Apple Pudding

Apple Pudding

unsure of the origin of this one:

½ cup melted butter

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 cup milk

2 cups peeled apple, chopped (personal favorite for this is Granny Smith)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Pour melted butter into a casserole dish with high-ish sides* (similar to this). 

In a bowl, combine sugars, flour, and baking powder, then add milk and whisk until smooth. Pour into the casserole dish (with the melted butter) without mixing.

In a small saucepan, heat apples with cinnamon and nutmeg until slightly softened.

Pour apples into the center of the batter, again without mixing.

Bake in the preheated oven 30 - 40 minutes, or until golden.

Serve warm - drizzle the plate or bowl with with caramel sauce, then add a scoop of the pudding and top with whipped cream or ice cream.

* In a deep casserole dish, the batter rises to cover the apples. 

Today is my 75th birthday. A few ruminations on growing old, plus the Thanksgiving birthday pattern

I was born on November 22, 1948; for those of us born between the 22nd and 28th and have always wondered, here's how it works: the Thanksgiving Birthday Pattern.

A few quotes and poems, mostly gloomy,  on the subject of old age:

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

~ H. L. Mencken

Experience teaches that no man improves much after 60, and that after 65 most of them deteriorate in a really shocking manner. I could give an autobiographical example, but refrain on the advice of counsel.

 

~ H. L. Mencken (Baltimore Sun, 7 November 1948) 

The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.  I can look back upon three-score and four years, in which little has been done, and little has been enjoyed, a life diversified by misery, spent part in the sluggishness of penury, and part under the violence of pain, in gloomy discontent, or importunate distress.   

 

~ Dr. Samuel Johnson (letter to Hester Thrale, 21 September 1773)  

Old age is like being on a plane flying through a thunderstorm.  Once you're aboard, there's nothing you can do. 

 

~ Golda Meir (attributed)

  

Growing old is no gradual decline, but a series of tumbles, full of sorrow, from one ledge to another.  Yet when we pick ourselves up, we find no bones are broken; and not unpleasing is the new terrace that stretches out unexplored before us. 

 

~ Logan Pearsall Smith (All Trivia, "Last Words") 

I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly find - at the age of fifty, say - that a whole new life has opened before you, filled with things you can think about, study, or read about...It is as if a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts was rising in you.

~ Agatha Christie

For age is opportunity no less

Than youth itself, though in another dress,

And as the evening twilight fades away,

The sky is filled with stars invisible by day.

~ Longfellow, "Morituri Salutamus"

The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, and the second half by our children.

~ Clarence Darrow

How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young -- or slender.

~William James

Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation.

~ Dr. Johnson

Too old to plant trees for my own gratification, I shall do it for my posterity.

~ Thomas Jefferson

How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young -- or slender.

~ William James

For age is opportunity no less

Than youth itself, though in another dress,

And as the evening twilight fades away,

The sky is filled with stars invisible by day.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Morituri Salutamus

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded.

~ W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age. 

~ Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

When the loud day for men who sow and reap

Grows still and on the silence of the town

The unsubstantial veils of night and sleep,

The meed of day's labour, settle down,

Then for me in the stillness of the night

The wasting, watchful hours drag on their course,

And in the idle darkness comes the bite

Of all the burning serpents of remorse;

Dreams seethe; and fretful infelicities

Are swarming in my over-burdened soul,

And Memory before my wakeful eyes

With noiseless hand unwinds her lengthy scroll.

Then, as with loathing I peruse the years,

I tremble, and I curse my natal day,

Wail bitterly, and bitterly shed tears,

But cannot wash the woeful script away.

~ Alexander Pushkin, Remembrance

The spiritual eyesight improves as the physical eyesight declines.

~ Plato

So Life's year begins and closes;

Days, though short'ning, still can shine;

What though youth gave love and roses,

Age still leaves us friends and wine.

~ Thomas Moore, Spring and Autumn

But as usual, Shakespeare says it best:

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages.  At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school.  And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow.  Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth.  And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part.  The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound.   Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

 (As You Like It, Act II, Sc. 7)

Round-up of Thanksgiving links

A Thanksgiving miscellany: Mark Twain, science, WKRP, Cicero and the best turkey fryer PSA ever.

