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While in California, Mr Hargraves felt persuaded that, from the similarity of the geological formation, there must be gold in several districts in this Colony.
The Sydney Morning Herald, May 5, 1851, referring to the gold strike of February 5, 1851 by Edward Hargraves

A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.
Thomas Carlyle, English historian and essayist, who died on February 5, 1881

Everywhere, the ethical predicament of our time imposes itself with an urgency that suggests that even the question 'Have we anything to eat?' will be answered not in material but in ethical terms.
Hugo Ball (1886 - 1927), German dadaist poet. Quoted in Dada: Art and Anti-Art, ch. 1, 'The Language of Paradise', Hans Richter (1964)

Cabaret Voltaire. Under this name a group of young artists and writers has been formed whose aim is to create a centre for artistic entertainment. The idea of the cabaret will be that guest artists will come and give musical performances and readings at the daily meetings. The young artists of Zurich, whatever their orientation, are invited to come along with suggestions and contributions of all kinds.
Press Notice, Zurich, February 2, 1916

Language is a virus from outer space.
William S Burroughs, American author, born on February 5, 1914

A psychotic is someone who just found out what's going on. 
William S Burroughs

Hugo Ball (see This day in history, 1916, below)

Highly recommended:
Folklore of World Holidays
by Margaret Read MacDonald

Ancient Ways

Naked Lunch

Be A Goddess

The Oxford Dictionary of Saints

Spellcraft

The Encyclopedia of Saints

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Feast day of Jacob, patriarch in the Book of Genesis

Father of the twelve tribes of Israel, he stole his elder brother's birthright by trickery. He deceived his blind father Isaac into giving his blessing that was reserved for Esau. He had two wives, the sisters Leah and Rachael, at the same time. This Jacob is not to be confused with St James, feast day July 25, who is also sometimes known as St Jacob.

At Luz (perhaps later 'Bethel'), on his way to Padan-aram, Jacob slept using a stone as a pillow and in a vision saw the angels of God ascending and descending a ladder which reached to Heaven (Gen. 28:12). Jacob's Ladder is probably the best-known string figure in the western world, apart from the 'cat's cradle' game, as well as an ancient wooden folk toy. It's also the name of a high-voltage spark like the ones you've seen in Frankenstein movies, in the doctor's lab, and a cultivar of Aloe dawei.

The image shown here is by William Blake.

More artworks
Birth of Esau and Jacob   Isaac Blesses Jacob, Raffaelo   Raffaelo   Murillo   Rivera   Flinck   Jacob Deceives Isaac   Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, Doré   Moreau    Segal   JacobWrestlesAngel   Rachel    Jacob and Rachel   Vecchio   Rachel and Leah, Michaelangelo   Rossetti   Berchem   Jacob abd Laban   Jacob's Ladder, Chagall   Jacob's Ladder   Murillo    Chagall   Jacob's Ladder   Esau Sells His Birthright to Jacob   The Meeting of Jacob and Esau   Jacob-Joseph, Michaelangelo   Joseph's Bloody Coat Brought to Jacob, Velázquez   Jacob's Journey to Egypt    Jacob's Departure for Egypt, Chagall   Joseph Presents his Father (Jacob-Israel) and Brothers to the Pharaoh   Joseph with Jacob (Israel) in Egypt   Jacob Blesses the Sons of Joseph, Rembrandt

Source

More images of Jacob's ladder

Igbi, Dagestan, former USSR

A celebration of the middle of winter, cognate to Imbolc/St Brigid's Day (February 1 - 2) in the Celtic/Christian traditions.

Celebrated both in Shaitli and in neighbouring Kituri among the Avar ethnic group which includes the Tsezy (Didoitsy) people, igbi in the Tsezian language means 'ring-shaped loaves' (like bagels). The singular is ig. Igbi are baked for other festivals such as first day of ploughing (see also Plough Monday).

Young men, aged 14-25, take part and preparations start months before. Boys write down various positive and negative deeds of villagers – the igbi day is their day of reckoning. A couple of months before Igbi, they commence making costumes and assign duties to participants. Personages in the festival include wolves, forest people, a devil, skeleton, doctor, speculators, a policeman, and so on. Masks for these characters are made out of animal skins or papier-maché.

