St. Nicholas Day
He took a job at the New York Evening Post, but he knew he wanted to write humor, so he kept at it. He was living in a basement apartment with his first wife. She thought that after twenty of his humor pieces had failed to find a publisher he should probably give up. But one night, he set his alarm clock to go off forty five minutes after he'd fallen asleep, and he woke up in sleepy daze and wrote the first thing that came to mind: a story about a man going round and round in a revolving door, attracting crowds and the police and eventually setting the world record for revolving door laps. It was the first piece of his published in the New Yorker.
After Thurber published a few more pieces in the magazine, the editor Harold Ross asked him to come down to the office. Thurber was hoping he'd get a job as a staff writer, but Ross hired him instead as an administrative editor. For the first two months on the job, Thurber worked seven days a week, editing factual copy for all the most boring parts of the magazine. He hated the job, so he started making mistakes on purpose, hoping that Ross would demote him to working on "Talk of the Town," the humor section of the magazine. When that didn't work, he started submitting his own pieces without Ross's knowledge.
One day Ross barged into his office and said he'd found out Thurber had been writing for the magazine in secret. Ross said, "I don't know how in the hell you found time to write. I admit I didn't want you to. I could hit a dozen writers from here with this ashtray. They're undependable...[but] if you're a writer, write! Maybe you've got something to say." So Thurber became a staff writer, and began sharing an office with E. B. White.
In addition to writing, Thurber was constantly doodling on pieces of paper and throwing them away, and he liked to fill up all the pages of office memo pads with sketches and then put them back on the shelf, in hopes of driving someone crazy. He said, "It was E. B. White who got the mad impetuous idea that my scrawls should be published and, what is more, paid for with money." His first cartoon was rejected because the art editor said seal's whiskers didn't look like that. E. B. White defended the drawing and said that it wasn't a seal in the drawing but a "Thurber seal."
Thurber went on to write for the magazine for more than thirty years, and his style of writing and sense of humor helped set the tone for the magazine as a whole. William Shawn said, "There will never be an issue of the New Yorker of which Thurber is not a part." He became famous for writing stories and drawing cartoons about a certain type of exasperated man. E. B. White said, "These 'Thurber men'...are frustrated, fugitive beings; at times they seem vaguely striving to get out of something without being seen (a room, a situation, a state of mind), at other times they are merely perplexed and too humble, or weak, to move."
Thurber is best known for his short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1944), about a man who imagines he is a soldier, a deadly marksman, a world famous surgeon, and a condemned man facing a firing squad, all while running errands for his overbearing wife. The word "Mitty" has entered the lexicon, defined as a perpetual daydreamer.
Thurber had poor eyesight for most of his life, which made him terribly clumsy. He said, "I once tried to feed a nut to a faucet, thinking it was a squirrel." He went completely blind later in life, but he said, "At least, I have been spared the sight of television."
He published more than thirty books of short pieces. Most of his work is collected in Writings & Drawings (1996).
James Thurber said, "There is no substitute for the delight of writing...If I couldn't write, I couldn't breathe."
And, "The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself."
It's the birthday of the novelist John Banville, (books by this author) born in Wexford, Ireland. He's the author of many novels, including The Book of Evidence (1989), Ghosts (1993), and Shroud (2002).
He's one of the most experimental of contemporary Irish novelists. He said, "I don't think any novelist is happy being just a novelist...We should be poets. We should be composers. We should be painters. We should be making language do things that the novel won't allow you to do. This is what I've been trying to do for a long time."
It was on this day in 1854 that Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" was published. The title refers to the British Light Brigade in the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War, who went on a suicide charge over open terrain against heavy Russian fire.
It's the birthday of the poet who wrote Paradise Lost, John Milton, (books by this author) born in London, England (1608). He was the son of a wealthy scrivener who supported young Milton's interests in music and poetry. Milton was a studious boy. His brother Christopher said, "When he was young, he studied very hard and sat up very late, commonly till twelve or one o'clock at night." Milton was educated partly at home by personal tutors, then attended St. Paul's School followed by Christ's College, Cambridge.
Milton was writing poetry by age nine, but he originally intended to become a minister. After Cambridge, he resolved to become a poet, and he returned to his father's estate for several years of study. Milton wrote one of his great poems, "Lycidas," during this time.
