I will never understand why this Christmas song goes so hard.
OKAY MOTHERFUCKERS LISTEN UP
BECAUSE THIS SHIT IS NOT CAROL OF THE BELLS
IT IS CHRISTMAS EVE/SARAJEVO 12/24 AND IT IS SO MUCH FUCKING MORE THAN CAROL OF THE BELLS.
SO DURING THE BOSNIAN WAR (WHICH WAS THIS NASTY-ASS CONFLICT IN BOSNIA AND HERZGOVINA) THERE WAS THIS BADASS CELLO-PLAYING MOTHERFUCKER NAMED VEDRAN SMAILOVIC. HE WAS FROM SARAJEVO WAS UPSET ABOUT ALL THE SHIT AND NASTINESS THAT CAME ABOUT THROUGH THIS WAR (THIS WAS FULL-ON BROTHER-KILLING-BROTHER SHIT) THAT HE WENT AROUND TO BOMBED-OUT, BLOWN UP BUILDINGS AND FUNERALS—WHERE HE WAS AT RISK OF FUCKING SNIPER FIRE—AND PLAYING THE CELLO. THIS GUY WAS SO SET ON PROVIDING ONE TINY SPOT OF BEAUTY IN A SERIOUSLY NASTY WAR HE WAS RISKING BEING FUCKING SHOT OR BLOWN UP.
AND THIS IS THE GUY WHO INSPIRED THIS SONG.
HE’S WHY THERE’S THE CALM CELLO PART AT THE BEGINNING BEFORE EVERYTHING GETS ALL VIOLENT-SOUNDING. IT’S THEMATIC.
THAT’S WHY THIS CHRISTMAS SONG GOES SO FUCKING HARD.
The Gallaher How to Do Its were a set of British 100 cigarette cards, each depicting and describing a 19th (?) century life-hack (the collection is undated).
The whole set can be found in the George Arents Collection, a special collection of the New York Public Library that has been scanned and made available along with 100,000 other meticulously catalogued cigarette cards from around the world.You can download these at medium resolutions (760px wide) or you can buy unlimited-use hi-rez TIFs from $50 (for individuals) to $400 (!) (for commercial publishers looking for cover images).
Steuben legally adopted two handsome soldiers, William North (who later became a US senator) and Ben Walker. A third young man, John W. Mulligan Jr., also considered himself one of Steuben’s “sons.” His birth father, John “Hercules” Mulligan, had been Alexander Hamilton’s roommate many years before.
Prior to moving in with Steuben, young Mulligan had been living with Charles Adams, son of then-Vice President John Adams. The future president and his wife, concerned about the intense nature of the relationship, insisted that Adams and Mulligan split up. The anguished boys wrote to Steuben of their devastation at being separated. With compassion for the heartbroken couple, Steuben offered to take both young men into his home, writing to Mulligan on January 11, 1793:
“Your letter of the 7th was handed me yesterday by Mr. Hamilton. [Alexander?] In vain, my dear child, should I undertake to explain to you the sensation which the letter created in my heart. Neither have I the courage to attempt to arrest the tears you have so great reason to shed. For a heart so feeling as yours this was the severest of trials, and nothing but time can bring consolation under circumstances so afflicting….
Despite moral philosophy I weep with you, and glory in the human weakness of mingling my tears with those of a friend I so tenderly love.
My dear Charles ought, ere this, to have received my answer to the touching letter he wrote.
I repeat my entreaties, to hasten your journey to Philadelphia as soon as your strength permits. My heart and my arms are open to receive you. In the midst of the attention and fêtes which they have the goodness to give me, I enjoy not a moment’s tranquility until I hold you in my arms. Grant me this favor without delay, but divide your journey, that you may not be fatigued at the expense of your health.”
Philip Schuyler was a general in the Continental Army as well as a businessman. He was actually pretty good at it, and the British wanted to take him out of commission. One night, a raiding party broke into the Schuyler house looking for him. The family (Philip included) hid in an upstairs bedroom – when they realized that the baby was still in her cradle downstairs.
So, who volunteered to sneak through a house of armed men to get her? Who got grabbed on the way back up and, still holding the baby, lied to their leader when he stuck a gun in her face and demanded to know where General Schuyler was?
Peggy.
*and
When they asked her where he was, she responded something like “He has gone to get help.” which scared them all so much that they left the home before the back-up could arrive.
Peggy had her baby sister in her arms, her pregnant sisters and mother upstairs hiding, and a gun in her face and she managed to stay calm enough to save her family.
Philip Schuyler was a general in the Continental Army as well as a businessman. He was actually pretty good at it, and the British wanted to take him out of commission. One night, a raiding party broke into the Schuyler house looking for him. The family (Philip included) hid in an upstairs bedroom – when they realized that the baby was still in her cradle downstairs.
So, who volunteered to sneak through a house of armed men to get her? Who got grabbed on the way back up and, still holding the baby, lied to their leader when he stuck a gun in her face and demanded to know where General Schuyler was?
NANCHANG, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) – Millennia before China’s smog made world headlines, Chinese lamp makers were coming up with designs to reduce air pollution, a new discovery has showed.
Chinese archaeologists excavating a noted Western Han Dynasty (206 BC – 24 AD) cemetery in east China’s Jiangxi Province have unearthed two 2,000-year-old bronze lamps that can “swallow” smoke.
