*Ø* Blogmanac August 9 | Some birthdays for today
1593 Izaak Walton, English author of The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation, a combination of fishing manual and meditations. It become one of the most reprinted books in the history of British letters and today is considered a classic of the language. Walton drew upon Nicholas Breton's (c. 1545-1626) fishing idyll Wits Trenchmour (1597).
‘The Patron Saint of Anglers’Though he wrote of the country pursuits, Izaak Walton was a Londoner who worked as a linen-draper, and he went fishing for recreation. He retired at 50 and had another forty years of leisured life.
Walton was a convert to the preaching of the great poet John Donne. He had two children by a second marriage who looked after him in his old age. His famous book was published 1653, the same year Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector. Because he wrote of keeping bait alive as long as possible on a hook, Byron charged him with cruelty.
Izaak Walton League of America for conservation and pure waterways
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1874 Charles Hay Fort, American chronicler of anomalies and the paranormal
The doyen of the study of strange phenomena, Fort (the adjective from his name, Fortean, is applied to bizarre occurrences) had many views about blood falls which he discussed at length. He wrote the following passage about red rains:
Or that our whole solar system is a living thing: that showers of blood upon this earth are its internal hemorrhages – Or vast living things in the sky, as there are vast living things in the oceans – Or some one especial thing: an especial time; an especial place. A thing the size of the Brooklyn Bridge. It's alive in outer space – something the size of Central Park kills it – It drips.
“He collected accounts of frogs and other strange objects raining from the sky, UFOs, ghosts, spontaneous human combustion, the stigmata, psychic abilities, etc. He published four collections of weird tales and anomalies during his lifetime: Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931), and Wild Talents (1932).” Source
“Fort grew progressively blind. On 3rd of May 1932, he was admitted to hospital suffering from 'unspecified weakness'. He died within a few hours, apparently of leukemia. He took notes almost to the end - the last one said simply: 'Difficulty shaving. Gaunt places in face.' After Fort died, Anna lost her interest in living and survived him by only five years.” Source
Fortean Times
INFO: International Fortean Organization
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1899 Pamela Lyndon (PL) Travers (August 9, 1899 - April 23, 1996), Australian author. Born Helen Lyndon Goff in Maryborough, Queensland (though she tended to hide the fact), Travers was the author of Mary Poppins and devotee of Armenian mystic GI Gurdjieff, writing books on the mystic author and on mysticism generally.
In London she became a friend (and perhaps lover) of the poet George William Russell, who introduced her to his close friends, WB Yeats and TS Eliot. (Yeats and Russell had met at the Dublin Theosophical Society and conducted experiments into the occult, and held séances.) Russell also introduced her to writer and editor, Alfred Orage, who in turn introduced her to Gurdjieff.
Like her most famous character, Mary Poppins, the motto of Travers appears to be ‘never explain’, and perhaps this derives from the Gurdjieffian philosophy. Travers’s life is difficult to research as she was very private and would rarely if ever discuss her life. One thing that is known is that her father was a banker, like Mr Banks, the father figure in the Mary Poppins books.
After her death at the age of 96, at the peak of the Mary Poppins film’s popularity, a fund was started in the USA to erect a statue to PL Travers in New York’s Central Park, but the fund failed due to lack of support.
“ … she was a stargazer as a little girl, because her father was a stargazer and they used to lie in the garden in Allora, which is a little town near Toowoomba, and look at the stars, and he would tell her the meaning of all the stars, their real names, the constellations’ names and so on.” Source
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1593 Izaak Walton, English author of The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man’s Recreation, a combination of fishing manual and meditations. It become one of the most reprinted books in the history of British letters and today is considered a classic of the language. Walton drew upon Nicholas Breton's (c. 1545-1626) fishing idyll Wits Trenchmour (1597).
‘The Patron Saint of Anglers’Though he wrote of the country pursuits, Izaak Walton was a Londoner who worked as a linen-draper, and he went fishing for recreation. He retired at 50 and had another forty years of leisured life.
Walton was a convert to the preaching of the great poet John Donne. He had two children by a second marriage who looked after him in his old age. His famous book was published 1653, the same year Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector. Because he wrote of keeping bait alive as long as possible on a hook, Byron charged him with cruelty.
Izaak Walton League of America for conservation and pure waterways
1874 Charles Hay Fort, American chronicler of anomalies and the paranormal
The doyen of the study of strange phenomena, Fort (the adjective from his name, Fortean, is applied to bizarre occurrences) had many views about blood falls which he discussed at length. He wrote the following passage about red rains:
Or that our whole solar system is a living thing: that showers of blood upon this earth are its internal hemorrhages – Or vast living things in the sky, as there are vast living things in the oceans – Or some one especial thing: an especial time; an especial place. A thing the size of the Brooklyn Bridge. It's alive in outer space – something the size of Central Park kills it – It drips.
“He collected accounts of frogs and other strange objects raining from the sky, UFOs, ghosts, spontaneous human combustion, the stigmata, psychic abilities, etc. He published four collections of weird tales and anomalies during his lifetime: Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931), and Wild Talents (1932).” Source
“Fort grew progressively blind. On 3rd of May 1932, he was admitted to hospital suffering from 'unspecified weakness'. He died within a few hours, apparently of leukemia. He took notes almost to the end - the last one said simply: 'Difficulty shaving. Gaunt places in face.' After Fort died, Anna lost her interest in living and survived him by only five years.” Source
Fortean Times
INFO: International Fortean Organization
1899 Pamela Lyndon (PL) Travers (August 9, 1899 - April 23, 1996), Australian author. Born Helen Lyndon Goff in Maryborough, Queensland (though she tended to hide the fact), Travers was the author of Mary Poppins and devotee of Armenian mystic GI Gurdjieff, writing books on the mystic author and on mysticism generally.
In London she became a friend (and perhaps lover) of the poet George William Russell, who introduced her to his close friends, WB Yeats and TS Eliot. (Yeats and Russell had met at the Dublin Theosophical Society and conducted experiments into the occult, and held séances.) Russell also introduced her to writer and editor, Alfred Orage, who in turn introduced her to Gurdjieff.
Like her most famous character, Mary Poppins, the motto of Travers appears to be ‘never explain’, and perhaps this derives from the Gurdjieffian philosophy. Travers’s life is difficult to research as she was very private and would rarely if ever discuss her life. One thing that is known is that her father was a banker, like Mr Banks, the father figure in the Mary Poppins books.
After her death at the age of 96, at the peak of the Mary Poppins film’s popularity, a fund was started in the USA to erect a statue to PL Travers in New York’s Central Park, but the fund failed due to lack of support.
“ … she was a stargazer as a little girl, because her father was a stargazer and they used to lie in the garden in Allora, which is a little town near Toowoomba, and look at the stars, and he would tell her the meaning of all the stars, their real names, the constellations’ names and so on.” Source
Shop PL Travers
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
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