[WILL-AM-FM] Writers Almanac (December 6-12)
Denise Perry
December 6 - December 12, 1999
[WILL-FM/90.9 and FM 106.5 (Danville) and 101.1 FM (Champaign-
Urbana) air this program at 7:55AM (CST) Monday through Sunday;
WILL-AM/580 airs this program at 12:50PM (CST) Monday through
Friday]
Broadcast Date: MONDAY: December 6, 1999
Poem: "The Orange" by Wendy Cope from Serious Concerns published
by Faber & Faber.
Today is the feast day of St. Nicholas, one of the most popular
saints in Christendom. Legend has it that a nobleman in his city
of Myra, in Asia Minor, grew so poor he considered allowing his
three daughters to become prostitutes. Hearing of this, 3 nights
in a row St. Nicholas went secretly to the man's home, and each
night threw a bag of gold into the daughters room, providing a
dowry for each of the girls and saving them from disgrace.
It's the birthday of philosophical writer and mystic poet Khalil
Gibran [jib-RAHN], born in Lebanon (1883). Best known for his
book The Prophet (a collection of 26 poetic essays, 1923). He
lived in Boston from age 12 to 15, then returned to Beirut,
where he studied Arabic. At 29 he settled in New York City for
good, where he wrote in English and Arabic on such topics as
love, death, nature, and a longing for homeland.
It's the birthday of poet (Alfred) Joyce Kilmer, born in New
Brunswick, New Jersey (1886). Poet famous for his poem "Trees"
(1913), which begins: I think that I shall never see A poem
lovely as a tree. He was killed in action near Ourcy [oor-SEE],
France, in 1918.
It's the birthday of lyricist Ira Gershwin (Israel Gershvin),
born in New York (1896). First he collaborated with his brother
George-and then, after George's death, with other composers-on
such shows as Lady Be Good (1924), and Lady in the Dark (1940,
with Kurt Weill), Cover Girl (1944, with Jerome Kern). His songs
include "The Man I Love," "I Got Rhythm," and "Someone To Watch
Over Me."
It's the birthday of photographer Eliot Porter, born in
Winnetka, Illinois (1901)-noted for his color shots of birds and
landscapes. After medical training at Harvard, and then 10 years
spent teaching biochemistry there, he took up photography full-
time. His books include In Wilderness Is the Preservation of the
World (1962), The Place No One Knew (1963), Baja California
(1967), and The Tree Where Man Was Born (1972).
On this day in 1921, the Irish Free State was born. Ireland's 26
southern counties were granted independence from Britain, while
6 of the 8 Protestant-majority counties of Ulster, in the
northeast, remained part of the United Kingdom. Negotiators from
both Britain and from southern Ireland preferred a single Irish
parliament, or Dail ["doil"], in Dublin-but Ulster's Protestant
leaders refused to bow to the Catholic south.
It's the birthday of novelist and playwright Peter Handke, born
in Griffen, Austria (1942)-among the most original German
writers of this century. He first drew attention with his play
Offending the Audience (1966), in which 4 actors analyze the
nature of theater for an hour, then insult the audience-then
praise the act of performance, prompting different reactions
from different audiences. Other plays include Kaspar (1968)
about the foundling Kaspar Hausar, and The Ride Across Lake
Constance (1971). His novels have titles like The Goalie's
Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1970) and The Left-Handed Woman
(1976).
Broadcast Date: TUESDAY: December 7, 1999
Poem: "To the Doe Last Seen Running Up the South Exit Ramp
Toward Wal*Mart Plaza" by Pamela Gemin from Vendettas, Charms,
and Prayers published by New Rivers Press.
Today is Pearl Harbor Day. On this day in 1941, the Japanese
staged a massive attack on the American Naval and Air base in
Hawaii. 2,330 servicemen were killed, nearly half of them aboard
the battleship Arizona, which was destroyed when one of its own
16-inch shells exploded. Many brothers died together, since the
policy-later changed-had been to let family members serve in the
same unit.
