Who goes there? Please leave comments so (An Aries Knows)!
December 10 is Human Rights Day.
Human Rights Day was established to commemorate The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that was created in 1948.
The creation of this document was a shout across the world by the leading countries in the world, stating loud and clear that no matter where we live, what we believe, or how we love, we are each individually deserving of the most basic fundamentals of human needs.
You can learn more about Human Rights Day on the United Nations website.
I’ve tried in vain to find information online for this utility box mini mural on Bunker Hill Road. It’s an often-used image in Texas art: a longhorn in a field of bluebonnets.
I remember on long road trips when I was a kid that my sister used to sing this song as part of her car songs repertoire. Never dreamed back then we’d both one day live in the Lone Star State.
Wednesday, and the writing is slow, but it is happening. This has been the writing playlist.
Prince: Purple Rain; 1999; and The Very Best of Prince.
And one of my favorite songwriters of always.
John Prine: John Prine and The Missing Years. The third CD, Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine, Vol. 2, is a tribute compilation with other artists singing his songs. Because he died at the very beginning of the pandemic in 2020, they couldn’t gather and reminisce and mourn him as they wanted. So they did this instead.
“I Remember Everything” – Brandi Carlile
“Pretty Good” – Nathaniel Rateliff
“Saddle in the Rain” – Amanda Shires
“Yes I Guess They Oughta Name A Drink After You” – Tyler Childers
“Sweet Revenge” – Margo Price
“Summer’s End” – Valerie June
“Souvenirs” – Jason Isbell
“Angel from Montgomery” – Bonnie Raitt
“Sam Stone” – John Paul White
“One Red Rose” – Iris DeMent
“Hello in There” – Emmylou Harris
“Paradise” – Sturgill Simpson
And looking at this, I realized it’s Vol 2, so now I’ve ordered Vol 1 to add to my collection. Overall, I just need more of John Prine’s music. It’s on my list.
I first heard that song on an 8-track tape belonging to my college roommate Debbie, though it came out before we were in college. The artist was Bette Midler; the album, The Divine Miss M. Made me sad the first time I heard it and still makes me sad.
Tim cracks me up. I was in a text exchange with him and Jim this morning, and I shared this.
And Tim quickly replied:
Then he amended that isn’t always true of K-POP bands, which reminded me that I have Mattel’s Jimin doll from the K-POP band BTS (standing for the Korean phrase Bangtan Sonyeondan, which in English translates to “bullet-resistant boy scouts.”)
Jimin is another of the dolls that represents a character in the Neverending Saga. In 2021, Wardrobe was called in to redo his look to match his character.
The character is a private investigator.
Back to wardrobe! If the Jimin character gets a kilt, that’ll bring the number to seven, same as in BTS, and the shunned doll can rejoin his friends.
This is not faithful to canon, meaning Tim has inadvertently created the first fan fiction for the characters in the Neverending Saga. WITHOUT EVEN READING IT. It’s magic!
I should give props to the band in case you’ve never heard them.
Now I’ll keep thinking of this group of dolls as the Bangtan Scots, which kind of fits, though to my knowledge, only one of the characters is of Scottish descent.
Photo previously posted here was of the painting Hug, oil on cardboard, 2015, by artist Marijana Rakićević.
Piano variations, “Thoughts Of You,” composed by Dennis Wilson, born on this date in 1944.
Such terrible news to get today, and I was fortunate to hear it from friends who knew you as I did, having also experienced your humor, your heart, your generosity. The last year and a half, including your eleven months under medical care, were brutal on you. Still, you looked forward to a better life in the aptly named “Fairhope” with the old friend who invited you to move there. You told me your mother said she might move there, too, then you wanted to travel to England and Germany with her and maybe take a Rhine River cruise together. To know that your mother died nine days before you makes me imagine just the two of you again, as it was for much of your life, facing a future together against all odds. I hope you’re both at peace.
I regret that I’ll never get to read that novel you’ve been writing. You had such a gift of voice, pacing, and making everything turn out okay for the women you wrote. You’d have given Summer a happy conclusion, just as you once did for Emily–and you hoped to write a second Emily book one day, too.
I will imagine a happier-forever-after for you, where you save a place on that boat on the Rhine for your forever dog Dash to sit between you and your mother, with Kissing Michael on your other side. You belong with your love on your arm.
Bon voyage, Marika.