Milton began traveling abroad in 1638, and returned to England the following year. Milton wrote pamphlets in support of political elements critical of the king. This earned him a role in the Commonwealth government of Oliver Cromwell. During this time, Milton lost his sight and he depended upon his secretaries to help him complete his official work. This work included writing more pamphlets in defense of the Cromwell government. One of these secretaries was the poet Andrew Marvell, also Milton's friend.
In 1643, Milton married a woman half his age, who left him only a few weeks after their wedding. He responded by writing pamphlets in support of divorce on the grounds of incompatibility, which was considered a radical idea at the time. His wife returned to him in 1645, gave birth to three daughters, and died in 1652. Milton married a woman named Katharine Woodcock in 1656, and she died in childbirth in 1658. He married his third wife in 1663.
At this time, Milton decided to write the epic poem he had long wanted to write. Due to his blindness, he wrote with the help of secretaries, including Marvell. He first published Paradise Lost in 1667. Milton sold the copyright to Paradise Lost for ten pounds because he needed the money. It is one of the most famous poems ever written in English.
It's the birthday of Joel Chandler Harris, (books by this author) born near the village of Eatonton in Putnam County, Georgia (1848). He is best known as the creator of the "Uncle Remus" stories, and for capturing the dialects of American Southerners in his stories. Harris worked as a boy as an apprentice to the editor of The Countryman, published on a Southern plantation. He gained first-hand understanding of the black slaves, and their folklore and dialect.
Harris was forced to leave the plantation when it was destroyed by General Sherman during the Civil War. He did not forget what he learned on the plantation, and he began publishing stories and sketches in the Atlanta Constitution. The stories drew upon the folklore and humor of the Southern blacks he had known. Harris published them in the Constitution from 1876 to 1900.
Harris's first short story collection was titled Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings (1881). Uncle Remus is a smart and lovable former slave, and the stories are accounts of his adventures in the world. Harris became famous because of this collection. He went on to write several more collections of Uncle Remus's adventures.
Harris also wrote several books about the cultures of the aristocratic and poor whites in Georgia.
Joel Chandler Harris said, "Culture is a very fine thing, indeed, but it is never of much use either in life or literature, unless it is used as a cat uses a mouse, as a source of mirth and luxury."
It's the birthday of the screenwriter and novelist Dalton Trumbo, (books by this author)born in Montrose, Colorado (1905). He is best known for the novel Johnny Got His Gun (1939), and for writing the screenplay for the movie version of that book, and for being blacklisted from Hollywood for belonging to a Communist organization. Trumbo attended the University of Colorado, but transferred to the University of Southern California when his family moved to Los Angeles in 1923. He dropped out of college and worked in a bakery for six years because he wanted to teach himself to write. Trumbo estimated that he wrote eighty short stories and six novels during that time, all rejected by publishers.
Trumbo started working in Hollywood as a reader in the story department for Warner Brothers' Studios while he completed his premiere novel, Eclipse (1936). Trumbo became a screenwriter for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after the novel was published. He quickly became one of the highest paid screenwriters in Hollywood, earning as much as $75,000 per script.
Trumbo enjoyed writing in the bathtub, and he wrote portions of Johnny Got His Gun in the tub. That novel is about a British soldier in World War I who suffers severe injuries, making him incapable of communication with the outside world.
Trumbo joined the Communist Party in 1943, and in 1947 he was summoned to the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities. He refused to answer their questions and was charged with contempt. He was convicted of the charge and spent ten months in a federal prison in Kentucky.
During this time, Trumbo was blacklisted by the Association of Motion Picture Producers. After his release from prison, Trumbo wrote scripts under assumed names for very little money. This changed in 1960, when Trumbo wrote the screenplay for Spartacus. The movie starred Kirk Douglas--also born on this day (1916)--who insisted that Trumbo be allowed to use his own name. He was, and the blacklist was over.
In 1971, Trumbo wrote the screenplay to Johnny Got His Gun, just as the novel was reprinted in paperback.
Dalton Trumbo said, "While writers dearly love to work, they stand with parsons and painters and philosophers in loving just as dearly to be paid for it."
Poem: "1142" and "1277" by Emily Dickinson, from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson © Little, Brown and Company.
1142
The Props assist the House
Until the House is built
And then the Props withdraw
And adequate, erect,
The House support itself
And cease to recollect
The Auger and the Carpenter -
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected Life -
A past of Plank and Nail
And slowness - then the Scaffolds drop
Affirming it a Soul
1277
While we were fearing it, it came -
But came with less of fear
Because that fearing it so long
Had almost made it fair -
There is a Fitting - a Dismay -
A Fitting - a Despair -
'Tis harder knowing it is Due
Than knowing it is Here.
