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[IceWizard]

09 May 2017


National Moscato Day



Moscato is a wine originating from the Piedmont region of north-west Italy and the beverage has become a popular choice due to its sweetness, lightness and affordability. Moscato’s popularity among hip-hop artists like Nelly and Drake created hype as well as soaring sales, so in celebration of both new and old fans of the wine, Gallo Family Vineyards introduced Moscato Day in 2012.

The best way to celebrate Moscato Day is to throw a wine-themed party for friends and family. Serve white, red and pink (rosé) Moscato wines with complementary food, which could be cheeses such as Camembert and Pecorino Romano, or for a full meal prepare a spicy paella. Gallo hosts a Twitter event during which participants can share hosting tips and food pairing suggestions using the #MoscatoDay hashtag.

Moscato is the ideal accompaniment to lunches, parties and everything in between – so if you haven’t tried it before, Moscato Day is the perfect occasion to sample some!



And




National Public Gardens Day



Public gardens – the beautiful centerpieces to cities and large communities. Filled with different assortments of flora and fauna, they are the bright and colorful beacon in the middle of a large and dully-colored metropolis. They’re a reminder of the beauty that nature holds, a great place for picnics, and taking kids out for a play date. But where did the first public garden originate and when? Come with us as we delve into the past of Public Gardens Day!

The History of Public Gardens Day

Mesopotamia, the “land between the Rivers” Tigris and Euphrates, comprises a hilly and mountainous northern area and a flat, alluvial south. Its peoples were urban and literate from about 3,000 BC. Evidence for their gardens comes from written texts, pictorial sculpture, and archaeology. In western tradition, Mesopotamia was the location of the Garden of Eden and the Hanging gardens of Babylon. Temple gardens developed from the representation of a sacred grove. Several distinct styles of royal garden are also known.

The courtyard garden was enclosed by the walls of a palace. On a larger scale was a cultivated place inside the city walls. At Mari on the Middle Euphrates (c 1,800BC) one of the huge palace courtyards was called the Court of the Palms. It is crossed by raised walkways of baked brick; the king and his entourage would dine there. At Ugarit (1,400BC) there was a stone water basin, not located centrally as in later Persian gardens, for the central feature was probably a tree (date palm or tamarisk). The 7th century BC Assyrian king Assurbanipal is shown on a sculpture feasting with his queen, reclining on a couch beneath an arbor of vines, and attended by musicians. Trophies of conquest are on display, including the dismembered head of the king of Elam hanging from a fragrant pine branch! A Babylonian text from the same period is divided into sections as if showing beds of soil with the names of medicinal, vegetable, and herbal plants written into each square, perhaps representing a parterre design.

On a larger scale, royal hunting parks were established to hold the exotic animals and plants which the king had acquired on his foreign campaigns. King Tiglath Pileser I (1,000BC) lists horses, oxen, asses, deer, gazelle, and ibex, boasting “I numbered them like flocks of sheep.”

From around 1,000 BC the Assyrian kings developed a style of city gardening incorporating a naturalistic layout, running water supplied from river headwaters, and exotic plants from their foreign campaigns. Assurnasirpal II (883-859BC) lists pines of different kinds, including cypresses, junipers, almonds, dates, ebony, rosewood, olive, oak, tamarisk, walnut, terebinth, ash, fir pomegranate, pear, quince, fig and grapevines. “The canal water gushes from above into the gardens; fragrance pervades the walkways; streams of water as numerous as the stars of heaven flow in the pleasure garden…. Like a squirrel I pick fruit in the garden of delights.” The city garden reached its zenith with the palace design of Sennacherib(704-681BC) whose water system stretched for 50 km into the hills. The garden was higher and more ornate than any other and he boasted of the complex technologies he deployed, calling his garden palace “a Wonder for all Peoples”.

The biblical Book of Genesis mentions the Tigris and Euphrates as two of the four rivers bounding the Garden of Eden. No specific place has been identified although there are many theories.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are listed by classical Greek writers as one of the Seven Wonders of The World. The excavated ruins of Babylon do not reveal any suitable evidence, which has led some scholars to suggest that they may have been purely legendary. Mesopotamia is believed to be the origin of the public garden and we’d have to say we don’t disagree.

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May 9 Birthdays



Billy Joel - 68




John Brown - (1800 - 1859) (59)




Dave Gahan - 55




Howard Carter - (1874 - 1939) (64)




Tom Petersson - 67








May 9th

1998: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant debuted at their peak position of number eight on the Billboard 200 Album Chart with Walking into Clarksdale which went on to go Gold.

1998: Jimmy Page appears on Saturday Night Live with P. Diddy to perform “Come With Me” which sampled the guitar riff of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”.

1987: Europe peaked at number eight on the Billboard 200 Album Chart with their third album The Final Countdown which went on to sell three million copies in the U.S.

1974: Bruce Springsteen’s performance in Boston, MA inspires Rolling Stone critic & future manager Jon Landau to write “I have seen rock & roll’s future and his name is Bruce Springsteen”.

1974: Bachman-Turner Overdrive received their first Gold record for Bachman-Turner Overdrive II which contained the hit singles “Let It Ride” & “Takin’ Care of Business”.

1970: The Guess Who become the first Canadian rock group to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart with “American Woman”. The song would stay on top for three weeks.

1969: George Harrison released his second solo album Electronic Sound which was the final release on Zapple Records, an offshoot of The Beatles’ Apple Records.

1965: Bob Dylan performed the first of two nights at London’s Royal Albert Hall. All of The Beatles were in attendance & spent the evening with Dylan after the concert.

1964: Chuck Berry made his live debut in the U.K. at London’s Astoria Theatre. The Animals opened for Berry.



Birthdays:

Billy Joel born in 1949

Tom Petersson - Bassist for Cheap Trick born in 1950