Question: Who invented Octoberfest?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: It’s called in some countries a Mistral, a Sirrocco and a Santa Anna. What is it?
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History for 10/12/2006
Birthdays: "God's Imp"King Edward VI- only son of Henry VIII, Emperor Pedro Ist of Brazil 1798, actress Helena Modjeska, Ralph Vaughn-Williams, Alastair Crowley, Luciano Pavarrotti, animator Izzy Klein, Joan Rivers, Dick Gregory, Tony Kubek, Susan Anton, Kirk Cameron, Hugh Jackman, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Russell Calabrese is 53 !

1492- COLUMBUS STEPS ASHORE IN AMERICA.- The Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria drop anchor off San Salvador in the Bahamas after sighting land around 2:10 A.M.Oct 22nd Old Style. It was a full moon. Columbus had offered a reward for the first man to see land. Juan de Boromeo aboard the Pinta sighted land first, but Columbus later claimed he did and kept the money- cheap bugger. Expecting to meet Chinese people Columbus brought with him a translator who could speak Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Turkish and Hebrew as well as a letter from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to the Great Khan of China. Obviously none of this was of much help with the Taino Indians.


Although other people have claimed to have discovered the Western Hemisphere earlier: The Chinese, the Vikings or Irish Saint Brendan, Columbus' landing was the beginning of the great European-African Migration to the Western Hemisphere. As Noel Coward put it:" Let’s just say that by 1492 we just couldn't ignore you any longer."

1776- Battle of Throgg's Neck- The British amphibiously land a force behind George Washington's army in the Bronx and force the American's to escape to White Plains and later across the Hudson into New Jersey. Throgg's Neck is a Dutch form of 'frog's neck'.

1800- The Independent Chronicle reported the national debt of the United States was around $70 million dollars. The Bank of the United States refused any additional loans to the government to help complete construction of Washington D.C. Today’s national debt is in the trillions. The Bank of the United States was dismantled in 1839, but perhaps we could use it today....

1886- Beginning of Sherlock Holmes story:” Adventure of the Second Stain”.

1915- British POW Nurse Edith Cavell was put up against a wall and shot by a German firing squad. She remained behind when allied armies retreated and was accused of espionage for aiding wounded soldiers escape to neutral Holland. The execution of a 49 year old woman non-combatant outraged public opinion in Britain and the US.



1920- Famed thoroughbred race horse Man O’War won his last race.

1928- The Winnie the Pooh stories featuring Tigger are first published

1937- Under pressure from parent Paramount Studio, Max Fleischer signed the first animation union contract and settled the Cartoonist strike begun May 8th. The following year Fleischer tried to escape unions by moving his studio to Right-To-Work State Florida, but the additional expenses and poor box office ruined his studio.

1940-60 year old silent movie star Tom Mix died in auto crash outside of Florence, Arizona. He ignored signs that a bridge was out and fell into a dry gulley. A large overpacked suitcase popped out of his back seat and crushed him. The “Suitcase of Death” is preserved along with Tony the Wonder Horse at the Tom Mix Museum in Oklahoma.

1942- Louis Armstrong married his second wife, singer Lucille Watson. She made a home for him in a suburban neighborhood in Queens New York that Sachmo always returned to after traveling the world.

1960- During a long loud debate on colonialism, Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev got the attention of the U.N. General Assembly, by taking off his shoe and banging it on the table. This caused an uproar so uncontrollable that the Secretary General broke his gavel trying to restore order.



1964- Adding to their string of success in the Space Race, the Soviets launched Vokshod 1, the first capsule with a multi-person crew, and the first ship where Cosmonauts didn’t need to wear their space suits inside.

1966- Sammy Davis Jr. appeared on the Batman TV Show. Sock-it-to-me!

1969- Police arrest Charles Manson inside Death Valley National Park..

1971-Weber & Rice’s hippy musical Jesus Christ Superstar opened on Broadway at the Mark Hellinger theater.

1977- Script completed for the classic film comedy Animal House.

1994-Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg announce the partnership that would be named Dreamworks SKG.

