After a long walkies to the top of the Hohe Schuhe—previously, along the prehistoric trail that leads through the woods from an ensemble of ancient burial mounds and along the former border for a perspective from the promontory overlooking Bavaria and Thรผringen from the puppy was treated to another surprise with her first encounter with the neighbourhood peacock.
Lead single off the group’s title album which began a three-week run on the top of the charts in the US on this day in 1984, Culture Club was initially resistant to record frontman’s Boy George’s composition—originally called “Cameo Chameleon,” about cosmic retribution and being true to oneself as it sounded a bit too country. Hitting number one in Australia, Canada, the UK, Norway and Belgium as well, the accompanying music video directed by Peter Sinclair, set in 1870s Mississippi, was filmed at Weybridge-on-Thames, aboard a riverboat. Enduringly popular and a perennial political campaign favourite, inveighing against one’s opponent as “a man without conviction,” Culture Club also performed this number on an episode of The A-Team, “Cowboy George.”
Recorded in the studios of Chรขteau d’Hรฉrouville during the previous summer and put out as a pre-release for the forthcoming sixth studio album Don’t Shoot Me—I’m Only the Piano Player, the lead single by 
Elton John and Bernie Taupin climbed to the top of the charts in the US on this day in 1973—becoming the duo’s first number one hit in America—holding its position for three weeks. Played on a Farfisa (Fabbriche Riunite di Fisarmoniche) electric organ—derisively to imitate the nostalgic sounds of songs that sounds better in our memories though a popular instrument for Led Zepplin, Blondie, Pink Floyd and the B-52s—‘Crocodile Rock’ is a tribute to the Australian group Daddy Cool’s ‘Eagle Rock’ as a fun side project. While acknowledgedly derivative and escapist (and a number he stopped enjoying performing), John didn’t expect it to prove so popular and even rising to a lawsuit alleging plagiarism from the estate of the writer of the Pat Boone novelty song ‘Speedy Gonzales’ for the chord progression and falsetto. The matter was settled out of court.
good boy: a thirty year old dog in Portugal beats a century-old record for oldest in the world
bb-8: a small security robot that rolls about the premises
eternity’s pillar: late night variety show produced by Turiyasan-gitananda—see previously
studio fong leng: a look at the Dutch fashion designer who dressed Kate Bush and socialite Mathilde Willink
can’t do hands: an atrocious sign language guide imaged by an AI—see previously
catgpt: a feline version of the scarily smart chat bot—via Waxy
Featuring pioneering prima ballerina Marie Tallchief (Osage ๐ผ๐ฃ๐ธ๐๐ค๐๐ธ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐๐ธ๐ฒ๐) in the principal role, following after her revolutionary performance in Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird as choreographed by George Balanchine, the premier of The Nutcracker under the same creative team behind the staging by the company of the New York City Ballet on this day in 1954. Enchanting thanks to Tallchief’s magical moves, it has been an annual tradition ever since.
Penned on this day in 1913 by journalist, writer and soldier Joyce Kilmer—best known for these twelve
lines of verse—in Mahwah, New Jersey, those couplets, despite or because of their endurance and familiarity, by dint of being a rhyme practically everyone knows are the subject of disparagement and dismissal for being overly simplistic and sentimental and conversely celebrated with popular appeal as a heuristic that romances and rediscovers the virtues of delivering a simple and satisfying message. “Trees” is recited at Arbor Day events and upheld in the tradition of planting memorials in his name with several trees vying to have been the poet’s inspiration. Sergeant Joyce Klimer Triangle (he was killed in action during the Second Battle of the Marne in WWI) in Brooklyn, a traffic island, is the smallest park in New York City, though his memory is honoured akso with a much larger green space in the Bronx.
Guest blogger Tim Carmody takes the helm for the tenth anniversary of the twentieth anniversary of Kottke’s Groundhog Day live-blog, in a very recursive tradition of celebrating the 1993 fantasy, romantic comedy for a decade. Directed by Harold Ramis and written by Danny Rubin, it portrays a cynical TV weatherman assigned to cover the annual event in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and gets caught in a time loop, him alone aware that the day is repeating and has the potential for perfecting.
wickies: Fisheries and Oceans Canada is hiring assistant lighthouse keepers
the montessori method: a look at the world’s most influential school system
little moving splat: Ze Frank (previously) covers the strange and wonderfully intelligent behaviour of plasmodial slime moulds
unitar: a selection of one-string music—via Pasa Bon! blue harvest: a history of the spoiler alert—see also
what is a map: an awful educational short from 1949 given the MST3K treatment
dead as a dodo: a de-extinction company gets a one-hundred fifty million dollar investment
the free-market tree: non-felonious children’s literature editions for the state of Florida
coast guard: a collection of lighthouses of North America
