Birthdays
Josh Hutcherson b. 1992 (The Hunger Games)
Hugh Jackman b. 1968 (X-Men, Van Helsing, Real Steel)
Dave Legeno b. 1963 (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Snow White and the Huntsman)
Hiroyki Sanada b. 1960 (The Wolverine)
Julie Bell b. 1958 (illustrator)
Michael Bofshever b. 1953 (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, True Blood)
Randy Stuart b.1924 died 20 July 1996 (The Incredible Shrinking Man)
Aleister Crowley b. 1875 died 1 December 1947 (Atlantis, the Lost Continent)
Nice mix today on the birthday list, mostly actors but also an illustrator and a writer. Jackman gets The Picture Slot as the biggest star on the list, but I'd like to note that when people whine about casting, I don't remember a huge fuss over casting the 6'2" (1m 88) Jackman as the Wolverine, who is supposed to be 5'6" (1m 68). That sort of casting switch is rarely noted. For example, the main character in Philip K. Dick's We Can Remember It For You Wholesale is described as short and ordinary, but in the two versions of Total Recall is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Colin Farrell.
In any case, many happy returns of the day to the living on our list.
Predictor: Albert Marshman Palmer, theatrical manager, asked for his view of the 20th Century on the occasion of the 1893 Columbian Exhibition held in Chicago.
Prediction: Hitherto we have had almost no distinctively American drama... [our] plays have been written and constructed in imitation of the best European examples... in the Twentieth Century, the American drama ought to rank with those of the golden days of drama of the Old World.
Reality: As someone born after World War II, it can be hard to imagine a time when the United States was viewed as a cultural backwater, but in the 19th Century it certainly was. Palmer died in 1905, so he didn't get to see the era when Broadway becomes just as important as the West End in London, possibly even bigger. For example, Jerome Kern gets his start in theater writing American versions of British music hall hits. Other great giants of American musical theater like Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Irving Berlin are slightly younger and they avoid having to be derivative of European work. Again, because he died in 1905 he didn't get to see movies become a serious rival to the stage, but without question the American movie industry is seen as the Big Leagues from 1920 on, and Europeans like Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, Vivien Leigh, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder and many more come to the United States to become stars around the world.
Looking one day ahead... INTO THE FUTURE!
Ray Bradbury rejoins us as our regular Sunday feature, giving another month and year where stuff is going to happen on Mars.
Join us then... IN THE FUTURE!
excellent facial hair, though. If not as metrosexual as your man-crush.
ReplyDeleteOne of the driving forces of the Columbian Exposition was to establish America as a player on the world stage in industry and art. That was one of the driving factors in the decision to follow the neo-classical motif, since America was too young to have an indigenous architecture.
Oh, the facial hair is going to grandiose indeed from our friends in 1893. The picture I chose of Jackman doesn't make it clear that Wolverine has facial hair in a 19th Century style, which makes sense given his origin story.
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