I apologize for not posting earlier, but this week has been treating me roughly the way Ernest Borgnine treated Frank Sinatra in the last third of From Here to Eternity. However, if I hustle, I can just hit Publish before midnight (Pacific), so join me in wishing a very happy birthday to our good friend Ivan Shreve, Jr., the Bard of Broadcast Ephemera, and author of the Must Read Daily blog Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.
To paraphrase Ivan, he’s seen more ancient TV shows, forgotten films, and Old Time Radio programs than you’ve had hot dinners (he’s also uttered more folksy Appalachian sayings than I’ve had kosher dills) and he writes about them with wit, insight, and pizazz. I mean, where else are you gonna get a thoughtful, yet impish, disquisition on the films of Zasu Pitts, or the jazzy John Cassavetes detective drama, Johnny Staccato? Plus two side dishes, and your choice of beer, wine, or sangria!
Naturally, a Date in History like this has been fraught with stuff:
1752 – Great Britain adopts the Gregorian calendar, nearly two centuries later than most of Western Europe, which they would’ve realized if they’d just had a calendar.
1859 – A solar super storm affects electrical telegraph service. A prairie lawyer named Abraham Lincoln is endowed with super powers, and goes on to win the 1860 Presidential Election.
1990 – Transnistria is unilaterally proclaimed a Soviet republic; the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev declares the decision null and void because Transnistria “sounds like one of those fake countries in spy movies,” and he “finds it irritating.”
Happy Birthday, Ivan!
Many happy returns to Ivan, who’s had a tough yr. but is still kicking!! Let’s hope this one is much better for him.
(And for everyone. Why not be magnanimous?)
Left by M. Bouffant on September 2nd, 2010