Words 11.29

 Words Twice a Week      11.29

A few days from the church calendar -

Nov 30  Saint Andrew/Andrew the Apostle   He was Simon Peter’s brother.  In Matthew and Mark he is fishing with Simon when Jesus calls them.  In John he is a disciple of John the Forerunner, who recognizes Jesus as the Messiah and goes to tell his brother.  Here’s the collect for his day -

   Almighty God, who gave such grace to your apostle Andrew

   that he readily obeyed the call of your Son Jesus Christ, 

   and brought his brother with him: 

   Give us, who are called by your holy Word, 

   grace to follow him without delay, 

   and to bring those near to us into his gracious presence; 

   who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, 

   one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Dec 3   FrancisXavier  He helped found the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, and was one of their first missionaries, to the Far East.

Dec 4  John of Damascus            These guys were church

Dec 5  Clement of Alexandria       leaders along the way.

Dec 6  Nicolas, Bishop of Myra    wait a minute, that’s Santa Claus!  Check it out.

And some days from the world/earth calendar -

Nov 30

+ Mary Harris (Mother Jones) – antiwar activist and labor organizer died in 1930.  An outspoken socialist, she co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World.  She said her home was “wherever there was a fight.”  She was denounced in the U.S. Senate as “the grandmother of all agitators” but when she was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison, the Senate ordered a committee to investigate conditions in the West Virginia coalfields.

+ Mark Twain was born in 1835; Winston Churchill in 1874.

+ Lucy and Desi got married in 1940

+ Michael Jackson’s Thriller album was released in 1982.  (Confession – I never really listened to it!)

+ Evil Knievel died in 2007.  He started selling insurance, and then went on to (motorcycle) jumping cars, buses, rivers, and many other things.  According to the wikipedia piece, he seems to have crashed about as much as landed safely.  He died of pulmonary disease.

Dec 1

+ Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery.

Dec 2

+ Aaron Copland died in 1990, after writing, among many other pieces, Fanfare for the Common Man, and ballets Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring.  As to the last, he apparently didn’t have a title for it until just before it premiered, when Martha Graham suggested “Appalachian Spring”, from a poem by Hart Crane.  Actually the “spring” in the poem is a spring of water, but the piece moves us towards springtime.

+ John Brown was hanged in 1859, the first person to be executed for treason in the United States.  He was an abolitionist, “an intensely religious man who at one point studied for the ministry.”  He became convinced that only force would overthrow slavery in the southern states and led a raid on the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry.  For a few years after that, he was the most famous person in the United States.

Dec 3

+ Robert Louis Stevenson died.  He wrote Treasure Island, A Child’s Garden of Verses, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.  That really covers the spectrum, doesn’t it?  You can hear children reading from A Child’s Garden, with accompaniment by Rob Honey and artwork by various artists here.

+ Joseph Conrad was born in 1857.

Dec 4

+ Walt Disney was born in 1901.  I can’t begin to count the ways he and his company have influenced life today.  Where would we go after winning the Super Bowl?

Dec 5

+ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in 1792.  What can we say – he was Mozart.

+ Claude Monet died in 1926.  A founder of Impressionism, which comes from the title of his painting Impression, sunrise.  He specialized in painting landscapes in the open air, haystacks, women with parasols, towards the end often water lilies. “Lilies of the Agreement”? You can see a selection here.    “When a visitor to Monet’s home in France recently expressed disappointment over Monet’s small restored lily pond, he was told ‘You saw it through your eyes rather than his.’”  (W Paul Jones)

Dec 6

+ birthday of Dave Brubeck in 1920.  From the website “Dave’s career spanned over six decades, and his experiments in odd time signatures, improvised counterpoint, polyrhythm and polytonality remain hallmarks of innovation.”  Hear Brahms Lullaby here and Over the Rainbow here, recorded as gifts for his grandchildren.  He died Dec 5, 2012, a day before his 92 birthday.

I guess that’s it.  Want a challenge for the week – write a poem for your garden of verses that would go with a painting by Monet!

Words 11.26

 Words Twice a Week         11.26

Here’s a prayer from our family table thanksgiving (in truth, I don’t know where it is or was from before that.  Some book of worship or prayer, perhaps)

  Most Gracious God, you crown the year with your goodness.

