Topical Tens: January 2021

Sunday 31 January 2021

1 February: La Bohème

On 1 February 1896 Giacomo Puccini's Opera La Bohème, premièred in Turin. 10 things you might not know about this opera.

La Bohème is an Opera in four acts. Puccini wrote the Music; the libretto was written by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. The title is pronounced "La bo-EM", and translates as “The Bohemian”.
The opera is based on a book by Henri Murger called Scenes from Bohemian Life. Murger was a Bohemian himself, having given up his job as a secretary to become a journalist. The book wasn’t selling well, so Murger was happy to accept an offer from playwright Théodore Barrière to turn it into a play – which was a success.
Puccini wasn’t the only person who decided to turn the story into an opera. Ruggero Leoncavallo also decided to write an opera based on the book. They both claimed they thought of the idea independently, and Leoncavallo went as far as to suggest that Puccini had stolen the idea from him, which made things a tad awkward when the two of them met in a café. Puccini said, “Let the public decide which one they like best!” Which ultimately turned out to be his. Leoncavallo’s version is virtually forgotten.
The process of writing it didn’t go smoothly. This was partly because Puccini was working from home, Torre del Lago, a village in Tuscany, so communication between him, his publisher and the two librettists had to be done by letter. No Zoom calls in them days! Not only that but Puccini seemed to be suffering from another common issue faced by people working from home – not being able to focus on the task in hand. He started writing another work called La Lupa (The She-Wolf), which didn’t go down well with the librettists, especially since he’d been accusing them of taking too long with their part of the project. Not only that, but the David Belasco play Tosca had caught his eye as another potential project, so he took still more time out to go and see Sarah Bernhardt perform the play in Florence.
La Bohème was first performed in Turin, Italy on February 1, 1896 at the Teatro Regio, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. In 1946, Toscanini conducted a Radio performance which was released on record and later compact discs. It is the only recording of a Puccini opera by its original conductor.
The first performance outside of Italy was in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1896. The first performance in UK was in Manchester, on 22 April 1897, and in the US on October 14, 1897 in Los Angeles, California.
So what’s the plot? (Spoiler alert). The story is based in 19^th century Paris a round a bunch of poor Bohemians (Rodolfo, Marcello, Schunard and Colline) living in an attic. They are so poor that they have to burn a manuscript Rodolfo has written. Schunard, however, has hit a lucky streak and got a job, so arrives with food, firewood, Wine, cigars and Money. Even so, when their landlord arrives to collect the rent, they get him drunk and throw him out rather than pay up. Then they divide up the money so they can go out and have a good time. Rodolfo has an article to finish, so he says he’ll catch up with them. After they’ve gone, Mimi, a seamstress who lives in the flat below, comes up to borrow a match because her candle has gone out. Rodolfo fancies Mimi and tricks her into staying longer by hiding her door key in his pocket. His friends call up to him, however, asking him to join them. So he and Mimi go together. Flushed with cash for once, he buys Mimi a bonnet.
A month or two passes in which Mimi and Rodolfo have an affair and Marcello moves into tavern near the toll gate. All is not hunky dory, however, as Mimi gets sick. She is seen passing through the toll gate, coughing. She runs into Marcello and tells him Rodolfo has dumped her. Rodolfo comes out of the tavern looking for Marcello. Mimì hides, and overhears their conversation. Rodolfo tells Marcello why he left Mimi – she is dying, and he thinks that if she’s not tied to a poor man who can’t afford medical treatment for her, she might be able to take up with a rich man who can pay for a doctor for her. Mimi starts coughing again and so Rodolfo discovers her. They talk (or rather, sing, since this is an opera) and agree that they should separate, but not until the spring. Rodolfo brings Mimi back to his attic room and his friends rally round, pawning things to get money for medicine. They return with a muff to warm Mimi’s hands and say the doctor is on his way, but it’s too late. Mimi dies.
When it was first performed, La Bohème was considered quite scandalous, since Rodolfo and Mimi are clearly living together without being married.
The Broadway musical, Rent, is based on the story of La Bohème. The protagonists in Rent are called Mimi and Roger, and another character is called Angel Schunard. While presumably Mimi expires from TB in La Bohème, in Rent, the deadly disease is AIDS. The film Moulin Rouge! Was also heavily influenced by Puccini’s opera. It has even been suggested that the TV show Friends was inspired by it as well.

Who's That Girl?

