Madman's Drum is a 1930 wordless novel by American artist Lynd Ward
(1905–1985). Its 118 images tell the story of a slave trader who
steals a demon-faced drum from an African he murders, and of the
consequences for him and his family. The book was executed in wood
engravings. It is the second of Ward's six wordless novels, after Gods'
Man of 1929. Ward was more ambitious with this second work in the
medium: the characters are more nuanced, the plot more developed and
complicated, and his outrage at social injustice more explicit. He used
a finer degree of detail in the artwork, through a wider variety of
carving tools, and was expressive in his use of symbolism and
exaggerated emotional facial expressions. The success of Ward's first
two wordless novels encouraged publishers to issue more books in the
genre. In 1943 psychologist Henry Murray used two images from the work
in his Thematic Apperception Test of personality traits. Madman's Drum
is considered less successfully executed than Gods' Man, and Ward
streamlined his work in his next wordless novel, Wild Pilgrimage (1932).
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman%27s_Drum>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1773:
The hymn "Amazing Grace" was probably first used in a prayer
meeting in Olney, England, without the music familiar to modern
listeners.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace>
1801:
Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the dwarf planet
Ceres, naming it after the Roman goddess of growing plants and of
motherly love.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)>
1928:
Personal secretary to Josef Stalin Boris Bazhanov crossed the
border to Iran to defect from the Soviet Union.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Bazhanov>
1959:
Cuban President Fulgencio Batista fled to the Dominican
Republic as forces under Fidel Castro took control of Havana, marking
the end of the Cuban Revolution.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Revolution>
2010:
A suicide bomber killed 105 spectators at a volleyball game in
the Lakki Marwat District of Pakistan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Lakki_Marwat_suicide_bombing>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
Janus:
1. (Roman mythology) The god of doorways, gates and transitions, and of
beginnings and endings, having two faces looking in opposite directions.
2. (attributively) Used to indicate things with two faces (such as animals
with diprosopus) or aspects; or made of two different materials; or
having a two-way action.
3. (chemistry, attributively) Used to indicate an azo dye with a quaternary
ammonium group, frequently with the diazo component being safranine.
4. (figuratively) A two-faced person, a hypocrite.
5. (astronomy) A moon of Saturn.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Janus>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
My faith in the future rests squarely on the belief that man, if
he doesn't first destroy himself, will find new answers in the universe,
new technologies, new disciplines, which will contribute to a vastly
different and better world in the twenty-first century ... To my mind
the single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent
is human freedom.
--Barry Goldwater
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater>