The Daily Late Nightly Show (Months of Darkness)

I spilled spot remover on my dog. Now he’s gone.

This is not exactly the most wonderful time of the year for me. I think I remember when it made me happy, huge piles of leaves to flounce in and the smell of yard fires to get rid of them permeating the air, followed by dazzling vistas of stark black and white, snow forts so deep you needed a firing step and later decaying patches that I’d pretend were the surface of Mars.

Now it’s a period of sleep deprivation, regret, and anxiety. Where others enjoy family and friends I find it a disruptive chore of cheerfulness. I can’t quite figure out if they are genuinely glad to see my Marley impersonation or are simply being polite to avoid making me even more surly.

I say this not to inflict my mood, merely to explain it.

Actually I suppose I’m kind of relieved that we’re heading into the Thanksgiving break (and I am very thankful for this year has included many memorable moments of joy and improvements in fortune) because it offers a respite from continual change and re-invention, and a chance to evaluate, reflect, and plan that I haven’t really had for almost a year.

Next week is solid re-runs except for Stephen, and Thanksgiving and Black Friday the Ed Sullivan Theater will be dark as well.

Monday through Wednesday I’ll be putting up Late Show threads. Thursday there will be Throwball, Friday will be leftovers.

At some point I’ll write the definitive guide to WordPress and explore my new ride but I’m not making any promises because I’m just as likely to crawl into bed and put the covers over my head for a week or two

Stephen’s guests tonight are Michael Caine, Larry Wilmore, Boots, and Vulfpeck. I kind of hope Michael talks about his first movie, Zulu.

The Battle of Isandlwana (alternative spelling: Isandhlwana) on 22 January 1879 was the first major encounter in the Anglo–Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Eleven days after the British commenced their invasion of Zululand in South Africa, a Zulu force of some 20,000 warriors attacked a portion of the British main column consisting of about 1,800 British, colonial and native troops and perhaps 400 civilians. The Zulus were equipped mainly with the traditional assegai iron spears and cow-hide shields, but also had a number of muskets and old rifles though they were not formally trained in their use.[15] The British and colonial troops were armed with the state-of-the-art Martini-Henry breech-loading rifle and two 7-pounder (3-inch, 76 mm) mountain guns deployed as field guns, as well as a rocket battery. Despite a vast disadvantage in weapons technology, the numerically superior Zulus ultimately overwhelmed the poorly led and badly deployed British, killing over 1,300 troops, including all those out on the forward firing line. The Zulu army suffered around a thousand killed.

The battle was a decisive victory for the Zulus and caused the defeat of the first British invasion of Zululand. The British Army had suffered its worst defeat against an indigenous technologically vastly inferior foe. Isandlwana resulted in the British taking a much more aggressive approach in the Anglo–Zulu War, leading to a heavily reinforced second invasion and the destruction of King Cetshwayo’s hopes of a negotiated peace.

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Caussidière for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 1851 for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle. And the same caricature occurs in the circumstances of the second edition of the Eighteenth Brumaire.”- The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon