Weekend Open Thread

Did you know …

… a famous composer wrote a song to humiliate a singer? Austrian composer Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791), for some reason, had an intense dislike for singer Adriana Ferrarese del Bene (1755-1804), a soprano in the opera. Knowing of del Bene’s tendency to drop her chin on low notes and throw back her head on high notes, Mozart composed a song with constant leaps from low to high notes – just so del Bene would bob her head like a chicken every time she sang it on stage. (I would think the song would be “When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin’ Along,” myself.)

… apple pie is not American? Heresy, I know. But hear me out. The first recorded instance of apples being used to make a pie comes from medieval England. Variations of the recipe were also noted by the Dutch, whose version came over to the New World and became … well … American as apple pie. (I suppose someone will say that hot dogs aren’t American, either, now.)

… the first food eaten by a human in space was pureed meat and chocolate sauce? Fittingly, the first meal in space took place on the first flight into space by a human, the mission of Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968) of the Soviet Union made one orbit of the Earth, and during that flight he consumed two portions of pureed meat in small toothpaste-like containers, along with a third tube of chocolate sauce for dessert. Additional trivia fact: The first American to eat something in space was John Glenn (1921-2016), aboard the first U.S. orbital flight, Friendship 7, on February 20, 1962. Glenn’s meal wasn’t much better than Gagarin’s, but it may have been tastier: applesauce and sugar tablets dissolved in water. Glenn was also issued, but did not eat, a tube of pureed beef and vegetables. (Well, I wouldn’t eat it either. Pureed beef and vegetables? Sounds like baby food to me.)

… you may know someone who is toplofty? No, they’re not ill; they’re just haughty, arrogant, or superior in attitude. (Or maybe they are ill, in some way, after all.)

… grave-robbing was a serious problem in 18th Century England? The need for cadavers in medical school was so great that some houses of learning sent out teams of people to dig up recently buried persons, so their bodies could be used in classrooms. To counteract this, some people were buried with coffins that contained trip-wire guns, which would kill – or at least frighten off – any would-be grave robbers. (I guess “donating your body to science” had a different meaning back then, eh?)

… alligators and crocodiles live together in the wild in only one place on Earth? That place is the Florida Everglades. (They don’t necessarily hang out with each other, though.)

… professional athletes have a really difficult time when taxes are due? Each athlete who plays in a state that levies income tax has to pay a portion of his or her salary in taxes to that state. For a Major League Baseball player, in either league, that could add up to twelve different states in which teams are located. (No wonder the highest paid staffer a ballplayer has is his tax accountant!)

Now … you know!

Speaking of Howard “Skip” Archer,
I found this obit.
Same age, same area of Pennsylvania, similar appearance.
If this is our Phony Vietnam POW CPT Skip,
he passed away exactly 2 months after the VG article.

https://www.royalcolemanfuneralhome.com/obituary/Howard-ArcherSr