Today is the anniversary of a very important photo. It was taken February 14, 1990, and it’s a landscape. In fact it’s the landscape, in a way. It’s the the Pale Blue Dot photo, taken by Voyager 1 from nearly 4 billion miles away. It’s called the Pale Blue Dot because that’s all there is of our planet. It’s about halfway up the band of light on the right. Carl Sagan came up with the name when he wrote a whole book about it just four years later. Sagan is also the one who requested that NASA turn the space probe’s camera around to get a picture of Earth. It was just in time. Much farther away and our planet wouldn’t have shown up at all.
Most of the things we know about (and a lot we don’t) have happened on that tiny dot. Every single Valentine’s Day, and every single Valentine’s gift took place right there…I mean, here. But let’s go a bit deeper into Valentine’s Day itself, since it’s here. Seems like a sweet opportunity, right?
It was February 14, 1490 in Trozendorf — that’s a place in Upper Lusatia, a region that at various times has been part of Germany, and at various other times part of Poland. Currently it’s part of Poland. Valentin Friedland’s family were too poor to send him to school, but Valentin taught himself to read anyway. Not only that; he made paper out of birch bark and made ink from soot, and taught himself to write as well. The family eventually prospered, and Valentin was able to attend school in Görlitz, a larger town not too far away. He was an excellent pupil, and eventually attended the University of Leipzig. He learned Latin. He learned Greek. And since, in those days, academic work was almost inextricable from the church, he eventually studied under Martin Luther himself (the one who kicked off the Protestant Reformation and has a whole religion named after him). But Valentin was primarily a scholar, not an ecclesiastical person. He became a schoolmaster, and came up with a system of education that was based on the Roman Republic; the elder students became the teachers for the younger, because as Valentin Friedlander always said, the best way to learn is to teach. Discipline was up to the students as well, and the school calendar. That’s why the students chose February 14 as “Valentin’s Day” in honor of their schoolmaster, and…no, wait a moment. No, no, never mind that. Sorry, I had the wrong Valentine altogether.
Let’s give that another try. It wasn’t 1490 at all; it was 1628, in County Waterford, Ireland. William Greatraks and Mary Harris were English Protestants who had settled in Ireland to start their family, and on February 14, along came baby Valentine. He was a clever boy who was headed for college, but then the Irish Rebellion broke out when he was about 13. His mother and he escaped back to England for safety. Valentine lived with his great uncle for a while, and then after his great uncle passed away, was taken in by John Getsius, a German minister. Valentine stayed with Getsius, continuing his education, until he was about 19 or 20 and on his own. He returned to Ireland (which was, after all, his native land) and became a lieutenant in the army. It wasn’t the Irish army, though, it was the English one. He was mustered out when most of the army disbanded, and when he was about 28 became a Justice of the Peace back in County Waterford, where he’d been born.
Then a few years later, when he was in his early 30s, he wrote that he began to feel an odd urge to try to cure illness — not his own; other peoples’. He tried it, just touching people who had this or that disease, and sure enough, they got better. Reports of his success are mixed (except his own reports; those were pretty consistently positive). Some prominent people sought him out for cures, but said they felt no effects. Valentine Greatraks was finally called before the Bishops Court where he was rebuked — not for faith healing though. It was for faith healing without a license. They also ordered him to stop it.
Valentine returned to England when his old Army commander asked him to cure a noblewoman — Viscountess Conway — of her constant headaches. It didn’t work, but he stayed in England and began to travel around, laying his hands on anyone who claimed to need healing. King Charles II heard about him and invited him to Whitehall to continue his healing. Valentine never touched the king, though, possibly because the king wasn’t sick. Greatraks became known as “The Stroker,” since the way he cured people was by simply touching or stroking them. For anyone who doubted his abilities, he published pamphlets and letters attesting to his success as a healer. It’s even possible some of the letters were written by other people.
He finally returned to Ireland for good when he was about 40, and gave up the healing game in favor of farming. He somewhat faded from the public eye after that, but of course at some point people remembered him, looked up his birthday, and decided to celebrate it. As his healing ways were clearly heartfelt, the heart was chosen as the symbol of the new holiday, Valentine’s Day. And that’s why even today, it’s traditional on Valentine’s Day to visit people who are sick or ailing and…um…just another minute… Okay, never mind. Due to a clerical error, it seems I’ve again selected the wrong Valentine.
Now, for real this time, I’m sure. Many of you will be familiar with the magician duo Penn & Teller. Their performances are great fun, although the community of magicians is said to sometimes be somewhat peeved at them because the best part of some of their magic routines is showing the audience how the trick is done. That’s generally followed by the audience doing a double-take as the magicians proceed to repeat the trick without the method they just revealed — but still, magicians don’t like their secrets being exposed. And that whole thing about secrets is the real story behind Valentine’s Day.
What you may or may not know about Penn & Teller is that while Penn Gillette got his start in performing arts as a juggler, Teller (the one who doesn’t talk) is the “real” magician of the two. The more complicated routines and more difficult reveals are all designed by Teller, and often performed by him as well. If you watch their show closely, you’ll notice that it’s Teller that more often does the slight-of-hand, the card tricks, and the like. Penn is more of the master of ceremonies (which is helpful, since he’s the one who talks). But the reason why Teller doesn’t talk is never revealed in their shows. And it turns out the real reason is tied to February 14.
It goes back to Teller’s days performing in the three-person magic ensemble, the Asparagus Valley Cultural Society. Penn was part of it, too, and they performed at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival starting around 1974. Now, if you’ve ever been to Minnesota, you’ll be well aware that the middle of February is no time to try to hold a fair, Renaissance Festival, carnival, or really any outdoor event that doesn’t involve ice skates. So during the Minnesota winters, the Asparagus Valley Cultural Society spent their time learning new magic routines, and occasionally staging operas. Oddly, they only performed music written by Othmar Schoeck, a Swiss composer and musician who lived from 1886 to 1957.
In 1975, the Society may have staged (reports vary) Schoeck’s opera Venus, which he wrote after falling in love with Mary de Senger, a pianist more interested in modernist music than Schoeck’s more classical compositions. Venus shows de Senger’s influence in its bitonal and polyrhythmic variations. Teller himself was probably responsible for the more difficult passages, and some reports have him fortifying himself with perhaps too much reliance on a favorite beverage, Ballantine Ale. It must have been the February 14 performance of Venus when it all happened; the difficult polyrhythmic tempo, combined with Teller’s potentially impaired mental state, along with Penn’s juggling — which he probably included in the opera. This would have been in spite of the libretto lacking any justifiable connections to juggling. But the chaos of the performers perfectly matched the modernist approach of the work, and it was that very performance that must have propelled the Asparagus Valley Cultural Society to their further performances (of magic, not opera) in San Francisco. It probably also launched the reputation of Othmar Schoeck to its current place high in the stratosphere of Swiss musicians born in 1886. And the day came to be remembered, in honor of Teller’s memorable performance, as Ballentine’s… I mean, Valentine’s Day (possibly because both the cast and the audience were facing enunciative challenges thanks to their choice of beverage). And that’s why today is…what? Oh.
I have to apologize; I believe there has once again been a minor and entirely avoidable error clearly attributable to…well, take your choice, but don’t blame me (I never do). I guess I don’t know why it’s called Valentine’s Day, what’s up with the hearts, why there’s candy, and what about all those flowers. Maybe you can investigate for yourselves. The truth is out there.