The Trying on the Utmost
The Morning it is new
Is Terribler than wearing it
A whole existence through.
Poems: "1587" and "1665" by Emily Dickinson from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson © Little, Brown.
1587
He ate and drank the precious Words—
His Spirit grew robust—
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was Dust—
He danced along the dingy Days
And this Bequest of Wings
Was but a Book—What Liberty
A loosened spirit brings—
1665
I know of people in the Grave
Who would be very glad
To know the news I know tonight
If they the chance had had.
'Tis this expands the least event
And swells the scantest deed—
My right to walk upon the Earth
If they this moment had.
* It's the birthday of American poet Emily Dickinson,born in Amherst, Massachusetts (1830). She grew up at a time when people in New England were beginning to struggle with religion. Many had fallen away from the traditional Puritan faith, and so a religious revival movement was sweeping the area, bringing people back to the church. Dickinson remained agnostic, even after her father and sister experienced a conversion at a revival meeting in 1850, when Dickinson was twenty years old. She wrote in a letter, "Christ is calling everyone here, all my companions have answered, even my darling [sister] believes she loves, and trusts [Jesus], and I am standing alone in rebellion.
Emily's family was wealthy and deeply religious. Her grandfather, Samuel Fowler Dickinson, was one of the founders of Amherst College Her father served in Congress as a member of the Whig party in the House of Representatives.
Dickinson's father censored the books she read because he felt they might draw her away from her faith. She believed in God, but she became infamous while at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary because she was the one student unwilling to publicly confess faith in Christ. She said, "They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse."
Dickinson spent one year in seminary school at Mount Holyoke, where the women were divided up into three categories: those who were "established Christians," those who "expressed hope," and those who were "without hope." Emily Dickinson finished her first year in the "without hope" category, and she never went back to school.
Instead, she moved back in with her parents to take care of the family household while her mother recovered from a nervous breakdown. She was not happy about the arrangement. She enjoyed gardening, but she hated to clean and absolutely refused to dust. What she disliked most of all about her father's house was the many visitors. Her father was one of the most prominent men in town, and people stopped by every day to talk politics, to get legal advice, and just to pay tribute. Dickinson thought the topics of conversation among her father's friends were always tedious, and she found the job of hosting constant visitors to be utterly exhausting.
As Dickinson took care of her family household, she watched as her friends get married and moved away. She grew increasingly isolated from her community, in no small part because she didn't attend church. In a letter to an acquaintance she wrote, "You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog large as myself, that my father bought me. They are better than beings because they know, but do not tell... I have a brother and sister; my mother does not care for thought, and my father, too busy with his [legal] briefs to notice what we do."
Dickinson rarely traveled. She visited her father once in Washington, D.C. while he was in Congress. She had persistent eye trouble and spent several months receiving treatment in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1864 and 1865. She never traveled again and hardly ever even left the family's property. She was the baker of the family bread, the caretaker of the family's conservatory and garden.
Dickinson lived in almost complete isolation by the late 1860s, occasionally even refusing to come downstairs when friends came to visit. Her seclusion was fiercely guarded by her sister. She took to wearing only white and devoted herself, along with her sister, to the long-term care of her aging mother.
Emily's physical isolation was only from other adults and did not extend to the neighborhood children. She baked gingerbread and lowered it to them in a basket from her window. She often helped them in their games by fending off the maid as they raided the home's pantry.
Many biographers have tried to find some reason why Dickinson withdrew from the world, suggesting that she may have fallen in love with a man who rejected her. But even though she didn't much care for seeing people, she kept in touch with her closest friends by writing numerous letters. No scholar has ever found any definite evidence that Dickinson had a tragic love affair. What we do know is that she spent most of her adult life in her corner bedroom, which contained a writing table, a dresser, a Franklin stove, a clock, a ruby decanter, and pictures on the wall of three writers: George Eliot, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Thomas Carlyle.
Emily started writing poems in 1850. She wrote her poems in secret on scraps of paper and old grocery lists, rolled and tied with a thread and then hidden in bureau drawers. Dickinson wrote the majority of her poems during the years of the Civil War. She often included poems in her numerous letters to friends.
