Lucky Day

Another lucky day, one of four in the calendar year, being as there the Beatles were a quartet, each of them having a birthday, each of them having lifted the heart of my wretched 13-year-old self, long ago and far away, stuck in a messy old house full of little brothers + one little sister and a pair of miserable parents limping along in the chiggery, wasp-buzzing, weedy boondocks down around Chilhowee, Missouri.

February 25. George

June 18. Paul

July 7. Ringo (70? Can this be true? Yikes.)

October 9. John

sigh.

Astrology

Oh my. According to www.brainyhistory.com, it was on this day in 1942, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, that Otto Frank & his family, including precocious daughter Anne, went into hiding.

Happy Birthday, Dalai Lama, born this day in a lost world [aren't we all, after all], in 1935. Happy birthday, glorious, tragic, passionate artist, Frida Kahlo, born in 1907. Happy birthday, naval hero John Paul Jones (6 July 1747), fierce political wife Nancy Davis Reagan (1921). Happy birthday Sylvester Stallone, Pearl Bailey, Ned Beatty - and to goofy, cranky me.

So much for astrology.

Greatest Showman on Earth

"Money is in some respects life's fire: it is a very excellent servant, but a terrible master. "

Phineas Taylor Barnum

or how about this one:

"Whatever you do, do it with all your might. Work at it, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now." P.T.B.

or this:

“Without promotion something terrible happens... Nothing!” P. T. B.

Man oh man oh man, more than once and without success I've tried to convince editors to give me some of their company's money in exchange for my writing and illustrating a book about P. T. Barnum, showman, publisher, vaudevillian, museum-monger. Who would better personify 19th Century America? Hardly anybody! Here he's pictured with his greatest discovery, Mr. Charles Sherwood Stratton (1838-1883), better known, in fact, known around the world and presented to Her Majesty Queen Victoria as "General Tom Thumb." http://history1800s.about.com/od/americanoriginals/a/gentomthumb.htm

Think of the multitudes plunking down two bits to enter P.T. Barnum's American Museum (in lower Manhattan, NYC, from 1841 until 1865, when it burned down) to see every sort of attraction, human and otherwise http://www.lostmuseum.cuny.edu/archives/museum.htm

Think of the thousands of Victorians who flocked, meandered, and swarmed to see Jumbo the Elephant or the "Feejee Mermaid," or to see and hear "The Swedish Nightingale," soprano Jenny Lind (1820-1887), in America for a thunderously successful tour arranged by impresario/promoter extraordinaire, P.T. Barnum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Lind Think of the millions who came to and are still coming to the circus that he began: THE circus, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, now to be found under the name of his rivals, at www.ringling.com

Oh well, yes, don't I know that it's all editors can do these days to keep their heads above the roiling, oiling waters of the 21st Century? Ah yes, so consider here for a moment the remarkable, colorful life of Phineas Taylor Barnum, who was born in Bethel, Connecticut, 200 years ago today, July 5, 1810.

"Whatever you do, do it with all your might. Work at it, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now.' P. T. Barnum

Happy Birthday, President Calvin Coolidge and to many another and to the nation.

"This is the Fourth of July?" so said Thos. Jefferson on [or close to] his death day, at Monticello, July 4, 1826.

"Jefferson still survives." John Adams, his last words, uttered that very day, at Quincy, Massachusetts.

Lousy stinking of me to suggest commerce [below] on the Glorious Fourth, but I wanted to post images of the jackets of the books I wrote & illustrated about these two rivals/brothers in revolution, but I don't know how. Just bright enough to write a book, too lame to show you pictures of them.... ah well, Long Live the Republic!

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Jefferson-Cheryl-Harness/dp/1426300433/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278257916&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/Revolutionary-John-Adams-Cheryl-Harness/dp/0792254910/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278258240&sr=1-1

Painter

Wasn't he beautiful? Oh baybee. Please note that the handsome, comely fellow in this painting and the artist who painted him were one and the same: John Singleton Copley, the finest American painter of his day. Portraiture was his specialty, just for you to know, and today's the anniversary of his birthday, in 1738. To learn a bit more about J.S.C. and to see some of his work, go to www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg60b/gg60b-main1.html

The Fatal Third

"The sacrifice of life on that blood soaked field on the fatal third [of July] was too awful for the heralding of victory, even for our victorious foe, who I think, believe as we do, that it decided the fate of our cause. No words can picture the anguish of that roll-call—the breathless waits between the responses. The "Here" of those who, by God's mercy, had miraculously escaped the awful rain of shot and shell was a sob—a gasp—a knell—for the unanswered name of his comrade." Major Gen. George E. Pickett, CSA

Heat. Blood. Smoke. NOISE. Man oh man oh man, how can we even imagine the pain, the thundering terror, the pure, sheer bravery experienced and exhibited that rotten day at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania? Sublime in its nastiness. I could blather on, but no. Just tipping my hat to soldiers, then and now.

Let there be peace on earth & let it begin with those who send young folks to war.

With that, away I go to display my Stars & Stripes out front, come in and fix a glass of iced tea. Close the windows against the heat of just another summer day, made possible by a multitude of miracles.

July, No Lie

"The Summer looks out from her brazen tower through the flashing bars of July."
- Francis Thompson

Yikes! Where was I yesterday, not writing a lick all day on the 1st day of July, a day absolutely vibrating, resonating with all manner of commemoration? Painting, that's where & what or else I'd have noted here that s sublimely hideous & horrific battle began at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 1, 1863, as the long, uncomfortable, dreadful of Vicksburg, Mississippi, was grinding to an end. And too, speaking of the wretched & grievous, the Battle of the Somme began, July 1,1916. On a far & away brighter note, yesterday was Olivia de Haviland's birthday. The great lady of the movies completed 94 years of life. And today? The 2nd? Had John Adams vision of the future been realized, this day, "the second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore." And why? Because it was on that Glorious Second of July that J.A.'s fellow delegates at the 2nd Continental Congress, agreed with R. H. Lee's resolution, that the "United Colonies" ought to be free & independent States. But it'll be the day after tomorrow when my little dog will be all a'tremble over the racket hereabouts because it was on the 4th that the delegates agreed on the final draft of the D. of I. So there you go. Long live the Republic.

James A. Garfield survived childhood poverty and the Civil War, but not his Presidency. It was on this summer day in 1881, that he walked into the big train station in Washington, DC, no idea that his assassin was waiting. Some years later, July 2, 1908, a future Supreme Court Justice was born: baby Thurgood Marshall. Does the knowledge of these factoids alter today? Perhaps not, but those long-gone suffering soldiers and courageous delegates in Philadelphia are worth remembering. And perhaps remembering is its own reward.