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reetings from Australia.
Welcome to this Red-Letter Day. Below you will find today's global celebrations, birthdays and events.
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This is what we do to bad little boys.
For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake.
There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it.
I'm not against the police; I'm just afraid of them.
Television has brought back murder into the home--where it belongs.
Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.
In the old days villains had moustaches and kicked the dog. Audiences are smarter today. They don't want their villain to be thrown at them with green limelight on his face. They want an ordinary human being with failings.
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It was impossible not to see that the love scenes were filmed like murder scenes, and the murder scenes like love
scenes ... It occurred to me that in Hitchcock's
cinema ... to make love and to die are one and the same.
Filmmaker François
Truffaut, on Hitchcock
Here didst thou dwell in this enchanted cover,
Egeria! All thy heavenly bosom beating
For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;
The purple midnight veiled that mystic meeting
With her most starry canopy.
Lord Byron; Childe
Harold, Canto IV, alluding to Egeria, one of the Camenae, and her
grotto
I know not what you believe of God, but I believe He gave yearnings and longings to be filled, and that He did not mean all our time should be devoted to feeding and clothing the body.
Lucy Stone, pioneer feminist, born on August 13, 1818; speech, 'Disappointment
is the Lot of Women,' October 17-18, 1855
To make the public sentiment, on the side of all that is just and true and noble, is the highest use of life.
Lucy Stone; Morning Star
The politician is the creature of the public sentiment – [he] never goes ahead of it because he depends on it.
Lucy Stone; ibid
I am not a communist and neither is the
revolutionary movement.
Fidel Castro, Cuban dictator, born on August 13, 1926;
speaking in 1959
I am a Marxist Leninist and I will be one until the last day of my
life.
Fidel Castro, 1961
Why are dictators of the left not scorned in
the same way as those of the right? Was General Pinochet in his 17 years
in power, less cruel or less bloody than Fidel Castro has been in his four
decades ruling Cuba?
Mario Vargas
Llosa, Nobel laureate novelist, The New York Times,
November 1, 1999
For me, it meant
8,000 days of hunger, of systematic beatings, of hard labor, of solitary
confinement and solitude, 8,000 days of struggling to prove that I was a
human being, 8,000 days of proving that my spirit could triumph over
exhaustion and pain, 8,000 days of testing my religious convictions, my
faith, of fighting the hate my atheist jailers were trying to instil in me
with each bayonet thrust, fighting so that hate would not flourish in my
heart, 8,000 days of struggling so that I would not become like them.
Testimony of Armanda Valladares on life in a Cuban prison
I find myself increasingly shocked at
the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our
culture that it is hardly even noticed. We now have pretty much equality
at least on the pay and opportunities front, though almost nothing has
been done on child care, the real liberation … I was in a class of nine-
and 10-year-olds, girls and boys, and this young woman was telling these
kids that the reason for wars was the innately violent nature of men. You
could see the little girls, fat with complacency and conceit while the
little boys sat there crumpled, apologising for their existence, thinking
this was going to be the pattern of their lives …This kind of thing is
happening in schools all over the place and no one says a thing. It has
become a kind of religion that you can't criticise because then you
become a traitor to the great cause, which I am not. The most stupid,
ill-educated and nasty woman can rubbish the nicest, kindest and most
intelligent man and no one protests … Men seem to be so cowed that they
can't fight back, and it is time they did.
Doris Lessing, British [feminist]
writer; speaking at the Edinburgh Book Festival, August 13, 2001
Source
August
13 is
the 225th
day of the year in the Gregorian
Calendar (226th
in leap years), with 140
days remaining.
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Friday the 13th (2004)
But once on a Friday ('tis ever they say),
A day when misfortune is aptest to fall.
Saxe: Good Dog of Bretté, stanza 3
Sir Winston Churchill might have said, "Friday is my lucky day. I was born, christened, married, and knighted on that day; and all my best accidents have befallen me on a Friday", Scots might prefer Friday for marriage, and Scandinavians might tend to see Friday as lucky, but in the traditions of most European countries, Friday is the unlucky day. When Friday falls on the 13th of the month, as is well known, the day is said to be especially unlucky and articles like these appear all over the Net and in the media, particularly if not much news is about.
