October 15


Amber pages


Publius Vergilius Maro, aka Virgil, or sometimes Vergil, hero of Dante's "Commedia", author of the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid, born today in 70 CE

Elizabeth Simpson, born today in 1753: remembered by her married name as Elizabeth Inchbald, and mostly for her rather limited skills but outstanding beauty which drew the crowds anyway, though only to the provincial theatres. She also tried writing novels, "A Simple Story" and "Nature and Art", the former of which you can read here. But this is not why she is listed here. After her fellow-actor husband died, and her beauty was no longer what it had been when she ran away to London aged eighteen to seek her fortune on the stage, she decided writing for the stage might be a better option than acting on it (Shakespeare once made a similar decision!). Amongst her worthy efforts, one by the name of “Lovers’ Vows"; and it so impressed Jane Austen that she made it the play which her characters put on, and argue about (oh it has everything: pre-marital sex, illegitimate children, seduction...), as the heart and core of  "Mansfield Park".


Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, German philosopher, born today in 1844. The bad jokes are too obvious to include (I spared you the cartoon, which is on Sept 29): "Nietzsche Is Alive" (but see Aug 25), or perhaps "Nietzsche became Human All Too Human today". A ridiculously lengthy essay about him, about Nihilism and the concept of the Superman, about the passage from the Twilight of Nihilism to the Huit-Clos of Existentialism, and the search for a way out via the "Immaculate Failure" and the "Zero Positive", which latter is the title of the title essay in my collection of essays which will bear that name, is due for publication... some time between the end of the mourning-period for God and the arrival of the Ubermensch-Messiah to replace him.

Italo Giovanni Calvino Mameli, born today in 1923. My essay on his "Invisible Cities" will be available shortly in another essay collection, "Homage To Thomas Bowdler", but multiple references to him in essays about others, in my "Private Collection" blog - click here, and then scroll the gleanings to find him.

Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod, née Zelle, World War I Dutch spy, better known as Mata Hari, executed today in 1917. Her stage-name, incidentally, means "Eye of Dawn" in Indonesian and Malay (some say it means "Mother of God" in Sanskrit, but God is a Christian concept, and not terribly common among Hindus or Buddhists: to which deity then would she have been the mother?)
First issue of "Reader's Digest" distributed, today in 1921 (and yes, there is now a German-language version)
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, or Goering, Nazi Reichmarshal, evaded justice today in 1946, by committing suicide. GER

And a second GER on the same day: Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev ousted, today in 1964. Replaced by Kosygin and Brezhnev, so it didn't exactly get any better. Whatver happened to Kosygin? Did Brezhnev do a Trotsky on him (click here and here)?
First Vietnam draft card burned, today in 1965; and I would love to know who that person was (not Bill Clinton but click here anyway)*



UPDATE, several other wars later: his name was David Miller and he was an avowed Catholic who refused on pacifist grounds (click here); except that he too wasn't actually the first, but only the first to be prosecuted for doing so (click here)


First photographic evidence of another solar system presented, today in 1984



The illustration at the top of the page shows an updated model of Dante's "Paradiso", based on the evidence in the final entry, immediately above
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