January 2 in History

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The writer Isaac Asimov, who wrote, edited, and compiled more than 500 books in his lifetime, celebrated January 2, 1920, as his birthdate. He was born near Smolensk, Russia, towards the end of 1919 or very beginning of 1920; the record of his birth was either lost or forgotten when the family emigrated to the US in 1923. He himself celebrated today as his birthday. He died in 1992.

He wrote novels (I, Robot) and many, many semi-encyclopedic works of nonfiction. In public libraries, his titles are found in nine of the ten top-level categories that make up the Dewey Decimal System. The ten categories are: 000–Generalities; 100–Philosophy; 200–Religion; 300–Social Sciences; 400–Languages; 500–Pure Sciences; 600–Applied Sciences & Technology; 700–Arts; 800–Literature. The only category without an Asimov title is (after the jump):
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One Thousand Years from Now

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Five hundred years from now, Jem Finer’s Longplayer project will have recently passed the half-way point in its 1000-year-long performance. Mr. Finer is seen in the installation in the photo at top.

Longplayer is a musical composition that is calculated to take precisely 1000 years to perform from beginning to end and has been in performance in England continuously since midnight on December 31, 1999. This means it has been going nonstop for seventeen years and a day as of today. You can tune in at any hour and listen. It will begin its second cycle as the clock ticks the last moment of December 31, 2999.

In my limited understanding, the composition is six pieces of music that are interlinked, with each one serving as a trigger to start some of the others at set intervals. They overlap. They trigger each other. The calculation provides that these intervals will allow for the first-ever repetition of music, a second-ever thousand-year cycle, to start at midnight on December 31, 2999. The composition is programmed to not repeat itself until then.
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January 1 in History

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

An Anglican clergyman named John Newton wrote the hymn titled “Faith’s Review and Expectation” late in 1772, and he introduced the hymn in a New Year’s Day service in his parish in Olney, Buckinghamshire, on this date in 1773. The hymn became best known by the two-word exclamation that opens it: “Amazing grace!”

It was not yet attached to any music. Newton and a poet friend named William Cowper collaborated on many hymns for the Olney parish, and in 1779 the two published a collection titled Olney Hymns. (The page with “Amazing Grace” is seen at top.) The book was not a bestseller, but over time it became popular in America during the Second Great Awakening in the 1830s: at least 37 editions were published in America by 1836.
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