Thursday

May 27, 1999

Perfection Wasted

by John Updike

Broadcast Date: THURSDAY: May 27, 1999

Poem: "Perfection Wasted," by John Updike, from The Collected Poems of John Updike, 1953-1993 (Alfred A. Knopf).

It's the birthday of writer and historian EDMUND NORRIS, born in Nairobi, Kenya, 1940, author of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, a biography of the president, and a book soon to be out, Dutch: a Memoir of Ronald Reagan.

It was on this day in 1937 that the GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE opened at the entrance to San Francisco Bay.

It's the birthday in 1932, New York City of poet LINDA PASTAN, best known for her collections A Perfect Circle of Sun; Aspects of Eve; and Carnival Evening that came out last year.

It's the birthday in Cambridge, Maryland, 1930, of novelist and short story writer JOHN BARTH, author of The Floating Opera, The End of the Road, and Lost in the Funhouse.

It's the birthday in 1925, Sacred Heart, Oklahoma, of mystery writer TONY HILLERMAN, creator of the Navajo tribal policemen Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Jimmy Chee.

It's the birthday in 1912, Quincy, Massachusetts, of JOHN CHEEVER, author of the novels The Wapshot Chronicle, The Wapshot Scandal, and dozens of short stories set in the Upper East Side of New York, in little New England towns, or in suburban Connecticut. The collected stories, published in 1978, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

It's the birthday of the biologist, RACHEL CARSON, in 1907, Springdale, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny River Valley just outside of Pittsburgh, author of the 1962 book Silent Spring, about the impact of pesticides that were killing off wildlife and threatening humans. It prompted the passage of stricter pesticide laws around the world.

It's the birthday of mystery writer, DASHIELL HAMMETT, born in St. Mary's County, Maryland, 1894, and the author in 1930 of The Maltese Falcon, featuring the hard-boiled detective Sam Spade.

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

 

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