Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 40: The first spring forward

Americans who hate Daylight Savings Time should rue the day March 31, 1918, as that was when DST became an official practice in the US. 

For most of history there was no organized approach to best using the increased daylight that comes with summer. In Roman times, when the day was split into 12 equal hours of day and night, they just changed the number of minutes in each hour to suit prevailing conditions. When fixed-length hours became the norm, businesses and other institutions would shift opening and closing times as needed, but that was a voluntary practice.

The idea of actually shifting the clock ahead was suggested by a few individuals, but didn't catch on (outside of a handful of localities) until World War I, when Germany and Austria-Hungary shifted their clocks ahead in 1916 in order to conserve coal. Most of Europe followed over the course of the next year, with the US (as with their entry into the war) coming later. And like much of Europe, the US wound up dropping DST after the war (though Congress had to override President Wilson's veto to do so).

DST would pop up in the US again during World War II (though it was called War Time rather than Daylight Time), and was repealed again after the war. Localities were allowed to observe DST, and many states did, creating a patchwork of local times. Complaints by several industries (most notably transportation) led to the Uniform Time Act of 1966, which required states to observe DST unless they passed a state law exempting the entire state from the practice.

And that's pretty much where things have stayed until recently, with a renewed push for year-round DST (most notably in the Sunshine Protection Act). Proponents tend to forget the mid-1970s experiment with this that was prompted by the 1973 energy crisis, which saw problems with late sunrise times in the winter months that had kids going to school in the dark.

So there you have it, 40 days of things that happened on Easter. Tune in next year when we'll have 40 days of things that happened on Holy Saturday (if I take this to its logical extension I can run out most of the 2020s with things that happened during Holy Week).

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 39: On the march

The Panic of 1893 caused an economic depression in the US that lasted for four years, and was the most significant economic downturn (non-Civil War division) experienced by Americans in their lifetimes. This led people to some drastic measures, such as the decision by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey to lead a march to Washington, DC, to demand the government intervene by creating jobs and putting more money into the economy.

Coxey and about 100 other men left Massillon, Ohio on Easter Sunday, March 25, 1894. Other marchers met up with Coxey (now leading what became popularly known as Coxey's Army), and about 6000 men made an encampment just outside of the capital. The day after making camp, Coxey and some of the other march leaders were arrested for walking on the grass at the Capitol building. Not long after that the marchers lost interest and the protest largely broke up.

While it wasn't successful, Coxey's march is notable for being the first planned protest march on Washington. It also saw one of its main goals, a government works program to provide jobs during a depression, adopted for the New Deal. 

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 38: Marian Anderson sings

In 1939, contralto Marian Anderson was trying to plan a concert for Washington, DC. Only problem was that Anderson, an African-American, couldn't find a venue. The Daughters of the American Revolution denied her the use of Constitution Hall, which when the DAR wasn't hosting their national convention was often used for concerts. Turns out the DAR had a whites-only performer policy in place at the time, and the building also lacked segregated bathrooms (as required by DC law). Anderson then tried to book the auditorium at a whites-only high school, but was similarly denied by the city's board of education.

An ad hoc group of supporters, drawn mainly from civil rights and labor groups, formed the Marian Anderson Citizens Committee, which then put pressure on the DC Board of Education to change their decision. In addition, the DAR saw a slew of resignations after their decision, most notably by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

As pressure mounted to let Anderson sing, Roosevelt was able to lean on her husband, who then got Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to let Anderson perform an open air concert at the Lincoln Memorial. And so it was that Anderson, on April 9, 1939, performed for an assembled crowd of 75,000 (and millions more at home over the NBC radio network).

This landmark concert opened up further opportunities for Anderson to perform in integrated settings, most notably a 1943 concert at the now-integrated Constitution Hall (though the DC Board of Education still banned her from using public high schools). Anderson would later go on to become the first African-American to perform with the Metropolitan Opera, sang at the inaugurations of Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work promoting civil and human rights before retiring from singing in 1965.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 37: A planter gets planted

The Harrison family has roots in Virginia going back to around 1630, when Benjamin Harrison arrived and quickly established himself. Within three years he was made clerk of the state's Governor's Council, setting a course in public service that future Harrisons - many also named Benjamin - would follow.

Notable among them is Benjamin Harrison V, who by the age of 20 was managing several plantations covering thousands of acres (which included a manor house, a grist mill, a fishery, and a number of slaves). This all was due to the untimely death of Benjamin Harrison IV, who also left other plantations to others of his 10 children.

Harrison flourished, and followed in his father's footsteps by being elected to Virginia's House of Burgesses (although he was too young to serve when first elected, which makes you wonder how he got elected in the first place). Harrison quickly fell in with those opposed to direct British rule, and served on several bodies which argued that colonists should have a voice in the laws (and taxes) applied to them.

Not surprisingly, Harrison was voted to be a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses (one of his roomates at the latter was George Washington), and would be one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He spent most of the Revolutionary War in Virginia, serving in the new House of Delegates and working with the fledgling government to secure military aid for the southern states.

Just a month after the American victory at Yorktown, Harrison became the fifth governor of Virginia, and focused mainly on maintaining peace and improving the local economy, which the war had damaged greatly. After his term he returned to the legislature, where he served until his death on April 24, 1791, of unknown causes (though he was often in ill health thanks to what one source calls his "persistent corpulence").

For all that, Harrison's greatest legacy may be that he fathered one president - William Henry Harrison - who then fathered another - Benjamin Harrison. Who, as you might have noted, was not one of the line of Benjamin Harrisons. Benjamin Harrison V's oldest son was Benjamin Harrison VI, who like his dad was a planter and state politician. He would father Benjamin Harrison VII (with his first wife after the death of his second wife), and he would beget Benjamin Harrison VIII, and after that I can't bother to look. One other notable detail of the Harrisons is that they are also related to Abraham Lincoln through Thomas Harrison, who established a branch of the Harrison family in the Shenandoah valley.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 36: The phone lines reopen

Much like recent innovations in communication, the telephone was adopted quickly after Alexander Graham Bell's successful demonstration in 1876. It allowed anyone to talk to any other person - as long as there was an operator to connect the call.

By 1919, thousands of women were working as telephone operators in New England. While the job wasn't as dangerous as mill work and in a more professional setting than domestic occupations, the work wasn't easy. Operators were expected to work at quick pace throughout their shift, and were often disciplined harshly for minor mistakes. The pay was also much lower than that given women in other occupations.

