16 April: Anemones

In the French Revolutionary Calendar, 16 April is Anémone (Day of the Anemone). 10 facts about anemones.

1. Anemones are part of the Ranunculaceae family, which means they are related to Buttercups. They’re also closely related to the Pasque flower.

2. There are over 120 species of anemone. They grow in the wild in many European countries and in North America and Japan.

3. The word anemone comes from Greek and means ‘daughter of the wind’. In fact, windflower is another common name for them.

4. Or, it could have come from Nea'man, the Phoenician name for Adonis. A myth about Adonis is the creation story for these flowers. According to Ovid's epic poem Metamorphoses, Adonis was killed by Ares the hunter in a fit of jealousy because he’d found out Aphrodite had feelings for him. Aphrodite mixed the Blood of Adonis with nectar and this, mixed with her tears, created the flower.

5. In the language of Flowers, the colour of the flower makes a difference. White anemone symbolises sincerity; Purple means protection from evil and Red is associated with death or forsaken love. In Christianity, red anemones symbolise the blood of Christ and they’re often depicted in paintings of the crucifixion or of The Virgin Mary in mourning. The Chinese associate red anemones with death as well.

6. In parts of Europe, anemones were believed to be such bad luck that people would hold their breath while passing through a field of them so as not to bring misfortune on themselves.

7. Britain and Ireland have a more positive legend – that Fairies would sleep inside them when the petals closed at night.

8. The petals not only close at night but when a storm is coming, so they can be used to predict the weather.

9. Anemones are sometimes used in medicine as a treatment for cramps, menstrual problems and emotional distress. That said, the plants are toxic, so no self-medication, please!

10. Monet and Matisse are among many artists who often featured these flowers in their paintings. One example is Robe violette et Anémones, a 1937 painting by Henri Matisse.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

15 April: Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral

On this date in 2019, a fire broke out at the Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral. 10 things you might not know about Notre Dame (“Our Lady of Paris”):

1. Its postal address is 6 Parvis Notre-Dame – Pl. Jean-Paul II, 75004 Paris, France, and its vital statistics are: Length: 420 feet (128 meters); Width: 157 feet (48 meters); Nave roof height: 115 feet (35 meters); Tower height: 226 feet (69 meters); Spire height: 315 feet (96 meters). The two towers aren’t identical: the south tower is slightly smaller.

2. Construction began in 1163 and was mostly completed by 1345. It may have been built on the site of a Roman Temple. An excavation in the 18^th century discovered pieces of a sculpted altar dedicated to Jupiter. It’s not known for sure, however, that these pieces hadn’t been recycled there from elsewhere. It is known that this is the case for one of the cathedral’s three portals: the Portal Sainte-Anne features a much earlier style of sacred sculpture than the others. This tympanum (semi-circular area of decoration), was recycled from a previous Romanesque church and had been adapted to fit the new space.

3. For centuries it was the home of what was believed to be the Crown of Thorns that was placed on Jesus Christ’s head during the crucifixion. This was one of the things which survived the 2019 fire and is currently being kept in The Louvre.

4. Among the survivors of the fire is a hive of around 180,000 Buckfast bees. The hive was installed in 2013 on the Notre-Dame sacristy. Buckfast bees were originally bred by a monk named Brother Adam and are known for being gentle. They make their Honey from Flowers in nearby gardens, and the honey was distributed free of charge to the poor. When the fire broke out, the bees simply hunkered down in the hive, protecting their queen and lived off their honey until it was safe to emerge. By 2020, they were back in business, producing honey as usual.

5. The ancient timber frames dating back to the 12^th century weren’t so lucky. Before the Fire this was one of the oldest surviving structures of its type. Each beam was made from an individual tree sourced from 52 acres of trees. This framework was, for this reason, nicknamed “The Forest”.

6. There was some damage done during the French Revolution when most churches were rededicated to the new Cult of Reason. Statues of Biblical kings inside the cathedral were decapitated by mobs and thrown away to be used as building materials. In 1977, however, they were found during work on the basement of the French Bank of Foreign Trade and installed at the nearby Musée de Cluny. Another casualty was most of the bells. Aside from a large one called Emmanuel which dated back to 1681, they were melted down to make cannons. New bells installed in the 19^th century weren’t as tuneful and it was 2013 before new bells were installed which sounded as good as the original ones.

