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Tucson Weather Today

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A couple days ago I mentioned that I was starting to read The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I read Chapter One that first night before falling asleep. I have to admit I was somewhat skeptical. Too much of the frilly, feminine fluff I had come to expect from the disappointing writings of most female writers.

Well, I have now read through Chapter  7 and admit that I was wrong, quite wrong. And now I am thoroughly hooked.

One thing though . . .

I admit that I have always been a nitpicker and prone to finding fault with little things a writer does or does not do, whether or not the nit I pick is meaningful or not. In The Bell Jar, Ms Plath describes a character as being overly fat and she compares his size with that of Sydney Greenstreet. While I am old enough to appreciate the comparison, I am sure that very few young people reading it today would not be able to identify Sydney Greenstreet as the portly gentleman attempting to acquire a priceless relic from private detective Sam Spade (played by Humphrey Bogart) in the 1941 film, The Maltese Falcon.

Note: The Maltese Falcon  has been named as one of the greatest films of all time by Roger Ebert and Entertainment.Weekly, and was cited by Panorama du Film Noir Américain as the first major film noir.

Of course all that is trivial and insignificant.

So sue me. I said I was a nitpicker.

More later . . .

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Did You Know . . .?

Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day in 1799 Andrew Ellicott Douglass, an early American astronomer born in Vermont, witnesses the Leonids meteor shower from a ship off the Florida Keys. Douglass, who later became an assistant to the famous astronomer Percival Lowell, wrote in his journal that the "whole heaven appeared as if illuminated with sky rockets, flying in an infinity of directions, and I was in constant expectation of some of them falling on the vessel. They continued until put out by the light of the sun after day break." Douglass' journal entry is the first known record of a meteor shower in North America.

The Leonids meteor shower is an annual event that is greatly enhanced every 33 years or so by the appearance of the comet Tempel-Tuttle. When the comet returns, the Leonids can produce rates of up to several thousand meteors per hour that can light up the sky on a clear night. Douglass witnessed one such manifestation of the Leonids shower, and the subsequent return of the comet Tempel-Tuttle in 1833 is credited as inspiring the first organized study of meteor astronomy.

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WORD FOR TODAY

temporal
adjective
1. Of, relating to, or limited by time: a temporal dimension; temporal and spatial boundaries.
2. Of or relating to the material world; worldly: the temporal possessions of the Church.
3. Lasting only for a time; not eternal; passing: our temporal existence.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Charles Milles Manson

(born November 12, 1934)

Charles Manson is an American criminal and musician who led what became known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the murders of Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca carried out by members of the group at his instruction. He was convicted of the murders through the joint-responsibility rule, which makes each member of a conspiracy guilty of crimes his fellow conspirators commit in furtherance of the conspiracy's objective.

At the time the Family began to form, Manson was an unemployed former convict, who had spent half of his life in correctional institutions for a variety of offenses. Manson's death sentence was automatically commuted to life imprisonment when a 1972 decision by the Supreme Court of California temporarily eliminated the state's death penalty. California's eventual reinstatement of capital punishment did not affect Manson, who is currently incarcerated at Corcoran State Prison.

Rhonda Shear

(born November 12, 1954)

Rhonda Shear is an American television personality, comedian, and actress. She is best known for her role as a host of the USA Network's 1980s and '90s weekend B-movie show, USA Up All Night. From 1991 to 1998 she hosted segments that aired on Friday (and later moved to Saturday) nights, replacing comedian Caroline Schlitt. Shear also briefly hosted a comedy program called Spotlight Cafe.

In June 1991, Shear posed in Playboy magazine's Funny Girls pictorial. In October 1993, she appeared in her own Playboy pictorial titled "Rhonda Up All Night". Rhonda also co-starred in numerous sitcoms from playing the Fonz's girlfriend on Happy Days to the sexy neighbor on Married with Children. She then made her way into stand-up comedy,

Anne Jacqueline Hathaway

(born November 12, 1982)

Anne Hathaway is an American actress. After several stage roles, she appeared in the 1999 television series Get Real, coming to prominence after playing Mia Thermopolis in the Disney film The Princess Diaries (2001) and in its 2004 sequel. Since then, Hathaway has starred in dramatic films such as Havoc and Brokeback Mountain, in 2005. She has also starred in The Devil Wears Prada (2006) with Meryl Streep and in Becoming Jane (2007) as Jane Austen.

Kim Hunter

(Nov 12, 1922 - Sep 11, 2002)

Kim Hunter was an American film, theatre, and television actress. She won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, each as Best Supporting Actress, for her performance as Stella Kowalski in the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire. Decades later she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for her work on the long-running soap The Edge of Night.