Julia O'Connor had tried to change that. While working as an operator she had a little success trying to organize operators into a union, and that combined with the poor working conditions led O'Connor to leave her job to start organizing full time. The operators went to the Postmaster General (who was given oversight of the telephone industry during World War I), who refused to bargain with them for a new contract, or allow the telephone company to negotiate. So on April 15, 1919, the New England operators went on strike.

The effect of the strike was immediate, and several attempts were made to bring in replacement workers, from college students to recently-returned war veterans. But they were often stymied by members of other unions - cab drivers refused to take them to work, and the police refused to break the strike. This was critical for the operators, as women didn't generally have the support of largely male unions.

With the phone outage crippling business, the Postmaster General relented and allowed New England Telephone to negotiate with the union. And so on April 20, 1919, the operators returned to work, with a new deal in hand.

Their victory was somewhat short-lived, however, as the phone companies made an even harder push to develop a telephone system that would automatically connect calls. Within 20 years, the operators union was gone, replaced by technology. Also something we're getting used to with recent innovations in communications.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 35: It's good to be the Chhatrapati... sometimes

After the death of Shijavi I, ruler of the Maratha Empire, his widow, Soyarabai, maneuvered to get her son, Rajaram, made emperor. Rajaram, at all of 10 years old, was installed on the throne on April 21, 1680 (I'm guessing he was unaware that it was Easter Sunday). 

The only problem is that his older half-brother, Sambhaji, was still around and aiming to be emperor. He was a prison at the time that Rajaram was elevated, but upon hearing about this Sambhaji made plans to escape. He did so, taking control of a couple of forts along the way, and on July 20, 1680, he replcaed Rajaram on the throne. Sambhaji would survive a coup attempt not long after becoming emperor, and to make sure that didn't happen again he executed a number of people involved, including Soyarabai. 

Rajaram was spared, and finally became emperor when Sambhaji was captured by the Mughals (with whom the Marathas were having a series of wars) and executed. Rajaram would serve until his death in 1700 due to lung disease (someone liked his bidis a little too much), which fittingly kicked off another succession crisis between his various wives and children. On the plus side, his family still holds the throne of what has become Kolhapur state.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 34: The Post-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a poet and painter, and was a co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of British painters who wanted to revive the style and look of painting from 15th century Italy and Flanders. His paintings were usually of classical, mythological, or religious subjects; his only attempt at a modern painting as part of the Brotherhood went unfinished.

Rossetti was also a translator, and his work on titles like Dante's La Vita Nuova and Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur also influenced his painting (art inspired by literature was common among the Brotherhood). 

Rossetti's personal life also had a strong influence on his work, and vice versa. He had several relationships with his models, including a two year marriage to Elizabeth Siddal, which ended when she overdosed on laudanum (possibly on purpose, as the overdose happened not long after she gave birth to a stillborn child). Rossetti buried the bulk of his unpublished poems with Siddal, though friends would later convince him to dig them up for publication.

Unfortunately, the public reaction to his first volume of poetry was quite negative, finding the poems too erotic or sensual. Rossetti suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of the bad reviews, and it took him a couple of years to recover to the point where he could paint again. That period was short lived, and his mental state went back into decline. His physical health wasn't much better, between a dependence on chloral hydrate and heavy drinking to mask the drug's bitter taste. Rossetti died on April 9, 1882, of Bright's disease (a form of nephritis). 

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 33: Under the Green Grass

Marilyn Chambers (born Marilyn Briggs) wanted to be an actress. In New York she landed some modeling gigs (her first job came when she was much younger, as a baby on boxes of Ivory soap), and a small role in The Owl and the Pussycat. She went to the west coast on a promotional tour for the film, and wound up moving to San Francisco, which she thought was much more of a location for the entertainment industry than it actually was.

In 1972 she answered a newspaper ad that touted a "major motion picture" in need of actors. It turns out that the movie was porn. Chambers was concerned that making porn would prevent her from crossing over into mainstream movies, but her resemblance to Cybill Shepherd led the film's producers to give into her salary demands (which included a percentage of the film).

That film, Behind the Green Door, was a hit. Chambers would stick with porn, making Resurrection of Eve the following year. It was also successful, but rather than continue with porn Chambers wanted to make the transition to mainstream roles. The only problem was the no one in Hollywood wanted to cast a well-known porn star in their movies. 

Chambers did land a part in David Cronenberg's Rabid, but spent most of her post-porn '70s doing a variety of things, from stage acts to a memoir to singing on a disco song. Not surprisingly, she decided to return to porn, in 1980's Insatiable. Chambers would continue to make porn movies throughout the 1980s and 1990s, though she took some time off during the AIDS crisis.

She did land some roles in independent films in the 2000s, and was a vice-presidential candidate for fringe libertarian parties in 2004 and 2008. On April 12, 2009, Chambers died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 32: Dr. Jurin retires - permanently

John Jurin was born in London in 1684, lived in what appears to be a pretty average household, and was granted a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge. He earned a BA and a MA, became a school head teacher, and gave public lectures on mathematics and Isaac Newton. He returned to Cambridge to study medicine, earning his MD in 1716. He established a medical practice while also lecturing on anatomy and working at a London hospital.

His most notable contribution to medicine (or more precisely, public health) came in his research into smallpox variolation - where material from a smallpox sore is inserted into a scratch on a healthy person to give them a mild case of the disease, which would also confer lifelong immunity to the disease. Based on his statistical analysis, compounded by results found elsewhere in England, he determined that variolation was much less risky than catching smallpox naturally. 

His medical work didn't preclude him from involvement with math and other sciences. A fellow of the Royal Society, he was its secretary during the latter part of Isaac Newton's presidency, and was an ardent supporter of Newton's work. At one point he published a 300-plus page defending Newtonian calculus against a critique by George Berkeley. Jurin also studies optics, the mechanics of the heart, meteorology, and had a law concerning capillary action named for him.

It wasn't all smooth sailing for Jurin, though. A medicine he created for treating bladder stones may have accidentally killed Robert Walpole (though Walpole's health was always precarious). Jurin himself would pass away five years after Walpole, on March 29, 1750.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 31: More !%&#&% twisters

In March 2020 the southeast US was under an area of high pressure, which combined with calm weather to cause higher than normal temperatures and a quick warming of the waters in the Gulf of Mexico. This also created higher humidity near the water's surface, and the warm, moist air created instability where it interacted with the high pressure system. 

