Durham, 1866

LAFCADIO HEARN (1850 - 1904)
The great interpreter of Japan was born in Greece of Irish-Greek parentage. From 1863 he spent four years at Ushaw College. Such were his home circumstances that he spent his holidays at the College too. His walks in the surrounding countryside had a formative effect on his rather unstable character.
Ushaw had a number of games peculiar to the college and it was during one of them 'Giant's Strides', that Hearn sustained an eye injury from a knotted rope. This resulted in a loss of sight and a permanent disfigurement which was to have a profound effect on his life. He became convinced that he was unattractive to women, and contrived to have photographs taken of him only in profile.

http://online.northumbria.ac.uk/faculties/art/humanities/cns/m-hearn.html

Bangkok, 1983

Meet Mrs. Mudd

“Mr. Mudd was a gentleman who was John’s driver during the shooting of The Killing Fields,” said Francesco Rulli, referring to his business partner, the actor John Malkovich. “He was apparently a murder convict and had just come out of prison. And one day they were driving very fast down this dirt road—almost hitting women and monks—and teetering about. John asked if it was true if he had just come out of prison for killing someone. Mr. Mudd looked at him and said, ‘Sometimes Mr. Mudd kills. Sometimes Mr. Mudd not kill.’ John really liked that.”

Mr. Malkovich’s film-production company is named Mr. Mudd in honor of that driver. His fashion business, which he co-owns with the handsome and Italian-born Mr. Rulli, is named Mrs. Mudd. Mrs. Mudd produces a line of clothing named Uncle Kimono. Their offices are on Fifth Avenue, in the Flatiron district.

The name Uncle Kimono also came courtesy of a friend of Mr. Malkovich, one who had seen a box of photographs that had been sent to the Malkovich home. They contained negatives of a Japanese gentleman in California.

“John thought they were attracting,” said Mr. Rulli. “He showed it to his friend, who was gay and died of AIDS a few years ago, and who said, ‘Oh, those people are Uncle Kimono.’ When you have a lover, a gay lover, in the 40’s, you wouldn’t go around and tell everyone that he’s your boyfriend. You might call him your uncle. This guy, this guy was like … his posture was interesting. And he was wearing a kimono. So our line is called Uncle Kimono.”

Mr. Malkovich has other business concerns as well. For instance, he co-owns a disco in Portugal.

The hot-pink business card for Mrs. Mudd has a few quotes imprinted on them in Mr. Malkovich’s elegant hand, including the hopefully rhetorical Aren’t track-suits illegal? and At an airport I once took by accident the suitcase of a Russian woman. When I opened it I thought, ‘these dresses aren’t mine.’

http://www.observer.com/20060213/20060213___thecity_thetransom.asp

Brighton, 2004

After finishing The Proposition, Nick Cave got a phone call from Russell Crowe, an old acquaintance, to see if he was interested in writing a Gladiator sequel. ''I said, 'Look, mate, you died in the first one, how are you going to do that?''' Director Ridley Scott suggested Cave watch Ingmar Bergman films for inspiration. But Cave may have been too inspired by the cryptic Swedish director. Here's what he came up with: ''Maximus becomes a warrior who can never die — an eternal warrior. At the end is this 20-minute war sequence where he rubs his hands in the earth and each time he stands up he's in another war. It goes on and on through history, [including] Vietnam.'' Needless to say, Cave's Gladiator 2 won't be coming to a theater near you. ''Russell didn't like it, basically because the Gladiator walks around in a complete daze for the whole film.''

http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1193531-4-4_4%7C67179%7C322351%7C1_0_,00.html

East Village, 1970

Simply put, there are no "Legitimate" copies of Journey Through The Past. When it was released in 1973 (at the US Film Festival), the response by the public was so negative that Shakey had a slight problem finding a full time distributor (ie no one would touch the film with a ten foot pole). The only copies floating around that I know of are taped from USA network and are copies of copies of copies. True story: I paid $25cdn for one of these bootlegs off of eBay. The visual quality was below average and the sound quality ranks slightly beyond wretched, but I was so obsessed with learning exactly what the hell was going on on the soundtrack (ever hear the album? it's pretty weird...Make's Queen's Flash Gordon soundtrack sound like The Beatles at their peak), that I was prepared to shell out a bit of cash to find out. If you're a diehard Shakey fan, then you might consider this an investment. There's some really cool behind the scenes work on Harvest, plus a sequence of CSNY at the filmore east on 5 June 1970 (Stills and Young's guitar duel on 'Southern Man' is a wow!), but mostly it's just weird stuff like Neil roaming through a garbage dump, Crosby criticizing Richard Nixon's policies while smoking a joint, and four black-clad Klansman riding around on a beach. There's also a sequence where a guy is talking to his truck (the vehicle in question actually answers back, but the sound quality on the tape is so bad that the replies can't be made out).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068776/board/nest/16421264

