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Album Covers of the Day

PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love (1995) / cover photo by Valerie Phillips

Taylor Swift - The Life of a Showgirl (2025) / cover photo by Mert and Marcus

Ophelia (1851-1852) by John Everett Millais (1829–1896)

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The Little Black Book of Setlists

The Beatles

Shea Stadium, New York - 15th August 1965

Twist And Shout

She's A Woman

I Feel Fine

Dizzy Miss Lizzy

Ticket To Ride

Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby

Can't Buy Me Love

Baby's In Black

I Wanna Be Your Man

A Hard Day's Night

Help!

I'm Down

As legendary gigs go, the Beatles at Shea Stadium is top of the list. This was the first stadium rock concert and in front of a then record sell-out crowd of 55,600. Performing on a makeshift stage (where second-base would normally be) the band earned a whopping $160,000 for their 30-minute set.

Text from The Little Black Book of Setlists, edited and compiled by Malcolm Croft (Portico Books, 2007)

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AC/DC - “You Shook Me All Night Long” (1980)

On this day—August 15th, 1980—“You Shook Me All Night Long,” the first single from the album Back in Black by AC/DC was released. The band’s first single featuring new lead singer Brian Johnson after the tragic death of Bon Scott, the anthemic song charted well in several countries around the world, including the US and the UK, and would firmly establish AC/DC as one of the best hard rock bands in the world. However, there is a controversy that, though uncredited, key portions of the song were actually written by Bon Scott that follows the song to this day.

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ZOMBIES

Originally in African lore, a zombie was any person who had come under the magical will of a sorcerer, although nowadays it tends to mean a dead human being whose own soul is absent but whose body can be inspirited by the will to work. The word comes from the Kongo zumbi or zombi which means a 'fetish' or 'enslaved spirit'.

The term 'zombie' is known primarily to the world from the Haitian vodoun religion which is largely misunderstood by outsiders. Some vodoun priests (books) used the nerve poison tetrodotoxin from the puffer fish to produce the effect of death: in minute doses this poison does not bring actual death, just the suppression of the signs of life for up to 48 hours. The one who has taken it can recover. It is held that if a zombie eats salt or sees the sea, he will return to his grave. But there are much more disturbing stories that tell of zombies being turned into animals and slaughtered for meat. Haitian tradition states that those people who are dug up to become zombies are alive, but mentally impaired by a lack of oxygen after being buried; they say that zombies were used as slaves to labour in Haiti's vast sugar plantations. The capturing of people's spirits in order to keep them in eternal bondage seems to be an ironic reversal of the slave populations of Haiti who were brought to serve colonists in creating economic capital: those descendants of the slaves who act in this sorcerous way merely repeat history.

Zombies are not exclusive to Caribbean shores, since they appear also in the legends of Ireland and Britain, especially in the Welsh story of Branwen, daughter of Llyr, in which dead warriors are put into a cauldron to be brought back to life to continue as battle fodder for the conflict. In their fight against the Fir Bolg, the Tuatha de Danann similarly cause their dead warriors to come alive again at the Well of Slaine so as to replenish their army. The warriors who emerge can fight but cannot speak, since it is forbidden for them to speak of what lies beyond death.

The genre of zombie film started back in the 1930s and 1940s, and now the robotic dead, torn from the grave, still steadfastly tromp through city streets as the stock of many horror films—including the epitomy of the genre, George A Romero's Night of the Living Dead.

Illustration: Vol de Zombis (1946) by Hector Hyppolite (1894-1948)

Abridged text from The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures by John and Caitlin Matthews (HarperElement, 2005)

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On this day:

WAR STORIES: IDENTIFICATION AND INTUITION

On August 15, 1944, nearly four hundred planes discharged over five thousand paratroopers into the darkness of the French Riviera. American trooper Eugene Brissey landed hard, caught up with his company, and dug in for battle. Exhausted, Brissey bedded down near a farmhouse and, upon waking, noticed his dog tags were gone.

Brissey's dog tags were returned to him when he revisited the area forty-five years later. Colette Saeys, who lived in the house, had raked them up eight years previously. Unable to find Brissey in the local cemetery or at the address on the tags, she tucked them into an envelope inside a drawer. In 1989, her husband, Fred Saeys, approached one of only two of the veterans at a reunion of more than five hundred soldiers who knew Brissey. The Saeys and Brissey connected, and the tags were returned.