The result? Tornadoes. Lots of tornadoes.

Over the course of Easter weekend (April 12-13), at least 141 tornadoes touched down over 10 states, from Texas to Maryland. Monroe, Louisiana may have had the worst storm of the bunch, which didn't cause any fatalities but did a quarter billion dollars in damage. Mississippi saw the strongest storms of the outbreak - they were the only state to record storms at EF4 - and had the most deaths of any state, tallying 14 of the 38 attributed to the storms.

And, of course, this outbreak happened during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, so relief and recovery efforts were hampered by social distancing requirements and the demand for PPE.  

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 30: It's another twister!

The tornado outbreak over Easter weekend in 2000 happened a little farther south than the 1913 outbreak, with 33 known tornadoes touching down over a seven hour period on Sunday, April 23 in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Unlike 1913 there were no fatalities (only 12 injured), and none of the storms were rated higher than F3. 

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 29: It's a twister!

The weekend of March 21-23, 1913, saw two major tornado outbreaks. The first, on Good Friday, struck mostly in the south, with a F4 storm in Alabama killing 27.

A larger outbreak struck the midwest on Easter Sunday, with a number of F4 storms touching down in Indiana, Missouri, and Nebraska. Nebraska actually got the worst of the outbreak, recording 135 tornadoes over the weekend, which was more than half of all tornadoes recorded. The deadliest of these tore through Omaha, where the storm entered from the west of the city and left a path of destruction through both high end neighborhoods and the city's African-American district. All told over 2000 homes were destroyed and 94 people died.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 28: Post-it Notes hit the shelves

In 1968, Spencer Silver was trying to develop a super-strong adhesive for 3M. What he came up with was a low-strength adhesive, but one that was pressure-sensitive and reusable. Silver spent years presenting the adhesive to his colleagues, but without finding a way it could be developed into a saleable product.

In 1974, another 3M employee named Art Fry used the adhesive to solve a personal problem, using it to keep the bookmark in his hymnal in place. Fry decided to create a product out of this idea, and while his press and stick bookmarks didn't catch on, the notepads that we've come to know did, and Post-It Notes were launched to the American public on April 6, 1980.

Or at least that's the official story. An inventor named Alan Amron claimed to have developed the technology behind the Post-It Note in 1973, which he disclosed to 3M in 1974. A 1997 lawsuit led to a settlement, where Amron agreed to not press his claims if 3M agreed to not claim that they invented the Post-It Note. Amron brought another lawsuit in 2016 alleging that 3M breached their agreement by claiming that they invented the notes, but this suit was dismissed. 

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 27: Bulgaria rises up

While the Irish may have the best known rising related to the Easter holiday, the Bulgarians did it first, and on Easter Sunday to boot (albeit Western Easter).

What we think of today as Bulgaria became part of the Ottoman Empire in the mid-15th century. For a time the Ottomans were able to suppress Bulgarian identity, but Russia and Austria-Hungary would support Bulgarian Christians in occasional revolts, with an eye towards destabilizing Turkish rule in the region.

As the idea of the nation-state took hold in Europe in the 19th century, Bulgarians began to reassert their national identity, and saw an opportunity to throw off the yoke of the Ottomans, who were having their own issues in maintaining the empire. An 1875 tax on non-Muslims led to a revolt in Herzegovina, which the Ottomans put down, but the act of revolt exposed the weakness of the empire. Later that year a revolutionary committee of Bulgarians decided it was time to have a rising of their own.

After about six months of planning and preparation, the rising started on April 20, 1875, two weeks before it was planned to start thanks to a local revolutionary committee's decision to attack an Ottoman police headquarters near Sofia. The revolt spread quickly over the next few days, but the Ottomans replied in force starting on April 25. Their response was brutal, with an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 killed and 58 villages destroyed by the end of the rising in mid-May.

Reaction to the rising and its bloody quelling in the rest of Europe was strongly anti-Turkish, especially after accounts of what happened spread. The UK, which had been a supporter of the Ottomans, distanced themselves, and when Russia attacked the Ottomans in 1877 the British refused to help the Turks, citing negative public opinion due to the aftermath of the Bulgarian uprising.

It was the treaties that came after the Russo-Turkish War that would lead to the re-establishment of an independent Bulgaria, albeit a small principality that was still legally affiliated with the Ottoman Empire. It wouldn't be until 1908 that a fully independent Kingdom of Bulgaria was proclaimed.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 26: Wham! in China

When the pop duo Wham! took the stage at Bejing's People's Gymnasium on April 7, 1985, it was the culmination of 18 months work started by their manager, Simon Naptier-Bell. The Chinese wanted a Western musical act to play in China to help spur foreign investment, and Napier-Bell wanted Wham! to be that act. The only problem: the rock band Queen was also vying for this groundbreaking opportunity.

So Napier-Bell resorted to a little propaganda/homophobia. He drew up brochures that showed Wham! members George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley as clean-cut Brits, while depicting Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in the dress and poses common to Queen performances. The ploy worked, and China gave Wham! the OK to play.

The band wound up playing two shows in the People's Republic (one in Beijing and one in Guangzhou), and faced some unique challenges with regards to the audience and their cultural expectations for attending a concert. They were quiet, forbidden from dancing, and didn't understand the concept of clapping along to the music. These problems dissipated as the concert went along, but it might not be a coincidence that it was another 10 years before a Western act (this time the Swedish duo Roxette) was cleared to play in China.

A documentary about the tour, Wham! in China: Foreign Skies was released in 1986. Footage shot for that project was used to create the music video for the song "Freedom," which I'm sure the Chinese government appreciated.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 25: Catholics get an American university that isn't Notre Dame

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops first discussed establishing an official Catholic university in the US in 1866. They adopted the name for the institution, The Catholic University of America, in 1885. Which doesn't seem like a name that would take 19 years to come up with. In any case, the first US bishop sent over to ask for papal approval to found the school went to Rome in 1882. But it wasn't until April 10, 1887, that the pope sent a letter that formally granted his approval to the school. The university incorporated that year, laid the cornerstone for its first building the following year (President Cleveland was in attendance), and opened for business in 1889.

The school was originally focused on graduate study in the areas traditional to pontifical universities: philosophy, theology, and canon law. The school opened an undergraduate division in 1904, and took on a law school in 1954. Today the school has just over 5300 students, and is located in a section of Washington DC that earned the nickname "Little Rome" as there are over 60 Catholic institutions in the area.

