Friday

Nov. 28, 1997

A Brief, Familiar Story of Winter

by Walter McDonald

FRIDAY  11/28

Today's Reading:  "A Brief, Familiar Story of Winter" by Walter McDonald from THE FLYING DUTCHMAN, published by Ohio State University Press (1987).

In 1948 Dr. Edwin Land's first Polaroid cameras went on sale in Boston.

Novelist Rita Mae Brown was born in Hanover, Pennsylvania, 1944.  "Next time anybody calls me a lesbian writer Iâm going to kick their teeth in.  Iâm a writer and Iâm a woman and Iâm from the South and Iâm alive, and that is that."

Recording executive Berry Gordy, Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan, 1929.

The forerunner of the Grand Ole Opry, called the WSM Barn Dance, opened in 1925 in Nashville, Tennessee.

French-Canadian author Vyes Theriault, one of the most prolific writers in Canada, was born in Quebec City, 1916.

Social anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss was born in Brussels in 1908.

Italian novelist Alberto Moravia, author of THE CONFORMIST, CONJUGAL LOVE, TWO WOMEN, was born in Rome in 1907.  "To understand my character you must keep in mind that I was ill in childhood, and because of it I was alone, completely alone, until I was 18.  I never went to school.  I never had other children to play with.  Solitude entered my soul so deeply that even today I feel a profound detachment from others."

Mystic poet William Blake, who lived in poverty and was largely ignored during his day, was born in London in 1757. I wander through each charter'd street, Near where the charter'd Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe. [Songs of Experience, "London."]

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

 

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