Great Britain's former prime minister Winston Churchill often entertained during the 1940s, refusing to let World War Il get in his way. One evening he was hosting government officials when bombs began to drop on London. Churchill instructed the butler to place the food on a hot plate in the dining room and then sent the kitchen staff to the bomb shelter. Within three minutes a bomb demolished the kitchen, but the dining room remained unharmed. On another occasion, returning to his car, Churchill ignored the door his driver held open and got in the opposite side of the car. Minutes later a bomb exploded, blasting the vehicle onto its two side wheels and nearly flipping it, before the car rebalanced and the drive continued on. Churchill remarked, "It must have been my beef on that side that pulled it down." He also reported that as he was about to enter the car, a voice told him to stop, and he knew that he was supposed to sit opposite his usual side.

Text from: Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violins, published by Weiser Books, 2009

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YOWIE

In Australian Aboriginal legend, the Yowie is a monstrous humanoid with a hairy pelt. It was known for centuries by the aborigines who say that when their ancestors came to Australia, there was a race of savage ape-men who they fought. Because the Yowies had no weapons, the Aboriginal ancestors were successful and pushed their foes to the edges of the habitable regions. The Yowie has no neck, broad shoulders, longish hair that can be red, dark or black over its body and large feet. Their height ranges between 5-14 ft. The commonest sign by which you know you are in the vicinity of a Yowie is the stench. The Aboriginal word for the Yowie is 'Youree but the white settlers to Australia called these creatures 'Yahoos' after the subhumans invented by Jonathan Swift in his Gulliver's Travels. But it is the Aboriginal term that is now used. The first sighting of a Yowie by white settlers was recorded in 1881. Scientists have insisted that no placental species were indigenous to Australia, but recent discoveries of fossil Homo floresiensis in the Flores Islands have caused some to think again about the spread of early hominids of whom the Yowie may be a survivor.

Text from The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures by John and Caitlin Matthews (HarperElement, 2005)

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On this day:

EAST COAST SEA SERPENT

On August 14, 1817, in Gloucester Harbor, Massachusetts, an eighty-foot sea serpent charged toward the ship where Matthew Gaffney, the ship's carpenter, stood firing his gun at it. According to Gaffney's sworn affidavit, the beast first appeared late afternoon. Its dark-colored head had a white underside and was the size of a four-gallon drum. When fired upon, the creature sank from sight, reappearing one hundred yards away and traveling half a mile per minute. A judge, a physician, and a naturalist collected testimonials from eyewitnesses as daily sightings continued for the next two weeks. Another man described the "strange marine animal" as having a head the size of a horse's with the features of a rattlesnake. It moved in either circles or a straight line.

On August 14, 1819, the creature was again spotted. Its snakelike head at the end of a long neck emerged from the water, and several humps were seen along its back. Two hundred citizens had gathered to observe the sea serpent, but all of them panicked and scattered when it headed toward shore. Sightings continued throughout the summer.

The earliest documented accounts of the black, snakelike serpent come from 1639 when colonists reported seeing it coiled up upon a rock at Cape Ann. In 1779 the crew of the American gunship Protector noticed it lying motionless on the water in sight of their vessel. A crew manned a large boat to get close to the serpent, but as they neared the creature, it raised its head ten feet into the air and then slowly swam off, speeding up when they began to shoot at it. In 1780, frigate captain George Little surprised the beast at sunrise and took off after it in an armed cutter. When he ordered his men to fire on it, the beast disappeared beneath the waves.

Text from: Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violins, published by Weiser Books, 2009

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The xx - xx (2009)

On this day—August 14, 2009—the eponymous debut album by the xx was released. Though received by widespread critical acclaim upon its release, the album was only a moderate success in its initial run. However, through an unconventional combination of word-of-mouth and licensing deals for American TV, the album became a sleeper hit, eventually selling over one million copies in the US without a hit single. Acclaimed as one of the best debuts and best albums of the decade, xx has been described as a “drop-dead gorgeous dream-pop symphony”.

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Robots and donuts, Eric Joyner

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The Dutch Watterswyn, and other marine pig monsters:

On the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog, parents would scare their children with stories of the Watterswyn (pronounced something like ‘wahter sweyn’): a marine pig-monster that would pull children under while swimming.