In 1908 on this date, The Watch and Ward Society of Boston
successfully prosecuted a book salesman for selling a spicy book
called Three Weeks. This led to the term "banned in Boston,"
which proved a boon to the sales of any book.
It's the birthday of painter Stuart Davis, born in Philadelphia
(1894)-an early American Cubist who anticipated Pop Art by 35
years with his "Lucky Strike" collage (1921). He later changed
styles and produced "The Mellow Pad" (1945-51) and "Little Giant
Still Life" (1950), differing greatly, in their humor, from the
Abstract Expressionism then dominating the New York art scene.
He was especially fond of the images of taxis, chain-store
fronts, and neon signs.
It's the birthday of English novelist Joyce Cary, born in
Londonderry, Northern Ireland (1888). Best known for The Horse's
Mouth (1944).
It's the birthday of journalist Heywood Broun [broon], born in
Brooklyn (1888). He dropped out of Harvard to begin his career
as a sportswriter for the New York Morning Telegraph, then the
New York Tribune, which he left after differing with his
publisher; Broun claimed Sacco and Vanzetti, anarchists accused
of murder, were being railroaded. Later, he founded the American
Newspaper Guild and served as its president until his death.
It's the birthday of novelist Willa (Sibert) Cather, born near
Winchester, Virginia (1873). She and her family moved to
Nebraska when she was 8; she grew up among immigrant sodbusters-
Swedes, Bohemians, Russians, Germans. Her best writing dealt
with such people and the conflicts rough living forced on them-
especially her popular favorite, My Antonia (1918). In her novel
O Pioneers! she wrote: "Isn t it queer: there are only two or
three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as
fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in
this country, that have been singing the same five notes over
for thousands of years."
Broadcast Date: WEDNESDAY: December 8, 1999
Poem: "The Three Goals" by David Budbill from Moment to Moment,
published by Copper Canyon Press.
It's the birthday of novelist Mary Gordon, born on Long Island
(1949)-whose novels and short stories concern growing up
Catholic in America, and how a Catholic daughter deals with
guilt and piety. Her father, who had converted from Judaism to
Catholicism, died when she was 8; her mother had suffered from
polio from age 3. Mary Gordon's first novel, Final Payments
(1978), features a woman who is 30 before she leaves home after
caring for her dying father. Her most recent fiction includes
The Rest of Life (3 novellas, 1993) and Spending, a 1998 novel.
Mary Gordon, who said, "Even though life is quite a sad
business, you can have a good time in the middle of it. I like
to laugh, and I think the unsung, real literary geniuses of the
world are people who write jokes. Both the Irish and Jews are
very fatalistic, but they laugh a lot. Only the Protestants
think that every day in every way, life is getting better and
better. What do they know?"
It's the birthday of poet, story-writer and critic Delmore
Schwartz, born in Brooklyn (1913)-who found fame with his very
first book, published when he was 26: In Dreams Begin
Responsibilities, a collection of short stories and lyric poems.
Brilliant but mentally unstable, he served as the model for the
title character in Saul Bellows novel Humboldt's Gift (1975).
It's the birthday of novelist and playwright Richard Llewellyn
(Richard Dafydd Vivian Llewellyn Lloyd), born in Pembrokeshire,
Wales (1906). Best known for his novel, How Green Was My Valley
(1939).
It's the birthday of cartoonist Elsie Crisler Segar, the creator
of "Popeye;" he was born in Chester, Illinois (1894).
It's the birthday of humorist James (Grover) Thurber, born in
Columbus, Ohio (1894)-a comic writer with an angry underbite. In
1927 he met E.B. White at a party and talked his way onto the
staff of The New Yorker, which he influenced with his anecdotes,
stories, and line sketches of predatory women, timid men and
unlikely animals, mostly canine. He created the classic
daydreaming hero in his story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
(1947), and ridiculed psychoanalysis in a book written with E.B.
White, Is Sex Necessary? (1929). Thurber, who went blind in mid-
life, recalled his New Yorker career in a memoir, The Years With
Ross (1959). He also wrote the children's books The 13 Clocks
(1950) and The Wonderful O (1957).
