The Writer's Almanac from Thursday, August 15, 2013
The Writer's Almanac from Thursday, August 15, 2013
"Erasers" by Mary Jo Salter, from Open Shutters. © Knopf, 2003.
ORIGINAL TEXT AND AUDIO - 2013
It's the birthday of Sir Walter Scott, born in Edinburgh, Scotland (1771), one of the most influential novelists of all time. He is responsible for many famous phrases, including "blood is thicker than water" and "O, what a tangled web we weave, / When first we practise to deceive!"
Scott didn't handle money well, though. To pay off his debts, he published a novel, Waverley (1814), anonymously. It was a huge best-seller. He went on to write many other popular historical novels about the end of the old Scotland. He is best known for his works Rob Roy (1817) and Ivanhoe (1819).
It's the birthday of Thomas De Quincey, born in Manchester, England (1785). A friend for a while of the Romantic poets Wordsworth and Coleridge, De Quincey was a well-known essayist, with his work appearing in many popular periodicals. But he is best known as the author of Confessions of an English Opium Eater (1822), the first drug addiction memoir, which greatly influenced later generations of bohemian writers, from Charles Baudelaire to William S. Burroughs.
De Quincey began using opium at a time when it was a perfectly legal, common painkiller, sold in liquid form as laudanum. He was a 19-year-old college student when he had his first experience with the drug. It was a rainy Sunday afternoon, and he'd been suffering from a toothache. But later in life, he became hopelessly addicted. In the memoir, he vividly describes the joys and sufferings produced by the drug.
It's the birthday of food critic Julia Child, born in Pasadena, California (1912). She was a tomboy as a child, and grew to be more than six feet tall. When she went to college, she wanted to be a basketball star before she changed her mind and tried to write a novel. But that didn't work out either.
During World War II, she got a job with the Office of Strategic Service and hoped to become a spy, but instead she worked as a file clerk. She got to know her future husband, Paul Child, in China, and they both became obsessed with Chinese cuisine. When they got back to the United States, they married, and she started taking cooking lessons. She later said, "I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate."
It's the birthday of Mary Jo Salter (1954), born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A highly regarded formalist poet, Salter works with meter and rhyme rather than free verse, crafting quatrains and sonnets and villanelles. She's published several poetry collections, including A Kiss in Space (1999), Open Shutters (2005), and Phone Call to the Future (2008).
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®
Find the weekly Garrison Keillor's Podcast on:
Garrison is recovering from oysters and lobsters? What did they ever do to him? Some of my best friends were oysters and lobsters, though they never frequented the Chatterbox Cafe. I would hope that Garrison would give oysters and lobsters another try. Fry the oysters for safety and steam the lobsters just so with plenty of drawn butter. I'm sure you'll rediscover what you liked about them in the first place. Hey, you're in New York City. Be adventurous.. But be safe. Your friend, John Finch.
I really like this poem. It brings back vivid memories. But instead of punishment, our teachers used it as a reward. Only someone being especially good got to leave class to pound those black, felt erasers.