For Thursday, September 1: September Song

'Ol Blue Eyes. If my memory is working I haven't yet featured Frank Sinatra. *GASP* How could 'ol blue eyes NOT be on this 365? There have been a few good ones in the history of music and Sinatra is one of those few. Part of the famous "Rat Pack" he spent his time with the likes of Harry James and Tommy Dorsey (Swing era) and moved on to Tony Curtis, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop in the 1960's. Apparently the term "rat pack" came from Lauren Bacall after her husband, the famed Humphrey Bogart, spent a long night drinking and gambling with Sinatra and some others.
Spanning music and cinema, Sinatra made a name for himself although that's not to say that he didn't have low periods in his career where nobody wanted him or his music. But I believe the high periods made up for the low ones and he is one of the most loved artists of our times.
Happy September 1! 18 more days of this 365! I can't believe how fast the year has gone by!

September Song

Comments

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment.

A dime a dozen

"It's said that in the year 1796, the first U.S. dimes were produced for circulation. Hence, it would make sense for this phrase to originate sometime after." Read more here . Today the phrase carries the meaning that something is cheap or without value if it can be lumped in with other similar or exactly-like things. It's more of an insult than anything.

Life according to van Gogh...sort of

There are two ways of thinking about painting, how not to do it and how to do it; how to do it -- with much drawing and little color; how not to do it -- with much color and little drawing. Vincent van Gogh in a l etter to Theo van Gogh, April 1882 Life is a little bit like today's quote from van Gogh. Some of us live life focusing on the drawing - the details - and have very little color. Others of us go for the color and forsake, to a degree, the drawing - the details. Unlike painting, according to van Gogh, one is not wrong over the other but somewhere in between the two would be the best I would think. If you look at some of van Gogh's paintings I feel like you can see where he might have struggled between the "how to do it" and the " how not to do it" (as he admittedly loved color so much but knew he had to focus more on the drawing) and that seems to be reflected in his life as well. In the end he wasn't able to find the ...

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