Monday

Mar. 2, 1998

Ballet Blanc

by Katha Pollitt

MONDAY 3/2

Today's Reading: "Ballet Blanc" by Katha Pollitt from ANTARCTIC TRAVELER, published by Alfred A. Knopf.

It's the birthday of JOHN IRVING, born in Exeter, New Hampshire, 1942, whose best-known book, The World According to Garp, came out in 1978. He followed that up with Hotel New Hampshire in 1981, and A Prayer for Owen Meany in 1989.

It's the birthday in Springfield, Massachusetts, 1904, of Theodor Geisel, DR. SEUSS - who wrote The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and dozens of other children's books. His father was the superintendent of the Springfield zoo, and after hours he would let his boy into some of the cages to play with the animals. During college Theodor started drawing weird, made-up animals and writing little stories about them. He worked for a while writing gags for the humor magazine, Judge, using his middle name, Seuss, as a pen name; he added the "Doctor" to it when he came to writing science spoofs.

It's the birthday of composer KURT WEILL, born in Dessau, Germany in 1900, best known for his 1927 musical Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and the 1928 Threepenny Opera, with its famous tune, "Mack the Knife" - both pieces written with librettist Bertolt Brecht.

It's the birthday of the famous Texan, SAM HOUSTON, born in 1793 in Rockbridge County, Virginia. The city of Houston is named for him.

It's the anniversary of THE FIRST BALLET ever staged - it took place in London, in 1717. Ballet had always been a part of opera, but had never been staged on its own. Two composers, Richard Firbank and Henry Symonds, wrote a piece called "The Loves of Mars and Venus" and got a man named John Weaver to choreograph it. The public loved it and ballet schools soon opened in London, Paris and Moscow.

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

 

«

»

  • “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
  • “I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.” —Anne Tyler
  • “Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig” —Stephen Greenblatt
  • “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • “Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.” —John Edgar Wideman
  • “In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.” —Denise Levertov
  • “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Let's face it, writing is hell.” —William Styron
  • “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann
  • “Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.” —Paul Rudnick
  • “Writing is a failure. Writing is not only useless, it's spoiled paper.” —Padget Powell
  • “Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.” —Shelby Foote
  • “I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.” —William Carlos Williams
  • “Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.” —Iris Murdoch
  • “The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is my dharma.” —Raja Rao
  • “Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.” —Anthony Powell
  • “I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.” —Michael Cunningham
Current Faves - Learn more about poets featured frequently on the show