They Sit Together on the Porch
by Wendell Berry

They sit together on the porch, the dark
Almost fallen, the house behind them dark.
Their supper done with, they have washed and dried
The dishes–only two plates now, two glasses,
Two knives, two forks, two spoons–small work for two.
She sits with her hands folded in her lap,
At rest. He smokes his pipe. They do not speak,
And when they speak at last it is to say
What each one knows the other knows. They have
One mind between them, now, that finally
For all its knowing will not exactly know
Which one goes first through the dark doorway, bidding
Goodnight, and which sits on a while alone.


Wendell Berry, “They Sit Together on the Porch” from A Timbered Choir. ©1998 Counterpoint Press. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Today is the birthday of Roy Orbison (1936), born in Vernon, Texas, to Orbie Lee, a mechanic, and Nadine, a nurse. His father gave him a guitar on his sixth birthday and by the time he was seven he knew that music was his calling. He later said, "I was finished, you know, for anything else." He studied geology in college, planning to work in the oil fields if he couldn't make a living playing his guitar, but when his classmate Pat Boone signed a big record deal, it only strengthened his resolve to make a go of music. He moved to Memphis with his band, the Teen Kings, in 1956 and they had a contract and a modest hit with Sun Records. Eventually, the band split up and Orbison worked for a while as a songwriter.

His career ignited in 1960 with a song that had been turned down by Elvis Presley and the Everly Brothers. "Only the Lonely" was the antithesis of the typical rock and roll song of the period, with no driving beat or teenage defiance; it was mournful and plaintive, with a string section backing up Orbison's operatic voice. He had severe stage fright and performed dressed all in black, hiding behind a pair of thick prescription Wayfarer sunglasses. He said, "I wasn't trying to be weird, you know? ... But the image developed of a man of mystery and a quiet man in black, somewhat of a recluse, although I never was, really."

One day during a songwriting session with his partner Bill Dees, Orbison asked his wife, Claudette Frady Orbison, if she needed any money for her upcoming trip to Nashville. Dees remarked, "Pretty woman never needs any money." Forty minutes later, Orbison's most famous hit, "Oh, Pretty Woman," had been written.

His fame declined after "Oh, Pretty Woman" until he formed the supergroup the Traveling Wilburys with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, and Tom Petty in 1988. Orbison died of a heart attack in December of that year, about six weeks after the band's first album was released. 

It’s the birthday of novelist James Patrick (J.P.) Donleavy (books by this author), born in Brooklyn, New York (1926). He was in the Navy in World War II, then went off to Trinity College, Dublin, on the GI bill. His first novel, The Ginger Man (1955), was published in France, by Olympia Press, the same press that published Lolita, also in 1955. It was included in the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best works of fiction of the 20th century; it has sold more than 45 million copies and has never been out of print. Dorothy Parker said nobody could write a better novel than The Ginger Man — which she called “a rigadoon of rascality, a bawled-out comic song of sex.”

It’s the birthday of novelist and short-story writer Barry Hannah (books by this author), born in Meridian, Mississippi (1942). He said, “I didn’t have a bookish home, except for the Bible.” Instead, he listened to his aunts tell stories late into the night. During high school one of his teachers played recordings of Dylan Thomas reading his poetry, and then Hannah went to college and read The Sun Also Rises, and he loved it. His father wanted him to be a doctor, but he realized that he was terrible at his premed courses but talented at writing, so he switched to English. He started publishing stories in college, and then his first novel, Geronimo Rex (1972). He went on to write seven more novels and five books of short stories, including Airships (1978) and High Lonesome (1996).

Hannah said, “I loved the life, the secret life, of the typewriter when the house was quiet…” and “Writers maybe just stare, like cows — just staring. Most people don’t stare. A writer is unembarrassed to just keep looking.”

Today we celebrate the birthday of playwright William Shakespeare (books by this author), born on or near this day in Stratford-upon-Avon (1564). The records for Holy Trinity Church mark the baptism three days later of “Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere”: William, son of John, Shakespeare.

The facts about Shakespeare’s life are slim. His father was a glovemaker, and the boy probably got a good education until he was about 15 or so. In 1582 18-year-old Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway who was pregnant with their first child, Susanna. This wasn’t a particularly unusual circumstance — it’s estimated that one-third of women in Tudor England were pregnant when they got married. In 1585 Anne gave birth to twins, Judith and Hamnet. After that nothing definitive is known for seven years, when the records show that in 1592 Shakespeare was living in London as a playwright and actor. The first mention of him, in fact, is a mocking review by a fellow playwright, who wrote, “There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers [...] supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you.”

The exact chronology of Shakespeare’s plays is unknown as well, but many place his first as The Two Gentlemen of Verona, written some time between 1589 and 1591. It’s not widely considered to be a very good play, but it has some of the elements that he would return to again and again in later works: a woman dressed as a boy, the bonds of male friendship, and a love triangle. In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare wrote, “Didst thou but know the inly touch of love, / Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow / As seek to quench the fire of love with words.”

A few years ago a handful of scholars theorized that Shakespeare was a tax evader who illegally hoarded grain during years of famine and then sold it at inflated prices. That may or may not be true, but there’s no doubt that he was a savvy businessman. He invested in real estate around Stratford, and he owned a one-eighth share of the Globe Theatre.

The Globe Theatre was built in 1599 by Shakespeare’s theater company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. It was located just outside of London, south of the Thames, because London had banned public playhouses in city limits. Not only did the city discourage crowds because of the threat of disease, but they also considered plays highly immoral. The preacher Thomas White gave a sermon and said: “The cause of plagues is sin, if you look to it well, and the cause of sin are plays, therefore the cause of plagues are plays.” The area where the Globe was built already attracted masses of people to drink beer, go to brothels, and watch bears baited by dogs. The Globe was an open-air theater; rich people could pay more to sit on a cushion in the balcony, while most people thronged together in the open pit at the center. Those regular audience members were known as “groundlings” or “penny stinkards.”

In 1613, during a performance of Henry VIII, material from an on-stage cannon lit the thatched roof on fire and the entire theater burned to the ground. The only serious injury was to a man whose pants caught on fire, but someone dumped a bottle of beer on his pants and put out the fire. The Globe was rebuilt on the same site and reopened the following year — this time the roof was tiled, not thatched.

The first of Shakespeare’s plays to be performed at the Globe was probably Julius Caesar in 1599. In it he wrote: “But I am constant as the northern star, / Of whose true-fix’d and resting quality / There is no fellow in the firmament.”

In As You Like It, which was also performed at the Globe, he wrote: “All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players; / They have their exits and their entrances, / And one man in his time plays many parts.”

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

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