7. Statues of the 12 apostles surround the spire. St Thomas bears the face of the architect, Viollet-le-Duc.

8. Notre Dame may have the largest organ in France. It has almost 8000 pipes (some dating back to the 18th century) and five keyboards. It was restored in 2013 to mark the 850th anniversary of the cathedral, and survived the fire with only some water damage caused by firefighters putting the fire out. Some some claim, however, that Saint-Eustache has a larger organ.

9. By the 19th century, Notre Dame de Paris had fallen into disrepair and could have crumbled to a ruin if not for two people. One was Napoleon Bonaparte who decided it was the perfect venue for his coronation, and Victor Hugo who raised awareness of the cathedral and its plight in his novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Incidentally, the main character in the story was always intended to be the cathedral and not the hunchback.

10. It was one of the earliest buildings to make use of flying buttresses. They were constructed around its nave in the 12th century to lend support to the thin walls. There’s some debate over whether Notre-Dame was the first church to have them, but whether it was or not, it certainly set a trend for them in Gothic architecture.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

14 April: Grapes of Wrath

On this date in 1939, John Steinbeck’s novel Grapes of Wrath was published. 10 facts about it.

1. For those who haven’t read it, it is about the Joad family who live in Oklahoma during the great depression. They are tenant farmers beset by economic hardship caused by drought, industry changes and bank foreclosures who are forced to leave their farm to find work in California.

2. The road they take is described as “The Mother Road”, which is actually Route 66. Route 66 has been nicknamed The Mother Road ever since as a result.

3. Inspiration for the novel came when Steinbeck was working as a journalist and was commissioned to write some articles about migrant labour camps in California. He wrote about the appalling conditions he saw there in The Harvest Gypsies, a series of seven articles that ran in the San Francisco News in October 1936. He used much of what he wrote in The Grapes of Wrath.

4. He needed more than his own observations, though, and used some notes given to him by Tom Collins, manager of the Migratory Labour Camp in Kern County, California. What he didn’t know was that another writer, Sanora Babb, had written the reports as a basis for her own novel, called Whose Names Are Unknown. Her novel was eclipsed by the success of Steinbeck’s, so she didn’t publish it until 2004, a year before she died.

5. Steinbeck’s wife, Carol, typed the manuscript for him and also came up with the title. It comes from a line in The Battle Hymn of the Republic: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord/He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.” Julia Ward, who wrote the song, in turn got the phrase “grapes of wrath” from The Bible, Revelation 14:19 to be exact. Using a line from The Battle Hymn of the Republic, in Steinbeck’s mind, would label it as an American book and not Communist propaganda.

6. Nevertheless, the Associated Farmers of California denounced it as exactly that, furious at the novel’s suggestion that they used cheap labour. They called it a pack of lies and held book burnings. Things got so bad that the FBI put Steinbeck under surveillance, and his local sheriff advised him to carry a gun. However, the actual Communist Party didn’t like it either – it was banned in the Soviet Union, because it showed that even the most impoverished Americans could afford a car.

7. Despite all that, it was a runaway success and sold over 400,000 copies in its first year. The New York Times called it “a magnificent novel of America.” First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt loved it too, and wrote glowing reviews in her newspaper column, calling it “an unforgettable experience in reading.” It netted Steinbeck the 1940 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and was part of the reason he won the Nobel Prize in 1962.

8. Steinbeck kept a journal while he was writing the book, which tells us it wasn’t an easy process. He knew what he was writing was possibly destined for greatness but was plagued with self doubt. “This book has become a misery to me because of my inadequacy,” he wrote. He also wrote "It isn't the great book I had hoped it would be. It's just a run-of-the-mill book."