Matt Webster lives in a tower block and attends a failing school. He dreams of being a spy like James Bond. Little does he know that he is being watched by someone who can make him into even more than that – a superhero.

His first solo mission is to attend a ball at the Decembrian Embassy and discover who is planning to steal a priceless diamond. While there, he meets the mysterious Lady Antonia du Cane, and is powerfully drawn to her. It soon becomes clear, however, that Lady du Cane is not what she seems. Matt’s quest to discover who she really is almost costs him his career.

A modern day Guy Fawkes gathers a coterie around him with the aim of blowing up Parliament with a nuclear bomb. To achieve this, they need money. Lots of it. Selling the Heart of Decembria Diamond will provide more than enough. All that stands in their way is the Freedom League – but the League is beset by internal disagreements. Can the heroes put their differences aside in time to save the day?

Prime Minister Richard Miller and his wife Fiona grieve for their daughter, Yasmin, who has been missing for three years, and is presumed to be dead. Viper agent Violet Parker could hold the key to what happened to Yasmin, but Violet is accused of giving away the organisation’s secrets. She is to be executed without trial. Will she take her knowledge of what happened to Yasmin with her to her grave?

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

E-Book

Saturday 30 January 2021

31 January: Cape Horn

On this date in 1616 Cape Horn was discovered by Isaac Le Maire and Willem Schouten. 10 things you might not know about it:

First of all, where and what is it? Cape Horn is a rocky headland on Hornos Island, in southern Chile's Tierra del Fuego archipelago.
The Atlantic, Pacific and Southern Oceans meet at Cape Horn.
The storms at sea around this area are legendary – the “screaming sixties” gale force winds and waves have been known to reach as high as ten-story buildings. Between the 16th and 20th centuries it’s estimated that there have been at least 800 shipwrecks, causing the deaths of more than 10,000 sailors.
Why so treacherous? Southwest of Cape Horn, the ocean floor rises sharply from 4,020 meters (13,200 feet) to 100 meters (330 feet) within a few kilometres. This, and the high winds, result in the huge waves. There are also rocky coastal shoals and Icebergs to add to the danger.
In fact, it was so dangerous that when the Spanish plundered Gold and Silver from South America in the 1800s, chose to transport it across the continent by land, rather than risk losing the lot at sea.
When Isaac Le Maire and Willem Schouten discovered it, they thought it was the southernmost tip of the mainland. It was eight years before it was discovered that it was actually an island.
The cape lies within Chilean waters, and the Chilean Navy maintains a station on Hoorn Island, consisting of a residence, utility building, chapel, and Lighthouse.
There’s also a monument, in the shape of an albatross in flight to commemorate the thousands of sailors who lost their lives there, and a small chapel. The monument was built in 1992.
For a sailor back in the day, having successfully negotiated Cape Horn was a big thing. They’d celebrate having survived by smoking cigars and pouring some of their grog into the ocean as a thank you gift for Neptune, god of the sea. They’d save some for a toast to all those who didn’t make it. Custom dictated that only sailors who had rounded the horn were allowed to wear a gold hoop earring.
Since the completion of the Panama Canal in 1914, it’s no longer necessary to risk life and limb in order to get from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic.

Who's That Girl?

Matt Webster lives in a tower block and attends a failing school. He dreams of being a spy like James Bond. Little does he know that he is being watched by someone who can make him into even more than that – a superhero.

His first solo mission is to attend a ball at the Decembrian Embassy and discover who is planning to steal a priceless diamond. While there, he meets the mysterious Lady Antonia du Cane, and is powerfully drawn to her. It soon becomes clear, however, that Lady du Cane is not what she seems. Matt’s quest to discover who she really is almost costs him his career.

A modern day Guy Fawkes gathers a coterie around him with the aim of blowing up Parliament with a nuclear bomb. To achieve this, they need money. Lots of it. Selling the Heart of Decembria Diamond will provide more than enough. All that stands in their way is the Freedom League – but the League is beset by internal disagreements. Can the heroes put their differences aside in time to save the day?

Prime Minister Richard Miller and his wife Fiona grieve for their daughter, Yasmin, who has been missing for three years, and is presumed to be dead. Viper agent Violet Parker could hold the key to what happened to Yasmin, but Violet is accused of giving away the organisation’s secrets. She is to be executed without trial. Will she take her knowledge of what happened to Yasmin with her to her grave?

