Today is Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington's Birthday !

b.April 29th 1899 - d.May 24th 1974

Portrait of Duke Ellington and Sonny Greer

Aquarium, New York, N.Y., ca. Nov. 1946 (LOC)
Photo: William P., Gottlieb

I know many of my you have seen this, but here are a couple of photos of my program from "Duke" Ellington's Concert in Memphis. I was there.  A night that changed my life.

Duke was here the same year that I began to host my own musical program on WTGR, Tiger Radio at Memphis State University, now the University of Memphis, in 1969. WTGR became WUMR FM92 all jazz radio (University of Memphis Radio). I was there for 5o years.

After the concert, I was invited to visit with Duke and the band backstage, an incredible, unforgettable honor for me.

Memphis Symphony Orchestra conductor Vincent De Frank introduced me to Duke. I remember Duke shaking my hand and saying, "How ya' doin', David ?" I was speechless and couldn't believe that I was standing there with Duke Ellington and kind of said, "Gosh"!

I stood next to Duke and held my breath as he signed my program in the center between his name and his illustration.

Johnny Hodges, Duke's alto sax player, signed it on the right side over the illustration of Duke's cheek, and Rufus "Speedy" Jones, Duke's drummer, just below Johnny's signature.
 
I'm not certain whose signature appears just above Duke's, but it looks like that of the late, great Peter Spurbeck. Peter was the associate conductor of the Memphis Symphony at the time, a fine cellist, long-time faculty member of U of M, and one of my music theory professors, along with Professor Raymond Lynch, at the time when I studied jazz piano with Dr.Tom Ferguson in 1971 (I baby sat for Dr.Ferguson and his wife once). You might recall that Peter's nickname was "Papa Cello" if you were around then. By the way, Peter played for the dedication and grand opening of the Germantown Performing Arts Center with cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Happy Birthday, Duke !

I thank God for you, and that, for a moment in time,

you shook my hand, and I stood next to you.

Your music will live forever.

-David-

Souvenir Sheet Commemorating The Invention Of  Perforated Toilet Paper

The use of toilet paper dates back as early as c. 589 when the scholar-official Yan Zhitui (531–591) wrote:

"Paper on which there are quotations or commentaries from the Five Classics (text of Confucious) or the names of sages, I dare not use for toilet purposes."

Joseph Gayetty is widely credited with being the inventor of modern commercially available toilet paper in the United States. Gayetty's paper, first introduced in 1857, was available as late as the 1920s. Gayetty's Medicated Paper was sold in packages of flat sheets, watermarked with the inventor's name. Original advertisements for the product used the tagline "The greatest necessity of the age! Gayetty's medicated paper for the water-closet".

Seth Wheeler of Albany, New York, obtained the earliest United States patents for toilet paper and dispensers, the types of which eventually were in common use in that country, in 1883. Toilet paper dispensed from rolls was popularized when the Scott Paper Company began marketing it in 1890.

The fourth millennium BC would witness the invention of clay pipes, sewers, and toilets, in Mesopotamia, with the city of Uruk today exhibiting the earliest known internal pit toilet, from c. 3200 BC. The Neolithic village of Skara Brae contains examples, c. 3000 BC, of internal small rooms over a communal drain, rather than pit. The Indus Valley Civilisation in northwestern India and Pakistan was home to the world's first known urban sanitation systems. In Mohenjo-Daro (c. 2800 BC), toilets were built into the outer walls of homes.[citation needed] These toilets had vertical chutes, via which waste was disposed of into cesspits or street drains. In the Indus city of Lothal (c. 2350 BC), houses belonging to the upper class had private toilets connected to a covered sewer network constructed of brickwork held together with a gypsum-based mortar that emptied either into the surrounding water bodies or alternatively into cesspits, the latter of which were regularly emptied and cleaned.

Other very early toilets that used flowing water to remove the waste are found at Skara Brae in Orkney, Scotland, which was occupied from about 3100 BC until 2500 BC. Some of the houses there have a drain running directly beneath them, and some of these had a cubicle over the drain. Around the 18th century BC, toilets started to appear in Minoan Crete, Pharaonic Egypt, and ancient Persia.

In 2012, archaeologists found what is believed to be Southeast Asia's earliest latrine during the excavation of a Neolithic village in the Rạch Núi archaeological site [vi], southern Vietnam. The toilet, dating back 1500 BC, yielded important clues about early Southeast Asian society. More than 30 coprolites, containing fish and shattered animal bones, provided information on the diet of humans and dogs, and on the types of parasites each had to contend with.

In Sri Lanka, the techniques of the construction of toilets and lavatories developed over several stages. A highly developed stage in this process is discernible in the constructions at the Abhayagiri complex in Anuradhapura where toilets and baths dating back to 2nd century BC to 3rd century CE are known, later forms of toilets from 5th century CE to 13th century CE in Polonnaruwa and Anuradhapura had elaborate decorative motifs carved around the toilets. Several types of toilets were developed; these include lavatories with ring-well pits, underground terracotta pipes that lead to septic pits, urinary pits with large bottomless clay pots of decreasing size placed one above the other. These pots under urinals contained "sand, lime and charcoal" through which urine filtered down to the earth in a somewhat purified form.

In Roman civilization, latrines using flowing water were sometimes part of public bath houses. Roman latrines, like the ones pictured here, are commonly thought to have been used in the sitting position. The Roman toilets were probably elevated to raise them above open sewers which were periodically "flushed" with flowing water, rather than elevated for sitting. Romans and Greeks also used chamber pots, which they brought to meals and drinking sessions. Johan J. Mattelaer said, "Plinius has described how there were large receptacles in the streets of cities such as Rome and Pompeii into which chamber pots of urine were emptied. The urine was then collected by fullers." (Fulling was a vital step in textile manufacture.)

Toilet Nouveau-Riche

Worthless Stamps

Today is "International Puffin Day" !

I've been collecting the stamps of Lundy Island since the age of seven.

 I hope to visit Lundy one day.

Happy "International Puffin Day" to all !