1997-53 year old Singer John Denver ( Rocky Mountain High) died when he crashed his ultra-light Long E-Z plane into the ocean near Monterrey California. Later reports showed he was flying inebriated. The impact was so great his body had to be identified by fingerprints.

1998- Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, was taken out to a field by a gang of other boys, tied to a rail fence and was beaten with a pistol. His assailants then left him tied to the fence all night with no way to call for help. He died by morning. Matthew Shepards’ death caused a wave of revulsion nationwide against anti-gay hate crimes.

2000- A suicide bomber in a speed boat blew a hole in the USN destroyer Cole in a harbor in Yemen, killing 16 American sailors. The attack was done by Al Qaeda, the same terrorist group that did the World Trade Center attack.

2001- After the 9-11 attack NATO AWAC planes began patrolling the East Coast of the US. This is the first foreign aid for America since Lafayette, Rocheambeau and the Marquis de Galves helped General Washington win the American Revolution.

2005- Chinese archaeologists near the Yellow River discover the world’s oldest bowl of noodles. Someone’s fossilized noodle lunch from a bowl that tipped over four thousand years ago or 2,000BC.
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Yesterday’s Question: It’s called in some countries a Mistral, a Sirocco and a Santa Anna. What is it?

Answer: Hot dry winds that blow up from the desert. Called Le Mistral in Southern France, El Sirocco in North Africa and Spain, and The Santa Annas in Southern California.

Stop da Presses! My interview with animator-author Eric Goldberg is up on AWN.com. Let Strong Men Weep! Let Joy reign supreme! Check it out.

http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=3789

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Question: It’s called in some countries a Mistral, a Sirrocco and a Santa Anna. What is it?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: What does a Mahout do in his Howdah?
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History for 10/11/2008
Birthdays: Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Heinz the Ketchup king,Jerome Robbins, Carl Hubbard, Ron Leibman, John Candy, Omar Shariff is 76, Ben Vereen, Art Blakey, Luke Perry, Joan Cusak, Sig Rumann – the fat actor with the goatee and the over-the-top German accent in the Marx Brothers comedies, Ninotchka and Stalag 17.

Happy National Coming-Out Day in the U.S.

1303- Pope Boniface VIII died. He was the Pope who first proclaimed Papal dominance in the bull Unam Sanctam ( even when I'm wrong I'm still right because I'm the Pope and you're not ), and who used to declare Crusades against Italian families he didn't like. He died a raving lunatic in the dungeons of San Angelo eating the flesh off of his own arms. Dante hated him so much, in his poem "The Inferno" he has two devils stirring a boiling cauldron of lead and calling up to the world above:" Hey Boniface! When are you coming down? It's almost ready!"

1424- Czech general John of Ziska died of plague. He had never been defeated in the Hussite Wars and led battles even when almost blind. When dying he requested that his body be skinned and the skin used to make a drum for his army. Wow, tough Czech!

1492- As the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria continue sailing west, Christopher Columbus' fear crazed men began to see signs that land was close at hand: floating driftwood, a carved stick, moths, a seabird.

1800- The remaining French army trapped in Egypt and abandoned by Napoleon made a deal with the Egyptians and their English allies to get evacuated back to France. One of the things that had to give up to the Brits was the Rosetta Stone, the key to deciphering Ancient Hieroglyphics. Another thing the French troops brought back to Europe was marijuana, easily purchased in Egyptian bazaars. The old soldiers said the weed didn’t give you a hangover like drinking brandy did and made recovering from wounds easier.

1809- MERIWETHER LEWIS’ SUICIDE- Colonel.Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis and Clark fame, shot himself..twice. He wounded himself in the head the first time. He was 35. Meriwether Lewis was governor of Upper Louisiana (Missouri, Wisconsin, Montana, Illinois) and was the personal protege of Presidents Jefferson and Monroe. It’s not inconceivable to assume that he would have been president one day. Some contend that Lewis didn't commit suicide but was murdered, because it was at a small tavern on the Natchez Trace, he had been arguing with some men along the road, and he was found with two head wounds, and his belly slashed with a bowie knife. Another scholar recently theorized Lewis was suffering from delirium caused by advanced syphilis, which he may have contracted from a Shoshone woman while on the great trek over the Rockies. His friends Jefferson and Captain Clark maintained Lewis was emotionally overwrought and was drinking too much. What an important United States Governor was doing riding all alone with no staff on a country road is still a mystery.

