Christmas Every Day

2019 Death of Tardar Sauce

Let it not be said that we live in a frivolous era. One has only to compare the deep philosophical ponderings of Kim Kardashian to those of Marcus Aurelius, or the story-lines of Spiderman films with King Lear, or the lyrics of rap sensation Ski Mask the Slump God with those of Cole Porter to see that the 21st century is indeed a Golden Age of culture.

That is why so many wept when news of the death of Tardar Sauce reached the internet. Since her birth in 2012, Tardar, working under her stage name “Grumpy Cat”, had been amusing millions and her passing clearly subtracted from the sum of human felicity.

Born to a single-parent household — her mother was a calico cat; her father may have been a blue-and-white tabby – she came to the attention of the world as a result of a genetic malformation which gave her a look of perpetual dysphoria. Soon her portrait graced a myriad of computer screens and generated countless memes. Her owners were not slow in accumulating pelf by producing lines of Grumpy Cat licensed merch and featuring her in public appearances and commercials – she was named the Official Spokescat of Friskies. She achieved cinematic immortality by starring in 2014’s made-for-tv movie  Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever. A Madame Tussaud waxwork of the fabulous feline was commissioned.

Could an Oscar and a Nobel Prize be far behind? Sadly, those heights were not to be scaled. Stricken by a urinary tract infection, Tardar Sauce passed from this vale of tears on May 14, 2019. When shall we see her like again?

1940 Blood, toil, tears, and sweat

In the late spring of 1940 things were going very badly for the good guys. Poland, Holland, Belgium, and Norway had been overrun by Nazi armies and France was on the point of collapse. The British Parliament had just replaced Neville Chamberlain, who saw the danger of Hitler too late, with Winston Churchill, who had been warning about the fascist menace for years. Churchill hastily assembled a War Cabinet with the cooperation of the Opposition Labour and Liberal parties and rose to speak in the House of Commons, giving his first address as Prime Minister. His words may serve as a standard against which to measure the rhetorical abilities of our North American politicians in these squalid times.

I hope that any of my friends and colleagues, or former colleagues, who are affected by the political reconstruction, will make allowance, all allowance, for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act. I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, “come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.”

1942 The Cocos Islands Mutiny

During the Second World War, millions of troops from the Indian and African colonies of Great Britain served in the wars against the Axis powers. The reason that the contribution of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) was so small can be found in this little-remembered mutiny.

The Cocos Islands are an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, half-way between Ceylon and  Australia. Following the outbreak of hostilities with Japan it was deemed to be an important communications link, garrisoned by units of the Ceylon Defence Force and the King’s African Rifles under two British officers. Among the Ceylonese artillerymen were a number dissatisfied with the colonial status of their homelands and who were willing to betray the Union Jack. One of these, Gratien Fernando, conceived a plan whereby he and his anti-imperialist comrades would turn their guns on their officers and any loyal soldiers while signalling to the Japanese that they would surrender the islands to them. (At this time many Asians looked to the Japanese to drive their European occupiers out of the continent. The Japanese were particularly successful in recruiting captured Indian soldiers and turning them into a puppet Indian National Army.)

On the night of May 8, 15 mutineers seized the heavy guns and began their rebellion. It was soon put down by their fellow countrymen in the Ceylonese Light Infantry, but not before one loyal soldier had been killed [his headstone is above]. Quick courts-martial condemned seven to death. At his trial, Fernando spoke of his motives: “I am not so much anti-British as anti-white. I do not have the least grudge against Captain Gardiner personally. would have done the same to any white man. I felt that if I succeeded [in the mutiny] I might do things that would revolutionise the war effort in the East. I wanted to try and get Japanese help. I am in sympathy with the Japanese war aims.” Fernando and two others were hanged in August, the only three Commonwealth soldiers executed for mutiny during World War II.

