Nov 29

Events:

November 29, MANCHESTER, NH Click here poetry open mic followed by a feature William James and then an open poetry slam. Doors open and sign-ups for the open mic begins at 7pm with the show starting at 8pm. Click here 500 Commercial Street, Manchester, New Hampshire

Born:

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Click here  (1627 – Click here/1705)  English naturalist

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Andres de Jesús María y José Bello López (1781 – October 15, 1865)  Click here Click here, poet, lawmaker, Click here, educator and Click here Blonde

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Click here (1799– March 4, 1888) American teacher, writer, philosopher, and reformer

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Christian Doppler 1803- March 17,1853 Austrian scientist - discovered Doppler Effect (color shift)

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Click here  (1811 – Click here/1884) US abolitionist-women's suffrage/antislavery/prison reformer

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Click here  (1832 – Click here/1888)  US writer

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Sir John Ambrose Fleming 1849 -April 18, 1945),  Eng inventor (diode)  and Creationism “Theory” author     

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Antonio Egas 1874 -   Moniz Portugal, lobotomist (Nobel 1949)

Click here, (1895- March 14,1976 ), USfilm director and choreographer  The Gold Diggers of 1935.

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Click here demonstrated his new phonograph for the first time on this date in 1877. Other inventors had figured out how to record sounds onto metal plates or wax-coated paper, but Edison was the first to come up with a machine that could play the sounds back. He made his first recordings on tinfoil cylinders, and his intention was to develop a "talking telegraph." It never occurred to him that people would ever want to play music on it. The Scientific American reported, "A young man came into the office ... and placed before the editors a small, simple machine about which very few preliminary remarks were offered. The visitor without any ceremony whatever turned the crank, and to the astonishment of all present the machine said: 'Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?' The machine thus spoke for itself, and made known the fact that it was the phonograph." The machine was an overnight sensation. (Click here)

It's the birthday of Irish author Click here (Click here), born in Belfast in 1898. When he was four, his dog Jacksie was hit by a car and killed; the boy declared he was changing his name to "Jacksie," and for a while he wouldn't answer to anything else. For the rest of his life, he was known as "Jack" to his family and close friends.

Raised in the Church of Ireland, he became an atheist in his teens and eventually returned to the church after a series of long theological arguments with his friend and colleague J.R.R. Tolkien. "I gave up Christianity at about 14," he said. "Came back to it when getting on for 30. Not an emotional conversion; almost purely philosophical. I didn't want to. I'm not in the least a religious type. I want to be let alone, to feel I'm my own master; but since the facts seemed to be just the opposite, I had to give in." He wrote Mere Christianity (1952), a classic of Christian apologetics; and The Screwtape Letters (1942), an epistolary novel that consists of letters from a demon to his apprentice nephew, giving him pointers on leading a man astray. He's also the author of the seven-book allegorical fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia, which he wrote for children. He thought it would be a good way to introduce Christian themes to children without beating them over the head, something that had turned him off as a young man. "An obligation to feel can freeze feelings," he once said.

One of his books, Miracles (1947), had a profound effect on a writer from New York. Joy Davidman Gresham had been raised Jewish, but, like Lewis, had become an atheist. She was separated from her husband, who was an alcoholic, and she was raising their two sons by herself when she came upon Lewis's book. After she read it, she began praying, and started attending services at a Presbyterian church. She also began a correspondence with Lewis that eventually led to their marriage in 1957. Joy was diagnosed with bone cancer, and she married Lewis from her hospital bed; the doctors sent her home to die, but she went into remission instead, and they had almost four wonderful years together. After her death in 1960, Lewis was devastated. He wrote a book, A Grief Observed (1961), which contained his thoughts, questions, and observations. It was so raw and personal that he published it under a pseudonym. Friends actually recommended the book to him, to help with his grief, unaware that he'd written it. His authorship wasn't made known until after his death in 1963. In the book, he writes that he doesn't believe people are reunited with their loved ones in the next life. "Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand." (Click here)

Click here  (1898 – Click here/1963)   Irish writer  Re-adjustment

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XX. Sonnet

     The stars come out; the fragrant shadows fall

     About a dreaming garden still and sweet,

     I hear the unseen bats above me bleat

     Among the ghostly moths their hunting call,

     And twinkling glow-worms all about me crawl.

     Now for a chamber dim, a pillow meet

     For slumbers deep as death, a faultless sheet,

     Cool, white and smooth. So may I reach the hall

     With poppies strewn where sleep that is so dear

     With magic sponge can wipe away an hour

     Or twelve and make them naught. Why not a year,

     Why could a man not loiter in that bower

     Until a thousand painless cycles wore,

     And then-what if it held him evermore?

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Carlo Levi 1902-Jan 4,1975   Italy, painter/novelist (Of Fear & Freedom)

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Click here, (1915- May 31,1967 ). US omposer Duke Ellington’s theme:,: “Take the ‘A’ Train.” Lush Life, Chelsea Bridge, Lotus Blossom, Passion Flower and Day Dream

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Merle Travis, 1917-20th October 1983., country singer, songwriter Invented the first solid body electric guitar. Wrote 'Sixteen Tons' 1955 US No.1 for Ernie Ford.