Notable alumni include actors Chris and Susan Sarandon, John Slattery, and Jon Voight; New York governor Kathy Hochul; and what seems like at least half of the current American cardinals.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 24: Charles Grodin debuts

Charles Grodin was born on April 21, 1935, though being born on Easter Sunday probably didn't mean much as his parents followed Orthodox Judaism. Grodin dropped out of college to pursue acting, and landed a number of small and supporting roles before breaking out in 1972's The Heartbreak Kid (though he turned down the role of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate).

He was featured in comedic roles for much of the 1970s and '80s, most notably in Midnight Run. He would transition to family films in the 1990s and 2000s, and then took a break from film to focus on his family, TV commentary, writing, and theater. He returned to film in 2006, and had several parts in movies and TV until he stopped acting in 2017. He passed away in 2021 from bone marrow cancer.

His comedy film roles mostly had him playing the straight man, usually one put upon by unexpected circumstances. This played counter to his usual talk show persona, where he would be combative and verbally spar with Johnny Carson and David Letterman. While this was very much an act, it wasn't always obvious to viewers, many of whom wrote to NBC to complain. I have to admit I mostly know Grodin though his Letterman appearances (and his guest hosting when Letterman had heart surgery), and was always highly entertained by their exchanges.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 23: Tobias Hume switches from composing to decomposing

Unless you are a fan of viol music or have read the novel Loot and Loyalty by Jerzy Pietrkiewicz, it's unlikely you've heard of Tobias Hume. A Scot who served as an officer in the Swedish and Russian armies, he spent his non-military time composing music for the viol, which he felt was superior to the lute. This got him crosswise with Sting's favorite luteist, John Dowland, though it didn't seem to go beyond publishing a refutation of Hume's ideas.

Hume was occasionally whimsical (or eccentric, depending on your point of view) with his compositions, such as the one that would require two people to play the same viol, with one sitting in the lap of the other. He also had a work that required the player to hit the viol with their bow, which was odd for the time but is considered the first use of the technique now called col legno, which shows up in works by Mozart, Hayden, and Radiohead (among others).

The combination of military and musical careers apparently didn't go as well for Hume as you might think, as in his later years he became a resident of the London Charterhouse, an almshouse for older men of a higher than average station (such as gentlemen, soldiers, merchants, and servants of the royal family). During his time at Charterhouse he game himself a promotion to colonel (records indicate he never had a higher rank than captain), a title he used when publishing writings saying he could quell the rebels in Ireland or make the king 20 million pounds if given his own navy for three months. 

Howe entered Charterhouse at Christmas in 1629 and died there on Easter, April 16, 1645.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 22: Get your Sunday paper here!

While daily newspapers had been around for a while, up to 1780 no one had tried to put out a paper on Sunday. That changed on March 26, 1780, when the  British Gazette and Sunday Monitor put out its first edition.

If you want to know anything more than that about the paper, good luck. The best that I can tell the paper was published by an E. Johnson (though at least one site I found had his first initial as F) and published its last issue in 1805 (according to the Library of Congress). Though I also found a page that claimed it changed its name to The Times in 1788 (it didn't, that paper started in 1785 as the Daily Universal Register). 

Perhaps most galling (if you have gall to spare over this sort of thing) is that the Wikipedia page on the history of British newspapers claims that the world's first Sunday newspaper was The Observer. Whose Wikipedia page notes correctly that it's the world's oldest Sunday paper. Get this fixed, editors!

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 21: Antibiotic resistance gets a toe hold

On April 9, 1950, biochemists Thomas H. Jukes and Robert Stokstad announced that they discovered that adding antibiotics to animal feed leads to increased growth.  They found that using a 400 to 1 ratio of animal feed to antibiotics caused a 50 percent increase in size in piglets, with smaller gains in chicks and calves. This was a boon to the pharmaceutical market as it opened up a new market, and to livestock producers who were always looking to increase yield. 

But it's probably less of a boon to the rest of us, as the continual use of antibiotics kills off the susceptible bacteria, leaving only resistant strains, which then fill the niche opened up by the death of those other bacteria. Growers then have to move to new antibiotics and repeat this process all over again. Eventually you get bacteria resistant to most antibiotics, which can then spread through animals (and the humans who raise and eat them). 

The European Union banned the practice in 1999, while in the US the Food and Drug Administration has released several guidance letters trying to reduce the practice, but an outright ban has yet to be implemented.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 20: Easter comes early

I know, Easter happening on Easter isn't exactly news. But it kind of was on March 22, 1818, as that's the earliest possible date on which Easter can happen. This article gives more detail on the history of how the date of Easter is calculated and the possibility of Eastern and Western Christian churches finally agreeing on a common date for the holiday.

If you're interested in celebrating Easter on this earliest day, you should start taking care of yourself. The next year that Easter is on that date is 2285. But if you miss that one you only have to wait until 2353 for it to come around again.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 19: Arnold Houbraken is born

Arnold Houbraken was born in the Netherlands on March 28, 1660. He was sent to learn threadtwisting (not sure if that's for art or the actual manufacture of thread), but was also taught engraving. He would later study painting, and would move to Amsterdam after he was married to pursue art as a career.

But what he was best known for was writing, or at least the writing of one particular work, The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters. Published in three volumes (the last coming out after he died), this work is perhaps the greatest source of biographical information on 17th century Dutch painters. It is in some cases the only source for images of painters, as Houbraken included several engraved portraits. As comprehensive as the work is, it did miss some painters whose esteem would grow over time, most notably Jan Vermeer, who gets one mention in passing throughout the entire work. 

The book is included in the Digital Library of Dutch Literature's Basic Library of 1000 works from the middle ages to today that are seen as foundational for Dutch culture.

Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter 

Day 18: Kids pester local man to have Easter egg roll on his lawn

The origins of the White House Easter egg roll are murky, but it seems to have started with Dolley Madison in 1814. For years afterwards, it was not uncommon to see Easter egg rolls all over Washington DC on Easter Monday (and occasionally Good Friday), and in the 1870s the main location for the event was the Capitol.

As you might imagine, having hundreds of people running around rolling eggs and otherwise cavorting does a number on your green space. Congress didn't want to spend money fixing things after each year's roll, so in 1876 they banned the use of the Capitol grounds as aa children's playground. Heavy rain cancelled the event in 1877, but ads taken out in the newspapers on Easter Sunday 1878 reminded the locals that the Capitol was closed for egg rolling. 