The lamps are both the shape of a goose catching a fish in its mouth. The light is attached to the fish. Smoke emitted during the burning of wax can enter the bird’s body via an intake on the fish, travel through its neck and be dissolved by water stored in its hollow belly, Xin Lixiang, who leads the excavation team, told Xinhua on Thursday. Read more.
It can go all the way down to the county level, which is kinda crazy.
31,493 people have my surname.
And I will fight them all*
so im not at all surprised that Yi is the 118th most common last name and there are more than 4 million people that share it…. tbh its really nice and i feel very connected right now
Only 1,245 have my surname. That’s still a lot more than I thought there would be…
less than 800 people out of 7 billion have my surname
which was surprising until i remembered that my surname isn’t real, but a bastardization of my family’s actual name that was altered at ellis island for being “too ethnic”
332,831 people have my surname.
I’m honestly surprised my mother’s surname, Southworth, is less common by a large amount.
2,381,466th most common in the world. Approximately 23 have the american spelling of it. Which amuses me bc they changed it when they came through Ellis island. The Italian spelling is:
1,485,262nd most common, Approximately 69 in Italy with it. Hm.
5479 people have my last name.
Married name? 31 people have it and 22 of them are from the US.
Maiden name? 777…193 in the US and most of them are from Italy.
Mother’s maiden name? 4,299,506.
Last name: 495,000 people How everyone misspells my last name: 1,520,000 people
Okay, fair.
Actual surname: ~63K. (At the county level, there are 41 in the county where my dad grew up. I think my relatives account for around 30 of those.)
Original “ethnic” surname, before my umpty-great grandfather changed it*: 122, entirely in eastern Europe (except for one in Argentina. O_o). I bet I’m related to all of them. Neat that in this day and age I could actually find out (one of my aunts tried to find out genealogical information from the first-generation immigrants, only to be told “we left for a reason, we’re not gonna talk about it, bug off.” the name they eventually gave her when she pressed them for a place to look up translated to “little town.”)
Mother’s maiden name: approx 1.5 million. Lineage is given as Scottish, although my grandfather was Swedish. Guess most of the Swedes spell it the other way. XD
Maternal Grandmother’s maiden name: 973. Probably related to all of them. (Saw the 7 in New Zealand and thought “ah yes, the New Zealand cousins, I wonder how they’re doing.”)
Paternal grandmother’s maiden name: ~21k.
I FIND THIS STUFF VERY INTERESTING, OK.
* My umpty-great grandfather was said to be “illiterate in four languages” (which meant he could walk into a bar and pick a fight with ANYONE.) He changed his original Eastern European Jewish surname for the name of the street where he caught the bus to work, reasoning that since he saw it every day he could probably spell it.
“Hey neighbor. Your debts are paid because you don’t pay for labor,” Hamilton snaps at Jefferson during one of their two cabinet face-offs. Arguments about war in France and national debt are structured as rap battles between Hamilton and Jefferson, complete with ribald insults and, in one case, the dropping of a mic. That these are presented as verbal duels make the stakes seem higher, and it’s significant that they pit Hamilton against Jefferson, not against any other Founding Fathers. Their mutual animosity is on full display.
If Alexander Hamilton represents everything currently in the zeitgeist—he’s an immigrant, he’s an orphan, he’s a self-made man, he doesn’t want the country to get into foreign wars—Jefferson represents everything that’s out-of-fashion. He’s a slave-owning aristocrat whose father was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and who left him two-thirds of his estate, including 60 slaves, 25 horses, and 7,500 acres of land. Despite promises to free his 175 slaves upon his death, Jefferson only freed five—those related to his mistress Sally Hemings.
Popular history may see Jefferson as the man of the people and Hamilton as the creator of Wall Street and a monarchist. But in the musical (and Chernow’s book), the opposite is true. If Hamilton is the 99 percent, Jefferson is, in the show at least, the one percent. If Hamilton is Barack Obama (who told Jon Stewart he thought the show was “phenomenal”), Jefferson is Mitt Romney.
Has anyone yet pointed out that two of the hands-down best Broadway songs I have ever heard, The Room Where It Happens and Burn*, were created out of holes in the historical record by @linmanuel? Like, this isn’t just clever adaptation, this isn’t just taking what’s there and making something new, this is both acknowledging we don’t know what happened** and filling in the blank with some of the best character work I have ever seen.
In particular, giving Eliza so much agency in her song, so much understandable, relatable, beautiful rage and sadness and strength and pride, oof. Burn is one of the reasons it’s Eliza’s Hamilton almost as much as it is Alexander’s.
And I think the show-stopping, glorious nature of The Room Where It Happens has been very well established by people much cleverer than I.
Like, just, talk about making something out of nothing. Magic.
*
When I was infecting one of my more skeptical friends with the show, after Burn he immediately said “Jesus, that’s a hell of a song”. Not related, I just like to share that.
**Except for Jefferson’s letter about the Dinner Table Bargain, but of course, who takes Jefferson at face value?
And it functions as a really fascinating rebuttal within the narrative to the idea that anything or anyone can be erased from the narrative. Because lack of knowledge is still a presence marked by absence. You can be removed from the story that first gets told, the musical is essentially saying, but you can’t disappear. Even negative space takes up space.
I’M SORRY I CAN’T FIND A NON PRETENTIOUS WAY TO PHRASE THIS BUT IT’S REALLY INTERESTING.
Kimchi and Justice 