Broadcast date: MONDAY, 25 December 2000
Poem: "The Walloping Window-Blind," by Charles E. Carryl.
The Walloping Window-blindA capital ship for an ocean trip
Was "The Walloping Window-blind;"
No gale that blew dismayed her crew
Or troubled the captain's mind.
The man at the wheel was taught to feel
Contempt for the wildest blow,
And it often appeared, when the weather had cleared,
That he'd been in his bunk below.The boatswain's mate was very sedate,
Yet fond of amusement, too;
And he played hop-scotch with the starboard watch
While the captain tickled the crew.
And the gunner we had was apparently mad,
For he sat on the after-rail,
And fired salutes with the captain's boots,
In the teeth of the booming gale.The captain sat in a commodore's hat,
And dined, in a royal way,
On toasted pigs and pickles and figs
And gummery bread, each day.
But the cook was Dutch, and behaved as such;
For the food that he gave the crew
Was a number of tons of hot-cross buns,
Chopped up with sugar and glue.And we all felt ill as mariners will,
On a diet that's cheap and rude;
And we shivered and shook as we dipped the cook
In a tub of his gluesome food.
Then nautical pride we laid aside,
And we cast the vessel ashore
On the Gulliby Isles, where the Poohpoo smiles,
And the Anagazanders roar.Composed of sand was that favored land,
And trimmed with cinnamon straws;
And pink and blue was the pleasing hue
Of the Tickletoeteaser's claws.
And we sat on the edge of the sandy ledge
And shot at the whistling bee;
And the Binnacle-bats wore water-proof hats
as they danced in the sounding sea.On rubagub bark, from dawn to dark,
We fed, till we all had grown
Uncommonly shrunk, - when a Chinese junk
Came by from the torriby zone.
She was stubby and square, but we didn't much care,
And we cheerily put to sea;
And we left the crew of the junk to chew
The bark of the rubagub tree.
It's Christmas Day. There will be a partial eclipse of the sun today, reaching its greatest degree at 12:34 p.m. Eastern Time, visible from most of North America.
It's the birthday of mystical memoirist Carlos Castaneda, born in São Paulo, Brazil (1931). He's the author of The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (1968), which was a best-seller in the late sixties.
It's the birthday of bandleader Cab Calloway, born in Rochester, New York (1907). The son of a lawyer, he grew up in Baltimore, briefly attended law school, then turned to performing in nightclubs as a singer, emcee, and drummer. In his early twenties he began leading his own bands, and in 1929 appeared in New York in Fats Waller's revue Hot Chocolates singing "Ain't Misbehavin'." Leading his band at Harlem's Cotton Club, he first recorded his signature song "Minnie the Moocher" (1931).
It's the birthday of American Red Cross founder Clara Barton, born in North Oxford, Massachusetts (1821). She was working in the U.S. patent office in Washington during the Civil War; at the Battle of Bull Run, she made her way to the front lines to distribute medical supplies, nurse the wounded, and search for the missing.
Christmas is the most popular Christian festival, commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. The holiday dates from the 4th century—the first recorded celebration of Christmas took place in 336 AD, in Rome. Church fathers didn't know the date of Jesus' birth, but selected December 25 in hopes of co-opting pagan festivals at that time of the year. Gradually, customs from non-Christian festivals—decorating with lights, mistletoe, holly and ivy, and holiday trees, plus the customs of wassailing and gift-giving—were adopted by Christians.
In the Armenian Church, the date of December 25 was rejected in favor of January 6—the date that, in Western Christianity, is called Epiphany. Epiphany is thought to be the day on which the three Wise Men arrived to honor the child.
In America, the first Dutch settlers brought their image of a tall, saintly bishop, St. Nicholas, informally called "Sinterklaas" because he put cinders in the stockings of bad children. The name shifted from Sinterklaas to Santa Claus as English took over from Dutch and New Amsterdam became New York.
Santa Claus is celebrated in the famous poem, "A Visit from St. Nicholas," supposedly written by a wealthy Manhattan biblical scholar, Clement Clarke Moore, in 1822. Now, a Vassar English professor named Don Foster, using computer analysis of vocabulary and style, believes that the poem wasn't written by Clement Clarke Moore at all, but by a man named Henry Livingston Jr.
Broadcast date: TUESDAY, 26 December 2000
Poem: by Wendell Berry, from Sayings and Doings and An Eastward Look (Gnomen Press).
The first time I remember waking up
in the night was in the winter time
when I was about six. Papa had sent
the tobacco crop to Louisville
to be sold, and we sat by the fire
that night, talking and wondering
what it would bring. It was a bad time.
A year of a man's work might be worth
nothing. And papa got up at two o'clock.
And I woke up and heard him leaving.
