Nature designs each member of our Rhino family specifically for the time and place in which We find ourselves. No two places are the same, nor are the playmates, weather, or vegetation We encounter just the same, etc.
When transplanted, We adjust as We must; better someplace that demands our attention than No Place at all. Which does happen.
You can take a Rhino out of Botswana, but you can’t take Botswana out of the Rhino. Nor would you want to.
That statesman of the United States, Mr. Benjamin Franklin, b. 1706, was a man of many talents.
Today Rhinos acknowledge his inventing the Franklin Stove in 1742. Its unique feature was that although the heat of a fireplace goes up the chimney, the new stove radiated heat from the middle of the room. A welcome development where it gets chilly.
Rhinos live where heat is already abundant. Most days, We are more in the market for a friendly Glacier.
It seems that today is M. Paul Gauguin’s 1848 birthday, Again! This is happening all the time, as far as Your Inner Rhino can tell. We celebrate this exceptional painter’s work, and before We know it, We have to do an encore salute.
It seems suspicious that one fellow can have so many birthdays, but We are told it is true. It is probably linked to Mathematics somehow.
One fine day We Rhinos may understand the calendar, but that fine day is taking its fine time arriving.
In 731 BC, the first Solar Eclipse was recorded in China. Obviously, it wasn’t the first Eclipse ever, but it must have created quite a stir at the time. Lots of hopping up and down.
Eclipses happen all the time, of one sort or another. So frequent are they that Rhinos don’t fuss. Something gets in the way of something else, and then it’s over. Press on.
What will the End of the World look like? Who can say?
M. Georges Rouault was a French painter, born in 1871. He was apprenticed to a curator of stained glass, and the influence of that period in his life is reflected in his long career. Very individualistic. Very Rhino.
M. Rouault is associated with Fauvism and Expressionism, but We are not sure how that changes his paintings. Words. Names. Anyway, Rhinos like his work; We don’t call it anything.
He seems to have minded his own business much of the time. Again, very Rhino.
They say Leonardo da Vinci had apprentices fill color areas which he would number for them. It was this approach which inspired Mr. J. Daniel Robbins to create “paint-by-numbers” kits in the late 1940s. He worked for the Palmer Paint Company, with Mr. Max Klein.
The kits contained a ‘canvas’ and small pots of paint, coordinated to numbered areas on the canvas. This created a craze for the kits, which covered a range of subjects. Later, Mr. Robbins adapted the idea to coloring books for children.
Rhinos liked the results. However, “as easy as 1-2-3”, the sales pitch, put Rhinos off. The kits mostly went on to other numbers, so We were completely discombobulated.
Today is Herr Franz Anton Mesmer’s birthday, 1734. He is mostly known today for Mesmerism, the purposeful shifting of bodily energies. He focused on Animal Magnetism, so We Rhinos assume he was on the right track.
He was not universally praised in his own time, nor in this one. But here is an idea: What if Mesmer’s work was valid when he was around, but is no longer? Many Olde Ideas were respected in their time, maybe justifiably so. Who will ever know?
FYI, Rhinos have all the Animal Magnetism We can deal with. Big Surprise.
Herr Richard Wagner was born May 22, 1813. He is doubtless the best known German opera composer of the 19th century. He had plenty of artistic temperament and zeal. He did not lack Ambition; he liked to think “BIG“.
Some of his operas retell Northern mythology with a lot of sweeping, muscular music. Rhinos like our music packed with Gusto, right? You bet.
Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag!, Herr Wagner, say We.
May 18, 1897 Bram Stoker’s DRACULA was first published. We probably don’t need to tell you it has been an influential work.
Rhinos like to imagine various emotional states, and DRACULA has got more than enough of those. Who doesn’t enjoy a good tremble every now and then?
Mr. L.F. Baum, author of ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ and its many subsequent Oz books, was born today in 1856. Generations of critters, young at heart, have enjoyed his richly imaginative work.
One thing he seems to have overlooked was the Rhino potential for adding delight to the Land Of Oz.
Rhinos have often thought We would have been useful as the Rhino Road Repair for the Yellow Brick Road. Sadly, We can’t have it all our own way, more’s the pity.
Your Inner Rhino 