A week before the Igbi, three to four 'wolves' appear in the settlement and announce in the name of the botsi (wolves) the need to prepare for the feast and to start baking igbi.

On February 5, it is said, the sun for the first time shines on the locality of Khora situated opposite Shaitli, indicating that winter has half passed. Children get up early and collect igbi from door to door. At about 10am, six 'wolves' with wooden swords and about thirty boys gather, choosing two men from the village and forcing them to carry the gari, a pole on which they string the igbi. They go around the village threatening to punish whoever will not give them igbi. Women try to steal the igbi from the youths, while the botsi try to prevent them. There follows a ceremonial naming of the good and bad deeds of the villagers, which are announced in the name of a demon called the Kvidili, which later in the day is ritually 'executed'. 

Festival of the Lênaia to Dionysus, god of wine and pleasure, ancient Greece  (c. Jan 28 - Feb 5)

Festivals in ancient Greece

Feast day of St Abraham (Abraamius), bishop of Arbela, martyr

Feast day of St Agatha Hildegard of Carinthia

Feast day of St Alice (or Adelaide), abbess at Cologne
(Red primrose, Primula aculis is another of today's plants, dedicated to this saint.)

Feast day of St Avitus of Vienne, archbishop

Feast day of St Genuinus

Feast day of St Indract

Feast day of St Isidore

Feast day of St John Morosini

Feast day of the martyrs of Pontus

Feast day of the twenty-six martyrs of Japan

Feast day of the martyrs of China

Feast day of St Modestus

Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints

Iroquois Midwinter Festival (Jan 30 - Feb 8)

Shiwasu Matsuri, Mikado Jinja, Nango, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan (Jan 20 - Feb 20)

Owase Yaya Matsuri (Shouting Festival), Japan (Feb 1 - 8)

Sounkyo Ice Festival, Sounkyo Onsen (spa), Hokkaido, Japan (Jan 29 - Mar 5)

Yuki Matsuri, or Snow Festival, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan (dates vary in early February)
Hokkaido's largest festival. Snow images are made in the main street, and a costume parade and skating contests are held. See February 7 for more.

1788 Robert Peel (d. 1850), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and founder of London's police force

1788 Károly Kisfaludy, Hungarian romantic poet and dramatist, who inspired his compatriots to voice their national cultural heritage

1827 Peter Lalor (d. February 9, 1889), best known of the leaders of Australia's bloody Eureka Stockade rebellion of 1854, one of Australia's few armed uprisings and sometimes characterized as the 'birth of democracy' in Australia.

Lalor was born in Ireland and immigrated to Australia in 1852, initially working on the construction of the Melbourne-Geelong railway line but before long joined the gold rush. The wide political changes after the Eureka Stockade saw Lalor appointed to the Victorian parliament in 1855, and despite his rebel background, he was a surprisingly conservative politician. He was postmaster-general and minister for trade and customs in the ministry of Sir Graham Berry from 1877 to 1879, and chairman of committees. He was speaker of the parliament from 1870 until 1877 and was offered a knighthood, which he declined. The northern Melbourne suburb of Lalor is named for him, as is a federal electorate, the Division of Lalor.

Lawson & Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson    More

1837 Dwight L Moody (d. 1899), American evangelist

1840 John Dunlop (John Boyd Dunlop; d. 1921), Scottish inventor who developed commercially practical pneumatic tyres (see October 31, 1888)

1846 Johann Most (d. March 17, 1906), German-American anarchist and orator, who in the late 19^th Century began to advocate the use of violence to achieve revolutionary political and social change. He taught Emma Goldman public speaking.

Early progressives in the Book of Days

1848 Belle Starr (Myra Maybelle Shirley; d. February 3, 1889), American outlaw, associate of Jesse James, mother of Pearl Starr

Belle Starr manga

 

Belle Starr, Belle Starr, tell me where you have gone
Since old Oklahoma's sandhills you did roam?
Is it Heaven's wide streets that you're tying your reins
Or singlefooting somewhere below? 

