During my time at Crazy Go Nuts University, I was in a band that covered a couple of Pixies numbers (Tame, U-Mass, and we also covered their cover of The Beatles’ Wild Honey Pie), and have attended 4 concerts where the Pixies were either part of the line-up or the headlining act. I suppose this kind of “oof” was bound to happen sooner or later.
Wave of Mutilation came from the Pixies’ 1989 album, Doolittle:
In India, today is a national holiday in India that marks its independence from the United Kingdom. On August 15, 1947 — 74 years ago — the provisions of the Indian Independence Act came into effect, officially ending 300 years of British occupation.
On that same day, August 15, 1947, the Partition of India took place, dividing the former British India into two independent dominions of India, with a Hindu majority, and Pakistan, with its Muslim majority. Drawing new borders where none previously existed is a messy business, and this was no exception, as 15 million people were displaced, 1 million were killed, and communities that lived side by side for 1,000 years started killing each other in humankind’s oldest sport: “What team do you play for?”
Two years prior to India’s independence and partition — August 15, 1945 — was the day when Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial rule, which had been going on since 1910.
Today, in South Korea, it’s 광복절 (Gwangbokjeol), which literally translates as “The day the light returned”. It’s also a big day in North Korea, where it’s taken on the unsurprisingly dour name 조국해방의 날 (Chogukhaebangŭi nal), which means “Liberation of the Fatherland Day”.
50 years ago today, on August 15, 1971, then-president Richard Nixon announced a new economic policy, whose measures collectively became known as the Nixon Shock.
In a televised announcement that meant interrupting the popular TV show Bonanza, he effectively announced that the connection between the U.S. dollar and gold was to be broken. The way in which he made the announcement might seem kind of odd to the modern-day viewer; by today’s standards, his announcement looks like a dry reading recorded in a YouTuber conspiracy theorist’s basement and not the bombshell that it actually was:
The money line (pun intended) in his announcement was that the U.S. would — and I quote:
“…suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold.”
50 years is still not forever, so technically the “temporarily” qualifier still applies. Temporary or not, the effects of the disconnection between the dollar and gold — the creation of what cryptocurrency people like to refer to as fiat currency (currency that governments issue by fiat, and are not backed by a commodity, such as gold) — have had massive effects on the way the world works today.
I have only a vague notion of Bretton Woods, and international monetary policy, and most of what I know about modern monetary theory comes from the “sink metaphor”. To better my understanding, I’ve put some books on my reading list including this one:
If you’ve been watching the Food Network for some time, the name of the author, Jeffrey Garten, may seem familiar. The author photo may clinch it for you:
That’s right, he’s the Barefoot Contessa’s husband! When he’s not making cameo appearances on her show, he’s kept himself doing money-related things such as being Dean of the Yale School of Management, Undersecretary of Commerce during the Clinton administration and doing other government work during the Carter, Ford, and Nixon administrations, and managing director at Lehman Brothers and Blackstone Group.
According to the National Day Calendar, August 8th is Sneak some zucchini into your neighbor’s porch day.
The site tells you how to observe this very special day:
Sneak some zucchini into your neighbor’s porch. Don’t be surprised if your gift delights the recipient, either. Those who have none in their garden are usually excited to have some fresh zucchini, especially if they didn’t have to grow it themselves. To alert others, use #SneakSomeZucchiniIntoYourNeighborsPorchDay to post on social media.
I’m simultaneously hoping that “sneak some zucchini into your neighbor’s porch” is and isn’t some kind of euphemism.
Thanks to Renee Frigault for the find!
For me, 1999 was a year of entrepreneurship, hijinks, weird dating adventures, a last-minute marathon Toronto-to-Halifax drive for a New Year’s Eve rave, joining a band that improvised music over rock-climbing dance performances under one of Toronto’s tallest bridges, going to Burning Man, Python entrepreneurship, a trip to Prague, and a whole lot more, so I never saw The Mummy. Was it that good?
In case you’re not seeing it: Read the tag on the lower left of the sign.
During the summer between high school and university, I landed a job at a warehouse where I was often required to drive a small electric forklift.
Prior to getting my 15 minutes of “training” on the use of the forklift, my manager and I sat in the break room and watched the mandatory safety video.
It was the 1980s, which was the golden age of gore–horror worker’s compensation workplace injury ads and videos in Ontario, and the one we watched took things to a red-corn-starch-syrup-soaked new level.
There’s a scene that’s forever seared into my memory. It starts with the Merry Prankster’s golden prize: an unattended forklift with the keys still in the ignition. A carefree teen decides to take it for a joyride, does a couple of donuts in the warehouse, and quickly loses control.
He plows the forks, which have been raised to the “halfway up” position (which you don’t do when the ’lift isn’t carrying anything), into an oh-so-fake wall:
As if that isn’t bad enough, the lunchroom is on the other side of that wall, and so was someone who was just having lunch — he’s now just been forked from behind:
I remember going home that evening and thinking with great disbelief: “Grown adults commissioned, wrote, and made that video. And got paid for it.”
I’d forgotten about that video, and had even begun to think that I’d misremembered it — until this compilation started making the internet rounds. And yup, it features the “forked from behind” scene!
Once again, in case you missed it the first time:
But go ahead, Tom, you’ve earned it.