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EVENTS:

October 14-16, Brattleboro, VT: The Tenth Annual Brattleboro Literary Festival will dedicate three days to celebrating books. Events will include readings, panel discussions, workshops, and more. Authors participating will include Andre Aciman and Alexi Zentner. All events, except workshops, are free. If you want to volunteer or have questions, email Click here (Click here).

Dublin ,N.H. Oct. 16 Autumn Oracles 2011 at Del Rossi’s With Host Poets: Rodger Martin & Tim Mayo; 2:30 Social Sign-up. 3:00PM Open Reading. Feature Poets Diane Lockward (Temptation by Water) New Book celebration & TBA.; Coffee, tea, and light refreshments offered during social/reading Dinner menu served from 5-9PM Del Rossi’s Trattoria ,Route 137 N, Dublin, N.H. (606) 563-7198

BIRTHDAYS:

October 16

Noah Webster (1758-Click here/1843) Compiler of the first American language dictionary

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William Buell Sprague, (Click here - 1876) American clergyman and author

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William Pitt Fessenden, Click here – 1869  Secy Treas (Union)
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Francis Lubbock, (Click here - 1905) Governor of Texas

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William Preston, Click here – 1887 Brig General (Confederate Army),

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Austin F. Pike, (Click here - 1886) American politician from New Hampshire
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Thomas Turpin Crittenden, Click here - 1905  Brig Genl (Union volunteers),
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George Crockett Strong, Click here – 1863 Mjr General (Union volunteers),

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Vicente Riva Palacio, 1832 – 96, Mexico, writer/diplomat

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Click here  (1854 – Click here/1900)  Irish writer and wit

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The Harlot's House

We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.

Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The 'Treues Liebes Herz' of Strauss.

Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.

We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

Like wire-pulled automatons,
Slim silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow quadrille,

Then took each other by the hand,
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed
A phantom lover to her breast,
Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.

Sometimes a horrible marionette
Came out, and smoked its cigarette
Upon the steps like a live thing.

Then, turning to my love, I said,
'The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust.'

But she - she heard the violin,
And left my side, and entered in:
Love passed into the house of lust.

Then suddenly the tune went false,
The dancers wearied of the waltz,
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.

And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl.

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Click here  (1886 – Click here/1973)  Israeli Prime Minister

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Click here (1888-Click here/1953) U.S. playwright, Nobel Prize for literature in 1936

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Click here  (1898 – Click here/1980) US Supreme Court Justice

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Louis Althusser    1918-October 22, 1990 French philosopher,

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Click here (1927- ), German poet, novelist, playwright, sculptor, and printmaker  Nobel Prize laureate

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Bob Weir 1947 -   US singer, guitarist (Grateful Dead)

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PASSED:

October 16

François de Malherbe, (1555-Click here) French poet and critic

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Click here (1750 -1774) Scot Augustan Poet

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Click here  (??/??/1844 –1891)  US educator, scout

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George Washington Williams,  Click here-1891 1st major black historian

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 George Burgwyn Anderson,   April 12,1831-Click here US Confederate brig-general

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 Andrés Bello, (1781- Click here) Venezuelan poet, lawmaker, philosopher, and sociologist

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               Blonde

Do you know, blonde, what favor I solicit
When I cover the altars with offerings?
Not rich furnishings, not superb lands,
Neither a table that flatters the apetite.

At the edge of Aragua I want a parcel
To supply me with simple pleasures,
And close to my rustic home
A brook that runs among the rocks.

To feel good around the summery warmth,
I also want my plot to have a grove,
Where the proud coconut and the willow can grow.

I'll be happy if in this refuge I die;
And, upon exhaling my fugitive breath,
I stamp on your lips my last goodbye!

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George C Marshall,  Dec 31,1880- Click here US army general
Click here It's the birthday of German novelist Click here (Click here), born in Danzig, Germany (1927), which is now Gdansk, Poland. He has written many novels, but is probably most famous for his first, The Tin Drum (1959), about a three-year-old boy who refuses to grow up so that he can escape the horrors of Nazi GermanyGrass's parents ran a grocery store, but week after week they barely broke even. All of Günter's friends got allowances, but he never got anything. Finally, after he had pestered his mother so many times she couldn't stand it anymore, she gave him the list of everyone who bought food on credit and owed the store money, and told her son to walk around the town asking them to repay their debt; if you can collect the money, she said, I'll give you a percentage of it. So he became a successful debt collector — and finally got an allowance — when he was about 10 years old. Also when he was 10, he joined the Jungvolk, the junior version of Hitler's youth group, and then became part of Hitler Youth. He volunteered for submarine service, and at the age of 17 he was drafted into the Waffen-SS, Hitler's elite corps.

Throughout his career, it was public knowledge that Grass was part of the Hitler Youth and the army, but the fact that he was a member of the Waffen-SS did not emerge until he published his memoir Peeling the Onion in 2007. People were outraged. For many years he had been considered a moral voice of Germany in regard to the era of Naziism, and the fact that he had kept this piece of his past hidden caused many people to question everything he had ever said. In 1985, Grass had said it was a "defilement of history" when Ronald Reagan and Helmut Kohl laid wreaths at a cemetery that turned out to contain the graves of Waffen-SS soldiers, and now that he revealed himself to have been one, he was quickly labeled a hypocrite. Critics grew so angry that they called on him to return the Nobel Prize in literature, which he had won in 1999. They thought he should be stripped of honorary titles and publicly apologize. The controversy shocked and saddened Grass. He said: "The public's reaction hit me very hard. It was unexpected. I couldn't sleep at night. It was Tristram Shandy who helped me get over it all, to put everything in perspective. It made me laugh again, even though I didn't have anything to laugh about. I saw Laurence Sterne dealing with his critics in the book and I admired the sharp, precise and witty way he did it."

In Peeling the Onion he wrote: "An imprecise memory sometimes comes a matchstick's length closer to the truth, albeit along crooked paths. It is mostly objects that my memory rubs against, my knees bump into, or that leave a repellent aftertaste: the tile stove ... the frame used for beating carpets behind the house ... the toilet on the half-landing ... the suitcase in the attic ... a piece of amber the size of a dove's egg ... If you can still feel your mother's barrettes or your father's handkerchief knotted at four corners in the summer heat or recall the exchange value of various jagged grenade- and bomb splinters, you will know stories — if only as entertainment — that are closer to reality than life itself."

His other books include Cat and Mouse (1961), Dog Years (1963), and Crabwalk (2002). (Click here)

Gaston Bachelard  (06/27/1884 –1962)  French philosopher, writer

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 James A. Albert  Michener  (02/03/1907 –1997)   US writer

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Frank O'Rourke (1916 – April 27, 1989) Click here writer - Click here and Click here Click here and Click here fiction.

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Jon Postel, (1943- Click here ) American Internet pioneer

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Jean Shepherd, (1921- Click here ) American writer and actor

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Pierre Salinger, 1925- Click here  John F. Kennedy's White House Press Secretary

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SITES:

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BONUS POEM:

The Last Call

Death called me,
I did not hear.
He spoke again:
Come near.

I went to look
for pity.
Poor death, I thought,
he loves me.

I guessed right,
he does.
And now I love him too,
just because.

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