MONDAY, 18 APRIL, 2005
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Poem: "The Advice," by Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset.
The Advice
Wou'd you in Love succeed, be Brisk, be Gay,
Cast all dull Thoughts and serious Looks away;
Think not with down cast Eyes, and mournful Air,
To move to pity, the Relentless Fair,
Or draw from her bright Eyes a Christal Tear.
This Method Foreign is to your Affair,
Too formal for the Frolick you prepare:
Thus, when you think she yields to Love's advance,
You'll find 'tis no Consent, but Complaisance.
Whilst he who boldly rifles all her Charms,
Kisses and Ravishes her in his Arms,
Seizes the favour, stays not for a Grant,
Alarms her Blood, and makes her sigh and pant;
Gives her no time to speak, or think't a Crime,
Enjoys his Wish, and well imploys his time.
Literary and Historical Notes:
In 1934 on this day, the first laundromat opened in America. J.F. Cantrell opened the Washateria in Fort Worth, Texas with four electric washing machines. He charged by the hour for use of his machines.
In 1923 on this day, Yankee Stadium opened in New York City. Opening day, it was Yankees versus the Boston Red Sox. The official count was seventy-four thousand, two hundred fans who packed the stands before the fire department ordered the gates closed. The Yankees won the game that day, capped by a three-run homer by Babe Ruth himself.
In 1906 on this day, there was a great earthquake in San Francisco that killed five hundred people and destroyed three thousand acres in the heart of the city.
In 1775 on this day, Paul Revere took the famous ride that was immortalized in poetry by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. At the time, the British regulars wanted to arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams (who were in Lexington) and made what they thought were secret plans to capture the two men. Their plans were discovered, however, and Revere had made arrangements to signal the patriots by lighting two lanterns in Boston's North Church steeple if the British were coming by sea, and one if they were coming by land. Revere rode out on the night of April 18th to warn Hancock and Adams that the British were on their way. Longfellow immortalized the day with these lines:
From The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere:
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town tonight,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light -
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country fold to be up and to arm.
It's the birthday of publisher Clifton Keith Hillegass, born in Rising City, Nebraska (1918), who is known to high school English students everywhere, even if they've never heard his name. He is the founder of Cliff Notes, the condensed accounts of literary classics used as study guides by millions of students since 1958. He borrowed four thousand dollars and created the black-and-yellow striped books in his basement, which he marketed to bookstore owners he knew through his publishing work, and by advertising in teen magazines like Seventeen and Scholastic.
It's the birthday of journalist and author Richard Harding Davis, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1864), who is known as the first famous American war correspondent. He started out as a reporter on two Philadelphia newspapers, but soon moved to the New York Evening Sun, where he was noted for his melodramatic writing style. In 1891, Davis published Gallegher and Other Stories, a collection of tales about a newsboy-detective. He then became editor of Harper's Weekly magazine, but left after two years to pursue the more "romantic" career of war correspondent. During the Spanish American War, he covered the exploits of Theodore Roosevelt, portraying him in extremely heroic terms. He then covered the Boer War in South Africa, with reporting blatantly in favor of the Boers. His war dispatches were frequently more colorful than they were accurate. Davis returned to America and produced several novels and plays, including Captain Macklin (1902), Ranson's Folly (1904) and Miss Civilization (1905). These successes allowed him to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle. When he was sent to France to cover World War One, however, his perspectives on life and war were changed. He no longer saw war as a romantic adventure, and began to take note of its human costs. His coverage of this war is considered some of his best. He returned to America with a new regard for his family and for himself as a writer. Unfortunately, though, he died only one year later at the age of fifty-two, leaving behind a young wife and baby.
It's the birthday of lawyer and writer Clarence (Seward) Darrow, born in Kinsman, Ohio (1857). He once said: "I never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with a lot of pleasure."
TUESDAY, 19 APRIL, 2005
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Poem: "Concord Hymn," by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Concord Hymn
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world,
The foe long since in silence slept,
Alike the Conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone,
That memory may their deed redeem,
When like our sires our sons are gone.
Spirit! who made those freemen dare
To die, or leave their children free,
Bid time and nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and Thee.