9. It was made into a film in 1940, directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad. Ford won an Oscar for Best Director and Jane Darwell won Best Supporting Actress as Ma Joad. The novel has also been an inspiration to songwriters. Woody Guthrie, Kris Kristofferson, Bruce Springsteen and Mumford & Sons are among the many artists who have used characters and scenes from the story in their songs.

10. There’s an urban myth that the Japanese translation is called The Angry Raisins. It wasn’t, but there’s possibly a grain of truth. Steinbeck’s widow once went into a book shop in Japan to ask if they had any of her late husband’s books. The owner allegedly thought for a moment, and then said yes, he had The Angry Raisins. So a mistranslation by that one individual became an urban myth.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

13 April: Thomas Jefferson Quotes

10 quotes from Thomas Jefferson, former US President born this date in 1743, back in the days when US presidents didn't sound like Kevin the Teenager on a bad day.

1. When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.

2. A true patriot will defend his country from its government.

3. When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.

4. To learn, you have to listen. To improve, you have to try.

5. Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.

6. Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%.

7. I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

8. The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

9. In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

10. Men of quality are not threatened by women of equality.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

12 April: David Cassidy

Born this date in 1950 was David Cassidy, teen heartthrob, singer, Partridge Family's Keith Partridge. 10 things you might not know about him.

1. Cassidy was born in New York City. He was the only son of actress Evelyn Ward and actor Jack Cassidy.

2. He first got the acting bug when his mother took him to see his father perform on Broadway, when he was three years old. He attended church with his family as a boy and sang in the church choir. In fact, he was the lead soloist for 3 years.

3. At 11, he had an operation on his left optical nerve which was wrapped around a blood vessel. This left him with a lazy eye when he was tired.

4. David’s first appearance on Broadway was in a musical called The Fig Leaves Are Falling. It was a flop.

5. He became famous for his role as Keith in The Partridge Family. The actress who played his mother in the show, Shirley Jones, was his stepmother in real life. Cassidy didn’t know she’d got the part until after he was cast. Luckily, the two of them got on well.

6. In 1974, a fan died of injuries sustained in a crush at one of his concerts in the UK. 650 more fans were injured. This affected Cassidy deeply and resulted in him leaving The Partridge Family and quitting touring.

7. He was allergic to Garlic.

8. He was married three times: to Kay Lenz from 1977 to 1983; Meryl-Ann Tanz from 1984 to 1988; and Sue Shifrin from 1991 to 2016 She was the only wife he had a child with, a son, Beau. All three marriages ended in divorce. He also had affairs, one of which, with Sherry Williams, resulted in a daughter, Katie, who followed in his footsteps and became an actor and singer. She covered one of his songs, I Think I Love You, and plays Laurel Lance/Black Canary on the TV series, Arrow.

9. In an attempt to break from his squeaky clean Keith Partridge persona, he posed nude for Annie Leibovitz for a photo in Rolling Stone magazine in 1972.

10. He played Guitar, Drums, Piano and Clarinet, which he started learning at the age of eight.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

11 April: Smurfs

Born this day in 1935: Pierre Kartner, “Father Abraham”, Dutch singer and voice of the Smurfs. 10 facts about Smurfs.

1. The Smurfs were created in 1958 by a Belgian cartoonist called Pierre Culliford who used the pen name Peyo.

2. He came up with the original French name "schtroumpf" when he had a memory lapse at dinner one day and forgot the word for “Salt”. He happened to be dining with another cartoonist called André Franquin, and asked him to pass the schtroumpf. Franquin jokingly replied, "Here's the Schtroumpf—when you are done schtroumpfing, schtroumpf it back." They spent the rest of that weekend speaking that way, thus inventing the Smurf language.

3. Their first appearance was in a comic called Johan et Pirlouit (translated to English as Johan and Peewit) about a boy and his dwarf friend. On one of their adventures, they meet some Smurfs. The latter were so popular they got a comic strip of their own.

4. There are 105 Smurfs. They mostly look exactly the same: male, Blue skin, dressed in White trousers with holes for their tails, and white caps. They are small, described as being "three Apples high". That said, some of them can be distinguished by props relating to their names. For example, "Handy Smurf" wears overalls and sports a pencil above his ear. They are all said to be 100 years old, apart from Papa, Baby, Smurfette, Nanny and Grandpa.