It's the birthday of novelist Hervey [yes, HER-vey] Allen, born
in Pittsburgh (1889)-whose historical novel Anthony Adverse
(1933) took him 5 years to write. A fat novel, set in Napoleonic
Europe, it included many characters and locales, had a complex
plot and several passages that treated sexual matters more
candidly than the public was then accustomed to reading about.
On this day in 1886, the American Federation of Labor was
founded at a convention of union leaders in Columbus, Ohio.
Samuel Gompers served as the AFL's first President, and remained
its leader until 1924. Gompers: "The labor of a human being is
not a commodity or article of commerce. You can't weigh the soul
of a man with a bar of pig iron."
It's the birthday of Queen Christina of Sweden, born in
Stockholm (1626)-a proud and remarkable woman who stunned Europe
by abdicating her throne after 10 years of rule. The day after
giving up her crown to a cousin, she left for Rome where she
became a Catholic.
Broadcast Date: THURSDAY: December 9, 1999
Poem: "I Ride Greyhound" by Ellie Shoenfeld from Screaming Red
Gladiolus published by Poetry Harbor.
It's the birthday of poet John Milton, born on Bread Street in
Cheapside, London (1608). After earning B.A. and M.A. degrees at
Cambridge, he lived outside London with his parents for 6 years,
writing verse and "turning over the Latin and Greek authors." He
traveled to Italy and met Galileo, then returned to England as
civil war loomed, and wrote propaganda pamphlets favoring the
execution of King Charles, though doctors warned that if he
insisted on continuing to write, the effort would blind him-as
it did, when he was 43. His masterpieces came only after
physical blindness permitted spiritual visions. Seven years
after going blind, he began dictating the 12 books of Paradise
Lost, which took 5 years to complete (1667). Last came Paradise
Regained and Samson Agonistes (both 1674).
It's the birthday of children's writer Jean de Brunhoff [jawh
duh BROON-hoff], born in Paris (1899)-author and illustrator of
the Babar the Elephant books, inspired by a story his wife told
their children. Her version began, "A little elephant was
happily playing in the jungle when a hunter shot his mother." He
embellished and illustrated the story, and suggested that his
wife be listed as co-author, but she refused. After The Story of
Babar (1931), he did 6 sequels, one a year, then died of TB at
38. After World War Two his son Laurent [loh-RAHN], an abstract
painter, continued the series.
It's the birthday of storywriter Joel Chandler Harris, born near
Eatonton, Georgia (1848)-author of the Uncle Remus tales about
Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox and other animals.
On this day in 1854, six weeks after the Battle of Balaclava (a
battle in the Crimea, in which 600 British troops obeyed an
order to charge a heavily defended position, even though the
move was suicidal and tactically useless) Alfred, Lord
Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" was published
in the London Examiner.
It's the birthday of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, born in
Montrose, Colorado (1905). He served a year in prison for
refusing to cooperate with HUAC (the House Un-American
Activities Committee), then was blacklisted by Hollywood and
moved to Mexico, where he turned out scripts for low-budget
films and sold them under pen names. The only member of the
Hollywood Ten to come from a working-class background, he once
said, "I never considered the working class anything other than
something to get out of." Pre-blacklisting credits include the
screenplay Thirty Seconds over Tokyo and the war novel Johnny
Got His Gun (1939-National Book Award).
Broadcast Date: FRIDAY: December 10, 1999
Poems: "A Song for Muriel" by Carolyn Kizer from Harping On:
Poems: 1985-1995 published by Copper Canyon Press; and, "Some
Keep the Sabbath Going to Church" by Emily Dickinson.
It's the birthday of mystery writer Philip R. Craig, born in
Santa Monica, California (1933). For the last ten years he's
come out with a new murder mystery a year, all featuring a
retired Boston cop named J.W. Jackson and all placed on Martha's
Vineyard. Jackson works as a tourist guide, and in his free time
fishes and cooks his catch, giving the author wide range to
describe Martha's Vineyard and to rhapsodize about catching and
cooking clams, bluefish, and other delicacies of the sea. His
titles include A Beautiful Place to Die (1989), Cliff Hanger
(1993), and A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard (1998). "Most readers
of mysteries... are actually more interested in characters and
locale than in plot, puzzle solving, or other traditional
aspects of crime stories."
