On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) December 25, 2014
… for jokers. And also comedians, bless their hearts. From the NYTimes:
SAN FRANCISCO — The comedian Margaret Cho has been busking around her hometown, singing, plinking on her guitar and nearly stripping to raise money for the homeless. San Francisco has pop-up restaurants, art galleries and shops, but Ms. Cho’s may be the first pop-up charity.
Through social media, she has notified fans, who brought coats, pants, shirts, shoes, blankets and lots of socks as well as cash, which she gave away at each event. Her ninth and final performance was on Tuesday.
The inspiration, Ms. Cho said, was her friend Robin Williams, who committed suicide in August at age 63. When she could not shake her sadness, another comedian friend said, “Don’t mourn Robin — be Robin.” Mr. Williams, who lived in the Bay Area, raised millions for the homeless. So Ms. Cho began what she calls “my mini-baby-weirdo version” of Mr. Williams’s charity routines.
She also did it because, she said pointedly, this city has become Dickensian, with the rich getting richer as they till the digital fields of Google and Facebook and the poor getting poorer and priced out of their apartments. Ms. Cho knows that she cannot change the economy, but she can lift spirits by doing what she knows best.
“San Francisco used to be a city of street performers,” Ms. Cho said at her final event. “Robin was a street performer — this is part of bringing that back.”…
During her monthlong string of pop-ups, she took her act to a youth shelter and to neighborhoods where homeless people congregate. Ms. Cho said she had raised about $2,000 at most of the shows. She finished with an evening performance at SF Eagle, a gay bar with synthetic snowflakes and a mirrored ball twinkling from the ceiling.
Outside, drivers pulled up with armfuls of new sweaters, vests, jackets, pants, dental floss, soap and socks, stacking the donations on tables on the sidewalk. Homeless men and women, often unnoticed during the day, walked or biked to the tables and chose what they liked. Late into the night, the hills of clothing were replenished and the homeless kept coming….
Happy Boxing Day, Ms. Cho, and many more of them.