Thursday

Apr. 24, 1997

Piano, New York

by Julia Kasdorf

THURSDAY 4/24

Today's Reading:"Piano, New York" by Julia Kasdorf from SLEEPING PREACHER, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

The Texas State Championship Fiddlers Frolic begins today in Halletsville, Texas.

The Washington State Apple Blossom Festival begins today in Wenatchee, Washington.

Today is the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Uprising when a handful of Irish nationalists, including poet and rebel leader Patrick Pearse, stormed Dublin's General Post Office, declaring independence from Great Britain. Over 450 people were dead and 2,614 wounded before Pearse and 14 others were executed by the British.

It's the birthday of novelist and America's first poet laureate, Robert Penn Warren (ALL THE KING'S MEN) born in Guthrie, Kentucky, 1905.

Abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning was born on this day in Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1904. He immigrated to the United States in 1926 and worked as a house painter. He died March 20, 1997. He once said, "It's not so much that I'm an American. I'm a New Yorker."

It's the birthday of English author Elizabeth Goudge, born in Wells, Somersetshire, England, in 1900.

British novelist Anthony Trollope, best known for his Barsetshire novels, was born on this day in London in 1815.

It was on this day in 1800 that Congress approved an act providing for the purchase of books and an apartment to house them; what would become the Library of Congress.

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

 

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