Today is the First Saturday of the month, dedicated to Devotions to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. With no Saints to honor, today is Star Wars Day (as in, May the Fourth be with you). Today is the 150th Running of the Kentucky Derby, the first race in the Triple Crown, run in Louisville, Kentucky (all I know about racehorses is which end eats). And today is the Third Day of the Second Weekend of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
The First Saturday of each month is dedicated to devotions to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Our Lady of Fátima, in her apparitions to the three shepherd children (Servant of God Lúcia Santos and her cousins Saint Francisco and Saint Jacinta Marto) in 1917, told the children that, in reparation for the sins committed against her Immaculate Heart, on the first Saturday of five consecutive months a Catholic believer go to the Sacrament of Penance (within eight days before or after the first Saturday), receive Holy Communion, recite five decades of the Rosary, and keep her company for fifteen minutes while meditating on the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary. She promised that whoever would ever do this would be given the graces necessary for salvation at the hour of one’s death. May the Fourth is considered an unofficial holiday by Star Wars fans to celebrate Star Wars culture and remember the films (May the Fourth Be With You). Naturally, I have seen all most some of the Star Wars movies, starting back in 1977 with the original Star Wars. 1980 brought us Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (allegedly, with “Episode V” in the crawl at the beginning of the movie), and in 1983 I saw Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (again allegedly, with “Episode VI” in the crawl, and almost certainly with Richard, since he and I had met in 1982 and were engaged by that point in time). In 1997 I saw the original Star Wars movie again, in the theater; when the crawl came up with “Episode IV: A New Hope”, the whole theater exploded in laughter (which is why I am almost certain that the Episode crawls were not in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back or in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi). Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace appeared in 1999; Wikipedia states “The release of the first new Star Wars film in sixteen years was accompanied by a considerable amount of hype.” 2002 brought us Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith managed to tie up all the loose plot ends to bring us to the beginning of the original Star Wars movie. In October 2012 The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion and announced that it would produce three new films. The first film, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (set thirty years after the end of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi) came out in December 2015, and of course we went to the theatre to see it. Rogue One (2016), which I did not see, is an “anthology” film, set before the 1977 Star Wars film. Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi came out in 2017. I have not seen The Last Jedi, but I suppose I should; the third and final installment, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019), has not been seen by me, either. Of the movies in the franchise that I have seen, my favorite is still Star Wars: Return of the Jedi; gotta love those Ewoks. I also saw Hardware Wars, a 1978 short film parody of a teaser trailer for Star Wars. The thirteen-minute film, which was released almost eighteen months after Star Wars, consisted of little more than inside jokes and visual puns that heavily depended upon audience familiarity with the original. The theme song was Richard Wagner’s famous “Ride of the Valkyries”. The tagline was “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll kiss three bucks goodbye.” (You can find this gem on YouTube.) I did not see Spaceballs (1987), the Mel Brooks parody of Star Wars and other sci-fi films. And some fun trivia for you: Most of the Stormtroopers are left-handed; the weapon the stormtroopers used was essentially the Sterling L2A3 9mm SMG (sub-machine gun) a military weapon with a curved left entry side mount developed in the late 1940s in the United Kingdom and adopted by the British and Canadian Armies in the 1950s. In The Phantom Menace, Yoda has three toes. But in The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith, he has four. The word “Ewok” is never uttered by a character in the original trilogy, although the species is identified in the script and closing credits. The Millennium Falcon was originally modeled after a hamburger with an olive next to it. The sound of Darth Vader’s breathing was created by placing a small microphone in the second stage (mouthpiece) of a scuba regulator, and then recording the sound made by breathing through the regulator. The word “Jedi” is derived from the Japanese words “Jidai Geki” which translates as “period adventure drama,’ which is a Japanese TV soap opera program set in the days of the samurai. The Aurebesh alphabet is the written form of the Star Wars language, “Galactic Basic”, and someone has a Translator that will convert English to Aurebesh for you (FontSpace has several Aurebesh fonts available for downloading). And May the Fourth Be With You!, my Five or Six Loyal Readers and my Minions of Followers. The Kentucky Derby is a Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbred horses, held annually in Louisville, Kentucky on the first Saturday in May (except in years with world-wide pandemics), capping the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The race is one and a quarter mile at Churchill Downs. Colts and geldings carry 126 pounds and fillies 121 pounds. The race is known in the United States as “The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports” or “The Fastest Two Minutes in Sports” for its approximate duration, and is also called “The Run for the Roses” for the blanket of roses draped over the winner. It is normally the first leg of the United States Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing and is followed by the Preakness Stakes, then the Belmont Stakes; the horse must win all three to win the Triple Crown. Three hundred and ten horses have won a single leg of the Triple Crown, fifty-two horses have won two of the races (twenty-three won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, eighteen won the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes, and eleven won the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes), and thirteen (Sir Barton (1919), Gallant Fox (1930), Omaha (1935), War Admiral (1937), Whirlaway (1941), Count Fleet (1943), Assault (1946), Citation (1948), Secretariat (1973), Seattle Slew (1977), Affirmed (1978), American Pharoah (2015), and Justify (2018), have won all three races. Pillory won both the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes in 1922, a year when it was impossible to win the Triple Crown because the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes were run on the same day. Only one horse, Alydar, has placed (finished second) in all three races. He was defeated by Affirmed in all three races in 1978 by a combined margin of two lengths. Normally the attendance at the Kentucky Derby ranks first in North America and usually surpasses the attendance of all other stakes races including the Preakness Stakes, Belmont Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup. Today is also the Third Day of the Second Weekend of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. One of the unique aspects of the Festival are the large areas dedicated to cultural and historical practices unique to Louisiana depicting many cultures that exist including Cajun, Los Islenos, and those found in several geographical areas of specific neighborhoods of New Orleans or other parts of Louisiana. Many of the folk demonstrators have been recognized by the National Endowment of the Arts for their work. Today’s headliners include Neil Young with Crazy Horse, Greta Van Fleet, Queen Latifah, and Rhiannon Giddens.
Last night I continued reading The Cat Who Talked Turkey by Lilian Jackson Braun (Ebook).
Richard fed the cats and went to drink coffee and came home. I woke up at 9:00 am, posted to Facebook that today was Star Wars Day and posted to Facebook that today was the Kentucky Derby, and did my Book Devotional Reading. I wrote out my checks for church this afternoon, and ate my breakfast toast and read the Acadiana Advocate out on the porch. I then did my Internet Devotional Reading and said the Second Day of my Ascension Novena. I came inside and continued reading The Library Book by Susan Orlean. I went to Church, and found that something unknown had gotten everything in my church purse wet, with very bad results for my Magnificat Rosary booklet. I cleaned things up in the church kitchen, then I went to Confession, and did my Rosary (the Joyful Mysteries). I then attended the 4:00 pm Saturday Anticipation Mass for the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Rogation Sunday) (Alleluia!). I then came home, not wanting to deal with my purse at Bingo at the Fair. At the Kentucky Derby, Mystik Dan, ridden by Brian Hernandez Jr. of Lafayette, Louisiana, won in a photo finish over Sierra Leone. I continued reading The Library Book by Susan Orlean. We ate the rest of the shrimp fettuccine with sweet peas, and watched Mrs. Miniver (1942), which won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress. When Greer Garson accepted her award for Best Actress, her speech was five minutes and thirty seconds, after which the Academy Awards instituted a time limit on acceptance speeches. Our #10 LSU Lady Tigers won the second game of a three-game, three-day College Softball Series with the Liberty Flames by the score of 9 to 4. And our LSU Tigers (30-17, 8-14) are playing the second game of a three-game, three-day Home SEC College Baseball Series with the #1 Texas A&M Aggies (38-7, 15-7). And I will now finish this Daily Update, do some reading, and go to bed.
