The Writer's Almanac from Friday, March 29, 2013

The Writer's Almanac from Friday, March 29, 2013

"Meeting and Passing" by Robert Frost, from The Poetry of Robert Frost. © Holt Rinehart Winston, 1969.

ORIGINAL  TEXT AND AUDIO - 2013

Today is the birthday of the poet R.S. Thomas, born Ronald Stuart Thomas in Cardiff, Wales (1913). He was an Anglican clergyman, as well as a poet, until 1978, when he retired and devoted himself to the cause of Welsh nationalism. He often grew frustrated with his fellow countrymen, though, blaming them for letting their culture fade away into history. In his poem "Welsh Landscape," he called them "an impotent people, sick with inbreeding / worrying the carcass of an old song." He didn't learn the Welsh language until he was 30, and though he wrote his poetry in English, he wrote his autobiography in Welsh. He called it Neb (1985), meaning "nobody."

He was a Luddite, viewing modern conveniences as distractions that cause us to neglect our spiritual health. He and his wife Elsi lived in a small and almost primitive stone cottage for much of their marriage, and their son, Gwydion, remembered his father preaching against the evils of the refrigerator and the washing machine from his pulpit. His poems were as austere as his lifestyle, and he once wrote: "A recurring ideal, I find, is that of simplicity. At times there comes the desire to write with great precision and clarity, words so simple and moving that they bring tears to the eyes."

It's the birthday of author, actor, and comedian Amy Sedaris. She was born in Endicott, New York, in 1961, and she grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. She's written two satirical homemaking books, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence (2006) and Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People (2010).

In an interview with The Believer magazine, she revealed that the whole Sedaris clan is fascinated by anything morbid. "We read everything we can about diseases and physical deformity...We were so protected in North Carolina. In New York, you see it all. But growing up in Carolina, we were never exposed to much fringe culture. ... David and I still collect anything we can about physical abnormalities. There's a place here in New York where you can get antique skin-disorder books in color. They're really beautiful photographs. But they put black tape over people's eyes so you couldn't ... recognize them. Like they needed the anonymity, because who else is going to have that growth coming out of their neck, right?"

It's the birthday of Alexandra Fuller (1969). She was born in Glossop, England, but grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). In 2002, she published her memoir, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, the story of her life as the child of white settlers caught up in Rhodesia's civil war. By the time she was seven, Fuller knew how to strip, clean, load, and fire a machine gun; she also knew never to sneak into her parents' bedroom at night, in case they mistook her for an intruder and shot her. She published another memoir called Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness (2011), and in it she tells the story of her mother, born in Scotland and raised in Kenya.

It's the birthday of the politician and author Eugene McCarthy, born in Watkins, Minnesota (1916). When he retired from Congress, he became a writer, penning several books about politics, and many poetry collections, including Ground Fog and Night (1979) and Other Things and the Aardvark (1970).

It's the birthday of novelist and screenwriter Judith Guest, born in Detroit (1936). She started writing when she was 10, but never got past starting, and had the beginnings of several projects crammed in her desk drawers for many years. In the early 1970s, she read a how-to book on writing by Richard Perry, called One Way to Write Your Novel. She promised herself that, this time, she would start and finish a story. Three years later, she published her best-selling first novel, Ordinary People (1976), the story of a teenage boy, Conrad, and his family in the aftermath of his suicide attempt after his brother Buck dies in a sailing accident. The film adaptation won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1980.

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

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The APHC 50^th Anniversary Tour leads up to the half-century milestone in the summer of 2024. On May 24th, Garrison and his rollicking troupe will be at the Scranton Cultural Center. Joining them are singers Heather Masse and Christine DiGiallonardo, the Royal Academy of Actors (Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and sound-effects wizard Fred Newman) will be there, along with music director/keyboardist Richard Dworsky leading the band. Click HERE for details!