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

E-Book

Friday 29 January 2021

Today is Jazz day, marking the occasion when the Original Dixieland Jass Band made one of the first jazz recording titled The Darktown Strutters' Ball in 1917. 10 things you might not know about jazz:

No-one knows for sure how the word jazz came about. It’s thought it started out as a slang word that was nothing to do with Music at all, but was in fact Baseball slang, a word meaning verve, vim, and fighting spirit. The earliest written record of the word jazz is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a baseball pitcher described a pitch which he called a "jazz ball" "because it wobbles and you simply can't do anything with it". Another theory holds that it derives from African slang words with sexual connotations.
Defining jazz isn’t straightforward, either. It encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, including ragtime, European chamber elements, marching band music and blues. Just about every genre of music has a jazz sub-genre – rock jazz, acid jazz, rap jazz, even punk jazz. One of its defining elements, however, is that the musicians improvise. Hence the same piece of music may never be played in exactly the same way twice.
Because there’s so much improvisation, jazz musicians have developed secret signals in order to communicate with each other, so they all know when an improvised solo is about to end and it’s time to go back to playing the main melody. A nod of the head, or pointing at the head, are two of the signals used.
The origins of jazz are thought to lie with African slaves in the US. The people brought over as slaves came from places with rich musical traditions, some of which, such as African drumming, were forbidden in America. There was nothing to stop people using their hands, or household items such as washboards, boxes, jugs or bowls to create the rhythms, which they’d do at social gatherings.
Some jazz musicians say they were influenced by Indian classical music, as well. Saxophonist John Coltrane and guitarist John Mclaughlin both claim it as one of their major influences, since, like jazz, Indian Hindustani and carnatic music encourages improvisation.
In the early days of jazz, classically trained musicians saw it as something of a threat, because a lot of the performers were self taught and hadn’t been through music school and taken exams. There was an organized movement in the music industry against jazz before it was fully adopted as a new, exciting genre of music.
Since jazz was often played in the illicit speakeasies during prohibition in the US, it was seen as decadent and immoral by many. Add to that the age old situation where the older generation never takes to the music their kids embrace and it’s hardly surprising that Henry van Dyke of Princeton University wrote, "it is not music at all. It's merely an irritation of the nerves of hearing, a sensual teasing of the strings of physical passion;" or that the New York Times tried to spread the rumour that Siberian villagers used jazz to scare away bears, or that it had caused a famous conductor to have a fatal heart attack.
Jazz gave rise to new types of dance as people wanted to move to the music. We have jazz to thank for the Charleston, black bottom, Argentine Tango, and the trot.
Studies have suggested that jazz is actually rather good for you, especially your Brain. Jazz musicians were found to be using the medial prefrontal cortex, which allows self expression, and two jazz musicians having what is termed a "musical conversation" are using the language centres of their brains. Just listening to it has been found to be beneficial, too. Listening to jazz activates theta brain waves (4-8 hertz), the brain waves associated with creativity. So listening to some jazz makes it more likely that you’ll come up with a creative solution to a problem. Other studies have found that listening to jazz is as relaxing as a massage, reduces anxiety and even boosts the immune system. (But don’t expect the establishment to confirm that because Big Pharma can’t cash in on music.)
The term “hipster” was derived from the jazz age. In the 1930s, “hep” was a term to describe someone who was cool and knowledgeable. They became known as hepster cats, alongside the term “jazz cat”, and the word hipster evolved from that.

Who's That Girl?

Matt Webster lives in a tower block and attends a failing school. He dreams of being a spy like James Bond. Little does he know that he is being watched by someone who can make him into even more than that – a superhero.

His first solo mission is to attend a ball at the Decembrian Embassy and discover who is planning to steal a priceless diamond. While there, he meets the mysterious Lady Antonia du Cane, and is powerfully drawn to her. It soon becomes clear, however, that Lady du Cane is not what she seems. Matt’s quest to discover who she really is almost costs him his career.

A modern day Guy Fawkes gathers a coterie around him with the aim of blowing up Parliament with a nuclear bomb. To achieve this, they need money. Lots of it. Selling the Heart of Decembria Diamond will provide more than enough. All that stands in their way is the Freedom League – but the League is beset by internal disagreements. Can the heroes put their differences aside in time to save the day?

Prime Minister Richard Miller and his wife Fiona grieve for their daughter, Yasmin, who has been missing for three years, and is presumed to be dead. Viper agent Violet Parker could hold the key to what happened to Yasmin, but Violet is accused of giving away the organisation’s secrets. She is to be executed without trial. Will she take her knowledge of what happened to Yasmin with her to her grave?