10 Thanksgiving Words With Bizarre Origins.

In 1939, the U.S. celebrated Democrat Thanksgiving and Republican Thanksgiving.

A bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig: the TurBacon Epic.

What's a Wishbone, and Why Do We Crack It? Related, Tyrannosaurus Rex Had a Wishbone.

This Man Made the First Canned Cranberry Sauce.

Benjamin Franklin’s account of the First Thanksgiving.

8 Thanksgiving Flowcharts.

How Turkey Got Its Name.

Why Do The Lions & Cowboys Always Play On Thanksgiving?

For those of us born between the 22nd and 28th and have always wondered, here's how it works: the Thanksgiving Birthday Pattern.

Thanksgiving in 1810, 1910, and 2010. Related: Celebrating Thanksgiving in the 1800s.

For the kids, a virtual field trip to the first Thanksgiving.

Dave Barry Thanksgiving columns from 1996, 1998, 2004... feel free to add more in the comments.

Buffy Thanksgiving episode: "Ritual sacrifice, with pie."

Miscellaneous Thanksgiving stuff: Mark Twain, science, WKRP turkey drop episode, more

I've accumulated a LOT of Thanksgiving-related links over the years, so I've divided them up - here's the first set.

I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.

~ Jon Stewart

In 1939, the U.S. celebrated Democrat Thanksgiving and Republican Thanksgiving.

Science answers the important questions: Why you’ll still have room for pie after turkey and stuffing. Related, The Turkey-Tryptophan Myth and What Goes on in Our Stomachs After Eating Too Much?

Cartoon (The Oatmeal): Thanksgiving as a kid VS Thanksgiving as an adult.

Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for - annually, not oftener - if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months, instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man's side, consequently on the Lord's side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and to extend the usual annual compliments.

~ Mark Twain Autobiography

WKRP Turkey Drop episode: "As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly"

Gratius animus est una virtus non solum maxima, sed etiam mater virtutum omnium reliquaram.

~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, Oratio pro Cnaeo Plancio, 23

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the mother of all other virtues.

Benjamin Franklin’s account of the First Thanksgiving.

Turkey fryer alert: 86 year old man deep fries own leg. Or as he calls it, his drumstick.

If you're actually going to fry a turkey, you might consider Alton Brown's advice on how to construct a derrick over your turkey fryer (video). 

Pi vs Pie.

The voices of Christopher Walken and John Madden: The First Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving in 1810, 1910, and 2010. Related: Celebrating Thanksgiving in the 1800s.

Roast Chestnut Soup

The directions below makes 6 to 8 servings - doubles well, and is better the next day.

1 pound chestnuts (we use these)

1/2 chopped medium onion

1/2 cup chopped celery

3 tablespoons butter

1 1/4 quarts low-sodium or homemade chicken broth

2 bay leaves

1 cup half-and-half or cream

Dash of freshly grated nutmeg

In a good-sized, heavy bottomed saucepan, over medium-high heat, saute onion and celery in butter until soft.

Add chestnuts, chicken broth and bay leaves and bring to boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer uncovered until chestnuts are tender, about 30 minutes. Remove bay leaves.

In a blender or food processor fitted with a metal blade, puree soup until smooth. If you have an immersion blender, use that. 

Return soup to pan; stir in half-and-half, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Heat through over low heat. Serve hot.

Paraskavedekatriaphobia: Why is Friday the 13th Considered Unlucky?

In case you were trying to work it out for yourself, the name of this phobia in Pig Latin is araskavedekatriaphobiapay.

Superstition, bigotry, and prejudice, ghosts though they are, cling tenaciously to life: they are shades armed with tooth and claw. They must be grappled with unceasingly, for it is a fateful part of human destiny that it is condemned to wage perpetual war against ghosts. A shade is not easily taken by the throat and destroyed. 

~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Today is Friday, the 13th, which superstition holds is a day for bad luck. According to folklorists, there is no written reference to this belief before the 19th century. The earliest known reference in English occurred in an 1869 biography of composer Gioacchino Rossini, which described the irony of his dying on an "unlucky" Friday, the 13th. 

