Good morning, Whitewater.
We’ll have a mostly sunny Saturday with a high of sixty-six. Sunrise is 7:03 and sunset is 8:20, for 11h 17m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 5.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
Millions of Americans – and people around the world – have watched the original Pizza Rat video, in which a subway rat tries to carry a piece of pizza back to its lair. Well, there’s a sequel, in which the Pizza Rat battles a rival over a discarded slice of za:
It’s Thelonious Monk’s birthday:
Thelonious Sphere Monk[2] (October 10, 1917[3] – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including “‘Round Midnight“, “Blue Monk“, “Straight, No Chaser” “Ruby, My Dear“, “In Walked Bud“, and “Well, You Needn’t“. Monk is the second-most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed more than 1,000 pieces, whereas Monk wrote about 70.[4]His compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists, and are consistent with Monk’s unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations.
He was renowned for his distinctive style in suits, hats, and sunglasses. He was also noted for an idiosyncratic habit observed at times during performances: while the other musicians in the band continued playing, he would stop, stand up from the keyboard, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano.
Monk is one of five jazz musicians to have been featured on the cover of Time, after Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, and Duke Ellington, and before Wynton Marsalis.[5][6]