He saddled his horse and rode over
to the railroad, four miles, and took
the train to Louisville, and came back
in the dark that night, without a dime.
It's St. Stephen's Day, in honor of the first Christian martyr (killed in 34 AD), one of the 7 original deacons chosen by early Christian church.
In England this date is called Boxing Day. It's the day on which you give little gifts to the mailman, the gardener, and the cleaning lady for services rendered the previous year; offerings for the poor are collected on this day in church boxes; and children go begging from door to door, as on Halloween in America.
It's "Wren Day" in Ireland: "wren-boys" go from house to house, carrying a holly bush adorned with ribbons and figures of birds, and singing:
The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,
St. Stephen's Day was caught in the furze,
Although he is little, his family's great,
I pray you, good landlady, give us a treat.
Today is the first day of Kwanzaa (Swahili for "first fruits"), a 7-day African-American holiday created in the 1960s as a harvest festival—a time to re-establish links to the community and to an African past.
It's the birthday of black playwright Lonne Elder III, born in Americus, Georgia (1931). He's the author of Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, a play based on memories of an uncle who had been a numbers runner in Jersey City.
On this day in 1913, writer Ambrose Bierce disappeared. He was traveling with the army of Mexican rebel Pancho Villa, and most likely was killed during the Siege of Ojinaga, on the border between Chihuahua and the West Texas Panhandle, in January of 1914. From Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary:
"Historian, n. A broad-gauge gossip."
"Lawyer, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law."
It's the birthday of poet and novelist Jean Toomer, born in Washington, D.C. (1894), one of the Harlem Renaissance writer's in the 1920s. He's best known for his experimental novel Cane (1923).
It's the birthday of novelist Henry Miller, born in the Yorkville section of Manhattan (1891), the son of a German-American tailor. He moved to Paris when he was young to become what he called a "roving cultural desperado." He wrote his autobiographical Tropic of Cancer on the backs of earlier manuscripts. Because of their sexual frankness, his major works were banned in America until 1964; only in late middle age was he recognized as a serious literary artist.
It's the birthday of English mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage, born in London (1792). He was obsessed with building a calculating machine that would calculate the tables of logarithms by repeated addition done by trains of gear wheels; he also worked on an "analytical engine," using punched cards to perform various mathematical operations. Many of his ideas of the early 19th century were picked up, and were instrumental in the development of the electronic computer in the 1940s.
Broadcast date: WEDNESDAY, 27 December 2000
Poem: "December Moon," by May Sarton, from Coming into Eighty (W.W. Norton & Company).
December MoonBefore going to bed
After a fall of snow
I look out on the field
Shining there in the moonlight
So calm, untouched and white
Snow silence fills my head
After I leave the window.Hours later near dawn
When I look down again
The whole landscape has changed
The perfect surface gone
Criss-crossed and written on
Where the wild creatures ranged
While the moon rose and shone.Why did my dog not bark?
Why did I hear no sound
There on the snow-locked ground
In the tumultuous dark?How much can come, how much can go
When the December moon is bright,
What worlds of play we'll never know
Sleeping away the cold white night
After a fall of snow.
It's the birthday of child psychologist and author Lee Salk, born in New York City (1926). He first came to national attention in 1960, when he published research showing that the sound of a mother's heartbeat has a calming effect on a newborn infant.
It's the birthday of 'Projectivist' poet Charles Olson, born in Worcester, Massachusetts (1910)—one of the Black Mountain poets. His books include Projective Verse (1950) and Mayan Letters (1953).
On this day in 1904, the Abbey Theatre opened in Dublin—the first state-subsidized theater in the world. Opening night featured two new plays—Lady Gregory's Spreading the News, and William Butler Yeats's On Baile's Strand.
It's the birthday of film star Marlene Dietrich, born in Berlin (1901). She was outspokenly anti-Nazi: when Hitler started arresting Jews, she financed the escape of several friends. During World War II, she gave performances for Allied troops at the front—she had to sleep in the trenches and wash with snow, but she came out to sing her signature hit, "Lili Marlene."
It's the birthday of novelist and playwright Zona Gale, born in Portage, Wisconsin (1874), known for her chronicles of Midwestern village life. Her novels include Friendship Village (1908), and A Daughter of the Morning (1918); her play Miss Lulu Bett (1920), which studied an unmarried woman who tries asserting herself in the face of social resistance, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921.
On this day in 1831, as the voyage's official naturalist, Charles Darwin sailed from England on the H.M.S. Beagle to survey the Cape Verde Islands, Brazil, Chile, Peru, the Galápagos Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand, and Tasmania—an expedition expected to take 2 years that took 5. His observations during the voyage led to his theory of natural selection and the publication, 28 years later, of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859).
It's the birthday of chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur, born in Dole, France (1822), the son of a tanner. He proved that microorganisms cause fermentation, and he developed vaccines against anthrax and rabies (1885).
It's the birthday of astronomer Johannes Kepler, born in Wurtenburg, Germany (1571)—who deduced that planets spin around the sun in elliptical orbits. Even before logarithms had been invented, Kepler formulated his 3 laws of planetary motion, which helped Isaac Newton (born 12 years later) to come up with his theory of gravitational force.
Broadcast date: THURSDAY, 28 December 2000
Poem: "The Men," by Michael Chitwood, from The Weave Room (The University of Chicago Press)
The MenThey'll show you how to milk a mouse.
They'll see if your ears have any gristle in them.
They'd stop in a burning house
to talk about striped bass.
When the lies get serious
they'll take out a knife
and sharpen a stick to nothing.
What they don't say
would fill a book.
You can read it in their shoulders,
in the way their hands find their pockets.
See, they're writing their scripture now,
With one finger,
in the salt that's been spilled
on the tables in the canteen.
In 1973 on this date, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's book The Gulag Archipelago—a gigantic, 260,000-word history of Stalinist repression and torture in the Soviet prison camp system—was published, in Russian, in Paris. The book is based on the experiences of 227 former prison camp inmates interviewed by Solzhenitsyn, who had himself been imprisoned and exiled for 8 years (1945-53). After the book came out, Solzhenitsyn was arrested, accused of treason, and exiled. The following year he collected the Nobel Prize for Literature he'd been awarded four years earlier.
It's the birthday of novelist Charles Portis, born in El Dorado, Arkansas (1933). He was a journalist, working for papers in Memphis and Little Rock, after which he served as London correspondent for the International Herald Tribune (1960-64). He quit journalism cold one day and moved back to Arkansas and lived for 6 months in a fishing shack while writing his first novel, Norwood (1966). It was followed 2 years later by his big hit, True Grit (1968), which was made into a movie starring John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn. In the years since he has produced many other books, including The Dog of the South (1979), Masters of Atlantis (1985), and Gringos (1991).
It's the birthday of novelist Manuel Puig, born in General, Argentina (1932)—best known for his novel The Kiss of the Spider Woman (1976). He grew up in rural Argentina where he learned English by watching American movies.
"There are many people who live in the sticks and have no means. They are soaking in machismo, in a hostile environment. What do they do? They have no choice. The movies provided them, as they did me, an alternative. They help you not go crazy. You see another way of life. It doesn't matter that the way of life shown by Hollywood was phony. It helped you hope."
It's the birthday of novelist Simon Raven, born in Leicester, England (1927). His satiric style has frequently been compared to Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell. Raven is best known for his 10-volume cycle of novels, Alms for Oblivion, which covers the English upper middle class since World War Two, the years 1945-1973, carrying on the same characters from book to book. Some of these characters also appear in Raven's more recent 7-volume series The First-Born.
"In short, what is destroying the quality of the novel, just as it is destroying the quality of life itself, is egalitarian dogma; for the chief fascination of novels, as of life, lies in the perception and the celebration of human inequalities."
It's the birthday of silent film director , born F(riedrich) W(ilhelm) Murnauin Bielefeld, Germany (1888). He went to Hollywood and directed two highly regarded silent films: Sunrise (1927; it won 3 of the first-ever Oscars) and the much-praised South Seas documentary Tabu (1931). The film was a great commercial success. But a week before it premiered, Murnau was killed in a car crash at the age of 42.
Broadcast date: FRIDAY, 29 December 2000
Poem: "The Second Coming," by W.B. Yeats.
The Second ComingTurning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
It's the birthday of comedian Paula Poundstone, born in Sudbury, Massachusetts (1959).
"I'm just amazed that what I got thrown out of class for, I now get paid to do. The same thing could be said by criminals, I suppose."
It's the birthday of novelist William Gaddis, born in New York (1922). His novel The Recognitions (1955) was so harshly reviewed that he published nothing for 20 years. His other books include JR (1975—National Book Award), Carpenter's Gothic (1985), and A Frolic of his Own (1994).
In 1916 on this day, James Joyce's autobiographical novel The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was published in New York.
It's the birthday of Joyce C. Hall, born in David City, Nebraska (1891). Using $3,500 he earned in high school, Hall set up a wholesale greeting card business in Kansas City (1910). It eventually became the biggest greeting card company in the world: Hallmark Cards.
It's the anniversary of the Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek, in South Dakota, two weeks after the killing of Chief Sitting Bull. White authorities, made anxious by the spread of the new 'Ghost Dance' religious fervor that had swept western Indian reservations during the previous year, had decided on a crackdown. The Ghost Dance called for the arrival of a messianic figure who would restore the buffalo to the plains, make the white men disappear, and bring back the old Native American way of life. When Sitting Bull was killed, Big Foot led his band of Lakota Sioux toward the Pine Ridge Agency, where they were surrounded by the 7th Cavalry: 200 of Big Foot's people, including women and children, were killed.