The name is an older Dutch word and literally means ‘water pig’ or ‘aquatic pig’. In modern Dutch it would be ‘Waterzwijn’. As far as bogeymen characters go, this is a very standard and common motif in folklore (although the association with pigs is unusual) but what intrigued me is the rabbit hole that marine pig monsters turned out to be.

In 1555, Olaus Magnus wrote a dissertation on the culture and history of the northern peoples, in which he mentioned a sighting of a marine pig creature in 1537 in the German Ocean (referring to the North Sea). (See image below:)

As per his description, the beast had the head of a pig, four dragon-like legs and a forked, fish-like tail. This ‘Porco monstroso Oceani Germanici’ had a structure on its back that resembled a crescent moon. Also unusual were its eyes: it had two on each side of its loins, and a third eye on its belly.

A pamphlet detailing the creature was indeed published in Rome in 1537 (see 3rd image) and it interpreted the strange features of the creature as religious signs (which the author corroborated with Bible references): the moon on the creature’s back represents the distortion of truth, as the moon represents the Church (therefore, truthfulness), but its appearance on the creature’s back instead of its forehead signifies distortion and dishonesty. The draconic limbs reflect perverted acts and evil passions. The eyes on its body represent scandalous and sexual intention, while the eye on the stomach represents gluttony (as a different form of lust).

The complete image supposedly represents the swine-like life of a heathen. According to Magnus, the appearance of the sea pig was supposed to be a sign for the morally corrupted people of the time (meaning the 16th century) that they should change their ways. Magnus also claims that the monster is a vicious and cruel hunter, though this was not mentioned in the pamphlet, unless I missed it.

In 1551, Conrad Gessner also described the beast in his Historiae Animalium, where he compared the creature to a hyena (for reasons unclear to me).

The Watterswyn that terrorized the children of Schiermonnikoog is most likely unrelated to the Porco monstroso Oceani Germanici’, though we cannot rule out that one or both creatures were based on real life sea animals. If so, they might be the same animal, as both were found in the North Sea, though this is just speculation on my part.

Since similar references to aquatic pigs are more common than I expected, they might refer to certain marine mammals or other animals.

Sources:

De Blécourt, W., Koman, R.A., Van der Kooi, J., Meder, T., 2010, Verhalen van Stad en Streek: Sagen en Legenden in Nederland, Bert Bakker, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 586 pp. P. 101.

Magnus, O., 1555, Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, 1628 pp., p. 756. Which you can read here.

Author unknown, 1537, Monstrum in Oceano Germanico a piscatoribus nuper captum, & eius partium omnium subtilis, ac Theologica interpretation, pamphlet, Rome, which you can read here.

Gessner, C., 1551, Medici Tigurini Historiae Animalium Liber IIII. qui est de Piscium & Aquatilium animantium natura, p. 247, accessed from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/06004347/.

(Image source 1: Historiae animalium, 1551)

(Image source 2: Historia de Gentribus Septentrionalibus, 1555)

(Image source 3: Monstrum in Oceano Germanico, 1537)

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Rom #1, 3

Marvel, 1979, 1980

By Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema.

Covers by Frank Miller & Joe Rubenstein (1) and Miller & Terry Austin (3).

25.08

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Star Trek poster by Lyndon Willoughby

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Album Covers of the Day

Crosby, Stills & Nash - Crosby, Stills & Nash (1969) / cover photo by Henry Diltz

Boygenius - boygenius (2018) / cover photo by Matt Grubb

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The Cure - The Head on the Door (1985)

On this day—August 13th, 1985—The Head on the Door, the sixth studio album by the Cure, was released. The first Cure record in which every song was credited solely to Robert Smith, the album, with its multi-hued sound, became the band’s most successful album in the UK up to that point, peaking at no. 7. While in the US, with the most accessible songs of Smith’s career fortuitously coinciding with the rise of alternative rock in the mainstream and college campuses, the album entered the charts in the top 75, peaking at no. 59. With its two singles—the pure pop gem “In Between Days” and the bouncy lighthearted “Close to Me”—the album’s balance of Smith’s light and dark sides charmed both critics and audiences, and the album is now cited as a turning point for the band.

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Modern English - “I Melt with You” (1982)

On this day—August 13th, 1982—“I Melt with You,” the second single from the album After the Snow by Modern English, was released. While the song failed to chart on the singles chart in the UK, it did manage to make the independent singles chart at number 18. However, the song was significantly more popular in the US. First receiving airplay as an import, the song would eventually peak at number 7 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, number 78 on the Hot 100, and number 60 on the dance chart. Featured heavily in the 1983 film Valley Girl, the song would again resurge in popularity, and it is among the 500 most played songs on US radio.

