Calendar: November 11

A Year: Day to Day Men: 11th of November

Natural State of the Wilderness

November 11, 1868 was the birthdate of French painter Jean-Édouard Vuillard.

Jean-Édouard Vuillard was born in Cuiseaux, France, where he spent his youth until his family in 1878 moved to Paris. At the age of sixteen, he received a scholarship to continue his education. Vuillard attended the Lycée Condorcet, one of the four oldest high schools in Paris and the most prestigious. There he met Ker Xavier Roussel, a fellow artist who became a friend, Maurice Denis, the musician Pierre Hermant, and the writer Pierre Verber.

Vuillard left the Lycée Condorcet in 1885, and on the advice of his closest friend Roussel, he refused military service; he then joined Roussel at the studio of painter Diogene Maillart to study painting. Vuillard studied also at both the Académie Julian and the L’École des Beaux-Arts in the period between 1886 and 1888.

In 1890, after meeting the avant-garde painters Pierre Bonnard and Paul Sérusier, Vuillard joined Les Nabis, a group of art students inspired by the synthetism of Henri Paul Gauguin. Vuillard contributed to the exhibitions of the group and shared a studio with Bonnard and Maurice Denis, whose later work was associated with the Symbolist movement.

After traveling around Europe and painting, Vuillard had his first exhibition at the Salon des Artistes Indépendants in 1901 and, two years later, had an exhibition at the first annual Salon d’Automne in Paris. This massive exhibition was a reaction against the conservative policies of the official Paris Salon and received wide support from artists such as Renoir, Matisse, and Auguste Rodin. After this Vuillard received many commissions for his paintings and graphics.

Jean-Édouard Vuillard painted his first decorative frescoes for the house of Mme Desmarais in 1892. He later fulfilled many other commissions of this kind, leading up to more prominent works; the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in 1913; the Palais de Chailot in Paris, which he executed with Pierre Bonnard in 1937; and in 1939 the Palais des Nations in Geneva, working with fellow artists Roussel, Denis, and Chastel.

On November 13, 2017, “Misia et Vallotton à Villeneuve” painted in 1899 became the most valuable Vuillard sold at auction when it achieved $17.75 million at Christie’s. It is now in a private collection.

Calendar: November 10

A Year: Day to Day Men: 10th of November

The Homestead Fire

November 10, 1889 was the birthdate of British actor Claude Rains.

William Claude Rains was a British film and stage actor known for his smooth, distinguished voice; polished, ironic style; and intelligent portrayal of a variety of roles, ranging from villains to sympathetic gentlemen. He began his acting career at the age of eleven working backstage jobs before making his adult stage debut. He enjoyed a successful stage career in London and taught at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts; two of his students were John Gielgud and Charles Laughton.

Claude Rains toured the United States in the 1926 play “The Constant Nymph” and made a name for himself on Broadway. He came relatively late in his career to film acting and, while working for the Theater Guild in New York City, was given a screen test for a role in the 1932 “A Bill of Divorcement” by RKO. Rains did not get that role but was cast in the title role, partly because of his voice, in James Whale’s 1933 “The Invisible Man”. Although Rains’s face is hidden behind bandages throughout most of the film, his ominous voice effectively reflects the heightening madness of the megalomaniacal scientist he portrays.

Claude Rains went on to play a variety of leading and supporting roles, including criminals, aristocrats, politicians, spies, learned professionals, and family men, all with equal charm and finesse. He displayed great chemistry with Bette Davis as her sympathetic psychiatrist in the 1942 “Now, Voyager” and as her patient, loving husband in the 1944 “Mr. Skeffington”, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Rains was also nominated for Oscars as best supporting actor for his work in three much-loved American film classics: as the corrupt senator in the 1939 “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” by Frank Capra; as the charming, opportunistic police chief in the 1942 “Casablanca”, one of his most famous roles; and as the likable, sensitive Nazi agent in love with costar Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1946 “Notorious”.

In 1951 Claude Rains won a Tony Award for his lead role in the play “Darkness at Noon”. He was nominated for four Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor in his career: “Mr Smith Goes to Washington”, “Casablanca”, “Mr. Skeffington”, and “Notorious”. He was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960.