Literary and Historical Notes:
In 1927 on this day, actress Mae West was jailed for her performance in Sex, the Broadway play she wrote, directed, and starred in. She served ten days in prison, and jail time seemed to have done her good—it didn't make her change her act, but it did bring her national notoriety—and helped make her one of Hollywood's most memorable, and quotable, stars. She said: "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful."
It's the birthday of playwright Sharon Pollock, born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada (1936). Her best known and most successful play, Blood Relations (1976), is a reworking of the story of American axe murderer Lizzie Borden, told from a feminist point of view.
It's the birthday of poet Etheridge Knight, born in Corinth, Mississippi (1931). He dropped out of school at the age of sixteen in order to join the Army, served in Korea from 1947 to 1951, and returned home with shrapnel wounds and an addiction to drugs. In 1960, he was arrested for robbery and sentenced to ten to twenty-five years. He served eight years in the Indiana State Prison. During his incarceration, he began writing poetry. His first book, Poems from Prison, was published in 1968.
It's the birthday of playwright, short story writer and novelist Richard Arthur Warren Hughes, born in Weybridge, Wales (1900). His most famous novel is A High Wind in Jamaica (1929), a melodramatic tale involving a group of English schoolchildren who are kidnapped by a band of pirates.
It's the birthday of diarist Sarah Kemble Knight, born in Boston, Massachusetts (1666). Little is known of her early life, except that she took over her father's merchant business after his death in 1689. It may have been for business reasons, or perhaps to settle a relative's estate, that she undertook a solo journey on horseback from Boston to New Haven in 1704, when she was thirty-nine years old. She kept a journal of her travels, recording everything that happened, and everything she saw along her way. Her diary passed into private hands after her death in 1727, and was not discovered again until 1825, when it was published as The Journal of Madame Knight by Theodore Dwight Junior. It has been reprinted many times since, and is now considered one of the most authentic chronicles of eighteenth-century colonial life.
In 1775 on this day, the first battle of the American Revolutionary War occurred when several hundred British troops marched into Lexington, Massachusetts on a mission to capture Patriot leaders. The troops were taken by surprise by about seventy armed Minutemen. Suddenly a shot was fired - no one knows by whom - that became known as "the shot heard round the world," and the Revolutionary War had begun. Eight of the Minutemen were killed, and nine were wounded.
On this day in 1886, the Concord Hymn, written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, was sung at the completion of a monument to the battle in Concord, Massachusetts.
WEDNESDAY, 20 APRIL, 2005
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Poem: "Wherever We Travel,"
by Linda Pastan from The Last Uncle (W.W. Norton).
Wherever We Travel
Wherever we travel
it seems to take the same
few hours to get there.
The plane rises over clouds
into an unmarked sky,
comes down through clouds
to what we have to believe
is a different place. But here
are the same green road signs
the numbered highways
of home, with cars going
back and forth to houses
with chimneys and windows
identical to the ones we thought
we had left behind.
The radio blares familiar
radio music. Soon we will knock
on a door and someone will greet us,
will pull us into a room
we have never seen
but already know by heart.
Literary and Historical Notes:
It's the birthday of science fiction writer Ian Watson, born in St. Albans, England (1943), whose books explore not just distant times and lands, but also the nature of being and reality, and the entire relationship of man to the universe. One of Watson's most popular works is The Black River/Yaleen trilogy (1986), made up of The Book of the River, The Books of the Stars, and The Book of Being. The books take place in a world divided by a river populated on one side by a female-dominated society and on the other a male-dominated society.
It's the birthday of musician (Ernest) (Anthony) Tito Puente, born in New York, New York (1923). His parents were both Puerto Rican immigrants; his father was a gambler who often left the family short of money. His specialty was the mambo, and he soon became known as the Mambo King. During his career, Puente garnered five Grammys, and made one hundred eighteen records and CDs.
It's the birthday of artist Joan Miró, born in Barcelona, Spain (1893).
