daniel of padua

Venerated on the occasion of the translation (repatriation) to the cathedral of Padua on this day in 1064, the sainted deacon under Saint Prosdocimus, the city’s first bishop dispatched by Apostle Peter, Daniel helped win converts to the faith and was later martyred (†168 CE) and is represented with the iconography of a towel and laver to signify the importance of the ritual of feet washing and of cleanliness—in sense of purity, therapy and hygiene—in general. Patron and protector of both Padua and Treviso, Daniel is invoked by army wives to guarantee their husband’s return from war and, like fellow Patavino Anthony, is called upon to find lost articles.

eddie calvert & orchestra

The first chart topping hit to come out of the storied Abbey Road recording studio (previously) was the trumpeting-rendition of the nostalgic Swiss-German number “Oh, Mein Papa,” which began a nine-week run on this day in 1954. Known throughout his career as The Man with the Golden Trumpet, Calvert’s other number one hit came the following year with “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White,” with versions “Miserlou” and “Stranger in Paradise” also later charting.

7x7

2020—too…: the moment it hits you 

the colours of motion: spectral analysis of contemporary film classics  

the timekeepers of eternity: a printed, pagination interpretation of Steven King’s novella The Langoliers  

forefather time: on the trial of the masqueraded, marauding Jukace that herald the New Year for one Polish city  

visual vernacular: Jayme Odgers—one of the montage artists behind California’s New Wave aesthetic, creates a legacy repository of his works 

ham and banana hollandaise: a cursed collection of dishes from McCall’s Great American Recipe Card Collection 

those we’ve lost: a more comprehensive compilation of celebrity obituaries from the past year from Bob Canada’s Blogworld

the same procedure as every year

Having not watched Dinner for One (Der 90. Geburtstag) sketch for the past couple of years, we appreciated the reminder from Nag on the Lake and can confirm it’s been recently on in the background, this 1962 recording broadcast every year in Germany on New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day for reasons no one can quite recall. This year in the midst of restrictions on gatherings, virtual parties and celebrations scaled back, with bands playing to empty venues—it seems especially poignant. “But my friends—they’re waiting in the lobby.” There, there, of course they are, Miss Sophie. Do check it out if you’re not familiar—it is timelessly funny.

rogue waves

Distinct from tsunamis, killer waves—defined as reaching twice the height of waves in a wave record—occur in open-water as a convergence of constructive interference and other conditions but were considered at best anecdotal, tall-tales and the stuff of maritime myth until quite recently when one was detected on New Year’s Day in 1995 and measured by instruments housed on the Draupner gas pipeline support platform in the North Sea. Subsequent research has shown the phenomenon to be a common one, occurring in multiple media, including finance and has been retroactively used to account for shipping accidents, including the 1975 sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald and the iconic titular wave portrayed in The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai.

space music

Begun a decade earlier as a three-hour-long radio programme featuring contemplative, ambient music with a selection of classical, Celtic, electronic and experimental genres airing late nights in the Berkley-area hosted by “Timotheo” (Stephen Hill) and “Annamystic” (Anna Turner), Hearts of Space entered syndication of National Public Radio on this day in 1983 and is still going strong, with over thirteen hundred transmissions (episodes) in their archives. The longest-running show of its type, each instalment signs-off with “Safe journeys, space fans—wherever you are.”

parapluie

Though parasols and various shades (umbra in Latin) to repel the elements have existed since Antiquity, one this day in 1710, a shopkeeper called Jean Marius who ran a little boutique in Saint-Honoré was granted a royal patent to exclusively produced the folding umbrellas of his design for a period of five years—which open and close in essentially the same fashion as modern ones. Light-weight and instantly the must-have accessory among the sophisticated classes, prompting one Parisian magazine writer to observe in 1768 the reversal of the trend, noting it was a calculated risk to forego carrying about an umbrella for half-a-year to use it perhaps half-a-dozen times and take the risk of being caught in a rain shower rather than being taken for a common pedestrian as “an umbrella is a sure sign of someone who does not have his own carriage.”

saint telemachus

An ascetic monk from Asia Minor undertook a spiritual sojourn to Rome and is venerated on this day when, according to near-contemporary Church chronicler Theodoret, for trying to stop a gladiatorial match in the Colosseum. Accounts vary as to whether Telemachus, who so opposed the violence, was stabbed by the competitors or stoned to death by an angry audience but historically the last known spectacle in the city occurred on 1 January 404 CE. Emperor Honorius was reported so moved by the sacrifice and martyrdom as to enact a ban on gladiator fights. In the version of the hagiography told by Ronald Reagan in 1984 addressing the National Prayer Breakfast, he added the embellishment that the crowd was so mortified by its actions that they all departed the stadium in silence.