Enter President Rutherford B. Hayes. He wasn't particularly aware of the egg rolling tradition, and while on his daily walk some kids stopped him to ask if they could use the South Lawn of the White House now that the Capitol was off limits. Hayes went back to the White House, asked some staff about it, and instructed them to give access to any kid who came to the White House looking to roll eggs. 

The egg rolling tradition continues to this day, though the event is much more tightly controlled. There are other events besides egg rolling, and there are often appearances by celebrities or other members of government. At the end of the day all attendees get a commemorative wooden egg signed by the President and the First Lady.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 17: The Guantanamo Files drop

Starting on April 24, 2011, several hundred files regarding prisoners held in the US base at Guantanamo Bay were released by WikiLeaks and published by media outlets including The New York Times and The Guardian (the Times said they received the files independently from WikiLeaks, and they shared them with other media outlets). 

The files detailed the incarceration of over 150 individuals from Afghanistan and Pakistan, ranging in age from 14 to 89, many held for years without charges. Most of those were held specifically for intelligence gathering, rather than being considered a risk for terrorism. Most exhibited signs of mental illness due to their long confinement.

Along with these details was a statement given by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed stating that al-Qaeda would detonate a nuclear device in Europe if Osama bin Laden was captured or killed. Given that bin Laden was killed by US Navy SEALs in 2011, this was either a lie or al-Qaeda is playing a very long game.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter*

Day 16: Lidwina embarks on the road to sainthood

As a teenager, Lidwina was seriously injured in an ice skating accident, and never fully recovered from her injuries. In fact, she became progressively more disabled, losing function in everything but her left hand and prone to bleeding and the loss of body parts. There's some thought today that Lidwina was actually suffering from multiple sclerosis. 

Attestations taken during her lifetime stated that Lidwina rarely if ever slept or eat, and recorded instances of her ability to heal the sick or provide food that would last much longer than expected based on the quantity given. She continued her good works until her death on April 14, 1433.

Locals began to venerate Lidwina almost immediately, and several biographies (including one by Thomas à Kempis) helped to establish her following. Her relics moved to Brussels for a time after the chapel they were housed in in her hometown of Schiedam, the Netherlands was destroyed.  A new church was later built and the relics returned home. In 1890, Pope Leo XII made Lidwina a saint by equipollent canonization, which allows the pope to make someone a saint outside of the usual procedure due to the continued universal veneration of the individual.

* The date used here is when Easter would have fallen if the Gregorian calendar were in place in 1433, rather than the actual date of Easter that year reckoned by the Julian calendar. 

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 15: Anthony Fokker is born

Anton "Anthony" Fokker was born on April 6, 1890, in the Dutch East Indies, where his father owned a coffee plantation. The family moved back to the Netherlands when Fokker was four, and as he grew up he showed an interest in mechanical things but not much interest in school.

Fokker was sent to Germany as a young man to become an auto mechanic, but he had been interested in flying ever since seeing Wilbur Wright's flying demonstration in France in 1908. He transferred to a company that also made airplanes, and started to build and design his own models. After showing success he opened up his own company and started building his own planes. 

At the outbreak of World War I, the German government took over his factory, and Fokker started to build the warplanes that made him famous. Though his status didn't come without controversy, as he was seen as a less than ethical businessman, a designer who took credit for others' work, and he had issues with planes failing in flight due to problems with production or design (though he would argue that interference by German engineers and the military caused some of these problems). He also helped develop an interrupter gear that timed machine gun fire so it wouldn't hit the propeller, though it also had mechanical issues that caused crashes.

After the war, with Germany banned from rearming itself, Fokker moved his business (and most of his remaining stock) to the Netherlands. He expanded his business by moving to the US in the 1920s, where his planes were the choice of aviators and explorers like Richard Byrd and Amelia Earhart. That good publicity dimmed when Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne died in a Fokker plane crash. Fokker would later take his company public, which led to its acquisition by General Motors and his eventual resignation from the company. Fokker would die in the US in 1939 from pneumococcal meningitis.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 14: Patrick Pearse elected president of the Irish Republic

The Irish Republican Brotherhood planned on leading a rebellion in Ireland against British rule as early as 1914, taking advantage of Britain's involvement in World War I. This led to the establishment of a military council within the IRB, which continued to plan for a rising even though the leadership of the IRB and the related Irish Volunteers thought the timing wasn't right. 

As planning continued, the council got the Irish Citizen Army, led by James Connolly, to join in the rebellion rather than launch their own. In the week prior to Easter, the British intercepted a shipment of German arms meant for the rebels, which prompted the ICA to call off all actions for Easter Sunday. 

The IRB's military council on Easter, April 23 1916, and decided to go ahead with the rising, even if the ICA wouldn't be involved. Patrick Pearse was named both president of the Irish Republic and commander in chief of its army (made up of the Irish Volunteers and the ICA). New orders were sent out, and the rest is history.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 13: The Battle of Toulouse begins

One of the last battles of the Napoleonic Wars the Battle of Toulouse actually started after the abdication of Napoleon and the capitulation of the French Empire, but as news traveled slowly in those days the fighting continued. 

A force led by the Duke of Wellington pushed out of Spain and proceeded to Toulouse, one of the last strongholds for Napoleon in the south. Fighting began on Easter Sunday, April 10, 1814, with a plan of using a diversonary attack to draw off some of the French troops so that the main body of Wellington's army could take the Heights of Calvinet. Muddy fields and some battlefield confusion led to some disjointed fighting early on, but by the end of the day the main force had taken the heights, and the French pulled back behind the city's fortifications. 

From their new positions, the allied army was able to move its forces up the next day, leading the French commander to abandon the city. Officials turned the city over to Wellington on the 12th, at which point he learned of Napoleon's abdication. An armistice was signed a few days after that, once French military leaders were satisfied that the provisional government was legitmate.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 12: The central tower of Elgin Cathedral collapses

This sounds like a bad thing to have happen on Easter Sunday, and it would have been much worse if the cathedral had actually been holding services. By the time the central tower collapsed on April 5, 1711, Elgin Cathedral hadn't been used for religious purposes for about 150 years.