Tomorrow is the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Rogation Sunday) (Alleluia!). Tomorrow is the Midpoint of the Spring Season and the First Day of the two-day Eta Aquarid Meteor Shower. Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo (¡Ole!), a holiday that is observed in Tex-Mex areas much more than in Mexico itself (usually with parties, and with an overabundance of cheap tequila). Tomorrow, being the day after Star Wars Day, is the Revenge of the Fifth Day. And tomorrow is the Second Day of the Second Weekend of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. And tomorrow is the the Fourth and Final Day of the Second Weekend of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. I will remove the polish from my toenails, and put new polish on while eating breakfast. I will also set up my medications for the week beginning Sunday of next week, and make bread. Our LSU Tigers will be playing the third game of a three-game, three-day Home SEC College Baseball Series with the #1 Texas A&M Aggies. Our #10 LSU Lady Tigers (38-13, 12-12) will be playing the third game of a three-game, three-day College Softball Series with the Liberty Flames (31-22, 19-5). At about 3:30 pm I will go over to the Fair and play bingo until after Big Bingo is over. Richard and I then will go out and eat Mexican in honor of Cinco de Mayo (¡Ole!) At sunset tomorrow begins Yom haShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Our First Saturday Evening quote comes to us from Ellen Albertini Dow, American actress (died 2015). Born as Ellen Albertini in 1913 in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, she was the seventh and youngest child of Italian immigrant parents from South Tyrol. She studied dance and piano at age five and would later move to New York City, where she studied and worked with renowned dancers and choreographers Hanya Holm and Martha Graham. Albertini earned a B.A. and M.A. in theatre from Cornell University, where she became a member of Kappa Delta Sorority, graduating in 1935. After graduation from Cornell, she relocated to New York City and spent eleven years acting, choreographing, performing mime and studying with choreographers Martha Graham and Hanya Holt, as well as mime artists Jacques Lecoq and Marcel Marceau. She performed comedy in the Borscht Belt and at the Second Avenue Theatre in New York with Menasha Skulnik and Molly Picon. She performed in summer stock companies on Long Island, as well as in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, and directed and choreographed stage productions such as The Beggar’s Opera at Carnegie Recital Hall, The Magic Flute, and Julius Caesar with German musical director Hugo Strelitzer. One of her hobbies was collecting big hats, mostly to compensate for her under-five-foot stature. When she married Eugene Dow in 1951 she took his name, and when the couple moved to Los Angeles, she taught drama at Los Angeles City College. She and her husband later taught at Pierce College. She founded the Albertini Mime Players and was its producer for nineteen years. When she retired from teaching in 1985, she decided to study film and TV and AFI and a new character career was born for her at age sixty-seven. She began playing old ladies on television and in film, with her first role in movies being in American Drive-In in 1985. She was in three episodes of The Golden Girls from 1988 to 1991. In 1993 she was on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. She played one of the choir nuns in Sister Act (1992), and reprised her role in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993). Dow played Beverly Crusher’s grandmother Felisa Howard in the 1994 episode “Sub Rosa” on Star Trek: The Next Generation. In 1998 she had her highest-profile role as Rosie in The Wedding Singer; Dow’s character had been singing the standard “Till There Was You” to her husband in front of a crowd at her fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration when she started rapping the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.” Dow continued acting in television and film; in 2001 and 2002 she was in twenty-two episodes of Maybe It’s Me, playing Grandma Harriet Krupp. Her husband died in 2004. In 2005 she played the elderly Mary Cleary who “outed” her grandson in Wedding Crashers. Her last role was in Frank the Bastard in 2013, when she was one hundred years old. At the time of her death at the age of one hundred and one (with one hundred and six acting credits on IMDB), Dow was the longest lived actor in Star Trek history. However, she has since been surpassed by Norman Lloyd, who played Professor Richard Galen in the 1993 episode “The Chase” on Star Trek: The Next Generation (died 2014): “As soon as I started to move to [“Rapper’s Delight” in The Wedding Singer], it came naturally. I still sing it all the time.”
From The Recamier 
love Mrs miniver as a movie