The number 13 has long been considered by superstitious Westerners to be unlucky. Even today, many towns and suburbs don't have 13 as a street number, or 13th Street, and most hotels do not have rooms with 13 on the door. Many tall buildings do not have a 13th storey, with the elevator going straight from Floor 12 to 14.
There are numerous origins given for the persistent superstition that in the West, Friday the 13th is an unlucky day. The most likely of these is that Jesus Christ was killed on a Friday, and that Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed him, was the thirteenth person of Jesus and the 12 apostles.
Just as tridecaphobia (Hyper Dictionary prefers
triskaidekaphobia) is purportedly the official name for the morbid fear of the number 13, so various other fanciful terms are given by different commentators for the phobia associated with Friday the
13th, including
paraskevidekatriaphobia and friggatriskaidekaphobia, though one suspects these were invented by journalists on slow news days. In Australia, where people are not too bright and
will bet on two flies crawling up a wall, the New South Wales State Lotteries report that Friday the
13th is always one of their biggest days, with turnover about 50 per cent up.
Eric W
Weisstein, by the way, shows that Friday is slightly more likely than any of the days of the week to fall on the
13th.
Frigg's day
In ancient Rome Friday was known as dies Veneris, the day dedicated to Venus, hence the French vendredi. In the northern nations, the sixth day of the week was named (perhaps in imitation of the Roman custom) for the goddess Frigg, or Freya (pictured), mother of Balder; in Old English it was called Frig-daeg ...
Read on at Friday the 13th folklore and origins in the Scriptorium
Second Friday in August, Burry Man,
South
Queensferry, West Lothian, UK
If you're in South Queensferry (a town that is part of the City of Edinburgh,
Scotland,
on the Firth of Forth) on the second Friday in
August, which is during the Ferry Fair, you're likely to see a man
parading around town in a costume completely covered in burrs of Arctium
lappa and Arctium minus, Britain's two native species of burdock (pictured), a
variety of thistle. In
either hand he carries a stick decorated with flowers, and his head is
covered in roses.
The 'Burry Man', as he is called, is required to walk around in his heavy, uncomfortable suit and call at each of the pubs in town, where he receives a drink of whisky through a straw. He also visits the house of the town kirk's provost who pours him yet another drink as a necessary part of the very ancient rite.
How it began, and what it all means, is lost in
the proverbial (Scotch) mists of time. It might have once been a kind of
'beating the
bounds' ceremony, or perhaps the Burry Man was a form of scapegoat, as his
discomfort implies.
" … he used also to be seen at Buckie and at
Fraserburgh, both fishing ports, in ceremonies thought to be conducive
to the herring fishing. Some say it is a novel way of beating the
bounds, others that it commemorates the landing of Queen Margaret, from
whom the town took its name and whose husband the King once hid nearby
from the English, covered in burrs." Source
For the 25 years preceding 1999, the position of
Burry Man had been held by a Mr Alan Reid.
Folk herbalists, by the way, consider dried
burdock to be a diuretic, diaphoretic, and a blood purifying agent. 'Dandelion
and burdock' is a soft drink that has long been popular in the United
Kingdom.
"The locals of Cranham, Gloucestershire, had the right to take deer from the nearby woods. Each year they reminded everyone of their right by holding a banquet and roasting a deer. This three-day festival still begins with a feast of roast meat and always finishes on the second Monday in August." Source
Vertumnalia, in honour of Vertumnus and Pomona,
Roman Empire
In Roman mythology, Vertumnus (Vortumnus,
Vertimnus) was the god of seasons, change and plant growth, as well as
gardens and fruit trees. Like the seasons and the fruit trees, Vertumnus was a shapeshifter.
