Poem: "Spring in Hempstead," by Eleanor Farjeon, from Poems for Children (Lippincott).
MAY DAY is one of the oldest holidays known to man. In ancient Celtic times women rose on this day before sunrise to wash their faces in the dew, a practice believed to beautify the skin. Romans worshipped a spring goddess called Maia Maiesta.
Today the TIVOLI GARDENS IN COPENHAGEN open for the season, to stay open until September 17.
On this day in 1941, Orson Welles’ film CITIZEN KANE was released in New York City. Based on the life of media mogul William Randolph Hearst (played by the 25-year-old Welles), the film caused an outcry. But it went on to be judged one of the most influential American movies of all time. It featured long takes—continuous action in a single extended tracking shot—and ‘deep focus’: the use of a lens that gave sharp focus on action in foreground, middle distance and background all at once.
It’s the birthday of writer BOBBIE ANN MASON, born in Mayfield, Kentucky (1940). She writes almost exclusively about working-class and farm people who cope with the frustrations of modern life in western Kentucky, south of Paducah. Her books include In Country (1985), Love Life (1989) and Midnight Magic (1998). Her most recent title is Clear Springs: A Memoir (1999). She said, "I basically consider myself an exile… and that’s what gives me the distance to look back to where I’m from and to be able to write about it with some kind of perceptiveness… exile has a rather peculiar sensibility—you’re straddling a fence and you don’t know which side you belong on.
It’s the birthday of novelist and scriptwriter TERRY SOUTHERN, born in Alvarado, Texas (1924) a literary hipster who collaborated on the screenplays for Dr. Strangelove (1964), The Loved One (1965), and Easy Rider (1969). His novels include The Magic Christian (1959) and Candy (1958). His ex-wife said, "I think Hollywood had a terrible influence on him. He was a very disciplined writer, worked every single day, was wonderful company, did not drink in excess. Then Hollywood gave him permission to act out the dark side that all of us have. It’s an old story. Few people have the character to withstand that."
It’s the birthday of novelist JOSEPH HELLER, born in Brooklyn (1923) whose first novel, Catch-22, featured characters named Milo Minderbinder, General Dreedle, and Major Major. The ‘catch’ in Catch-22 is the Air Force rule stating that a man is insane if he continues to fly combat missions—but if he can manage to make the formal complaint necessary to be relieved of such missions, he must be sane, and therefore may not be relieved of duty.
It’s the birthday of author of autobiographical fiction NICCOLO TUCCI, born in Lugano, Switzerland (1908) a longtime contributor to The New Yorker. He’s the author of an autobiography, Before My Time (1962), and the novels Unfinished Funeral (1964) and The Sun and the Moon (1977).
It’s the birthday of "MOTH ER" JONES, born Mary Harris Jones, in Cork, Ireland (1830). Her husband and 4 children died in a yellow fever epidemic in Memphis (1867). She moved to Chicago and lost everything in the great fire of 1871, then roamed across the country organizing strikes.
Broadcast Date: TUESDAY: May 2, 2000
Poems: "I hide myself within my flower," and "Come slowly, Eden," by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886).
It’s the birthday of portrait and fashion photographer PHILIPPE HALSMAN, born in Riga, Latvia (1906). He took photos for Vogue and for Life.
It’s the birthday of singer and actor BING CROSBY, born in Tacoma, Washington (1904). His hit song "White Christmas" (1942), was the biggest-selling single ever.
It’s the birthday of baby-doctor BENJAMIN SPOCK, born in New Haven, Connecticut (1903).
It’s the birthday of journalist and author W(ilbur) J(oseph) CASH, born in Gaffney, South Carolina (1900) best known for a single book, The Mind of the South (1941). The year of its publication was tumultuous for Cash. He completed the book in July of 1940; in December he married; the book came out in February; in short order its critical acclaim won him a Guggenheim Fellowship, on which he went to Mexico to begin a novel about the South. Once there, however, he became so severely ill, mentally and physically, that in July he hanged himself in a Mexico City hotel room.
It’s the birthday of lyricist LORE NZ HART, born in New York City (1895). At the age of 23 he met composer Richard Rodgers. In the course of 25 years, they wrote at least a thousand songs together, including "The Lady Is a Tramp," "My Funny Valentine," and "Bewitched, bothered and bewildered." A gay man in a world that had not begun to accept gay men, he drank himself to death at 48 years old.
