The Writer's Almanac from Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Writer's Almanac from Wednesday, August 14, 2013

"The Death of Santa Claus" by Charles Harper Webb, from Shadow Ball: New and Selected Poems, © 2009, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

ORIGINAL TEXT AND AUDIO - 2013

It's the birthday of Nobel laureate John Galsworthy, born in Surrey, England (1867). He's the author of the Forsyte Saga, a series of novels that satirically portray British upper-middle-class families.

He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1932, and he used the prize money to help establish an international organization for writers, PEN. It's an acronym they chose for the group after someone pointed out that the words for "Poet," for "Essayist," and for "Novelist" in most European languages have the same initial letters (P-E-N). He refused knighthood, saying that he didn't think that writers should take titles. In 1967, his Forsyte Saga was adapted into a BBC TV mini-series, which was hugely popular in England.

It's the birthday of Russell Baker, born in Loudoun County, Virginia (1925). He is the author of many books of essays, including Poor Russell's Almanac (1972), So This Is Depravity (1980), and the memoir Growing Up (1982). After high school, he won a scholarship from Johns Hopkins University. He graduated and got a job for the Baltimore Sun, covering the police beat, and eventually worked his way up to being a White House correspondent. He thought that covering the president of the United States would be exciting, but it turned out to be incredibly boring. He said, "[Most of the job was] sitting in the lobby and listening to the older reporters breathe." Eventually, Baker got a job writing a humor column called "The Observer" for The New York Times. It was one of the first humor columns The New York Times had ever published, and Baker was one of the first writers for the Times to write in casual American English. His last column appeared in the Times on Christmas day in 1998.

Russell Baker said, "I've had an unhappy life, thank God."

It's the birthday of humorist Steve Martin, born in Waco, Texas (1945). He's known as a comedian and actor, but he has also written several plays and novels, including WASP (1995), Shopgirl (2000), and An Object of Beauty (2010). He said: "The real joy is in constructing a sentence. But I see myself as an actor first because writing is what you do when you are ready and acting is what you do when someone else is ready."

It's the birthday of cartoonist Gary Larson, born in Tacoma, Washington (1950). His cartoon The Far Side ran from 1980 to 1995 and ultimately appeared in more than 900 newspapers. As a child, he grew up collecting animals and observing them. He said, "I'd throw red ants in with black ants, and then play war correspondent."

Many of his cartoons are about the superiority of animals to humans. Larson once said: "It's wonderful that we live in a world in which there are things that can eat us. It keeps us from getting too cocky."

He retired by his own choice in 1995. He has said that one of his future goals in life is to own a restaurant that serves only cereal.

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

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Audiobook (mp3 download): Serenity at 70, Gaiety at 80: Why you should keep on getting older by Garrison Keillor

This book was created just for fans as a keepsake from Garrison, and he narrates it himself in this digital audiobook version. This wonderful gem on aging will tickle your funny bone!