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Claude Rains in Costume as Kees Popings”, 1952, “The Man Who Watched Trains Go By”, Vintage Photo, 20 x 25 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Insert Image: Arthur Edeson, “Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault”, 1942, “Casablanca”, Film Shot, Director Michael Curtiz

Calendar: November 9

A Year: Day to Day Men: 9th of November

An Autumn Afternoon

November 9, 1980 marks the passing of character actor Victor Sen Yung.

Victor Sen Yung , born Sen Yew Cheung, was born in San Francisco to parents who were both immigrants from China. After his mother died in the great flu epidemic of 1919, he and his younger sister were placed in a children’s shelter by their father, who returned to China seeking a new wife. Upon his father’s and his new wife’s return, the family again reunited as a household.

Sen Yung made his first significant acting debut in the 1938 “Charlie Chan in Honolulu”, as the detective’s ‘number two son”, Jimmy Chan. In this movie, Sidney Toler had his first role as Charlie Chan, replacing the recently deceased Warner Oland; Sen Yung replaced Oland’s ‘number one son’ Lee, who had been played by actor Keye Luke. Sen Yung played his Jimmy Chan role for ten “Charlie Chan” films from 1938 to 1942.

In 1940 Victor Sen Yung played the crucial role of the lawyer’s clerk Ong Chi Seng in the Bette Davis film “The Letter”, a film noir murder story. Like other Chinese-American actors, he was cast in Japanese roles during World War II, appearing as a traitor in the 1942 Humphrey Bogart film “Across the Pacific”. After enlisting in the Army Air Force, Sen Yung’s military service included training films and a role in the Army Air Force play and film “Winged Victory”.

After the war, Victor Sen Yung resumed his Hollywood career, appearing in the final two of Sidney Toler’s Charlie Chan films, “Shadows Over Chinatown” and “The Trap”. Following Toler’s death in 1947, Sen Yung continued in films but also appeared on television, most notably as Hop Sing, the cook on the long-running “Bonanza” western series, appearing in 102 episodes during its fourteen year run.

An accomplished and talented cook, Sen Yung frequently appeared on cooking programs and authored “The Great Wok Cookbook” in 1974.

Victor Sen Yung died under unusual circumstances at his North Hollywood home in 1980. A creative ceramic artist with a small business, he died of natural gas poisoning from a gas leak while creating clayware and curing the items in an oven. After an investigation, the authorities ultimately ruled the death an accident. A memorial scholarship is awarded each year at his alma mater, the University of California at Berkeley. Victor Sen Yung’s eulogy was given by fellow “Bonanza” actor Pernell Roberts, who also paid the funeral expenses.

Calendar: November 8

A Year: Day to Day Men: 8th of November

The Diamond Seal of Approval

November 8, 1847 was the birthdate of Irish author Bram Stoker.

Born in Clontarf, County Dublin, Ireland, Bram Stoker was an invalid in early childhood; he could not stand or walk until he was seven. Stoker outgrew his weakness to become an outstanding athlete and soccer player at Trinity College in Dublin, where he earned a degree in mathematics. He was employed for ten years in the civil service at Dublin Castle, during which he was also an unpaid drama critic for the Dublin Evening Mail.

Stoker made the acquaintance of his idol, the actor Sir Henry Irving, in 1878 and, until Irving’s death twenty-seven years later, Stoker acted as his manager, accompanying him on his American tours. Bram Stoker also managed the business of the Lyceum Theater which Irving owned.

While acting as Irving’s manager, Bram Stoker was writing his first book. His “The Duties of Clerks of Petty Sessions in Ireland”, a handbook in legal administration, was published in 1879. Turning to fiction late in life, Stoker published his first novel, “The Snake’s Pass”, a romantic thriller with a bleak western Ireland setting, in 1890.

Stoker was a deeply private man with an intense adorations of Henry Irving, Walt Whitman and Hall Caine, and shared interests with Oscar Wilde, leading to scholarly speculation that he was a repressed gay man who used his fiction as a possible outlet for his frustrations. Possibly fearful, and inspired by the monstrous image and threat of otherness that the press coverage of his friend Oscar’s trials generated, Stoker began writing “Dracula” only weeks after Wilde’s conviction.

His masterpiece, “Dracula”, appeared in 1897. The novel is written chiefly in the form of diaries and journals kept by the principal characters: Jonathan Harker, who made the first contact with the vampire Count Dracula; Wilhelmina Murray, Jonathan’s eventual wife; Dr. John “Jack” Seward, a psychiatrist and sanatorium administrator; and Lucy Westenra, Mina’s friend and a victim of Dracula who herself becomes a vampire.