It's the birthday of poet Carolyn Kizer, born in Spokane,
Washington (1925), who served as the first director of literary
programs for the National Endowment for the Arts (1966-70), then
taught or was poet-in-residence in: Chapel Hill, NC; Athens,
Ohio; Iowa City; at Stanford University, Princeton University,
Barnard College, Columbia University, and others. Her
collection, Yin: New Poems (1984) won the Pulitzer Prize in
poetry. Other books include Knock Upon Silence (1965), Mermaids
in the Basement: Poems for Women (1984), and Harping On: Poems
1985-1995 (1996).
It's the birthday of novelist and children's author Rumer
Godden, born in Eastbourne, Sussex (1907). Author of Black
Narcissus (1939) The Greengage Summer (1958), China Court
(1961), and many other books.
It's the birthday of children's writer Mary Norton, born in
London (1903). She turned out the enchanting Borrowers tales
featuring the Clock family, six inches tall, little non-
doctrinaire utopians who own nothing, share everything, and
borrow what they need from humans.
It's the birthday of German Jewish poet and playwright Nellie
Sachs, born in Berlin (1891). She fled to Sweden in 1940, at
which point her early, pretty style of verse deepened, turning
to unrhymed, psalmlike forms rich in symbolism and mystical
metaphor. She is best known for her lyrical lament "O the
Chimneys," about the death camps. She shared the Nobel Prize for
Literature with S.Y. Agnon (1966).
It's the birthday of poet Emily (Elizabeth) Dickinson, born in
Amherst, Massachusetts (1830). She lived most of her 55 years in
the house built by her Grandfather in Amherst; during her last
20 years, she never strayed beyond the house's grounds.b
Broadcast Date: SATURDAY: December 11, 1999
Poem: "Horse" by Jim Harrison from The Shape of the Journey: New
and Collected Poems published by Copper Canyon Press.
On this day in 1972, the Challenger-the lunar lander on the
Apollo 17 mission-touched down on the Moon's surface. This was
to be the last time (so far) man set foot on the Moon.
It's the birthday of novelist Thomas McGuane, born in Wyandotte,
Michigan (1939). Author of Ninety-two in the Shade (1973),
Something to Be Desired (1984), and Live Water (1996).
It's the birthday of poet and novelist Jim Harrison, born in
Grayling, Michigan (1937). Until his early forties, when the
three-novella volume Legends of the Fall ("Revenge," "The Man
Who Gave Up His Name," and "Legends of the Fall") vaulted him
into commercial success, he had averaged $10,000 a year from his
writing. He spends as much time as possible in a cabin on a
river in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan-"My nearest neighbor
there is five miles away. I like that sort of thing. If you have
to go to Los Angeles and New York a lot, where everything's
enervating, it's nice not to have anything to do with that
during other times." His novels include A Good Day to Die
(1973), The Woman Lit by Fireflies (1990), Julip (1994), and The
Road Home (1998). "If you don't have an incredible playfulness
about language, I think you tend to write boring novels. Auden
talked about that. Being a writer requires an intoxication with
language, an obsession with language."
It's the birthday of blues shouter (Willie Mae) Big Mama
Thornton, born in Montgomery, Alabama (1926)-she weighed nearly
300 pounds-who, besides singing, played drums and harmonica. Her
growling version of "Hound Dog," a Lieber & Stoller song, hit #1
on the rhythm and blues charts in 1953, 3 years before Elvis
sent it to the top of the pop charts. She was widely imitated,
particularly by Janis Joplin, who requested, and was granted,
permission to redo her song "Ball and Chain."
It's the birthday of poet, storywriter, and activist Grace
Paley, born in New York City (1922). Many of her stories,
featuring an alter ego named Faith, examine ordinary New Yorkers
in their struggles with loneliness. Collections include Enormous
Changes at the Last Minute (1974), Later the Same Day (1985).