The cathedral was built in the 13th century, and was rebuild and expanded three times in its first 150 years after fires. It continued to grow until the Scottish Reformation in 1560, at which point the official church of Scotland became Protestant, and Catholic services were banned. The cathedral could only be used for religious purposes if it became a parish church, and as there was already a parish church in Elgin the cathedral was abandoned. It was given to the burgh of Elgin for use in education or for the poor, but not much was made of it and it eventually reverted to the crown.

From there the building went into decline, aided by the removal of the lead seals in the roof for use as ammunition (which never happened, as the ship that was transporting the lead sank in Aberdeen harbor). Part of the roof would later collapse, and its thought the cathedral's rose window was destroyed by forces loyal to Oliver Cromwell during the Protectorate. So it's not fully surprising that the central tower would collapse. Once that happened the stone was harvested for other building projects. 

The ruins of the cathedral still stand near Elgin and are open to visitors.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 11: Charlie Chaplin returns to the US

Charlie Chaplin was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood in the first half of the 20th century, successfully transitioning from silent era pictures like The Gold Rush to talkies like Modern Times and The Great Dictator.  He was also one of the founders of United Artists, a film studio run by filmmakers rather than businessmen. 

For all of his professional success, his personal life was more tumultuous. He had a fondness for younger women, and all of his four marriages were to women in their teens or early 20s. In between marriages three and four (to the then 18 year old Oona O'Neill), he was successfully sued for paternity by Joan Barry, even though bloodwork suggested he was not the father of her child. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover would use the Barry case to charge Chaplin with violating the Mann Act, which prohibited taking women across state lines for sexual purposes. He was acquitted, but the case damaged his reputation.

As did his increasingly public support for leftist causes. While he always denied being a communist, the rumors about his political leanings grew during the 1940s, culminating in a subpoena to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee (he did not testify). All of this came to a head in 1952, when Chaplin left the US to go to London for a film premiere, and his permit to return to the US was revoked. Rather than submit to an interview to regain the permit, Chaplin decided to stay in Europe, which he did for 20 years.

He made his return to the US in 1972, to attend the Academy Awards, where he was being given an Lifetime Achievement award. He first flew from the UK to Bermuda, and on Easter Sunday, April 2, he flew to JFK airport in New York. He spent four days in the city, and was honored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and then flew to LA for the Oscars, where received his award from Jack Lemmon after a 12 minute standing ovation.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 10: Grey's Anatomy premiers

Filling the Sunday timeslot of Boston Legal, which had just completed its first season, Grey's Anatomy debuted on Easter Sunday, March 27, 2005. It was fairly well-received before blossoming into a bona fide hit in its second season. It helped that it aired in the slot after Desperate Housewives and was female-forward enough to hold that show's viewers and bring in younger viewers as well.

What was probably not expected is that the young women who first flocked to the show can now watch it with their daughters. The show is the longest running primetime medical drama in US TV history, and will extend that with a 19th season in 2022-23.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 9: Vesta is discovered

Heinrich Olbers went to university to become a doctor, but wound up being best known as an astronomer. He also studied mathematics while at university, and while tending to a sick student came up with a new way to calculate the orbit of comets. He would set up a medical practice in Bremen, Germany after graduation, but found lasting fame from what he did in the observatory he set up on the top floor of his house.

Olbers discovered the asteroid Pallas the year after the asteroid Ceres was discovered, and theorized that they were remnants of a planet that had been destroyed. He wrote of this theory to astronomer William Herschel, with the suggestion that studying the area where the orbits of Ceres and Pallas intersected might lead to further discoveries. That idea bore fruit on Easter Sunday (March 29) 1807, when Olbers discovered another asteroid in that part of space. He let Carl Frederich Gauss name it in honor of his work calculating the orbit of Ceres, and Gauss gave it the name Vesta after the Roman goddess of hearth and home.

It turned out, though, that Olbers was looking in the right place for the wrong reason. These asteroids weren't pieces of a destroyed planet, but pieces of what could have accreted into a planet if it weren't for the gravitational force of Jupiter. That force kept the pieces moving too quickly to fuse together, so collisions would typically destroy them. Over time this created the asteroid belt that currently exists between Mars and Jupiter, with Vesta being one of the larger objects to survive. 

Olbers would go on to become the namesake of a comet, minor planet, lunar crater, and a paradox that asks why the night sky is dark if there are an infinite number of stars that should be visible in the night sky. How that paradox was named for him is a bit of a mystery, as it was posited by other astronomers, but his discussion of it in an 1823 almanac seems to have linked him to it for good. He died in 1840 at the age of 81.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 8: Jimmy Cagney dies

Jimmy Cagney was one of the biggest stars during the Golden Age of Hollywood, and his career as an actor and dancer spanned eight decades, from the 1919 stage production Every Sailor to an appearance in the 1984 TV movie Terrible Joe Moran. He starred in classic films like The Public Enemy, Angels with Dirty Faces, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, for which he won an Academy Award.

Cagney had retired from acting in the early 1960s, but when he had a stroke in 1977 he was eventually convinced to start acting again by his wife Billie Vernon and restauranteur Ruth Zimmerman, who wanted him to do something to make up for the activities he could no longer do due to the stroke. He had small parts in Ragtime and in the aforementioned Terrible Joe Moran, though in the latter his dialogue was dubbed by Rich Little as further strokes had made a significant impact on his speech.

On Easter Sunday, March 30, 1986, Cagney suffered a fatal heart attack. He was 86.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 7: The RMS Royal Adelaide sinks

The RMS Royal Adelaide was a paddle steamer that ran a route between London and Cork. It left Cork on March 27, 1850, landed at Plymouth the following evening, and left for London on Good Friday morning with 250 deck passengers. It apparently ran on to a sandbar in the Tongue Sands in the Thames estuary, near Margate, and would eventually sink, taking all on board with it. Emergency signals had been sent, but not acted upon, and authorities were unaware that the ship had gone down until Easter Sunday.

This wreck should not be confused with the Royal Adelaide shipwreck of November 1865, when an iron ship of the same name was pushed onto Chesil Beach during a storm. Only seven of the 70 or so passengers and crew died, but four of the volunteers who came out to help save passengers and cargo apparently died from exposure when they spent the night on the beach after getting drunk off of salvaged booze. 

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 6: The Treaty of Westminster is signed

This treaty, signed on April 5, 1654, ended the first Anglo-Dutch War. Interestingly, you could say that the treaty was being negotiated before the war even started, as both the English and the Dutch wanted to come to agreement on a number of issues. The English wanted the Dutch to remove the royalist exiles who fled to the Netherlands after Cromwell took office. The Dutch wanted a number of changes, mostly on shipping and commerce. No agreement was made, tensions rose after England passed the Navigation Acts, and an incident at sea started the war.