The story is that of a Transylvanian vampire who, using supernatural powers, makes his way to England and victimizes innocent people there to gain the blood on which he survives. Led by Dr. Abraham Van Helsing, Seward’s mentor and an expert on “obscure diseases”, Harker and his friends are at last able to overpower and destroy Dracula. The immensely popular novel enjoyed equal success in several versions as a play and later as a film.

Calendar: November 7

A Year: Day to Day Men: 7th of November

Fervor Doubled

On November 7, 1492, the Ensisheim Meteorite strikes a wheat field in Alsace, France.

Shortly before noon on November 7, 1492, a meteorite fell in a field just outside the walled city of Ensisheim in Alsace, France. The fall of the meteorite through the Earth’s atmosphere was observed as a fireball at a distance of up to 150 kilometres from where it eventually landed. The only witness was a young boy who saw the single stone punch itself a meter deep into what is now the rich soil of the eastern French countryside. It is the oldest meteorite impact with a confirmed date on record, and has become famous for its dramatic fall from the heavens, recorded for posterity by the Italian priest Sigismondo Tizio.

In an age when comets, shooting stars, and other celestial phenomenon remained unexplained, the appearance of the meteorite was quickly attributed to divine intervention. When the citizens of Ensisheim learned of the fall, many people wanted their own souvenir of the event in the form a fragment chipped from the main mass. As the crowds descended on the stone, the Chief Magistrate took charge and stopped further destruction. The stone was set at the door of the Ensisheim church where its fame was soon magnified.

On November 26th, the “King of the Romans” King Maximilian arrived in Ensisheim to consult privately with the stone. Several days later, Maximilian declared the meteorite to be a wonder of God, and then chipped off two small pieces of the stone, one for himself and one for his friend Archduke Sigismund of Austria. King Maximilian gave the stone back to the citizens of Ensisheim stating that it should be preserved in the parish church as evidence of God’s miracles. The meteorite was fixed to the church wall with iron crampons “to prevent it from wandering at night or departing in the same violent manner it had arrived” .

Today, the Ensisheim meteorite resides on display at the sixteenth-century Musée de la Régence in Ensisheim. It is now protected in the town; but over centuries, visitors managed to chip off about 56 kg (123 pounds) of its original 127-kg mass. The Ensisheim meteorite is classified as an ordinary chondrite, the most abundant meteorite class, constituting more than 85 percent of meteorite falls.

Sebastian Brant, satirist and author of “Das Narrenschiff”, described the meteorite and its fall in the poem “Loose Leaves Concerning the Fall of the Meteorite”. Brant created broadsheets in Latin and German with a poem about the meteorite describing it as an omen. On the reverse side of Albrecht Dürer’s 1495 painting “Saint Jerome in the Wilderness” is an image of what appears to be a meteor/meteorite. It has been suggested that this might be the Ensisheim Meteorite.

Calendar: November 6

A Year: Day to Day Men: 6th of November

The Edge of the World

November 6, 1914 was the birthdate of character actor Jonathan Harris.

Born in the Bronx section of New York City, Jonathan Harris was the son of a Russian-Jewish family. He attended Fordham University, New York, to study medicine, earning a degree in 1936. Harris transformed himself into the American idea of an Englishman by replacing his Bronx accent with the lightly modulated vocal tone he heard on British films.

After joining the Millpond Playhouse repertory company, on Long Island in 1939, Harris appeared in more than 100 regional theaters, before his debut on Broadway in 1942. He appeared in the 1946 play “A Flag is Born” opposite Quentin Reynolds and Marlon Brando. His first television work came in 1949 with The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre’s “His Name Is Jason”, followed by roles in many other series: “Bonanza”, “The Twilight Zone”, “Zorro” and others.

Jonathan Harris was in a co-star role opposite Michael Rennie, who played Harry Lime, in the television series “The Third Man”, playing sidekick Bradford Webster for seventy-two episodes. From 1963-1965, Harris co-starred in the sitcom “The Bill Dana Show”. He played Mister Phillips, the pompous manager of a posh hotel who is constantly at odds with Bill Dana’s character José Jiménez.

Jonathan Harris was cast over two other actors for the role of Dr. Zachary Smith, the evil and conniving double agent on “Lost in Space”. The series was already in production when Harris joined the cast, and the starring/co-starring billing had already been contractually assigned. Harris successfully negotiated to receive “Special Guest Star” billing on every episode.