1867- General George Armstrong Custer was courts-martialed for leaving his post without permission to see his wife Libby, ordering his men to shoot deserters and marching his troops too excessively. He was found guilty but only given a years suspension of pay.

1868- Telegraph operator Thomas Edison patented his first invention. It was a device that recorded the votes of legislators automatically. It proved unpopular with politicians because it eliminated their ability to rig votes and filibuster.

1906- The San Francisco Board of Education ordered children of Chinese and Japanese ancestry placed in segregated schools. This act caused great popular anger back in Japan who thought the Americans were their friends after helping settle their war with Russia. Why, Japan even sent aid to those striken by the San Francisco Earthquake earlier that year. President Teddy Roosevelt intervened and forced Frisco to rescind the law.

1939- Albert Einstein sent a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt describing the feasibility of atomic weapons and urging the US begin such a program before Hitler creates an A-Bomb. Years later with atomic weapons a reality he said his letter of Oct.11th “was the biggest mistake of my life.”

1944-“ To Have and to Have Not,” written by Ernest Hemingway premiered. The movie paired Humphrey Bogart with a sultry Harpers model turned actress named Betty Persky, now changed to Lauren Bacall. Bacall originally had a higher voice but director Howard Hawks told her to go behind the soundstage and scream for an hour every day to bring her voice down to a dusky, sexy alto. It worked on Bogart, who fell in love and married her despite his being 44 and she 20 years old. The nicknamed each other Slim and Steve after the characters in the film.“If you want me, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you? Just put your lips together and blow.”

1960- The Bugs Bunny Show premiered on TV. “Overture, hit the lights! This is it,the night of nights, and oh what heights we’ll hit…..etc..”

1962- Pope John XXIII convened the 2Nd Ecumenical Council. Nicknamed Vatican II, it instituted major reforms in the Catholic Church including ordering the Mass said in the vernacular instead of Latin , and toleration of Judaism and other faiths. Many conservative Catholic splinter groups including the one Mel Gibson belongs to reject Vatican II.

1975- NBC needed a Saturday replacement for Best Of Carson reruns, so Lorne Michaels’ TV show SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE premiered. First guest host George Carlin did his opening monologue while high- and the Not-Yet-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players: John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd ,Gilda Radner, Garret Morris, Chevy Chase, Lorraine Newman, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin and Mike O’Donaghue. Albert Brooks did a short film and Andy Kaufman did his Mighty Mouse lip sync routine. Paul Shaefer conducted the music and the show was held in NBC’s Studio 8H, which was built originally for Maestro Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony of the Air. At the last moment a sketch by young Billy Crystal was cut from the show.. The show also revived the career of announcer Don Pardo, who had trouble finding work since the original Jeopardy Show was cancelled.

1975- Bill Clinton married Hillary Rodham.

1976- After the death of Chairman Mao Chinese authorities arrest his widow Chiang Ching and three followers and accuse them of plotting a coup- the Gang of Four.

1978- Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious stabbed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. Sid was too stoned to adequately explain why he killed the love of his life. It’s assumed they had a suicide pact. Vicious died of a drug overdose before his trial.

2001- V.S. Naipul won the Nobel Prize for literature.

2005- Andrea Merkel named Chancellor of Germany. She is the first woman to lead Germany and the first head of state from the former East Germany. ---------------------------------------

Yesterday’s Quiz: What does a Mahout do in his Howdah?

Answer: He drives his elephant. A mahout is an elephant driver, and the howdah is the basket-style carriage strapped to the elephant’s back.