5. There are three female Smurfs: Sassette Smurfling, Nanny Smurf and Smurfette, who was created by the villain Gargamel in order to create conflict and jealousy in the Smurf village. In the original comic, Smurfette left the Smurf village to restore peace, but in the American TV series, she stayed.

6. There’s an urban legend that the Smurfs represent the KKK because they wear pointed white caps, and their leader, Papa Smurf, wears a Red one. This isn’t true. The caps they wear are Phrygian or Liberty caps, which first appeared in Roman times and were worn by freed slaves.

7. They live in houses shaped like Mushrooms deep in the forest, which most outsiders cannot find unless they have a Smurf guide. In the original comics they eat sarsaparilla leaves, only in the TV show they also eat the berries ("smurfberries"). If they want to travel long distances, they ride on Storks.

8. The Smurf language basically consists of many words being replaced by the word “Smurf”. "To smurf" typically means "to make", "to be", "to like", or "to do". It can be incredibly confusing to non speakers. Peewit thinks he’s got a handle on it and explains that "I'm smurfing to the smurf" means "I'm going to the wood". A Smurf points out that what he actually said was "I'm warbling to the dawn", and he should have said "I'm smurfing to the smurf". Which is completely different. The word “smurf” can be added to other words, for example, "smurftastic".

9. Talking of languages, the Smurfs are known by many other names in other translations. “Smurf” is itself a translation of the original French word, “schtroumpf”. In Italy, they are Puffi; in Spanish Los Pitufos; and in Hebrew “Dardasim" which was an old word for slipper which is now so associated with Smurfs that the original use has been virtually lost.

10. The Smurf village featured in a UNICEF advertisement in which it was destroyed in a war. It was part of a fund-raising campaign by UNICEF's Belgian arm to raise money for the rehabilitation of former child soldiers in former Belgian colonies. With permission from Peyo’s family, the ad was shown after 9pm so as not to upset the usual target audience.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

10 April: Omar Sharif

This date in 1932 was the birthdate of Omar Sharif (Michael Shalhoub), Egyptian actor whose films include Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago and Funny Girl.

1. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt. His father, Joseph Shalhoub, was a lumber merchant, and his mother, Claire, was a professional gambler, ranked with King Faroukh as one of the most daring players.

2. His parents gave him the name Michel Demitri Shalhoub and he was brought up as a Catholic.

3. He attended Cairo University and got a degree in mathematics and physics, then worked at the family lumber business for a time.

4. His first film was an Egyptian one, called The Blazing Sun in 1954. His co-star was a well known Egyptian actress of the time called Faten Hamama.

5. Who became his wife in 1955. He converted to Islam in order to marry her and that is when he took the name Omar Sharif. They had one son, Tarek, and divorced in 1974. Sharif claimed she was the love of his life and although he had affairs, he never remarried.

6. He was also famous as a bridge player and was known to postpone film shootings in order to take part in tournaments. In the 1970s and 1980s, he co-wrote a syndicated newspaper bridge column for the Chicago Tribune, and was also the author of several books about the game. A bridge computer game, "Omar Sharif Bridge", has been marketed since 1992. Another of his hobbies was breeding and racing Horses.

7. Lawrence of Arabia was the first film he made in English. He played Sherif Ali, but wasn’t the first choice for the role. Dilip Kumar turned it down, Horst Buchholz was unavailable and Maurice Ronet could not use the contact lenses to mask his eye colour. It was considered a risky move by David Lean at the time as Sharif was virtually unknown outside Egypt.

8. He had a bit of an anger management problem. In 2003 he got a one-month suspended prison sentence for hitting a police officer in a Paris casino, and in 2005 was ordered to take an anger management course for punching a parking attendant who refused to accept his European currency.

9. He was fluent in Arabic, English, French, Greek, Italian and Spanish.

10. He had triple bypass surgery in 1992, and immediately quit his 100 a day smoking habit. He died of a heart attack in 2015.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/