The series was successful upon its debut, and midway through the first season, Harris began to rewrite his own dialogue. Due to Harris’s popularity on the show, creator and producer Irwin Allen approved his changes and gave him carte blanche as a writer. Harris subsequently stole the show, mainly via a seemingly never-ended series of alliterative insults directed toward The Robot, which soon worked their way into popular culture.

Jonathan Harris spent much of his later career as a voice actor, heard in television commercials as well as cartoons such as “Darkwing Duck”, “A Bug’s Life”, the series “Buzz Lightyear of Star Command”, and “Toy Story 2”. In 2001, a year prior to his death, he recorded voice work for the animated theatrical short “The Bolt Who Screwed Christmas”. This film, Harris’s last work, was released posthumously in 2009.

Calendar: November 5

A Year: Day to Day Men: 5th of November

The Spiral Staircase

November 5, 1876 was the birthdate of sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon.

Raymond Duchamp-Villon was born on November 5, 1876, in Damville, near Rouen, France. From 1894 to 1898 he studied medicine at the University of Paris. When illness forced him to abandon his studies, Duchamp-Villon decided to make a career in sculpture. During the early years of the century he moved to Paris, where he exhibited for the first time at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1902.

Duchamp-Villon’s second show was held at the same Salon in 1903, the year he settled in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb west of Paris. In 1905 he had his first exhibition at the Salon d’Automne and a show at the Galerie Legrip in Rouen with his brother, the painter Jacques Villon; Duchamp-Villon moved with him to Puteaux two years later.

Duchamp Villon’s participation in the jury of the sculpture section of the Salon d’Automne began in 1907 and was instrumental in promoting the Cubists in the early 1910s. Around this time he and Jacques Villon, along with their other brother, Marcel Duchamp, attended weekly meetings of the Puteaux group of artists and critics. The Puteaux Group, also known as the Golden Section, was a collective of painters, sculptors, poets and critics associated with Cubism and Orphism, an offshoot of Cubism that focused on pure color and abstraction.

In 1911 Raymond Duchamp-Villon exhibited at the Galerie de l’Art Contemporain in Paris; the following year his work was included in a show organized by the Duchamp brothers at the Salon de la Section d’Or at the Galerie de la Boétie. Duchamp-Villon’s work, along with the work of his two brothers, was exhibited at the Armory Show in New York in 1913 and the Galerie André Groult in Paris, the Galerie S. V. U. Mánes in Prague, and Der Sturm gallery in Berlin in 1914.

During World War One, Duchamp-Villon served in the army in a medical capacity, but was able to continue work on his major sculpture “The Horse”, a composite image of an animal and machine which he finished in 1914. Duchamp-Villon overturned conventional representation of form to suggest instead its inner forces, which he associated with the energy of the machine.

Raymond Duchamp-Villon contracted typhoid fever in late 1916 while stationed at Champagne; the disease ultimately resulted in his death on October 9, 1918, in the military hospital at Cannes.

Calendar: November 4

A Year: Day to Day Men: 4th of November

The Heat of the Sun

November 4,1896 was the birthdate of American character actor Ian Wolfe.

Born in Illinois, Ian Wolfe worked in theater productions until 1934 when he started his career as a character actor in film and later television. Central to Wolfe’s appeal was the fact that, until he reached actual old age, he always looked considerably older than he actually was. His career lasted until the last years in his life, encompassing almost four hundred roles in television and film, including many classics.

Ian Wolfe appeared in many well known films: Alfred Hitchcock’s “Saboteur” playing Robert in the film noir spy thriller; “Rebel Without a Cause” as Dr. Minton, the astronomy professor; the role of Maggs in the 1935 “Mutiny on the Bounty”; and George Lucas’s “THX 1138”, playing the prisoner PTO.

American at birth, Ian Wolfe, because of his experience in theater, had very precise diction which caused him to be often cast as an Englishman. He appeared in the 1943 film :Sherlock Holmes in Washington” , as an antique shop clerk. He also was in the final film of the Holmes series, the 1946 “Dressed to Kill” as the Commissioner of Scotland Yard. In Billy Wilder’s “Witness for the Prosecution”, Ian Wolfe played Carter, chief clerk to Sir Wilfrid, played by Charles Laughton.

