What Was the Middle Day of Lovecraft’s Life?
March 29th, 2011 · 3 CommentsIn a rather silly Facebook conversation on the anniversary of Lovecraft’s death, Simon (Simvail) jokingly suggested that we should celebrate the first, last, and middle days of Lovecraft’s life. I told him that if he could find me the middle day, I’d celebrate it too.
I really wasn’t expecting to hear back on it, because calculating that kind of date is a rather mammoth job. But clearly, I’d underestimated Simon. Just over a week later, he turned up with his calculation. The middle day of Lovecraft’s life was:
2nd of December 1913 (day 8504)
(Initially I’d posted 1911, but that didn’t look right so I confirmed with Simon that he’d mistyped. It’s 2011, after all, and liable to throw anyone off.)
When I asked him, he responded that he took into account both leap years and that 1900 was not a leap year. So, according to Simon, we ought to turn December 2nd into a holiday along with August 20th (1890) and March 15th (1937).
March 29th, 2011 at 11:21 am
You know, that’s a fabulous idea!
March 29th, 2011 at 6:39 pm
Your friend is right on the month and day, but off by a couple of years. The correct date would’ve been December 2, 1913, not 1911.
Donovan K. Loucks
Webmaster, The H.P. Lovecraft Archive
http://www.hplovecraft.com
[Thanks, yes. I'd actually contacted him to check the year because I thought it was off and he's corrected it. Also, sorry the comment got lost in spam. By including the link in the signature, it got grabbed by Akismet's algorithm.]
March 29th, 2011 at 9:40 pm
Total genius!!