Eight lovers they say combed your waving black hair
Eight men knew the feel of your dark velvet waist
Eight men heard the sounds of your tan leather skirt
Eight men heard the bark of the guns that you wore. 

From 'Belle Starr', by Woody Guthrie, 1947   Source

Belle Starr's grave

1858 Thomas Walker (d. May 10, 1932), English-born spiritualist, freethinker and political activist influential in Australia (particularly Sydney and New South Wales) in the late-19^th and early-20^th Centuries.

He co-founded the Australasian Secular Association (ASA), which came to be most active in Melbourne; the Melbourne Anarchist Club grew out of the ASA.

In 1885 he was charged with promulgating "obscene articles", namely diagrams explaining birth control, but he was found not guilty. He set up as temperance lecture after inadvertently shooting and wounding a clergyman in 1892.

"Member of the Senate University of Western Australia from 1912 until 1916. Protectionist Member of the Legislative Assembly in New South Wales. Labor Member of Legislative Assembly in West Australia, where he defended Aborigines and promoted reforms ... Lecturer and writer. Child preacher on Wesleyan circuit around Preston, then pupil/teacher at St Thomas' school. Migrated to Canada with family in early 1870s and worked as labourer. Set up as a materializing spiritualist medium in Toronto 1874; returned British precipitately after fatal accident at seance; journalist on Preston Herald, Lancashire. Possibly returned to Canada briefly in 1875; journalist and spiritualist medium in United States of America in 1876. Arrived in New South Wales in March 1877. Journeyed to Melbourne and became a medium and lecturer to British 1879, lecturing for National Reform Union; to South Africa 1880, resuming spiritualist preaching and returned Victoria in 1881 and was a spiritualist lecturer. Denounced spiritualism in 1882, founding Australasian Secular Association with himself as salaried president and lecturer. Went to Sydney in 1883, where he became secularist spokesman, 'larrikin populist campaigner' and published poems and plays. As a 'protectionist, democratic republican', condemned Sudan expedition and espoused radical reforms; convicted then acquitted of obscenity when advocating birth control 1885; set up as temperance lecture after inadvertently shooting and wounding a clergyman in 1892; also taught elocution and wrote for press. Visited New Zealand, then settled in Western Australia in 1899; Became a journalist on Kalgoorlie Sun and Kalgoorlie Miner; then journalist, and later became an editor of the Western Australian Sunday Times; editor and part owner of the Sunday Press in 1903. Soon returned to Kalgoorlie to edit the Sun. Gave up journalism and studied law. Admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor in 1911. Author of two volumes of poetry; Marmondelle the Moore (a play); and dramatization of For the Term of His Natural Life."   Source

Early progressives in the Book of Days

1878 André Citroën (d. 1935), automobile pioneer

1900 Adlai Stevenson (d. 1965), American politician

1906 John Carradine, American actor (The Invisible Man; The Last Tycoon)  

1914 William S Burroughs (d. August 2, 1997), American 'beat' author (Naked Lunch; Junkie); the only person ever to make money out of heroin (apart from dealers, and shareholders of the Bayer company, which invented heroin and marketed it as a non-addictive cure for morphine addiction and coughs)

"Burroughs was born on February 5, 1914 in St. Louis, Missouri. His upper-class midwestern background did not suit his tastes. A bookworm with strong homoerotic urges, a fascination with guns and crime and a natural inclination to break every rule he could find, there seemed to be no way Burroughs could ever fit into normal society. His parents seemed to accept this, and after he graduated from Harvard they continued to support him financially as he experimented with various lifestyles."   Source

More

1919 Andreas Papandreou (d. June 23, 1996), Greek economist and politician who served three times as Prime Minister of Greece (October 21, 1981 to July 2, 1989 and October 13, 1993 to January 22, 1996).

1919 Red Buttons, American actor

1940 HR Giger, Academy Award-winning Swiss artist in the genre of Fantastic Realism; he is perhaps best known for his design work on the film Alien

HR Giger: The Official Website

Kooper famously tricked his way into the recording session of Bob Dylan's 'Like a Rolling Stone' by saying he had a good organ part for the song (which he did not). Before producer Tom Wilson could explicitly reject Kooper, he took a phone call. Kooper sat down at the organ (a Hammond B3), although he had rarely played organ before the session. Wilson soon returned, surprised to find Kooper in the studio. Throughout the song the organ can be heard coming in just behind the other members of the band, as Kooper followed to make sure he was playing the right chords. During recording, Dylan said, "Turn the organ up," and rock's most famous organ riff was born.

