Is nostalgia listed in the DSM?

On this day in 1965, Lyndon Johnson, who was the President of the United States at the time, traveled to Independence, MO to visit ex-president Harry S Truman. The two went to the Truman Library, where Lyndon signed the Medicare Act and (symbolically, at least) enrolled Harry as the first Medicare recipient. They went back to Harry's house and knocked back several rye old fashioneds to celebrate.

The library is worth a visit. Among many other tidbits about the Truman legacy, there's a series of notes and letters about his failed attempt to enact a national health system modeled on Britain's. Medicare was sort of a remnant, a surviving piece, of that effort.

There are so many songs about growing old. Most of them are kind of maudlin. I'm generally opposed to nostalgia. I think it can be unhealthy to romanticize the past. We should certainly learn from the past and sometimes celebrate the past, but let's not get stuck there in some kind of fog, OK?

This John Mellencamp tune is a fine example of misplaced nostalgia.

Mellencamp grew up near Bloomington, Indiana. In college, I was the drummer in a band that featured Mellencamp's one-time keyboardist. We played some dives in Linton, Loogootee, Bedford, and Oolitic. We were not very good. See what I mean about nostalgia?

Bye bye, Il Duce. Thank you, cousin Paolo

My mother's birth name is Vigneri. Her roots are in Sicily, with the Vigneri, DeLuca, and Buccheri clans. We visited some relatives in Taormina almost 10 years ago and they pointed out one photo among many family photos on their living room wall. “That’s cousin Paolo. Surely you’ve heard of him?” We hadn’t, so they told us the story. On July 25, 1943 (76 years ago today), cousin Paolo, a captain in the carabinieri, headed a small cadre that arrested Benito Mussolini, on orders from King Vittorio Immanuel. When we got home, we did some research and, sure enough, Paolo Vigneri was the one who took the dictator into custody. Mussolini later escaped in a raid orchestrated by Hitler, but it was too late. The Axis had lost the war and in 1945 Mussolini met a very violent end at the hands of an angry mob.

There is a huge monument to Vittorio Immanuel in Rome. One can climb to the top of it for a commanding view of the city (which we did not realize when we were wandering around the piazza in front of the monument).

 Here's a song that talks about fate and how the dice sometimes seem loaded. Ray Bonneville is from Texas but records for Red House Records in St. Paul.

La plume du mon oncle

William Sydney Porter, also known as O. Henry, was released from prison on this day in 1901. Billy Porter did three years at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, having been convicted of embezzling from a bank in Austin, TX. (Porter had fled to Honduras but returned when his wife, still in the U.S., became ill.  He wrote a story in Honduras in which he coined the phrase "banana republic.") While in prison he began writing stories to pass the time and support his young daughter.

After his release, Porter moved to NYC and worked for New York World, writing one short story a week from 1903 to 1906. In 1904, his first story collection, Cabbages and Kings, was published. He was a prolific writer, cranking out a new collection twice a year for a decade or so. I do not know why he took the pen name (nom de plume) of O. Henry. He's best known for the beloved Christmas story The Gift of the Magi.

One might argue that Billy Porter was a prodigal son, returning to make amends, leading us to Ry Cooder's song (below). This transition, this segue, this link may seem a little forced but I do not care because it's my damn blog, OK? And I like Ry Cooder.

Twenty years to the day after O. Henry was released, another Billy -- Billy Taylor, the great jazz pianist, composer, arranger, band leader, and teacher --  was born. I met Billy Taylor on 1966 or 1967 at the Notre Dame Jazz Festival. He was one of the judges and I had a winning ticket in the drawing, which meant I got to meet the judges (Billy and Quincy Jones and some other dude) and get some records for free! Billy's album "Midnight Piano" is still in my collection.

Quietly, A Star is Born

On July 23, 1895, Florence Arto was born in Houston, Texas. This was 50 years after Texas became a state, but Houston was still a dusty cow town. As a teen, Flo met another young Houstonian with the intriguing name of King Vidor. They were both anxious to leave Houston, thinking it something of a teenage wasteland (see below). They shared an intense interest in the nascent film industry. Flo and King got married, made a few short silent movies in Houston, and headed for California, which, then as now, was the center of the film universe.

Flo became a silent film star and her hubby a film director. As things often go in Hollywood, the two soon divorced. Florence married a dashing violinist named Jascha Heifetz and more or less retired from the movie biz. Jascha became a star and they traveled the world together.