It's the feast day of martyred Saint Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered in his own cathedral on this day in 1170, by 4 knights of King Henry the Second. Henry II and Thomas Beckett had been close friends when Henry made Becket Archbishop. Beckett told him, "You will soon hate me as much as you love me now, for you assume an authority in the affairs of the church to which I shall never assent." When Henry said, "Will no one rid me of this troublesome cleric?" the knights believed it was Henry's wish that Beckett should die.
Broadcast date: SATURDAY, 30 December 2000
Poem: "This World is not Conclusion," by Emily Dickinson.
This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond —
Invisible, as Music —
But positive, as Sound —
It beckons, and it baffles —
Philosphy — don't know —
And through a Riddle, at the last —
Sagacity, must go —
To guess it, puzzles scholars —
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown —
Faith slips — and laughs, and rallies —
Blushes, if any see —
Plucks at a twig of Evidence —
And asks a Vane, the way —
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit —
Strong Hallelujahs roll —
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul —
On this day in 1948, Kiss Me, Kate, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, had its premiere at the New Century Theatre in New York City.
It's the birthday of rhythm & blues singer Bo Diddley, born in Magnolia, Mississippi (1928). He played the violin until he was fifteen, but said, "I'll tell you what put the brakes on me. I looked around and didn't see too many black violinists. That's when I grabbed the guitar, 'cause I seen plenty of black guitarists."
It's the birthday of writer, composer and translator Paul Bowles, born in Jamaica, Queens (1910). He dropped out of college and went to Paris, where he met Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau and André Gide. In the late 1940s he went to Morocco, where he wrote his novels The Sheltering Sky (1948) and Let It Come Down (1952).
It's the birthday of Simon Guggenheim, born in Philadelphia (1867), to a wealthy family who'd made their money in mining and smelting. When his first son died following a mastoid operation, he and his wife established the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, which, ever since, has given one-year grants to thousands of artists and scholars, each receiving a free year of study, research, and travel.
It's the birthday of poet and novelist Rudyard Kipling, born in Bombay (1865), author of The Jungle Book, Kim (1901) and Just So Stories (1902). He married an American woman and lived for 4 years on her property near Brattleboro, Vermont, but was unable to adjust to life to America. He returned to England to become the unofficial poet laureate of imperial Britain.
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till earth and sky stand presently at God's great Judgment seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
tho' they come from the ends of the earth.
It's the birthday of businessman Asa Griggs Candler, born on a farm near Villa Rica, Georgia (1851). He was a pharmacist, started a wholesale drug business, and, in his mid-twenties, bought the formula that became Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola became one of the biggest corporations in America, and, in 1919, he sold the enterprise for $25 million. A considerable philanthropist, Candler helped finance the move of Emory College, located near Atlanta, into the city, and expanded it to become Emory University.
Broadcast date: SUNDAY, 31 December 2000
Poem: lines from "Elegy," by Thomas Gray.
The curfew tolls the knells of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.Beneath those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Today is New Year's Eve, also known as St. Sylvester's Day in Europe.
It's the birthday of Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, born in Buczacz, Poland (1908). After surviving concentration camps, he became the hunter of war criminals, including Adolf Eichmann.
It's the birthday of Broadway composer Jule Styne, born in the East End section of London (1905). He's best known for having written the score for the musical Gypsy (1959).
It's the birthday of violinist Nathan Milstein, born in Odessa, Ukraine (1904).
On this day in 1903, the Iroquois Theater fire took place in Chicago, with a death toll that made it the worst single-structure fire in American history. A matinee audience was engulfed in flames when the stage caught fire and the asbestos safety curtain failed to work. 500 people were burned to death or died of smoke inhalation.
It's the birthday of General George C(atlett) Marshall, born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania (1880). As U.S. Army Chief of Staff during World War Two, he lobbied for a cross-Channel invasion as opposed to the 'Mediterranean strategy' favored by the British. Later, as Secretary of State under Harry Truman, he advocated the European Recovery Program, commonly known as the Marshall Plan.
It's the birthday of painter Henri Matisse, born in Le Cateau, France (1869). His family wanted him to go into law, but he took up painting instead. With his friends André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck, he spent the summer of 1905 painting in the Riviera town of Collioure. Matisse commented later: "We were at that time like children in the face of nature and we let our temperaments speak. We rejected imitative colors and found that with pure colors we obtained stronger reactions." They showed their work in Paris; the public was appalled by such crude 'daubs;' a critic ridiculed the painters as 'fauves,' or 'wild untamed beasts.' They took the insult 'Fauve' for the name of their new school of painting.
