Tuesday

Apr. 29, 1997

A Night in Odessa

by Louis Simpson

TUESDAY 4/29

Today's Reading:"A Night in Odessa" by Louis Simpson from COLLECTED POEMS, published by Paragon House (1988).

Today is the Feast Day of St. Catherine of Siena, the patron saint of Italy, born in 1347, the youngest of 20 children.

The Tin Hau Festival takes place today in Hong Kong, a festival of the heavenly Queen, the Goddess of fishers, who will decorate their boats and gather at temples to pray for a good season.

It was on this day in 1945 that Dachau, the Nazi concentration camp, was liberated by the Charlie Battery of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, freeing about 32,000 survivors. An estimated 60,000 people died there.

It's the anniversary of the film premier in 1930 of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel IM WESTEN NICHTS NEUSES, the story about the young boys who were led to slaughter on the Western front during World War I.

It's the birthday of composer, bandleader and pianist Duke Ellington ("Take the A Train," "Sophisticated Lady," "Creole Love"), born in Washington, D.C., in 1899.

Cartoonist and columnist Tad Dorgan, who coined such phrases as "drug-store cowboy," and "Yes, we have no bananas," was born on this day in San Francisco in 1877.

It's the birthday of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, who built his newspapers on a combination of sensationalism and muckraking investigations. He was born in San Francisco in 1863.

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

 

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