I just read in Mike Sporn's blog about a great article he read in Mike Barrier's Blog ( egads, this is getting incestuous!)about author Naomi Klein. She has a new book out with cool opinions on our current economic disaster.

courtesy flaggman.files.com

Well, it turns out Naomi Klein is the granddaughter of Phil Klein, the great Disney-Animator activist. Member of some early radical groups like the John Reed Society, His politics got him blacklisted by Max Fleischer, Blacklisted by Walt Disney, Blacklisted by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and more. "My late grandfather, Philip Klein, who worked as an animator for Walt Disney, taught me a valuable lesson early in life: always look for the dirt behind the shine."

http://www.michaelbarrier.com/#ofcabbagesandkleins.

I got a lot from interviews with Phil and his brother Izzy Klein, an early NY Guild president. I have in my collection Phil Klein's notice from Disney firing him in 1941. Mike Barrier does a nice piece and he was very helpful to me with stuff for DRAWING THE LINE, even if it scares me when I hear the man reads the New Republic. They call Naomi's politics Old Left, but today I call them RELEVANT!


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Quiz: What does a Mahout do in his Howdah?

Yesterday’s question answered below: What were Rice Christians?
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History for 10/10/2008
Birthdays: Martin Luther, Guiseppi Verdi, Henry Cavendish 1731- the chemist who discovered Hydrogen, Helen Hayes, Mary Blair, Louis Lumiere, Thelonius Monk, Rod Scribner, LaVerne Harding one of the first women animators, Boer President Paul Kruger, Alberto Giacometti Tanya Tucker, Harold Pinter, Richard Tucker, James Clavel, Jodi Benson, David Lee Roth, Bradley Whitford is 49, Sharon Osbourne is 55.

1469- Renaissance master artist Fra Filippo Lippi died, probably poisoned by the family of a girl he seduced. The great painter was a major influence on Leonardo daVinci and Massaccio, but for a Carmalite monk he had an immoderate lust for women. He left one son, the artist Fillipino Lippi, by his wife Lucrezia Buti, a nun he had carried off from the convent of Santa Margherita promising to use her as a model for the Madonna.

1492-According to Columbus's diary, this was the worst day of his sailor’s disaffection. Their pleas to turn around and go home almost become open mutiny, but still Columbus refused to turn back.

1520- ERASMUS EXILED- The Great humanist scholar had tried to steer a neutral course between the growing feud between Catholics and Protestants. He preferred to stay a Catholic while sending Martin Luther advice and encouraging moderation to all. The result was both sides hated him as a traitorous heretic. On this day he was hounded out of his home in Louvain by the Papal nuncio. The archbishop of Toledo who had defended him in Rome was burned at the stake. Desiderio Erasmus, ill and elderly, wandered from Switzerland to France to Austria until he was finally allowed to die in peace in Basel -even though Protestant leader John Calvin protested.

1770- At Mission San Gabriel in Old California a Spanish soldier killed a Chumash Indian chief who sought revenge for the rape of his wife. An uprising is put down and the Church responds with a period of forced baptisms.

1886- The first Tuxedo jacket worn at the Autumn Ball at Tuxedo Park, New York. Another story of the origin of the fashion was supposedly invented by English gentleman on safari with Bertie the Prince of Wales. Wanting to appear at dinner formally but because of heat and high spikey grass they cut the lower part of their long dinner jackets off.

1953- "Winky Dink and You" show. Children were invited to place a piece of celluloid acetate on their t.v. screens from a kit and help Winky Dink through numerous adventures by drawing on their t.v. screens. Of course many kids didn’t wait for the acetate but just drew on their family TVs with indelible markers. The birth of Interactive T.V. -?

1957- RKO Studios, who produced King Kong, The John Ford Westerns and the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, was sold to Desilu- the television production company of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez.

1962- The BBC banned on air play of a novelty R&B record The Monster Mash, by Bobby Picket. For some reason they considered it offensive.