While the Dutch navy lost a number of naval battles, the English were still locked out of the Baltic and southeast Asia by the Dutch (and their Danish allies), and both countries suffered economically. This brought both parties back to the negotiating table, with the resulting treaty that settled few of the issues from the original negotiations, but at least brought peace.

Perhaps the most notable feature of the treaty was the secret clause that required the Dutch to keep William III from leading the Netherlands. This was done through the Act of Seclusion, which was then deemed null after the Restoration, as the Dutch argued that the agreement was made with the Commonwealth of England. William would not only go on to lead the Netherlands, but became the king of England, Ireland, and Scotland after the Glorious Revolution.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 5: Jacob Roggeveen names Easter Island

Roggeveen, a Dutch explorer, was sent to the Pacific to find Davis Land, a mysterious island located near South America and named for the pirate who claimed to have seen it in 1687. Roggeveen didn't find it - no one did, as it doesn't quite seem to exist - but on April 5, 1722, he stumbled across this island and named it for the holiday.

What's not clear is what name the island had up to that point. We often refer to it today as Rapa Nui, but that name wasn't given until the 1800s, and is also the name of the indigenous people who inhabit the island. There are two or three possible names, including one that translates as "The Navel of the World," which to me is the clubhouse leader on romantic notions alone.

Roggeveen would go on to be the first European to sight Bora Bora and Samoa. He did this while sailing for the Dutch West India Company, and would actually be arrested by agents of the Dutch East India Company for violating their monopoly. He eventually got that sorted out, and even worked for that company for a time in Batavia (now Jakarta) before going home to serve as a notary and publisher of controversial religious pamphlets. Easter Island would be annexed by Chile, of which it is still a part today.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 4: The first voyage of the East India Company

The East India Company, an English venture set up to generate trade from Asia, saw its first voyage set off on April 22, 1601. Sort of. The five ships left port in February, but adverse winds kept them from clearing the English Channel until Easter Sunday.

In any event, the voyage succeeded in the way most English adventures abroad did, through violence. They captured a Portuguese ship, and used its cargo to help finance the establishment of two trading factories in what is today Indonesia. From there the EIC would spread throughout Asia, most notably in India, with the results that made the British so beloved in that part of the world.

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 3: RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta goes on air

The debut of an Irish language radio station in Ireland may not seem that important, but when this station went live on April 2, 1972, it was a big step for people who were trying to revive the Irish language after years of suppression. 

There was an intent to provide Irish language radio from the founding of the Irish state, but economic considerations frustrated those plans. The one Irish radio station in operation did broadcast some Irish language programming, but that amount dwindled over time, a trend that accelerated in the 1950s and '60s as the new Irish broadcaster, RTE, focused on providing more profitable content.

This raised the ire of Irish language supporters, and the issue of Irish language radio was swept up into a broader civil rights campaign to promote Irish in official publications and services. This campaign spawned an Irish language pirate radio station, whose success finally prodded RTE to launch an official Irish language radio station. 

You will not be surprised that one of the first things aired on the station was Easter Mass. 

The station continues to air, and has provided 24 hour service since 2001. An Irish language TV station launched in 1996, and there are several local Irish language stations as well. In 2005, the station relented a bit with respect to the majority language in Ireland and allowed music with English language lyrics during a late night show (11pm to 1am), with the first song played being "Blister in the Sun" by the Violent Femmes (as chosen by listeners, which is kind of surprising for 2005).

 Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 2: Chloe Kim is born

Appropriate given that we just had the Winter Olympics, American snowboarder Chloe Kim was born on April 23, 2000. Kim is the two-time reigning Olympic and world champion in halfpipe, and has won six gold medals in superpipe at the X Games. Suffice it to say she's pretty good at snowboarding. 

Another Lent, another Lentorama, this year with an historical theme:

Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

40 days of world events that happened on (Western Christian) Easter Sunday. And while they won't all be connected to Easter specifically, our first entry is.

Day 1: Pope Francis livestreams the Urbi et Orbi address and blessing 

We go all the way back to 2020 for this one. The Urbi et Orbi blessing is typically given by the Pope on the most solemn occasions of the Catholic church: Easter, Christmas, and the election of a new Pope. With the world at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Francis opted to livestream the 2020 blessing rather than have people congregate in St. Peter's Square as usual. This followed an extraordinary Urbi et Orbi blessing a couple of week previously, which was given from the doors of St. Peter's and also without public attendance. 

Future blessings would also adapt to the pandemic, though Francis was able to give the blessing and address for Christmas 2021 from the traditional spot (a balcony in the central loggia of St. Peter's) and with people in the square. Which maybe wasn't for the best given that the omicron variant was on the rise, but it seems to have gone off without too much trouble.

 Book Log 2022 #7: The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin

I'm not a huge Western fan, though I'm definitely in favor of the recent move to redefine the genre. This book lands squarely in that movement, as it follows its Chinese-American title character as he tries to avenge his (white) wife's kidnapping and his being forced into hard labor (both at the behest of his railroad tycoon father in law).

The story not only considers issues of race and class, but also throws in some magical realism with a traveling show whose members appear to have supernatural powers and a character known as the Prophet, who can occasionally see the future.

Like a traditional Western, there's a fair amount of violence, and the white characters can't tell the Chinese ones apart (which Ming uses to his advantage more than once).  But unlike traditional Westerns you actually do see non-white characters in main roles, and the good and bad guys are more nuanced.

I don't know if I'll develop more of a taste for Westerns if they're written like this, but I'll at least be more likely to give them a chance.

 In case you missed, it the USFL is coming back this year, an otherwise bright spot in our continued hellscape. At least for those of us who will watch pretty much any football.

The league is starting off with eight teams, all of which are using the names, logos, etc. of teams from the original incarnation. Which I will now rank in order of preference, because I didn't have the chance to do so in 1983.

8. Philadelphia Stars. It seems odd that I'm putting the most successful USFL franchise last, but it lands on the bottom for being a generic name with a generic logo. It looks like they've made minor tweaks to the Stars word art, and they've dumped the old gold color in favor of both orange and gold. None of which helps.