Ian Wolfe guest-starred on many television series over the course of his career. The first season of “The Lone Ranger” had him playing a crooked small town doctor attempting to swindle a man. He appeared on the episode “The Case of the Midnight Howler” of the 1966 “Perry Mason” series. Star Trek fans will recognize him in two episodes of the original series: the 1968 “Bread and Circuses” as Septinus, and the 1969 “All Our Yesterdays” acting in the role of Mr. Atoz.

Wolfe’s last film role, at the age of 94, was as Munger in the 1990 released “Dick Tracy”, produced and directed by Warren Beatty. Ian Wolfe died a year later at the age of 95 of natural causes in January of 1992.

“Mostly, they know the face, but they don’t know the name. Some people are funny. Some are nice. They don’t try to take up your time. They say, “I see you a lot and I sure enjoy you” and they’re gone. It’s my voice, too, that people recognize. I had no idea that my voice is distinctive in any way. But people will say, “I knew you by your voice”. – Ian Wolfe

Calendar: November 3

A Year: Day to Day Men: 3rd of November

The Redness of the World

November 3, 1928 was the birthdate of Japanese manga artist and film producer Osamu Tezuka.

Osamu Tezuka was born in the Osaka Perfecture of Japan. Drawing from a early age, he continued his manga skills throughout his school years, creating his first adept amateur works. In 1945, Tezuka was accepted into Osaka University in the field of medicine. It was during tihis time that he began publishing his first professional works.

After the end of World War II, at the age of seventeen, Osamu Tezuka published his first work, “Diary of Ma-chan”, a collection of four-panel comic strips about a small pre-school boy. After a discussion with fellow manga artist Shichima Sakai, Tezuka completed a manga based loosely on the famous story “Treasure Island”. This manga, entitled “Shin Takarajima (New Treasure Island)”, was published and became an overnight success, starting the golden age of manga, similar to the craze in America for comic books at the time.

With the success of his manga Treasure Island, Tezuka traveled to Tokyo to seek a publisher. The publisher Shinseikaku agreed to purchase “The Strange Voyage of Dr. Tiger” and publisher Domei Shuppansha purchased “The Mysterious Dr. Koronko”. While he was still studying in medical school , Tezuka published his first masterpiece: a science-fiction trilogy called “Lost World”, “Metropolis”, and “Next World”.

In 1951, Tezuka graduated from the Osaka School of Medicine and published ”Ambassador Atom”, the first appearance of the Astro Boy character. The humanoid robot Atom with human emotions became extremely popular with young boys. In February of 1952, “Tetsuwan Atom” became a serial in the Weekly Shonen Magazine. The character Atom and his adventures became an instant phenomenon in Japan.

Tezuka entered the animation industry in Japan in 1961, founding Mushi Productions. He innovated the industry with the broadcast of the animated version of “Astro Boy” in 1963, the first Japanese animation to be dubbed into English for an American audience. Other series were later translated to animation, including “Jungle Emperor”, the first Japanese animated series produced in full color.

Osamu Tezuka is a descendent of Hattori Hanzō, a famous ninja and samurai who faithfully served the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu during the Sengoku period in Japan. Tokugawa Ieyasu was one of the three unifiers of Japan in the late 1500s.

Calendar: November 2

A Year: Day to Day Men: 2nd of November

He Says “Woof”

November 2, 1947 marks the first and only flight of the Hughes H-4 Hercules, known as the Spruce Goose.

In 1942, the U.S. War Department needed to transport war material and personnel to Britain. A requirement was issued for an aircraft that could cross the Atlantic with a large payload; however, because of wartime priorities, the aircraft could not be made from strategic materials such as aluminum. Henry J. Kaiser, a leading ship builder, teamed with aircraft designer Howard Hughes to create the largest aircraft ever built at that time.

The aircraft was designed to carry 150,000 pounds, 750 fully equipped troops, or two 30-ton M4 Sherman tanks. The final design was to be built mostly of wood to conserve metal, with its elevators and rudder covered with fabric. The construction of the first prototype, the HK-1, took sixteen months. Henry Kaiser, frustrated by the long delays and the restrictions on materials, decided to withdraw from the project.

