Monday, October 18, 2010

laconic \luh-KON-ik\, adjective:

• Using or marked by the use of a minimum of words; brief and pithy; brusque.

Laconic comes, via Latin, from Greek Lakonikos, "of or relating to a Laconian or Spartan," hence "terse," in the manner of the Laconians.

premake

• the original version of a song that another band has made a remake of, often used in a sarcastic manner

My friend told me "Live and Let Die" was his favorite Guns-N-Roses song, he seemed suprised when I told him Paul McCartney had done a premake of that song.

Trivia

In how many film comedies did funnymen Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor appear together?

• Four—Silver Streak (1976); Stir Crazy (1980); See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989); and Another You (1991).

History

• Great Basel Earthquake: Swiss city was destroyed, along with parts of France and Germany (1356)
• Edict of Nantes: law that had granted religious liberties to Protestants was revoked by Louis XIV and replaced with the Edict of Fontainebleau; many Protestants left France as a result (1685)
• Moby-Dick: Herman Melville's novel about Captain Ahab's quest was published; it was originally entitled The Whale (1851)
• Alaska: territory known as "Seward's Folly" was purchased by the US from Russia for approximately $7 million in gold bullion (1867)
• Persons Case: a Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruling in Edwards v. Canada determined that in Canada women could be defined as persons for political purposes (1929)

Birthdays

• Henri Bergson (1859-1941): philosopher and author of Creative Evolution
• Pierre Trudeau (1919-2000): former Canadian PM
• Lee Harvey Oswald (1939-1963): accused assassin of JFK
• Mike Ditka (71): football legend; Wimbledon champ Martina Navratilova (54) shares this birth date
• Terry McMillan (59): author of Waiting to Exhale; plus, writer Ntozake Shange (62)
• Ne-Yo (31): R&B singer/songwriter; also, musicians Melina Mercouri (1923?-1994), Chuck Berry (84), Laura Nyro (1947-1997) and Wynton Marsalis (49)
• Lindsey Vonn (26): gold-medal skier
• Zac Efron (23): teenybopper hero of High School Musical, currently on screens in Charlie St. Cloud; also, actors Melina Mercouri (1920?-1994), George C. Scott (1927-1999), Peter Boyle (1935-2006), Pam Dawber (59), Erin Moran and Jean-Claude Van Damme (both 50), Vincent Spano (48), Freida Pinto (26) and Joy Lauren (21)