It's the birthday of actor Harold Lloyd, born in Burchard, Nebraska (1893), who was one of the most successful comedic actors of the early days of film. After spending several years with theatrical repertory companies, Lloyd went to Hollywood in 1912. Lloyd came upon the idea of a new character: an ordinary man who finds himself in extraordinary situations, a character Lloyd once described as, "quiet, normal, boyish, clean, sympathetic, not impossible to romance." When he added a pair of horn-rimmed eyeglasses to his costume, they became his trademark and Lloyd became the highest-paid screen actor in the nineteen twenties. His career spanned thirty-four years and he made nearly five hundred films, including The Freshman (1925), Speedy (1928), and Movie Crazy (1932). He was also known as "the screen's most daring comedian" because he performed all his own stunts, including his most famous one in the 1923 film Safety Last, which required him to climb up the face of a fourteen-story building and dangle from the hands of a giant clock.
It's the birthday of psychiatrist Philippe Pinel, born in France (1745). Considered one of the founders of the field of psychiatry, Pinel at first studied mathematics and theology, and then internal medicine. From the beginning, his methods deviated from what was normal at the time. In 1792, he became the chief physician at a Paris asylum for the incurably insane. As was standard practice at the time, patients were chained to the walls—some for more than thirty years—and treated like animals. For an admission fee, the public was allowed to come in and watch them. Pinel put a stop to such inhuman practices, as well as such treatments as bleeding, purging, and blistering, and instituted a therapy that included discussion of personal difficulties, close contact with the patients, and a program of supervised, purposeful activities. He believed that the insane were not possessed by demons, the popular theory of mental illness, but that they were under social and psychological stresses, and had possibly suffered physiological damage. He was the first to distinguish various types of psychoses and to classify various types of mental diseases.
It's the birthday of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, born in A.D. 121. He is not as well known for his leadership abilities as he is for his deeply philosophical nature. He was a kind and tolerant ruler who freed many slaves and tried his best to rid Rome of corruption. But Aurelius is best known for the writings he left behind. They were diaries and reflections he wrote every day, and were not meant for publication, but were his own personal insights into the stresses of ruler-ship and of everyday life, and fears about his own personal inadequacies. His writings, now known as the Meditations, also mark his beliefs in the doctrines of Stoicism: that we must get through the problems of our lives with patience and endurance, drawing on our own inner resources to see us through. He believed that most of life was predestined, but that much of it could be improved by our own discipline and will power. He wrote: "If you work at that which is before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you might be bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with your present activity according to nature…you will be happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this."
THURSDAY, 21 APRIL, 2005
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Poem: "Reconciliation," by Walt Whitman.
Reconciliation
Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again,
and ever
again, this soil'd world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin—I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
Literary and Historical Notes:
It's the birthday of scientist and fiction writer Thomas McMahon, born in Dayton, Ohio (1943), who throughout his life was able to meld the worlds of science and literature, using one to enrich the other. In 1977, McMahon and a colleague designed a "tuned" running track at Harvard University that improved running times by three percent while cutting injuries in half. In 1996, McMahon gained notice for experiments demonstrating how the basilisk lizard, known in South America as the "Jesus Christ" lizard—can scamper across rivers fast enough to walk on water. His three widely acclaimed novels, Principles of American Nuclear Chemistry (1970), McKay's Bees (1979), and Loving Little Egypt (1987), are noteworthy for their blend of scientific descriptions with the lives and loves of the main characters. McMahon was a professor of applied mechanics and biology at Harvard University from 1977 until his death in 1999 at the age of fifty-six.
It's the birthday of writer, playwright, and critic John (Clifford) Mortimer, born in London, England (1923), who is best known in America for the BBC television series, Rumpole of the Bailey, created from Mortimer's stories about the comic adventures of a grumpy, aging defense lawyer. Rumpole of the Bailey introduced the world to Horace Rumpole, married to the intractable Hilda, better known as "She Who Must Be Obeyed." Mortimer still maintains a thriving law practice in England, and in the 1960s and 70s, became well known as a defender of free-speech and civil rights cases. He has also written his autobiography in two volumes: Clinging to the Wreckage (1982) and Murderers and Other Friends (1994), as well as adapting Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited in 1981 for BBC television.
It's the birthday of humorist Josh Billings, born Henry Wheeler Shaw in Lanesboro, Massachusetts (1818). When he was forty-five, he began contributing humorous columns to a local newspaper under the name "Josh Billings." They didn't attract much attention until he changed his style and began using phonetic spelling to represent a rural dialect. He changed an article he had written as "Essay on the Mule" to "A Essa on the Meul bi Josh Billings," which was printed in a New York City paper and made him instantly famous. Billings, who said: "What the moral army needs just now is more rank and file and fewer brigadier generals."