Vertumnus's cult arrived
at Rome
around 300
BCE (from his Etruscan counterpart: Voltumna)
and a temple to him was constructed on the Aventine
Hill in 264
BCE. A statue of him was placed at the Vicus
Tuscus.
Using his shapeshifting
power, he tricked the dryad (wood
nymph) Pomona, the
patron of orchards and gardens, into becoming his wife by disguising himself as a crone. The Fauns and Satyrs would
have given anything to win her love, and so would old Sylvanus, and Pan. But Vertumnus
loved her best of all; yet his luck with her had been no better than
theirs, until he tried this ruse:
The old hag sat down on a bank, and looked up at the
branches laden with fruit that hung over her. Opposite was an elm entwined with a vine loaded with
swelling grapes. She praised the tree to Pomona and its associated vine,
equally. "But," she said, "if the tree stood alone, and had no vine
clinging to it, it would have nothing to attract or offer us but its
useless leaves. And equally the vine, if it were not twined round the elm,
would lie prostrate on the ground. Why will you not take a lesson from the
tree and the vine, and consent to unite yourself with someone? I wish you
would. Helen
herself had not more numerous suitors, nor Penelope, the
wife of shrewd Ulysses (Odysseus).
"Even while you spurn them, they court you, rural
deities and others of every kind that frequent these mountains. But if you
are prudent and want to make a good alliance, and will let an old woman
advise you, who loves you better than you have any idea of, dismiss all
the rest and accept Vertumnus, on my recommendation.
"I know him as well as he knows himself. He is not a
wandering deity, but belongs to these mountains. Nor is he like too many
of the lovers nowadays, who love any one they happen to see; he loves you,
and you only. Add to this, he is young and handsome, and has the art of
assuming any shape he pleases, and can make himself just what you command
him. Moreover, he loves the same things that you do, delights in
gardening, and handles your apples with admiration. But now he cares
nothing for fruits nor flowers, nor anything else, but only yourself. Take
pity on him, and fancy him speaking now with my mouth. Remember that the
gods punish cruelty, and that Venus (Aphrodite)
hates a hard heart, and will visit such offences sooner or later."
Pomona found the crone's persuasiveness irresistible and
married Vertumnus. Pomona feared the country people, and kept her orchard
locked, so men would not enter. Her name is derived from the Roman word pomus,
or fruit. She is also the goddess of cultivated gardens and of apples, and
goddess of the Tree of
Life. Her high priest was called the flamen
Pomonalis. She is depicted carrying a pruning hook, though in 19th-century
statues and building decorations she is usually shown carrying either a
large platter of fruit or sometimes a cornucopia,
as she is usually associated with abundance.
The Ides of August was also sacred to Jupiter and known as the feriae Jovi, or Festival of Jove, and to Diana, the goddess of the moon, and called the Festival of Diana. Diana was sometimes viewed as Jupiter's female equivalent (not his wife, who was Juno). On this day, Diana's temple on the Aventine Hill was consecrated; today cow horns (symbols of Hercules), were hung in the front of the temple.
Sources: Wikipedia, Bullfinch, et al
Death of the Virgin Mary
"On August 13th, the pre-Christian feast of the Mother Goddess Diana, or Vesta, was once celebrated with cider. Another name of this Goddess was Nemesis, from the Greek
nemos or 'grove,' which in Classical Greek connotes divine vengeance. Nemesis carries a
wheel in her other hand, to show that she is the goddess of the turning year, like Egyptian
Isis and Latin
Fortuna, but this has been generally understood as meaning that the wheel will one day come full circle to exact vengeance.
"This feast was converted in the middle Ages into that of the Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin [ie, her raising up to heaven, August 15]. Since the Virgin was closely associated by the early Church with Wisdom
– with the Saint Sophia or Holy
Wisdom, of the Cathedral Church at Constantinople
– the choice of this feast for the passing of Wisdom into Immortality was a happy one."
Excerpted, with minor edits, from Robert
Graves, The
White Goddess,
1948 Ch. 4 Source
Pictured: Mary Moon Goddess ascendant; El Greco
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