Wednesday
Dec. 9, 1998
Three Kinds of Pleasures
Poem: "Three Kinds of Pleasures," by Robert Bly, from SELECTED POEMS (Harper Perennial, 1986).
TODAY THE NATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE will be lit in Washington, D.C. The ceremony starts at 5:00 p.m. on the Ellipse and will include carol singing and other festivities.
It's the birthday of one of the grand dames of opera, ELISABETH SCHWARTZKOPF, born in 1915 near the town of Poznan, now part of modern-day Poland in 1915.
It's the birthday of mathematician and computer pioneer GRACE MURRAY HOPPER, born in New York in 1906.
It's the birthday of the scientific historian JOSEPH NEEDHAM, born in London in 1900, author of a monumental 7-volume study, Science and Civilisation in China.
It's the birthday of American poet LÉONIE FULLER ADAMS, born in 1899 in Brooklyn, New York.
It's the birthday of JOHANN WINCKELMANN, author of History of the Art of Antiquity, born in 1717 in Stendal, in the German state of Prussia.
One of the greatest English poets, JOHN MILTON, was born on this day in London in 1608, author Paradise Lost (1665), an epic poem which deals with mankind's fall from God's grace in the Garden of Eden.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®