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Viva Riva!

2022-11-222013-10-26 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 27 October Creation of Zaire, 1971 On this day in 1971, Zaire was created, and continued in existence until 1997. Previously the country had been called the Congo Free State, the Belgian Congo, Congo-Léopoldville and Congo-Kinshasa. It would later become the Democratic Republic of the Congo (not to be confused with the Republic of the Congo, its neighbour). Whatever its name, it is the second largest country in Africa, with 250 ethnic groups speaking over 700 local languages, hence the importance of French as a lingua franca. The country’s name was changed from Republic of Congo-Léopoldville by Mobutu Sese Seko (born … Read more

Midnight in Paris

2023-10-302013-10-24 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 25 October Birth of Picasso, 1881 On this day in 1881, the Spanish artist Pablo Ruiz y Picasso was born. Prodigiously talented, Picasso was painting at a high level as a child, and continued experimenting with different media and styles – the rose period, the blue period, the African period, cubism, surrealism, and neo-expressionism and so on – right up until his death in 1973. Media included paint, sculpture, collage, cardboard, string, pencil, pen, photograph, torch (on film), chalk, oil, whatever was going. He’d draw on napkins to pay bills, draw on walls, any time, place or where. A key figure … Read more

On the Road

2023-10-302013-10-20 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 21 October Jack Kerouac dies, 1969 On this day in 1969, the writer born Jean-Louis Kérouac died, from internal bleeding brought on by long-term alcohol abuse. He was the child of French Canadians and his first language was French, though he picked up English later and was fluent in his teenage years. He won a football scholarship to Columbia University, New York, but dropped out. There, in New York, he met Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg and William S Burroughs, among others, the core of the Beat Generation writers, the latest iteration of 20th century romantics. Discharged from war service in the … Read more

A Night to Remember

2022-11-222013-10-19 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 20 October RMS Olympic launched, 1910 On this day in 1910, the White Star liner RMS Olympic was launched. The lead ship of the company’s Olympic class of liner, she was built at Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast and captained on her maiden voyage by Edward Smith. Smith was later captain of the Titanic, the Olympic’s sister ship, and her other sibling, Britannic. Titanic sank on her maiden voyage after hitting an iceberg and Britannic hit a mine while working as a hospital ship during the First World War and sank also, taking 1,500 down to their deaths. Unlike her … Read more

Pink Flamingos

2023-10-302013-10-18 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 19 October Divine born, 1945 On this day in 1945, Harris Glenn Milstead, aka Divine, was born, in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Six months older than fellow Baltimore native John Waters, he became involved with Waters’ acting troupe the Dreamlanders in the mid 1960s and starred in Waters’ first four films, Mondo Trasho (1969), Multiple Maniacs (1970), Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974). In fact it was Waters who gave Harris (or Glenn as he was known to family and school friends) the name Divine, after a character in Jean Genet’s debut novel, Our Lady of the Flowers. Waters was intent … Read more

Jaws

2023-10-302013-10-17 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 18 October Moby-Dick published, 1851 On this day in 1851, Herman Melville published what is considered to be one of the great American novels, about the elemental struggle between one Captain Ahab and the whale that once bit off his leg. The story is told from the viewpoint of Ishmael, and “Call me Ishmael”, its opening sentence, has become one of the most recognised opening lines in literature. The book is based on two actual events. One took place in 1820, when a sperm whale rammed and sank the Essex, a whaler that was in hot pursuit of it. The other … Read more

The Saddest Music in the World

2023-10-302013-10-16 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 17 October The London Beer Flood, 1814 On this day in 1814, a huge vat containing the equivalent of one million imperial pints of porter ruptured in central London, causing a tidal wave of beer to cascade down the road and through neighbouring houses. Eight people died, either by drowning or underneath the buildings brought down by the liquid. The brewery was owned by Henry Meux (pronounced myooks) and could be found just off the Tottenham Court Road, London, roughly where the Dominion Theatre is today, and its giant vat was one of a series constructed around that time, big vats … Read more

Tony Manero

2023-10-302013-10-15 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 16 October Former Chilean president Pinochet arrested, 1998 On this day in 1998, Augusto Pinochet, the former president of Chile, was arrested in London, having been indicted by a Spanish judge of crimes against the human rights of his countrymen. It was the first time that European judges had applied the principle of universal jurisdiction, which asserts that states or international organisations can lay claim to legal authority over somebody, regardless of where the crime took place. The most notable use of the principle to date was in the trial of Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials after the Second World War, many … Read more

The Turin Horse

2023-10-302013-10-14 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 15 October Friedrich Nietzsche born, 1844 On this day in 1844, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was born in Röcken, near Leipzig, Germany. A philologist initially, Nietzsche was a university professor at the age of 24, in Basel, where he counted Richard Wagner as one of his friends. Within ten years, because of a variety of illnesses, both mental and physical (one of which was possibly syphilis) Nietzsche resigned from Basel and took up life as an independent philosopher, choosing to spend his winters in warm southern European towns, such as Genoa, Nice and Turin. It was during this time that he … Read more

Road to Morocco

2023-10-302013-10-13 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 14 October Bing Crosby dies, 1977 On this day in 1977, Bing Crosby died. One of the most forward thinking entertainers of the 20th century, Crosby was one of the first singers to understand that the new system of electrical recording removed the need to sing as if shouting through a loudhailer. Along with stars such as Al Bowlly and Rudy Vallée, he perfected the crooning style, an up close and conversational way of singing, in Bing’s case most often caricatured as “buh buh buh boo”. He was also a pioneer multimedia artist, being hugely successful on record, on the radio … Read more