"Because this is my life and this is my job. I'm no better or worse than any one of you; I'm probably just older (57) and perhaps a bit warier and a little wiser. I've no Mercedes, or surround sound. I don't go out to parties or restaurants every other night, and when I do venture out, I must admit I'm often dressed in a rather humorous manner. I'm way beyond the point of being a rock star or a name on anyone's lips.

"I live comparatively comfortably on the small percentage of royalties I was able to pry out of calculated, evil paws over the years."   Source

"We went on about 4 PM. Ron Wood played the whole show with us sans rehearsal. He's such a great guy. Spotted in our backstage area: Eric Clapton, Val Kilmer, Frank Bruno (England's favorite son/boxer - Bob's into boxing), Woody, Michael Kamen, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, etc. It was a gala turnout. I walked over to Val Kilmer and introduced myself and told him I enjoyed his work - especially his Doc Holliday."   Source: Kooper's diary – The Dylan concert, Hyde Park

Al Kooper's website    His MySpace page    Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list

1945 Charlotte Rampling, British actress (The Night Porter; Stardust Memories)

 

Phew!! Have a rest before the big This day in history section

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February

2 Imbolc
2 Candlemas
3 Carrot Cake Day
3 Artist Day
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4 Homemade Soup Day
4 Halfway Point Of Winter
4 Thank A Mailperson Day
4 Bald Eagle Day (Utah)
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14 Valentine's Day
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18 Thumb Appreciation Day
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21 Directory Day

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46 BCE Death of Marcus Cato the Younger.

62 CE Pompeii, Italy, was at the epicentre of a severe earthquake that caused considerable structural damage to buildings and the infrastructure of the city.

1576 Henry of Navarre converted to Roman Catholicism in order to ensure his right to the throne of France.

1679 The Third Treaty of Nijmegen ended seven years of European war.

1782 Spain captured Minorca from Britain.  

 

1826 USA: New Harmony Community of Equality was founded in Indiana, based on the communitarian philosophies of Robert Owen (1771 - 1858), Welsh-born philanthropic social reformer and pioneer of the cooperative movement.

1851 Fresh from California, Edward Hargraves found gold at Summer Hill Creek, New South Wales, starting the Australian gold rush. Hargraves had noticed that the terrain resembled that he had seen in the California gold rush.

Australia's population increased quite rapidly as those in search of fortune made it to the 'fatal shore'. Many came from Ireland, which had been gripped by the potato famine. Many others came from China, among the first ethnic communities on the continent (the first was the Afghan community, largely comprised of camel drivers). Still more were goldminers from the California rush of 1849. All these immigration trends influenced Australian culture and politics very significantly. For example, the American influence no doubt had an impact on the shaping of the Australian Constitution (1901), and the Irish influence is credited with much of the Australian reputation for republicanism, anti-authoritarianism, and a rather more boisterous character than that usually identified with former English colonies.

Life on the diggings

1869 One of the argest gold nuggets ever found, the 'Welcome Stranger', nearly 80 kg (2,284 ounces), was found at Black Lead (or Black Reef), Bull-dog Gully, Moliagul, Victoria, Australia by two prospectors. (Bulletin Almanac says 69.92 kg)

"Moliagul would barely rate a mention in the annals of history were it not for an event which unfolded on February 5, 1869. On that day, Cornish miner John Deason, who had been prospecting hereabouts for seven years, was working in Bulldog Gully, near Moliagul. While searching about the roots of a tree he discovered, 3 cm below the surface, a gold nugget. He concealed his find until dark. Then, with his partner, Richard Oates, he dug it out and snuck it home in a wagon. The two then held a party, during which they revealed their find to the assembled guests. The 66-kg 'Welcome Stranger', then the world's largest-known gold nugget, was taken to Dunolly where it had to be broken on an anvil (located in the Goldfields Historical and Arts Museum) before it could fit on the bank's scales. It was worth 10 000 pounds at the time ($3-4 million in today's money). Deason returned to Moliagul and his descendants are still in the area. Oates went back to Cornwall for a while but returned to live out his life at Dunolly."   Source

Gold trivia
A cubic foot (30 cm) block of gold =500 kilos or half a ton.
 One cubic mile of sea water (yes your everyday drop in the ocean) contains 8,600 pounds of pure gold, 135 tons of silver, 108,000,000 tons of salt and a few fish.   Source

1881 Scottish historian and essayist Thomas Carlyle died in London, aged 85.

1885 King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo as a personal possession.

1896 Letters patent were obtained by pioneer Australian feminist Louisa Lawson for a 'mail-bag fastener', and later The Post and Telegraph Department used her invention. in about August, 1900, Edward Nicol Murray produced a similar device which was used by the P&TD; Lawson spent years in lawsuits in which she believed 'a syndicate of politicians' was ranged against her, and the experience burnt her out.

Lawson & Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson

1904 The US occupation of Cuba ended.

1905 A polar bear froze to death in Chicago Zoo during a cold snap.

 

1916 Hugo Ball (pictured) opened his Cabaret Voltaire (Café Voltaire), in Zurich, Switzerland. It became a meeting place for artists of the new anarchic art movement known as Dada. Other founding members were Marcel Janco, Richard Huelsenbeck, Tristan Tzara and Jean Arp.

"The most widely accepted account of the naming of the movement, which flourished until about 1920, is an incident at the cabaret when a paper knife inserted into a French-German dictionary pointed to the word 'dada', a child's word for a horse, and the members seized upon it for their anti-aesthetic creations and protest activities, which in turn had been engendered by disgust for bourgeois values and despair over World War I."
Source: The Literary Calendar

Cabaret Voltaire was frequented by such luminaries as Guillaume Apollinaire, Vassily Kandinsky, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Max Oppenheimer, Jules Laforgue and Vladimir Lenin.

From Wikipedia: The cabaret fell into disrepair, and in the winter of 2002 a group of artists describing themselves as neo-Dadaists, organised by Mark Divo, occupied Cabaret Voltaire. They said that it was a signal for a new generation of artists to align themselves with a revival of Dada. Over a period of three months there were a number of performances, parties, poetry evenings and film nights. Among the participating artists were Ingo Giezendanner, Mikry Drei, Lennie Lee, Leumund Cult, Aiana Calugar and Dan Jones. The building was decorated on the outside as well as the inside. Thousands of people from around Zürich took part in the experiment. On March 2, 2002 police evicted the occupants, since which time the building has reopened as a cabaret with an extensive programme of events and exhibitions.

 

DaDa is the sun, Dada is the egg, Dada is the Police of the Police.
Richard Huelsenbeck

 

A line of poetry is a chance to get rid of all the filth that clings to this accursed language," Ball exclaimed.

"I want the word where it ends and begins," he cried. "Dada is the heart of words." (That was "The First
Dada Manifesto," July 14, 1916). The Cabaret Voltaire. Zurich.

 

Dada:

"hobby horse" in French,

"father" in English,

"yes,yes" in Romania,

a "cube" & a wet-nurse" in Italian,

or nothing:

a phonetic babble on the threshold of meaning.

"DADA DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING" – Tristan Tzara

"Dada lends itself easily to puns. That is why we selected it." – Andre Breton

Literary Calendar homepage    Hugo Ball in the Book of Days

Early progressives in the Book of Days    CounterCulture Wiki    More

 

1917 The constitution of Mexico was adopted.

1919 Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and DW Griffith launched United Artists.