It's the birthday of writer Charlotte Bronte, born in Thornton, England (1816), the eldest surviving child of Patrick and Maria Bronte, and sister to Branwell, Emily and Anne. Charlotte and her siblings spent much of their time creating fantasies in great detail about an imaginary world they called Angria. In 1845, Charlotte accidentally came across some poems written by her sister, Emily. She decided that the three sisters should publish a joint volume, which they did, under the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. The book sold two copies. However, it started the girls writing, and in 1847, each had a book published: Anne's was Agnes Grey, Emily's was Wuthering Heights, and Charlotte's was Jane Eyre. Charlotte, considered the best writer of the three, introduced a new type of heroine to English fiction—an intelligent, passionate woman who refuses to accept the traditional role of female subservience. The book was a great success. Unfortunately, within the following year, Branwell, Emily, and Anne all died.
FRIDAY, 22 APRIL, 2005
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Poem: "Nostos," by Louise Glück, from Meadowlands (Harper Collins).
Nostos
There was an apple tree in the yard —
this would have been
forty years ago — behind,
only meadows. Drifts
off crocus in the damp grass.
I stood at that window:
late April. Spring
flowers in the neighbor's yard.
How many times, really, did the tree
flower on my birthday,
the exact day, not
before, not after? Substitution
of the immutable
for the shifting, the evolving.
Substitution of the image
for relentless earth. What
do I know of this place,
the role of the tree for decades
taken by a bonsai, voices
rising from tennis courts —
Fields. Smell of the tall grass, new cut.
As one expects of a lyric poet.
We look at the world once, in childhood.
The rest is memory.
Literary and Historical Notes:
It's the birthday of poet Louise Glück, born in New York City (1942), author of The Triumph of Achilles (1985), The Wild Iris (1993), and Vita Nova (1999).
It is the birthday of jazz bass player and composer Charles Mingus, born in Nogales, Arizona (1922). He played with Lionel Hampton, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, and toured Europe with his own orchestra. His autobiography is Beneath the Underdog, published in 1971.
It's the birthday of novelist Vladimir Nabokov, born in St. Petersburg, Russia (1899), who learned to speak and read English before he read Russian. Following the Bolshevik revolution, after the family settled in Berlin, his father was killed while shielding another man at a public meeting. Nabokov went from obscurity to great international fame when Lolita (1958) was published when he was 59 years old.
It is the birthday of novelist James Norman Hall, born in Colfax, Iowa (1887). He joined the British volunteer army as a machine gunner in France during World War One, and later, the American Air Service. He was shot down behind enemy lines and taken as a P.O.W. for the last six months of the war. When it was all over, he and his friend Charles Nordhoff went to Tahiti together and collaborated on several novels. Their best-known work was Mutiny on the Bounty (1932).
It is the birthday of Norwegian-American novelist Ole Edvart Rölvaag, born in a fishing village on Donna Island, Helgeland, Norway (1876). He was a very good fisherman, but he immigrated to South Dakota. He learned English, enrolled in St. Olaf College in Minnesota, and later became a professor there. He wrote about Norwegian settlers on the Dakota prairies in his huge novel, Giants in the Earth (1927).
It's the birthday of Immanuel Kant, born in Konigsberg, East Prussia (1724), to Lutheran parents. He's the author of the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), in which he gave the definition of the categorical imperative—morality dictated by actions based on rightness: "Act as if the maxim of your action were to become, through your will, a general natural law."
SATURDAY, 23 APRIL, 2005
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Poem: Sonnet 144 ("Two loves I have, of comfort and despair"), by William Shakespeare.
Sonnet 144
Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still;
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colored ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turned fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another's hell.
Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.
Literary and Historical Notes:
It's the feast day of St. George, the patron saint of England.
It's the birthday of poet and translator Coleman Barks, born in Chattanooga, Tennessee (1937). He's famous for his translations of poems by the 13th-century Sufi mystic, Rumi. His collection, The Essential Rumi, came out in 1995.