  We praise you for keeping your promise

  that seedtime and harvest shall not fail.

  We bless you for the beauty of earth and sky and sea

  and for the wonderful way they keep providing all we need.

  Bless all those who work to produce our food -

    the farmers, the laborers, the truckers, the store owners and clerks -

  and those who prepared this meal.

Some thoughts on some of the lectionary texts -

and it’s a bummer isn’t it – we are all set for Christmas, and all we get is Advent.  Advent that begins in despair, Advent that is all about waiting.  We’ve had half a year of Holy Spirit power, a half a year of our responsibility to be the people of the Time of God’s Peace, a half year of “being the change we want to see happen”, and still – still the world is not redeemed, and its even worse off than it was when the year began, and all we can do is plead with God to come and make a difference.  All we have is “a yearning that God will come, will intervene, will assert a name and a sovereignty that will override and curb the destructiveness of the nations.”

Ok – let’s get started -

Ps 80.1-7, 17-19

+I love it – the CEV says this is to the tune of “Lilies of the Agreement”!  I’d plant lilies of the agreement in my garden.  Or in my heart! How about this -

 Sown from psalm 80 -

Lilies of the Agreement

Planted in my heart. 

+it’s a community lament and prayer for help.  It presupposes a time of distress – I guess we know about that.  The year begins with the basic posture of humans before God – helplessness and need.  But God is absent.

+powerful words in vs5 – “you gave us tears for food, by the bowlful” 

+interesting that there doesn’t seem to be any link between the people’s suffering and their sinfulness.  

+the people pray, but even their prayers make God angry – what is going on there, do you suppose?  The sense of the psalm is that God in some way intended, or at least permitted, the people’s suffering.  How does that square with our understanding of God?

+more strong words – vs1: “Shepherd of Israel”, one of the clearest images of God as a tender shepherd in all of the OT.  And then juxtaposed with “you sit on your throne above the winged creatures” – a tender shepherd who is also the ruler of all that is.  Is that kind of what people look for in a king or queen, or president?

+and the refrain – “smile on us and we will be saved.”  Ok – whose smiles are redeeming and saving in your life?

+Here’s a quote from James Newsome in Texts for Preaching – “There is no room here for a sentimental or romantic assessment of the human situation, even of the church’s situation, before God.  The community of faith is not different from humankind at large in terms of our need for divine grace.  The distinction is rather that the Body of Christ, when it is true to its purpose acknowledges its inadequacy...”

Isaiah 64.1-9

+ a lot of the same themes as in the psalm.  God is all-powerful, but God is not doing anything.  At least not doing anything for us!  Vs1-5 are full of powerful, even violent images.  Mountains shake.

+ but, in vs 6, we are unfit to worship, even our good deeds are like filthy rags to be thrown away, our sins are storm winds blowing us away.  In a sense, God cannot do anything because we make it impossible for God to be in our midst.  Again, with our understanding of who God is, how does this idea of our sinfulness preventing God’s intention or activity work?

+ one writer notes that this is part of a larger unit (Is 63.7-64.12) which raises questions like Where are you, Where is your salvation, Why do you harden our hearts against you?  -  Do those ring meaningful today?

+ the key comes in vs 8 – You are our father, the potter who made us.  The love of a parent for a child, or of an artist for his/her creation could be the power that would bridge tha gap.  So Advent is a deep sense of desperation about a situation that is out of control, and a bold, confident trust in God, trust that God will indeed do something.  We are left waiting – but not knowing for what, or when, or how.  What do you have a sense of desperation about; what would you like God to do about it?

1 Cor 1.3-9

+Paul gives thanks, and notes that divine grace and peace are now the context for life among the believers.

+The early believers understood themselves living in an “in between time” – Jesus had come and would come again.  How do you think about that?   Paul notes that God’s gifts are given to sustain them in mutual love (some in Corinth were using them in divisive ways) and that they have all the gifts they need for this in between time.  What gifts do you have? 

