It was a Saturday when a very special Generation X, Capricorn Ox and beautiful baby girl was born in Shanghai, China.
Yirong is quite rare, one in a million and I have learned firsthand over the years we have been together.
On this day in Music History - Jan 1974 A song called "Show and Tell" by Al Wilson overcame all odds and rose to the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100. The tune had previously failed to become a hit for Johnny Mathis and was relegated to the "B" side of Wilson's single, but still ended up selling over three million copies and had a chart run of over 3 months. In UK, this one was the number one song that day. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0JlsX6wbGLA&list=RD0JlsX6wbGLA&start_radi…
On that same year, in China the Terracotta Army Discovered, In 1974 local farmers digging a well near the Chinese city of Xian came across one of the greatest archaeological discoveries ever made. The discovery of a clay warrior figure soon revealed many more by state archaeologists. In fact there may be 8,000 terracotta figures in total, each individually modelled and purposely arranged in three pits to guard the tomb of the Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang Di (246-210 B.C.)
In the US, Richard Nixon became the only president in the history of the United States to resign the office on August 9, 1974, after the long and arduous Watergate scandal finally brought him down. I remember because I was a student intern for The Washington Post-Newsweek owned station WPLG-TV 10 in Miami.
The film of the year was none other than the greatest crime saga of all time. The Godfather II is where this lexcelled. Despite showing promise with earlier features, no one was prepared for what Coppola unleashed on the world with his record breaking major motion picture series adaptation of the Mario Puzo novel.
The deeply layered storytelling and brilliant pacing of a film that combines themes of family, loyalty, power, and corruption make it undoubtedly one of the most influential pieces of cinema ever put to screen, redefining the gangster genre.
The saga, in some ways, is all about the transformation of Michael Corleone, and it’s something that is almost invisible the first time you watch The Godfather, with Al Pacino selling the whole thing expertly. The Godfather is almost a family drama disguised as a gangster film in some ways, and its timelessness is simply astonishing. And ironically for me, it included a chapter of mu life during Fulgencio Batista’s fall and the rise of Fidel Castro.