1971- The reconstructed London Bridge dedicated at Lake Havasu City Arizona. Moving London Bridge from the Thames to the American Southwest was the brainchild of Kirk McCullough, the chainsaw tycoon. After winning the auction of the bridge as he flew home he filled out the little customs declaration card- "Amount of goods you are bringing into the country , not to exeed $400. McCullough wrote-" One Bridge. $2,500,000.00. Antique, therefore – TARIFF EXEMPT."

1973- Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned. He was under indictment for accepting bribes and pleaded no contest to one count of income tax evasion. Until Nixon picked House Minority leader Gerald Ford for veep there was a lively discussion over who would be president if Nixon fell. The House Speaker (3rd in line) was also facing charges. Lots of jokes about the under secretary of game and fisheries, etc.

1980- Actor William 'Billy" Thomas, also known in the Our Gang kiddie comedies as Buckwheat, died at 49. His last words weren't "O' Taayy !"

1985- Orson Welles and Yul Brynner die one hour apart. They were both 70. Welles had just finished taping yet another appearance on the Merv Griffin Show. Brynner had a furious smoking habit, supposedly leaving one lit cigarette in every room of his house as he paced around thinking. When he knew he was dying of the stuff, he recorded several television spots to be aired after his death. He looked squarely at camera and said: " I smoked. -Don't."

2002- The U.S. Congress voted to give war making powers to President George W. Bush over Iraq. The U.S. invasion began the following March. Her inability to properly explain her yes vote, arguably cost Hilary Clinton her chance at the presidency in 2008.
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Yesterday’s Question: What were Rice Christians?

Answer: In the 1920’s when Christian missions were planted across China, the Missionaries would offer free meals to peasants to hear their sermons. Their compound would fill up with hungry people and the excited Missionaries would write home how many converts they were getting. Then when the food ran out, the people would all get up and leave. In Toronto the Hare Khrishnas offer a similar deal to homeless people. So Rice Christians became a term for people who espouse a cause not out of personal conviction, than what they can get out of it.

Question: What were Rice Christians?

Quiz: Okay Disney fans, which one of these men was NOT one of the Nine Old Men?
A) Frank Thomas, B) Milt Kahl, C) Bill Tytla, D)Marc Davis, E)Eric Larson?
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History for 10/9/2008
Birthdays: Camille Saint Saens, E. Howard Hunt, Jacques Tati, Alastair Sim, Bruce Catton, Joe Pepitone, cartoonist Mike Peters, Savannah, John Lennon, his son Sean Lennon, E. Howard Hunt,Scott Bakula, Tony Shalloub, Peter Tosh, Charles Rudolph Walgren- the inventor of the modern Drugstore, Guillermo Del Toro is 44

Today is the Feast of St. Denis. If you've ever been to Paris you'll notice the Basilica of St. Denis is way out of town in a northern suburb.
In 270 a.d. Saint Denis and several followers were sent to preach in Lutetia (home of a Gaulish tribe called the Parisi ). The local Roman authorities had them rounded up and beheaded on a small hill north of town. The hill is today called the Hill of Martyrs, or Montmartre. The legend goes Saint Denis was so indignant at this lack of hospitality of having one's head cut off that he picked up his head and walked out of town. Where he reached the city limits and dropped down lifeless is where basilica designed by the Abbey Suger in 1122 today stands.

1000 AD VIKINGS DISCOVER AMERICA.- Viking Leif Ericsson lands his dragonships in Labrador, Canada. He calls it Vinland and there are several theories why: one was because of an abundance of grapevines he discovered. Another is that the old Norse crossed with Latin Vinland could also be described as Land of Pastures. Still a third theory was that Leif may have been taking after his old man Eric the Red, one of the phoniest used car salesmen in history. Eric discovered a frozen waste near the arctic circle and named it Greenland to dupe people into coming out to settle, so Leif may have described this barren rocky shoreline Vinland to get suckers interested. The Vikings settled a colony in America but it didn't take and was withdrawn for unknown reasons. The second expedition under Thorfinn Karlsefni called the Indians they met Skraelings, and claimed they met a race of one legged men.

