Monday

Nov. 18, 1996

The Moment

by Margaret Atwood

MONDAY 11/18

Today's Reading:"The Moment" by Margaret Atwood from MORNING IN THE BURNED HOUSE, published by Houghton Mifflin.

National Children's Book Week begins today.

The first push-button-button telephones went into commercial service on this day in 1963 in Pennsylvania.

It's the birthday today of Canadian novelist and poet Margaret Atwood (THE HANDMAID'S TALE; THE ROBBER'S BRIDE), born in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1939. In CAT'S EYE she wrote, "We thought we were running away from the grownups, and now we are the grownups."

Songwriter Johnny Mercer ("Come Rain or Come Shine," "Autumn Leaves," "Jeepers Creepers") was born in Savannah, Georgia, 1909.

Eugene Ormandy, former conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, was born in Budapest, Hungary, on this day in 1899.

It's the birthday of writer Clarence Day (LIFE WITH FATHER), born in New York City, 1874.

Mark Twain published his first piece of fiction on this day in 1865. THE NEW YORK SATURDAY PRESS printed his short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County."

It's the birthday of playwright W. S. Gilbert, of Gilbert and Sullivan, born in London in 1836. His lyrics from the H.M.S. PINAFORE: When I was a lad I served a term As office boy to an Attorney's firm, I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor And I polished up the handle of the big front door. I polished up that handle so carefullee That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

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