Quote of the day :
I’m really quite bad at coming up with plot ideas. I like to create characters and just see what will happen to them when I let them loose!
~ Author Judy Blume, born this day.
She is also quoted at saying,
When I’m writing a book, you can’t think about your audience. You’re going to be in big trouble if you think about it. You’re got to write from deep inside.
Picture of the day :
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind. Or at least below, blowing the seeds from a dandelion clock.
Youtube video of the day :
Interestingly I found more writers than well known musicians so far today, so it’s a choice between Michael McDonald and Steve Hackett, ex of Genesis. I’ve gone with ‘Spectral Mornings’
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s8_0wJUEC1k]
Born on this day…
Born today :
- Naturalist, Charles Darwin (b.1809)
- President, Abraham Lincoln (b.1809)
- Dalai Lama (13th), Thubten Gyatso (b.1876)
- Author, inventor and futurist, Ray Kurzweil
As well of being a world-renowned futurist with a number of accolade, the director of engineering at Google has several best selling science books, including The Singularity Is Near.
His personal website is interesting too: Kurzeil Accelerating Intelligence - Author and economist, Sir Howard John Davies
Currently Director of the London School of Economics - Children’s author, Judy Blume
- Author and poet, George Meredith (b.1828)
- Fantasy author, Terry Bisson
- Fantasy author, Juanita Coulson
- Actor, Lorne Greene
- Actor, Michael Ironside
- Actor, Josh Brolin
- Actor, Simon MacCorkindale
- Actor and tv host, Arsenio Hall
- Actor, Richard Lynch
- Actress, Christina Ricci
- Actress, Maud Adams
- Guitarist, singer and musician, Steve Hackett
(I particularly like his ‘Spectral Morning’ album) - Singer and musician, Michael McDonald
- Keyboard player, Ray Manzarek
Founder member of The Doors - Risqué music hall star, Marie Lloyd (b.1870)
- Documentary photographer, Eugene Atget (b.1857)
- Programmer, Phil Zimmermann
Creator of the security protocol Pretty Good Privacy - Baseball fielder, Dom DiMaggio
- Baseball catcher, Joe Garagiola, Sr.
- Basketball player, Bill Russell
Being 6’10” probably helped the Olympic gold winner too. - Film director, Franco Zeffirelli
His films include ‘The Taming of the Shrew’, ‘Otello’, ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ - Ballerina, Anna Pavlova (b.1881)
- Landscape painter, Thomas Moran (b.1837)
- Physicist, Julian Schwinger
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1965 with Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Richard Feynman ‘for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles’ - Five star General, Omar Nelson Bradley
Also on this day in history
Today is National Plum Pudding Day!
1541 : The city of Santiago, Chile was founded.
1733 : Savannah, Georgia in the United States was founded by English colonist James Oglethorp.
1831 : J W Goodrich of Boston invented the rubber galosh.
1870 : Utah Territory gave women the right to vote.
1878 : Frederick W. Thayer, the captain of the Harvard University Baseball Club, patented the baseball catcher’s mask.
1879 : The first artificial ice rink opened in North America, at Madison Square Garden.
1908 : Start of the New York to Paris race, via Seattle, Washington and Yokohama. It was won by the Thomas Motor Company of New York some 170 days later. It was the only American car in the race, the others being an Italian, a German and three French vehicles.
1915 : The cornerstone of the Lincoln Memorial was laid in Washington, DC.
1924 : George Gershwin premiered his ‘Rhapsody In Blue’ at Carnegie Hall, New York City.
1947 : Christian Dior unveiled a ‘New Look’, focusing the attention of the fashion world once more on Paris.
1957 : Chemist Robert Wentorf announced his creation of borazon (cubic born nitride), a material hard enough to scratch diamonds. It is used to manufacture high-precision steel and to sharpen high-speed steel tools.
1990 : Carmen Margaret Lawrence became the Western Australian Premier, the countries first female Premier.
1993 : The comedy film Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray, was released.
1994 : Celine Dion’s song, ‘The Power of Love’ was the number single in the U.S
1994 : A group of 100 people walked the 31 mile (50 km) Channel Tunnel for charity; first humans to walk from France to Britain since the last Ice Age
