53 Interesting Facts About The Number 53: a weekly writing experiment for 2015

53 Interesting Facts About the Number 53 is a writing experiment I am undertaking this year. Each week, typically on Sunday, I publish a new interesting fact about the number 53. Following the 53rd week, on Monday January 11, 2016, I will publish a poem using the 53 interesting facts about the number 53. This is similar to Fu poetry practiced by the poet philosopher Yang Xiong who was born in 53Bc and was the subject of interesting fact of the number 53 #5.

Wikipedia says:

Fu (Chinese: 賦), variously translated as rhapsody or poetic exposition, is a form of Chinese rhymed prose that was the dominant literary form during the Han dynasty. Fu are intermediary pieces between poetry and prose,^[1] in which an object, feeling, or subject is described and rhapsodized in exhaustive detail and from as many angles as possible. Classical fu composers attempted to use as wide a vocabulary as they could, and often included great numbers of rare and archaic terms in their compositions.^[2] Fu poems employ alternating rhyme and prose, varying line length, close alliteration, onomatopoeia, loose parallelism, and extensive cataloging of their topics.^[3]

Except that I don’t think I am going to try for the rhyming part–going more for the exhaustive detail!

Each week in addition to posting a new interesting fact, I will update this post with the new interesting fact and link to the blog post. Collect them all! Subscribe!

53 Interesting Facts About the Number 53
a poetry experiment for 51 weeks of 2015 and 2 weeks of 2106

#1 53 Miles West of Venus is a song by the B-52s (1.11.15: astronomical)
#2 53rd & 3rd is a song by the Ramones (1.18.15)
#3 53 is Herbie The Love Bug’s Racing Number (1.25.15)
#4 53 is the maximum number of players on an NFL roster (2.1.15)
#5 53 BC is the year this Chinese philospher and fu poet was born (2.8.15)
#6 53 is the atomic number for iodine (2.15.15)
#7 53rd Academy Awards Celebrated the films of 1980 (2.22.15)
#8 NGC53 is a barred spiral galaxy LLAP (3.1.15 astronomical)
#9 53% of the US population is female (3.8.15)
#10 53BC and 1953 were big years for Julius Ceasar (3.15.15)
#11 (3.22.15)
#12 (3.29.15)
#13 (4.5.15)
#14 (4.12.15)
#15 (4.19.15)
#16 (4.26.15)
#17 (5.3.15)  Moon’s Tycho Crater is 53 Miles Across
#18 (5.10.53) 53% of US Women are Moms
#19 (5.17.15)  1953 B.B. King’s “Please Love Me” #1
#20 (5.24.15 Saturn opposition)

#25 (5.31.15)
#26 (6.7.15 astronomical)
#27 (6. 14.15)
#28 (6.21.15 summer solstice)
#29 (6.28.15)
#30 (7.5.15 astronomical)
#31 (7.12.15)
#32 (7.19.15)
#33 (7.26.15)
#34 (8.2.15 astronomical)
#35 (8.9.15)
#36 (8.16.15)
#37 (8.23.15)
#38 (8.30.15)

etc

#50 Dr. Seuss (12.20.16)
#51 (1.27.15)
#52 (1/3/16 astronomical)
#53 (1.10.16)