It’s the birthday of parliamentary-procedure expert HENRY MARTYN ROBERT, born in Robertville, South Carolina (1837) author of Robert’s Rules of Order (1876). While stationed in New Bedford, in 1862, he had to preside over a meeting at his church—and the meeting got out of hand. Frustrated that he could find no set of parliamentary rules to keep the next meeting from growing so rowdy, he wrote his own code. The book took him over a dozen years to complete. It is still the final word in settling procedural squabbles.
On this day in 1611, THE KING JAMES BIBLE WAS PUBLISHED
after the English monarch appointed a committee of scholars
to produce an English translation. The result is still known
to many, in Britain, as the Authorized Version. The loss of
its quiet eloquence is lamented by many who feel subjected
to less poetic, more ‘accessible’ versions of the
scriptures. Compare, for example, line 4 of Psalm 23:
King James version: "Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou
art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort
me."
A modern ‘revised’ version, from the New Jerusalem Bible
(1990): "Even were I to walk in a ravine as dark as
death, I should fear no danger, for you are at my side. Your
staff and your crook are there to soothe me."
Broadcast Date: WEDNESDAY: May 3, 2000
Poem: "Lovers at the Zoo," by May Sarton, from Collected Poems 1930-1993 (W.W. Norton).
It’s the birthday of journalist and reformer JACOB RIIS, born in Ribe, Denmark (1849). He emigrated to America 1870, barely getting by in a series of jobs—ironworker, farmer, coal miner, peddler—and learned about life on the brink of poverty. He became a police reporter for The New York Tribune. In 1888 he bought a camera, which allowed him to combine his articles on poverty with pictures of dark tenement rooms and hallways. His efforts culminated with the book How the Other Half Lives (1890), illustrated with line drawings based on his photographs.
It’s the birthday of poet and novelist MAY SARTON, born in Wondelgem, Belgium (1912). Her family moved to America, where they became citizens when she was 12 years old. In her mid-twenties she turned to writing, and produced novels, poetry collections, a play, 2 children’s books, and many short stories and essays. She made her living by writing book and theater reviews and by teaching creative writing. For decades she toiled in obscurity, then was "discovered" by feminist readers during the 1970s. She wrote, "Perhaps the greatest gift we can give to another human being is detachment. Attachment, even that which imagines it is selfless, always lays some burden on the other person. How to learn to love in such a light, airy way that there is no burden?"
It’s the birthday of playwright WILLIAM INGE, born in Independence, Kansas (1913). He was inspired to become a playwright after seeing Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. His plays include The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1957), Come Back, Little Sheba (1950), Picnic (1953Pulitzer Prize), which made Paul Newman a star, and Bus Stop (1955). He also wrote the screenplay for Splendor in the Grass (1961). But his next 4 plays drew increasingly harsh reviews, and, 2 years after his last play flopped, he killed himself.
Broadcast Date: THURSDAY: May 4, 2000
Poem: "Is it a Month?" by John Millington Synge (1871-1909).
It’s the birthday of novelist DAVID GUTTERSON, born in Seattle (1956). His novel Snow Falling on Cedars (1995) is set in the aftermath of World War Two, in a Northwest fishing town on Puget Sound. When a local fisherman is found mysteriously drowned, a Japanese American is charged with his murder.
It’s the birthday of novelist GRAHAM SWIFT, born in London (1949) whose 1996 novel Last Orders won Britain’s Booker Prize but also touched off controversy when reviews began comparing its plot with William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. Swift furiously replied that authors are inevitably influenced by one another’s work, but the idea that he had stolen from Faulkner was out of the question.
On this day in 1948, Norman Mailer’s first novel, THE NAKED AND THE DEAD, WAS PUBLISHED. Mailer, just 25, became an overnight literary sensation. He had served as an infantryman in the Philippines during World War Two, then served in U.S. occupation forces in Japan. Then, on the G.I. Bill, he enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he wrote the book.
In 1939 on this date, JAMES JOYCE’S NOVEL FINNEGAN'S WAKE WENT ON SALE in London and New York. At a party to celebrate the publication, Joyce’s wife Nora said, "Well, Jim, I haven’t read any of your books, but I’ll have to someday, because they must be good considering how well they sell." The reviews were mixed; the book in fact did not sell well, at least not in Joyce’s lifetime. He died 20 months later.