It's the birthday of novelist James Patrick (J.P.) Donleavy, born in Brooklyn, New York (1926). He was in the Navy in World War II, then went off to Trinity College, Dublin, on the GI bill. His first novel, The Ginger Man (1955), was included in the Modern Library's list of the 100 best works of fiction of the twentieth century; in Ireland it's the seventh best-selling book of all time. He became an Irish citizen in 1967.
It's the birthday of Ngaio Marsh, born in Christchurch, New Zealand (1899). She was a very popular writer of mystery novels between 1932 and her death in 1982. Her books usually spend about 70 pages setting up the characters and background. Then the murder is discovered, and Police Inspector Roderick Alleyn enters and spends the rest of the book solving the crime.
It's the birthday of poet Edwin Markham, born in Oregon City, Oregon (1852). He was famous for his poem "The Man With a Hoe," based on a painting by Millet. It was about the brutality of harsh work, and includes the lines:
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leansIt was a big hit when it came out in 1899.
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back, the burden of the world.
On this date in 1635, the first public school in America, Boston Latin School, was founded. The school was started by the Reverend John Cotton.
It's the birthday of William Shakespeare, born in Stratford-on-Avon, England (1564), in a modest room above the shop on Henley Street where his father, John, made and sold gloves. As a teenager he married Anne Hathaway, an older woman. They had three children before Shakespeare went off to London to achieve greatness in the theater. By 1595, he was acting and writing plays for a theater company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and in 1599 he became a part-owner of the Globe Playhouse. Shakespeare returned to Stratford in about 1610, having written 37 plays and 154 sonnets. Stratford-on-Avon is now the second most popular tourist destination in England, after London.
SUNDAY, 24 APRIL, 2005
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Poem: "The Angel," by Michael McFee, from Earthly (Carnegie Mellon University, 2001).
The Angel
unhooks her wings after another long day.
They are her glory but also a burden,
binding her chest and making her sacrum ache.
She reaches behind herself to unfasten
them without the least hesitation or thought,
letting the sweaty wings collapse to the floor.
The angel scratches a ticklish spot
and starts to let down the radiant hair
sometimes mistaken for a halo,
unweaving her braid as gracefully
as she composed its strands long ago.
But how can those backward fingers see?
And then she slips off her slip in the dark.
My heart is tinder to that holy spark.
Literary and Historical Notes:
It's the birthday of playwright and actor Eric Bogosian, born in Boston (1953). He's the author of a number of monologues, including Talk Radio (1987), Drinking In America (1987), and Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll (1990).
It's the birthday of crime novelist Sue Grafton, born in Louisville, Kentucky (1940). She had a very bitter custody battle with her ex-husband, and had a fantasy about poisoning him. She knew she would never do it, "so the next best thing was to put it in a book and get paid for it." The result was her first novel, A is for Alibi (1982). Since then, she's delivered a new mystery novel to her publisher every August 15—each one named for another letter of the alphabet. Her latest is O is for Outlaw (2001).
It's the anniversary of the Easter Uprising, in Dublin (1916). A band of Irish nationalists, led by poet Patrick Pearse, occupied the General Post Office and declared Irish independence from Great Britain. The English executed 15 rebels, including Pearse, who promptly became a great Irish martyr.
It's the birthday of film and theater critic Stanley Kauffmann, born in New York City (1916), who writes for The New Republic.
It's the birthday of poet and novelist Robert Penn Warren, born in Guthrie, Kentucky (1905). His novel All the King's Men came out in 1946.
It's the birthday of Willem de Kooning, born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands (1904). He was 22 when he stowed away on a ship bound for New York and got work there as a house painter. He later became an important abstract expressionist.
It's the birthday of the novelist Anthony Trollope, born in London (1815). His father went through a series of unsuccessful business schemes and nearly ruined the family. It was his mother Frances who saved the family from financial disaster by becoming a writer. At the age of 52, she wrote a travel book called The Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832). It was financially successful, and with the money, she was able to put Anthony through school. He became a postal surveyor in Ireland, and in his spare time, became a very prolific novelist: nearly two books a year, beginning with The Warden (1855). His most popular novel was Barchester Towers (1857), which continues to be read and admired.
On this date in 1800, Congress authorized the creation of the Library of Congress. It was originally intended as a library for the use of the House and Senate, but gradually it expanded to become a national library.