Jascha didn't have the advanced technology to loop and distort and layer, like this clever young man, Noah Hoehn. Noah is seen here at a recital hall at the University of Minnesota, working on his doctoral dissertation. Enjoy!

On the Universality of Jazz

July 22, 1989: Joonas Pärn was born. He plays the oud. Not just any oud; a jazz oud. He's part of the group seen in this video. There is precious little information about Joonas on the Internet. It appears he's a PhD student in Tallinn, Estonia, but that could be a different Joonas Pärn.

If he really is from Tallinn, I am somewhat jealous because it's a beautiful city on the Baltic. It boasts a very good modern art museum, a museum devoted to steampunk, and a vibrant music scene. Some Estonians align themselves with Vladimir Putin and think their country should become part of Russia, but most are quite happy to be independent. When we visited the presidential residence (it isn't ostentatious enough to be called a palace), the guards at the main entrance were sleeping.

Near the gates to the old city, there was an art installation featuring sledge hammers. I don't know why.

 We got free vodka shots at lunch in a basement restaurant there. Makes for a pleasant afternoon!

Indispensably Yours

On this day way back in 1968, Intel Corporation was incorporated by Andrew Grove, Gordon Moore, and Robert Noyce as “NM Electronics.” The now-familiar name*, based on “Integrated Electronics” was adopted later in the year. In 1969, its first product was a random access memory chip. In 1974, Intel introduced the 8080 microprocessor, which quickly found uses in hundreds of products, including traffic lights, cash registers, and the earliest personal computers.

Microprocessors have gotten more powerful and smaller, so they are found in everything from the InstaPot to automotive diagnostics to interstellar spacecraft. We should all be grateful that we can now book a haircut appointment on line or qualify for a mortgage with the touch of a screen icon.

Synth-pop music wouldn't have been possible without the microprocessor.


* Is "Intel" a portmanteau word?

From the hills of Palermo

Giuseppe Piazzi was born on this day in 1746.

 
Giuseppe built an observatory at Palermo and mapped the positions of more than 7,000 stars. He is also credited with discovering the first asteroid, in 1801, which he named Ceres, after Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture and motherly love. Within the next few years, astronomers discovered three more asteroids: Pallas, Juno, and Vesta. The thousandth asteroid discovered was named Piazzi in his honor. The popular musical "The Light in the Piazzi" wasn't named for him.

With his powerful telescope, he also enjoyed watching bathers frolic on the Mondello beach outside Palermo.

Coincidentally, today is also the anniversary (1969)  of the launch of Apollo 11, a mission that used a big rocket to propel three humans into space, two of whom had a brief picnic on the moon. They didn't even bother to clean up after themselves before coming home.

Happy birthday, little Jimmy Janos!

Six degrees of Warren Zevon?

Linda Ronstadt was born on this day in 1946. Jesse Ventura was born exactly 5 years later. They are connected by more than their shared birthday.

Jesse was born in Minneapolis as James Janos. He went to Roosevelt High School, where he was a mediocre wrestler. He joined the Navy and became a Seal. Then he changed his name and took lots of PEDs and bought some feather boas and became a professional wrestler. Then he became mayor of Brooklyn Park, MN and then governor of the great state of Minnesota.

Linda was a very good pop singer. She dated Jerry Brown, who was governor of the nearly great state of California.

I could find no evidence that Ventura and Ronstadt ever met, but they do have at least one more thing in common: they both like Warren Zevon's songs, like this one:

I believe Ventura requested this Zevon tune at his inauguration bash:

The Mouse that Roared Redux

July 13 is Independence Day in Kinney, MN. A little late, you say? No, indeed! Read on...

It was on this day in 1977 that the City Council of Kinney, MN declared its independence from the United States. It seems the city had been trying for some years to get federal money for a municipal water project. Their grant applications were repeatedly rejected or ignored. Appeals to congressional representatives proved fruitless. The good citizens of Kinney (a tiny hamlet in a very large county bordering Lake Superior) were frustrated.

They hit upon the idea of becoming their own country because, the mayor said, "there's less paperwork involved" in getting foreign aid from the US.

The gesture wasn't recognized by the federal authorities, but for some reason some people in New Haven, Connecticut were sympathetic enough to grant Kinney folks visas to come visit.

