Author Archives: dcaligari

Tonight is the start of Hanukkah This year, my first Hanukkah gift to you is to remind you that there is no pressure to buy Hanukkah Seals.

Snapdragons is apparently the best game ever to play on Christmas Eve. Make sure you have the fire department on speed dial though. Very popular from the 16th to the 19th centuries, Snapdragons (or Flapdragons) has explicably declined in popularity. Gather everyone around the dining room table, place a large flat dish in the centre.Continue reading “Spectacularly uselessly Christmas trivia –”

Unless you are tight with the Thursday afternoon St. John’s Rosary Altar Society, as I am – you may not know this;) today is the third Sunday of Advent. It is known as Gaudete Sunday. One of the candles in the Advent wreath is rose colored for Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is Latin for Rejoice, asContinue reading “In case you were wondering”

December 14, 1984 –The David Lynch version of Frank Herbert’s Science Fiction classic, thought to be unfilmable; Dune, starring Kyle MacLachlan, Jose Ferrer, Francesca Annis and Sting, premiered on this date. David Lynch has said he considers this film the only real failure of his career. To this day, he refuses to talk about theContinue reading “Fear is the mind-killer”

December 14, 1969 –Michael Jackson and the rest of The Jackson 5 made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on this date. The Jackson Five performed Sly and the Family Stone’s Stand, Smokey Robinson’s Who’s Loving You, and their first hit single I Want You Back.

Christmas trees are known to have been popular in Germany as far back as the sixteenth century. In England, they became popular after Queen Victoria’s husband Albert, who came from Germany, made a tree part of the celebrations at Windsor Castle. In the United States, the earliest known mention of a Christmas tree is inContinue reading “More useless Christmas trivia”

The ‘supposed‘ charity event – the 15th annual Santa-con in NYC today. (It may be the 17th one, but who cares, I don’t.) The amateur drinkers (in various states of holiday undress) are once again back in Manhattan this year: they will be in Midtown and Lower Manhattan, stating at 10 AM. I can takeContinue reading “Just stay indoors today – it better for your blood pressure”

December 13, 2003 –Shake it like a polaroid! Outkast’s single Hey Ya! hit #1 on the Billboard charts on this date. Andre 3000 wrote the first version of the song around 1999, and it almost made it onto their 2000 album Stankonia. At the time the song was called Thank God For Mom And Dad.Continue reading “Do kids even know why you had to shake it?”

December 13, 1975 –Richard Pryor hosted NBC-TV’s Saturday Night Live on this date. Fearing Pryor would say things that were too offensive for television at the time, the show was placed on seven-second delay for the very first time As mentioned in the opening sketch, Pryor requested that Garrett Morris say “Live from New York,Continue reading “I can remember seeing this show when it first aired”

December 13, 1956 –The comeback film for Ingrid Bergman, Anastasia, co-starring Yul Brynner, Helen Hayes, and Akim Tamiroff opened in the US, on this date. This movie was based on the story of Anna Anderson, a woman who claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia. It was later discovered that, in fact, she was notContinue reading “Anastasia premiered”