…
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My preferred method is an imaginary Perry Como recording. Works every time…
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Yeah, but how do you wake him back up after that?
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So fascinating I reposted the Sartre one on my FB timeline…kinda consider myself a literature buff, and that was something I did not know…I always love it when I learn something new…
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It was a lot like what Brando did, only without the American Indian…
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Fun read! I thought the Preacher William Miller and “Known for her performances in Hitchcock’s Rebecca and Suspicion and for eating an entire lamb at a picnic” were so funny!
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This one’s from a few years ago when I was going to make 365 of them and put them in a book. I think I ended up with with thirty of them when a squirrel distracted me and I abandoned the effort…
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Going serially: Sartre looks constipated, Pretty boy looks innocent, Supremes look like they are wearing kimonos the wrong way, Preacher looks like he would cry, Fontaine looks like she will eat the entire lamb and still be graceful, Richard Nixon had a point, Mel Tillis looks like he always had the last laugh.
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So, using the first image I could find was a good idea?
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Looks like, though I must say you seem to have researched each topic beyond what you have written.
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Definitely! The fun in doing these is the learning. The same with the essays. Learning new things is something you should never stop doing. Listening to new music, on the other hand, should probably be avoided when you hit fifty…
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“His followers, called “Millerites” by some and “gullible” by others…” 🤣🤣🤣
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