George Harrison died on November 29, 2001. Today, I’ve chosen to listen to all of his songs from my CD version of his 1970 album All Things Must Pass. The three-disk album Riley gave me all those years ago when it was released was drowned in our Harvey flood; I replaced it quickly because not to have this collection from my “favorite” Beatle was unthinkable.
I got the 50th Anniversary vinyl when it was released in 2021, and I’ve never removed its shrink wrap. For some reason, I want it to remain intact. Maybe I’m sure that one day, a copy of the original will come back into my life. I don’t know. Whatever format it’s in, these remain some of the most meaningful, sometimes haunting, songs of my life.
I have the CD version of the 50th Anniversary recordings, too.
I miss George Harrison. I miss Riley.
First up on the writing playlist. I’ve replaced two more drowned albums…
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, Hard Promises, 1981
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, Long After Dark, 1982
…with smaller (if not quite tiny) CDs.
Up next after those are the new offerings from…
John Mellencamp’s Orpheus Descending followed by Wolf Van Halen’s Mammoth II
I look forward to the inspiration. =)
For good or ill, below is a list of November 19 trivia.
Courtesy of The History Calendar.
Today in History – November 19th
1493 – Christopher Columbus discovered Puerto Rico, on his second voyage.
1805 – Lewis & Clark reached the Pacific Ocean –first European Americans to cross continent.
1850 – Alfred Tennyson became British Poet Laureate, succeeding William Wordsworth.
1861 – Julia Ward Howe wrote “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
1863 – President Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address.
1893 – The first newspaper color supplement was published in the Sunday New York World.
1916 – Samuel Goldwyn and Edgar Selwyn establish Goldwyn, one of the most successful independent film makers of all time.
1928 – TIME magazine published its cover in color for the first time.
1969 – Apollo 12 made man’s second landing on the moon.
1977 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to set foot in Israel on an official visit.
1980 – CBS TV banned Calvin Klein’s jean ad featuring Brooke Shields.
1985 – President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev met for the first time.
1997 – Septuplets were born to Bobbi McCaughey. It was only the second known case where all seven were born alive.
1998 – The impeachment inquiry of President Bill Clinton began.
1998 – Vincent van Gogh’s “Portrait of the Artist without Beard” sold at auction for more than $71 million.
2001 – President George W. Bush signed the most comprehensive air security bill in the country’s history.
2002 – The U.S. government completed its takeover of security at 424 airports nationwide.
2003 – Eight competing designs for a memorial to the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center were unveiled.
SCIENCE, INVENTIONS, PATENTS
1895 – The “paper pencil” was patented by Frederick E. Blaisdell.
1954 – Two automatic toll collectors were placed in service on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey.
MUSIC HISTORY
1968 – The Supremes performed at a Royal Variety Show with Queen Elizabeth in attendance.
1971 – B.B. King marked his 25th anniversary in music by opening a European tour in London.
1990 – Milli Vanilli were stripped of their Grammy Award because other singers had lent their voices to the “Girl You Know It’s True” album.
1995 – Bruce Springsteen’s thirteenth album, “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” was released.
1996 – Prince released the 3-CD set “Emancipation.” The release was on his record label NPG Records.
1997 – The American premiere of Paul McCartney’s “Standing Stone” was played in Carnegie Hall by St. Luke’s Orchestra.
1998 -Motley Crue’s retail store, S’Crue, opened in Los Angeles.
FAMOUS BIRTHDAYS
James Garfield 1831
Tommy Dorsey 1905
Indira Gandhi 1917
Larry King 1933
Dick Cavett 1936
Ted Turner 1938
Calvin Klein 1942
Meg Ryan 1961
Jodie Foster 1962
In mid-April, I posted about how a few notes* of a song were in my brain, and I couldn’t identify the song. I found a virtual piano keyboard so I could play those notes for Tom and Tim, but neither of them could identify it from what I remembered or from my speculation about who the artist might be. One of those artists was the band Pearl Jam.
Last night, the show I’ve been rewatching played in the background while I was doing other things, and I suddenly realized I was hearing lyrics that matched that music–oh, thank you, Internet, for giving the world a means to quickly look up lyrics.
So… Turns out I was right. A familiar song that I just couldn’t quite remember. Now that I’ve listened to it a few times (especially reading the lyrics), I understand why it persistently nagged at my memory–and so do my characters, one of whom could have written those words.
*These were the notes that I played over and over, except for a couple of blanks, to try to figure it out.