Mark 13.24-37

+Teaching about the future – and Mark weaves two different future issues through this passage, first the return of Christ, and second, the destruction of the temple.  (So the “some people will still be alive” could refer to the destruction of the temple.)  Mark says the return is just as sure as the destruction.  Are there events in our recent past or near future that would be a sign for you of God’s decisive activity and return?  

+God will have the final say in the destiny of Creation.  Recalls once again the line about God not letting death destroy what God made and loves, and perhaps extends it to all Creation.  How do we fit into that?  

+the key for now is watchfulness – first to discern “Fake News”, and second because only God knows when, where, what, how.

+is advent waiting kind of like waiting for the end of the pandemic?

+What has the master placed you in charge of?

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Words 11.22

 

Words Twice a Week         11.22

ok- my computer has gone away for “r&r”, which means we have “?” and “!” back, but I’m using this old computer (which I intensely dis-like, I would say “hate” but I’m trying not to do that!) with Windows 7 for another week or two.

Here’s a prayer I found meaningful before we get started -

O God, Source of our Life, the One who calls us past race and nation, clan and creed, to be one people in Christ; who has gifted us with the power of love that we might fulfill the law; we have ignored your gift, turned from the way, and deferred the dream; awaken us to the evil we are doing to our brothers and sisters, and embolden us for the great good we have yet to do together; in the power of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

.Philip S. Krug, from Race and Prayer: Collected Voices Many Dreams edited by Malcolm Boyd and Chester L. Talton

A couple of days from the church calendar -

Nov 23  Clement, Bishop of Rome    the first of the Apostolic Fathers, he was bishop of Rome right after Peter, or maybe a couple after Peter – the record isn’t really clear.  He wrote a letter to the “church” in Corinth, addressed as "the Church of God which sojourneth in Rome to the Church of God which sojourneth in Corinth", which affirmed the authority of the “presbyters”, local church leaders sanctioned by the apostles.  It is the oldest piece of Christian writing outside of the New Testament.

Nov 26  Isaac Watts   He wrote hymns – lots of them, like 750.  (Still way behind Fanny Crosby who wrote 8000 hymns and 1000 secular poems.  Come on, Isaac, get cracking!)  Anyway, Watts wrote some of our favorites, including O God Our Help In Ages Past, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, Alas and Did My Savior Bleed, and one we are getting ready to sing and hear – Joy to the World.  Many of his hymns are based closely on the psalms.

And a few days from the earth/world calendar -

Nov 23  (and I have no idea why, but apparently when you insert a picture Blogger switches to paragraph mode which gives you this kind of double space look and I can't find anything to do about it.)

+ Dr Who first appeared on the BBC in 1963.  Thirteen different actors have portrayed The Doctor, most recently Jodie Whittaker.  Have a favorite?  The Doctor is a rogue TimeLord who, with human companions, materializes into and dematerializes out of a variety of times and places, rescuing different civilizations, often on Earth.  Look out – here come the Daleks.  Has anyone seen my TARDIS?

+ Thomas Tallis died on this day in 1585.  He was a church musician and composer.  He wrote “his” canon, to which we sing All Praise to Thee, My God, This Night – words by another Thomas, Thomas Ken.

Nov 24

+ John Knox died in 1572.  He was a Scottish minister and theologian, leader of the Scottish Reformation, and founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

+ in 1971, D B Cooper hijacked a plane, asked for $200,000 and a parachute, and had the plane take off for Mexico.  Neither he nor the money has ever been found, although I did come across this old parachute harness and empty satchel of bills in the woods at camp the other day – Hmmm

+ Scott Joplin was born in 1867.  Undisputed master of the piano rag musical form.  Maple Leaf Rag, and The Entertainer (think The Sting!)

Nov 25 

+ 1960 -Three Dominican sisters (Patria, Minerva, and Antonia Mirabal), activists opposed to the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, were killed and their deaths made to look like an accident.

+ 1999 – the UN declared Nov 25 to be the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.  How are we doing with that, would you say?

Nov 26   Thanksgiving Day

+ Sojouner Truth, freed slave, abolitionist, and worker for women’s rights died in 1883.