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Click here  (1918 – Click here/2007)  US writer

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Vin Scully 1927  sportscaster (NBC Baseball Game of the Week)

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Diane Ladd 1932 -  Meridian Miss, actress (Wild Angels, Wild at Heart)

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 Dr David Reuben 1933-  writer (Everything You Wanted to Know about Sex)

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John Mayall 1933 -   blues singer (Crusade, Looking Back)

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Click here  (1939 –March 9.2012  )   US comic, actor, writer (Click here)

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Chuck Mangione 1940  -  jazz composer/horn blower (Chasing the Clouds Away)

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Denny Doherty, 1941- 19th Jan 2007 singer, songwriter, The Mamas And The Papas, (1966 US No.1 & UK No.2 single 'Monday Monday').

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Felix Cavaliere 1944 -  Pelham NY, rocker (Rascals-Lonely too Long)

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Click here  (1949 – )   US comic, actor

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Barry Goudreau, 1951-  guitar, Boston, (1977 UK No.22 single 'More Than A Feeling', 1986 US No.1 single 'Amanda').

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Howie Mandel  1955- Toronto Canada, comedian (Dr Wayne Fiscus-St Elsewhere)

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Passed:

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Click here  (Click here/1811 –1872)   US writer
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Luigi Capuana (May 28, 1839 –1915) Italian author and journalist

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Click here   (Click here/1858 –1924)   Italian composer La Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly.

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Click here  (Click here/1901 –1954)  Italian physicist

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Tiny Tim (Herbert Khaury) 1996, American singer and ukulele player died from a heart attack on stage while playing his hit ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips’ at a club in Minneapolis. He performed at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival in front of a crowd of 600,000 people.

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Click here  (Click here/1897 –1980)  US editor, activist

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Click here Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko (Click here/1938 –1981)  US actor

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Click here   (Click here/1904 –1986)   US actor

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Gwendolyn Margaret MacEwen (1 September 1941 –1987) Click here and Click here

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Poems in Braille

1
all your hands are verbs,
now you touch worlds and feel their names -
thru the thing to the name
not the other way thru (in winter
I am Midas, I name gold)

the chair and table and book
extend from your fingers;
all your movements
command these things back to their
places; a fight against familiarity
makes me resume my distance

2
they knew what it meant,
those egyptian scribes who drew
eyes right into their hieroglyphs,
you read them dispassionate until
the eye stumbles upon itself
blinking back from the papyrus

outside, the articulate wind
annotates this; I read carefully
lest I go blind in both eyes, reading with
that other eye the final hieroglyph

3
the shortest distance between 2 points
on a revolving circumference
is a curved line; O let me follow you,
Wencelas

4
with legs and arms I make alphabets
like in those children's books
where people bend into letters and signs,
yet I do not read the long cabbala of my bones
truthfully; I need only to move to alter the design

5
I name all things in my room
and they rehearse their names,
gather in groups, form tesseracts,
discussing their names among themselves

I will not say the cast is less than the print
I will not say the curve is longer than the line,
I should read all things like braille in this season
with my fingers I should read them
lest I go blind in both eyes reading with
that other eye the final hieroglyph

From: A Breakfeast for Barbarians. TorontoL The Ryerson Press, 1966

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Donald Edward Keyhoe (June 20, 1897 - 1988) Click here Click here Click here, Click here of many Click here articles and stories in a variety of leading publications, and manager of the promotional tours of aviation pioneers, especially of Click here.

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Frank Garvin Yerby (September 5, 1916(1916-09-05) –, 1991(1991-11-29))Click here Click here.

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Click here   (Click here/1943 –2001)   English musician, singer, songwriter (Click here ‘Taxman’, ‘Here Comes the Sun’, ‘Something’, and ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’. Harrison released the acclaimed triple album, All Things Must Pass, in 1970, from which came the worldwide No.1 single ‘My Sweet Lord.’ He was the co-founder of Handmade Films, collaborated with Madonna and the members of Monty Python.; accomplished gardener.

Sites:

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History:

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1811, a notice appeared in the Richmond, Virginia Inquirer asking for donations in aid of Eliza Poe, a young actress now "lingering on the bed of disease and surrounded by her children."

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2002, Three paintings by Sir Paul McCartney were bought for just £35 each at the Secrets Postcard Sale at London's Royal College of Art. Members of the public gambled on whether they were buying works by celebrity artists at a fraction of their value, as a picture's creator was only made known after it has sold.

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Bonus Poem:

A NEW HAMPSHIRE BOY

Under Monadnock,

Fold on fold,

The world's fat kingdoms

Lie unrolled.

Far in the blue south

City-smoke, swirled,

Marks the dwellings

Of the kings of the world.

Old kings and broken,

Soon to die,

Once you had little,

As little as I.

Smoke of the city,

Blow in my eyes

Blind me a little,

Make me wise.

Dust of the city,

Blow and gust

Make me, like all men,

Color of dust.

I stand on Monadnock,

And seem to see

Brown and purple kingdoms

Offered to me.

                                    -Morris Bishop

Poetry > A Magazine of Verse

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