Sunday

Jun. 8, 1997

The Pleasures of Reading

by Charles Simic

SUNDAY 6/8

Today's Reading:"The Pleasures of Reading" by Charles Simic from A WEDDING IN HELL, published by Harcourt Brace and Company (1994).

The Grant Wood Art Festival begins today in Stone City- Anamosa, Iowa.

It's the birthday of detective novelist Sara Paretsky, creator of the female private eye character, V.I. Warshawski, born in Ames, Iowa, in 1947.

It's the birthday of physician and best-selling author Andrew Weil (SPONTANEOUS HEALING), born in Philadelphia, in 1942.

Actor Robert Preston, remembered for his role as Professor Harold Hill in THE MUSIC MAN, was born on this day in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, in 1918.

British biophysicist Francis Harry Compton Crick, who, with James Watson and Maurice Wilkins, determined the molecular structure of DNA, was born on this day in Northampton, England, in 1916.

It's the birthday of the architect whose "Prairie Style" became the basis of 20th-century residential design, Frank Lloyd Wright, born in Richland Center, Wisconsin, in 1867. He wrote, "No house should ever be on any hill or on anything. It should be of the hill, belonging to it, so hill and house could live together each the happier for the other." In an interview he said, "The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines."

It's the birthday of German composer Robert Schumann, particularly renowned for the piano music he wrote for his wife Clara. He was born in Saxony, Germany, in 1810.

It's the birthday of English engineer and founder of the civil-engineering profession, John Smeaton, born in Yorkshire, England, in 1724. He designed the third Eddystone Lighthouse in the late 1750s.

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

 

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  • “Writers end up writing stories—or rather, stories' shadows—and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough” —Joy Williams
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