The basis for the superstition may lie in the fact that 13 has long been held to be an unlucky number and Friday an unlucky day - hence the combination. It has been estimated that something like 20 million people are affected by this belief in the United States, many of them changing their normal routines on this day to avoid "the curse." The Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics claims that "fewer accidents and reports of fire and theft occur when the 13th of a month falls on a Friday than on other Fridays, because people are preventatively more careful or just stay home." This seems to be confirmed by Dutch auto accident data.

This Nat Geo article discusses the phobia with Donald Dossey, founder of a Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in North Carolina (and also a folklore historian and author of Holiday Folklore, Phobias and Fun): he says that fear of Friday the 13th is rooted in ancient, separate bad-luck associations with the number 13 and the day Friday. The two unlucky entities ultimately combined to make one super unlucky day.

Dossey traces the fear of 13 to a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, their heaven. In walked the uninvited 13th guest, the mischievous Loki. Once there, Loki arranged for Hoder, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow.

H/t Library of Congress - more information here.

"Balder died and the whole Earth got dark. The whole Earth mourned. It was a bad, unlucky day," said Dossey. From that moment on, the number 13 has been considered ominous and foreboding.

There is also a biblical reference to the unlucky number 13. Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th guest to the Last Supper.

Meanwhile, in ancient Rome, witches reportedly gathered in groups of 12. The 13th was believed to be the devil.

Thomas Fernsler, an associate policy scientist in the Mathematics and Science Education Resource Center at the University of Delaware in Newark, said the number 13 suffers because of its position after 12.

According to Fernsler, numerologists consider 12 a "complete" number. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus.

In exceeding 12 by 1, Fernsler said 13's association with bad luck "has to do with just being a little beyond completeness. The number becomes restless or squirmy."

Judas, the apostle w­ho betrayed Jesus, was the 13th person to arrive at The Last Supper

This fear of 13 is strong in today's world. According to Dossey, more than 80 percent of high-rises lack a 13th floor. Many airports skip the 13th gate. Hospitals and hotels regularly have no room number 13.

On streets in Florence, Italy, the house between number 12 and 14 is addressed as 12 and a half. In France socialites known as the quatorziens (fourteeners) once made themselves available as 14th guests to keep a dinner party from an unlucky fate.

As for Friday, it is well known among Christians as the day Jesus was crucified. Some biblical scholars believe Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit on Friday. Perhaps most significant is a belief that Abel was slain by Cain on Friday the 13th.

Related: 13 Reasons People Think the Number 13 is Unlucky.

Composer Dimitri Shostakovich was born September 25, 1906: some quotes, history, and music

I always try to make myself as widely understood as possible; and if I don't succeed, I consider it my own fault.

~ Dmitri Shostakovich (quoted in Machlis, Introduction to Contemporary Music)

The composer apparently does not set himself the task of listening to the desires and expectations of the Soviet public. He scrambles sounds to make them interesting to formalist elements who have lost all taste... The power of good music to affect the masses has been sacrificed to a petty-bourgeois, "formalist" attempt to create originality through cheap clowning. It is a game of clever ingenuity that may end very badly.*

~ Pravda (on the Shostakovich opera Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk, "Muddle Instead of Music," January 1936)

Shostakovich told me: "I finished the Fifth Symphony in the major and fortissimo... It would be interesting to know what would have been said if I finished it pianissimo and in the minor." Only later did I understand the full significance of these words, when I heard the Fourth Symphony, which does finish in the minor and pianissimo. But in 1937, nobody knew the Fourth Symphony.**

~ Boris Khaikin (1904-1978) (Discourses on Conducting)

The cover of a 1942 issue of Time Magazine with the
caption "Fireman Shostakovich: 'Amid bombs burning
 in Leningrad, he heard the chords of victory.' Refers to
the Battle of Leningrad in which he served
 as a volunteer in the anti-fire brigades

There may be few notes, but there's lots of music.

