Tag: Dr. Seuss

February 5, 1861: Every Peeping Tom, Dick and Harry

Posted on by Richard Daybell

A lady rode through the streets of London on horseback, naked (the lady not the horse), and didn’t get pinched (in the law and order sense, that is).  But more of that later.

In 1861, Samuel B. Goodale who hailed from Cincinnati received a patent for a clever hand-operated stereoscope device on which still pictures were attached like spokes to an axis which revolved, causing the pictures to come to life in motion — a mechanical peep show that folks viewed through a small hole for a penny a pop.  The usual subjects for peep shows were animals, landscapes,  and theatrical scenes, high-minded, proper subjects.  Nothing naughty or titillating.  How long could that last, you ask.  Not long of course. The peep show quickly came to stand for pictures and performances involving sex.

The term peep show itself comes from Peeping Tom, a sneaky British tailor who made a hole in the shutters of his shop so he might surreptitiously spy on Lady Godiva who felt the need to ride naked naked through the streets of the city.  He was struck blind for his effort.

Collier, John; Godiva; Herbert Art Gallery & Museum

What about this Lady Godiva?  Was she for real?  Yes kids, she was.  And the performance she is famous for took place back in the 11th century.  According to her press agent, Lady Godiva was not just your ordinary exhibitionist giving the folks of Coventry, particularly the Toms, Dicks and Harrys of Coventry, their daily eyeful.  She was a noblewoman, married to the “Grim” Earl of Mercia, a nasty fellow who burdened the folks under his sway with high taxes and poor service.  Lady Godiva pleaded frequently with her husband to give the poor some relief, to no avail.  He eventually agreed to lower the taxes if she would ride through town completely naked. The Lady called his bluff.  To keep her ride from becoming something of the magnitude of a Taylor Swift concert,  the townspeople were told to shutter themselves indoors with no peeping.  Which they did, except for you know who.  In a later interview, Blind Tom said it was worth it.

That Ain’t No Cat in the Hat

“It was all full of naked women, and I can’t draw convincing naked women.  I put their knees in the wrong places.”  What’s better than a Lady Godiva?  Two Lady Godivas.  Or how about seven?  The story of the seven Godiva sisters was penned by none other than Dr. Seuss, his fourth book and one written for adults or “obsolete children” as he called them.  The seven sisters never wear clothing, not even when they leave the seven Peeping brothers, and head off in the world to warn of the dangers of horses.

The 1939 book had a 10,000 print run with most of them remaining unsold, what Seuss called his greatest failure.  It is one of only two Dr. Seuss books allowed to go out of print.

But Please Lose That Sports Jacket

It has been endlessly debated when and with whom rock and roll actually began, but most enthusiasts have pretty much settled on a guy who cut an unlikely figure for a rock artist but who brought rock and roll into the public eye with a bang in 1955. The man was Bill Haley, along with his Comets, and the song was “Rock Around the Clock” introduced in the film Blackboard Jungle. During the next few years a string of hits including “Shake, Rattle and Roll” and “See Ya Later, Alligator” followed.

Time passes quickly and when you’re at the pinnacle of musical stardom, you’re on a slippery slope. Along comes a guy named Elvis and you’re yesterday’s sha-na-na. Who’s going to scream and carry on for a thin-haired, paunchy 30-year-old musician with a silly curl in the middle of his forehead and a garish plaid sports jacket?

The Brits, that’s who.

By 1957, Bill Haley and the Comets had already enjoyed their golden days of American super-stardom. But the battle of Britain lay ahead. When they stepped off the Queen Elizabeth in Southampton on February 5, they began the first ever tour by an American rock and roll act and launched what rock historians called the American Invasion.

When Haley and the band reached London later that same day, they were greeted by thousands in a melee the press called “the Second Battle of Waterloo.” These were the British war babies just becoming teenagers, and they were ready for American rock and roll.

SEPTEMBER 24, 1991: OH, THE THINGS YOU’LL WRITE

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Probably the foremost children’s book author of the 20th century died on September 24, 1991, at the age of 87. Dr. Seuss, Theodor Geisel, published 46 books for children including a new kind of first reader that sent Dick and Jane into well-deserved retirement.

Dr. Seuss was born in the early 1920s, when Geisel (born in 1904) was attending Dartmouth College. Among his pursuits there was work on the humor magazine Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, for which he rose to the rank of editor-in-chief. However, one dark day at Dartmouth, Geisel was caught drinking gin at a party in his room. This was frowned upon by the Dean, who insisted that he resign from all extracurricular activities, including the college humor magazine. To continue work on the Jack-O-Lantern surreptitiously, Geisel began signing his work with the pen name Dr. Theophrastus Seuss. (Other pseudonyms included Theo LeSieg and Rosetta Stone.

Geisel had a successful career in advertising (Flit, Standard Oil, U.S. Army) and as an editorial cartoonist denouncing fascists, racists, isolationists and Republicans.  But it was his children’s books that gave him lasting recognition. His first, published in 1937, was And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street. He followed with such celebrated books as The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, Horton Hatches the Egg, Horton Hears a Who!, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. In 1954, Geisel was challenged to write a book using only 250 words appropriate to beginning readers, “a book children can’t put down.” Nine months later, using 236 of the words given to him, Geisel completed The Cat in the Hat.

Geisel made a point of not beginning the writing of his stories with a moral in mind. “Kids can see a moral coming a mile off,” he said.

Numerous adaptations of his work have been created, including 11 television specials, four feature films, a Broadway musical and four television series.

♥

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”

“I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful one-hundred percent!”

“If you never did you should. These things are fun and fun is good.”

“They say I’m old-fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast!”

“I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them Sam-I-Am.”

“Writing simply means no dependent clauses, no dangling things, no flashbacks, and keeping the subject near the predicate. We throw in as many fresh words we can get away with. Simple, short sentences don’t always work. You have to do tricks with pacing, alternate long sentences with short, to keep it vital and alive…. Virtually every page is a cliffhanger–you’ve got to force them to turn it.”

Froggie went A-forecasting

On September 24, 1788, the Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser described a rather ingenious barometer devised by an unnamed Frenchman. The instructions: Equip a clear glass bottle with earth and water to a depth of about four fingers and a tiny ladder that reaches from the bottom to the lower part of the neck. Find a small green frog and put it in the bottle. Cover the bottle with a piece of parchment pricked with a pin to admit air. As long as the weather remains fair, the frog will perch at the top of the ladder, but if rain approaches the frog will go down into the water.