Although not recognizable because of the costume and make-up, Hunter's most frequently played movie role was that of Dr. Zira in the film Planet of the Apes and its two sequels.

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Time passes, and little by little everything that we have spoken in falsehood becomes true.
--Marcel Proust
   

Return To The Old Routine

   

Tucson Weather Today

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Well, I am back home inside the Tucson city limits and will soon be once again walking each day the mile over to Fry's Market and back. I went to the website yesterday and took advantage of the Friday Free Download, which this time is a Dole Fruit Smoothie Shaker. I don't know what that is exactly, but since it is FREE, I'll sample it. Of all the free items I have downloaded to my Valued-Customer card and tasted over the last few weeks, there was not a one that I would lay down hard cash for. I wonder if they know how many new products their free samples have saved me from actually purchasing.

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Last night I was wondering what novel I should start reading. Looking through the various books on my shelf, I noticed one titled The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath. I had recently watched a movie about her, about Sylvia Plath, titled Sylvia (I think) and I remembered that I didn't care much for the movie, nor for the character portrayed in it. But having heard how much others had enjoyed the book, The Bell Jar, I decided to delve into it.

I only read the first chapter before getting too sleepy to concentrate last night, but it seems that (after getting past all the lipstick, eye shadow, which dress to wear, girly-girly crap) I might find something interesting in it.

I'll read some more of it tonight.

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Did You Know . . .?

Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

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HISTORICAL EVENT

On this day, November 9 in 1971, John Emil List slaughtered his entire family in their Westfield, New Jersey, home and then disappeared. Though police quickly identified List as the most likely suspect in the murders, it took 18 years for them to locate him and close the case.

John List was an outwardly normal and successful father. A Sunday school teacher and Boy Scout troop leader, List was a strict disciplinarian who insisted his children follow extremely rigid rules.

Seemingly out of the blue, List shot his mother Alma (above her left eye), his wife Helen (in the side of the head), and two older children in the back of their heads; he shot his youngest child, a son, several times in the chest and face. He then left the murder weapon alongside their carefully laid-out corpses. List had methodically devised a plan so that the bodies would not be discovered for quite a while, cancelling newspaper, milk, and mail delivery to his home in the days leading up to the murder. He then called the children's schools to say that the family was going to visit a sick relative out of town. By the time authorities discovered the bodies, List had vanished without a trace.

List had assumed a false identity, relocated to the South, and remarried. In 1989, he was returned to New Jersey to face charges for the death of his family. The following year, he was convicted of five counts of murder and received five consecutive life sentences. He died in 2008.

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WORD FOR TODAY

neoteny
noun
The retention of juvenile characteristics in the adult.

According to Wikipedia: Neoteny, also called juvenilization is one of the three ways by which paedomorphism can arise. Paedomorphism or paedomorphosis is the retention by adults of traits previously seen only in juveniles, and is a subject studied in the field of developmental biology. In neoteny, the physiological (or somatic) development of an organism (typically an animal) is slowed or delayed.

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CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS

Louis Jude "Lou" Ferrigno

(born November 9, 1951)

Lou Ferrigno is an American actor, fitness trainer/consultant, and retired professional bodybuilder. As a bodybuilder, Ferrigno won an IFBB Mr. America title and two consecutive IFBB Mr. Universe titles, and appeared in the bodybuilding documentary Pumping Iron. As an actor, he is best known for portraying the titular role in the CBS television series The Incredible Hulk. He also appeared in Sinbad of the Seven Seas and Hercules, and as himself in the sitcom The King of Queens and the 2009 comedy I Love You, Man.

Dorothy Jean Dandridge

(Nov 9, 1922 - Sep 8, 1965)

Dorothy Dandridge was an American actress and singer. She performed as a vocalist in venues such as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater. After many bit parts, Dandridge landed her first notable film role in Tarzan's Peril (starring Lex Barker), in 1951. She won her first starring role in 1953, playing a teacher in Bright Road.

In 1954, she was nominated for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a  for Carmen Jones. In 1959, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Porgy and Bess. In 1999, she was the subject of the HBO biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, starring Halle Berry as Dandridge.

Carl Edward Sagan

(Nov 9, 1934 – Dec 20, 1996)

Carl Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books. He advocated scientific skeptical inquiry and the scientific method, pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Sagan is known for his popular science books and for the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which he narrated and co-wrote. The book Cosmos was published to accompany the series. Sagan wrote the novel Contact, the basis for a 1997 film of the same name.

Eric Dane

(born November 9, 1972)

Eric Dane is an American actor. After appearing in television roles throughout the 1990s and 2000s, he became known for playing Dr. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan on the medical drama TV series Grey's Anatomy, and has recently branched into film, co-starring in Marley & Me, Valentine's Day, and Burlesque.

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I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.
--Albert Einstein

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