. In 1860 she sent some of her poems to Thomas Wentworth Higginson of the Atlantic Monthly. He advised her not to publish and she didn't try again after that.
Dickinson said, "Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent."
Dickinson also wrote, "How dreary - to be - somebody! How public - like a frog - to tell your name - the livelong June - to an admiring bog!" Her younger sister, Lavinia, was instrumental to the publication of her poems after her death in 1886.
Dickinson eventually wrote more than 1,700 poems, most of them composed during the Civil War. She wrote 366 poems in 1862 alone, about one per day. Only seven of all her poems were published in her lifetime. Her sister Lavinia found the huge stash of the rest of her poems after Dickinson's death, but they were heavily edited when they finally came out in 1890. For a while, Dickinson was considered an interesting minor poet. It wasn't until 1955 that a more complete edition of her poetry was published, with the original punctuation intact. She's now considered the first great American lyric poet.
Of all American poets, Dickinson ranks third behind Longfellow and Whitman in the number of poems that have been set to music. Dickinson died of what would today be called nephritis, or an inflammation of the kidneys. Her last words were, "I must go in, for the fog is rising."
She wrote, "To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else."
** It's the birthday of poet Carolyn Kizer, (books by this author) born in Spokane, Washington (1925). She is best known for her feminist poetry. Her books of poetry include The Ungrateful Garden (1961) and Mermaids in the Basement (1984). She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1985 for her collection Yin (1984).
Kizer began writing poems at the age of eight, when she wrote a love poem to an Episcopal bishop. The New Yorker printed one of her poems when she was seventeen years old. She was a founding editor of Poetry Northwest and she worked briefly for the State Department as an adviser on Pakistan. In 1966, she resigned as the editor of Poetry Northwest to become the first director of literary programs for the National Endowment for the Arts. One of her best-known poems is "Pro Femina," a satiric work about women writers.
Kizer said, "Our masks, always in peril of smearing or cracking, in need of continuous check in the mirror or silverware, keep us in thrall to ourselves, concerned with our surfaces."
*** It is the birthday of poet Thomas Lux, (books by this author) born in Northampton, Massachusetts (1946). He grew up on a dairy farm and was the son of a milkman and a Sears & Roebuck switchboard operator. Neither of his parents graduated from high school. Some of the first contemporary poems he ever read came from the back of Bob Dylan albums, because in high school he had never seen a book of contemporary poetry. He is known as a promoter of accessible poetry, and believes that poems should not be difficult to understand or dark just for the sake of being so.
After graduating from Emerson College, he worked at the YMCA in Boston, first as a dishwasher and then as a night watchman. He said, "What I should be doing is working in a box factory in my hometown or the Elastic Web factory, where my whole family worked. Given where I come from, I probably shouldn't be a poet. So I think I'm lucky."
Lux has said he has his hardest time starting poems. He said, "I find that work awful and agonizing and slow, and I do nearly anything I can to avoid it."
Lux is a big fan of the Boston Red Sox, and he still dreams of playing center field on a major league baseball team. He said, "If the devil came to me and gave me a fifty-year career as a poet and one year as a center-fielder for the Boston Red Sox, I'd have to think about it." He is the author of many collections of poetry, and his most recent is The Cradle Place (2004).
****It's the birthday of librarian Melvil Dewey, born in Adams Center, New York (1851). The youngest of five children, Dewey was gifted at math, amazing his family by making quick calculations and organizing his mother's cupboards. He saved the few cents he made doing chores to make his first major book purchase, that of a Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. It remained his favorite book, and when he was older he had five copies of the book placed in various rooms in his house.
Dewey went to college at Amherst, where he worked in the library and taught classes on shorthand. He also worked as the business manager for Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He was firmly against any use of alcohol or tobacco, and for a while he couldn't decide if he wanted to be a religious missionary or if he should devote himself to library organization.
It was at Amherst in 1876 where Dewey first publicized what we now know as the Dewey Decimal System. He worked with the American Metric Bureau and fought for the adoption of the metric system. He also was involved with the Spelling Reform Association, wanting to spell things phonetically because he thought it as the most efficient system. He went on to help found the American Library Association.
Dewey was an early advocate of training and employing women as librarians and he was important to opening the library profession to women. He is also credited with inventing the vertical office file cabinet.
George Washington crosses the Deleware River.
Henri Matisse was born, 1869. Why did he call scissors a "marvelous instrument"?
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