It is NOT a blogosphere meme pool tag game!

No, really! Well, sorta. Kinda. Maybe

*sigh*

Diane (Diane’s Stuff) sorta halfway almost kinda semi-tagged me with this NOT-a-blogosphere-meme-pool-tag-game she was herself sorta halfway almost kinda semi-tagged by Cathy at Sunday Morning Coffee to play.

Here’re the NOT-a-blogosphere-meme-pool-tag-game instructions:

Go to Wikipedia and search your birthday (not the year). Then you post three (3) items: two (2) births and one (1) death.

Make it easier on yourself. Just google “your birthday” (month and day only) and “wiki” and you’re there. Don’t even use the quotation marks.

OK,

May 23, 1910: Artie Shaw, born Arthur Arshawsky.

…an accomplished jazz clarinetist, composer, bandleader, and writer.

He was born in New York City, United States, and began learning the saxophone when he was 15 and, by age 16, had begun to tour with a band. He returned to New York and became a session musician. During the Swing Era, his big band was very popular with hits like “Begin the Beguine”, “Stardust”, and “Frenesi”.

More at the link.

And how about Humphrey Lyttelton?

In the late 1940s and early 1950s Lyttelton was prominent in the British revival of traditional jazz forms, from New Orleans, recording with Sidney Bechet in 1949, necessitating the break of Musician Union restrictive practices which forbade working with jazz musicians from the USA. In 1956, he had his only hit, with the Joe Meek engineered recording of Bad Penny Blues, which was in the UK charts for 6 weeks. As the trad movement (not quite the same thing as revivalism) developed, Lyttelton moved to a mainstream approach favoured by American musicians such as trumpeter Buck Clayton; they recorded together in the early 1960s. By now his repertory had expanded, not only including lesser known Ellington pieces, but even “The Champ” from Dizzy Gillespie’s band book. The Lyttelton band — he sees himself primarily as a leader — has helped develop the careers of many now prominent British musicians, including Tony Coe and Alan Barnes.

More at the link, again.

May 23, 1498 – Girolamo Savonarola executed on the orders of Pope Alexander VI. Savonarola was a particularly nasty piece of work, perhaps best known for burning much of the great art—books, paintings, etc.—of Florence in his attempts to stifle the Rennaisance. The famous name of his infamous act(s)? The Bonfire of the Vanities. Dumbass. (Warning: typical Wikipedia lack of depth. Mentions “it’ as a single event, and only peripherally mentions the on-going bonfires, as well as past book/art burnings sponsored by other dumbass religionists. *sigh* Still, the article’s not a bad place to start… )

I may tag some folks later, but since there are no tagging rules to this NOT-quite-a-blogosphere-meme-pool-tag-game, I’ll just ask that whoever reads this post your own NOT-quite-a-blogosphere-meme-pool-tag-game version of this and link here and track back, OK?

For now. You don’t want to make me come on over and tag you, now do you? Hmmmm?

😉