Random Thursday

Today we'll get a little deeper into the "Pop Culture" chapter of The Little Book of Answers by Doug Lennox!

(image borrowed from Heroism Wiki)

L. Frank Braum made up the story for The Wizard of Oz one night while telling his son and other children a story. When describing the world and the characters, he was asked by a child what was the name of the place. He apparently looked over to see a set of filing cabinets, there was A-G, H-N, and O-Z. So he called it Oz!

That I find to be very intriguing!!

(image borrowed from Wikipedia)

J.M. Barrie gave the name Wendy to one of the Darling children because one of his close friends, W.E. Henley had a daughter named Margaret. He would tell her that Barrie was a "friend" of his and she came to call him a "fwend" or "fwendy-wendy". Sadly, Margaret died at age six and to honor her memory Barrie named one of the Darlings Wendy.

So sad, and so sweet!

(image borrowed from Footwear News)

Charles Perrault, famous for having written down the story Cinderella--as initially this story was told orally for years before he decided to write it down--didn't mean to make Cinderella's slippers made of glass. He mistook the word "vair", meaning ermine, for the word "verre", meaning glass. Once he realized his mistake, it was sadly too late for the story had become too popular to change. 

So instead of a fuzzy/furry slipper, she got glass? Totally weird, but I dig it!

(image borrowed from Wikipedia)

The expression "blonde bombshell" was used to describe dynamic and sexy women with blonde hair and this came from Jean Harlow who starred in the 1933 movie, Blonde Bombshell. Initially the movie was to be titled Bombshell, but they didn't want it to connect to a war movie. The nickname was at first used just for Jean, but eventually became used for all blonde dynamic women!

(image borrowed from Wikipedia)

There hasn't been a movie made in Hollywood since 1911. The town grew tired of the crowds of actors and crew and the sets and just the general chaos. They tossed out the Nestor Film Company and wrote an ordinance forbidding the building of any future studios. The studios moved to nearby town such as Santa Monica, Culver City, and Burbank, but movie magic will always have us thinking of Hollywood!

(image borrowed from Wikipedia)

Leonard da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" was originally titled "La Giaconda". It was a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine merchant. X-rays revealed that da Vinci had Lisa pose in three different positions before settling on this one. She has no eyebrows because that was the style to shave them off at the time.

Wow. Never knew any of that!