Month: September 2025

On this day in 1791, Mozart’s last opera – The Magic Flute (German: Die Zauberflöte) premiered. It is a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue.^[a] The work premiered at Schikaneder’s theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, just two months before Mozart’s death. It was an outstanding success from its first performances, and remains a staple of the opera repertory.

Detail of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from Mozart family portrait by Croce

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Upscale neighborhood McDonald’s.

Hemingway was The Man!

BADA BING!

I came home today to find my daughter has been on eBay all day long. If she’s still on there tomorrow, I’ll have to lower the price.

I’m gonna be a terrible ghost because as hard as it is to get ahold of me now, just wait and see how fast I decline a Ouija board call.

Here’s what we do: Just tell tRUMP that Obama went to school at the electoral college and he will dismantle it.

I always said that when I retired, I was going to travel. I just never expected it would be mostly to the doctor’s office.

Vaccines are a tricky thing. On one hand we have thousands of qualified scientist saying they’re good. But then on the other hand we have one weird guy, who sounds like a drowning lawnmower, saying they’re bad. So I’m not sure. 

I don’t judge people based on color, race, religion, sexuality, gender, ability, or size. I base it on whether or not they’re an asshole.

Did you know if you treat conservatives the same way they treat minorities, they get very upset?

I’ve decided I’m going to avoid everything that makes me fat: pictures, mirrors, scales…

While setting up a voice recognition password on my new phone, a dog barked nearby and ran away. Now I’m looking for that dog to unlock my phone.

My ducks are not in a row. I don’t even know where most of them are. And I’m pretty sure at least one of them is a pigeon.

I don’t mean to brag, but I can always tell when they use fake dinosaurs in movies.

People should give more credit to Trump for stopping the war between Azerbaijan and Acetaminophen.

If you think Tylenol is bad for children’s health, just think about what guns do.

It is much more striking who DIDN’T speak at Kirk’s funeral—neither of his parents, no siblings, no old friends, just his wife, Carlson, and a whole lineup of Trump people he *maybe* knew getting in their talking points.

I love the phrase “bear with me” because it can either mean “be patient” or “the zoo heist was a success”.

Don’t stress about your eyesight failing as you get older – it’s nature’s way of protecting you from shock as you walk past the mirror.

Hugo Chavez loses spot in Guinness book for most batshit UN speech.

Researchers from Tylenol find alarming link between Donald Trump and Jeffery Epstein.

I just saw this fella going up a hill with a wheelbarrow full of horseshoes, four leaf clovers, and rabbit’s feet. I thought: “He’s pushing his luck!”

Why do I post here? To disturb the humorless and humor the disturbed.

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I actually never really liked The Magic Flute, but here is the amazing Yuja Wang playing variations on another familiar Mozart work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGAPTRrAilY

Today is the birthday, in 1901, of Enrico Fermi. He was an Italian and naturalized American. He is renowned for being the creator of the world’s first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, and a member of the Manhattan Project. He has been called the “architect of the nuclear age” and the “architect of the atomic bomb”. Fermi was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity by neutron bombardment and for the discovery of transuranium elements. With his colleagues, Fermi filed several patents related to the use of nuclear power, all of which were taken over by the US government.

Fermi left Italy in 1938 to escape new Italian racial laws that affected his Jewish wife, Laura Capon. He emigrated to the United States. Fermi led the team at the University of Chicago that designed and built Chicago Pile-1, which went critical on 2 December 1942, demonstrating the first human-created, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

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Great for Vikings!

Nominative Determinism…

Combo business…

On this day in 1979, The Police had their first UK No.1 single with ‘Message In A Bottle’ the group’s third Top 20 hit. The song was released as the first single from Reggatta de Blanc and also topped the charts in Ireland and reached No.5 in Australia. Despite its popularity in the UK, the single only reached No.74 in the United States. Another of their songs did quite well here, though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOGaugKpzs

On 26 September 1580, Francis Drake sailed the Golden Hind into Plymouth at the conclusion of his round-the-world trip with 59 remaining crew aboard, along with a rich cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasures. The queen’s half-share of the cargo surpassed the rest of the crown’s income for that entire year. Drake was hailed as the first Englishman to circumnavigate the Earth, and his was the second such voyage arriving with at least one ship intact, after Elcano’s in 1520. He had departed in 1577 with five ships.

A replica of the Golden Hind at Bankside in London

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Every time I park it on top of the hill, it rolls right down.

Graphic Design

Nuturing…

Today is the birthday, in 1954, of Cesar Rosas guitarist from Los Lobos (Spanish for “the Wolves”), who had the 1987 UK & US No.1 single with their cover version of ‘La Bamba’, which was a 1958 hit for Ritchie Valens and one of early rock and roll’s best-known songs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLAWPrCUQQ0

On this day in 1676, two very accurate clocks began working at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, beginning the use of Greenwich Mean Time.