+ Charles Schulz was born in 1922

+ Casablanca premiered in 1942.  “Play it, Sam.  Play As Time Goes By”.  The New Yorker had a cartoon a few days ago of Rick slumped on the bar with the caption “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she has to walk into mine, after 10pm.”  Something to watch instead of football?

Nov 27

+ Eugene O’Neill died in 1953.  He wrote numerous plays – Desire Under the Elms, Mourning Becomes Electra, The Iceman Cometh, and A Moon for the Misbegotten.  I think I’ve read the first 3, I’ll have to have a look at the fourth!

+ Macy’s first Thanksgiving Day parade in 1924.  It’s going to be a little different this year!

Nov 28

+ On his way around the world, Ferdinand Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean in 1520, through the straight named for him.  Only one of his five vessels completed the voyage, and Magellan himself was killed by Philippine natives.  His voyage proved to most of us that the world is indeed round, although some people label that as “Fake News”!

Nov 29

+ Dorothy Day died in 1980.  An activist and reformer, she worked in various causes, founded the Catholic Worker Movement, and helped establish 33 hospitality houses to feed the poor.

+ First Army-Navy football game played in 1890.  Not sure if that is happening this year or not.  Nov 29 being a Sunday this year, I’m sure there will be some football games to watch!

+ Atari released Pong in 1972.  Not much has gotten done since!

+ CS Lewis was born in 1898.  Wait a minute – didn’t we just hear about him?  Well, yes, he died on Nov 22, apparently just a week before his birthday!

That’s it for now -

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Words 11.19

 Words Twice a Week    11.19

and I’m afraid for a couple more weeks, [qm] is ‘question mark’ and [ep] is ‘exclamation point’.  Sorry about that – my computer should be sent off to hopefully get fixed in a couple of days.

Let’s start this week with this thought from Henri Nouwen and let it swirl around in our hearts and minds as we look at the lessons for this Sunday – Reign of Christ/Christ the King.

God’s question is: “Are you reading the signs of your time as signs asking you to repent and be converted?” What really counts is our willingness to let the immense sufferings of our brothers and sisters free us from all arrogance and from all judgments and condemnations and give us a heart as gentle and humble as the heart of Jesus.     -Henri Nouwen

Some thoughts about some of the lessons -

Ps 100    Make a Joyful Noise

-  it’s a familiar psalm, not too difficult to memorize if you spend an hour at it.  One issue is that it is dominated by male pronouns [he, his] for God.  A while back I tried coming up with a ‘re-statement’ that either cut out the pronouns or that alternated he/she, his/hers.  Neither one was completely successful.

-  Be joyful and sing ‘as you come in to worship.’  Once again, worship is communal.  In Methodist tradition, the individual had a responsibility to be at church, but the church also had a responsibility to be involved in the life of the individual.  Early congregations were broken up into small groups, classes, that met weekly for instruction, encouragement, examination, and correction.  Hard to do that in this ‘distancing’ time.

-  the NRSV says ‘Know that the Lord is God’, the CEV has ‘You know that the Lord is God.’  Is there a difference[qm]  One writer suggests that with either one, the thrust is ‘to confess/witness/testify.’

-  God made us and we belong to God, as either people or sheep.  It calls again to mind this line from Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary [PRCL] that we mentioned a few weeks ago - “God will not let death destroy the creatures God made and loves.”  I just like that.

-  God, love, and faithfulness last forever.

Ez 34.11-16, 20-24   God is [will be] the Good Shepherd

-  note the context.  The whole of chapter 34 is really one piece.  In verses 1-10, God or Ezekiel have condemned past kings of Israel who have not taken good care of the people, possibly with an eye to them ending up in the Babylonian Exile.

-  Now, God will shepherd the people, gathering them from where they have been scattered, feeding them, making sure they had water enough to drink [and wash with[qm]].

-  but God will also ‘feed them with justice’.  As vs 17-19 point out, there are sheep and then there are sheep[ep]  The stronger sheep have pushed the weaker sheep away from the food and the watering hole.  I especially like the image when the prophet says ‘some of you drink clean water and then tromp around in it muddying it so the others can’t drink it.’  It used to be common to say that we all live downstream from some and upstream from others.  Where do you think you spend most of your time[qm]  So, it is not just some enemy that the sheep need to be protected from, it’s also other sheep.