~ Shostakovich (on his film music for King Lear; quoted in Wilson, Shostakovich, A Life Remembered)

Particularly during the Cold War, Shostakovich was anathema to many Western critics:

The Fifth Symphony of Shostakovich always has been singularly irritating to this chronicler... Whenever I hear one of his marches, my imagination fastens upon a picture of the parades in Red Square and the banners of Uncle Joe, and my irritation becomes powerful.

~ Cyrus Durgin (? - 1962) (Boston Globe, 25 October 1952)

To anyone who knew his music, a first encounter with Dmitri Shostakovich could not fail to be startling. In contrast to the elemental force, bombast, grandeur of his works, he was a chétif*** figure, the perennial student, unassertive and shy, who looked as though all the music could be wrung out of him in a couple of song cycles.

~ Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999) (Unfinished Journey)

September 25 is the anniversary of the birth of Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich (wiki) (1906-1975), considered by some as the greatest symphonist of the 20th century. Born in St. Petersburg, Shostakovich was an early piano prodigy and studied composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory during the early Soviet era.

At first recognized internationally as an exemplar of the best of Soviet musicianship, he ran afoul of the regime with his modernistic opera, Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk, which so outraged Stalin that he is said to have had a personal hand in writing the infamous Pravda editorial, "Muddle Instead of Music" that literally put the composer's life in jeopardy during the "Great Purge" of the late 1930s. 

Shostakovich somehow survived, even though he was recurrently criticized by the regime for his “modernist” tendencies. During his subsequent tumultuous career, he produced an enormous oeuvre: 15 symphonies, concertos, a great quantity of chamber music, song cycles, piano music, and several operas. Generally considered a serious - almost tragic - composer, Shostakovich nonetheless wrote a large amount of “light” music, including even a stage work – Moscow Cheryomushki (1959) – that might be described as a Russian musical comedy.

Harry Potter looks exactly like
 a young Shostakovich

For newcomers to the music of Shostakovich, I would recommend his 4th, 5th, and 10th symphonies, the two piano concertos, the "autobiographical" 8th strinq quartet, his several "jazz" and "ballet" suites compiled from light works of the 1930s, and his film score for The Gadfly, whose "Romance" was used to great effect as the principal theme of the TV series, "Riley, Ace of Spies."

During the last two decades, there has been a raging musicological debate about whether the music of Shostakovich reveals him as a loyal Soviet citizen or a closet dissident whose works portray a tormented man. No one really knows. He was clearly a quirky guy. In contradiction to the opening quotation above, he noted late in life,

"I've said what I said. Either you have it in you to understand, or if not, then it would be fruitless to try to explain anyway."

* N.B. In the first year of the Great Purge, this last sentence was a terrifying threat.

** After the uproar caused by Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk, Shostakovich "redeemed" himself with his Fifth Symphony (1937), designated "A Soviet Artist's Response to Just Criticism," still one of his most successful and popular works. However, his iconoclastic Fourth Symphony, which had been in rehearsal at the time of the debacle, was withdrawn and did not emerge again until 1961. It is now considered one of the master's most original works and a fascinating indicator of "the road not taken." By the way, Boris Khaikin was a Soviet-Jewish conductor.

*** Chétif - a French word meaning "puny."

Here is the romance from The Gadfly:



More typical of Shostakovich is the opening of his 4th symphony:

Parts of the text above are adapted from the late, great Ed Whitman's Quotation of the Day. In addition to being my partner, my best friend, and Grandpa to the many kids who call me Grandma, Ed is also the author of Hunters and Killers: Volume 1: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1776 to 1943 and Hunters and Killers: Volume 2: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1943. Fair winds and following seas, Sailor. I miss you.

Hey, Firefly fans - September 20 is Unification Day

Here's Wikipedia on Firefly's Unification Day:

Unification Day is a holiday celebrated in the fictional universe of the science-fiction television series Firefly. It marks the day in which the Alliance forces defeated the resistance ("Browncoats") in the Unification War.

"The Train Job", the second episode of the series (although Fox originally aired it before the pilot episode "Serenity"), opens with Mal, Zoe, and Jayne in a bar during a Unification Day celebration. Malcolm's brown coat and his disinterest in celebrating Unification Day lead to a brawl.