Howard Hughes continued the program on his own, under a new contract limiting the production to one plane, now the H-4 Hercules. Work proceeded slowly and the H-4 was not completed until the war was over. The plane was built by the Hughes Aircraft Company using composite technology for the laminated wood construction. The finished plane was moved in three sections to Pier E in Long Beach, California, where a hanger was erected around it with a ramp to launch the H-4 into the harbor. In all, development cost for the plane was twenty-three million dollars, or more than ten times that in today dollars.

On November 2, 1947, with Howard Hughes at the controls, and a crew of seven, and fourteen invited guests, the Hercules picked up speed and lifted off. The Hercules remained airborne for 26 seconds at a height of seventy feet above the water and a speed of 135 miles per hour. At this altitude the aircraft still experienced ground effect. This brief flight proved that the now uneeded aircraft was flight worthy. The Hercules H-4 never flew again; its lifting capacity and ceiling height were never tested.

The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum has the Hughes H-1 Racer and a section of theH-4’s wing. The Aero Club of Southern California acquired the Hercules H-4 aircraft in 1980, displaying it in a very large geodesic dome in Long Beach, California. The club later arranged for the aircraft to be given to the Evergreen Aviation Museum in Oregon where it is currently on display. The 315,000 square foot aircraft hanger where the Hercules H-4 was built, located in the Playa Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles, is on the National Register of Historical Buildings.

Calendar: November 1

A Year: Day to Day Men: 1st of November

The Revelation From On High

November 1st was the opening day of two of William Shakespeare’s plays.

On November 1, 1604, William Shakespeare’s tragedy play “Othello”, believed to have been written in 1603, had its first presentation in the Banqueting House at Whitehall. The story revolves around Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army, and his jealous and traitorous ensign, Iago. It is believed to be based on the story “A Moorish Captain” by Giovanni Battista Giraldi, the Italian novelist and poet. However, the story also resembles an incident in the tale “The Three Apples” from the “Arabian Nights” collection.

Shakespeare, while following the story of Giraldi, departed from it in some details, such as adding minor characters. The major departure is the death of the heroine Desdemona. In his presentation, Shakespeare has Othello kill Desdemona by suffocation, toning down the violence. In Giraldi’s story, the “Moor” bludgeons his wife to death with a sand-filled stocking, described in gruesome detail. In Shakespeare’s play, Othello, commits suicide; and in Giraldi’s tale Othello is exiled and then pursued by Desdemona’s relatives who kill him.

Later performances of “Othello” occurred in April of 1610 at the Globe Theater and at Oxford in September of 1610. It also was performed at the Blackfriars Theater in London by the King’s Men, an acting company to which Shakespeare belonged for most of his career. “Othello” was one of twenty plays performed by the King’s Men during the winter of 1612, in celebration of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V, the Electorate of the Palatinate region of the Holy Roman Empire.

On November 1, 1611, Hallowmas night, Shakespeare’s romantic comedy “Tempest”, believed to have been written 1610-1611, was first presented by the King’s Men before King James I and the English royal court at Whitehall Palace. This play was also one of the twenty plays performed to celebrate Princess Elizabeth’s marriage. The next recorded performance was at the Blackfriars Theater in 1669; this is supported by the stage directions written within the play script.

The “Tempest” differs from Shakespeare’s other plays, being organized in a stricter Neo-classical style. Shakespeare in the “Tempest” observed the three rules of drama: the play’s plot should have one action that it follows, with minimal subplots; the action in the play’s plot should occur no longer than a day’s span; a play’s plot should exist in a single physical space with the stage representing that place. Shakespeare’s other plays’s plots took place in multiple separate locations and over the course of several days or years.

Calendar: October 31

A Year: Day to Day Men: 31st of October

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

October 31, 1896 was the birthdate of American actress and singer Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, growing up in extreme poverty. At the age of thirteen in 1909, she was already working as a chambermaid in a Philadelphia hotel. Later that year, Waters sang in public for the first time at a local Philadelphia night club. She started singing professionally in 1913, billing herself as “Sweet Mama Stringbean”, in Baltimore, Maryland, clubs. It was in Baltimore that she became the first woman to sing W.C Hardy’s classic “Saint Louis Blues”.

Ethel Waters professional career as a singer rose rapidly; so she decided to move to New York City. In 1925, she appeared at the Plantation Club in Harlem, where the response to her voice led to performances on Broadway. She appeared in the all-black revue “Africana”, and started dividing her time between the stage, nightclubs, and eventually movies. In 1930 Waters was on the Broadway stage again in the revival of the popular 1924 musical “Blackbirds”, followed by a starring role in the 1925 “Rhapsody in Black”.