The observatory was commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II, with the foundation stone being laid on 10 August. The old hilltop site of Greenwich Castle was chosen by Sir Christopher Wren, a former Savilian Professor of Astronomy; as Greenwich Park was a royal estate, no new land needed to be bought. Moore donated two clocks, built by Thomas Tompion, which were installed in the 20-foot-high Octagon Room, the principal room of the building. They were of unusual design, each with a pendulum 13 feet (4.0 metres) in length mounted above the clock face, giving a period of four seconds and an accuracy, then unparalleled, of seven seconds per day. John Flamsteed was appointed the first Astronomer Royal.

When the observatory was founded in 1675, one of the best star catalogues was Tycho Brahe’s 1000-star catalogue from 1598. However, this catalogue was not accurate enough to determine longitudes. One of Flamsteed’s first orders of business was creating more accurate charts suitable for this purpose.

One of the noted charts made at Greenwich was by the Astronomer Royal James Bradley, who between 1750 and 1762 charted sixty thousand stars, so accurately his catalogues were used even in the 1940s.1British astronomers have long used the Royal Observatory as a basis for measurement. Four separate meridians have passed through the buildings, defined by successive instruments. The basis of longitude, the meridian that passes through the Airy transit circle, first used in 1851, was adopted as the world’s Prime Meridian at the International Meridian Conference at Washington, DC, on 22 October 1884.

A key instrument for determining time was the Airy Transit Circle, which was used primarily from 1851 to 1938. It was agreed that the (Prime) “meridian line marked by the cross-hairs in the Airy Transit Circle eyepiece would indicate 0° longitude and the start of the Universal Day”. Beginning in 1924, Hourly time signals (Greenwich Time Signal) from the Royal Observatory were first broadcast. To help mariners at the port and others in line of sight of the observatory to synchronize their clocks to GMT, in 1833 Astronomer Royal John Pond installed a very visible red time ball that drops precisely at 1 pm (13:00) every day atop the observatory.

Royal Observatory, 2006

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Six drinks within reach, which will the kid choose?

there’s a story here…

On this day in 1968, Welsh singer Mary Hopkin was at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Those Were The Days’. Hopkins had signed to The Beatles Apple label after appearing on UK TV talent show Opportunity Knocks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnxTT7XXMPA

On this day in 1664, the Dutch Republic surrendered New Amsterdam to the English.

The initial trading factory gave rise to the settlement around Fort Amsterdam. The fort was situated on the strategic southern tip of the island of Manhattan and was meant to defend the fur trade operations of the Dutch West India Company in the North River (Hudson River). By 1655, the population of New Netherland had grown to over 2,000 people, with a 1,500 majority residing in the city of New Amsterdam. By 1664, the population of New Netherland had risen to almost 9,000 people, 2,500 of whom lived in New Amsterdam, 1,000 lived near Fort Orange (present day Albany), and the remainder in other towns and villages.

The commercial rivalry between the Dutch and the English, which provoked the First Anglo-Dutch War, was not resolved by the Treaty of Westminster (1654). Hostilities continued between the countries’ trading companies. Religious and political differences between the Anglican royalists in England and the Calvinist republicans that ruled the Netherlands also hampered peace. In March 1664, King Charles granted American territory between the Delaware and Connecticut rivers to his brother James. On May 25, 1664 Colonel Richard Nicolls set out from Portsmouth with four warships and about three hundred soldiers.

Having arrived at Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, Nicolls sent director-general Peter Stuyvesant a letter offering lenient terms of surrender. James authorized generous terms because he preferred the profits of an intact colony to the spoils of a ruined one. Despite Fort Amsterdam’s limited supply of gunpowder, Stuyvesant was inclined to resist. On September 4, the English ships began to maneuver closer to the fort. Stuyvesant was confronted by ninety-three burghers and his own son, and conceded.

The Dutch colonists were guaranteed in the possession of their property rights, their laws of inheritance, and the enjoyment of religious freedom. Article 2 specified that all “publick houses” would remain open. Nicolls sent troops to Fort Orange, up the Hudson River, to demand the fort’s peaceful surrender. Realizing that control of the mouth of the river controlled the settlement’s future, on September 24, 1664 vice-director of New Netherland Johannes de Montagne surrendered the fort to the English and Colonel George Cartwright took command. The next day, Captain John Manning was given charge of the fort, which was renamed Fort Albany, after the Duke of York’s title in the Peerage of Scotland.

The fall of New Amsterdam by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris

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Great room number!!

BACK THEN! (what were we thinking???)

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short legs…

On this day in 1962, Patsy Cline released her third and final EP, So Wrong/You’re Stronger Than Me. This was the final EP released in her lifetime, as she would be killed in a plane crash less than a year later in March 1963. The other two tracks were, ‘Heartaches’ and a version of the Hank Williams song ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gzthI-oltM