1192- Richard the Lionheart left the Holyland. End of the Third Crusade. He planned to return in 1196 and take Jerusalem but never did.

1609- Invalid Captain John Smith is put on a ship back to England. Smith had earlier gotten stung by a stingray and almost died. This time a powder horn exploded on his hip and blew out part of his side. While Smith was leader of the Jamestown Colony he had many enemies among the jealous gentry and some don't think he had an accident. Opinions also differ as to why the Jamestown settlers put Smith through a two month Atlantic crossing that could kill even healthy men. Some say they were hoping he wouldn't make it. He survived but never returned to Jamestown. Nobody told Pocahontas he had left. When she visited camp, the men told her he was dead and forget about him. Pocahontas would meet John Smith ten years later in England when she was a wife and mother of the children of settler John Rolfe.

1701- Yale University chartered.

1744- Peace of Kleinschellendorf- Frederick II the Great makes peace with Maria Theresa of Austria ending Prussian participation in the War of Austrian Succession.

1779- THE LUDDITE RIOTS- A movement of English peasants and tradesmen started by a man named Ned Lud who felt that all this newfangled machinery was going to cost them their jobs. The Luddites roamed the countryside smashing any looms, pistons, flywheels or other such devices they encountered. A similar movement in France. French peasants would remove their wooden clogs, called sabots, and throw them into a machine's gears to jam them, and coined the term Saboteurs.

1780- The islands of St Lucy and Barbados are hit with the worst hurricane in memory. Jamaica got hit with a tidal wave. 400 die and most of the structures destroyed.

1781- George Washington and the Comte du Rochambeau commenced the bombardment of English positions opening the Battle of Yorktown. Not much credit is given that although Rochambeau considered himself the more experienced tactician he diplomatically deferred to Washington as the commander of the allied army. Privately Rocheambeau didn’t think the American rebels had much of a chance, still, when the Yankee payrolls dried up he paid the US troops out of is own fortune. Hmph, so what have the French ever done for us, eh?

1855- James Stoddard patents the steam calliope.

1938 Eugene O'Neill's play 'The Iceman Cometh' opened.

1951- RKO Pictures asked Marilyn Monroe to please wear panties while working, She was distracting the film crew.

1983- Reagan Interior Secretary James Watt forced to resign. Watt was a former oil industry lawyer who galvanized popular anger over his views on ecology, such as what's wrong with a few MacDonalds hamburger stands at the base of the Grand Canyon? Yet he refused to allow the Beach Boys to perform at a public 4th of July concert in DC because he felt they attracted: ”An unsavory element”. The thing that did Watt in was a comment he made about a government panel he had just convened. Quote Mr Watt:” We have all bases covered. We have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple!”

1986- The Fox Network's first program-the Joan River's Show, premiered. The show didn't last but future hits like The Simpson's, Married With Children and the X-Files made Fox a major network in ten years.

1989- First edition of Penthouse Magazine in Hebrew. Oy Vey!
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Okay Disney fans, which one of these men was NOT one of the Nine Old Men? A) Frank Thomas, B) Milt Kahl, C) Bill Tytla, D)Marc Davis, E)Eric Larson?

Answer: C) Bill Tytla. Despite his status as one of the great Disney animators, Tytla left the studio in 1943. Walt used the term for his top animators in 1949. The term Nine Old Men was first used by Franklin Roosevelt to describe the Supreme Court.

My old Kamerade, Don Hahn, has begun a series of works documenting the Great 2D Renaissance of 1988-2003. Being producer of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King and more, he should know.

courtesy of spock.com

His first salvo in this fusillade of research is THE ALCHEMY OF ANIMATION, available now in bookstores like Amazon.

It is a delightful confection that features a lot of never seen production drawings and images from Disney classics like Pinocchio, 101 Dalmations, Ratatouille, Jungle Book, there is even a section that looks behind the scenes of 3D films like Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. It would be a great gift for the Disney fan in your life this Xmas, of course, after you finish reading DRAWING THE LINE!