Wold Newton, 1795

Remarks concerning Stones said to have fallen from the Clouds, Both in these Days and in ancient Times. By Edward King, Esq. F.R.S. and F.A.S
"Several persons at Wold Cottage, in Yorkshire, Dec. 13, 1795, heard various noises in the air, like pistols, or distant guns at sea, felt two distinct concussions of the earth, and heard a hissing noise passing through the air; and a labouring man plainly saw (as we are told) that something was so passing, and beheld a stone, as it seemed at last, (about 10 yards, or 30 feet, distant from the ground), descending, and striking into the ground, which flew up all about him, and, in falling, sparks of fire seemed to fly from it. Afterwards he went to the place, in common with others who had witnessed part of the phaenomenon, and dug the stone up from the place where it was buried about 21 inches deep. it smelled, as is said, very strongly of sulphur when it was dug up, and was even warm, and smoked. It was said to be 30 inches in length, and 28 ½ in breadth, and it weighed 56lb. Such is the account*. I affirm nothing; neither do I pretend either absolutely to believe or to disbelieve. I have not an opportunity to examine the whole of the evidence. But it may be examined; so I leave it to be"

http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/bookman/meteorites/C18.HTM#wold1

Dallas, 1975

Jaws sneak-previewed right here in Dallas on March 26, 1975 at the Medallion Theater. Steven Spielberg was so nervous that he stood in the back instead of taking his seat. So he's standing back there, and when the boy on the raft gets eaten by the shark, this guy in the audience gets up and RUNS for the door. So Spielberg thinks his career is over, that people are RUNNING out of the theater. But instead of leaving, the guy THROWS UP in the lobby, goes to the bathroom, and goes back to his seat.

http://www.dallashistory.org/cgi-bin/webbbs_config.pl?noframes;read=30539

Guam, 1993

As recently as 1993, the Poacher acquired a far eastern sister, this time using another English folk song, “Cherry Ripe”, as its callsign. Cherry Ripe’s transmitters have not been accurately located, but appear to be in Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Guam. Its target may be China and its new province, Hong Kong.
“The sudden appearance of Cherry Ripe was really surprising for me,” says Mike Gauffman, a Kent-based short wave listener and one of the two founders of Enigma — the European Numbers Information Gathering and Monitoring Association (http://www.pcug.co.uk/~irdial/enigma.htm). The group, which began in 1993, has 200 to 300 worldwide supporters who are on the Net and on the air every day, logging schedules but never understanding a single word of the messages they monitor.

http://duncan.gn.apc.org/882451334-numbers.html

Oxford, 1681

On the 1st March 1681 John Locke, the philosopher, made the following entry in his journal in his chamber at Christ Church, Oxford:

This day I saw one Alice George, a woman as she said of 108 years old at Alhallontide last [1 November 1680]. She lived in St Giles parish in Oxford and hath lived in and about Oxford since she was a young woman. She was born at Saltwyche in Worcestershire, her maiden name was Alice Guise. Her father lived to 83, her mother to 96 and her mother's mother to 111. When she was young she was fair-haired and neither fat nor lean, but very slender in the waist, for her size she was to be reckoned rather amongst the tall than short women. Her condition was but mean, and her maintenance her labour, and she said she was able to have reaped as much in a day as any man, and had as much wages. She was married at 30, and had 15 children, viz. 10 sons and 5 daughters baptized, besides 3 miscarriages. She has 3 sons still alive, her eldest John living the next door to her, 77 years old the 25th of this month. She goes upright though with a staff in one hand, but yet I saw her stoop twice without resting upon anything, taking up once a pot and another time her glove from the ground.

http://www.demogr.mpg.de/books/odense/6/02.htm