So here we go again. The kids are in the house and want to prove they can cook. Joe, Graham and Gordon have to be on their best behavior in dealing with these junior cheftestants. Last year the ratings were good but this year it is up against NCIS on CBS. Will Masterchef Junior put a serious fork in NCIS and dominate? We will have to all watch and find out.
Masterchef Junior Season 2(US) premiers tonight on FOX 8:00 p.m. (7 p.m. central time).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PseG4O9uZf4
All Souls’ Day is to commemorate the faithful dead and is celebrated by special mass by Catholics and other Christian denominations. Some Christian churches celebrate it on a different day. It is not to be confused with Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) which does remember friends and family who have died but is not a Catholic or Christian religious event(though it takes place from 31 Oct through 2 Nov which coincides with Halloween, All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day).
All Saints’ Day(Solemnity of All Saints,All Hallows, Hallowmas or All Saints)is celebrated on 1 November by most Western Christians and is to honor all saints known and unknown. In some Catholic countries, it is a holiday. It is a holy day of obligation for most Catholics except when it falls on a Saturday or Monday. In that case it is celebrated on Sunday. Eastern Orthodox is celebrated on the first Sunday after Pentecost and is called All Saints’ Sunday.
Halloween is tomorrow so this is the last countdown. To wrap up our countdown are our old friends in the Muppet Labs. This time Dr. Bunson Honeydew has come up with a way to solve all your pumpkin carving problems. Carving a pumpkin is a chore having to cut it open, empty out the insides, and carve a suitable face on it (tip carve a hole on the bottom so your pumpkin goes right over the candle or light). Many opt for the ease of premade or fake pumpkins. But not any more! Dr. Honeydew has solved it all. And now for the demonstration.
Susan Q. Stranahan writing for Smithsonian Online gives an excellent account of the tragic events of the SS Eastland, which rolled over while docked in the Chicago River in 1915. The death toll was appalling and most of those who died were under 25. It was a sensational story in the papers yet it faded. The Titanic, which sank in 1912 is still remembered today while Eastland is just barely remembered. So what happened?
Titanic became a symbol for the age she was built in, part Gilded Age, industrial, and the last embers of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. The ship became iconic and achieved immortality, something rare in historical memory. James Cameron’s movie cemented that in recent years. And the high money fetched in authentic Titanic memorabilia shows how strong that memory still is. Mention things like the Children’s Blizzard (1888), the General Slocum disaster(1904) or the 1918 flu pandemic and you get stares. Mention things like the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 and that still has historical memory especially for people in Northern California that still live in its shadow.
One argument for the loss of Eastland memory is that there was no one rich or famous aboard. Possible but I do not think that is why it is forgotten. It is forgotten perhaps because the tragedy never reached a certain level that ingrained itself like some disasters do. Why is it that an old Great Lakes freighter is remembered while other ships that sank in those cold waters not? A song by Gordon Lightfoot called Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. While some knew about the tragedy in the news, it was this song that put it into a national consciousness. Titanic had books, songs, plays and movies. The Eastland has a few books, historical societies, newspaper records, and testimony at hearings. Yet it got no national memory because while tragic it simply did not stick into the historical memory. We may never know exactly why. And that is what historians and historical societies are for, to make sure such things do not pass into the realm of forgotten.
And even if there was someone famous or rich on Eastland that day, that is no guarantee it would be remembered beyond a certain radius. Historical memory can be shocking in its forgetfulness. All we can do is try to shine a light on what happened so that people do not forget what has happened before.
Source: The Eastland Disaster Killed More Passengers Than The Titanic And The Lusitania. Why Has It Been Forgotten? (27 Oct 2014,Smithsonian.com)
Monster Mash by Bobby “Boris” Pickett was a 1962 novelty song that was #1 on the Hot 100 chart from October 20-27. It became a popular Halloween tune ever since. For Pickett, it would be his one and only big hit. There are many variations out there but the original still is pretty darn good. First up is his performance from American Bandstand on October 13, 1964. And that very young guy introducing him is Dick Clark and not Jim Carrey!
Now a more modern version done by Mannheim Steamroller in 2006 from their Halloween music collection.
And finally poor Mickey Mouse visits a house where a monster mash is taking place. The footage comes from a 1934 Disney animation Mickey’s Gala Premiere.
Bela Lugosi had played Dracula on stage prior to his casting in Tod Browning’s 1931 movie Dracula. Standing at 6 foot 1, he had a commanding presence and the fact he was Romanian (where Transylvania is located)added to his mystique. He was able to show Dracula as alluring on one hand, dangerous on the other. And many consider his performance still to be one of the best though the movie itself gets panned by many horror movie enthusiasts. For Lugosi it was both a blessing and a curse. He would forever be associated with the role that brought him such fame but kept him stuck in horror movies. He found it very difficult to get roles outside of the genre. He was cast by Universal in a few movies as a good character: The Black Cat (1934),The Invisible Ray(1936), and the movie serial The Return of Chandu(1934). However it did little to overcome the shadow of Dracula. His addiction to methadone also affected him getting jobs and by the 1950’s was almost broke. Ed Wood planned to cast him in several features but only appears in Plan 9 From Outer Space(1959) arguably one of the worst movies of all time. And his scenes were done for another Wood movie and Lugosi had died by the time this movie was released in 1959. Lugosi passed away in 1956 from a heart attack and was buried in a Dracula cape (his fifth wife and son made that decision).
And now here is Bela Lugosi greeting his guest in the opening scenes of Dracula. Francis Ford Coppola borrowed from this opening in his movie treatment of the same character.
According to Daily Mail, the records of Titanic captain Edward J. Smith and members of his crew are among records now available online at http://www.ancestry.co.uk/. This is not a free site although you can get a free 14 day trial and then a monthly fee will apply (see terms and conditions for either the US or UK sites for details). However you can go to Encyclopedia Titanica and find a great deal of information without having to pay a monthly fee.
Source: Records Of Doomed Titanic Captain And His Crew Among Details Of More Than A Million Seamen Now Published Online(23 October 2014,Daily Mail)
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One of my favorite stories is Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow. There have been many film and tv adaptations over the years. One of my favorites is Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow with Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci. While it deviates from the original book it does so in a way that does justice to the source material. And I think Headless looks even more scary in this treatment than on the Fox tv show. There was nothing really nice about him in life, who happily lopped off heads until his own was finally taken from him. He was brought back from the dead to wreck vengeance on Van Tassel and his family.
The tv version has twisted the theme into a war between good and evil with Headless being a horseman of the apocalypse. Entertaining but going this route may end up driving people batty over the confusing mythologies being employed and intertwining with Book of Revelations. At any rate here is the official trailer for this movie. I am not sure the official rating but no actual violence is shown (you are not going to see heads chopped off in the trailer)but plenty of action. A good movie to watch on Halloween.