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

E-Book

Thursday 28 January 2021

29 January: W.C. Fields

Born on this date in 1880, W C Fields was known for playing a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist in films such as My Little Chickadee and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break. Here are ten facts about him:

His full name was William Claude Dukenfield and he was born in Philadelphia. His father had emigrated from England in 1854.
He only went to school for four years, then left to work with his father selling vegetables from a horse cart. His relationship with his father was volatile, and he ran away from home several times. At eleven, he left home for good after a fight with his father in which his father hit him over the head with a shovel. That said, he didn’t seem to bear his family any ill will in later life, since he bought his father a summer home and enabled him to retire; and encouraged his entire family to learn to read so that he could write to them. His father even visited him while he was touring in England.
When he first left home, however, he was living rough and stealing food in order to survive. His first regular job was delivering ice. During that time, he learned to juggle and was very good at it. This got him his first job entertaining people, at an amusement park in Norristown PA. Later on, he worked at Fortescue's Pier, Atlantic City, where, when business was slow, he’d jump into the sea and pretend to be drowning, in order to attract a crowd.
From there, he went to Vaudeville, where, to distinguish himself from the plethora of Juggling tramps, developed a persona as "The Eccentric Juggler" who would juggle hats and cigar boxes and other objects as part of his act.
By the time he was 23, he was doing extremely well, touring as "The Distinguished Comedian" and opening a bank account in every city he worked in. He was appearing with big names like Sarah Bernhardt, Charlie Chaplin and Maurice Chevalier, and even appeared at Buckingham Palace.
He played for a year in the highly praised musical Poppy which opened in New York in 1923. His film break came a couple of years later when the play was made into a film called Sally of the Sawdust; although Fields had already appeared in a handful of short films prior to that, his first being Pool Sharks in 1915. He made his first film at the age of 35.
While known for being a heavy drinker, he hardly drank at all as a young man, because he needed to be sober in order to be a skilled juggler. When he started touring, he’d drink socially with other cast members to stave off loneliness, and when juggling was no longer part of his act, started to drink regularly.
He’s also perceived as disliking dogs and children, thanks to a quote which was erroneously attributed to him: "any man who hates Dogs and babies can't be all bad". He occasionally owned dogs, and enjoyed the company of his friends’ children and his grandchildren.
He married vaudevillian, chorus girl Harriet "Hattie" Hughes in 1900. She appeared as his assistant on stage, and behind the scenes was helping him learn to read and write. As a result, he became very fond of reading and would travel with suitcases full of books. Hattie, however, didn’t see show business as a forever career, and in time, began nagging Fields to give it up and get a proper job. Unable to agree on this point, the couple separated, but never divorced. He went on to have significant relationships with two other women: Bessie Poole, a Ziegfeld Follies performer, which lasted until 1926, and Carlotta Monti, which lasted until his death.
He died on Christmas Day 1946, at the age of 66. He’d spent the best part of two years in a sanatorium in California. As he lay dying, his partner, Carlotta Monti, got a garden hose and sprayed water onto the roof of his room, because she knew his favourite sound was that of falling rain.

New Year New Reading Challenge?

I can help. Here are links to books which meet potential criteria:

A title with three words

A title with six words

From a Jack to a King

A book with a number in the title

A Tale of Two Sisters

A book with a colour in the title

Golden Thread

Short story collections/A book with a green cover

A book published in the last year/during lockdown

A book you can finish in a day/A book under 200 pages

A book featuring characters from a deck of cards

From a Jack to a King

A Book set during Christmas

A Very Variant Christmas

A book with a place in the title

Glastonbury Swan

A Debut novel

Death and Faxes

A book with a plant or flower on the cover/A book about siblings

A Tale of Two Sisters

A book with a female villain or criminal

Glastonbury Swan

Includes space travel

Obsidian's Ark

Features Royalty

Books featuring skiing or snowboarding

A Tale of Two Sisters

A book with the Olympic games in it

Eternal Flame

A book with a bird in the title

Glastonbury Swan

A book featuring a secret society

A book featuring time travel/alternative dimensions

Raiders Trilogy:

Books featuring superheroes

Books featuring ghosts

From an Indie Publisher/Self published/An author you've not read before/A female author/A genre you wouldn't normally read/A book outside your comfort zone/A book by an author with your initials and your initials are JH

All of them!

