The Writer's Almanac from Saturday, June 22, 2013

The Writer's Almanac from Saturday, June 22, 2013

"Welcome Morning" by Anne Sexton, from The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton. © Mariner Books, 1999.

ORIGINAL TEXT AND AUDIO - 2013

It's the birthday of poet and essayist Anne (Morrow) Lindbergh, born in Englewood, New Jersey (1906). In 1927, she met Charles Lindbergh, and they liked each other so much that he took her flying with him. She wrote in her diary: "Clouds and stars and birds — I must have been walking with my head down looking at puddles for twenty years."

They got married in 1929 and Charles taught Anne how to fly, and in 1931 she got her private pilot's license. That same year, the couple went on a survey flight to Asia, flying over Canada, Alaska, and Siberia, and the trip became the subject of Anne Lindbergh's first book, North to the Orient (1935). Both that book and her next book about flying, Listen! the Wind (1938), became best-sellers. She went on to write two novels, a book of poems, and a book of essays, Gift from the Sea (1955).

It's the birthday of producer and director Joseph Papp, born in Brooklyn, New York (1921). He became interested in drama when he started going to a movie house where, before the movie started, there was always a stage show with singers, jugglers, and magicians.

In 1954, he founded the New York Shakespeare Festival in a church on the Lower East Side. The early productions were staged on almost no budget, and in many cases the actors worked without pay. Because Papp believed that art should be available to everyone, the admission was free. Eventually, he was granted use of the open-air Delacorte Theater in Central Park, and the festival became known as Shakespeare in the Park. He also founded the Public Theater in the old Astor Library to use as a year-round venue that fostered up-and-coming playwrights and actors.

At the Public, Papp produced musicals that went on to become hits on Broadway, including The Pirates of Penzance, A Chorus Line, and Hair.

It's the birthday of screenwriter, director, and producer Billy Wilder, born in Sucha, Poland (1906), then part of Austria. He fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and moved to the U.S., and after losing his first job and work visa, he went to a Mexican border town and talked his way to the front of the line at the visa office.

Wilder liked to work with a partner writing screenplays. He said that writing alone was "suicidally boring." He would walk around the room shouting and gesturing and his partner was supposed to take notes. After working on a script with Wilder, Raymond Chandler said, "[It was] an agonizing experience and has probably shortened my life."

He eventually produced and directed dozens of films, many with big stars like Bing Crosby, Gary Cooper, Kirk Douglas, Marilyn Monroe, and Marlene Dietrich. Some of his hits were The Apartment (1960), The Seven Year Itch (1955), Some Like It Hot (1959), and Double Indemnity (1944).

He said, "The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire."

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

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Cheerfulness by Garrison Keillor

In Cheerfulness, veteran radio host and author Garrison Keillor reflects on a simple virtue that can help us in this stressful and sometimes gloomy era. Drawing on personal anecdotes from his young adulthood into his eighties, Keillor sheds light on the immense good that can come from a deliberate work ethic and a buoyant demeanor.

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