Congrats, Le Grande Mustacheoux, on a great new work!
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I just heard of the passing of former IATSE NY union rep Gerald Salvio at age 82. Gerald was originally a assistant effects cameraman before heading MPSC local #841 for 14 years. Gerald was a tough labor rep, in a tough part of the business. He once told me when I was a young beardless youth:" Eh, youse animators act like children! Ya'd sell yerselves fer peanuts if I let ya!" I was offended at the time, but Sometimes I don't wonder if he wasn't right.

My condolences to his family.
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Quiz: Okay Disney fans, which one of these men was NOT one of the Nine Old Men?
A) Frank Thomas, B) Milt Kahl,C) Bill Tytla, D)Marc Davis, E)Eric Larson?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: Presidential wannabe John McCain is constantly referring to himself as a Maverick. So, what is a Maverick?
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History for 10/8/2008
Birthdays: Eddie Rickenbacker, Rev Jesse Jackson, Juan Peron, David Carradine, Art Babbitt -the creator of Goofy, Chevy Chase, Paul Hogan, Rona Barrett, Ruben Mamoulian, Edward Zwick, Johnny Ramone, Sigourney Weaver is 59, Matt Damon is 38

Today is the feast day of Saint Demetrius of Thesalonikki

1777- British General Clinton tried to get a message through to Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne and his army trapped at Saratoga. He sent a Tory-Loyalist scout with a message rolled up and hidden in a solid silver capsule. When he was intercepted by the Americans, the loyalist swallowed the capsule before he was searched. He was given a heavy emetic "whereupon he soon produced the capsule, which he proceeded to grab and swallow again. Another emetic was administered and he produced the capsule again." The message was opened and read, then the man hanged as a spy." Euww! Just hang me.

1846- Battle of Old Woman's Gun. In 1846 as part of the Mexican War, United States forces had taken the pueblo of Los Angeles. But after a few weeks, the first Yankee mayor, a Lt. Gillespie, was such as a-hole that the Mexican citizens drove them out of town. On this day the US forces came up from their fleet anchored in San Pedro Harbor and tried to re-take the city. Mexican forces led by a rancher named Carillo routed the Yankees in part with an old 4 pound signal cannon that an old lady had buried in her front yard. She had hid the old gun when Gillespie ordered the poplulation disarmed. The Californios had no gun carriage so they lashed the old gun to a wagon rig. Six months later, the US forces finally overcame LA resistance and the town stayed in Yankee control.

1862-THE BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE- Union forces defeat General Baxton Bragg's Confederates and prevent Kentucky from joining the Confederacy. Abe Lincoln said: " I hope I have God on my side but I Must have Kentucky." The Confederates had actually pushed the Yankees off the field and were at the edge of victory, but Bragg overestimated the enemies strength the next day and ordered a general retreat, wasting everything they gained. His second in command General Kirby Smith resigned in disgust. The commander of the Union Army Gen. Don Carlos Buell, was so distracted with other business that he was hardly aware that his men had fought a battle. He was soon replaced.

1871- THE GREAT CHICAGO FIRE- Legend said in a shed behind 137 DeKoven St, Old Mrs. O'Leary's cow knocks over a lantern and starts a fire that burns down 17,500 buildings and kills 300 including the Mayor. The fire jumped the Chicago River and people rode their carriages into Lake Michigan and even jumped into open graves to escape. Eventually the firemen’s pumpers ran out of water and the Northside kept burning past Fullerton until it burned itself out when it hit open prairie. 300,000 were left homeless. One of the only downtown buildings to survive the inferno was Chicago’s beloved old water tower. The slaughter houses and grain elevators also survived so business could go on. Ironically the O'Leary house stayed intact, just the barn burned. Two journalists later admitted inventing the O’Leary cow story to sell newspapers.