-  There is persistent evil in the world.  A couple of months ago we watched No Country for Old Men – talk about persistent evil.  As the movie ended, evil was injured but still walking on.

-  the word from Ez 34 on hierarchical power [and this really hits home in light of the election and the aftermath, and then a piece on the news this evening about the rise of the extreme right in Germany, even in the police and military – it’s troubling]  so, Ezeliek on hierarchical power  -  1] it is inevitable, 2] it is easily abused by humans [no shortage of examples there, unfortunately], 3] a proper understanding of power is not innate to us but requires God’s demonstration, 4] once God shows us, we can claim authentic leadership when we see it [Ezekiel points to David], and 5] this all has cosmic implications.

Eph 1.15-23

-  ‘I do not cease to give thanks for you’ – did you check that box on the Stewardship form[qm]

-  being grateful vs being critical  -  where do you more often come down[qm]

-  then I just like the sound of this -

      with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know 

          what is the hope to which he has called you, 

          what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints,

          and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe…

    I suppose we could pause then and ask – what hope do you have, what riches are you 

    inheriting, where do you see God’s power at work[qm]

Mt 25.31-46   The Sheep and the Goats

-  ‘when the Son of Man comes’ – this is Jesus coming back.  How do you think about that[qm]  Note that for Matthew’s readers that was clearly a future expectation.  Could we say for our time it suggests God is and will be active in the world[qm]  That God makes a difference[qm]  Do you see that happening, or is it a matter of just believing it[qm]

-  ‘Child of Humanity’ doesn’t have the same ring to it, but should we try to get used to it[qm]

-  ‘all nations will be gathered’ – this could either mean ‘all nations’ or ‘all non-Israelites’  I go with the former, in part because the basis for the separating that the Son/Child initiates does not have anything to do with any profession of faith, but simply with behaviors.  Note that amazingly, there is no mention of professing faith in Jesus or even loving God, but simply ‘loving your neighbor as yourself.’

-  ‘the seven acts of mercy’ – giving food to the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, clothing the naked, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick, visiting the prisoner – and burying the dead.  Have you been on the receiving end of any of those[qm]  Which is easiest for you to be on the giving end[qm]

-  PRCL sums it up – ‘the sheep have served Jesus without knowing him, the goats have known him without serving him.’  Nice.  It then goes on to say that surprisingly, Jesus does not deal with those who have known him and served him.  Where are they[qm]

-  Then here’s an intriguing thought – for Matthew’s readers, ‘the nations’ would be the world and world leaders, ‘the least of these’ would be Jesus’ followers – so what Jesus is really talking about here is not how the church should treat the world, but how the world should be treating the church[ep]  The church is to be ‘the least of these’, not the United Way.  Well – it’s a pretty big stretch to think of the church as ‘the least of these’ in our day.  One writer notes that to be involved with ‘the least of these’ means to be implicated, linked, guilty by association.

-  then I like this from Richard Swanson – ‘moments of random encounter with people in need are moments illuminated by eternity.’  Does that include the guy or gal with the sign standing at the exit from Starbucks and Papa Murphy’s[qm]

-  then he goes on ‘what would it take for a person to make a division like this, sending the goats off to eternal fire[qm]  Would you trust a person like that[qm]  Would you trust them with your children[qm]

-  and finally he suggests doing an exercise where you divide a group up by clearly recognizable characteristics – young/old, white/’of color’, Dem/Rep, rich/poor, etc.  How do you think that would go[qm]

Here’s a prayer -

God of mercy, love, and justice,

I confess that I do not often think of myself 

or the people I spend my time among

as ‘the least of these.’

Gather me back from the places to which I’ve been scattered;

help me see with the eyes of my heart;

lead me toward the seven acts of mercy

that I might be by your side this day and in all that follow.

I ask it in the name of your Son, Jesus.

