A shortened 90-minute production of Starlight Express opened at the Hilton in Las Vegas, Nevada on September 14, 1993, where it ran for five years. It was the first musical theatre production to have a permanent base on The Strip.
(Like the Snake River, this post will meander a bit.)
The ichthyosaur is Nevada’s official state fossil.
Berlin–Ichthyosaur State Park, in Nevada’s Shoshone Mountains and some 2hr drive SW of Austin NV and south of US-50 (across Nevada, is labeled as “The Loneliest Road in America”) preserves ichthyosaur fossils and the ghost town of Berlin. The Shoshone Mountains are named for the Shoshone or Shoshoni Indians, a people sometimes called the Snake Indians because of the Snake River.
The name “Shoshone” comes from Sosoni, a Shoshoni word for high-growing grasses. Some neighboring tribes call the Shoshone the “Grass House People,” based on their traditional homes made from soshoni. Shoshones call themselves Newe, meaning “People.”
In 1805, Meriwether Lewis recorded the tribe as the “Sosonees or snake Indians”.
Shoshone Falls near Twin Falls, Idaho, is beautiful. It is sometimes called the "Niagara of the West.” At 212 feet high, Shoshone Falls is 45 feet higher than Niagara Falls. Shoshone Falls flows over a rim nearly 1,000 feet wide.
In July 1986, Life magazine published an article that gave US 50 in Nevada the name “The Loneliest Road in America”. Making the best of the publicity, the Nevada Commission on Tourism sponsors a promotion where visitors can stop at several designated locations along the route and have the passport section of a state issued “survival guide” marked with a stamp representing that location. Visitors can mail in the completed passport and receive a certificate, signed by the Governor, certifying they survived The Loneliest Road in America.
US-50 across Nevada, “The Loneliest Road in America”, is an excellent quality road. I’ve driven across NV on it 3x in recent years, although the last time was over 4y ago, and the pavement is smooth and clear. Crossing the open desert where you can see many miles ahead of you, and far to either side because almost nothing grows there, it is comfortable and generally safe to drive 100 mph.
US-50 is 3,017 miles long and connects Ocean City MD to Sacramento CA.
The Cleveland Orchestra, based at Severance Hall in University Circle on the east side of Cleveland, is celebrating its 100th birthday this year. It is commonly acknowledged to be one of the finest orchestras in the world.
Justin Masterson in 2014 and Carlos Carrasco in 2017 are the only 2 Cleveland Indians pitchers to throw what is called an Immaculate Inning — 9 pitches for 9 strikes to strike out the side. To date it has been done 89 times by 84 pitchers. Not even the great Bob Feller has thrown one.
Nolan Ryan (1968 NY Mets and 1972 CA Angels) is also only pitcher to throw immaculate innings in both the American League and National League.
Danny Jackson (1985, for the KC Royals) is the sole player to pitch an immaculate inning in the World Series.
Last season, a record eight immaculate innings were thrown (two were by Red Sox pitchers):
— Drew Storen, CIN Reds
— Craig Kimbrel, BOS Red Sox
— Max Scherzer, WSH Nationals
— Kenley Jansen, LA Dodgers
— Carlos Carrasco, CLE Indians
— Dellin Betances, NY Yankees
— José Alvarado, TB Rays
— Rick Porcello, BOS Red Sox
It has been done 3x by an SF Giants pitcher:
— 1992, Trevor Wilson
— 1998, Orel Hershiser
— 2015, Santiago Casilla
It was never done by a NY Giants pitcher.
Three immaculate innings were thrown during the 1979 MLB season, and all three were against the same team — the SF Giants:
— 23 Jun 1979, Pedro Borbón, CIN Reds
— 25 Aug 1979, Lynn McGlothen, CHI Cubs
— 11 Sep 1979, Joey McLaughlin, ATL Braves
The Immaculate Reception occurred in an AFC divisional playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, on December 23, 1972. The Steelers trailed the Raiders 7–6, and were facing fourth-and-10 on their own 40-yard line with 22 seconds remaining in the game and no time-outs. Steelers QB Terry Bradshaw threw a pass intended for John Fuqua, but the Raiders defender Jack Tatum deflected the ball. Steelers running back Franco Harris caught the ball just before it hit the ground and carried it into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown.
NFL Films chose this play as the greatest play of all time.
John Fuqua’s nickname is John “Frenchy” Fuqua.
Tomorrow, the Gospel reading in many churches will be John, chapter 20:
“Early on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance …”
The Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, also known as Magdalene asylums, were institutions of confinement, usually run by Roman Catholic orders, which operated from the 18th to the late 20th centuries. They were run ostensibly to house “fallen women”, an estimated 30,000 of whom were confined in these institutions in Ireland.
In June 2016, Pope Francis and the Vatican raised the July 22 memorial of Mary Magdalene to a feast on the church’s liturgical calendar. This was in recognition of her role as the first to recognize Christ’s resurrection that Easter morning, some 2,000 years ago.
Happy Easter, all.
Both Great Britain and Nazi Germany developed plans for the invasion of Ireland during World War II, in light of the country’s strategic importance but military and political neutrality. Neither country carried out those plans, however.
ETA: Pope Francis has not commented on those plans, to my knowledge.
The color of liturgical paraments and vestments change depending on the season of the church year. Advent = purple (or in some traditions, blue); Christmas = white; Lent = purple; Easter = white; Pentecost = red; “Common time” = green.
Priests in the Russian Orthodox faith are required to be nude under their vestments. Curiously, this is also true of the monks of Lhasa. It is believed that this is a result of the tradition being carried eastward by Marco Polo, who also was averse to wearing undergarments. For a brief period, many other religions considered doing likewise, but it would have required the creation of an 11th Commandoment.
Happy April 1st.
The spaghetti-tree hoax was a three-minute hoax report broadcast on April Fools’ Day 1957 by the BBC current-affairs program Panorama, purportedly showing a family in southern Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the family “spaghetti tree”. At the time spaghetti was relatively little known in the UK, so that many Britons were unaware that it is made from wheat flour and water; a number of viewers afterwards contacted the BBC for advice on growing their own spaghetti trees.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster. It is the world’s oldest national broadcasting organization and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, with over 35,000 full and part-time employees. The BBC came into existence on January 1, 1927. Initially, there was no paid advertising on the BBC; all the revenue came from a tax on ‘wireless receiving sets’.
Liam Dutton was on Channel 4, not the BBC, when he nailed the longest placename in Europe in a weather forecast:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LlanfairpwllgwyngyllIn several countries in Europe, including Italy, France, Belgium, and The Netherlands, an April 1 tradition is known as “April fish” (*poissons d’avril *in French, aprilvis in Dutch or pesce d’aprile in Italian). This includes attempting to attach a paper fish to the victim’s back without being noticed.
Since 1900, Easter has fallen on April Fool’s Day only five times - 1923, 1934, 1945, 1956, and, 60 years later, 2018.
A freshwater cousin of the jellyfish called a hydra can survive being chopped in a blender. Its pieces will crawl their way back toward each other to reassemble as a complete organism.
Hydra is a fictional terrorist organization appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The organization’s motto references the myth of the Hydra, stating that “If a head is cut off, two more shall take its place”, proclaiming their resilience and growing strength in the face of resistance. Hydra appears in the 2011 film Captain America: The First Avenge and 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and in several other Marvel comic movies.