"Literature, fiction, poetry, whatever, makes justice in the
world. That's why it almost always has to be on the side of the
underdog."
It's the birthday of novelist and historian Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, born in Kislovodsk, Russia (1918), who was awarded
the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. He studied math and
physics; served 4 years in World War II, reaching the rank of
artillery captain. A 1945 letter he wrote to a friend was
interpreted by censors as critical of Stalin, and without trial,
he was sentenced to 8 years of hard labor in the camps later
described in The Gulag Archipelago (1974-78), the publication of
which led Soviet authorities to exile him in 1974.
It's the birthday of Egyptian writer Najib Mahfouz [nah-JEEB
mah-FOOZ], born in Cairo (1911)-a prolific novelist, story
writer, and playwright who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in
1988. Within weeks of his winning the Nobel Prize, Doubleday
bought the English rights to 14 of his books. His Cairo Trilogy
(original dates 1956-57-published in English translation as
Palace Walk, 1990; Palace of Desire, 1991; and Sugar Street,
1992), chronicles the lives of 3 generations from World War One
until the overthrow of King Farouk in 1952.
It's the birthday of cartoonist Marjorie Buell, born in
Philadelphia (1904), who created Little Lulu, with her corkscrew
curls, who seemed always to get the best of the local boys.
It's the birthday of New York politician Fiorello H(enry) La
Guardia, born in New York (1882). Mayor of New York from 1933
until 1945, after serving 8 terms as a Republican Congressman in
Washington. During his 3 terms as Mayor, the "Little Flower"
built a reputation as a corruption-fighter, revised the city
charter, fought for slum clearance, built low-cost housing, and
read comics to New York children and adults, over the radio, to
ease their anxieties about the Depression and World War Two.
Broadcast Date: SUNDAY: December 12, 1999
Poem: from "Essay on Man" by Alexander Pope.
It's the birthday of novelist Gustave Flaubert, born in Rouen
[roo-AHN], France (1821). After studying law he had a nervous
breakdown, then convalesced for a year, and then, with an
allowance from his father, concentrated on writing. Madame
Bovary (1857), his masterpiece, came out when he was 36. He
wrote painstakingly, rarely producing more than a paragraph or
two a day, and in 22 years completed just 4 more novels and 3
novellas. "You must not think that feeling is everything. Art is
nothing without form."
It's the birthday of Norwegian painter and printmaker Edvard
Munch [mungk], born in Loten, Norway (1863). A forerunner of
Expressionism, he was obsessed by death and love, both of which
he expressed in tortured symbolist paintings, using titles such
as "The Sick Child" (1886), "The Cry" (1893), "The Vampire"
(1894), "In Hell, Self-Portrait" (1895)-and, familiar to us from
refrigerator magnets and T-shirts, "The Scream" (1893).
It's the birthday of scriptwriter Howard Koch, born in New York
City (1902)-most vividly remembered for the radio script he
wrote for Orson Welles famous War of the Worlds broadcast
(1938). Koch also wrote many Hollywood film scripts, including
Sergeant York (1941), Mission to Moscow (1943), and Casablanca
(1943).
It's the birthday of singer (Fracis Albert) Frank Sinatra, born
in Hoboken, New Jersey (1915). His parents were both born in
Italy; his father worked as a Hoboken fireman; his mother often
sang at social functions. At 21, after hearing Bing Crosby
perform in Jersey City, he announced that even though he
couldn't read music and had never sung professionally, he was
quitting his newspaper job to become a crooner. "My greatest
teacher was not a vocal coach, but the way Tommy Dorsey breathed
and phrased on the trombone."
It's the birthday of playwright John Osborne, born in London
(1929), whose Look Back in Anger (1956) suggested the label for
the Angry Young Men movement. Another play, commissioned by
Lawrence Olivier, was The Entertainer (1959).
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
The Writer's Almanac is produced by Minnesota Public Radio and
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