Billy Joel’s 1977 release The Stranger proved to be his breakout album. The album reached the #2 position on the U.S. charts, and contained a number of songs which became hits, and/or staples of Joel’s concerts, including “Just the Way You Are,” “Only the Good Die Young,” “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song),” “Only a Woman,” and “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant.”
In Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song), several characters are named and they have typically ethnic names, like Anthony, Mama Leone, Sergeant O’Leary, and Mr. Cacciatore. Near the end of the song there is the sound of a motorcycle starting up and driving away. But it’s not a motorcycle, it is bass player Doug Stegmeyer’s 1960s Chevy Corvette.
(bolding mine)
She’s Always a Woman
A great album, BTW. It conjures some good high school memories.
I knew that, too. :smack: And, I agree, though for me, it was junior high.
Kids, both of you. I was a year out of college when that album came out.
In play: Cacciatore means “hunter” in Italian. In cuisine,* alla cacciatora* refers to a meal prepared “hunter-style” with onions, herbs, usually tomatoes, often bell peppers, and sometimes wine.
Cacciatore is popularly made with braised chicken or rabbit.
It is so rare for me to be the youngest one in the room. 
In play: Bell peppers (which are of the Capsicum genus of plants) are not related to the black pepper plant (Piper nigrum), which produces black peppercorns. Bell peppers were introduced to Europe by Christopher Columbus; at that time, the term “pepper” was often used by Europeans to denote any hot or pungent spice, and so, it was applied (somewhat confusingly) to the New World plants and their fruits.
Well, we’ll respect our elders, to be sure.
Orion the Hunter is one of the most prominent constellations visible from most latitudes on Earth, including European countries of the Northern Hemisphere and African countries of the Southern Hemisphere. In literature Orion is mentioned in Horace’s Odes, Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, Virgil’s Aeneid, and in the Bible three times, twice in Job and once in Amos.
In the Heath Ledger movie, “A Knight’s Tale”, his character (Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein) becomes enamored of a woman whose name we later learn is Joslyn. During their first meeting, neither identifies themselves by name and Joslyn therefore refers to him only as “my hunter”. However (spoiler alert!), at the end of the film, when they are embracing after the climactic joust sequence, the camera dollies in to the couple in a close shot and then fades to black, which becomes a shot of the night sky with the constellation of Orion – the Hunter – dead center.
-“BB”-
Actress Shannyn Sossamon of Hawaii played Lady Jocelyn in A Knight’s Tale. She was born in Honolulu and raised in Reno.
Ralph Kiner and Vern Stephens, both born in New Mexico, hit a combined 92 home runs in 1949, the second most ever, behind Ruth/Foxx from Maryland. But Kiner and Stephens were both raised in California. Cody Ross, in 2004, was the first player who went to High school in New Mexico, to hit a MLB home run.
Wes Ferrell pitched in the major leagues from 1927 through 1941. During his career, he pitched for six different teams and was twice an All-Star. His career won-loss record was 193–128, with a 4.04 ERA.
Ferrell holds the MLB career record for home runs hit by a pitcher with 37. He also hit one home run as a pinch-hitter.
Red Ruffing was a major league baseball pitcher from 1924 to 1947, primarily for the New York Yankees. Ruffing won 273 games in his career, and six World Series titles, but he was also known as being an effective hitter – he had a career batting average of .269, hit 36 home runs, and hit over .300 in eight seasons.
Ruffing had an extremely successful athletic career despite suffering a serious injury as a teenager. He grew up in southern Illinois, and worked in a coal mine as a teen – when he was 15, his left foot was crushed between two mine cars, and he lost four toes on that foot. Ruffing was already a promising baseball player at that time, but the injury impaired his ability to run, and at the suggestion of the manager of a semi-pro baseball team, Ruffing took up pitching at that point.
Notable people whose fathers were coal miners include singers Tom Jones and Loretta Lynn, U.S. Senator for Delaware Tom Carper, and English novelist D.H. Lawrence.
Bonnie Tyler
Anthracite coal has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy density of all types of coal and is the highest ranking of coals. In southwest Wales, anthracite has been burned as a domestic fuel since at least medieval times. In the United States, anthracite coal history began in 1790 in Pottsville PA when it was discovered there. Pottsville is about 50 miles northeast of Harrisburg and 50 miles west of Allentown and Bethlehem (map, Google Maps).
The first Pottsville coal seam was discovered by a hunter named Necho Allen. Legend has it that Allen made camp and fell asleep at the base of a mountain and woke to the sight of a large fire, because his campfire had ignited an outcropping of coal.
Many cultures saw the constellation Orion as a hunter. However, the Aztecs called the stars of Orion’s Belt and sword the “Fire Drill”; to them it resembled the tool they used to get fires started.
The rising of these stars in the sky on a particular day in the calendar cycle signalled the beginning of the New Fire ceremony, a ritual sacrifice that the Aztecs performed every 52 years to postpone the end of the world. All fires were extinguished, and on a platform on the top of the extinct volcano Huixachtlan, a victim was bound with a fire bow drill on his chest and sacrificed when Orion’s Belt rose over the horizon. A new fire was then kindled.
The fastest-spinning man-made object is a dumbell-shaped nanoparticle suspended in a vacuum that spins at an astounding 300 billion rpm when energized by lasers. By comparison, dentist drills are known to get up to about 500,000 rpm, while the fastest pulsar – which is the fastest-spinning natural object – turns at a leisurely 43,000 rpm.
G-LOC, for astronauts, pilots, and people who encounter high G forces, is g-induced loss of consciousness. The 20 G centrifuge at the NASA Ames Research Center and other centrifuges spin to generate high g forces. An untrained individual not used to a g-straining maneuver can black out between 4 and 6 g, particularly if this is pulled suddenly. Roller coasters typically do not expose the occupants to much more than about 3 g. A hard slap on the face may impose hundreds of g-s locally but may not produce any obvious damage; a constant 15 g-s for a minute, however, may be deadly.
Rollers are fairly common brightly-colored robin-sized birds of warmer climates in the old world. They are easily seen, often a vivid blue, perching in exposed places. Their closest new world relatives are kingfishers, but rollers do not frequent aquatic habitats.