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- June 28, 1914: “But if ever a man went anywhere of his own free will, Franz Ferdinand went to Sarajevo.”
- “I know why the caged bird sings, ah me…” — poet Paul Laurence Dunbar
- “[Poetry is] a way of trying to come to peace with the world.” — poet Lucille Clifton
- “The films that I love are very straightforward stories, like really old-fashioned stuff.” — Paul Thomas Anderson
- A Personal Memory: or: What Dog Day Afternoon Means to Me
- Happy Birthday, Hediyeh Tehrani
- “All I actually wanted was for my work to be useful.”–Claudius Afolabi Siffre
- “I knew that I had a facility with words and a power of facing unpleasant facts.” — George Orwell
- “People are always asking me if I thought Elvis was a handsome man and my answer is ‘I am not blind you know’!” — Millie Kirkham
- Physical Media Booklet Essay: The Podcast
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Category Archives: On This Day
“Something is gone and that’s why you write.” — Eamon Grennan
“I have a double sense of things, but I tend to write about what’s under my nose. I write about here when I’m here and when I go back to Ireland I write about what’s there. I regard myself not … Continue reading
Posted in Books, James Joyce, On This Day, writers
Tagged Ireland, Irish poetry, poetry, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Seamus Heaney
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To all the veterans
… my uncles and cousins, past and present, and of course Elvis – and to all who serve, thank you for your service. And special thanks to those who choose to serve even when their home country demonizes them or … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day
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“As we say in church, I look back on a job well done.” — LaVern Baker
It’s the birthday of Rock and Roll Hall of Famer LaVern Baker. Her legacy is vast, so vast that it’s under threat of being forgotten. With the birth of a new style of music, a lot of huge forces are … Continue reading
“Excessive consciousness is a disease.” Happy Birthday, Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Destroy my desires, eradicate my ideals, show me something better, and I will follow you. You may say I’m not worth bothering with; in that case, I can say exactly the same to you. We are talking seriously. And if … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged E.M. Forster, fiction, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes From the Underground
4 Comments
“Each time I see it, I know I accomplished what I set out to do as an actress, that I created a person.” — Bibi Andersson on Persona
It’s her birthday today. It was my great honor to write and narrate a video-essay for The Criterion Collection about Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann’s collaboration – both separately and together – with Ingmar Bergman: Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson, … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Bibi Andersson, Ingmar Bergman, Liv Ullmann, Persona
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“Here in the movies I can be as mean, as wicked as I want to – and all without hurting anybody.” — Claude Rains
For Claude Rains’ birthday: a conversation some years back, where Mitchell and I discuss the superb actor. I asked Mitchell to describe him in one word, and we took it from there. We both love Rains so much, it was … Continue reading
Posted in Actors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Bette Davis, Cary Grant, Claude Rains, Joan Crawford, Meryl Streep
10 Comments
#OTD Open season, 1938
From William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany: On the night of November 9-10, shortly after the party bosses, led by Hitler and Goering, had concluded the annual celebration of the Beer … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day
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“I have a fan base that’s super, super loyal.” — Lance Kerwin
You can say that again. I’m still here. It’s his birthday today. I discovered him when I was 10, 11, and everyone in my very small weird generation knew who he was. He was a teen idol. Something about him … Continue reading
Happy Birthday, Ralph Macchio, or: How one episode of Eight is Enough saved my life
Yesterday was Ralph Macchio’s birthday. I always knew Ralph Macchio was something special. I knew it before Karate Kid. I knew it from Eight is Enough. I clocked him as awesome from the beginning. I felt territorial. When everyone else … Continue reading
“A mind which really lays hold of a subject is not easily detached from it.” — journalist Ida Tarbell
It’s a good day to think about unchecked power. Power needs people out there to check it. It’s a good day to acknowledge that the world – its money and resources – is dominated by a multi-national cadre of fat … Continue reading