le monde ici, c'est calme

The documentary includes a brief clip of a 1954 televised newscast about the rise of homosexuality. The host of the program interviewed psychologists, a police officer, and one “known homosexual”. The “known homosexual” is 22 years old. He identifies himself as Curtis White, which is a pseudonym; his name is actually Dale Olson.

So I tracked down the newscast. According to what I can find, Dale Olson may have been the first gay man to appear openly on television and defend his sexual orientation. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally and he’s never been arrested. When asked whether he’d take a cure if it existed, he says no. When asked whether his family knows he’s gay, he says that they didn’t up until tonight, but he guesses they’re going to find out, and he’ll probably be fired from his job as well. So of course the host is like …why are you doing this interview then? and Dale Olson, cool as cucumber pie, says “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”

1954. 22 years old. Balls of pure titanium.

Despite the pseudonym, Dale’s boss did indeed recognize him from the TV program, and he was promptly fired the next day. He wrote into ONE magazine six months later to reassure readers that he had gotten a new job at a higher salary.

Curious about what became of him, I looked into his life a little further. It turns out that he ultimately became a very successful publicity agent. He promoted the Rocky movies and Superman. Not only that, but get this: Dale represented Rock Hudson, and he was the person who convinced him to disclose that he had AIDS! He wrote the statement Rock read. And as we know, Rock Hudson’s disclosure had a very significant effect on the national conversation about AIDS in the U.S.

LETS GO

oh! the space needle is a cute mascot base for seattle’s MLB team! i wonder how they managed to communicate that in a big foam costume?

oh

oh

So on my way through CCS this time around I’m paying attention to other things, and one of them is the timeline. I’m only a few episodes in this time (doing this on weekends) but here’s some notes (this only applies to the anime’s timeline in case you can’t tell. Manga is not being considered)

Initially I assumed the year is 1998 because that’s when the show debuted. But based on a few calendars in episodes 2, 3, and 6.

These calendars are all accurate to 1997, not 1998. Even though the anime debuted in 1998, the first season was likely in production during 1997 so they used that calendar as reference

However that doesn’t mean a thing since in episode 19:

Fujitaka’s little device there definitively puts the series in 1998. That episode (19( by the way is outright stated to be on August 31st. However in 1998 that day was a Monday and in 1997 it was a Sunday. Seems more like they’d be doing the summer homework on a Sunday to return to school for 2nd term on a Monday. There’s a lot of overlap between 1997 and 1998 here. Best to consider it an AU earth where it’s 1998 but the calendars are all offset by a year relative to us. As the good Doctor will tell us, don’t think of time “too” linearly.

Moving on, I’ve narrowed down when the Clow Book was opened to April 8th (which happens to be my Birthday so I might be biased ^-^) Based on

Sakura turned 10 almost the same day she entered 4th grade. Japanese schools typically start their first term April 1st or there about (for reference, April 1st was a Tuesday in 1997, Wednesday in 1998). Sakura is lucky she made the age cut. I know American schools will let you start if you’re not old enough as long as you’ll age up within a month, so Japanese schools likely have a similar system based on this. That also probably makes her one of the youngest in her class. Anyway, a “week” after April 1st is 8th, but it could have been 6,7 or even 9th because after the Clow Book is opened:

Clow Book Open (CBO) 1: Fly is caught

CBO 2: Tomoyo Discovers Sakura’s Magic

CBO 3: Shadow caught.

All three of those days were school days. Japanese schools have Saturday classes typically so she needed to open the book on a day where she’d have at least 2 more consecutive school days that week. Not to mention these dates match up nicely with when Sakura trees blossom in central Honshu, around the Tokyo area where presumably Tomoeda is (based on Tokyo being a train ride for the archery competition in episode 44)

Episode 3 likely takes place over Friday, Saturday and Sunday, given that they’re in school the day they go to the aquarium, then the following day, and Sakura’s Date with Yukito is in the middle of the day (1 PM) so it must be a Sunday.

Problems arise in episode 6 though when Sakura claims that the following Sunday is her mother’s birthday. Nadeshiko’s birthday is 5/20, and while the calendars do say it’s May, 5/20 that year was a Tuesday.

Some other quick notes:

CBO 35X: Sakura enters 5th Grade, captures The Snow

CBO 38X: Final Judgement

This is consistent with most accounts that it takes Sakura roughly a year to capture the cards. And we do get this in episode 36:

That’s the right month for the new semester, and it’s 1999′s Calendar. That synchs up with episode 19′s establishment of 1998 as the year the series chiefly takes place. So again, it’s all just animators using the wrong calendars for reference. Honestly I still admire the attention to detail that they used any proper calendars.

Additional fun facts:

Sakura was born April1st 1988 according to the anime (also my birth year), making her a Dragon.