This outburst of Ceylonese nationalism alarmed the British who took steps to keep that colony, strategically vital and an important source of rubber, happy and well-garrisoned. No Ceylonese combat troops were ever employed by the British after the affair on Cocos Islands.

1824 Premiere of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony

The last, and perhaps greatest, of the symphonies of Ludwig Beethoven (1770-1827) is his Ninth, completed and debuted in Vienna in 1834. It was the first ever choral symphony, combining voice and instruments. Its reception by the 1,000 attendees was rapturous with many standing ovations and waving of handkerchiefs and hats so that the deaf composer could see the approval of the crowd. A critic proclaimed that “inexhaustible genius revealed a new world to us.”

The most memorable part of the symphony was the choral section, “Ode to Joy”, based on a poem by Friedrich Schiller. Its optimism and jubilation have inspired millions and it has become the European anthem.

Whoever has been lucky enough
to become a friend to a friend,
Whoever has found a beloved wife,
let him join our songs of praise!
Yes, and anyone who can call one soul
his own on this earth!
Any who cannot, let them slink away
from this gathering in tears!

***

Be embraced, you millions!
This kiss is for the whole world!
Brothers, above the canopy of stars
must dwell a loving father.

Do you bow down before Him, you millions?
Do you sense your Creator, O world?
Seek Him above the canopy of stars!
He must dwell beyond the stars.

Recently, Baltimore-based rapper and musician [interesting how those are two separate categories] Wordsmith created an original adaptation of “Ode to Joy” for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Wordsmith was hoping to encourage “gender equality, cultural acceptance, and living a purpose-driven life”. Here is his chorus:

Live and love with open mind let our cultures intertwine.
Dig deep down, show what you’re made of, set the tone, it’s time to shine.
We must fight for equal rights and share some common courtesy.
While pursuing all your dreams spread your joy from sea to sea.
We must fight for equal rights and share some common courtesy.
While pursuing all your dreams spread your joy from sea to sea.

1260 Kublai Khan becomes Mongol Emperor

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree,/ Where Alph, the sacred river, ran/ Through caverns measureless to man/ Down to a sunless sea. Thus did Samuel Coleridge, in one of the greatest drug-induced poems of the 19th century, describe the summer palace of Kublai Khan, Mongol emperor and founder of the Yuan dynasty that ruled China for for the next century.

Kublai was the grandson of the Mongol leader Genghis Khan, born in 1215. Though Mongol military genius would create an empire that stretched from the Black Sea to the Pacific and encompass a fifth of the land on the planet, its primitive political structure created civil war and fracture every time a ruler died. After a period of strife with rival princes, Kublai achieved pre-eminence in 1260 as Great Khan and set out to add to his empire by conquering China. He defeated the forces of the Song dynasty and made China, sophisticated, populous and rich, his centre of operations — this vexed the western Mongols who complained that Kublai was becoming sinified and forgetting the good old Mongol ways. Rebellions by ambitious Mongol princes were quashed and the leaders were smothered to death in heavy carpets (to avoid the taboo of shedding royal blood).

As a Mongol leader, Kublai was hooked on ever-more conquest; he succeeded in subduing Korea and Burma but his attempts to invade Vietnam, Java, and Japan ended in disaster. His reign in China saw the strengthening of the state, the repair of infrastructure damaged in war, progress in military technology and science, and contact with Europe. He used Muslims, Christians (including the Venetian Polo family) and other minorities in his civil service but he tended to persecute Daoists and forbade some Muslim and Jewish ritual practices.

Kublai died, gouty and obese, in 1294 but the founder of a unified China with its capital at Beijing.

Sluggard-wakers and dog-whippers

On the 17^th April 1725 , John Rudge bequeathed to the parish of Trysull, in Staffordshire, twenty shillings a year, that a poor man might be employed to go about the church during sermons and keep the people awake; also to keep dogs out of church. A bequest by Richard Dovey, of Farmcote, dated in 1659, had in view the payment of eight shillings annually to a poor man, for the performance of the same duties in the church of Claverley, Shropshire. In the parishes of Chislet, Kent, and Peterchurch, Herefordshire, there are similar provisions for the exclusion of dogs from church, and at Wolverhampton there is one of five shillings for keeping boys quiet in time of service.

Pictured above is a sluggard-waker and his pole with which he prodded the drowsy parishioners.

1625 Accession of Charles I

There are good kings and bad kings. And then there are disastrous kings, ones who provoke discord in their own country, engender civil war, lose their heads, and bring down an entire monarchy with them. Such a one was Charles Stuart (1600-49), the first of that name to rule Scotland, Ireland, and England.

Charles was born a Scottish prince, a younger son with no great prospects, child of  James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark. In 1603, the Queen of England, Elizabeth I, died without issue, and James succeeded her on the throne of that much richer country to the south. It was expected that his heir would be his oldest son, Henry (b. 1594) who was popular and trained for the job, but the young man died of typhoid in 1612, leaving shy, stammering Charles as the future ruler of three kingdoms.

Charles’s father was not the best man from whom to learn the arts of ruling. James constantly quarrelled with his political class, showed little interest in military affairs, and allowed policy to be guided by a number of homosexual lovers. From him, Charles seems to have imbibed a contempt for Parliament, and a stubborn streak that would prove fatal. Parliament, always fearful of a return of Catholic influence, demanded that the prince be given a safely Protestant bride but Charles, aided by the Duke of Buckingham, James’s paramour, unwisely courted the daughter of the King of Spain and received a humiliating rebuff. Stung by this personal insult, Charles demanded that his father declare war on Spain.

When James died in early 1625, the new king unwisely chose another Catholic princess, Henrietta Maria of France. It was the first of a series of mistakes that would lead Charles to the block, his queen and her sons to exile, and England to a republic.

It must be said that there are fans of Charles, including a loyal reader of this blog, who would remind us that Charles is viewed as a martyr and a saint by the Church of England. 

A story too sad not to be retold: 1997 Heaven’s Gate suicide cult discovered

One of the most persistent beliefs in history is the notion that our body is only the temporary form of our true self — the soul, or spirit, which lives on after the physical corpus dies. For many religions, the purpose of life is to escape one’s prison of flesh and bone and be reunited with the Universal One or be reanimated in a perfected body. The faithful of most of these religions are content to wait until one’s natural death for the parting of body and soul to take place, but there have been some sects who have encouraged suicide in order to hasten the process: thus the perfecti of medieval Catharism, or the techno-cultists of America’s Heaven’s Gate.

On March 26, 1997, the bodies of 39 members of the group were found by San Diego police in the mansion where they had lived and earned their livings as IT consultants. All had committed suicide; all were wearing new Nike runners with black shirts and sweat-pants; all had $5.75 in their pockets. All had taken phenobarbital medication mixed with apple sauce and washed down with vodka; all but two had plastic bags tied around their heads. Astonishingly, their suicides had taken place in waves, with three groups in turns dying over three days. The purpose of their deaths was to evacuate their bodies, freeing their spirits to be picked up by an alien spacecraft lurking behind the Hale-Boppe comet. They would then advance to a higher level of existence in bodies that were purer, sexless and vegetarian. All who remained behind on Earth were to die from an imminent planetary cleansing.

The chief loon behind this tragedy was Marshall Applewhite (1931-97), aka “Bo” or “Do”, former music teacher, wandering prophet, and voluntary eunuch. He had been able to recruit followers to his esoteric beliefs with promises of an end-times apocalypse that could be escaped only by those with the knowledge he imparted. His teachings were a mixture of Gnosticism, Biblical interpretation through a lens of UFOlogy, and sundry New Age touches. Like the medieval Cathars they shunned sex, with Applewhite and seven of his male disciples travelling to Mexico to be castrated.

The fate of their souls and the alien spacecraft are unknown; their bodies were cremated.