Unification Day is a holiday mentioned in the backstory of the television series Firefly. According to Nathan Fillion (Mal), the holiday is on September 20th.

Dr. Samuel Johnson was born on September 18, 1709: here's a selection of his insults and Scotland-bashing quotes.

September 18 is the anniversary of the birth in 1709 of that quintessential 18th-century curmudgeon Dr. Samuel Johnson (wiki), the literary lion of Georgian London for much of his lifetime (1709-1784). A poet, critic, lexicographer, and wit, Johnson compiled the first respectable English dictionary between 1747 and 1755, following several years of writing critical articles for London magazines such as The Idler.

From The Grub Street Journal (Oct 30, 1732), this cartoon depicts the “literatory,” a sort of publishing factory driven by beasts without artistic inspiration. Such was the perception of Grub Street writers like Johnson and Savage, who did indeed scrape together a living from commissioned writing.

Born in Lichfield the son of a book dealer, Johnson studied at Oxford and ran his own private school - where the actor David Garrick was a student - before removing to London and its literary milieu in 1737. There, in 1763, he met his companion and biographer, the Scot, James Boswell (1740-1795), to whom we owe the recording of most of Johnson's voluminous observations. 

He was no fan of Scotland:

"The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!"

I having said that England was obliged to us for gardeners, almost all their gardeners being Scotchmen; Johnson: "Why, Sir, that is because gardening is much more necessary amongst you than with us, which makes so many of your people learn it. It is all gardening with you. Things which grow wild here, must be cultivated with great care in Scotland. Pray now," throwing himself back in his chair, and laughing, "are you ever able to bring the sloe to perfection?"

He would not allow Scotland to derive any credit from Lord Mansfield; for he was educated in England. "Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young."

"There is in Scotland a diffusion of learning, a certain portion of it widely and thinly spread. A merchant has as much learning as one of their clergy."

"What enemy would invade Scotland, where there is nothing to be got?"

In “The Mitre Tavern” (1880), Samuel Johnson (far right) converses with James Boswell (center) and author Goldsmith. (source)

Asked by a Scot what Johnson thought of Scotland: "That it is a very vile country, to be sure, Sir" "Well, Sir! (replies the Scot, somewhat mortified), God made it." Johnson: "Certainly he did; but we must always remember that he made it for Scotchmen, and comparisons are odious, Mr. S------; but God made hell."

Mr. Arthur Lee mentioned some Scotch who had taken possession of a barren part of America, and wondered why they would choose it. Johnson: "Why, Sir, all barrenness is comparative. The Scotch would not know it to be barren." Boswell: "Come, come, he is flattering the English. you have now been in Scotland, Sir, and say if you did not see meat and drink enough there." Johnson:"Why yes, Sir; meat and drink enough to give the inhabitants sufficient strength to run away from home."

Johnson and Boswell in Edinburgh

"Your country consists of two things, stone and water. There is, indeed, a little earth above the stone in some places, but a very little; and the stone is always appearing. It is like a man in rags; the naked skin is still peeping out."

"A tree might be a show in Scotland as a horse in Venice. At St. Andrews Mr. Boswell found only one, and recommended it to my notice; I told him it was rough and low, or looked as if I thought so. This, said he, is nothing to another a few miles off. I was still less delighted to hear that another tree was not to be seen nearer. Nay, said a gentleman that stood by, I know but of this and that tree in the county."

[Of an inn in Scotland, SJ wrote...] "Of the provisions the negative catalogue was very copious. Here was no meat, no milk, no bread, no eggs, no wine. We did not express much satisfaction."

"He that travels in the Highlands may easily saturate his soul with intelligence, if he will acquiesce in the first account. The highlander gives to every question an answer so prompt and peremptory, that skepticism itself is dared into silence, and the mind sinks before the bold reporter in unresisting credulity; but, if a second question be ventured, it breaks the enchantment; for it is immediately discovered, that what was told so confidently was told at hazard, and that such fearlessness of assertion was either the sport of negligence, or the refuge of ignorance."

1781: Johnson (second from left), other members of "The Club".