It’s the birthday of Israeli writer AMOS OZ, born in Jerusalem (1939). He wrote his novels in Hebrew, which he called as exuberant a language as Elizabethan English. His titles include My Michael (1972), The Hill of Evil Counsel (1978), and Fima (1991).
It’s the birthday of actress AUD REY HEPBURN, born near Brussels (1929) to a Dutch mother and English father. On the Riviera she was spotted by the novelist Colette, who insisted the teenager star in the Broadway version of her novel Gigi, which led to the film Roman Holiday, made when Audrey Hepburn was 19.
It’s the birthday of poet THOMAS KINSELLA, born in Dublin (1928), to a family where the men generally worked in the Guinness Brewery. His collection Another September (1958) won a Guinness Poetry Award.
On this day in 1863, Confederate GENERAL STONEWALL JACKSON WAS MORTALLY WOUNDED, mistakenly cut down in a withering volley by his own troops, at twilight, as he rode back from the front lines after directing the defeat of Union forces at the Battle of Chancellorsville.
Broadcast Date: FRIDAY: May 5, 2000
Poem: "Impatient with Desire," by George Granville, Lord Landsdown (1667-1735).
Today, the 5th of May, is celebrated in Mexico and in the American Southwest as the "CINCO DE MAYO" the anniversary of the 1862 Battle of Puebla, in which 2,000 Mexican troops, under the command of General Ignacio Zaragoza, drove back the French troops of Emperor Napoleon the Third, even though they were outnumbered 3 to 1.
It’s the birthday of writer MICHAEL PALIN, born in Sheffield, England (1943), a member of the Monty Python comedy troupe.
On this day in 1904, pitching great CY YOUNG PITCHED THE FIRST PERFECT GAME IN THE HISTORY OF BASEBALL. Throwing for the Boston Americans, he faced the minimum number of batters possible 27in a 9-inning game, and didn’t allow a single member of the Philadelphia Athletics to reach first base.
It’s the birthday of the most intrepid American ‘stunt journalist’ ever: Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, born in Cochrane Mills, Pennsylvania (1856), who took her byline, NELLY BLY, from a Stephen Foster song. She didn't want to write for the Ladies' Page, she wanted to write for the front page. She got herself committed to the women's lunatic asylum in New York City so she could write about conditions there; she got herself arrested so she could write about jail; she got a job in a sweatshop, so she could write about workers. But Nellie Bly’s greatest stunt was also the longest: a trip around the world by steamer, train, sampan and rickshaw to challenge the time of Jules Verne’s fictional hero Phileas Fogg in the novel Around the World in Eighty Days, published 16 years earlier (1873). Readers around the globe followed her progress. She made it in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds.
It’s the birthday of KARL MARX, born in Trier, the Rheinland, (now Germany), in 1818. With his disciple Friedrich Engels he founded the Communist League, which convened in London in 1847. The next year he finished writing The Communist Manifesto. From 1849 he lived in London, very poor and in failing health, supported by Engels. Marx spent the last phase of his life mostly in the British Museum, gathering material for Das Kapital, of which he completed only the first volume (1867). He’s buried in London’s Highgate Cemetery.
It’s the birthday of philosopher
SOREN KIERKEGAARD, born in Copenhagen (1813)
often called "the first existentialist." Highly
gifted and his father's obvious favorite, the older
Kierkegaard subsidized Soren and his work. His books include
Either/Or; A Fragment of Life (1843), and The
Sickness Unto Death (1849). From his journals:
"There are many people who reach their conclusions
about life like schoolboys; they cheat their master by
copying the answer out of a book without having worked out
the sum for themselves."
"It is perfectly true life must be understood
backwards. But it must be lived forwards. And if one thinks
over that proposition, it becomes more and more evident that
life can never really be understood in time simply because
at no particular moment can I find the necessary
resting-place from which to understand
it—backwards."
Broadcast Date: SATURDAY: May 6, 2000
Poem: "I years had been from home," by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886).
It’s the birthday of Chilean writer ARIEL DORFMAN, born in Buenos, Argentina (1942). He's the author of several novels and many collections of poetry, but he's best known in this country for his play Death and the Maiden.
