~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥~
October 2, 2014

Today’s Quote: My favourite poem is the one that starts ‘Thirty days hath September’ because it actually tells you something. ~ Groucho Marx

★~ National Poetry Day: 

‘Said Hamlet to Ophelia, I’ll draw a sketch of thee. What kind of pencil shall I use? 2B or not 2B?’ – Spike Milligan #nationalpoetryday

— Walton Library (@WaltonLibrary) October 2, 2014

You’re a poet! Today you must show it. This year’s theme is “Remember.”  Do you have a favorite poem? Or a favorite poet?

National poetry day 2014 quiz:  Can you name the poems these lines come from?

★~ Guardian Angel Day: 

Today is the feast day for our Guardian Angels.

A 2007 Harris poll found that 74% of U.S. adults believed in angels.

The word “angel,” in Greek is angelos, in Hebrew is malach, in Arabic is mala’ika– which all mean “messenger.”

Angels are incorporeal (bodiless) spiritual beings who act as intermediaries between God and humanity. Angels are defined by their function as message-bearers, although this function does not exhaust their activities. As spirits, they are believed to have been created by God to serve the supreme deity by fulfilling any and all tasks assigned to them. St. Thomas Aquinas maintained that each Angel is unique, a species unto itself. (Fellowship of Minds)

A favorite Guardian Angel Prayer.

Angel of God, My Guardian Dear
to whom God’s love commits me here.
Ever this day be at my side
to light and guard and rule and guide.

Click: Find out which ArchAngel was assigned to the day your were born!!

God bless my Guardian Angel. I have one of the best in the business.

★~ Fried Scallops:

Enjoy scallops in soup, prepared as sushi, or bread them, fry them, or sauté them in garlic and butter and pair them with a glass of white wine. Bon appetit!

Seared Scallops

★~ Today In History:

♥~ 1871 – 70-year-old Morman leader Brigham Young was arrested for polygamy. At the time, Young had more than 20 wives and 47 children. He was convicted, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction.

♥~ 1895-  Cartoonist Murat “Chic” Young created the long-running comic strip ”Blondie,” and Chick Young was the name of William “Bud” Abbott’s character in the monster movie parody “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.” Abbott was born October 2nd, 1895, exactly five years after the birth of another comedian whose career lasted from vaudeville to TV, Julius “Groucho” Marx.

♥~ 1971 – Rod Stewart started a five week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘Maggie May / Reason To Believe’, his first solo No.1. Stewarts album ‘Every Picture Tells A Story’ also started a four-week run on this day at No.1 on the UK and US chart.

♥ ~ 1950 –  “Good ol’ Charlie Brown…How I hate him!”  That was the punchline for the first “Peanuts” comic strip that appeared in newspapers on October 2nd, 1950.  Charles Schulz wrote and drew the adventures of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and friends until retiring just before his death 50 years later.The comic strip Peanuts, from the pen of cartoonist Charles Schulz, appeared in seven U.S. newspapers.

♥~ 2004 – A record 1,446-pound pumpkin was shown off in Ontario, Canada. (The record was broken the following year.)

★~Born Today:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/uAsV5-Hv-7U[/youtube]

♥~ 1869 – Mahatma (Mohandas) Gandhi political and spiritual leader: India; died Jan 30, 1948

♥~ 1890 – Julius Henry “Groucho” Marx was an American comedian and film and television star. He is known as a master of quick wit and widely considered one of the best comedians of the modern era.

♥~ 1896 – (William Alexander) Bud Abbott comedian, actor: Abbott of Abbott & Costello; Who’s on First?, The Abbott & Costello Show; died Apr 24, 1974

♥~ 1945 – Don McLean songwriter, singer: American Pie, Vincent, Castles in the Air

♥~1948 – Donna Karan (Faske) fashion designer: DKNY line of clothes

♥~ 1951 – Sting (Gordon Sumner) singer: group: The Police; solo: Set Them Free, Fortress Around Your Heart; songwriter: Every Breath You Take; actor: Dune

★~ Poetry Gallimaufry:

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882) In addition to writing some of our favorite Transcendental essays like “Self-Reliance” and “Nature,” Ralph Waldo Emerson holds a place in our minds as a great poet. His 1837 “Concord Hymn” (which commemorates the American Revolution) coined the oh-so-famous phrase “the shot heard round the world” – which has since been used to describe everything from sports events to assassinations to swine flu. (The Coughs Heard Round the World? Thank you, New York Times.)

What most people don’t know about Emerson is that he loved his first wife. A lot. Even though Ellen Tucker died just seventeen months into their marriage, Emerson always considered her his one and only love of his vida. Need convincing? This diary entry, dated almost two months after her death, says it all: “I visited Ellen’s tomb & opened the coffin.”

Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892) Of everyone in the American canon, Walt Whitman is probably as far from the image of the brooding poet as it gets. His exuberance spills out in lines like, “I sing the body electric,” “I am large, I contain multitudes,” and “I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world.”

Whitman was one of those lucky artists who was appreciated in his own time. Especially by himself.  Whitman wrote glowing reviews of Leaves of Grass when he first published it in 1855. In one review, he described himself as “a naïve, masculine, affectionate, contemplative, sensual, imperious person.”  Later, when his buddy Emerson wrote him a private letter of praise, Whitman reproduced it in the next edition of the book.

Robert Frost (1874 – 1963) Despite being from San Francisco, Robert Frost is best known as a New England poet who captured rural America through poems about cottages, bird nests, stone walls, snowy woods, and horse-drawn carriages.

Against these simple backdrops, Frost managed to convey complex social interactions – which probably has something to do with why he won four Pulitzer Prizes. Although most Americans know that Frost gave a poetry reading at John F. Kennedy’s presidential inauguration in 1961, many aren’t aware that the US government deployed Frost to Russia a year later to mediate with Nikita Khrushchev. Frost was so sick with fatigue and fever at the time that he couldn’t even make the drive to see Khrushchev, forcing the Soviet leader to come to him instead.

Maya Angelou (1928 –2014) If you think you can’t make an entire career writing one autobiography, think again: Angelou split hers across six volumes, the first and most famous of which made her an international icon.

Angelou then went on to make a name for herself as a poet – and won a Pulitzer Prize nomination for it in 1971. Feel inadequate yet? Angelou’s also a dancer, composer, playwright, actress, political counselor, and polyglot. And if that doesn’t satisfy your craving, you can also savor her gems of wisdom two sentences at a time: Angelou has her own line of greeting cards with Hallmark. Ninety percent of the writing is penned specifically for the cards, a task which Angelou found to be particularly “challenging and daring.” Coming from one of the greatest poets of all time, that’s saying something.

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It’s a cloudy day and storms are due to arrive soon. I need to batten down the hatch and get a move on. It’s been hard to wake up this morno. Maybe a bowl of Cheerios will help. Wishing everyone a terrific Thursday.

Odd Loves Company,