| The Drink
by Ron Padgett I am always interested in the people in films who have just had a drink
thrown in their faces. Sometimes they react with uncontrollable rage,
but sometimes—my favorites—they do not change their expressions at
all. Instead they raise a handkerchief or napkin and calmly dab at the
offending liquid, as the hurler jumps to her feet and storms away. The
other people at the table are understandably uncomfortable. A woman
leans over and places her hand on the sleeve of the man's jacket and
says, "David, you know she didn't mean it." David answers, "Yes," but
in an ambiguous tone—the perfect adult response. But now the orchestra
has resumed its amiable and lively dance music, and the room is set in
motion as before. Out in the parking lot, however, Elizabeth is setting
fire to David's car. Yes, this is a contemporary film.
Ron Padgett, “The Drink” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2002 by Ron Padgett. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Coffee House Press, coffeehousepress.com. (buy now)
It was on this day in 1904 that the Abbey Theatre opened in Dublin. It was a permanent space for the Irish Literary Theatre, a company created by a group of writers that included W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory. From its beginnings, it was envisioned as a “national theater,” devoted to the Irish nationalist cause. Yeats wrote: “We hope to find in Ireland an uncorrupted and imaginative audience, trained to listen by its passion for oratory [...] We will show that Ireland is not the home of buffoonery and of easy sentiment, as it has been represented, but the home of an ancient idealism.”
It's the birthday of chemist Louis Pasteur, born in Dole, France (1822). Although he was not a physician, Pasteur was one of the most important medical scientists of the 19th century. He discovered that most infectious diseases are caused by germs, and that instituting sanitary conditions in hospitals could save many lives. He also discovered that weakened forms of a germ or microbe could be used as a vaccine to immunize against more virulent forms of the microbe.
It’s the birthday of film actress and cabaret singer Marlene Dietrich, born Mary Magdalene Dietrich in Berlin (1901). She worked in a glove factory and as a chorus girl for traveling vaudeville shows until American director Josef von Sternberg discovered her in 1929. He was entranced by her veneer of sexual sophistication and penchant for self-mockery. He was making a film titled The Blue Angel (1930) and he needed someone to play Lola-Lola, the seductive cabaret singer in a top hat and silk stockings who drives a respected professor mad with desire. The Blue Angel was a worldwide hit. Dietrich was appalled by what was happening in her beloved Germany in the 1930s and applied for U.S. Citizenship in 1937. Adolf Hitler approached her and offered millions if she would come back to Berlin. She refused. Hitler banned her films and burned all copies of The Blue Angel, though he kept one for his private collection. She decided to join the U.S. war effort, recording anti-Nazi broadcasts in German and taking part in war-bond drives. She entertained half a million Allied troops across North Africa and Western Europe. The troops loved her. She slept in dugouts and played a musical saw. Of her war efforts, she said, “This is the only important work I’ve ever done.”
Radio City Music Hall opened on this date in 1932. John D. Rockefeller Jr. had originally planned to build a new Metropolitan Opera House on some land he owned in Midtown Manhattan, but the stock market crash of 1929 put an end to that plan. He decided to build a block of buildings anyway, which he called "Rockefeller Center." The cornerstone of the center was a vast Art Deco theater that offered lavish entertainment at reasonable prices. Radio City Music Hall boasted the largest indoor theater in the world; its marquee spanned an entire city block. The stage was equipped to produce water effects like fountains and rain showers, and fog could even be piped in from a ConEd utility plant nearby. One New York critic wrote, "It has been said of the new Music Hall that it needs no performers." The Christmas Spectacular is a Radio City tradition that has endured. The first Christmas Spectacular was staged December 21, 1933, a year after the theater opened. It was a 30-minute production that was paired with a movie feature. In 1979, the show was expanded to 90 minutes, and since that time it stands on its own, incorporating 3-D movies and, of course, the precision legs of the Radio City Rockettes. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® | 