Geno Paulucci, from nearby Duluth, the eccentric and wealthy founder of Jeno's Pizza Rolls, was on board. He gave the city a used Ford LTD sedan to replace Kinney's old police car and he filled the trunk with frozen pizzas, too!

In a strange and ironic twist, a neighborhood in Kinney later split off and called itself South Kinney. It built a small dam and reservoir. The town's name has since been shortened to Skinney. When you swim at the town beach on the shores of the reservoir, you are said to be skinney dipping.

This song from Charlie Parr has little to do with events in Kinney, except that Charlie is from Duluth and is a devotee of Jeno's Pizza Rolls.

Live! Via Satellite!

On July 10, 1962, Telstar 1, the world’s first geosynchronous active communications satellite, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The satellite was owned and operated by AT&T and was designed to relay TV and telephone signals between the U.S. and Europe. Presumably, AT&T paid a whole bunch to NASA to put this thing into space.

The following day, TV history was made with the first live transatlantic satellite broadcast. French and English viewers got to watch an entirely forgettable press conference by President Kennedy. U.S. audiences were lulled to sleep by French singer Yves Montand and the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.

Within weeks, the stunningly boring tune "Telstar" was released by a previously unheard-of group called The Tornadoes.

We were quite easily amused in the 1960s.

Before you resume the important tasks of your day, here's the inimitable Yves Montand. The title of this tune translates as "A Boy Dances" or "A French Waiter Walks Right Past your Table (Again)."

Signal Events in San Francisco History

In a way, today is the birthday of San Francisco, CA

In 1835, the U.S. government offered to purchase what is now known as San Francisco bay from Mexico, but the Mexicans politely declined the offer. About a decade later, a dispute between the U.S. and Mexico over territory in Texas led to war. Shortly after the war began, U.S. Captain John Montgomery sailed into San Francisco Bay, anchoring just off Yerba Buena (as it was then called). On this day in 1846, Montgomery led a party of marines and sailors ashore. They met no resistance and claimed the settlement at the tip of the peninsula for the United States, raising the American flag in the central plaza.

As everyone knows, the planting of a flag is all it takes. In 1847, the Mexican government formally ceded California to the US in the Treaty of Guadalupe.

Richard Brautigan, the namesake of this here blog, spent most of his adult life in and around San Francisco, hanging out for a time at Ferlinghetti's famous bookstore, City Lights. He was there during the beat years but not quite a part of that scene. He wrote his first two novels in San Francisco. Here's an excerpt from "A Confederate General from Big Sur"(1964). The character Lee Mellon claims he's a direct descendant of a Confederate general, which is never verified. As the novel progresses, we discover that much of what Lee Mellon asserts is untrue, especially concerning the Shangri La he claims to have built overlooking the ocean at Big Sur.

Lee Mellon told me that he was born in Meridian, Mississippi, and grew up in Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina, 'Near Asheville,' he said. 'That's Thomas Wolfe country.'

'Yeah,' I said.

Lee Mellon didn't have any Southern accent. 'You don't have much of a Southern accent,' I said.

'That's right, Jesse. I read a lot of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Kant when I was a kid,' Lee Mellon said.

I guess in some strange way that was supposed to get rid of a Southern accent. Lee Mellon thought so, anyway. I couldn't argue because I had never tried a Southern accent against the German philosophers.

 San Francisco is famous for many things, including the Haas lobby at the museum of modern art. 

Here's a good song about that city.

Another Bay area institution is the funk/soul band Tower of Power. Somewhere around here we still have their vinyl LP "East Bay Grease." Enjoy!

All Roads Lead to...Paris

On July 8, 1951, Parisians had a big wild party (as opposed to their usual practice of having many small elegant parties) because they thought (perhaps wrongly) that their beloved city had turned 2,000 years old. When cities get that old, it's a bit hard to pin down an exact founding date.

Here's the story in brief: a Gallic* tribe known as the Parisii sometime around 250 B.C. settled an island (known today as Ile de la Cite) in the Seine river. By 52 B.C., the Romans had taken over the area, which became Christianized and was called Lutetia, Latin for “midwater dwelling.” The settlement spread from the island to both banks of the Seine and the name changed to Paris (French for "Paris"). In 987 A.D., Paris became the capital of France. As the city grew, the Left Bank earned a reputation as the intellectual and artistic district while the Right Bank became known for business.

Today is also the birthday (1948) of the musician who calls himself Raffi. He sometimes sings in French.