1695 An Interesting Story About Fairies

From John Aubrey’s Miscellanies comes this account.

March 25, 1695.

HONOURED SIR,
I RECEIVED yours dated May 24th, 1694, in which you desire me to send you some instances and examples of Transportation by an Invisible Power. The true cause of my delaying so long, to reply to that letter, was not want of kindness; but of fit materials for such a reply.

As soon as I read your letter of May 24, I called to mind, a story
which I heard long ago, concerning one of the Lord Duffus, (in the shire of Murray) his predecessors of whom it is reported, that upon a time, when he was walking abroad in the fields near to his own house, he was suddenly carried away, and found the next day at Paris in the French King’s cellar, with a silver cup in his hand; that being brought into the King’s presence and questioned by him, who he was? and how he came thither? he told his name, his country, and the place of his residence, and that on such a day of the month (which proved to be the day immediately preceding) being in the fields, he heard the noise of a whirl-wind, and of voices crying “Horse and Hattock”, (this is the word which the fairies are said to use when they remove from any place) whereupon he cried “Horse and Hattock” also, and was immediately caught up, and transported through the air, by the fairies to that place, where after he had drank heartily he fell asleep, and before he awoke, the rest of the company were gone, and had left him in posture wherein he was found. It is said, the King gave him the cup which was found in his hand, and dismissed him.

This story (if it could be sufficiently attested) would be a noble
instance for your purpose, for which cause I was at some pains to enquire into the truth of it, and found the means to get the present Lord Duffus’s opinion thereof; which shortly is, that there has been, and is such a tradition, but that he thinks it fabulous; this account of it, his Lordship had from his father, who told him that he had it from his father, the present Lord’s grandfather; there is yet an old silver cup in his Lordship’s possession still, which is called the Fairy Cup; but has nothing engraven upon it, except the arms of the family.

The Duffus family is an ancient one in Scotland. A 1641 decision of the local church court reveals that “James Duffus and George Duffus and Charles Stevinson convict in Break of ye Sabbath for playing at ye golff, efternoone, in time of Sermon, and yr for ar ordayned evrie ane of them to pay havff a merk, and mak yr repentance ye next Sabbath”.

1514 Birth of an assassin

The Medici family dominated the political life of Florence for centuries, sometimes well, sometimes not so well. At times they were beloved by Florentines and other occasions they were expelled for their misrule. The family produced some great rulers such as Cosimo, the dynasty’s founder, and Lorenzo the Magnificent as well as a host of popes; it also gave history notable losers such as Alessandro “il Moro” and his killer Lorenzino.

Lorenzino was a member of a lesser branch of the family and was raised outside of Florence in a Tuscan villa and Venice. As a teenager he was involved in a serious act of vandalism in Rome and his character was not improved when he moved to Florence and became a companion of Alessandro de Medici, the young Duke of the city. Both became known for riotous living and both came to be unpopular figures in the eyes of influential Florentines. At some point the two quarreled and Lorenzino decided to murder his cousin.

On the evening of Epiphany, 1537 Alessandro was lured to a palace apartment under the impression that Lorenzino had arranged a sexual encounter with his aunt Caterina Soderin “a young woman of marvelous beauty, no less chaste than beautiful”. Unarmed and unsuspecting, Alessandro was knifed to death by Lorenzino and an accomplice, despite nearly biting off one of his assailant’s fingers. Lorenzino fled and wrote a book which declared that he had murdered the duke in order to restore republican government to Florence.

Some hailed him as a virtuous tyrannicide and compared him to Brutus, the assassin of Julius Caesar. Others were bent on revenge, forcing Lorenzino to spend the rest of his life in exile looking over his shoulder, as a contemporary explained, “dying neither night or day, he died a thousand times both night and day, not of a dagger or poison, but of remorse and shame.” In February 1548 he was killed by two thugs commissioned by no less a figure than Emperor Charles V, whose daughter was the widow of Alessandro.