(Written by an Irishman) The author of these memoirs will remember, that Johnson one day asked him, 'Have you observed the difference between your own country impudence and Scottish impudence?' The answer being in the negative: 'Then I will tell you,' said Johnson. 'The impudence of an Irishman is the impudence of a fly, that buzzes about you, and you put it away, but it returns again, and flutters and teazes you. The impudence of a Scotsman is the impudence of a leech, that fixes and sucks your blood.' 

Johnson also, of course, had little use for America or Americans:

"Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging."

"To a man of mere animal life, you can urge no argument against going to America, but that it will be some time before he will get the earth to produce. But a man of any intellectual enjoyment will not easily go and immerse himself and his posterity for ages in barbarism."

"I am willing to love all mankind, except an American"

A Blackadder clip on Johnson's Dictionary:

Here's a very well done bio of Johnson by the BBC:

A selection of his legendary insults:

Dr. Johnson in the ante-room of Lord Chesterfield. 

Of Lord Chesterfield:

"This man I thought had been a Lord among wits; but I find, he is only a wit among Lords."

And of Lord Chesterfield's Letters to His Son*:

"They teach the morals of a whore; and the manners of a dancing-master."

Of Thomas Sheridan:

"Why, Sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in nature."

Of the respective merits of the poets Derrick and Smart:

"Sir, there is no settling the point of precedence between a louse and a flea."

Of the criticism of one critic (Edwards) of another (Warburton):

"A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but the one is but an insect and the other is a horse still."

Of Lady Macdonald of Sleat:

"...she was as bad as negative badness could be, and stood in the way of what was good; that insipid beauty would not go a great way... and such a woman might be cut out of a cabbage, if there was a skilful artificer."

Of two disputants:

"One has ball without powder; the other powder without ball."

Of a man hired to sit with him during a convalescence:

"The fellow's an idiot; he is as awkward as a turn-spit when first put to the wheel, and as sleepy as a dormouse."

Of James Macpherson:

"He wants to make himself conspicuous. He would tumble in a hogstye, as long as you looked at him and called him to come out."

Of the new rich:

"Sir, they have lost the civility of tradesmen, without acquiring the manners of gentlemen."

Despite his legendary bile, Johnson did remark later in life,

"As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly."

* My favorite quote from Lord Chesterfield's Letters to His Son (to his illegitimate son, that is; he (Chesterfield) was trying to raise him (the son) above his (the son's) lowly origins and inferior blood):

"I knew a gentleman, who was so good a manager of his time, that he would not even lose that small portion of it, which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house; but gradually went through all the Latin poets, in those moments. He bought, for example, a common edition of Horace, of which he tore off gradually a couple of pages, carried them with him to that necessary place, read them first, and then sent them down as a sacrifice to Cloacina*: this was so much time fairly gained; and I recommend you to follow his example.

It is better than only doing what you cannot help doing at those moments; and it will made any book, which you shall read in that manner, very present in your mind. Books of science, and of a grave sort, must be read with continuity; but there are very many, and even very useful ones, which may be read with advantage by snatches, and unconnectedly; such are all the good Latin poets, except Virgil in his "Aeneid": and such are most of the modern poets, in which you will find many pieces worth reading, that will not take up above seven or eight minutes."

Attribution for many of the quotes above can be found at the Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page. More on Johnson here and here.

Further reading: 

The definitive source for all things Johnson is, of course Boswell's book The Life of Samuel Johnson. 

Johnson's travels in Scotland are chronicled in The Journey to the Western Islands Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides.

Parts of the text above are adapted from the late, great Ed Whitman's Quotation of the Day. In addition to being my partner, my best friend, and Grandpa to the many kids who call me Grandma, Ed is also the author of Hunters and Killers: Volume 1: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1776 to 1943 and Hunters and Killers: Volume 2: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1943. Fair winds and following seas, Sailor.

September 13 and 14: the anniversary of the battle of Baltimore, inspiration for the Star-Spangled Banner

Bombing of Fort McHenry by the British. Engraved by John Bower

It was a galling sight for British seamen to behold. And as the last vessel spread her canvas to the wind, the Americans hoisted a most superb and splendid ensign on their battery and fired at the same time a gun of defiance... When the squadron retreated from Baltimore, sullen discontent was displayed and malevolent aspersions cast upon our veteran chief... 