Raffi was popular in our house a few decades ago. We may still have some Raffi cassette tapes. Oh, the days of innocence...

* Do not confuse the Gallic tribes with their cousins the Garlic Tribes. The Garlic tribes were more nomadic because they and their distinctive odor were unwelcome in many places.

Don't mess with lumberjacks

It was a hot July in 1871. Lumberjacks working along the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers had been quenching their thirst with whiskey and beer. Then they heard that some big railroad company was building a bridge across the St. Croix near Hudson, Wisconsin. The bridge would be built on hundreds of pilings driven into the riverbed, which would work fine for the railroad but would interfere with the annual floating of felled trees from the north woods to the mills in Stillwater. On July 7, a rowdy bunch of lumberjacks marched to the river near Hudson, removed about 100 of the pilings, and dragged them back to Stillwater, where they built a massive bonfire and drank some more.

The event becomes known as the "Battle of the Piles."(I will refrain from any stupid references to the human posterior.)

The lumber interests prevailed (for a few years) in defending their stomping grounds. Not many lumber mills in Stillwater any more, but you can still get whiskey and beer.

Whiskey Saves the Day!

The 4th of July, also known as Independence Day, is frequently celebrated with fireworks, sometimes accompanied by drinking. We have been warned repeatedly that combining the two is not wise. Fun, perhaps, but not wise.

Case in point: On July 4, 1862, things got out of hand in the little river town of Winona, Minnesota. During a raucous celebration, some downtown buildings caught fire. Hannibal Choate, saloon keeper and astute businessperson, supplied volunteer firefighters with whiskey, which kept most of them on his block all day. Choate's business was the only one saved.

Minnesota, despite the events in Winona, has a long history of modest, sober celebrations. Indeed, it was common for Minnesotans to cross the river into Wisconsin to buy fireworks that were outlawed in Minnesota. Thanks to Governor Jesse Ventura, fireworks restrictions were eased about 20 years ago. Jesse had a strong libertarian streak and argued that Minnesotans did not need the government telling them how to have fun. He also advocated Sunday liquor sales, a measure finally approved about six years ago. So Minnesotans no longer have to drive to Wisconsin, Iowa, or the Dakotas to buy booze on Sunday. Between fireworks and liquor sales, I believe we have just about crippled Wisconsin's economy.

Here's a wistful little Brautigan poem on the subject:

Feasting and drinking went on far into the night
but in the end we went home alone to console ourselves
which seems to be what so many things are all about
like the branches of a tree just after the wind
     stops blowing. 

Aluminum through the Ages

Pierre Berthier was born on this day in 1782. Even if you do not recognize the name. you owe him a debt of gratitude. He was digging around one day in 1821 near the French village of Les Baux du Provence, which was part of his job as a mineralogist for the Board of Mines. He found an ore nobody recognized. He modestly named it bauxite instead of Berthierite. Today, it is used to make aluminum and not much else.

Berthier also found many phosphate deposits valuable for agriculture and helped mine kaolin which is important in pottery. Because he was French, he also provides another excuse to explore French pop music, which for some reason I find fascinating.

Of course, our British friends insist on calling it aluminium (inserting a fifth syllable and emphasizing the third syllable), which is both charming and annoying. I was shocked to learn that professional cricket players are allowed to use aluminium bats. Or are they?

Some wonderful things are made of aluminum: beer cans, staples, folding lawn chairs, cookware (notably the Nordic Ware bundt pan), tent poles, the shovel used to pick up soil samples from the surface of the moon. The ceremonial Festivus pole.

Happy birthday, Canada

July 1 is Canada Day because in 1867, three separate colonies were united by the King (and maybe parliament, I don't really know) into a single entity called Canada. Some descendants of former French settlements chafe at the idea, but most Canadians still celebrate. They may or may not listen to the famous Canadian musician Neil Young (after all, he lived in Los Angeles for a long time), but we'll play this one for all our Canadian followers.

They still drink Labatt Blue, I think.

The Diefendollar is probably worth a lot more than a dollar today. What did PM Diefenbaker do to deserve such mockery? I do hope one of my many Canadian followers will fill this gap in our knowledge by leaving a comment below. Or you could just Google it.

 I once played golf in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. The municipal course had sand greens and the locals were prone to cheating a little bit by dragging the putter blade between the ball and cup to create a shallow trench. Made some loooooong putts that day!