 

1922 Death of Slavoljub Eduard Penkala, Croatian inventor.

"Slavoljub Eduard Penkala (b. April 20, 1871) was a naturalized-Croatian engineer of chemistry and an inventor of the first mechanical pencil (1906) (then called 'automatic pencil') and the first solid-ink fountain pen (1907). Also constructor of the first Croatian two-seat aeroplane (1909). He constructed and invented many other products and devices, and has under his name a total of 80 patents. Among his inventions are the hot water bottle, detergent, rail-car brake and anode battery. He was associated with 'Radium Vinovica', a patent-medicine-like product, presumably either misleadingly named or dangerous quackery. Penkala was born in Liptowsky st. Mikulaš (in what is now Slovakia), added 'Slavoljub' to his name after immigrating, and died in Zagreb of pneumonia at the age of 51."   Source: Wikipedia

 

1922 DeWitt Wallace published the first edition of the Reader's Digest, New York, USA.

1922 Following the Chauri Chaura (UP, India) tragedy, in which 21 police constables and one sub-inspector were burnt to death by a mob, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi), Indian leader and proponent of civil disobedience, fasted for five days and abandoned plan of Satyagraha movement.

1924 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi), Indian leader and proponent of civil disobedience, was released from prison, India.

1924 UTC: Hourly time signals from Greenwich Observatory were broadcasted for the first time.  

 

 

 

1933 Marinus van der Lubbe crossed the Dutch/German border.

Marinus van der Lubbe (pictured), born in Leiden 1909, a half blind militant of the Dutch communist party and an ultra-left partisan of workers' councils, confessed to setting fire to the Reichstag in Berlin. He was beheaded in Leipzig on January 10, 1934. Most believe van der Lubbe was framed or set up by the Nazis so they could seize full power in Germany. Some French anarchists, mostly individualists, took his defence, glorifying his action.

 

Source: The Daily Bleed

 

 

1937 President Franklin D Roosevelt proposed a plan to enlarge the Supreme Court of the United States.

1945 World War II: General Douglas MacArthur returned to Manila.

1947 The first successful rainmaking experiment in the world ('seeding' of clouds with chemicals), was performed in New South Wales, Australia.

1953 Walt Disney's Peter Pan went on general release.

1957 Bill Haley and the Comets arrived to a tumultuous reception in London.  

1958 USA: A mid-air collision involved jettisoning of nuclear weapon part into the ocean near Savannah, Georgia.

This kind of thing was apparently going on all over the country that year. See also http://www.militarybrats.com/brat-life-richard-roberts.shtml

1958 Parking meters were introduced in London.

1962 French President Charles De Gaulle called for allowing Algeria to be an independent nation.

1971 Apollo 14 landed on the Moon.

1983 Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie was flown to France to face a war crimes trial.

1983 A previously unknown Mozart symphony was discovered in Odense, Denmark.

1985 Australian philosophy lecturer, Val Plumwood, badly mauled, survived three death rolls by a large crocodile in Queensland's East Alligator River.

Your almanackist chose this day, by chance, to knock on her door at Macquarie University, Sydney, to ask her if she would write an environmental article for the magazine he was then editing, Simply Living. Shortly afterwards, the news broke about Val's horrific experience. A remarkable woman, she did soon write an article – on the need to protect crocodiles.

More    More

1988 Panamanian  dictator Manuel Noriega was indicted on drug smuggling and money laundering charges.

1989 Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch launched Sky TV, in England.

1991 USA: A Michigan court forbade Dr Jack Kevorkian from assisting in suicides.

1994 USA: Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

2004 Twenty-three Chinese people drowned when a group of 35 cockle-pickers were trapped by rising tides in Morecambe Bay, England. Twenty-one bodies were recovered.

2004 Rebels from the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front captured the city of Gonaïves, starting the 2004 Haiti rebellion.

2007 US Army First Lieutenant Ehren Watada's court martial began with him entering a plea of not guilty to all of the specifications against him. Watada had said he believed the war to be illegal and that, under the doctrine of command responsibility, it would make him party to war crimes. It was for stating these views publicly that the court martial was initiated.

Myths of the 'War on Terrorism' and Iraq    Lt Ehren Watada on Citizen Responsibility (YouTube)

 

Tomorrow: Bob Marley, mon!

 

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Bad Analogies In Books

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

McBride fell 12 storeys, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup.

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30.

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.

Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man".

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.

Source

Wikipedia and David Brown's prodigious Daily Bleed are both excellent resources that aid my research.
I frequently make use of their generously liberal 'fair use', 'copyleft' and 'anti-copyright' policies, with much gratitude.
© My own copyright policy is also liberal, but as this is my livelihood, conditions apply.

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