Where I Come From
by Sally Fisher

We didn’t say fireflies
but lightning bugs.
We didn’t say carousel
but merry-go-round.
Not seesaw,
teeter-totter
not lollipop,
sucker.
We didn’t say pasta, but
spaghetti, macaroni, noodles:
the three kinds.
We didn’t get angry:
we got mad.
And we never felt depressed
dismayed, disappointed
disheartened, discouraged
disillusioned or anything,
even unhappy:
just sad.

“Where I Come From” by Sally Fisher from Good Question. © Bright Hill Press, 2015. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

It's the birthday of Omar Khayyám (books by this author), born in Nishapur, Iran (1048). During his lifetime, he was known as a scientist and a mathematician, and his treatise on algebra is considered one of the greatest mathematical works of the Middle Ages. But today we know him for his Rubáiyát — which means, simply, "quatrains," four-lined stanzas with a rhyming pattern.

In 1859, E.B. Cowell, a scholar of Persian at Oxford University, stumbled on a manuscript copy of 158 of Khayyám's quatrains at Oxford's Bodleian Library. He passed it on to one of his students, Edward FitzGerald, and FitzGerald translated 75 of the quatrains. He thought some of the quatrains were too sensual or too irreverent, so those he left in Persian, and he made liberal changes to the verses he did translate. FitzGerald self-published the Rubáiyát and sold it in a local bookstore for a shilling, about 12 cents. It became one of the most reproduced works of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Rubáiyát has been translated by many translators since then, some of them much more faithful to the original text, but it is FitzGerald's translation that remains the most popular in English. Here is his translation of one of Khayyám's quatrains:

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness —
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow.

It is the birthday of comedy writer-cum-actress Tina Fey (books by this author), born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania (1970). Her mother, Jeanne, worked in a brokerage firm and her father, Donald, was a university grant proposal writer. She has one older brother, named Peter.

She was a high school honor student, a member of the drama club, and she performed in a summer theater group. She enrolled at the University of Virginia where she studied playwriting and acting, and after graduation in 1992 she moved to Chicago where she took night classes at the improv training center The Second City while working at a YMCA during the day. In 1994 she began performing with The Second City, traveling around the country and doing eight shows a week for two years. Three years later she was hired as a sketch writer for Saturday Night Live and she quickly rose to head writer.

A while later producer Lorne Michaels approached Fey to appear on SNL’s Weekend Edition alongside comedian Jimmy Fallon. Her performance was well received. A longtime glasses-wearer, she had wanted to wear contacts on camera, but when someone commented on how great her glasses looked during a run-through, she wore them instead. They became part of her signature look — and, as it would happen, enhanced her resemblance to the Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin. She played Palin in a series of sketches during the run-up to the 2008 election.

Today Fey wrote, produced and stared as Liz Lemon in 30 Rock, a comedy she created in 2006, based on her experiences as head comedy writer at SNL and in 2015 created and produced the TV comedy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015-2020.) Her memoir, Bossypants, was released in 2011 and quickly went to No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list. Her most recent work is the Pixar fantasy comedy film Soul (2020), in which she voiced the co-lead role.

She said, “I like to crack jokes now and then, but it’s only because I struggle with math.”

On the ways in which comedy writing is like giving birth, she said:
“Torturous experience with eventual release.
Once it’s out in the world, there’s very little you can do to change it.
Eventually it’ll want to borrow your car and go out on dates with boys.”

In response to people who claim that women are not funny, she said, “My hat goes off to them. It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good. I don’t like Chinese food, but I don’t write articles trying to prove it doesn’t exist.”

It is the birthday of British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell (books by this author), born in Ravenscroft, Monmouthsire (1872). He wrote Why I Am Not a Christian (1927), A History of Western Philosophy (1945), and The Principles of Mathematics (1903). He won the 1950 Nobel Prize in literature. He is one of the most widely read philosophers of the 20th century.

He said, “Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric,” and “Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise,” and “The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.”

On this day in 1804 the French Senate proclaimed Napoleon Bonaparte emperor of France. History remembers Napoleon as a conqueror and tyrant, but he began his military career as a respected leader and an advocate for French freedom.

Napoleon was born in 1769, educated at military schools, and quickly climbed the ranks of the French army. He brokered several European peace deals as he gained more power in France. Before he conquered much of the rest of the continent he centralized the French government, created the Bank of France, and introduced some legal reforms.

German composer Ludwig van Beethoven admired the French military genius before he was crowned emperor, and when the French ambassador to Austria asked Beethoven if he would write a symphony to honor Napoleon, the composer agreed. So Beethoven drafted a score he called “Bonaparte.” But when Napoleon was crowed emperor on this day Beethoven had a flash of the future. He tore the score in half, proclaiming that Napoleon “would become a greater tyrant than anyone!” The piece — Symphony No. 3 in E flat, Opus 55 “Eroika” — was never associated with Napoleon.

At 8:32 a.m. this day — a Sunday — in 1980, an earthquake struck Mount St. Helens, causing a massive eruption of molten lava that killed 57 people and countless animals.

The region had experienced earthquakes for two months prior to the eruption and the volcano had been venting steam. Concerned scientists pressured authorities to close Mount St. Helens to the public, a move that likely saved thousands of lives. The force of the earthquake caused the entire north face of the volcano to slide away, and that caused an explosion of rock and lava so powerful that it overtook the avalanche that was simultaneously occurring on the north face.

The erupting lava rose to 80,000 feet and ash drifted into 11 U.S. states. The heat caused nearby glaciers to melt, which formed large mudslides that spread as far as 50 miles from the volcano.

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

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