… that in the middle of a 1972 show in Toronto, Gordon Lightfoot was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy by his doctor who happened to be in the audience?
—Writing Gordon Lightfoot: The Man, the Music, and the World in 1972 by Dave Bidini

Excerpt from Writing Gordon Lightfoot:

A few months later, something else happened that may or may not have been caused by what happened before. On the first evening of a five-night run at Toronto’s Massey Hall, Lightfoot felt numbness consume the left side of his face. After finishing the first set, he saw his doctor, who happened to be in the crowd. The doctor told him that he had Bell’s palsy, a paralysis of the facial nerve that limits one’s ability to control muscles in the face. Bell’s palsy is commonly caused by trauma and emotional disorder, and while Lightfoot could rage and get wild and let everything fall loose with the best of them, he was also a bottled-up soul. “Gord wasn’t the easiest person to know,” remembers Mair, “which is why those nights on stage were so important to him. He lived for performing. It was his air, his food, his reason for living.” Proof of this can be found in the fact that despite having to sing out of one side of his face, Lightfoot honoured his Massey Hall commitment, playing the remaining five nights. After each show, he returned to the apartment that he shared with Cathy Evelyn Smith. “Being famous isn’t easy, not for anyone, even though it might look like it from the outside,” said Mair. “Cathy was beautiful and smart, but she was a tramp. During that time, she was all that Gord had. And for a few years, they were virtually inseparable. Whether this was good or bad for him depends on your perspective.” In 1978, Mair told a Canadian magazine that “Gordon is one of your bigger male chauvinists and a leading exponent of the double standard. He will not do anything for nothing, for anyone.” Hearing these words repeated to him years later, Mair regrets having made these remarks in public, although, he says, “it doesn’t mean that they were untrue.”

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… that Canada took home gold at the very first World Championship? The Winnipeg Falcons won at the 1920 Winter Olympics with a score of 27–1.
—The Greatest Game: The Montreal Canadiens, the Red Army, and the Night That Saved Hockey by Todd Denault

Excerpt from The Greatest Game:

Stockholm, Sweden, March 7, 1954. Canada is a country often divided by geographic, spiritual, and linguistic differences, and yet there is one sport that can bring everyone together. The first organized indoor hockey game on ice took place in Montreal on March 3, 1875, and by the dawn of the twentieth century, hockey was established as Canada’s most popular sport.

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…that, despite his novel Amerika being an exploration of the United States and its culture, Franz Kafka never traveled further west than Paris?

Excerpt from The Tao of Travel:

Franz Kafka cannot be held accountable for the title of his novel Amerika. Left unfinished, it was published after his death by his friend and literary executor, Max Brod, who gave it this name. Kafka usually referred to it as Der Verschollene (The Missing Person or The Man Who Disappeared). The man in question went to America.

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…that despite the airplane’s invention in the U.S., disputes over the Wright’s patents tied up innovation so badly, that the American Army Air Service flew French biplanes during WWI?
—Creeping Failure: How We Broke the Internet and What We Can Do to Fix It by Jeffrey Hunker

Excerpt from Creeping Failure:
Throughout modern history, public policies have helped, hindered, or shaped the course of progress through technology. The airplane was invented in the U.S., yet during World War I, the American ace Eddie Rickenbacker and his Army Air Service squadron flew French biplanes. Why? Because disputes over the Wright brothers’ patents in the U.S. had tied up innovation so badly that their home country built no aircraft able to perform on a level with European fighter planes. The government stepped in, creating a shared patent pool that allowed the U.S. aviation industry to move forward again in the years ahead.

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… that Christopher was listed as a foe of the ancien régime by the former secret police of the Salazar/Caetano dictatorship in Portugal?

—From Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens

Excerpt from Hitch-22:
Mediterranean though it can feel, Portugal is the only European country that has the Atlantic Ocean lapping around the inner harbor of its capital city. Its amazing mariners took its oddly inflected language as far away as East Timor and Macao though King Henry “the Navigator” probably never actually boarded a ship. As soon as I could manage it after the revolution of April 1974, I arrived ordinarily enough by air, and was then told to wait in the customs area. Was I perhaps on some list of undesirables, as I had found myself to be at other airports? A lanky, white-haired official, proffering a card that proclaimed his name to be Viera da Fonseca (just like the delicious port wine), extended a hand. He was to escort me to a hotel. It appeared that I was an honored guest. For the first time in my life, I was on a list of desirables. When the files of the former secret police of the Salazar/Caetano dictatorship had been broken open, it was found that I was listed as a particular foe of the ancien régime. Having imagined myself dossing down happily with my comrades on the floor of some left-wing slum apartment, I was promoted to a fairly elevated floor of the Tivoli Hotel on the Avenida Libertad, with a view of the city’s captivating harbor. It all seemed too much, as if one had suddenly received the profits and dividends of an investment that had barely been made. I formed a private resolution not to become too used to it.

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… that JFK and the CIA sought advice from Ian Fleming on how to deal with Fidel Castro? —From Red Heat: Terror, Conspiracy, and Murder in the Cold War Caribbean by Alex von Tunzelmann

Excerpt from Red Heat

Earlier that year, Ian Fleming, the author who had created James Bond, went to a dinner party in Georgetown hosted by the presidential hopeful, John F. Kennedy. Kennedy had long been a fan. In 1957, his wife, Jacqueline, had given a copy of From Russia with Love to Allen Dulles, saying, Here is a book you should have, Mr. Director.”77 From then on, it had become a tradition that Dulles and Jack Kennedy would exchange copies of Bond novels as they appeared, Dulles adding comments in the margins. The director of the CIA was not present at this particular dinner party, though at least one other agency official was.

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