Wednesday Tuesday is my night to cook dinner. But it is also a weekly opportunity for me to share some fantastic drivel—things you didn’t care you didn’t know—with you, dear reader.
November 19 gives us two reasons to celebrate. Firstly, and less importantly, it is the anniversary of Milli Vanilli’s de-GRAMMYfication. That’s right: they lost their GRAMMY award because it was discovered that they were not the singers on their album. Secondly, and more importantly, it is the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address—one of the most powerful pieces in the history of the United States and one of the greatest works in the history of the English language.
Click more to find out what I made, and to see these graphics in detail!
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take it back
deGRAMMYfied
Nowadays it doesn’t seem like a big deal: two guys are the “face” of the band, do the dancing and lip-synching in concert, while other people record the actual vocal tracks. In 1990, however, that kind of thing enraged American audiences, resulting in the deGRAMMYfication of the Deutch duo, “Milli Vanilli.”
According to Wikipedia, “Grammy” is simply a shortened version of the original “Gramophone Award.” For some reason, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences always spells it in all caps (GRAMMY) in the singular. In the plural, they use all caps for everything but the “s” at the end (GRAMMYs). In my mind, this implies an acronym. But I guess it’s just branding?
Anyway, back to Milli Vanilli. Maybe it was the deception that angered people. And I can see why a prestigious institution like the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences wouldn’t want the GRAMMY name to be sullied by calling a couple of lip-synchers the “Best New Artist” of 1990. But people actually tried to start class-action lawsuits, trying to recover the dollars they spent on Milli Vanilli cassette tapes. I don’t follow their argument. Was their enjoyment of the music contingent on their assumption that the two shoulder-padded dudes on the cover were also the guys singing?
As a kind of cute experiment, I told everyone that I had roasted these chickens, saladed these potatoes, and creamed this corn. What I said was “homecooked” was actually all bought at the store:
Everyone ate it and liked it. When I revealed my secret, nobody sued me. I’m not sure what that experiment proves, but it could be insightful. Or not.
the soul of wit
ten sentences that changed the world
The Gettysburg Address is the ultimate example of the power of a few well-chosen words. Everybody who has read it knows it’s short. But it must have felt especially short on November 19, 1863. Lincoln’s speech followed the grandiloquent loquation of Edward Everett: some 13,607 words that took two hours to deliver.
Here’s what Lincoln said:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
There are only two confirmed photographs of Lincoln at Gettysburg, neither during his speech. I have heard that the photographer wasn’t even set up by the time Lincoln finished. It’s hard to fault him; he’d spent the last two hours photographing Everett, he probably figured he’s have ample opportunities to capture Abe once his speech got going.
One of two confirmed photographs of Lincoln at Gettysburg (sepia highlight)
Interestingly enough, Lincoln isn’t wearing a hat in this photograph, although several others are wearing “stove-pipe” hats, the kind of headgear we associate with Lincoln.
Abe sporting the stove-pipe
Lincoln wasn’t known for his appetite, so I wasn’t able to find much in terms of his favorite foods. Apparently there was a white cake that Mary Todd used to make, however, that he quite enjoyed. It’s been a long time since I’ve decorated a cake (I used to be an expert decorator of ice-cream cakes), but I figured I could make a cake shaped like Lincoln’s signature hat. What I created was rather unstable, but was shaped kind of like Lincoln’s hat.
my cake looked kind of like Lincoln’s hat. kind of.
There you have it. A hat cake like Lincoln’s.
I pin photos of my Wednesday culinary creations to my Pinterest board, Another Wednesday Dinner. You can see other dishes I’ve made there, but you can only get the backstory right here, on fantasticdrivel. Thanks for reading!