In 1933 Waters appeared with Marilyn Miller, one of the most popular American musical comedy actress of the 1920s, in Irving Berlin’s musical “As Thousands Cheer”. This was Waters’s first departure from shows with all-black casts. Her rendition of “Heat Wave” in that show linked the song permanently to her. Considered one of the great blues singers, Ethel Waters also performed and recorded with such jazz greats as Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. Several composers wrote songs especially for her, and she was particularly identified with the songs “Dinah” and “Stormy Weather.”

Waters’s first straight dramatic role was in the 1939 production of DuBose and Dorothy Heyward’s “Mamba’s Daughters” which the Heywards wrote specifically for her. The show ran initially for 162 performances and again in 1940 for 17 more performances at the Broadway Theater. Later in 1940, Waters spent a season on Broadway in the hit musical “Cabin in the Sky”; she also appeared in the 1943 film version with lyrics by John Latouche.

Probably Waters’s greatest dramatic success was in the 1950 stage version of Carson McCullers’s “The Member of the Wedding”, a performance for which she won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. She also starred in the 1952 movie version with Julie Harris and Brandon De Wilde. Among Waters’s other films are the 1942 musical comedy “Cairo”; “Pinky”, a 1949 race-drama film; and the 1959 drama film“The Sound and the Fury”.

Calendar: October 30

A Year: Day to Day Men: 30th of October

Working on the Railroad

October 30, 1861 was the birthdate of French sculptor and painter Antoine Bourdelle.

Emile-Antoine Bourdelle was born in Montauban, France, the birthplace of Ingres, on October 30, 1861. His early interest in sculpture was inspired by his carpenter-cabinetmaker father. In fact, many of Bourdelle’s earliest sculptural projects were in wood. A bust of the painter Ingres, completed when Bourdelle was just 15, won him a scholarship to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the nearby city of Toulouse. While in Toulouse he studied under the sculptor Maurette and executed numerous portrait busts before leaving for Paris in 1884.

The first years in Paris brought Bourdelle some success. He won an honorable mention at the exhibition of the Salon des Artistes Francais of 1885 and a medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1889. Bourdelle enrolled in the studio of the established master Alexandre Falguière for a brief period before working first with Jules Dalou and, later, as a pupil and assistant to Auguste Rodin between the years 1893 and 1908.

Bourdelle’s study of the great ages of monumental sculpture led to his lifelong concern for the public function of sculpture and its relationship to an outdoor setting. In 1893 he began his studies for the “Monument to the Defenders of Montauban”, which commemorated the noble resistance of the people of Montauban in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. Considered his first masterpiece, the monument took eight years to finish.

Elevated on a high pedestal in a public square, the figures possess a severity and tautness combined with a powerful expressiveness that conveys the heroic struggle of a united people. Bourdelle’s first masterpiece was part of a general trend in the late 19th century that favored public monuments memorializing those who lost their lives for France and the newly established Third Republic.

The traditional bonds that linked sculpture with architecture also interested Bourdelle. In 1913 Bourdelle received another major commission to decorate the Champs Elysées theater with sculptural frieze panels depicting various aspects of the dramatic arts—Tragedy, Comedy, Dance, Music, and the Muses.

All the figures were couched in the style of Archaic Greek sculpture, but the static element of Greek sculpture was enlivened by Bourdelle’s fascination with the representation of movement and energy through the expressive use of line and straining bodies. In his panels entitled “The Muses”, Bourdelle’s striding figures seem to foreshadow some of the figures seen in the paintings from Picasso’s classical phase of the 1920s.

Calendar: October 29

A Year: Day to Day Men: 29th of October

The News of the Day

October 29, 1938 was the birthdate of director and animator Ralph Bakshi.

Ralph Bakshi, at the age of eighteen, was hired by the cartoon studio Terrytoons as a cel polisher, a position that involved removing dust and dirt from animation cels. After a few months, he was promoted to cel painter and began to practice animating. Aware of his desire to become an animator, he started to receive help and advice from established animators: Connie Rasinski, Manny Davis, Larry Silverman and others.