~ Midshipman Robert Barrett, RN (1799-1828) (on the British withdrawal from Baltimore, "Naval Recollections of the American War") 

Without any clash on the battlefield the young American republic had humbled the might of the British empire. The rebuff of Britain at Baltimore decisively demonstrated America's independence of its former master. And this explosion of national pride was only to be magnified by the events of the remaining months of the war.* 

~Peter Snow (b.1938) (When Britain Burned the White House - the 1812 Invasion of Washington,** Ch. 21)

Larger version of map here

September 13th and 14th mark the anniversary of the Battle of Baltimore (wiki) during the War of 1812, remembered primarily for the unsuccessful British bombardment of Fort McHenry and Francis Scott Key's penning the words of "The Star-Spangled Banner" while interned on a British warship. 

President James Madison had declared war on Great Britain in June 1812 in response to interference with American shipping and the impressment of U.S. merchant seamen during the Napoleonic wars, as well as the British stirring up the Indians of the Ohio Valley to resist American settlement. Following an abortive American invasion of southern Canada, the British sent a modest naval and marine force - newly freed up from the Spanish campaign against Napoleon - to the Chesapeake in retaliation. 

The burned White House by George Munger,
White House Historical Association

In mid-August 1814, an expeditionary force under Admirals Alexander Cochrane and George Cockburn landed on the lower Patuxent River and after routing U.S. militia at the Battle of Bladensburg on the 24th, occupied Washington that night and burned its major government buildings, including the White House and the Capitol, before withdrawing a day later. (Simultaneously, another Royal Navy flotilla maneuvered up the Potomac River to seize Alexandria and held that city for several days before retiring with significant plunder.) After returning to their ships, the British moved up the Chesapeake Bay to attack Baltimore with a naval penetration of the Patapsco River and an amphibious landing southeast of the city on 12 September. 

By then, however, the Americans had rallied their own forces, stopped the (outnumbered) British at the Battle of North Point, and fought off the Royal Navy's attempt to reduce Fort McHenry on the night of September 13th - 14th. In the face of these failures, the badly over-extended British expedition withdrew southward and departed the Chesapeake Bay to prepare for the New Orleans campaign. And as for "The Star-Spangled Banner," here's the verse we never sing:

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war's desolation!

Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Here's a rather well-done shortish documentary:

The U.S. Marine Band plays the National Anthem:

* The reference here is to the American victories on Lake Champlain (8-11 September 1814) and in the Battle of New Orleans, 8 January 1815, the second of which was actually fought two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent ended the war. 

** This recent book (St. Martin's Press, New York, 2013) presents a lively and readable account of the British invasion of Washington and the attack on Baltimore during the War of 1812. It should be remembered that all of this happened while Britain was deeply preoccupied with her struggle against Napoleon. He had been exiled to Elba as recently as April 1814 but would return to France on 20 March 1815 to fight the Hundred Days Campaign, which culminated in the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June.

John Farrier at Neatorama has an excellent article on the same subject.

Parts of the text above are adapted from the late, great Ed Whitman's Quotation of the Day. In addition to being my partner, my best friend, and Grandpa to the many kids who call me Grandma, Ed is also the author of Hunters and Killers: Volume 1: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1776 to 1943 and Hunters and Killers: Volume 2: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1943.

September 7 is the anniversary of the battle of Borodino, on which War and Peace and the 1812 Overture are based

French (blue) and Russian (red) troops
before start of battle. Source.

September 7  is the anniversary of the battle of Borodino (wiki) on 7 September 1812, at which Napoleon's (wiki) Grande Armée grappled bitterly with massed Russian forces defending Moscow under Marshal Mikhail Kutusov (1745-1813)* during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. 

Kutusov suffered significant losses, and the French occupied Moscow a week later, but in a month, Napoleon's disastrous retreat toward the west had begun. As Tolstoy noted in War and Peace,

"The cudgel of the people's war was lifted with all its menacing and majestic might, and caring nothing for good taste and procedure, with dull-witted simplicity but sound judgment, it rose and fell, making no distinctions."

