“A Song for Simeon” is a 37-line poem written in 1928 by American-English poet T. S. Eliot. In the poem, Eliot retells the story of Simeon from the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke, a just and devout Jew who encounters Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus entering the Temple of Jerusalem. Promised by the Holy Ghost that he would not die until he had seen the Saviour, Simeon sees in the infant Jesus the Messiah promised by the Lord and asks God to permit him to “depart in peace”
The 1990 movie Ghost was, upon its release, widely panned by critics. But it became the second highest-grossing domestic movie of the year (behind Home Alone) and won two Oscars. The movie was made for 22 million and and grossed over 500 million in its first year.
The actor who played the role of Carl (who orchestrated the murder of Sam, Patrick Swayze’s character) was Tony Goldwyn, the grandson of Samuel Goldwyn.
John Cameron Swayze, a news anchor who was a 1950s rival of Waltrer Cronkite, was best known for his misadventure commercials for Timex watch. In one instance it was to remain running when attached to the prop of an outboard motor, but the strap broke, and Swayze had to reach to his shoulder in his suit coat to retrieve the watch from the bottom of the tank. Later on, videotape was invented, ending such entertainment forever.
Named for the Hawaiian triathlon the Timex company had sponsored since 1984, the Ironman Triathlon watch became the most successful Timex watch in the post-mechanical watch era. Within its first year, Timex Ironman became the best-selling watch in the United States, and was the world’s largest selling sport watch for the next decade.
Timex Group USA is the successor company to the Ingersoll Watch Company, which produced over 5 million Mickey Mouse watches in the 1930’s and 1940’s under license from Walt Disney. The product line was introduced to the public at the Chicago World’s Fair in June 1933.
Early in his first term, President Bill Clinton usually wore a Timex Ironman watch. He was later advised to upgrade to a fancier, more “presidential” watch, and did.
Iron Man is a fictional superhero appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character made his first appearance in Tales of Suspense #39 in March of 1963. He was created by writer and editor Stan Lee.
The human alter-ego of Iron Man is a wealthy playboy and businessman named Tony Stark. Lee based this playboy’s looks and personality on Howard Hughes.
Pop and soul group The Hues Corporation, whose one major hit was 1974’s “Rock the Boat”, took their name as a pun on Howard Hughes’ company. Their showbiz break came in 1972 when they appeared in the blaxploitation film Blacula.
Howard Hughes’s favorite movie was the Cold War thriller Ice Station Zebra, starring Rock Hudson, and he reportedly watched it hundreds of times.
Originally budgeted under $2 million, the film Giant ended up costing over $5 million. Despite the worries of studio head Jack L. Warner, it went on to become Warner Bros.’ biggest hit up to that time. Rock Hudson’s popularity soared with the film; he and his co-star James Dean were both nominated for Oscars in the Best Actor category.
On September 30th, 1955, Actor James Dean died when his Porsche 550 Spyder crashed into a 1950 Ford Tudor driven by a Donald Turnupseed, who after an inquiry was deemed blameless for the accident. After his death, Dean became the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and remains the only actor to have had two posthumous acting nominations.
Details on James T. Kirk’s early career are surprisingly sparse for such a popular Star Trek character, but it is known that he was born in Iowa, was a very serious cadet at Starfleet Academy, and eventually served on the starships USS Republic and Farragut before taking command of the Enterprise as one of the youngest captains in the Fleet at the time.
The USS Republic was a troop transport that served with the US Navy during World War II. In World War I she served with the Navy as USS President Grant before being turned over to the Army and named Republic.
The ship was built in Belfast in 1903 for a company owned by J.P. Morgan. It was later sold to a German company for use as a trans-Atlantic passenger vessel. After the outbreak of World War I, the ship sought refuge in a harbor at Hoboken, New Jersey, and remained inactive for three years until being seized by the United States after the US declared war on German in 1917.
Robert E. Lee, his former Confederate foe, once visited President Ulysses S. Grant in the White House after the Civil War. There is no transcript of their short meeting, which was said to be cordial.
In some parts of the United States and Canada, liqueursmay be referred to as cordials, or schnapps, which in most Commonwealth Nations, a cordial would refer to a non-alcoholic concentrated fruit syrup, that is diluted to taste, and consumed as a non-carbonated soft drink; and schnapps, in places like Germany and Scandinavia, usually refers to a form of brandy or aquavit.
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Akvavit (or Aquavit), gets its distinctive flavor from spices and herbs, and the main spice should (according to the European Union) be caraway or dill. It typically contains 40% alcohol by volume. The Danish distillery Aalborg makes an akvavit distilled with amber.
Dill is widely used in Russian cuisine. Supposedly, it has antiflatulent properties; thus, some Russian cosmonauts recommended it for manned spaceflight, due to the confined quarters and closed air supply.
According to Jeffrey Toobin in his book The Nine, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who did her best to encourage the creation of an independent and professional judiciary in the former Soviet Union, was appalled to learn that organized crime goons, seeking to intimidate a Russian judge, killed his dog in front of him.
The Supreme Court of the United States was established when the United States Constitution was ratified in 1789. Although the size of the court was not set by the Constitution, the Judiciary Act of 1789 called for the appointment of six judges. Subsequent legislation raised the number of justices to seven in 1807, nine in 1837, and ten in 1863. The last such act, in 1869, set the number of justices back to nine, and it has remained at that number ever since.
“Naughty Number Nine”, one of the 'Schoolhouse Rock" series of cartoons that were on TV in the 1970’s-80’s , bemoaned the difficulty of multipying by the number nine. The creator of Schoolhouse Rock, Bob Dorough, passed away this week at the age of 94.
If you’ve never seen Naughty Number Nine, give it a look: Naughty Number Nine Schoolhouse Rock - YouTube