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YETI

The Yeti is a species of Bigfoot that lives in the Himalayas. The word derives from the Sherpa Yeh-The, which only describes one of three species of Yeti, the others being called the Dzu-The, which is the largest and attacks yaks, and the Meh-The, although European explorers called it 'the Abominable Snowman' since it lives usually above the snowline. In 1938, a Captain d'Auvergue, curator of the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta in India, was travelling in the Himalayas when he became snowblind. He says he was saved from exposure and hypothermia by a 9-ft Yeti who nursed him back to health. The first European explorer to see and record it was NA Tombazi, a Greek photographer on a British geological expedition. He saw a creature moving across the mountain slopes, clearly standing upright, which stopped and picked at dwarf rhododendron bushes as it went. What clinched the sighting for the photographer was that the creature wore no clothes. Unable, in those days of early cameras, to set up a shot of the creature, nevertheless he went after it, camera in hand, to take photos of its footprints, which he found to be 7 ins long and 4 ins wide, with 5 distinct toes. The instep was clear but not the heel, due to the slope that the creature had been traversing. The prints were 1 ½-2-ft stride. The locals said he had seen the 'Kanchenjunga demon'. The best tracks were found by Eric Shipton and Michael Ward in 1951 who found them on the slopes of the Menlung Glacier between Tibet and Nepal at an altitude of 20,000 feet. These were clearly bipedal footprints, 13 ins wide and 18 ins long; even allowing for the sun spreading the melting snow of these prints, there was no creature that could have made them in the district, for what man would walk in the snow barefooted? Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first people to climb to Everest's summit, also found giant footprints on the way up their triumphant ascent in 1953.

The King of Nepal keeps a court official whose task is solely to keep up with sightings of the Yeti. A recent expedition in the 1990s was guided by the Nepalese Yeti Finder to a tree in a wild and unfrequented part of the deeply-gorged forests where hunters have reported hearing the humanoid. Samples of hair were taken for analysis from the tree where the Yeti seemed to have rubbed itself. Back at the laboratory, the hair did not match with any known DNA hair samples of animals from that district. It was concluded that, although the scientists had been unable to catch sight of a Yeti, they had indeed found some of its coat. On the same expedition, they were introduced to an elderly woman who, it was said, had lived with a Yeti as its wife. She spoke a language which the Yeti Finder said was no known dialect of the region; the people in the village treated her with care and respect, entirely believing that her long absence from the village had been due to her sojourn with the Yeti.

Text from The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures by John and Caitlin Matthews (HarperElement, 2005)

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On this day:

PWDRE SER

On the evening of August 13, 1819, in Amherst Massachusetts, a brilliant white fireball flashed through the sky, reflecting off the wall and lighting up the rooms inside of the house of Erastus Dewey before falling to earth in his yard. Dewey discovered a jellylike substance near his front door, and before long Professor Rufus Graves, a chemistry expert at Dartmouth College, was examining it. Graves's report on the pwdre ser, or star rot, was accepted and respected by the scientific community.

Circular in shape, one inch thick, and with a diameter of eight inches, the mass was similar to cloth on the outside; on the inside was a beige, lumpy substance emitting a revolting, noxious odor. Any attempt to get near the jellylike mass produced dizziness and nausea. After the outer layer had been removed, the inner matter rapidly changed from beige to a purplish, bloodlike color and became coated with moisture. Half a pint of the stuff was collected in a glass, and over the next few days, it went from a liquid to a fine, odor-free powder.

One Edward Hitchcock then went to live in Amherst, Massachusetts. He said that years later, another object, like the one said to have fallen in Dewey's yard in 1819, had been found at "nearly the same place." It was exactly like the first one, corresponding in size and color and consistency. The chemical reactions were the same.

Late on the evening of October 8, 1844, two men walking in a plowed field near Coblentz, Germany, were startled to observe the fall of a luminous object that crashed to earth not twenty yards from them. Because it was too dark to investigate, they marked the spot and returned early the next morning. Where the presumed meteorite had come down, however, there was now a gray, gelatinous mass which shook when they poked it with a stick. They did not try to preserve it.

Text from: Almanac of the Infamous, the Incredible, and the Ignored by Juanita Rose Violins, published by Weiser Books, 2009