1871-THE GREAT PESHTIGO FIRE- The most deadly fire in North American history occurred on the exact same day as the Chicago Fire, but this one was in Peshtigo Wisconsin. A forest fire started by loggers burning debris built into a firestorm (actually a flaming tornado) and destroyed a wooden town killing 1,200 in a town of 1,750, five times as many as the Chicago Fire. The tornado caught dozens of people during church services. Three hundred died trying to escape across a wooden bridge that caught fire and burned from both ends. Survivors saw "people and cows stagger a few feet and go down burning brightly, like so many pieces of pitch pine." A heavy rain fell the next day. One day late.

1907- Charles Frederick Dow, one of the founders of the Wall Street Journal, started his system of charting the average performance of industrial stocks, the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

1915- The Battle of Loos. British troops release poison gas at the German lines. The wind changes and blows it back on their own men. Doh!

1918- SERGANT YORK- simple Tennessee hillbilly Alvin York was drafted into the U.S. Army where his crack shot talents enabled him this day to shoot up an entire German regiment. He captured 300 prisoners alone with only his single shot Springfield rifle. He got the Medal of Honor and a tickertape parade. Then went back to the Ozarks where he resumed his life of making moonshine, hog calling and other rustic pursuits.

1929- British Imperial Airways shows the first in-flight movie.

1933- HOLLYWOOD ACTOR'S FIRST MASS PROTEST- When Franklin Roosevelt created the NRA to fix wages and prices to try and solve the Depression, he even went as far as to try to regulate Motion Picture rates and fees. The catch was the rates were drafted with the advice of friends of the studio heads in Washington. The actors went ballistic when they saw new rules such as a ceiling cap on actors salaries of $100,000 a year (the producers had no such cap), restriction of actors independant agents, and terms of an old salary contract would stay in effect even after the contract expired until it was renegotiated.
This night at the El Capitan theater on Hollywood Blvd. hundreds of moviestars met to draft a petition calling for rewriting of the codes. The activists included Paul Muni, Frederic March, Jeanette MacDonald, Groucho Marx and Boris Karloff. SAG president Frank Morgan (the Wizard of Oz) was considered politically too far left to face Roosevelt, so he stepped down in favor of comedian Eddie Cantor, who had helped Vaudeville acts unionize. In previous meetings at the El Capitan the earth tremors from the Great Long Beach Earthquake the previous March made actors reconvene in the Grauman's Chinese parking lot across the street. Cantor went to the president's retreat at Warm Springs Georgia with the petition and had the hated articles taken out of the code.

1935- Ozzie Nelson married Harriet. Ask your parents if you don't know.

1957- Walter O'Malley announced the move of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles.

1957- Jerry Lee Lewis recorded his hit Great Balls of Fire.

1967- In Bolivia guerrilla leader Ernesto Che' Guevara was taken and shot. Che' started as an Argentine doctor and was wracked with asthma most of his life. He had gone to Bolivia after quarreling with Fidel Castro about whether it was more important to export Cuban revolution the rest of Latin America or concentrate on building Cuba's economy. Thirty years later in 1997 his remains were identified and returned to Cuba for burial. Even today his legend remains powerful among poorer parts of the Spanish speaking world. It’s not uncommon to be walking the streets of Lima, Cartagena or even Madrid and see the familiar grafitti on a wall- " El Che’Vive ! "
Stephen Soderbergh has completed a bio film of Che with Benicio De Toro entitled the Argentine, but so far can not get an American studio to distribute it.

1970- Dissident Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsin was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Soviet State kept him in internal exile and refused to let him travel to accept his prize. He was exiled to America in 1974 and returned to Russia after the fall of communism.

1971- John Lennon first released the song Imagine.

2004- Home decorating guru Martha Stewart began serving her 5 month prison term for perjury and insider trading.
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Yesterday’s Question: Presidential wannabe John McCain is constantly referring to himself as a Maverick. So, what is a Maverick?

Answer: In Texas in the 1800s Samuel Maverick had a large herd of cattle that he didn’t brand. So when cowboys came upon stray cattle without a brand, they called them Mavericks. Ironically, the great granddaughter of Sam Maverick, 82 year old Terrelitta Maverick says her family are and always have been progressive Liberals. Terrelitta said of John McCain: “ He’s a Republican, he’s branded.”

Sam Maverick