More details can be found here

Wednesday 27 January 2021

28 January: Poplar Trees

In the French Revolutionary Calendar today is the Day of the Poplar Tree. Here are 10 things you might not know about these trees:

They belong to the Willow family and make up the genus Populus, which has around 30 species including black poplar, white poplar, cottonwood and aspen.
The genus gets its name from the fact that poplars were often planted around public meeting places in Roman times.
One characteristic of trees of this family is that their leaves tremble in the breeze. This is because the leaves have flat stems.
The oldest easily identifiable fossil of this genus belongs to Poplus wilmattae, and comes from the Late Paleocene.
The first tree to have its DNA fully sequenced was a poplar, a western balsam poplar to be exact, in 2006.
They can form huge colonies from a single original tree. The famous Pando forest in Utah is made of thousands of Populus tremuloides clones.
The Greeks and Etruscans made shields from poplar, as recommended by Pliny the Elder. The wood was as durable as Oak, but considerably lighter. It was also used extensively by renaissance Italian artists as a painting surface. The Mona Lisa was painted on poplar wood.
Today, the uses of poplar wood include musical instruments such as electric guitars, Drums, violas or harps; snowboards, because it’s flexible; anything that requires cheap wood, such as cheese boxes, wooden Shoes, pallets and chopsticks; it’s also used to make Paper.
The Poplar Field by William Cowper and Binsey Poplars felled 1879 by Gerard Manley Hopkins are two well known poems about poplar trees. They also feature in the lyrics of the song Strange Fruit: “Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze/Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees…”
In Ukrainian folklore the poplar symbolises the beauty or loneliness of a woman in love.

New Year New Reading Challenge?

I can help. Here are links to books which meet potential criteria:

A title with three words

A title with six words

From a Jack to a King

A book with a number in the title

A Tale of Two Sisters

A book with a colour in the title

Golden Thread

Short story collections/A book with a green cover

A book published in the last year/during lockdown

A book you can finish in a day/A book under 200 pages

A book featuring characters from a deck of cards

From a Jack to a King

A Book set during Christmas

A Very Variant Christmas

A book with a place in the title

Glastonbury Swan

A Debut novel

Death and Faxes

A book with a plant or flower on the cover/A book about siblings

A Tale of Two Sisters

A book with a female villain or criminal

Glastonbury Swan

Includes space travel

Obsidian's Ark

Features Royalty

Books featuring skiing or snowboarding

A Tale of Two Sisters

A book with the Olympic games in it

Eternal Flame

A book with a bird in the title

Glastonbury Swan

A book featuring a secret society

A book featuring time travel/alternative dimensions

Raiders Trilogy:

Books featuring superheroes

Books featuring ghosts

All of them!

More details can be found here

Tuesday 26 January 2021

27 January: The Egyptian god Shu

In Ancient Egyptian astrology, the current sign is the god Shu. 10 things you didn't know about this Egyptian deity:

The word Shu in the ancient Egyptian language meant light and space, and was the root of words for ‘dry’, ‘empty’, ‘sunlight’ and ‘withered’.
Shu was a member of the Ennead, that is one of the nine most important Egyptian gods.
He was the son of the creator god Atum, who conceived Shu and his Twin sister Tefnut, without the help of a woman, incubating them in his mouth.
Shu and Tefnut were more than twin brother and sister. They were lovers, too, said to be the two halves of one soul, possibly the earliest mention of the concept of soul mates.
Shu was the father of Geb, the earth god, and Nut, the goddess of the sky, and his grandchildren were Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys, and his great-grandsons were Horus and Anubis.
According to myth, Geb and Nut were inseparable, and it was Shu who put himself between them to separate them, so that Atum could create things in the space between them. Hence he came to represent the space between the Earth and the Sky and everything in it, namely, emptiness, air, wind, clouds and Fog.
He was often depicted wearing an ostrich feather, which was a symbol of lightness and emptiness.
Shu was also a god of the Underworld. He’s said to have created, along with Tefnut, a place for the dead to reside. Shu became a god of the dead, connected with the supply of food to nourish souls on their journey to the afterlife. He was also one of the 42 judges who decided whether a soul was good enough to be admitted to heaven.
He is sometimes pictured with the head of a lioness. This is to represent yet another aspect of him, that he was Atum Ra’s right eye, the Sun while Tefnut was his left eye, the Moon.
The Greek Titan Atlas, who holds up the sky in Greek myth, is said to have been inspired by Shu.