Monday OT: Sept 14 is Boston Marathon Day

Today is The Boston Marathon   

Boston to Marathon is 41190.507 stadia, or 4,735 mi On September 14, 1992, The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared the breakaway Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia to be illegal.  This is the Balkans here, and  a balkanized chunk thereof without much of a history of independent statehood.  Nonetheless, true to form it followed the rule that arbitrarily created and fused breakaway nouveau political entities refuse and meet with force if necessary any attempts by ethnic or political factions therein to form smaller breakaway nouveau political entities.  This pattern is also almost invariably supported by the larger international community, which is theoretically supportive of plebiscites but in reality has no fondness whatsoever for same.  That this generally causes no cognitive dissonance supports the theory that the whole idea and process of the formation and dissolution of nation states does not involve cognition

Born this day in:

1713 – Johann Kies, astronomer and mathematician 1769 – Alexander von Humboldt, geographer and explorer 1804 – John Gould, ornithologist and illustrator 1816 – Mary Hall Barrett Adams, book editor and letter writer 1843 – Lola Rodríguez de Tió, poet, abolitionist, and women's rights activist 1857 – Julia Platt, embryologist and politician 1860 – Hamlin Garland, novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer 1867 – Charles Dana Gibson, illustrator 1868 – Théodore Botrel, singer, songwriter, poet, and playwright 1879 – Margaret Sanger, nurse and activist 1883 – Richard Gerstl, painter and illustrator 1909 – Peter Scott, ornithologist, painter, and sailor ( 1915 – John Dobson, astronomer and author, designed the Dobsonian telescope  1916 – Eric Bentley, singer, playwright, and critic 1918 – Cachao López, bassist and composer 1920 – Alberto Calderón,  mathematician and academic 1928 – Jay Cameron, reed player and saxophonist 1934 – Sarah Kofman, philosopher and academic 1934 – Kate Millett, author and activist 1934 – Don Walser, singer, songwriter and, guitarist 1936 – Ferid Murad, physician and pharmacologist 1936 – Lucas Samaras, painter and photographer 1937 – Renzo Piano, architect and engineer 1941 – Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, civil rights activist 1941 – Alberto Naranjo, drummer, composer, and bandleader 1941 – Alex St. Clair, guitarist and songwriter 1942 – Oliver Lake, saxophonist, flute player, and composer 1942 – Roger Lyons, trade union leader 1943 – Irwin Goodman, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1943 – Marcos Valle, singer, songwriter, pianist, and producer 1947 – Jon Bauman, singer 1948 – Marc Reisner, environmentalist and author 1949 – Steve Gaines, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1949 – Ed King, guitarist and songwriter 1949 – Tommy Seebach, singer, songwriter, pianist, and producer 1949 – Fred "Sonic" Smith, guitarist and songwriter 1949 – Eikichi Yazawa, singer, songwriter 1950 – Paul Kossoff, guitarist, and songwriter 1950 – John Steptoe, author and illustrator 1954 – Barry Cowsill, singer, songwriter, keyboard player, and producer 1955 – William Jackson, harp player and composer 1958 – Arlindo Cruz, singer and songwriter 1958 – Beth Nielsen Chapman, singer and songwriter 1959 – John Berry, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1967 – John Power, singer, songwriter, and guitarist 1970 – Craig Montoya, singer, songwriter, and bass player 1970 – Mark Webber, guitarist 1971 – Jeff Loomis, guitarist and songwriter 1971 – Andre Matos, singer, songwriter, and pianist

Died this day in:

There have been daring people in the world who claimed that Cooper could write English, but they are all dead now -- all dead but Lounsbury. I don't remember that Lounsbury makes the claim in so many words, still he makes it, for he says that "Deerslayer" is a "pure work of art." Pure, in that connection, means faultless -- faultless in all details -- and language is a detail. If Mr. Lounsbury had only compared Cooper's English with the English he writes himself -- but it is plain that he didn't; and so it is likely that he imagines until this day that Cooper's is as clean and compact as his own. Now I feel sure, deep down in my heart, that Cooper wrote about the poorest English that exists in our language, and that the English of "Deerslayer" is the very worst that even Cooper ever wrote. I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that "Deerslayer" is not a work of art in any sense; it does seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it seems to me that "Deerslayer" is just simply a literary delirium tremens. A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are -- oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language. Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.

Mark Twain on James Fenimore Cooper,  from Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses by Mark Twain, a true joy to read, which may be found here: https://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/rissetto/offense.html  as well as a great follow-up essay here: http://strangebeautiful.com/other-texts/twain-coopers-prose-style.pdf 

Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such: Boston Marathon Day Eat a Hoagie Day Gobstopper Day National Cream-Filled Donut Day

Music goes here, iirc, well, With apologies ;-)