The Continental Congress passed their first budget on this day in 1778. We've been waiting for them to do it again ever since. In other governmental history, Tipper Gore and her possets formed the Parents Music Resource Center as Frank Zappa and other musicians testified in Congress about obscenity in rock music. See, censorship is for ALL political parties!
Lots of important musicians to remember today. On this day in 1981, Simon and Garfunkel reunited for a free concert in Central Park. And it was sooooo good! Why is this important? Because they're my favorite, secular group. Why are they my favorite, secular group? Because I'm a geek.
Paul Simon is brilliant in his own right, but the two of them together are sublime. Who else could take composition by the medieval composer Orlando di Lassi and make it even more awesome (Benedictus)? Probably, their most well known song is Sound of Silence. By the way, if you haven't heard of Emiliana Torrini, you should. Here's her cover of the same song. Here's a couple of other good ones from Simon and Garfunkel:
He's not a singer, but Adam West was born in 1928. You know ... Batman? Bam, biff, pock, zam? Holy campy cheesfest? Have you ever seen the Batman movie, the original one? You need to, if you haven't.
Back to music, Cass Elliot, of the Mamas and the Papas, was born in 1941. She wasn't always a singer, you know. She was at a party the rest of the members of the band were attending and was ... how shall I say ... in an expanded state of mind. Then, a piece of bronze pipe fell and hit her in the head. After waking up from the concussion, she found herself in an expanded state of voice. When the group heard her, they signed her up! She died nine years later. Their two most famous songs are Monday, Monday (also known as "The Anthem for Public School") California Dreamin'.
My favorite singer of all time is Rich Mullins. He died on this day in 1997, and it was a sad day. There are few like him in the CCM scene. Most just ape popular secular music or churn out vapid, bland tapioca. (As one wise woman once put it, "It's like Bon Jovi, but more repetition and less meaning.") But there was real heart and soul and ... reality, in Rich's songs. And he lived what he sang. For instance, when he heard that the average income of an American is $25,000; he told the elders of his church to manage his funds. They paid him a $25,000 stipend, and the rest went to charities. He didn't even know how much he made. If you want to be inspired, find a video called Homeless Man: The Life of Rich Mullins.
I wish I could have found some of his best songs, like Calling Out Your Name or Hard to Get, but these are good, too.
- Hard to Get (one of my top favorite songs of all time)
- Screen Door (this is a fun one, the video, too)
- We Are Not As Strong As We Think We Are
- Hold Me Jesus
--... ...--Typographical emoticons were published in 1881 by the U.S. satirical magazine Puck.
Later, in 1912 Ambrose Bierce (who wrote the hilarious Devil's Dictionary) proposed...
... an improvement in punctuation - the snigger point, or note of cachinnation: it is written thus \___/! and presents a smiling mouth. It is to be appended, with the full stop, to every jocular or ironical sentence.But the official birthday is today, based on this proto-e-mail sent in 1982:
19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :)
From: Scott E Fahlman
I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:
:-)
Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes - given current trends. For this, use
:-(
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