mad things

Welcome to a new year of Mary Mondays. This week’s song is Mary by the Scissor Sisters. Enjoy!

And your famous Mary this week is Mary Kingsley, an English writer and explorer.

According to wikipedia:

Mary Kingsley upset the Church of England when she criticized missionaries for attempting to change the people of Africa. She talked about, and indeed defended, many aspects of African life that had shocked many English people, including polygamy. She was, however, fairly conservative on other issues and did not support the women’s suffrage movement.

The final Mary song for the year is Mary, Mary So Contrary by Can.

And your famous Mary is Mary Stewart.

I love reading Arthurian legends and certainly enjoyed her Merlin series. She’s also famous for writing crime, gothic and romance fiction.

This week’s song is Now Mary by the White Stripes.

Your famous Mary is the pirate Mary Read.

Arrrgh! ‘Tis the swashbuckling life fer me!

This week’s Mary song is Mary, Mary by The Monkees. I loved watching Monkees reruns when I was a kid. Although I loved guys with accents even way back then, my fav Monkee was Mike Nesmith.

And your famous Mary for the week is Mary Mallon, otherwise known as Typhoid Mary.

Love the image of the skulls going into the frying pan

According to wikipedia:

She was the first person in the United States to be identified as a healthy carrier of typhoid fever. Over the course of her career as a cook, she is known to have infected 53 people, three of whom died from the disease. Her notoriety is in part due to her vehement denial of her own role in spreading the disease, together with her refusal to cease working as a cook. She was forcibly quarantined twice by public health authorities and died in quarantine.

Geez, only three people died? I thought it was so many more.

This week’s song is simply titled Mary, by Tori Amos.

Your famous Mary for the week is Mary Magdalene.

From Wikipedia:

Mary Magdalene is described, both in the canonical New Testament and in the New Testament apocrypha, as one of the most important women in the movement of Jesus. Mary was one of women who accompanied Jesus during his travels, following him to the end. According to all four Gospels in the Christian New Testament, she was the first to witness his resurrection.

Mary Magdalene is referred to in early Christian writings as “the apostle to the apostles.” In apocryphal texts, she is portrayed as a visionary and leader of the early movement, who was loved by Jesus more than the other disciples. Lot of speculations both in antiquity and in modern times have emerged regarding Mary, including claims that she was Jesus’ wife or even a prostitute.

This week’s song is Along Comes Mary by The Association.

Your famous Mary for the day is the Brooklyn born 60′s & 70s sweetheart (and animal rights activist), Mary Tyler Moore.

This week’s song is Miss Mary by Vic Chesnutt.

And your famous Mary is, hey look at that, a similar last name: Mary Chesnut, a South Carolina author noted for writing a sophisticated diary describing the American Civil War and her upper class circles of Southern society.

According to wikipedia – The diary was filled with the cycle of changing fortunes during the Civil War. Although she edited it during the 1870s and 1880s for publication, she retained the sense of events unfolding without foreknowledge. She was very politically aware, and analyzed the changing fortunes of the South and its various classes through the years. She also portrayed southern society and the mixed roles of men and women. She was forthright about complex and fraught situations related to slavery, particularly the abuses of sexuality and power. For instance, Chesnut confronted the problem of white men fathering children with enslaved women in their own extended households.

This week’s song is Cross-Eyed Mary. I’ve included two versions because it is Jeff’s birthday and he likes both bands. Happy Birthday Jeff!

The original by Jethro Tull:

Cover by Iron Maiden:

This week’s famous Mary is Mary Quant, British fashion designer. This lovely lady is credited with inventing the miniskirt in 1963.

© Terence Donovan. All Rights Reserved. Used without permission.

This week’s Mary song comes from one of my favourite artists, Robyn Hitchcock. I first saw him doing this song at Bogart’s in Cincinnati. He can chain me to the bed anytime.

Download more live Robyn.

Famous Mary of the week is Mary Travers, from Peter, Paul and Mary. She passed away on September 16th and tonight there is a memorial planned at Riverside Church in New York City.

Listen to more Peter, Paul and Mary songs.

It took me ages to actually learn to like my name. All the other girls had fun names like Kimberly and Heather. I felt trapped in plain old Mary. When I started school, I was called Maryann on the roll call (and that was okay because I liked Maryann on Gilligan’s Island and I had no middle name which seemed kind of unique to me) but when my mom gave me my birth certificate I found out that I indeed had a middle name and it was Ann. So I was back to plain old Mary. As I grew older and became more educated, I learned to like my name. Yes it is simple and plain but it carries so much meaning and history. And it is used in so many songs! I thought I’d start posting a Mary song each Monday, accompanied by a famous Mary.

To start things off, because Dawn Summers was curious about them, here’s Sonic Youth with Mary-Christ.

And your famous Mary of the day, Mary Surratt:

She was the first woman executed by the US federal government for her role in the Lincoln assassination. You can visit her tavern and house in my home town. Looks like Robert Redford is making a movie about her.