Monday, April 18, 2011

corybantic \kawr-uh-BAN-tik\, adjective:

• Frenzied; agitated; unrestrained.

Corybantic owes its English use from Latin, but originally refered to a Corybant, a a wild attendant of the goddess Cybele.

intaxication

• Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

I love feeling intaxicated!

Trivia

How many revolutions per minute does Spanish tennis great Rafael Nadal generate when he strikes a ball with his devastating forehand?

• An average of 3,200 rpm—with a maximum of almost 5,000 rpm, according to measurements made with a high-speed camera. Roger Federer averages 2,500 rpm with his forehand.

Holiday

• Passover (Jewish, begins at sundown)

History

• Paul Revere's Ride: the Massachusetts patriot alerted the Colonists that the British were coming (1775)
• San Francisco earthquake: ignited an inferno, killing hundreds and reducing the city to shambles (1906)
• washateria: the first laundromat opened, in Fort Worth, Texas (1934)
• Éire: formally withdrew from the British Commonwealth and became the Republic of Ireland (1949)
• London Bridge: the Thames crossing was sold to American Robert T. McCulloch, who later had it rebuilt in Arizona (1968)
• Wayne Gretzky: NHL legend played his last pro hockey game at NYC's Madison Square Garden (1999)

Birthdays

• Clarence Darrow (1857-1938): lawyer who defended evolution in the Scopes "monkey trial"
• Max Weber (1881-1961): painter, printmaker and sculptor
• Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977): conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra; he appeared as the conductor in Disney's Fantasia
• Conan O'Brien (48): comedian and late-night talk show host, who left NBC for his own show on TBS(coming in November); also, TV personalities James Drury (77), Hayley Mills (65), James Woods (64), Rick Moranis (58), Eric Roberts and Melody Thomas Scott (both 55), Jane Leeves (50), Eric McCormack (48), Maria Bello (44), Melissa Joan Hart (35), Kourtney Kardashian (32), America Ferrera (27) and Alia Shawkat (22)