7. New Jersey Generals. I don't like the changes they've made to the logo. I find the stars too close together. Also not a fan that they still have five official colors. But the name is fine if generic.

6. Birmingham Stallions. They've also cleaned up the word art and logo, but have kept the colors more or less the same. Nothing wrong here per se, but I like the other five teams better (as well as this other Stallions franchise).

5. Michigan Panthers. Another case of making the logo and word art sharper, and the light blue accent seems more prominent than the original. I was going to rail about both changes, but in looking at old photos I think the changes are less significant than I originally assumed. 

4. New Orleans Breakers. New word art, but the logo looks very close to the original. I'm probably being a total homer for ranking them this high, but they will always be the Boston Breakers to me.

3. Pittsburgh Maulers. I was never a fan of their color scheme. But I like the name and the logo, and the changes they made to the word art and logo are an improvement. 

2. Tampa Bay Bandits. They've also neatened up their word art and logo, and it's also an improvement (though their originals weren't too bad). Very solid and traditional color scheme that works well with a great nickname.

1. Houston Gamblers. They refreshed the word art (an improvement) and it doesn't look like they changed much else. Which is good, as most everything else about their nickname, logo, and colors is great. I still find five official colors too much, but when everything else works that's a minor quibble.

 Book Log 2022 #6: Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan

As a newly minted member of the IRA, a 16 year-old Brendan Behan set off on an unauthorized mission to bomb the Liverpool docks. As you might expect, he was caught before ever coming close to the docks, and was sentenced to a term in a borstal, the UK version of juvie. This book recounts the three years he spent inside, from 1939 to 1941.

Two things struck me about his account:

1.Behan's time in borstal did not seem particularly harrowing compared to what you might expect from a prison narrative. There are episodes of mistreatment and violence, but nothing particularly extreme. I don't know if Behan played down this aspect of his time, or if it just reflects a different time or approach to confining minors.

2. It becomes clear pretty quickly that the Irish Catholic Behan and the largely English Protestant body of inmates have more in common than they first expect, due to having a shared working class background. 

I liked it, but wonder how different the story would have been had he written it closer to his actual sentence.

 Book Log 2022: Sex Cult Nun by Faith Jones

This is one of several recent memoirs by former members of the Children of God (also known as The Family or The Family International), a religious movement/cult which combined fundamentalist Christianity with communal living and an emphasis on sex as a way to show God's love. What sets this one apart is that Jones is the granddaughter of the group's founder, and thus has a unique insight into both the day to day life and broader practices of the group.

As the title implies, sex played a significant role, and females (including children) were expected to have sex with any male member of the group. The trauma this caused was significant, especially when added to the emotional and physical abuse common among such groups. Making sex a critical part of faith added another layer, adding the fear of eternal damnation on top of everything else.

Jones left th group as an adult, and the latter part of the book documents how she gained an education and developed her own sense of the wider world, experiences she was blocked from having while growing up. I found this part of the book a little uneven, as her critiques of education and other social structures don't always ring true to me (though I admittedly am coming at them from a very different place).

The book shows a great deal of restraint with regards to sex (moreso than you might expect from the title), talking about it plainly but without lurid detail. The recounting of life within the group is fascinating and well worth reading.

 Book Log 2022: The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

This novel reimagines the events of the Iliad from the point of view of Briseis, a local queen who is taken captive by Achilles after the Greeks ransack her city.  We see the war through her eyes, from the various conflicts that Achilles has with other Greeks to her relationships with the other women in camp, many of whom were her subjects. As the title suggests, there's actually not that much dialogue from Briseis, as much of her story is told in flashback or internally.

The book is very direct in how it portrays the horrors of war, and the specific trauma it inflicts upon women. Seeing this in the context of the Trojan War underscores how little this has changed in history, and how rare it is to get a female perspective on war and its aftermath. 

I did read a few reviews of the book, and many complained about the use of modern slang, saying it pulls the reader out of the ancient setting. I can't say it bothered me, but I can see the argument. Some also said it lacked the lyrical or magical qualities of Circe, but I would expect a book about war to be more direct than one about a demigoddess who lives on an island.

Overall, I liked this book very much and look forward to the sequel.

 Book Log 2022 #3: Inspector Saito's Small Satori by Janwillem van de Wetering

I've wandered in and out of van de Wetering's series featuring Amsterdam detectives Grijpstra and de Gier, liking them well enough but not so motivated as to actually finish the series. The author has a background in both Zen Buddhism and police work, and combining the two results in an unusual take on the genre.

With this book, van de Wetering shifts more towards the Zen side of the equation. Inspector Saito is young and relatively new at his job, and relies on his Zen training and logical mind to both solve cases and manage his position within the department. They're good stories, and I think the combination of detective fiction and Buddhist philosophy may work better in this format (though that could say more about me and my relative inexperience with the subject than anything).

As far as I can this is the only book of Inspector Saito stories, which is too bad. I think I'd have read more of them... eventually.

 Book Log 2022 #2: The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen

Nguyen continues to examine memory, identity, and the feeling of living between worlds in this short story collection. The stories have a kinship with his novels in terms of location and character histories, but are not (as far as I could tell) directly related to them. 

Each of the stories depicts a conflict where the main character must come to terms with a change in circumstances that puts their world view in question, from the newly-arrived Vietnamese refugee who discovers his sponsors are a gay couple to the American father who has to overcome his war experiences when visting his daughter, who now lives in Vietnam. There's also one story that seems autobiographical, about a boy whose parents own a Vietnamese grocery store in San Jose.

I really enjoyed the collection, and found each variaton on the common themes gave me something new to consider. As someone who has lived in more or less the same place surrounded by more or less the same people, the book helped me develop at least a slightly deeper understanding of what it means to live with such a permanent change in ones circumstances.

 Book Log 2022 #1: Heat Wave by Richard Castle

I started off the new year by reading the first book in the Nikki Heat series "written" by Richard Castle, who is played by Nathan Fillion on the ABC show Castle. In real life, this book was written by Tom Straw, a real-life mystery novelist and TV writer/producer who would go on to write several books in the series.

Nikki Heat is a New York cop who has to solve a murder while babysitting a journalist, Jameson Rook, who is researching an article. The two become de facto partners in the investigation while maybe also becoming partners in the bedroom. The name Heat works on several levels, you see.

The book was perfectly servicable as a TV-tie in, and didn't require any familiarity with the show that I could tell. But it also wasn't particularly memorable, and I don't see myself continuing on with the series.