It’s the birthday of filmmaker and actor ORSON WELLES, born in Kenosha, Wisconsin (1915). His stage career began at 2, when he appeared as the child of Madame Butterfly in the opera. At 10 the boy entered a private school in Woodstock, Illinois. The 5 years he spent there were the extent of his formal education. He sailed to Ireland, and, smoking a cigar to hide the fact that he was only 16, convinced the manager of the Gate Theatre in Dublin that he was a real New York actor. He landed featured parts at the Gate and Abbey theaters, toured in Romeo and Juliet, and directed a number of plays, including a leftist musical, The Cradle Will Rock (1937). His radio version of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds (1938) put him on the cover of Time. Two years later, his meteoric Hollywood career began with Citizen Kane (1941).
It’s the birthday of poet RANDALL JARRELL, born in Nashville, Tennessee (1914). He was one of the "Fugitive" poets, along with John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren, Allen Tate and Cleanth Books.
It’s the birthday of roadside poet ALLAN G. ODELL, born
in Minneapolis (1903), creator of the
Burma Shave road signs. Some of the Jingles used:
No lady likes/ To dance/ Or dine/ Accompanied by/ A
porcupine./ Burma Shave
With glamor girls/ You’ll never click/ Bewhiskered/ Like
a/ Bolshevik./ Burma Shave
A beard/ That’s rough/ And overgrown/ Is better than/ A
chaperone./ Burma-Shave
It’s the birthday of the founder of modern psychoanalysis, SIGMUND FREUD, born in Freiberg, Moravia, in what is now the Czech Republic (1856). An older half-brother living nearby had a child about Freud’s age; Freud later wrote that the confusion this caused him as an infant served to sharpen his intellect and his curiosity. He first thought of studying law; switched to medical research after reading an essay by Goethe, which inspired him to go into clinical neurology to support his family. He considered his greatest book The Interpretation of Dreams (1899). He once wrote of himself: "A man who has been the indispensable favorite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror, that confidence of success that often induces real success."
Broadcast Date: SUNDAY: May 7, 2000
Poem: "Now," by Robert Browning (1812-1889).
On this day in 1954 THE FRENCH WERE DEFEATED AT THE BATTLE OF DIEN BIEN PHU in Vietnam, 180 miles west of Hanoi. Nearly all the 16,000 French troops in the garrison were killed. The humiliating defeat was assumed at the time to be the end the Indochina War. But President Eisenhower wasted no time in announcing that the United States would prevent a Communist takeover of Southeast Asia.
In 1945 on this date, GERMANY SURRENDERED TO THE ALLIES at 2:41 a.m., Paris time, in General Dwight Eisenhower’s headquarters, a small schoolhouse in Reims, northern France. Hitler had killed himself a week earlier; Mussolini had been caught and shot by partisans. Three months later, the Japanese surrendered and World War Two finally ended.
It’s the birthday of poet JENNY JOSEPH, born in Birmingham, England (1932), author of children's books and many collections of poetry. Her best-known poem is called "Warning." It's the one that begins, "When I am an old Woman I shall wear purple."
It’s the birthday of novelist and screenwriter RUTH PRAWER JHABVALA, born in Cologne, Germany (1927). She married an Indian architect, then lived in India for 24 years and wrote novels about that country, including Heat and Dust (1974, Booker Prize). Among her film scripts for producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory are adaptations of Henry James’s novel The Bostonians (1984) and of E.M. Forster’s A Room With A View (1986 Academy Award) and Howard’s End (1992).
It’s the birthday of composer PETER ILICH TCHAIKOVSKY, born in Vatkinsk, Russia (1840). He was thought to have died of cholera after drinking contaminated water, but scholars now claim he committed suicide rather than let his homosexuality be revealed.
It’s the birthday of composer JOHANNES BRAHMS, born in Hamburg, Germany (1833). He was proud of the fact that he never married, and never wrote an opera.
It’s the birthday of poet ROBERT BROWNING born in London (1812). After a correspondence with poet Elizabeth Barrett, an invalid confined to a darkened room by her tyrannical father, the two poets finally met in 1845. She was 39; he had just turned 33. They eloped (to escape her father, who wouldn’t allow any of his grown children to marry), and their 16-year marriage was the happiest literary match on record. When she died in Florence in 1861, Browning returned to London and gave himself up to grief for 2 full years (he never could bear to return to Florence) writing nothing, doing nothing but mourn until he decided that for their son’ s sake he had to revive. His greatest poetry was still ahead of him.
