Fun_People Archive
2 Dec
LIT BITS V3 #337


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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Sat,  2 Dec 100 16:29:55 -0800
To: Fun_People
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Subject: LIT BITS V3 #337

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Excerpted-from: LITERARY CALENDAR V3 #337
From: ptervin@pent.yasuda-u.ac.jp

Today is Sunday, 3 December 2000; on this day,

270 years ago (1730),

     Colley Cibber is appointed poet laureate and becomes the target of
     much venom.

236 years ago (1764),

     English writer known for _Tales from Shakespear_ (1807), written with
     her brother Charles, Mary Lamb, is born in London. Even though Mary
     wrote the preface and the 14 comedies and histories, and Charles
     contributed only the 6 tragedies, only his name will appear on the
     title page.

143 years ago (1857),

     Joseph Conrad (Josef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski) is born at
     Berdichev, Polish Ukraine, then under Russian rule. In the preface to
     _The Nigger of the Narcissus_ he defines his task as a writer: "To
     make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see.
     That--and no more, and it is everything."

106 years ago (1894),

     Robert Louis Stevenson, 44, dies suddenly of apoplexy in Apia, Samoa,
     leaving his _Weir of Hermiston_ unfinished.

53 years ago (1947),

     Jessicia Tandy as Blanche DuBois, Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski,
     Kim Hunter as Stella Kowalski, and Karl Malden in Tennessee Williams'
     _A Streetcar Named Desire_, opens today at New York's Ethel Barrymore
     Theater and will run for 855 performances.

7 years ago (1993),

     Lewis Thomas, physician author (_Late Night Thoughts on Listening to
     Mahler's Ninth Symphony_, 1983) dies in New York.  He is best known
     for his collections of essays, meditations and reflections on the
     larger truths invoked by the study of biology.

Today's poem:

                   The Blind Boy

     O say what is that thing call'd light,
       Which I must ne'er enjoy;
     What are the blessings of the sight,
       O tell your poor blind boy!

     You talk of wondrous things you see,
       You say the sun shines bright;
     I feel him warm, but how can he
       Or make it day or night?

     My day or night myself I make
       Whene'er I sleep or play;
     And could I ever keep awake,
       With me 'twere always day.

     With heavy sighs I often hear
       You mourn my hapless woe;
     But sure with patience I can bear
       A loss I ne'er can know.

     Then let not what I cannot have
       My cheer of mind destroy:
     Whilst thus I sing, I am a king,
       Although a poor blind boy.

                                               Colley Cibber


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