Napoleon's own judgment has become more famous:

"Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas."

(From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.)

Here's the rousing cannon-punctuated finale of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture:

Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was commissioned to write that staple of summer pops concerts, the 1812 Overture (actually Ouverture Solennelle 1812, Op. 49), for an exhibition of arts and industries at Moscow in 1881. It was intended to commemorate the battle of Borodino and Napoleon's ultimate defeat.**

* N.B. Earlier, at the battle of Smolensk, Kutusov had noted, "The battle has already been decided. It is like a river that runs downhill. I can only move it slightly to the right or left. But its outcome will not be changed by me."

** During the Soviet era, Russian performances of the 1812 Overture substituted an anonymous chorale-like tune for "God Preserve the Czar," the "Russian hymn" quoted by Tchaikovsky in the original.

A brief documentary:

Related post: the anniversary of the 1815 Battle of Waterloo: history, quotes and video (including a Lego re-enactment)

Parts of the text above are based on the late, great Ed Whitman's Quotation of the Day. Ed was my partner and love for 25 years, and the author of Hunters and Killers: Volume 1: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1776 to 1943 and Hunters and Killers: Volume 2: Anti-Submarine Warfare from 1943.

August 24: the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and destruction of Pompeii in A.D. 79

Plaster casts of people who died (buried by ashfall) in

Pompeii during the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius

He [Pliny the Elder] was at Misenum* in his capacity as commander of the fleet on the 24th of August, when between two or three in the afternoon my mother drew his attention to a cloud of unusual size and appearance. He had had a sunbath, then a cold bath, and was reclining after dinner with his books. He called for his shoes and climbed up to where he could get the best view of the phenomenon. The cloud was rising from a mountain - at such a distance we couldn't tell which - but afterwards learned that it was Vesuvius. I can best describe its shape by likening it to a pine tree. 

Vesuvius viewed from the ruins of Pompeii

It rose into the sky on a very long "trunk" from which spread some "branches." I imagine it had been raised by a sudden blast, which then weakened, leaving the cloud unsupported so that its own weight caused it to spread sideways. Some of the cloud was white, in other parts there were dark patches of dirt and ash. The sight of it made the scientist in my uncle determined to see it from closer at hand.

~ Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (Pliny the Younger (wiki)) (letter to Tacitus, ca A.D. 95, describing the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the death of Pliny the Elder (wiki)) 

Natura vero nihil hominibus brevitate vitae preaestitit melius.

~ Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder) (Historia naturalis, VII, 50, 168)  

(Nature has granted man no better gift than the shortness of life.)

Today is the anniversary of the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 and the death of Pliny the Elder (born A.D. 23) in that event. The eruption, which followed several years of precursor ground movements, buried the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and is thought to have killed as many as 15,000 people. 

A view of Naples at the height of the eruption of Mount 

Vesuvius in 1944. Photo by Melvin C. Shaffer

Subsequent major eruptions occurred in 1631, 1906, and 1944, the last just after the Allies had taken the city of Naples in World War II. Pliny the Elder is remembered primarily for his "Natural History," a comprehensive compendium of ancient knowledge of the natural world. His scientific curiosity led him to take ship across the Bay of Naples to see the Vesuvius eruption at close quarters, and he was killed there by ash and poisonous fumes from the volcano. The account of his nephew and adopted son, Pliny the Younger (A.D. 61-ca. 114), is the only eyewitness description we have of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and it goes on to provide further detail about on-site conditions near the disaster and his own experiences farther afield. 

* N.B. Misenum (near modern-day Bacoli) was on the opposite shore of the Bay of Naples from Mount Vesuvius. During ancient times, it was Rome's principal naval base on the west coast of Italy. 

Here's a brief re-enactment:

And a newsreel about the eruption in 1944:

Recommended reading:

I first read Pliny the Younger's account of  the eruption in the excellent Eyewitness to History, a book that I've also given to several kids and grandkids. 

The thoroughly engaging novel Pompeii by Robert Harris is the story of a Roman engineer trying to repair an aqueduct in the lead-up to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Full of interesting technical and historical detail.