I am not superstitious, but I offer this in lieu of a gratuitous photo of myself and as further evidence that I was not precisely born to Blake’s “sweet delight,” although I tend to be pretty damn happy despite it:
The Panic of 1907 (above), a market catastrophe that led to the creation of the Federal Reserve, Black Tuesday, which began the Great Depression, and Black Monday, which in 1987 saw massive losses in worldwide markets, all happened in October, my birth-month.
Indeed, the Great Depression is generally said to have started on my birthday in 1929, which I refuse to take as any sort of omen beyond this: it’s probably best not to bother with business on that particular day.