Words 11.15

 Words Twice a Week    11.15

and [qm] still means question mark; [ep] means exclamation point

   life flows simply on,                           life flows haltingly     

   no questions, exclamations,              email address, dollar sign

   when shift keys don’t work               plus sign, brackets - none

A few days from the church calendar -

Nov 16  Margaret of Scotland  [1045-1093]  an English princess and a Scottish queen.  She was a strong, pure, noble character, who had very great influence over her husband, Malcolm, and through him over Scottish history.  She attended to charitable works, serving orphans and the poor every day before she ate and washing the feet of the poor in imitation of Christ. She rose at midnight every night to attend the liturgy.  Malcolm and one of her sons were killed in the Battle of Alnwick against the English on Nov 13.  She died 3 days later - the cause was said to be grief.

Nov 22  Clive Staples Lewis   -  The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy, and non-fiction Christian apologetics, such as Mere Christianity, Miracles, and The Problem of Pain.  He was baptized as a child in the Church of Ireland, but later turned away from the faith.  He came back to believing in God, and then specifically to Christianity, at age 32, in large part through conversation with friends, including J.R.R.Tolkien.

And from the earth/world calendar -

Nov 16

-  the birthday of Shigeru Miyamoto.  He designed the Mario and Legend of Zelda video games.  This was/is a big deal for some of my family.

-  the Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone movie was released in 2001.

Nov 17 

-  Auguste Rodin died on this day in 1917.  A French sculptor, he is perhaps best known for The Thinker; other works include the Three Shades, The Kiss, and The Cathedral.

-  the [modern] Suez Canal opened in 1869.  There had been various canals connecting the Nile River and the Red Sea beginning 2000 years BCE, which had been dug and then fallen into disrepair, or at times even had been closed to prevent certain traders.

-  1858 the start of Modified Julian Date.  ‘A modified version of the Julian date denoted MJD obtained by subtracting 2,400,000.5 days from the Julian date JD , The MJD therefore gives the number of days since midnight on November 17, 1858. This date corresponds to 2,400,000.5 days after day 0 of the Julian calendar. MJD is still in common usage in tabulations by the U. S. Naval Observatory.’  If you understand this, you are probably an astronomer of some sort.  It was developed to help track Sputnik.  Otherwise, just google it.

Nov 18

-  speaking of time, in 1883 the railroads adopted time zones – four of them across the country.

Nov 19

-  Franz Schubert died in 1828.  He wrote over 1,500 works in his short career, roughly 630 of which were songs for solo voice and piano. Schubert's sacred output includes seven masses, one oratorio and one requiem, among other mass movements and numerous smaller compositions.  Interestingly, he completed only eleven of his twenty stage works.

-  Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address in 1863.  There are actually five slightly different copies of the address in Lincoln’s handwriting.  About 280 words – did you have to memorize it in school[qm]  I did not, but seems like a person could.  And spoiler alert – the idea that he sketched it out on the back of an envelope on the way to Gettysburg is most likely a myth.  From the official Lincoln online website - Despite widely-circulated stories to the contrary, the president did not dash off a copy aboard a train to Gettysburg. Lincoln carefully prepared his major speeches in advance; his steady, even script in every manuscript is consistent with a firm writing surface, not the notoriously bumpy Civil War-era trains. On returning to Washington, Edward Everett, the ‘main speaker’ [2 hours] at the event, wrote to Lincoln and complimented the president on the “eloquent simplicity & appropriateness” of his remarks, adding in open humility: “I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”

-  Steamboat Willie, aka Micky Mouse, premiered in 1928

Nov 20

-  Universal Children’s Day established by the United Nations with the adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959.  For Every Child is a wonderful book published by UNICEF that lists 14 of the most significant rights, each illustrated by a different artist.

-  Windows 1.0 was released.  Here are a few error message haikus -

       Yesterday it worked             Three things are certain            You step in the stream

      Today it is not working          Death, taxes, and lost data       But the water has moved on

       Windows is like that             Guess which has occurred       This page is not here

-  birthday of Joe Biden in 1942 and Robert F Kennedy in 1925 – can that be possible[qm]

-  in one dating system [not the MJD] this is the day Leo Tolstoy died.  I still have not made it through The Kreutzer Sonata.  

Nov 21

-  Henry Purcell, English composer, died on this day in 1695.  He is best known for trumpet compositions.

-  first appearance of Tweety Bird in 1941.  I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat[ep]

Nov 22

-  John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963

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