Saturday

Feb. 20, 1999

Carry Her Over the Water

by W. H. Auden

Five Songs: Verse V (Make This Night Loveable)

by W. H. Auden

SATURDAY 2/20

Poem: W.H. Auden, "Carry Her Over the Water" and "Five Songs: Verse V" ("Make This Night Loveable"), from W.H. Auden, Collected Poems (Vintage International).

It was on this day in 1942 that EDWARD H. O'HARE, the man for whom Chicago's O'Hare airport is named, shot down five Japanese bombers in a South Pacific air battle. O'Hare, flying an F4 Wildcat, helped save the carrier the USS Lexington and became one of the first American ace's of WWII.

The French novelist PIERRE BOULLE was born on this day in 1912, in Avignon, author of The Bridge over the River Kwai (1952), the story of British prisoners of war who built a bridge for the Japanese, and the 1963 novel The Planet of the Apes.

It's the birthday of photographer ANSEL ADAMS, born in San Francisco, 1902, known for his many photographs of Yosemite National Park and other sites of natural beauty. He was an active conservationist and also founded the world's first collection of photographs at the Modern Museum of Art in New York in 1940.

It's the birthday of JIMMY YANCEY, in Chicago, 1898, the blues pianist who created boogie-woogie with its slow, steady left-hand bass.

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

 

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