At the age of twenty-five, Ralph Bakshi was promoted to director. His first assignment was the series “Sad Cat”, a Terrytoon animation series of a scraggly cat and his friends. Unsatisfied with the traditional role of a Terrytoons director, Bakshi pitched to CBS a superhero parody called “The Mighty Heros”. The executives liked the idea and, after seeing the character designs, agreed to the show with Bakshi as its creative director. It appeared as a segment on the “Mighty Mouse Playhouse” and ran from 1966 through 1967.

Ralph Bakshi started in 1968 his own studio, Bakshi Productions, located in garment district of Manhattan. His studio paid higher salaries than other studios and expanded opportunities for female and minority animators. The studio began work on “Rocket Robin Hood” and took over the “Spider-Man” television series. In 1969, its division’ Ralph’s Spot, produced commercials and a series of educational shorts for Encyclopedia Britannica.

Uninterested in the animation the studio was making, Bakshi wanted to produce something personal. He soon developed “Heavy Traffic”, a tale of inner-city life. Impressed with the satire of Robert Crumb’s “Fritz the Cat”, Bakshi wanted to adapt Crumb’s artwork to animation. After several failed attempts to get Crumb to sign the contract, he acquired the film rights through Dana, Crumb’s wife who had power of attorney. After Warner Brothers backed out of the deal to finance the film, Jerry Gross, the owner of Cinemation Industries, agreed to fund its production and distribution through his grindhouse network.

Despite receiving finances from other sources, the budget was very tight. So pencil tests of the animations were excluded. Artist Ira Turek inked the outlines of scene photographs onto cels with a Rapidograph, giving the backgrounds a stylized realism virtually unprecedented in animation. When the production was finished at the now Los Angeles studio, the Motion Picture Association of America gave it an X rating, making it the first animation film to receive such a rating.

The MPAA refused to hear an appeal about changing the rating. Thirty American newspapers rejected display advertisements and refused to give it editorial publicity. The film “Fritz the Cat” opened on April 12, 1972, in Hollywood and Washington DC. It went on to become a worldwide hit, becoming the most successful independent animated film of all time.

Calendar: October 28

A Year: Day to Day Men: 28th of October, Solar Year 2018

The Wayfarer

October 28, 1726 was the publishing date of Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels”.

“Gulliver’s Travels” is a prose satire written by Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, who later became Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. The book, a satire on the human nature, is Swift’s best known full-length work, written in the style of a traveler’s tale.

In 1713, Jonathan Swift joined with writers, Gay, Pope, Arbuthnot and others, to form the Scriblerus Club, an organization of writers interested in using satire in the popular genres of literature. Swift was assigned to satirize the ‘travelers’ tales’ literary genre and to write the memoirs of the club. From Swift’s correspondence, it is known that he started writing Part One and Part Two of “Gulliver’s Travels” in 1720; Part Four was written in 1723 and Part Three was written in 1724. After making amendments to the existing writing, the book was completed by August, 1725.

“Gulliver’s Travels” was an obvious satire of the Whig party, the political faction that was in control of the government at that time. It is likely that Jonathan Swift had his manuscript recopied so that his handwriting could not be used as evidence against him if the authorities wished to prosecute. This had happened to him earlier when some of his Irish pamphlets criticizing the government were seized.

In March of 1726 Jonathan Swift traveled to London and delivered his manuscript secretly to publisher Benjamin Motte, who used five printing houses to speed the printing. Motte, recognizing a best seller but fearing prosecution, cut passages and altered the worst offending ones, such as court contests and the citizen rebellion in part three. The first edition was published anonymously and released in two volumes on October 28, 1726 at the price of eight shillings.

The Irish publisher George Faulkner printed a set of Jonathan Swift’s works, which included “Gulliver’s Travels”, in 1735. The new printing of the story was done by using the manuscript given to Benjamin Motte, but without Motte’s annotations and amendments. This printing is regarded as the ‘editio princeps’ of “Gulliver’s Travels”, the first printed edition that previously existed only in manuscript form which could be circulated only after being copied by hand. The only exception to this publication of the work was an added piece by Swift, complaining of the changes done by Motte.

The book was very popular upon release and was commonly discussed within social circles. Public reception widely varied, with the book receiving an initially enthusiastic reaction with readers praising its satire, and some reporting that the satire’s cleverness sounded like a realistic account of a man’s travels. As popularity increased, critics came to appreciate the deeper aspects of “Gulliver’s Travels”. It became known for its insightful take on morality, expanding its reputation beyond just humorous satire. It was, however, sharply criticized by the Whig party.